Quote from: apparition13;680789Paladin: a literary archetype. The saintly knight, whose faith in God is so strong they become walking miracles who can directly confront and protect others from EVIL.

Cleric: a D&Dism, a kludged together class to deal with a player who insisted on playing a vampire, resulting in the ridiculously artificial, and completely unsupported by fantasy literature, limit on MUs not being able to heal.


My solution: drop the Cleric, let MUs heal, and replace the Paladin as the ideal of the Christian knight with a more general holy warrior who can act as the chosen champion of any deity in a more typical polytheistic fantasy setting.

That's my solution as well. But it would never be adopted for official D&D: makes too much sense.

Quote from: talysman;680886No, they don't. They have a bunch of powers that you choose to interpret as coming from the divine. I don't.

But then, my clerics don't require the actual existence of gods for their powers, either. It's all about faith. Paladins have faith in themselves, that they know what's right. Clerics have faith in something else.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;680891Certainly you can see how your interpretation is in the minority ... There's really no other way to interpret it unless you houserule a different version.  So I'm afraid that yes, yes they are divine powers, as described in the PHB.

Well, yes, as I mentioned in my post, I disagree with just about everyone in the thread. Certainly you didn't respond to my post just to tell me something I already stated?

I don't have gods give clerics their powers because I see no need to do that. And it makes it much more interesting if clerics are operating on faith alone, and their gods might not even be real. Much more in keeping with an uncertain, swords & sorcery-ish world.

As for your justifications from the PHB: those are post-OD&D. The OD&D paladin is not specifically a divine servant, but a Lawful warrior. There's no reference to choosing a deity or serving a church, and they don't tithe, they simply donate their excess wealth "to the poor or to charitable or religious institutions". In OD&D, you could be a paladin with no ties to any church.

Quote from: talysman;680886Don't get me started on the cavalier. I considered it a pointless munchkin class until I rewrote them, took away almost all their powers, and added a couple limitations. They are now just elite horsemen with a lot of arrogance.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;680891My point was, is that the cavalier class represented everything that the paladin did in the context of a classic knight.  With the cavalier (albeit with it's wonky class progression), you really didn't need a paladin class at all.  If the cavalier class came out before the paladin, you very well might not have ever seen the paladin become a core class

*My* point was, the cavalier goes well beyond what I think the paladin should be, even if you are only considering the role-playing aspects. A paladin is Righteous, self-sacrificing, devoted to Truth, Justice, and the Arthurian Way. Some knights of the Round Table are paladins, but there's no need for a paladin to be an actual knight; Superman is a paladin. A cavalier has a bunch of social and other aspects that really aren't required to make a good paladin.

For the record, my version of the cavalier is here.

Well, really a paladin is one of the twelve foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court.  

In play, it seems to me that the line is pretty fuzzy - both clerics and paladins fight; and both clerics and paladins heal.  (It gets even fuzzier if you consider the case of a multi-class cleric/fighter - what is the difference between a cleric/fighter and a paladin.)  

As I've usually seen it interpreted, a cleric is a vested member of the church hierarchy - while a paladin - even though holy - is not.  This presumes a Christian-like church hierarchy, though, as opposed to religions where there is no formal difference between a holy man and a priest.

In the DRAGONSTAR (D&D in space) setting, the Cleric is depicted wearing a loose cape-and-jumpsuit outfit and holding his holy symbol.

The Paladin is depicted in riot armor and cradling an assault rifle.  

JG

Somebody probably already said this, but I'm weighing in anyway.

A Paladin is a representative of Good and (to a lesser extent) Law.  Or the ideals of an alignment, in the case of Anti-Paladins and alternate and 4E Paladins.  Paladins might gain their powers from a deity, but the archetype does not begin and end at worship.

A Cleric, by contrast, is the servant of a deity first and foremost.  A Cleric of a Lawful Good deity might further the cause of Law and Good, but specifically his deity's methods and interests of furthering this.

Additionally, a Cleric's code of conduct is different than a Paladin's.

In settings where divine magic can be obtained without a deity's assistance, a Cleric is someone who is a manipulator of divine magic.  Much like a Wizard manipulates arcane magic.

A cleric is a dual-class fighter/ magic user , a Paladin is a fighter Prestige Class.

In my campaign -- which is not remotely D&D and not remotely connected with D&D campaign settings -- I have religions.  Those religions have (usually) priests.  Several of those religions also have ecclesiastical fighting orders.  For the most part, knights of those orders are ordained priests.

And, really, that's as far as the distinction goes.  The priests and the knights don't "worship" differently, any more than ecclesiastical fighting orders and non-order priests used different Masses in Catholic history.  They certainly serve their faith in different ways, and need different skill sets ... but that applies within every priesthood as well: someone devoted to pastoral care needs a different skill set than a priest involved with church administration.

Have any of you read "The Deed of Paksenarrion?"

Quote from: Silverlion;681227Have any of you read "The Deed of Paksenarrion?"

Yes.

And it was a pretty good story about "fighter -> paladin"
(I still think the druid dude who healed the heroine is cool. And also, cudos to the author for making a pacifist dude cool in what's basically a military fantasy series. Or rather started as military fantasy - the first book is plain military fantasy while the later ones aren't, I guess.)

It's got a very D&D setting, too, in a good way.

Quote from: The Ent;681235Yes.

And it was a pretty good story about "fighter -> paladin"
(I still think the druid dude who healed the heroine is cool. And also, cudos to the author for making a pacifist dude cool in what's basically a military fantasy series. Or rather started as military fantasy - the first book is plain military fantasy while the later ones aren't, I guess.)

It's got a very D&D setting, too, in a good way.

Yeah, its one of the reasons, I've got the opinion I have. (The whole Girdish order trains as yeomen first, which gives them probably level 1 fighter qualities.) Still, Paks went a bit beyond that.

Quote from: Silverlion;681227Have any of you read "The Deed of Paksenarrion?"

No, but I'm now intrigued.  I just may have to.  I'm almost done with my current book and am looking for new books, so I may have to check it out.

I thought about this for a surprisingly (to me) long time before deciding what I thought, because in my head there certainly is a distinction but I'd never before thought about what it might be. So I'll offer this: to me, it's zealotry. The cleric is a studied, solemn, follower of the god(s) who is willing to take up arms as necessary but intends to further the interests and ideals of her deity.

The paladin is a studied fanatic who wants to take up arms to further the reach of her deity.

The cleric teaches the principles of the religion. The paladin seeks more followers (or at least to sway the proportion by slaughtering non-believers).

Quote from: Silverlion;681227Have any of you read "The Deed of Paksenarrion?"

Too Rapey.  It should be boycotted.

Quote from: CRKrueger;681389Too Rapey.  It should be boycotted.

If I didn't think you were channeling the worst of RPG.net filtered through sarcasm as a joke, I'd have facepalmed so hard, I'd have broken my nose and glasses.

One (the cleric) is a religious warrior like the Templar or Knights Hospitaler

One (the paladin) is the literal and proverbial knight in shining armor.

I think most of this confusion comes from not being familiar with the legends involving Charlemagne. A paladin was basically equivalent of a knight of the round table, only for Charlemagne, not King Arthur.