Paladin Thread

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My first ever game of D&D I played a dwarf paladin who died in the first session trying to save another PC

Was it at least heroic or was the other PC just a moron

bit of both

40k chaplain looking fellow with a war and death deity as his god. I play him more like a war cleric but paladin as a class because I wanted a melee fighter. Try and remove the edginess by acting as an enthusiastic preacher and a protective father figure for the group. Hasn't gone too well so far. They treat me like I'm the devil.

Reminder that there are people that don't play Paladins dedicated to a god.

Oaths are good bitch

Currently engaged in a war to repel hostile foreigners from his kingdom and protect the royal line of aasimar-kings.
and is the one in the lamelar.

Paladin has always been a favorite of mine but recently I have been loving more animistic stuff over straight religion recently, many spirits over few/one god(s), so I've been trying to find a way to combine the two somehow in my head with little success.

in a secret, carnal relationship with a tiefling

Rahan Al-Hassar was the first in seventeen generations to be born a human to a family cursed to be tieflings. When he was eighteen he received a vision from Hajama and set out as the one chosen to save the rest of his family, both living and dead, from their abyssal heritage.

Oath of Ancients?

That is awesome. Please elaborate some more. Is it a middle eastern themed campaign?

It seems great at first...
But does he actually dual-wielding?

THE SHIELD
THE SWORD
AND THE LANTERN
unironically been trying to live by the principles of a good paladin lately

Ah jeez man. I once played a Paladin. I didn't deserve him back then. Probably still don't deserve him now. Now I may be fuzzy on some of the details, but I remember his arc fairly well. His name was Gemdurk Ironbelly, Dwarven Paladin sworn to uphold the honors of Family, Tradition, and Friendship.

So this was a small venture into 3.5 Curse of Strahd. This being my first LG character of any merit after playing a Rogue for years. So I made Gemdurk simple: Love your friends, Love your Family, Love your Allies. Those were his tenets and he would not be swayed from it.
The GM was an asshat, I'll go ahead and say this. Didn't know the rules on threatened squares well enough so that everyone got AO's from moving INTO combat. Wizards were allowed to cast spells freely from their spellbooks without preparing. This dude was just another story.

But the party really only had two other people that stood out to me. First was out Half Elven Bard by the name of Mary, played by the GM's best pal. The other being a Gnome Wizard also played by his cousin.

One of the fun parts of playing Gemdurk was the joviality that he brought to the table. The Bard was mostly all elegance and such, so Gemdurk had to be the hearthstone of the party. When fighting the undead he would charge in with his greatsword and tend to his friends whenever he could. All was fun and games until the first real issue came up.

We had gotten to a part in town and had to get into a specific building. There were two things we didn't know about the house. 1. Who the owners were. 2. What the laws of the town say. I don't really remember the context of the situation but Gemdurk didn't feel breaking into another's home, so he sat out the situation. I am informed that since I knowingly allowed the crime to happen, it would make me fall.

Well Gemdurk fell. He had been fighting for this realm's freedom from the tyranny of a vampire and he falls because his friends needed information outside of legal ways.
cont?

This whips ass dude, I'd love to hear more.

Oaths are the single best development of 5E and is the kind of sacred cow killing that 5E could've benefitted more from

I made a character inspired in Kaidou of the Hundred Beasts.
youtu.be/NqKl54SYegE (skip to 1:55)

He's a spartan from a greek society. The man is a dyonisian red dragonborn from an apollonian metallic society. He's been jailed twice for various crimes against peace and order. As a follower of the god of war, he constantly preaches for the greatest battle that will fall upon the land and destroy this boring world -- just like a crazy hermit, but breaking public objects while doing so. After bein caught for the third time, he was expelled and sent to a society of dwarves and humans, where he met a group of brave and strong adventurers. The dragonborn makes a pact of loyalty to the party and goes with them to show their enemies what real war is about.
He's destructive and merciless, but often wil rather enslave than kill his foes. Or just let them flee to spread the word of incoming war. On the other hand, he'll put his war comrades above everything else to protect them.

I still haven't decided if I'm gonna use Conquest of Oathbreaker for stats...

