Quote from: James Gillen;682844Special mount.
In AD&D, that's the main thing I remember, but they get Smite Evil and various lay on hands variants in 3rd and Pathfinder.

JG

Thematically.  Not necessarily mechanically.

Paladins are warriors whose sheer existence is in such adherence to the tenets of their god that the gods have gifted him with powers. Should they stop being this paragon, the gods will rescind their favor. Think Achilles. Or Green Lantern.

The cleric is a devotee of the gods. Their power comes from their devotion, from their rituals, from prayer and sacrifices. They're more like Batman, really: single-minded in their devotion to a concept.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Quote from: JonWake;682912Paladins are warriors whose sheer existence is in such adherence to the tenets of their god that the gods have gifted him with powers. Should they stop being this paragon, the gods will rescind their favor. Think Achilles. Or Green Lantern.

The cleric is a devotee of the gods. Their power comes from their devotion, from their rituals, from prayer and sacrifices. They're more like Batman, really: single-minded in their devotion to a concept.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Not a bad take on it at all.

One of the ways to look at what your saying is a A cleric is a servant of the god and so they gain power given by the gods through that service. While a Paladin champions good, and because of his sacrifices (devotion, duty, guardianship) he is exalted by the god(s).



I like seriously how Deed handles it. A priest teaches people, helps them worship, and be a good flock. A paladin is called to champion others and even sacrifice his or her life to serve the greater good.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;682824It wasn't so much lawful-good, as it was "let's emulate king Arthur, Lancelot, and his knights."  And of course they were everything that was good and pure as a knight.  

Lawful good just so happened to help that vision as part of an alignment mechanic.  If they had the cavalier class, it very easily could have been "here are some lawful good examples"

Additionally, if the didn't have the cleric weapon restriction and let them use all weapons, the paladin also wouldn't be necessary.  Thematically, what can a paladin do that a cavalier/cleric multiclass not do?

Nothing; it's the alignment that makes the difference.

Quote from: ICFTI;682823a cleric is a commonplace warrior priest, one amongst many. a paladin is a champion chosen personally by his god to represent the whole of a religion, one of a select few.

There was no such thing as the "Commonplace" warrior-priest.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;683415There was no such thing as the "Commonplace" warrior-priest.

RPGPundit

Sure, but warrior-priests were more common than paladins in all the old AD&D and 3e stuff I played in - sure that's just my campaigns though

Warrior-priests are more varied than paladins wich is another way to see your post...I mean in 2e especially, a Fighter/Priest (God of Animals) and a Fighter/Priest (God of Hunting) would be very different (albeit Ranger-y in both cases. And of course great for Half-Elves...).

(I mean I played a NE warrior priest once---it was fun---)

Of course in 2e the priest class gets divorced a bit from "warrior priest". A priest of a god of Plants, Love, Magic, or especially Peace or Healing, is not a warrior priest (well okay the Plants God worshipping dude is essentially a druid). Allthough most of them would still have d8 hp and cleric attack bonus. BTW while I know many hated the Priest's Handbook (and it could've been better), I miss that stuff myself.

Quote from: JonWake;682912Paladins are warriors whose sheer existence is in such adherence to the tenets of their god that the gods have gifted him with powers. Should they stop being this paragon, the gods will rescind their favor. Think Achilles. Or Green Lantern.

The cleric is a devotee of the gods. Their power comes from their devotion, from their rituals, from prayer and sacrifices. They're more like Batman, really: single-minded in their devotion to a concept.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So a paladin is a guy chosen by a god and given magical powers and a cleric is a guy who chooses a god and in return gets magical powers.

If a paladin breaks his coverant with god their powers are recinded and is a cleric fails to maintain his covernant with god their powers are lost?

They sound quite similar

As has been stated the problem is that Paladins are a clear archetype looking for a class and clerics are a critical class in D&D lookign for an archetype.

If we think of Clerics as martial orders like Hospitalers and templars, which is how they are often sold, the difference between them an a paladin is waffer thin and a paladin can really only be seen as a paragon of the cleric class.

2e Complete Priest really solves this dilema. Priest can be anything from the peaceful hermit with d4 HD and MU thaco to a Templar with limit casting d8 HD and access to all weapons.
In that type of setting Paladins do indeed become a prestige class for certain types of priests. You might even put in new prestige classes for other priest types, say Prophets, Yogis, Marabouts or whatever. In effect each priest archetype has a paragon archetype they strive towards. The Templars are seeking Paladinhood, the Friars are seeking to be Inquisitors, etc now a prestigue class works realy well for Paladins because not all Templars can become Paladins, the Lord Commander Abbot or whatever will be a high level Priest not a paladin and the criteria for paladinhood are more about purity and devote adherance to faith than about combat prowess or whatever.

Quote from: RPGPundit;683415There was no such thing as the "Commonplace" warrior-priest.

RPGPundit

Good point.

JG

Quote from: The Ent;683416Sure, but warrior-priests were more common than paladins in all the old AD&D and 3e stuff I played in - sure that's just my campaigns though

I meant historically.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jibbajibba;683440So a paladin is a guy chosen by a god and given magical powers and a cleric is a guy who chooses a god and in return gets magical powers.

If a paladin breaks his coverant with god their powers are recinded and is a cleric fails to maintain his covernant with god their powers are lost?

