Okay, I'm not talking about Veeky Forums specifically, because I haven't seen much of paladin hate here. In fact, I haven't seen any. But on other roleplaying boards (mainly giantitp) and during actual gaming, you can meet a lot of players who hate the very idea of a paladin and are automatically prejudiced against anyone who plays them. Even worse if the guy happens to be a DM, who decides that making the paladin fall is his personal mission.
What's the rationale behind the paladin hate?
Lawful stupid. Usually, people don't know how to play paladins well, and would rather do stupid shit in the name of law rather than doing good things.
That and they're edgy la-la men who tip their fedoras about being atheists.
Contrary to popular opinion, the biggest magnet for disruptive shithead players is not the various "edgy" options, but Paladins. Paladins draw that brand of dork who thinks they're absolutely right in everything they think, and want to impose it upon the world, and this bleeds forth into the game. This coupled with the fact they're an option that's actually obligated to start shit about anything that goes against their code makes a prime recipe for faggotry.
Personally, I don't like them because their entire schtick can be summed up as "they're good, like really, really good!"
Because they're disciplined, determined, conservative and strong. The complete antithesis of Veeky Forums.
I've literally only played with someone who played a paladin like this once, but apparantly /tg thinks it happens roughly 120% of the time. Imagine if a DM said fighters a banned in his game because people always play them as pedophiles.
I've literally never played with a paladin that wasn't played like this.
A religious warrior with fixed morals tends to make a lot of people uncomfortable because their morals are not fixed, and likely have trouble believing in themselves let alone a higher power.
People want to see the paladin fall, because they fall all the time.
This.
Most of it stems from the traditional "Must Be Lawful Good or else Lose All Powers" set up.
Between douchebag DMs who either deliberately set Paladins up to fall for their own shitty "personal story arcs", wave it around as a way to try and railroad players, or just get into fights with players over different interpretations of Lawful Good, and players who tend to be Lawful Stupid douchebags either to avoid the DM accusing them of not being Lawful Good or beause they think that's actually what Lawful Good means, well... in a nutshell, they're freaking disruptive.
Spice with added religious and/or political "affiliations" in the eyes of the fanbase for the ultimate recipe to skub.
Only paladinfags would consider not liking their favourite class a mark of poor character. It's quite pathetic really, how much stock they put into a game concept.
>Only paladinfags wouldn't consider liking their favorite class as a sign of poor character.
This.
It should be noted however that this literally only applies to D&D editions that make alignment matter. In 5e I have not seen anything like this at all, since there isn't anything for autists to hide behind. Even if you did get a shit head of a DM in 5e, you don't lose any paladin powers. At worst you may have to stop taking levels in the class, and even then:
"If a paladin willfully violates his or her oath and shows no sign of repentance, the consequences can be more serious.
At the DM's discretion, an impenitent paladin might be forced to abandon this elass and adopt another, or perhaps to take the Oathbreaker paladin option that appears in the Dungeon Master's Guide."
So RAW all you have to do is say "sorry" (repentance) after you murder a school bus full of kids and you literally cannot fall.
Don't get me wrong, both 4e and 5e tried to cut this cancerous aspect out with a knife, but between the old guard still keeping earlier editions alight and the reputation Paladins have gotten from those past editions... basically, tee Pala-hate is still cruising along on pure inertia.
Because they snort red lyrium and go fucking insane and try to kill all of the wizards.
I love the idea of corrupted Paladins. I've recently come across a guy who played as an undead skeleton paladin in armor. Shit was fun.
>killing wizards
>not a lawful good act
Because Veeky Forums being an army of manchildren who can't deal with adult problems like adults have grown to fear paladin players because they've heard scary stories about lawful good paladins being played by people with no concept of moderation who kept being dumb and instead of dealing with it like adults they keep straining it to a breaking point and having the group falling apart.
Autism
People can project whatever prejudice they want onto a paladin because of the broad spectrum paladins live on.
