Poerts said:
I've been DM'ing (and very rarely playing) D&D for about 6-7 years now, and in all that time, I have never seen someone roll up a Paladin. Ever. Not even consider it. Even among groups that all dedicate themselves to being good-aligned (which, to be honest, seems kinda rare) no one ever wants to play the Paladin.
Is this just my players? What sort of mythical sasquatch-like beast even plays this class?
I'd think there are trust issues with you as the GM, combined with increasingly bad game design.
I say trust issues because a Paladin takes a lot of work from the GM as well to run their campaign around the idea of someone who will be following that kind of a code. Being a Paladin is supposed to be an advantage, and when a campaign basically seeks to remind the player constantly of the limitations of the class, and presents constant moral conundrums, it rapidly becomes a serious pain in the rear for someone to play one. Especially if the rest of the players are all playing more morally ambigious good guys who are all proudly willing to take a "fuck the paladin" attitude to his face.
Originally the character was conceived in light of games mostly involving dungeon crawling, with the limitations of following "the code" coming up occasionally. It was also designed to be crazy powerful, especially seeing as the stats needed to be one were so bloody high. Basically the odds of someone taking a "F@ck the paladin and his code" attitude in the game could be seen as a death sentence for the person doing it, meaning that encouraging Paladins in the party used to be a popular way of keeping various "rogue types" in line.
As EGG ( E. Gary Gygax ) himself pointed out at one point the infamous "Holy Avenger" was an intended part of the character, meant to continue the Paladin's crazy badassitude at the mid-high levels of play, and should be considered an entitlement... a "when will I get one?" rather than a "will I ever get one?" question, which is why it was listed as part of the Paladin class since it was intended as a feature of sorts, says something about the mindset that went into the original creation for AD&D.
Starting with 3E, the focus on game balance made certain subclasses less viable, and the Paladin was one of them. Putting everyone on the same basic number of attribute points, combined with the Paladin's polymath nature meaning that he might be able to do almost anything to an extent, but he'd suck at all of it, as opposed to virtually being a one man party based on the level of "rolls" (or assigned attributes) to do the job right. This might be "fair" in terms of abillities on a certain level, but the Paladin also carries around a substantial number of limitations without any compensation in overall power level to balance them. This makes the Paladin more akin to parodies like Quigley in Robert Asprin's "Myth" series than the powerhouse of goodness and light he was supposed to be, pretty much a relatively powerless trouble magnet that acts as a foil for the rest of the party if anything. This is epecially true in cases of people wanting to run "dark fantasy" campaigns loaded with realism and morally ambigious situations, with a high degree of role-playing. Pretty much you had better hope good is too stupid to figure out what is going on, or any degree of RP is probably going to get the Paladin killed (perhaps even by the rest of the party).
I've played a few Paladins in my time in various editions of D&D, and I will say in the later editions it's more something you do as a personal challenge, than to kick back and
have a good time. I also need to know the GM is going to be trying to not make my life difficult, and that the rest of the party is willing to work with it, or else I figure why bother, it's a foregone conclusion that my great hero of light is going to probably be
comedy relief.
I know a lot of people will disagree with me here, but that's my thoughts on the subject. The Paladin evokes images of a specific kind of fantasy that doesn't come up that much nowadays. In a game based off of say the glory days of Camelot (pre quest for the Holy Grail) or flat out defending a kingdom against the unambigious forces of darkness that are threatening, it can be a great character to go questing with. If you hold up say "Game Of Thrones" as an example of what Sword and Sorcery should be... well, not so much then.
Oh and in case anyone is wondering about the "Holy Avenger" comment which has met some outcry in the past from D&D players (either against me or Gygax). The basic point of it is that a Paladin is more or less obligated to attempt to attack things like demons and devils on sight, and to lead with their chin. This being "stupid" is an understatement in most cases, but The Holy Avenger was supposed to be an exception, the idea being that when the Paladin was wielding it, it emitted an anti-magic aura that applied to only evil magic, which extended to a much greater radius if he raised the sword above it's head. While later rules governing innate abillities can conflict with this, in the early days part of the point is that 99% of what the Demon has just won't work on a Paladin because with that sword his inherant goodness simply does away with the evil magic. Charm gazes, innate spell abillities, teleport at will (not if it's already in melee with the paladin while the sword is out), all of that stuff would be off the table fighting the paladin.... which is sort of why evil fears these guys. The idea being that while a "free +5 sword" would be game busting beyond belief at low levels, the Paladin should probably have one once he hits the mid levels of about 7th to 8th level and his level starts to match the hit dice for demons and other "it's evil, so I must face it" monsters begin appearing in the random encounter charts.
