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How do I play a paladin without being lawful stupid or falling in 3.5

Why would Zatoichi pretend he's just a masseuse and not a skilled swordsman?

If you're playing 5e alignment is no longer a problem. Detect evil doesn't even detect evil anymore. It detects Undead, Fiends, Fey, Aberrations, and other Outsiders, and Cursed items.

Paladins swear Oaths, but those are subject to DM and Player modification to allow for any alignment.

he's a drunk hobo

You know how you're always supposed to be hospitable and caring because the disheveled person on your doorstep might turn out to have been an angel the whole time?

youtube.com/watch?v=QACSo5xk3dE

So he would never forget his past before he saw the light that gave him purpose.

That reminds me of story when Zeus turned into a beggar and asked around village for help. And very old couple that had worst hut and almost nothing in it took him in house and shared what they had. Zeus was moved by this so he flooded all their neighbors for not accepting him and than fulfilled couples wish do die in one day by turning them into a tree.....Or something like that

He's the last of his order, which was exterminated in a powergrab.
He wanders the earth, disguised as a vagabond to protect his identity, unsure even himself how much of his cynicism and hopelessness are part of an act and how much wisdom and courage remains.

>Fey
>Evil
For this insult I will curse the fifty subsequent generations of your bloodline with the scorn of all the animals of the wood until you prostate before the progenitor oak tree when the moon is red, overlapping the aries constellation, on my birthday!

Don't play 3.5.

Nobody ever tries to trap a drunk hobo in a contrived moral dilemma to make him lose his drunk hobo powers no matter what.
>But if you pull the third lever, you just KNOW by truly true divine revelation that one of the people tied to the tracks is destined to murder ten innocent children, one of which is destined to become the next Hitler, one of which is destined to cure cancer, but if cancer is cured then the next next super-Hitler won't die from it, but all the victims of these future genocides will be organ donors and save six times as many lives, and hey where are you going I haven't finished proving that Evil is relative!

He's doing it as a means of seeing how the locals treat the homeless. After all, if you're a knight in shining armor, obviously the people are going to be tossing you favors and sucking up and never crossing you. But a hobo? People can basically do whatever they want to a hobo, so you can pretty quickly pick out the assholes by the ones who mistreat you or laugh at you.

Ah, my bad, the official name of the spell is Detect Good and Evil.

Though seriously, fey are worse than evil. They're goddamn Whimsical!

One thing that doesn't get brought up a lot is that Zeus is the god of xenia, which basically means "kindness to strangers and guests." There was a strong social contract in Greece that, if someone needed food and shelter, you had to let them in - and conversely, when you take food and shelter as a guest, you should only take what they give you and what you need. It was because, after all, it was the Bronze Age - if a traveler didn't get food and shelter, they'd most likely die.

There's a lot of Greek myths that focus on it, too - probably the most famous one is the Odyssey, which features both the refusal of xenia being punished (Polyphemus finds Odysseus's party and they ask for hospitality, he laughs at the idea and proceeds to devour them - therefore, he gets blinded, humiliated, and all his sheep are stolen) and the abuse of xenia being punished (the suitors in Ithaca stay for decades, eat the locals out of house and home, treat the actual owners like trash, and mack on a married woman - therefore, they get slaughtered to the last man).

Best answer. Paladins don't have to be in shiny plate armor and a massive holy stick up their ass.

Maybe the character was like that, and something happened to drive them to drink and homelessness. Now and then they grab hold of the identity they had before and it shines through. Both metaphorically with nobility and in a literal holy light sense. You could get a good character arc out of slowly regaining who they were or accepting their new identity as a hobo paladin and defender of the homeless.

Or maybe they were always a hobo and became a paladin with sheer willpower and piety. Not all paladins get anointed with holy oils and recite an elaborate oath for their powers after all. Some paladins are more sorcerers to the wizard of a cleric and just be so fucking full of holy fury that it actually works and reality accepts it.
The character thinks god talks to them and probably actually does. Probably

Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. 9 Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; 10 no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep. 11 Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter a house, wish it peace. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you. 14 Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. 15 Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.