Paladin Article

Hail Jesus...I mean Goodness, i mean...shit 

It late due to editing and the Infamous SATs.....but here it is 

Well I’ve been building up towards this moment for a while, in fact this is one of the main reasons I started the blog, is to talk about the most controversial class, the paladin.  More than any other issue in the dark, dank, pizza filled world of RPG, this one class brought about more controversy and arguments, which is horribly ironic because it is an issue that really isn’t that shaded.  The paladin as written needs more detail certainly, but it certainly is aimed with a singular idea in mind.  And consequently, this is my all time favorite class. And now I get to tackle that conversional firecracker.
Now the paladin is kind of revealed in the RPG world, in a rather shockingly manner considering it is still one of the main archetypes in D&D, even in the current edition.  A lot of hate is thrown against the class, and if it wasn’t for the constant tweaking of the wizard/cleric/druid/other over powered classes (horary 3rd edition) I think that this would be the most constantly edited class out there.  In terms of portrayal, a lot of stories, books, and web comics (and no, I’m not talking about Order of the Stick, I’ll touch that later) show the paladins either as well intentioned morons, absurdly uptight goody two shoes who literally can’t break a single law, or show any real emotion, or as radical zealots who are more interested in purging things that are different from them rather than actually upholding there own ideals.  And to an extent, I think a lot of this comes from resentment to either organized religions or just extremism, as the Paladin tends to serve as a straw man for both.    
Right, so first up, what is the Paladin? What does it stand for?  Now the paladin was made out of the idea of a true “good” warrior, one who is the real knight in shining armor, gentlemen knight, loyal protector of the innocent and a defender of justice type of guy (again I am talking about the editions that matter).  Wow, run on sentence there.  Anyways, the knight in shining armor is an archetype that is sort of omnipresent in western culture, because no matter how many times people subvert, mock, or dismiss it, it still seems to be the most common fantasy image of knights (never mind that real knight were really glorified bullies but hey).  Damn, I need to stop these run on sentences.  But there is sort of a romantic in the noble knights who are still appealing even to this day, just as with the “Absurdly loyal devoted Samurai” ideal that still exists even through most Samurai were loyal only to a point.  There is something almost enthralling with a knight who actually fulfills his duty, since we are so used to knights (warriors) betraying or screwing up there orders.  So the paladin class is drawn from the archetypical ideal of the knight in shining armor, borrowing concepts from various sources, such as the Knights of the Round Table.     
Now, for some reason, when ever arguments of the paladin class come up, some people always insist upon bringing up how the sources of inspiration of the paladins don’t match the current code.  For example, in trying to prove a paladin should be able to act more brutally than he does, people might reference King Author, who was far from a perfect knight, or Lancelot, who also couldn’t reach his goal (dam nit Galahad).  Now never mind they were intentionally flawed characters, the paladin shouldn’t be held to the historical roots so much as draw inspiration from the idea, for example the Knights of the Round table are all Christian, which is not a requirement for paladins who don’t even have to be religious.  So, I just want to stress that the class doesn't have to be true  to its  traditional roots because  it has evolved beyond that to be   based more upon the concept of goodness rather than any one specific interpretation.
So if the paladin isn’t a cut and paste of any one particular religious belief , what is it then?  The idea of a paladin is that they are people who are trying to fight for and uphold well, I mean the literal alignment of good, IE the metaphysical concept.  Paladins, or at least ones who can maintain their  powers, are in fact striving to be as good as a humanly possibly.  Because the thing is, they have to be truly good in a literal sense.   They can’t get away with “Ends justifies the means” or “occasional slips in morality”, they need to never waver in face of evil.  So in essence, this means that
A) All paladins are required to be moral absolutists
B) All paladins who maintain their  power is required to be good people.  IE, they are the real deal, to an extent when it comes to trying  their  best to honoring there code and beliefs.
In both of these we see the seeds of the paladin’s greatness, but more importantly, the problems.  Even more than alignment, I think that the hatred toward the paladins is far more undeserved, as the class is well written, but it touches upon so many arguments with morality, that even after Book of Exalted Deeds, WoTC doesn’t really want to assert themselves on the issue…because if Wizards does anything, it’s avoiding confrontation.  The paladin is a good character because they embody an alignment ideal, one that forces them to always stand up for justice no matter what the pressures, and to always try to maintain  own sense of right and wrong.  On the flip side, you have the fact that they are, well, moral absolutist, which is hard to put up with under any circumstances, especially if you are morally opposed to the deals of good that is being used as an example.  