The character idea was basically me wondering what ordinary, good, pious folk might do if they suddenly became the antithesis of everything they believed in. In the case of Rahan's family, they retreated to a monastery out in the desert and threw themselves into becoming more holy. In their mind it's like they've become indebted in sin and have to work it off, so to speak. The campaign isn't set in fantasy!Middle East, so I've been playing up the fish out of water element a lot out of combat. There's also a fun mystery of how exactly his entire family became cursed like that, but I've left that to the DM and don't really know what he's planning there.

Oh god no, I just couldn't find character art of a Middle East-looking paladin wielding a glaive.

Asininely by-the-book for the purposes of quipping back-and-forth with other group members, with an equally stodgy sentient sword. Good armor, luck, and his aura in 2e made him very hard to kill.

I was able to take on an entire fort of bandits with just him and the cute other player's cleric when we teamed up — layering on a bunch of protection spells made him basically untouchable. Game group fell apart when we all started graduating.

A paladin (well, paladin/sorcerer multiclass but paladin first and foremost) in our Curse of Strahd game. Wants to re-create the Order of the Silver Dragon outside Barovia, and of course make the place less miserable for the citizens on the way by getting rid of Strahd.
Some unfortunate events happened in the Amber temple though and they've now been turned into a vampire (spawn).
Lately my paladin has been starting to think that maybe Strahd is not beyond saving, and that maybe the right thing to do is to try to redeem Strahd instead of just killing him.

>Paladin doing Paladin things
>Suddenly ancient evil soul master who already destroyed the world once. He went to sleep to wait for new heroes to rise.
>ancient evil is a happy go sadistic cunt who seems to be teasing me all the time. Grim reaper on steroids, kinda acts like Dante from Devil May Cry.
>sounds oddly familiar, but I don't remember.
>he defeats me and the party leader, but lets us live to try again.
>he actually ignores our party leader and focuses on challenging me, teasing me about my silly oath. Acts way too familiar, like we're old friends or something. Then leaves.
>paladin party somewhat disgruntled that we were defeated.
>we all have our grudges, but we get our shit together and go face him again after renewing our vows.
>we finally defeat it, and just as we are about to smite him down, I convince my friends spare his life.
>wat.png but they agree.
>ancient evil starts talking about how I tried to stop him once in my past life but I wasn't ready so he went back to sleep.
>one of my friends suddenly a flashback. I remember now too.
>remember that this same character defeated my lancer hero many years ago in one of our first games. It was too OP so the DM put it back to sleep out of boredom for shits and giggles. DM remembered.
>some of the other players were there back then, so they're amazed we just concluded a story of many years ago and we are playing in a different land but in the same world.
>suddenly everything clicks together.
>ancient evil voluntarily passes out of existence telling me he's proud of me and grants me the blessing of the god of death.
Well fucking played, DM.

He's just a druid wearing leather armor.

I'm playing a Paladin for the first time as of yesterday and about 35XP away from taking the Oath of Conquest.
He's a suspicious inquisitor who believes that the seeds of evil lurk in the hearts of all men and only fear and subjugation can keep them from blooming.
I carry a lot of manacles so that I can take ne'er-do-wells we best in combat alive and hang them publicly later. The people need to know what fate awaits sinners.

I shall break them with a rod of iron.

Cookie for that GM

She is a servant of Grummsh, the one-eyed king. Come to faith when confronted by a group of giants who had enslaved pureblooded orcs, her party convinced her to try and entice them to rebellion- and she did. Using the god to fire their spirits before raging. Now He who Watches is not a god one invokes casually, his baleful gaze was upon the barbarian and, at the height of her rage, Grummsh claimed her.

In the midst of her rage Turiya went still, and in a moment of divine inspiration,tore out her left eye. Sealing the pact and swearing herself to the bloody red king. She is becoming a conquest paladin, an incarnation of the orcish race's destiny to subjugate and conquer all other races

She's a cute half elf oath of the ancients paladin trying to get fae pussy.

He's a dwarven Zeal Cleric.

I got told that attacking an evil fae known as a skin stealer who was kidnapping people and putting them acid that dissolved everything but their skin and hair would cause me to fall.

I would fall because he was asleep in bed with his lover and my god was the pf God of hearth and home.