On one end of the spectrum you have ISIS on the other end you have Captain Carrot Ironfounderson.
>implying Meredith did anything wrong
>implying the mages in the Kirkwall circle weren't batshit crazy bloodmages who needed to be put down
>implying that Orsino didn't collaborate with a serial killer bloodmage
>implying that Meredith deserved to be turned into a statue
>implying the Rite of Annulment is evil
Well, she tried to stop fire with gasoline, for starters. And trying to use thing she didn't understand, with previous owner going mad.
Lawful Stupid, objective moralfaggotry, and class features based on character actions combine together into a fairly bad mix. Basically, what said. You will likely run into someone who remains obliviously moronic so they can murderhobo without losing their alignment, or someone who insists on lording their character plot or personal choices over the party, or a DM who will screw over any player daring to play a paladin through impossible choices or a "guess what I am thinking to keep your alignment" situation.
Of course, in reality, such situations are a lot rarer than you hear about. Most people who play paladins are interested in something different and most DMs who run campaigns with paladins tend to be find with flexing alignment a bit. But this being the internet, anything negative gets repeated ad infinitum and specific scenarios get treated as the norm, so people without much RP experience are let to believe that Lawful Stupid Paladins and Chaotic Dickass Thieves and raging manchildren with knives are the standard to expect in every gaming group.
Paladins are almost always played by control freaks who want to dictate how other people play their characters. They're a bigger That Guy magnet than rogues.
>On one end of the spectrum you have ISIS on the other end you have Captain Carrot Ironfounderson.
But no one hates 5e paladins, only Paladins in old editions (and that Paizo turd) because they are defined by their oath and order and not by alignment.
I hate the idea of them outside of 2e.
You used to have to play a human, roll SUPER fucking well, and follow insanely strict rules.
Post 2e it was just some lame, shit-class.
The most cancerous kind of Paladin player is the one who believes Lawful Good is "modern liberal left politics" and not the laws of the setting.
For example a local lord's wife is a scold, and he beats her as is his legal right as punishment for a disobedient wife. Or his son is soft in the head and exposed to maintain the strength of the line. Or the law forbids man to lay with man.
A Paladin player might see this as "creepy" - a term which means personnely uncomfortable - but rather than embracing their role as enforcers of the law believe "creepy" means "objectively evil" and refuse to accept the setting's definitions of Good and Lawful acts - disrupting the game.
They are mostly pre-programmed in their behavior. Lo there be evil, I must smite it. They are boring compared to others.
>Paladins
>Posts Templars
????
In some cases, just because something is lawful doesn't mean it is something that a LG character, even not a paladin, would accept. Beating your wife and leaving your son to die are pretty far into the non-good terrain, and it is unsurprising that a LG character would oppose them.
A better example might be indentured servitude, where people cannot pay for something with money (or are working off an imprisonment fee) by working without pay. It's a viable, if not necessarily nice, method of work. But I've seen Paladin players who oppose it on principle "because it is slavery", not bothering to understand how the system works or what measures are in place to protect the well-being of the people involved in it.
Ultimately, it boils down a bit to the medieval lifestyle vs. modern morality. People have ideas of what is right and wrong today, which won't always apply to the realities being presented (or even the realities just references) in other situations.
Meredith refused the other Templars (I forget his name) "final solution" for the mages, that would effectively make them all tranquil, and attempted to obey Grand Cleric Elthina. For more than 10 years she tried to be reasonable and deal with the mages, offering concessions and offering to work with Orsino, but he refused to co-operate. If Orsino had been more concerned with protecting mages, rather than protecting the public opinion of mages, the events in Kirkwall might not have been so dire.
because lawful good is very limiting and a little boring at most times
>paladins hated
Only by the corrupt.
this whole thread is why i run my paladins as appropriate for the religion they belong to. The nomenclature between paladins and blackguards depends on the domains of their deity. Death domain, while not inherently evil, is dark and is a blackguard style. Law, while not inherently good, is light and paladin style. other than that, their code or pledge to their god is what matters. if its chaotic or dark or evil, its a blackguard. if its lawful, light or good, its a paladin. that is how to properly run them. I see no reason a
> All those frequent rogue/necromancer/cancer mage players coming out of the woodwork to hate on paladins
I like both paladins and undead/necros
wat do
this was fixed in 5e, Paladins now can be of any alignment
Better question; why do you even care?
