Quote from: The Traveller;680710If you say so, I'm still going to steal it as a litany for a hawkish new faith spreading downwards in my neverending valley campaign though.

Glad to be of service. :hatsoff:

Quote from: noisms;680685A paladin is a holy warrior. A cleric is an adventuring holy man.

This works for me.

I tend to play a lot of Paladins and Clerics.

I would add that I have no problem with a Cleric that acts like a warrior, or a Paladin that acts like a holy man.

A Paladin is a knight in shining armour. He's Lancelot, Charlamagne, Joan of Arc, and Prince Valiant.

A Cleric is a priest who's first and foremost devoted their life to the service of a God. She's Aleena, Brother Cadfael, Friar Tuck, and Van Helsing.

A cleric is a holy adventuring priest of a particular faith.
Clerics may be of varying alignments and serve a plethora of different higher powers. In other words, the cleric is a generic archetype.

The paladin is a shining bastion of lawful goodness. The paladins code is narrow, unwavering and very specific. The paladin is also slightly more militant than the adventuring cleric.

Now that I think about it, I view them more as the same thing, with the mechanical differences haveing little to do with the actual character.

For 'Good' clerics and Paladins anyway.

Quote from: Soylent Green;680676I think the Paladin should be an advanced or Prestige class, something you work towards or earn as a result of your deeds and not something start off as at level 1.

Or to put it other terms, for all the other classes the sentence "Yes, he is a cleric/thief/wizard/fighter, just not a very competent one." works fine.  The same does not work with Paladins.

I'm with you here--not Prestige per se, but like the Druid in BECM D&D. Oh wait that's what it is...actually a Lawful fighter can be become a Paladin.

In my own "D&D OSR" hack, They're two levels of fighter one level of cleric, then "Paladin."

Most classes that aren't the four iconics (Cleric, Mage, Thief, Fighter) are "Secondary Path" characters.

Quote from: LibraryLass;680657Let's face it, they're pretty similar archetypes. This is something I tend to get a bit of a block on, so I'd like to hear your thoughts on how they're different.

Paladins are warrior champions of their religion serving as an example. They will be called to deal with a challenge or threat and then move on.

Clerics are most pastoral in that they minister to a flock even if it is a adventuring party. Their jobs is to hold the fort, stick with the group, etc.

Another way of thinking about it is that cleric are franchise holders of the deity and paladins are the roving troubleshooters going where they are needed or to act as backup to the clerics already present.

Depending on the religion there could be little difference in their skill sets but always a big difference in what their duties entail.

Paladins are held to a high standard because when they are called on to act people must be able to trust them on a short notice. Which is why those with high charisma are favor over pure weapon skills. Why they are held to the highest standards of the deity's moral code.

The Cleric is a Fighter/Mage specializing in healing, defense, and turning undead and who can't wield swords.

The Paladin is a Fighter with some special abilities and a bunch of behaviour restrictions.

I don't mind either allthough neither really makes me crazy happy either.

I have a huge soft spot for 2e's variant priests, whether the Legends & Lore kind or the Priest's Handbook kind, allthough in the latter case, those times I've created AD&D gods & religions I've generally mixed and matched a bit and changed stuff around a bit while maintaining the general balance idea. Sure they're generally a bit weaker than Clerics and Druids, but I've found that juggling some powers etc around makes them better. I use Faiths & Avatars as inspiration in this regard, allthough I know F&A priests are overpowered.

Now to describe this in the appropriate manner:

On my right hand, the Priest's Handbook.
On my left hand, Faiths and Avatars.
In front of me Legends and Lore*.

I would make them stronger than they are in the Priest's Handbook;
Yet never as strong as in Faiths and Avatars, as it is unseemly;
To keep the priests balanced and on the Golden Way between;
To keep the priests flavorful as in Legends and Lore, always.

*=or the book of the non-human deities, wich is a SEEMLY book.

So says the Ent.

And yes there's "" involved here but seriously, I think I just gave some decent advice right there. I think the Faiths & Avatars idea of giving priests various spells at 1/day or similar use on this or that level is pretty good and helps reinforce the priest's role better than many of the generic abilities in the Priest's Handbook, allthough some of the latter are very cool, and F&A does get unholy with the overpowering.