But to be fair I also wanted to take mentally traumatized children to a doctor before we took them to a nudge overseeing a trial. At 2 o'clock in the fucking morning.

*Judge, damn autocorrect.

This was in the premade campaign based around an evil necromancer. I don't really remember the name.

Yeah, for some reason it doesn't do it for me.

I guess I really like the 4e Warden in this idea, the closest in 5e are some Barbarians I guess, maybe with some multiclassing? Sounds like a mess. Some kind of defendery Ranger may hit the spot perhaps.

I like your backstory. You're a cool dude. Maybe consider giving your tiefling ancestry curse a bit of an ifrit-flavour just to further play up the not! middle eastern flavor

I like this one.

This sounds like some bullshit.

I have ran into problems with some GMs where I felt taking care of the weak and innocent was more important than smiting the bad guys.

Playing the ubiquitously good paladin is extremely rewarding and in this modern age of cynical contrarians who feel the need to turn everything on its head and deconstruct it, it feels as fresh as ever.

WELL HE'S NOT A PALADIN THEN IS HE?

The latest Paladin I've played, which is in a Kingmaker Game, has grown from a dorky and somewhat incompetent squire to a still very dorky yet quite capable King and a surprisingly awesome father for his adopted daughter. He currently places being as good of a father as possible and being as good of a King as possible as higher priorities than being a Paladin, however.

I'm playing an Aasimar Paladin for the purpose of Curse of Strahd so I leaned pretty heavily on making her the archetypal Sunbro Paladin for the sake of the Morninglord/Mother Night plotline.

She's an overtly idealistic dove to a fault. She hates evil and injustice in its many (and often banal) forms and refuses to tolerate them for the sake of preserving the status quo. She can be stubborn, but will always offer the olive branch before drawing her sword in even the most extreme cases. She loves to sing, loves children, and doesn't know a single curse word.

Is she holding the Sunsword?
Is that some commision art?

It is! We just got it a couple of sessions ago after sifting through Khazan's Tower.

And yes this was a commission by this excellent artist: teaxerz.tumblr.com/

Thinking of rolling a Paladin for my next campaign, what are the biggest red flags to avoid?

Insisting everyone should follow your ways.

A good paladin inspires people to be better through his actions, not self righteous speeches.

>Not extending your pinky while drinking
>Not tipping 20%
>Not praying to over a dozen gods and cycling through them when one stops listening to you

Deus Vult shit of any kind

We met this NPC whose introduction to us was throwing out a one liner before completely missing the monster. Every time he attacked i spouted out an increasingly anime-esque battlecry. When i was downed i said to the DM "I don't mind dying if i get to play that guy." and he actually said he'd consider it.
Sadly, i didn't die. But when i do. He is going to be that fighter/paladin/rogue multiclass that attacks 5 times turn 1 and pumps all his spell slots into smiting the monster as hard as he can. All while preaching about justice and joy and fighting back the darkness.

I'm hoping to fight the fiend that got away from us in his first appearance. I might even name his attacks.

WE

fuck off

Female Paladin, basically Red Sonja. Formerly a magistrate for a small village, sentenced a man to death for murdering a family of homesteaders, but he survived his execution and came after her. Killed her husband, cut her baby out her stomach, and cut her nose off to make her ugly on top of that, but let her live to suffer. She called out to the gods for vengeance, and Tiamat, god of Vengeance, answered and made her a vengeance Paladin. Judge Dredd played by Charlise Theron, never takes off helmet.

Erathas was a Paladin who worshiped Pelor and used a flaming greatsword. The campaign he was involved in was not specifically about demon-slaying, but a planar war between Mechanus and some other plane representing untamed nature. He did have a few memorable moments.

In the last major battle of our campaign, he defeated an ettin in single combat, ultimately bisecting him with a Power Attack Smite. After that battle, he used his spells and lay on hands ability to heal the wounded, winning the Elves as firm allies of his cause. On another occasion, deep in the Underdark, he resisted the seductive wiles of a Drow sorceress because he beheld the true ugliness of her soul. His plate armor was won from the hordes of a silver dragon that he impressed in a week long theocratic debate.