It's a form of subjective entertainment and therefore the opinions of other people only are relevant if you desperately needs external validation to enjoy something.
>Not playing a Grey Paladin like pick related.
Pretty much spot on. I find it funny when people unironically support the mages in that game. Every single mage you interact with (besides your sister maybe) will fuck you over regardless of how they're treated. The second they're given a bit of leeway they all go full bloodmagic demon mode. Frankly, imprisoning them isn't going far enough. Execute them all and do the world a favour.
Find non-good deities to pala under
But I want to do good. Non-good deities' creeds eat shit. Maybe you know an evil deity that's dumb enough, so that I can become a Ghost Rider?
I have only played paladin twice. First time it just a good level headed guy with divine powers. Good, but not Retarded Good.
The second is a bit of a longer story. We were to start a new game, to which I was planning to run an Eurobeat Bard (Just a bard singing and beatboxing Eurobeat for added comic effect), but two new guys decided to come with edgelord animu characters and I decided I needed something to keep them in check. So I rolled a character that based its behaviour in a reference book he wrote while being a novice, The DEUSVULTIONARY. After being waterboarded with holy water, the two eddgelord really changed for the better.
This is pretty much it. Paladins are incandescent religious paragons with an unshakable belief in their own moral rectitude. This is not something that most people can even imagine existing these days, much less being one.
Let me guess, you play a bard-sorcerer-barbarian tiefling gipsy neutral-chaos faggot, since all of that would mean character depth. Oh I bet you do.
>fixed in 5e
I don't know if you've heard, but there was actually an edition between 3.5 and 5th.
If you're looking to discuss the dark ages Veeky Forums is that way
It's implied that Kirkwall was an old ritual site for the Tevinter Imperium. Blood magic rituals, demon summoning, the whole 'I am evil mage incarnate' schtick, and the Circle was right smack dab in the middle of it. Add in the fact that one of the Second Sin Magisters of old Tevinter Imperium was just next door, is it any wonder mages turn mad?
Guys -
It's a character in a game.
I happen to like playing heroic characters. I find it interesting and challenging to be a paladin, especially in how they influence the party. It's a source of conflict, but the party, being generally good guys, agrees the paladin's gotta do what the Paladin's gotta do.
There are also situations where the paladin is the Good Cop version of the Bad Cop. That's really fun.
And then - there's the characters I have planned for Ravenloft. They are not good people - they don't learn their lessons, and it's more than likely they aren't staying with the party when they finally fall to darkness, because who the fuck would tolerate them after that?
Anyways - you guys got too much time on your hands and should get a life. If you're hating on classes or alignments you're only dodging your table's problems or just engaging in shitposting.
Imagine a town guard that follows you everywhere you go. Can be a real buzzkill to a party that is otherwise composed of murderhobos.
Because morons play them as annoying muslims min/maxer and have no idea how to rp them.
I hope you realize that it's just an excuse, right? The writers WANTED to write an evil-versus-evil story where no hope or victory can be found, mages and templars being evil crazies is solely the fault of the writing. Kirkwall being some sacrifice site is just an in-universe excuse for shit writing.
Mercilessly kill all evil-doers since you can just use Geas and Speak with Dead if you need info from them
Because it's the only class that keeps forcing these stupid alignment debates.
