Started a Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough (I pirated it because of course), and decided to roll a Paladin, as to roleplay a class struggle oriented fighter against oppression, next thing I know I’m stuck with a whole bunch of silly ass moral codes and liberal bullshit.
In the end the aristocratic ass elf that you can get as a companion is doing all the hard work not to break the RP of my main character and I’m hardly using it for the fun things (assassinating class enemies).
SMH
This is why I like what Paizo did with Pathfinder 2E
Paladin becomes a part of the Champion class, which are now martial fighters empowered with divine strength by their deity of choice rather than just a goody-goody who gets power that way
You want to be a Champion of the God of Freedom so you can go around freeing slaves and kicking slavers in the face? There you go, your God understands and condones your behavior
No puttering around being like “Oh, but I have to remain lawful and the law says slavery is legal”
Just good ol’ fashioned smashing in a slavers face with an enchanted stein of mead and then setting everyone free
All I want is smiting slavers and oppressive assholes in the face regardless of their race, even if it means smashing a couple humans in too for their anti-goblin bullshit, with a shiny big hammer weilded by an ungenderable working class paragon.
Edit: credit given to credit due: BG3 has a really good character editor that really allows to fucking around with gender quite well Also Edit: props to Paizo with Pathfinder then, that’s the way to do it.
The oath for lawful good Champions specifically states that Good trumps Lawful in every case, so it doesn’t matter if you’re “out of your jurisdiction”. Characters with an oath to destroy certain creature types aren’t obligated to perform kamikaze charges against impossible odds or pointlessly murder a token Good aligned example of that monster, either.
The most restrictive Champion is probably the Neutral Good one, since they have the whole Steven Universe “everyone gets a second chance, no matter how dumb the offer is” thing going on. Their smite is replaced with an automatic counter-attack though, so refusing is a bad idea.
Pathfinder 2E is in general just the absolute best that any iteration or hack of D&D has ever been. Lots of little fiddly bits for flavor options, generally pretty good balance, and fixed early levels.
I still don’t particularly like it and would never run it, but it is a huge improvement over any D&D version.
I’ve been having a good time running a couple of 2E games
It’s especially good considering that I got a bunch of absolute newbies to fall in love with it when they were nervous about it to begin with
The fact that they’re still working on keeping it streamlined and easy to get into with the new reworked rules has been great too
And the fact that they finally eliminated alignment as a hardset thing is only a plus as well
No more having to try and differentiate what Lawful vs. Neutral vs. Chaotic is to people who would just look at me like I grew a second head
In 5e rules-as-written it’s pretty flexible.
If a paladin willfully violates his or her oath and shows no sign of repentance, the consequences can be more serious. At the DM’s discretion, an impenitent paladin might be forced to abandon this class and adopt another, or perhaps to take the Oathbreaker paladin option that appears in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
The tenets of the Oath of Devotion (closest thing to a traditional paladin)
Honesty. Don’t lie or cheat. Let your word be your promise.
Courage. Never fear to act, though caution is wise.
Compassion. Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom.
Honor. Treat others with fairness, and let your honorable deeds be an example to them. Do as much good as possible while causing the least amount of harm.
Duty. Be responsible for your actions and their consequences, protect those entrusted to your care, and obey those who have just authority over you.
I’d say freeing slaves falls under Compassion for “protect the weak and punish those who threaten them” and as for slavery being legal I’d respond by pointing out Duty where “obey those who have just authority over you” by saying any system supporting slavery is not just.
Even apart from that, there’s not really any alignment in 5e. It exists as a way to describe your character and a very small number of magic items require specific alignments. Spells like Protection from Evil and Good work against extraplanar beings like celestials and friends rather than things having good or evil alignment like they did in past editions.
All that to say if anyone tried to tell me my paladin broke their oath by freeing a slave and wouldn’t listen to reason I’d probably leave their game. Oathbreaker paladins have no tenets or oath but just read this fucking description and tell me it sounds like someone who freed slaves lol
An Oathbreaker is a paladin who breaks his or her sacred oaths to pursue some dark ambition or serve an evil power. Whatever light burned in the paladin’s heart has been extinguished. Only darkness remains.