The closest he came to falling was the time he knowingly chose not to prevent his party from releasing a bound devil. A city was stricken with plague and the fiend knew of a magical cure that it exchanged for its freedom. Despite Erathas' warnings, the party voted to free the devil and the city was saved...for now.

On another adventure, the party attempted to raid an Orc fortification to rescue a captured general. Encumbered by his armor, Erathas attempted to simply charge through the flimsy walls of one Orc hut, Kool-Aid Man style. Unfortunately, I rolled a natural 1, Erathas slammed into the wall after 2 full turns running to gather speed, and knocked himself out for the duration.

Fuck 5e and fuck all you retards who completely fail to understand the concept of paladins.

If 5e, any oath but Oath of Devotion and maybe Oath of the Ancients is a false path. Those are not true paladins only pretenders to the name.

And what is a "true" Paladin

I'm assuming "Lawful Stupid DM-induced Fall Victim"

...

Undead human oath against undead paladin who was killed during a war with a powerful lich in ancient times.
The lich returned so he kept his oath to return should the lich ever come back and rose as a skeleton.
Kinda hates himself and "lives" for his mission, should he ever stray from the paladin way he will immediately die.
All he wants is the sweet release of death.
He praises the sun

>DM-induced Fall Victim
Thats me in a nutshell, tryin to play hard boiled dredd inspired pally in pathfinder, kill one "innocent" kobold prisoner- insta fall.

5E, playing a Samurai Oath of Conquest motherfucker who wants to invade countries in the name of his God. Is also gay on the quiet.

>pretender to the name

Yeah, that sounds about right for my guy. That was kind of what I was going for.

So pretty much standard samurai.

He's a paladin of Mail.

Oath of Franklin Paladin?

>Playing Pathfinder for first time. I have played 3.5 and D20 modern extensively.
>Always roll spellcasters or glass cannons.
>Decide on Paly
Letsdothis.exe
>Create Android Paladin
>She is a Paladin of Iomedae. So much so that she is borderline monotheistic about it.
>She has a fractured memory, only recalling things about her faith and basic functions as a living being.
>She was saved by her closest friend, a Drow Cleric of Asmodeus... She calls this friend "Princess" and takes her word and ideas over the rest of the party if in conflict
>She currently believes she is human.
>She doesn't want to kill every evil in the world. Just the Chaos and Unrepentant evil. Those who can change she attempts to save first before killing on sight.
>13Int but 7Wis. So she comes off kinda ditsy when not focused.
>Her goals are to protect those who cannot protect themselves and create a truly just and lawful society. Which also happens to be part of the Drow's plan

We have a large player group (playing West Marches Style)
4 Humans of various classes, 1 Drow, 1 Ratfolk, 1 Lizardman, and my Paladin

>She has considered what she will do if the Lizardman tries to eat another humanoid creature. Most likely beat his ass

Her name is Jeffanella Woodstroke

Needless to say, she was picked on as a child given that her name was not very ladylike when shortened (plus too many slut jokes for the surname when she was a pure maiden), but rather than let the past get to her she decided to take up a mantle of study. After one story of ancient warriors of gods fighting against demons of the other realms she was inspired to follow in their footsteps, taking up the mantle of paladin to spread justice for the greater good and be a shining beacon to those around her, ready to smite evil wherever it lies...

Fast forward a few sessions and she's a husk of her former optimism. While she has not lost faith being in the presence of evil beings and a party full of those quick to resort to murder has left her drained of both strength and will. However, rather than stoop to the levels of her foes (and sometimes comrades) she continues to give her enemies mercy until they prove otherwise. Certain NPCs have received the shit end of her stick a few times (a mimic copied one of her party members and friend, so she threatened to break every bone it had) but most times she's just tried to make up for the crueler antics her party does (killing less, returning or paying for stolen goods ect)

I think the best bit about her though is that, despite the many violent and rash decisions her party has, she still sees the good in their hearts, and knows that despite their flaws all she really needs to do is the odd scolding here and there, and she'll risk life and limb to keep them alive and safe, and anyone that brings them to great suffering will taste the wrath of vengeful justice

Pseudo fascist Conquest. "If these people can't behave, I will MAKE them." With eyes on making himself king somehow to subjugate the populace, curtailing whatever freedoms they may have for the 'Greater Good (tm)'.