With the creeping influence of cultural relativism into tabletop gaming, the idea of a character who stands for what is right in spite of social consequences is reviled. The idea of a righteous and unflinching character, particularly one based on Christian ideology,
>Archer
>not a CN bard
Mechanically speaking, I think they're the kind of character that tries to do too many things and winds up being a hindrance to the group by half-assing everything or becoming far more useful than anyone else by being great at everything they do. They're either gimped as hell or overpowered to the exclusion of other things.
Lorewise, they've got an issue that their goals are usually less flexible than others and they create friction. Three of four people think bonking the warden over the head and rescuing a suspected witch after being wrongly convicted is the fastest way to fix things, the paladin will refuse such a method and prefer to prove her innocence through proper channels. Or, the paladin will refuse to let party members kill stuff, instead just driving them to rout. Regardless, the paladin represents a needless burden on the rest of the players' plans and by extension, fun.
And finally, the people who play them tend to have certain ways of thinking that puts them at odds with others. Hero complexes in which they have to be able to do everything to "save" their team, moral superiority in thinking they've got the only right way of thinking, or the desire to lead when they make poor leaders to begin with.
In short, Paladins are something tailor made for a more loner or direct leader type person by virtue of their diverse skillset, inflexible moral codes, and tendency to dominate the spotlight of a game. Playing one means the party is going to wind up having to make more concessions when playing than when playing something else, unless they themselves are also of the same mind as the paladin (Clerics with the same patron gods, other sanctioned heroes, etc).
I still play Paladins anyway to the detriment of the rest of my party, but this is most often how it goes down with out group.
So much this.
>There are people defending the fuckdumb abysmal dodecahedron retard plot in DA2
>Implying both sides didn't went full retard so DRAMA could happen
Pretty much this.
Look at what they did to Captain America.
>implying both sides going batshit isn't what also happens in real life.
3.PF Paladins were a pretty terrible, low tier class that was way too restrictive to play. Older editions of D&D had paladins as an option for Warriors that gave them extra powers if they bound themselves to be lawful good. Because 3rd edition made paladin it's own class it needed to balance it with the other classes, but they decided to keep the alignment restriction which killed the whole point of the trade-off. Not to mention 3.pf balancing is terrible so the class sucked almost as bad as the fighter.
Paladin's got way more enjoyable to play in 4th and 5th editions but you can never wipe away the grime left on many a neckbeard's heart
>implying the Templars did anything wrong
i just think they're possibly the most boring class. divine blessing and intervention becomes the most boring in storytelling when you can call upon it at a whim, and the most interesting when it's something miraculous, surprising, maybe even unnoticeable but the day is still saved. imo
and you can do that with any good character
In the first game, the Mages really had a point to their protest, but they had to fucking make them into such huge dicks in the second game in order to allow anyone to even consider the templars.
People don't hate paladins, they hate alignment restrictions, bad writing, and bad adjudicating proximal to that.
Or it's because one dimensional static characters are boring.
Nigger you don't understand LG. It literally means that the relative highest morality is the legality of an action.
I love paladins. Specifically making them fall.
When described like that, what could be considered a "Paladin" is extremely fluid.
That would be LN, you fucking nigger.
my bad
But
But it's fantasy. People can't... pretend to be that?
...
You know when I think about what probably inspired the first Paladin class in the old days I think the archtype still makes sense. Just the same a it makes sense for the Barbarian to exist for purposes of "here is your Conan analog if you want to try. Enjoy". A class for those that want to tap more into the Arthurian Myth side of fantasy. Characters that are heroic in the medieval sense and are defined by having a mission. Styles of being challenged not just on their martial feats but also moral character and wisdom.
The problem is that like all D&D classes over time they get more abstract and lose their connection to their initial "this is a cool idea" genesis. The barbarian becomes less like a Conan and more like a derivative of itself. I think the Paladin in particular has separated from its initial idea and it suffers a lot more from doing so than others.
In long term practice it's just too specific of a playstyle and narrative feel that doesn't mesh well with the kitchen sink approach to fantasy worlds in tabletop gaming.
