5e D&D paladins

I've DM'd for five years and played for eight more before that and I've never used or seen the fallen paladin theme. And if done correctly it can be an amazing, heart touching event. Not some ass grab to say "haha I made you lose your powers!"

Who the fuck uses orc babies. And you haven't even heard what I've done so far to twist with my paladins morality so quit being a screeching autistic fuck and quit playing the same bullshit song over and over.

There is a difference between conflict and "LOL I'M GONNA MAKE THE PALADIN FALL".

The only way a Paladin "falls" in 5e is to willingly abandon their oath and basically become an evil character. Campaigns with evil characters are always garbage unless you've structured the game to be an evil campaign from the start (which is still usually garbage). The moment a paladin falls they should become a DM-controlled character, not a player one. Most players want to play a HERO, and yes, that means they can have conflict and challenges and low points, but when you phrase your initial post as wanting the paladin to fall it just gives the impression that you're a dick who gets off on being against his players and doesn't actually have any idea what he's doing. Forcing the Paladin to fall is such a groanworthy overdone sign of a garbage DM that it's not even funny as a meme anymore.

Because that's all it is. Is a moral choices that brings the player tohis knees and makes him question what he's doing. Also who says he has to give up his character? I have a literal group of friends adventuring together, exploring the world, living in a place that is dark and horrifying and in every sense of the word a sword-and-sorcery campaign. So why shouldn't there be something that breaks a player? I've broken the wills of characters before.

>Wanting your paladin to become an oathbreaker
Sure, if you want them to be even stronger

>I get off on ruining my players' characters.

Holy fuck I'm glad I don't have you as a DM. This now a That DM topic.

Because its his character, not yours. You don't decide when someones will breaks, only they do.

The player deciding isn't even the point. It's the fact that the DM is going out of his way to try and force the player into that position. Because you know if the player DOESN'T decide to break, this shit DM is just going to keep turning the dial up higher and higher in the hopes of making this "big plot moment" happen, even though in all likelihood the player didn't come to the game for an angstfest DM-grudge bent on ruining his character. The player probably, you know, wanted to have FUN.

I fall no matter what oath I take, its so hard to be good.

>I've broken the wills of characters before.

This is how you get murderhobos.

My current character is an orc who survived an "orc babby what do?" scenario. Probably my favorite character to date.

Paladin's falling, unless pre-planned with the player, is just a really dick move for a GM to put on any players.

I bet you're the same faggots who make backstories for your level 1 characters.

No, because I like to keep my players in my group and be friends with them. I don't have an adversarial relationship with my players.

Holy shit dude you are a bad DM. Please leave this hobby and never return.

>implying he's actually a GM and not some flamer starting a war
this is why the internet is shit. people fall for obvious bait and keep falling for it over and over again, especially from the same person

If that level 1 character is an adult, yeah, they've had a childhood, parents, and events in their life that make them want to adventure or aspire for something. You know, the kinds of things the 5e Player Handbook SPECIFICALLY TELLS YOU TO THINK ABOUT WHEN MAKING A CHARACTER.

In short, you're a fucking retard who doesn't even know how to play game you're trying to lecture people about. I hope your players, if they exist at all, are able to see this and find better DMs so they don't have to waste a minute more putting up with your retarded whiny bitch ass.

I knew it was bait, but I fell for it anyway. I am the fool. It's me.

Forgive me, I just got here from my tour of reddit a month ago.
9gag is too much for me tho, obviously.

Are we friends nao?

How did 4e handle falling paladins?

Who cares, 4e was a putrid dumpster fire. Look at how a bad videogame like Skyrim would handle it and it's probably the same, since 4e wanted to be a videogame anyway.

For 4e, it was the same as for Clerics and any Divine class.

That is to say, you followed the rules of whoever your god was, and if you fucked up too much then you have an incredibly high level NPC with a legion of loyal followers who now doesn't want you working for him.

Very much in line with 4e's idea that you don't need rules for roleplay, since that's basically what a Paladin falling is.

>oath AND alignment
No user, you're the problem.

>double dubs

So did OP abandon his thread because everyone disagreed with him and insulted him?

Hi OP. Fishing for sympathy already?

Not OP, and he doesn't deserve sympathy. All the insults were well-deserved, and he's the worst kind of DM.

>Moral choices that make you choose between the lesser of two evils is a beautiful thing.
In my experience, they're really not. They're usually arbitrary and almost always boring as fuck. I'd much rather see the choice between two goods - duty and ideals, family and friends, wealth and love.

In my experience having to choose between two evils is usually an excuse for the DM to soapbox his own personal politics and then punish your character for not agreeing with him. The kind of thing asshats like OP get off on.

Yeah, either that or a no-win scenario where any answer you give will inevitably lead to smug preening about your character's supposed moral failings.

I am of the opinion that core paladins still DO kinda have to be LG, you're literally following a geass-like oath that requires self sacrifice and benevolence. Even vengeance the only oath that could MAYBE be LN still requires you to help those your sworn foes have attacked, those foes being specified as Evil.

How about; not starting off as a Paladin, but first being a regular warrior or knight (Lawful-Neutral/Chaotic-Neutral/Neutral-Good), and then through the story's events becoming a Paladin?

Devotion is the only one that really is forced into it, and even then it could be stretched to good.

Ancients centers closer to Chaotic Good, since it's all about Fey, art, beauty, and 'the Light'.

Vengeance definitely trends towards Lawful Neutral out of all of them, quite heavily so compared to the others.