I mean this in the nicest way possible but this sounds kind of uh, bad.

Look into what's going on in Venezeula for inspiration

first character ever in 5e and I'm just a standard human devotion paladin that praises the shit out of Torm every chance he gets

Of course people don't play paladins dedicated to *A* god. Paladins should always be dedicated to THE God

I always just go with
>Big, churchy earth god
>Small, animistic angel-spirits

Let me know what you guys think

>tortle paladin named gronk
>parents die shortly after his birth
>raises sister
>ambushed by orcs that kill and eat his sister
>saved by elder human paladin
>trains him in combat
>introduces him to campaign's sun god
>vows to be good blah blah blah
>fucking hates orcs with a passion

I really like idea of a massive tank of a paladin that's slow moving but hits like a howitzer

Imagine something like this with a big fucking warhammer with some fitted greaves and gauntlets

>parents die shortly after his birth
>raises sister
Who raised him?

tortles life cycle is that they mate close to death and then die a few years after they have children. They try and teach their children about life and survival before they die. They are both relatively young still when they are left on their own

Tortles are weird.

>Half-orc paladin
>Orc father, human mother
>Born in a band of raiders
>Left behind on a botched raid
>Found by a nun
>Raised in a church
>Grows up dutiful, studious, brave
>Still a total dunce whose curiosity gets the better of him
>Believes almost everything the party tells him, the bard and sorcerer in particular
>They lie to him constantly
>Still acts the hero more than anyone else in the party
>On the receiving end of hero worship from the party's NPC rogue ally

My goal for him is to become a classic hero and a beacon of shining justice that inspires fearlessness in his allies, overcoming the types that only judge him by his scary face.

If it becomes plot-relevant (unlikely), his mental image of his father is a bit skewed. He imagines him as a scary, bloodthirsty tyrant, but that's not quite the truth. He hasn't seen him since he was five, after all.

I have two paladin DMPC's, as I am the DM. One is a somewhat naive noble who has come from a long line of heroes, who ended up with the party. I have him charge into combat and start swinging, but due to shit roles and a bit of DM fiat he never really achieves much without help. He is Dorn Borovik, and after a enemy cultist known as the Swordsman used demon magic to escape a loosing duel with Dorn, he has gone off on his own to track him down, as it greatly insulted his honour and he tends to be a bit hot headed/impatient. The party like him, and I am planning a bit of a reunion for them soon.

The second paladin is... no longer a real paladin. The party has yet to meet him, but when they do things will get interesting. He was a champion of Torrin, and helped stop a huge demon invasion spilling into the world, but he was destroyed by some really powerful magic by protecting a friend. After waiting 200 years in darkness, he made a deal with a strange entity to come back to life, to see the world he had saved. He rose as the first vampire, and quickly realised that the world he saved was utter shit, with all the races killing each other and general badness all around. He dropped his oaths as a paladin, and to Torrin, as he had received no help from the god after his death, nor did he consider this world worth saving. He became an Oathbreaker paladin vampire lord, and now rules a shadowy syndicate that reaches across almost the entire known world. His ultimate goal is to get 'revenge' on the person he saved, an elf, who he believes betrayed him by doing nothing to save him. This elf is the grandmother of one of the PCs. Kinda hyped for this reveal, to be honest.

>"Muh lawful stupid moralfag"
user thinks all paladins must be Silver Hand slash Jedi. Because a holy warrior can only ever be good didn't you know?

Is this second one a DMPC or just an NPC villain?

...

The best "paladins" are non-magical fighters/warriors that just fight for what they believe in, no gay magic powers.

Prove me wrong.

that's just a knight

Eusocial insectoid paladin fighting on behalf of his half-goddess queen a half a cosmos away.

>Aasimar
>Vengence diety
>raised by fairies for Fey Foundling feat
>ridiculous high pitched voice
>sounds like Mort the Jew
>closing the fucking world wound

--All hail Hyrknar the Red!--

Gilbert of Kavenhelm, raised by a Dwarven Cleric who found the child, he had a weird connection to the divine. However, Gilbert was slow, he didn't get numbers or words very well, but he was honest and devout.

Gilbert was an idiot with a heart of gold, good natured, good intentioned, and always trying to do the right thing his father taught him (or whatever the party said was good).