Because they're ALL THE SAME CHARACTER.
Yes i hate bards too.
They are intimately tied to the DnD alignment system, which is terrible. The effort required to come up with a situation where law and good contradict each other is not exactly herculean. As a consequence it is difficult for a paladin to exist in a anything resembling a real society. If you try to have both a realistic society, with complicated ethical choices and paladins it is very easy to accidentally or otherwise turn them into mindless zealots.
>DEUSVULTIONARY
Share this sacred tome, that we might learn.
>They are intimately tied to the DnD alignment system, which is terrible. The effort required to come up with a situation where law and good contradict each other is not exactly herculean. As a consequence it is difficult for a paladin to exist in a anything resembling a real society. If you try to have both a realistic society, with complicated ethical choices and paladins it is very easy to accidentally or otherwise turn them into mindless zealots.
The amusing this is that this actually never comes into play. If you look at the 1e class description, the only way to actually fall as a paladin is to knowingly and willingly perform an evil act.
All knowingly and willingly performing a chaotic act requires is penance.
some niggas not pure enough for this shit
>Read Thread
>TFW Literally everyone seems to be talking about the paladin still being tied to alignment, as if 5E didn't leave that on the trash pile.
>TFW my current group has a LE Paladin with the oath of the crown, and a NG Paladin with a more traditional oath.
>TFW we get along great, because I'm under orders to maintain the law, and he's using me to fight greater evil with the hope of converting me.
Because Veeky Forums hates everything. Everything you could possibly think of playing is for weebs, neckbeards, and edgelords. This is a board of fuckin idiots and you shouldn't worry about their opinions.
>not being a weeb, a neckbeard, and an edgelord
Fuck off.
>come to a place full of opinionated people and go to a thread that is asking what their opinions are
>"don't listen to their stupid opinions!"
Are you really that dense, bro?
Pic related.
It's carte blanche to roleplay people wholly self-assured in the morality of their actions with a tendency to act on moral failings of the party. It therefore attracts/creates self-righteous assholes that bog down things with intra-party conflict the way Kenders attract/creates disruptive, thieving little shits that "don't know better".
Don't fucking martyr yourself about this. We're tired of paladins because they tend to make high-handed moralizations at us at the drop of a hat because no one knows how to role play a bastion of good without making sure others know they're morally beneath them.
Because paladins are a boring, redundant, dumb class. Clerics are already fighter lite and have healing powers, Paladins are just clerics with a little bit more fighter added in.
I've said it once and I'll say it again; the best 'paladins' are nonmagical warriors who fight for what's right no matter what. Giving them magic powers is just shitting up the dynamic.
>Because it's the only class that keeps forcing these stupid alignment debates.
Pfft. Quoted for truth
But Wizard, Sorceror and Warlock are all dynamic, unique and varied classes, amirite?
Actually, it's Pathfaggers and Grognard playing out dated games that forces these stupid alignment debates.
It's been near to a decade since Paladins have had alignment restrictions in D&D.
Why would you be evil? Just roll neutral, and do some good shit when you get the chance.
They're religious zealots with an unshakeable egomania. It's the worst combination of archtypes that will ever exist.
...
speak with the unjustly dead to find out who committed such slaughter, and raise their corpses as vessels of JUSTICE?
>implying LG doesn't mean upholding Just Laws, tearing down Unjust Laws, and preventing the corrupt from manipulating those Laws
some people play 'em poorly, and others see 'em as embodiment of all they hate.
one man's zealot with egomania is another man's stalwart defender of the innocent.
Play as Sir Daniel Fortesque.
>choose to be a paladin
>get fucked by the party, DM, and your deity
>choose to be non-righteous
>get fucked by the paladin, their deity, and possibly the DM
Or you can just be a slutty commoner so you can get fucked by everyone!
Did I ever sat that? No I did not. I only mentiomed paladins because paladins were relevant to the discussion fuckhead.
Case in point.