I mean, say I'm creating a priesthood of a fire god, I'll follow the Priest's Handbook's priest of Fire but might well add say spell-like abilities or spell/day stuff like level 3: Flame Blade 3/day, level 7: Fireball 1/day etc. However the important things would be to 1) have the priests' abilities be appropriate for their god(s)/religion, 2) keep it playable (no totally useless or monstrous killbeast priest classes) and 3) KEEP IT FUN AND INTERESTING.

Paladins are less magical, more martial, and paragons of their deity.

They're a variant cleric.

Conceptually, there really isn't a difference - though people try to justify one. It's a pure D&Dism. In my version of D&D, I scrap clerics altogether and leave the holy warrior role to the paladin/holy knight.

Quote from: estar;680731Paladins are warrior champions of their religion serving as an example. They will be called to deal with a challenge or threat and then move on.

Clerics are most pastoral in that they minister to a flock even if it is a adventuring party. Their jobs is to hold the fort, stick with the group, etc.

Another way of thinking about it is that cleric are franchise holders of the deity and paladins are the roving troubleshooters going where they are needed or to act as backup to the clerics already present.

Depending on the religion there could be little difference in their skill sets but always a big difference in what their duties entail.

Paladins are held to a high standard because when they are called on to act people must be able to trust them on a short notice. Which is why those with high charisma are favor over pure weapon skills. Why they are held to the highest standards of the deity's moral code.

If we're going to break down the holy warrior into such specific roles, then magic-users/wizards should be six or seven sub-classes. And thieves/rogues should be at least three.

Quote from: noisms;680685A paladin is a holy warrior. A cleric is an adventuring holy man.

Who also happens to wear full plate mail and a mace

Quote from: Haffrung;680744Conceptually, there really isn't a difference - though people try to justify one. It's a pure D&Dism. In my version of D&D, I scrap clerics altogether and leave the holy warrior role to the paladin/holy knight.

Yeah, pretty much.  I'm all for the "make a paladin a prestige class" that both a fighter and a cleric could join.  The level of specifics you need to distinguish a paladin from a cleric pretty much implies that there should be at least another dozen other classes.  Really, the core difference between a paladin and a cleric is that one gets all weapons and less spells than the other, along with a couple special abilities.

There's really no need.  The paladin was created to represent the "chivalrous knight" class before the cavalier was thought up.

It depends on how you interpret them.  I see them the same way I imagined them in my old AD&D days.  

My interpretation:
Paladins are not a champion of a God, they are a magical order of knighthood, with their own private rituals and traditions.  Paladins never worship any good god, or any god whatsoever; they do respect deities that are good and lawful though.  An adult Paladin chooses his own a squire, a young person of a certain quality.  The paladin can tell who has what it takes to be a paladin.  If the person accepts, he leaves his old life behind to and dedicates himself fully to the ways of a paladin.

A Cleric is the champion of a God, and is granted his abilities directly from their patron deity.

For me, attaching a Paladin to a specific god was a mistake and it has caused confusion between concept of a cleric and a paladin, and it has  invented the different alignment paladins (3rd edition I believe).  Paladins are always Lawful Good or they are not a Paladin I say.

The Cleric is part of the main hierarchy of the religion who takes up arms, swears never to shed blood, and goes in the world to find adventure in the name of his deity. He is a priest first, a combatant if need be.

The Paladin comes from opposite origins: he is a combatant, a knight first, who then takes an oath to use his military skill and faith in the service of the poor, the innocent, and of course his tutelar deity. He is a warrior first, who happens to have become the instrument of his deity's justice in the world.

Quote from: hamstertamer;680752It depends on how you interpret them.  I see them the same way I imagined them in my old AD&D days.  

My interpretation:
Paladins are not a champion of a God, they are a magical order of knighthood, with their own private rituals and traditions.  Paladins never worship any good god, or any god whatsoever; they do respect deities that are good and lawful though.  An adult Paladin chooses his own a squire, a young person of a certain quality.  The paladin can tell who has what it takes to be a paladin.  If the person accepts, he leaves his old life behind to and dedicates himself fully to the ways of a paladin.

A Cleric is the champion of a God, and is granted his abilities directly from their patron deity.

For me, attaching a Paladin to a specific god was a mistake and it has caused confusion between concept of a cleric and a paladin, and it has  invented the different alignment paladins (3rd edition I believe).  Paladins are always Lawful Good or they are not a Paladin I say.

I dislike the 'Paladin of whaterver god as a champion' thing.

Without the Lawful Goodness (And I really think Paladins should be Neutral Good) a paladin is just a cleric.