He was fun to play.

His name is Malibu. based on the American Gladiator Malibu.

A former lifeguard from the beach town of Sunset he was sent out into the world to protect the many bodacious babes that are in peril. His arch enemy is a land developer who wants to buy up and tear down the town of Sunset and build luxury condos. Currently though he's about halfway through the Tomb of Annihilation campaign

He was kind and good; a diligent man who forged and sanctified his own weapons and armor to fight for justice. Sadly he was turned by a vampire. In search of redemption he quested to find the source of the vampiric curse so he could destroy it. After conquering many lesser evils he eventually found himself facing the true source, a vampire God. With the aid of powerful allies he managed to slay the embodiment of the curse of undeath, but it's absolute regeneration meant it would not stay dead. Lacking no better option he devoured it, and became the new vampire god.

Now he he spends most of his time forging divine weapons and armor for use by the Order of The Crimson Chalice; an order of vampire paladins he founded to use the power of undeath to protect the innocent.

Tiefling paladin influenced by Pelor and his teachings. Optimistic and excitable with the intent to inspire a warmer climate around the party. She feels as though if the world is bleak, then there can't be any progress or light at the end of it so she tries her best to make sure that her party members are kept in high spirits and never find a dull moment. The life of adventure and spreading her faith of this philosophy has been a goal for her. She has that typical sun bro attitude and while doing this, fights for the fact that just because tieflings in her setting are generally seen as wrong doers, but that tieflings can do good too.

Basically I wanted to make a paladin that despite all the odds stacked against her, she wants to be able to reach the top of the mountain. She's helped her party get through demonic forces, the undead, and even more aberrant forces, while always being that beacon of positivity and that everything will end up okay.

She was an Ancients paladin up until I am using her for a new campaign which takes place a bit after the campaign she was initially in. She's now a Redemption paladin because I wanted to work as a more diplomatic paladin that would favor diplomacy with the intent to find solutions to problems before using her weapon. During this campaign she's on a personal spirit quest to find a link between her and Pelor since for all her time as a paladin, she's never received any sort of contact and thinks she has done something wrong throughout this time since most of the people she's known has been able to and wants to know why.

TL;DR Pollyanna tiefling sunbro

Oath of Devotion Dragonborn
His (surrogate) parents found his egg at their doorstep with a note that told them his name and a request to take care of him. His dad was the village blacksmith and taught him the trade. He was somewhat ostracized by the community (he was the only nonhuman) but he always had the support of his parents.

One day another Dragonborn (a paladin) stumbled upon the village during his travels and my character was thrilled to have one of his own kind to talk to. After being bombarded with questions he offered to train my character in the way of paladining and later on on my character parted ways to find his own way of dispensing justice and hope to the world.

Half-Elf swashbuckling holy warrior in a 5e pirate-style game. Obsessed with claiming vengeance on the sea trolls and, while actually pretty decent stat-wise, is a little bit crazy. Like, accusing random people of being sea trolls or sea troll-advocates. Only ever met one sea troll.

Also, famous amongst my group for selling himself to a whorehouse in exchange for the last 30 gold for a cloak of protection. As I apparently said and my group keeps quoting me on: "I'm not gay, but thirty gold it thirty gold."

Always cont., else ye be a cunt.

Bartholomew Stordotski Von Krantz
Oath of the crown Paladin
an "the ends justify the means" lawful Neutral paladin, He keeps his word, yet rarely gives it. He gave his word to his former body guard (who was a paladin) that he would take up the oath, in return for saving his life. he didn't think that the taking the oath would mean anything, but fate had different plans.

That’s a good way to get yourself killed. Strand revels in thoughts like hat of unsuspecting gooddoers.

Honestly if you’re Oath of Vengeance this kind of mentality works pretty well

*Strahd

My paladin's name is Clyde, he's tracking a ruthless thief and stimulant addict from eastern lands. Unfortunately Clyde isn't too bright and gets sidetracked a lot.

whoops, forgot picture

Cute sun pallys

I'm sure someone has done it well once, but as far as I'm concerned Deus Vult Paladins are the new Chaotic Evil Warlock in that attracts droves of the worst, shittiest people.

ha

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