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[scriver]

I dislike the notion that "extremist warhammer paladin zealots" is the "classic" Paladin.

[Rolan7]

I agree in that paladins aren't "cleanse purge kill", they're "help defend and be honorable".  And kinda have a stick about those things.  Even when the honor part is inconvenient.

Or whatever the variant versions are.  Really, better to be a warpriest or something if you aren't LG.

[Egan_BW]

I feel like you should be able to have paladins of any alignment, though a lot of them would probably work differently to LG ones. There are gods for every alignment, and any god could want to have a few holy warriors knocking around.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Agreed. Classic LG paladins act the way they do because they're serving gods who want LG followers. It's circular to say that there just shouldn't be paladins for every other kind of god because it's that way, especially when no other class does this. It's a lot like the crazy 2nd edition requirements to class into bard, opening that up made the class better, not worse.

[scriver]

I feel like you should be able to have paladins of any alignment, though a lot of them would probably work differently to LG ones. There are gods for every alignment, and any god could want to have a few holy warriors knocking around.

Agreed. Classic LG paladins act the way they do because they're serving gods who want LG followers. It's circular to say that there just shouldn't be paladins for every other kind of god because it's that way, especially when no other class does this. It's a lot like the crazy 2nd edition requirements to class into bard, opening that up made the class better, not worse.

Yes, but that reduces paladins to their mechanics of "fighty guy with divine magic", rather than reducing them to their origin of "knight errant/questing knight devoted to the chivalric code" a la the romantic knight tales of the late medieval/post-medieval times.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I see no reason why neutral or evil gods should not have questing knights, especially the lawful ones. The code in question just comes down to the beliefs of the god.

[Egan_BW]

(And the chaotic and neutral good gods!)

[Rolan7]

Every god does have clerics, and several more options with Complete Divine.  I've always seen Paladins as more than just "fighter-clerics".  The alignment and code requirements are only slightly more than what's required of the monk, who also receives various powers from adhering to a strict code.

Maybe "always lawful" would suit me better than "always LG [or always extreme]".  But the alternate options always struck me as blackguards.  Including Paladin of Tyranny and Paladin of Freedom.  Paladin of Slaughter is just a compulsive murderer, has nothing to do with the class. 

Don't make me post Spoony discussing "What's a paladin?"

Okay okay, thing is there are lots of options for playing a fighter-cleric who's zealously devoted to a cause.  They aren't literally called "paladin", and don't get the VERY specific special abilities paladins get.  They get other things.

There's also no way to play a monk of chaos.  But there are classes about unarmed strike which aren't about fanatic dedication to law.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Spoony might be a better authority if he'd posted anything in the last two years.

I maintain that a fighter-cleric with a code of devotion and a paladin have no difference in either fluff or crunch that bears respecting. Why not just do it if you're going to take it that far? Hell, blackguards are only really different from paladins in that they try to defile the code instead of obeying it, while an evil paladin would have a code from an evil god.

[Rolan7]

I'm talking 3.5e, I don't think there have been significant advances in the last two years
Though he was talking about Ultima, not 3.5e, so fair.

I mostly agree, but I'll just say, clerics get THREE QUARTERS BAB and heavy armor.  While being spellcasters on par with wizards.  Similar power (and full access to every non-alignment-restricted divine spell every morning!), and they're still as good in a fight as a freakin rogue.  Having UMD as a class skill doesn't really match being a mainline caster with NO spell failure from armor.  Also... being able to wear real armor.

Clerics *are* fighter-clerics.  Paladins are that, but with very specific strictures.
If you want to be a zealous follower of a god (particularly a death god) and be a warrior who casts, be a cleric.  Or a cleric-fighter, first few fighter levels are pretty dang good.  And you can slap the infidels with negative-energy spells with even more BAB, not that you need it.

Or be a warpriest, a class that exists for that archetype.

[Trekkin]

Hades is also close enough to Kelemvor ideologically for it to be reasonable to ask your DM if you could take levels in a refluffed Doomguide class, in which case cleric/doomguide would be another alternative for being fighty and divine.

[pikachu17]

I should have been more specific. My paladin's God is Pelor, my paladin is LG, my paladin's parents are a NE half-Orc, and a LE half-ELf, and my character classes are some undecided combination of rogue and paladin, because my character was training to be an assassin before he decided to become good.
The second question, about being a paladin of Hades, was more rhetorical than than the first.
And apparently the people I'm going to be playing with are playing 5E, so factor that into your arguments.

t I'm pretty sure the answer is they cannot.  Mostly on the grounds that elves and orcs cannot have children.  If it did work, I'd expect either or both the non-human natures to be purged, which sounds crazy hard to survive.

When you said this, what exactly does "both the non-human natures to be purged" mean? Being able to mate with orcs, elves, demons, Devils, and Angels hasn't purged the human natures, has it? And what exactly do you mean by the word "nature"? Did you you just mean cultures, and say natures?

[scriver]

No he means that because elves an orcs are incompatible, only the human halves would be compatible. And the result would be a human baby.

[pikachu17]

Ah, I didn't understand what he meant before.

[heydude6]

And apparently the people I'm going to be playing with are playing 5E, so factor that into your arguments.

In 5E, paladins are much more flexible. Basically, you choose from 3 oaths: Oath of Devotion, Oath of vengeance, and Oath of Ancients. Oath of Devotion is your typical goodie two shoes Lawful stupid type from previous editions. Oath of Vengeance is about smiting evildoers. You choose a specific evildoer to smite at level 3. Like kobolds, or goblins, or undead. Of course, they don’t have to actually be evildoers. You can be a paladin of vengeance who is devoted to defending the world from the wrath of unicorns if you want. Finally, Oath of ancients is a nature hippie that cares about protecting the world and nature as a whole.

Those are the oaths in the php at least. None of those are specifically geared towards worshipers of an evil god, but I bet you can make vengeance work. You don’t have to though. In the dungeon master’s guide you have the oathbreaker Paladin who is basically the death cleric of paladins. You’re supposed to become an oathbreaker by breaking your Oath and then going on an epic quest to enlist the favour a evil entity or something (such as your god hades), but I bet if you talk with the Dm, you can probably relegate that quest to backstory instead.

EDIT: @ half elf or half orc discussion. I’ll go into this in more detail when I get back to my computer, but a half orc and half elf coupling roughly have a 25% chance for a human baby, 25% chance for half-elf baby, 25% chance for a half-orc baby, and a 25% chance for a miscarriage. I don’t want to break out the cladogram just yet but, just trust me on this.