Outside of the handbook, things open up even more. Oathbreakers could work as many different things, even if they tend towards Evil, but Oath of the Crown as another example could also work as Lawful Evil if you were a sworn to the service of an Evil King.

They certainly trend towards both lawful and good when taken as a whole, but are no longer required to be both as heavily.

Yep. And it's pointless. If you have to choose between two evils, you choose the least evil, and that's the _right_ choice. The problem is that it gives a bad GM an excuse to inject 'drama'.

I think the main problem is how different people define LG. All I see it as is having consistency and benevolence so in my mind ALL of the core oaths, oathbreaker excluded, are LG. Unearthed Arcana not withstanding.

I agree with you on good being benevolence, but 'consistency' alone is not lawful good. Someone who 'consistently' goes around robbing and murdering people isn't lawful.

Lawful vs. Chaos should be the character's outlook towards freedom and authority in general. Someone who things people as a whole should be free to do what they want trends Chaotic. People who think that people need laws in order to structure their lives and offer them safety are lawful, and those operate independently of good and evil.

Heck, it even says this right in the passage of the actual rules for the Oath of Ancients: "This oath
emphasizes the principles of good above any concerns
of law or chaos"

An Oath of Ancients Paladin has to be good, and any Chaotic or Lawful leanings would apply on the personal Paladin's outlook. A human who grew up in a city who took it might believe laws and kingdoms are great bastions of light against the darkness, and prefer those when championing his oath. An elf who grew up in the wilderness probably sees cities as filthy places of toil that mask the true beauty and light that can be found in the freedom of nature.

Both fit 100% under the Oath without issue.

My take on Lawful is that you embrace a tradition, duty, or calling of some kind, and are very uncomfortable with ignoring it (though it is possible if pushed far enough, you're not a fucking robot).

Someone who is chaotic is instead a slave to their desires, and that makes them similarly predictable once you know what they crave and pursue; they're not lolrandum idiots who can do whatever they want.

An LG is benevolent because they feel its their duty, or that they'd rather live in an orderly world of good and virtue. It's an external thing they are upholding, such as justice or righteousness.

A CG person is benevolent because they want to be; it pleases them, and it's an internalized thing rather than a lofty concept or philosophical viewpoint.

I think the difference between Lawful and Chaotic is a bit more internal than that. If I could change one thing about what you said I would exchange "laws" for "principles". The lawful alignments always came off as being more about self control and discipline over actual civil obedience, personal restraint and law abiding just usually go hand in hand.

>making paladins break oath
That's not how it works, any scenario that removes character agency doesn't mean they break their oath.

They only fall if they willingly break their oath, like an Oath of Devotion sworn to protect the weak selling the peasantry to a Necromancer in order to raise their dead wife. You can present situations that can make them fall but any situation that has no right answers/hidden ramifications is not a fall worthy event.

First off, intending to make you paladin fall is bad DMing.
Second, the best way is to but them in the sacrifice position. Do they surrender themselves to the Villian so that the Villain frees an innocent? Or do they decide to rage & attack instead, Doom ingredients the innocent & betraying their oath?

If you have a guy playing a paladin who doesn't sacrifice for the greater good then they don't deserve to be a paladin. A paladin doesn't think with his sword, he thinks with his heart

fpbp.

>inb4 your players sees right through your bullshit and will absolutely not fall whatever shitty moral quandary you throw at him.

Fuck you OP, cease your faggotry at once you shit GM.

If you were any good you would ask
>"What interesting scenarios and decisions did your character have to face in your past sessions?"
and not such a bait question like what you did.

In the earlier versions of Next, Paladin was allegedly going to be a prestige class for Fighter but it the whole prestige class system was dropped in one of the class reworks.

The idea isn't bad but it isn't really supported in 5e: taking Fighter levels followed by Paladin levels is sub-par multiclassing, forgoing low-level Paladin abilities until higher levels deprives exacerbates the power curve problem before level 3, and levelling up a character in one direction before completely reworking it as a different character is just bad.

Fifth Edition Funnel is sort of the right direction but it's tilted towards starting everybody out as a dirt farmer, not a professional soldier and sub-level1 play is always a hard sell.

In short, not in 5e.

>don't be a cunt
BUT
>don't be a pussy

it's that fucking easy

Or you could just play a fighter joining a paladin order, then, when you make your oath, all past levels get converted into paladin levels, that is certainly not a difficult concept or thing to do even in 5e.

Hence why I said "levelling up a character in one direction before completely reworking it as a different character is just bad."

And it is. Levelling up from a Fighter 4 to a Paladin 5 is NARP bullshit. A masturbatory fantasy that sounds awesome when you're contemplating it at your desk that's flatter than week-old soda at the table.

Hey, me too! Though he turned out to be a cleric, not a paladin.

Big dumb lug with a heart of gold, I love him.

>Fifth Edition Funnel is sort of the right direction but it's tilted towards starting everybody out as a dirt farmer, not a professional soldier and sub-level1 play is always a hard sell.
Unless you play Dungeon Crawl Classics, that's built on the concept and it's great.

1d10 for every 10 feet.

I'm not seeing how, if you want to do it as part of roleplay you just tell your DM, and have a character sheet ready made and switch it out when it's time, it's not a huge issue to do so, and I'm not seeing how it's bad.

You're not supposed to break the player, you're supposed to offer opportunities for them to roleplay their character going down a different path than they set out on.

Ha ha!

I thought it was 1d6 per 10 feet capping at 20d6 though...

In 3.5e it is.

>Anyone who disagrees with general Veeky Forums consensus is only pretending to be retarded!

Is there a cap for fall damage in 3.5?