They sound quite similar

As has been stated the problem is that Paladins are a clear archetype looking for a class and clerics are a critical class in D&D lookign for an archetype.

If we think of Clerics as martial orders like Hospitalers and templars, which is how they are often sold, the difference between them an a paladin is waffer thin and a paladin can really only be seen as a paragon of the cleric class.

2e Complete Priest really solves this dilema. Priest can be anything from the peaceful hermit with d4 HD and MU thaco to a Templar with limit casting d8 HD and access to all weapons.
In that type of setting Paladins do indeed become a prestige class for certain types of priests. You might even put in new prestige classes for other priest types, say Prophets, Yogis, Marabouts or whatever. In effect each priest archetype has a paragon archetype they strive towards. The Templars are seeking Paladinhood, the Friars are seeking to be Inquisitors, etc now a prestigue class works realy well for Paladins because not all Templars can become Paladins, the Lord Commander Abbot or whatever will be a high level Priest not a paladin and the criteria for paladinhood are more about purity and devote adherance to faith than about combat prowess or whatever.

Shit, man, what's the difference between an Assassin and a Thief? Or a Barbarian and a Fighter? You get outside of the core 4 and it's all kinds of blurry.

Quote from: RPGPundit;684228I meant historically.

RPGPundit

I see---you're absolutely correct, then.

Quote from: JonWake;684238Shit, man, what's the difference between an Assassin and a Thief? Or a Barbarian and a Fighter? You get outside of the core 4 and it's all kinds of blurry.

Well, in 2e Assassins and Barbarians were just Thieves and Fighters, respectively, with fairly underwhelming kits
(And really, I think that's in a way how it should be. Assassins and Barbarians don't really differ enough from Thieves and Fighters (or Rangers) to be their own thing imo. The Cleric/Paladin thing I'm more divided on, mind, allthough, just like the Barbarian is a bit silly for basically being a cultural class rather than a professional one, the Paladin is a bit silly because it's a very specific archetype, at least as usually written - "shining knight".

The strength of the core 4 classes is that they can be so many different things. The Thief can be a scout, a spy, an assassin, a fairy-tale trickster/lucky peasant kid, a bandit/desperado, a gentleman burglar, anything that involves stealthyness and wits; the Fighter can be all sorts of, well fighters from samurai to vikings to shining knights to cavemen with clubs; the cleric can be all kinds of holy man and worship all kinds of gods; the m-u can be all sorts of magic using dudes that aren't clerics.

Barbarians, Assassins, Paladins etc are way more specific. Wich isn't really good. Also they kinda restrict what the generic guys can be - a Fighter obviously isn't a Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian etc., so what is he then? Joe Average Man-At-Arms? That's not good either really.

That said I do like all the pre-3e classes. It wouldn't feel like D&D* w/o Rangers, Paladins, Druids etc. But it doesn't need a couple dozen more classes added onto that. That's one other thing that got silly in 4e. I mean, adding psionics? Fine with me, I'm an old Dark Sun fan. Adding half a dozen psion classes with dorky names? Not as cool to put it like that. The 2e kits were a much superior way to add diversity than creating a bunch of extra classes, even if many kits were either over- or underpowered some were pretty fun.

*=yes, I know, Basic's got 4** classes + 3 races and that works well in Basic.

**=I tend to pretend the Mystic doesn't exist, it really doesn't mesh well with the rest.

The Cleric is a warrior-priest, who goes about fighting evil in the name of their God and being an example of why that god is worth following.

A Paladin is a gimmicky fighter with a few tricks shackled with an easily broken code of conduct and hated by fucknugget players and GMs who love to stick them in no win situations. And usually played by idiots.

A Paladin, as a knight in shining armor is a LG Fighter. Or should be, anyway.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;680858I would totally agree with you except that many of the paladin's powers come from the divine.  You simply cannot divorce the AD&D paladin from holy warrior because of this.  That's why a lot of people view paladins as a hybrid between fighter and cleric.  You are describing the cavalier class, not necessarily the paladin.

I honestly wonder if the real reason why a lot of people conflate the archetypes is because in 3.5, the clerics domain abilities and spells made them better warriors than the Paladin.

PF returned to sanity a bit, with the cleric being more of a group buffer/protector and less of a self buffing fighter.

As an aside, I'll take this opportunity to pimp Fantasy Craft to folks who think the Paladin should be a prestige class, because it is in that game.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;684463As an aside, I'll take this opportunity to pimp Fantasy Craft to folks who think the Paladin should be a prestige class, because it is in that game.

FC is very cool - probably the best d20/3e type game I guess.
(still nightmarish to GM, though, I'm fairly certain! )

Paladin should be read as "knight" - there's no crossover with a cleric. I think people are just getting caught up in the abilities they share in common. No one would mistake Lancelot for a priest. The cavalier class is redundant. They were both classes that randomly appeared in Dragon, and then the most popular alternate classes were thrown into UA. Cacalier is basically just a 'neutral paladin'.

I'd get rid of both and just have a 'Knight' class (no class should have anything to do with alignment, which should be a highly mutable reaction to character's behaviour, not an inherent aspect of the char that determines game effects. 'Detect Evil' was always a rather ambiguously disassociative ability).

Cleric is just a warrior-priest. A cleric isn't a knight.