This is doubly true when the people are opposed to the alignment system as an ideal, or wish it would be relative as opposed to absolute, which makes sense really, because if you dislike the idea of any absolute ideal of right and wrong within a game, nothing will irritate you more that a character who’s every action hinges on a strict code of right and wrong, which would be even more annoying if you knew that  code is pretty much how a really good person would act, and that’s not even considering the loopholes in the alignment system.  Wow, these run on sentences are getting out of hand, is there something about the class that makes you want to rant?  But really, people get angry at the paladin because it is everything that the alignment system is supposes to represent, and as the poster child for D&D’s definition of Lawful Good, it makes a good target for resentment.  This follows a basic format of one person asking a question or setting an example of a situation concerning a paladin’s falling, and weather it is justified, and then everybody comes it to comment on the example in question; either to attack or defend the entire system.  For this article, I pretty much just want to explain what the paladin is supposed to represent, and how it is perceived.  
Now as I mentioned before, I am personally a fan of absolute alignment, going with the idea of good and evil is not the same as right and wrong so I’m a strong supporter of the paladin, but I do understand the controversy.  At the risk of getting another run on sentence going, let me briefly explain how the paladin really works.  Basically, the paladin is serving an alignment, Lawful Good, and must strive to exemplify that ideal.  And here is the big issue with the paladin; the paladin code.  
Basically, all paladins have a code of honor, which contains a few ideals that all paladins’ must abide by.  The code has a few original conventions, you must fight honorably and what not, but the biggest issue is that the Paladin must follow the ideals of Lawful Good to the extreme.  Now by extreme, I don’t mean they should go into the whole “Blind zealot” “Ends justifies the means” sort of thing, more extreme as in the “Never waver, never show weakness” idea.  Basically, while a normal Lawful Good character, like a LG fighter, can occasionally do evil things, they just can’t make a habit of it.  For example, if a frustrated fighter is found fighting a local bandit, who has killed his family, and the bandit, sorely wounded, drops to his knees and begs for mercy, and the fighter cuts off his head.  This is an evil act, but it won’t bump the fighter to evil, or even neutral, because it was a single evil act in an otherwise good career.  Now it is a black mark on his record, and if he keeps up the habit, he will slip into evil pretty quickly, but if he goes on without doing something like that again, he will keep his alignment, nobody is perfect, because alignment is how you generally act.  However, a paladin may never slip, with one  single evil act they lose there powers.  Now they won’t lose there alignment, unless they were kind of on the brink anyways, but they will certainly lose powers.  The only way they can get them back is through the Atonement spell, which apart from the normal requirements of spells (high level clerics, exp, and materials) also requires two important ideas, first that the paladin admits what he did was wrong, and then partakes in a quest to redeem himself.  So in essence, the paladin is given a code that has no room for mistakes.
And this is kinda what bothers people, the idea of an absolute code, or more so, an absolute code mixed in with the idea of “absolute righteousness”.  Because people start to mix  personal morality in the objective D&D morality.  For example a common alignment question is “My paladin has captured a terrorist who plans to destroy a portion of the city with an evil device, and he won’t talk.  Is it ok for me to torture him for information”?  Now ignoring the fact that torture is a really ineffectual integration method that more often than not gets you misinformation and ruins your target for life as a person (f*ck you 24), it is also clearly evil in D&D for good reasons, but a lot of people argue that it is ok under the circumstances, to torture because that one evil act  saves innocent lives.. Now this isn’t true within the D&D morality, and that kind of thinking actually makes you evil, but as I said before, good and evil does not equal right and wrong, so people can still believe torture is justifiable and not be total monsters (See also the massive amount of real life people who used torture).  But because the paladins are suppose to be the ideal good; people tend to be particularly touchy about these issues.  Building off this issue is the idea that the Paladin’s code and total inability to ever commit evil directly hinders them in  ability to function.  You will see again and again people will try to prove the ineffective nature of paladins by finding some sort of increasingly implausible situation where they are effectively forced to commit evil actions because no other choice is available, though most of these are fallacies   The other major beef with paladins is that  the one strike and your out policy  is too challenging  for new people, and as it is one of the basic classes, people always seem to be rather shocked at how high of a standard they are held up to.  But  it does make sense in context; if you’re trying to be the paragon of the metaphysical elements of Law and Goodness, then not being allowed to commit an evil act is somewhat self explanatory, and it isn’t like you can’t get through a game without having to commit an evil act, unless your DM is  a sadist.  Ok, another common complaint against paladins is  that they are underpowered and not particularly useful from a mechanical perspective, which is…well actually pretty accurate, the paladin isn’t that useful in D&D if you don’t homebrew someway, though not nearly as bad as say, the monk. 

            Now ideally I could just leave now and not have to write any more but this is way too much of a hot button  issue to just leave it here.  So let’s go into another misunderstood concept, what the paladin isn’t.  The  paladin really only has one sort of specific role, though it is a broad full of room for exploration, but they are a narrowly aimed concept.  Now a lot of people like to play the paladins as warrior priests, much like the real life Knights Templar or Knights Teutonic if you want to go German, IE serving a god directly.  In this sense, they have a more relative code because  god decides what is or isn’t evil, but the problem is paladins aren’t actually that religious via core book, in fact under religion it says that paladins tend to not worship gods at all, as they are instead dedicated to the concept of good itself.  So instead of  powers being  granted based on the whims of a powerful immoral being they are granted based on a  rule above the gods.  So while a paladin can serve a god, his code comes before the gods will.  Besides, warriors who fight for the church are kind of your standard cleric actually, a dude in armor who hits people with large objects to preserve his faith.  The second major confusion comes with Paladins and the added classes Knight/Crusaders (they are separate, but for this they fill the same purpose), both .

            Paladins are often shown in fiction as radical fanatics and religious extremists whenever some fantasy author wants to make a point against Christianity, and this position is somewhat blurred .  While Paladins can be fanatics, as well as arrogant jerks (being good doesn’t mean being nice), they actually can’t commit an evil deed, so they only come off as pissed off rather than actual evil fanatics, unless they are absurdly stupid, which gets dull after a while.  People keep trying to assign paladin’s to roles they don’t actually fulfill, ergo that is why other classes were made to take up the slack.  For example, the idea of a man who fights for any cause using any means necessary as long as he has some sort of code that he adheres to.  The problem here is of course, that the code could be anything and be flexible, but I think that is part of the appeal, in that they can be idealists, moderates, or fanatics of the same cause.  The other roles that paladins are often forced into are the guardians of law before goodness, and that is a role that goes to the Knight class, who are more defenders/upholders of mortal laws.  So in essence, D&D has 4 classes that always seem to overlap, and the paladin is given positions it doesn’t have.  So, to recap

1)    A holy knight fighting for his god, who’s powers depend upon his ability to please his deity (varies in terms of difficulty depending on how much of a nut his god is)=cleric

2)    A warrior who fights for a cause or ideal  that is not dictated by him alone, however is open to interpretation (like ending slavery or protecting the innocent) is a Crusader

3)    A warrior who serves a specific nation or person, or possibly a cause (like protecting his nation or a crusade) is a knight

4)    A person who fights specifically for the Lawful Good alignment is a paladin

5)    A man who fights for money is known as a mercenary

6)    A man who fights for money and the experience of killing things is called an adventurer 

Got it now?  It’s important in the details. 

      Now before you ask why I didn’t talk about Miko, she will be coming, in a different article.  

Now in conclusion, the paladin is appealing because there is an inherent sense of drama involved in there code and there dedication to good, as well as an appealing concept with the whole "Absolute dedication to Good" ideal, which can really make the idea of playing one of the these daring, deeply dedicated dutifully determined, devotedly dedicated, divinely dogmatic defenders of...goodness, appeal, because there is a real friction in maintaining the paladin powers.  Ok, not only a massive runoff sentence, but an absurd attack upon the rules of grammar I'm leaving now.

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