Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Larian understands Paladins!

I've read so many forum threads, reddit posts, YouTube videos, and general blogs about the weird implementation of the "Paladin" in BG3 and every time I thought to myself that almost every time the OP and 90% of the responders did NOT understand Paladins.

I think that's because they are lumping Paladins into a single bucket, which is IMO an incorrect way of looking at the class.

Threads like (why does killing X not break my oath?), (Why can I sometimes initiate combat while invisible but the next time I lose my oath?), and (Why do all Paladins smell like fish?)

In most of the non-fish related posts there are opinions that it must be a 'bug' or Larian should "implement it better". I'm of the OPINION that Larian was spot on in a vast majority of the cases, because all Paladins are NOT the same.

Are all Paladins Lawful Stupid? Yes, but the Key word there is "Lawful", not "Good".

Why can an Oath of Devotion Paladin murder in cold blood?? Because murdering "evil" creatures is "Good"
Why does an Oath of Ancients Paladin become an Oath breaker for murdering the same torturing goblin his Paladin friend just got away with?? Because Murder breaks his oath to uphold Life above all.

<Possible Spoilers ahead>
I'll give the Spike scenario as a prime example.

A devotion Paladin could skip the whole encounter walk up behind Spike and bash his brains in, no muss no fuss.
A Ancients Paladin would break his Oath by doing that.
If the Devotion Paladin initiated the encounter by saying he was going to take over torturing (even in an attempt to end the torture) and THEN attacked spike he would fall, because he lied to Spike.
However an Ancients Paladin COULD lie to spike in order to get spike to give the Paladin a reason to Kill him without committing "Murder".

I believe the scenario plays out in just this way, and that seems to confuse people because their "Paladin" did evil, or let evil persist, or ignored a greater evil to punish a tiny evil (misunderstandings abound).

Think of the scenario the original Oath breaker gave. He waded in literal oceans of blood because he thought it was the "right" thing to do, and didn't fall until he killed a single man to stop it.

A Paladin would be willing to start a crusade and kill thousands if he thought it was the right thing, even if those thousands didn't think it was right, or they were evil.. This is just religious politics.

If the old Alignment system were still a thing:
A devotion Paladin would be considered Lawful good (Killing evil doers must be done before Breakfast, Lying about brushing your teeth after you eat earns you the rack).. an example
An Ancients Paladin would be more a Lawful Neutral type (Killing baddies without an excuse is still murder, and murder goes against the law of nature, but give me a REASON to kill a goodie and it's all aces).

So my suggestion is to stop lumping them together in order to understand them better.

The better you understand the Oaths, the easier keeping them will be (Or breaking them quickly if that's your true goal).

This is a great thoughtful breakdown, I suggest moving it to the General section of the forums. It suits there better thematically and more people will see it.

No, they aren't, why don't you stop lumping all paladins together... the same way that Larian literally lumps all paladins together and makes them follow their version and understanding of a specific oath that has very little to do with the oaths actually taken?

Lawful is not a requirement, nor is Good, for Any paladin.


The bugs that many report tie in to the fact that ALL paladins, regardless of oath choice, are often being treated as, and given oath breaks for, breaching the devotion tenets, even when they are not devotion paladins.

Other bugs include murdering a creature causing an oath break if it dies to the smite damage, but not if it dies to the weapon damage, or getting an oath break when your allies kill a creature that was part of a literal ambush trying to kill you, before said paladin has any turn or opportunity to do or say anything anyway.

Your example is inaccurate to the current game, or at very least is buggy and inconsistent in replication based on other poorly implemented elements.

I still think that game should include warnings ...
At least for dialogue options.

After all, our Paladin (i mean character) know their oaths ... and so they should be aware that saying, or doing certain stuff would break it.

I understand that Paladins are not the same and I assume that the Holy Warriors abiding to the Oath of Vengence will be able to do things which would make the other variants "fall".
But IMO the main problem is that Oath choice should be moved to 3 lvl. And Oathbreaker be made a player choice and renamed Oath of Might Makez Rite opr something like that. Oathbreakers would have to either play with part of their abilties blocked (in EA the loss is no biggy for me) or pay 2000 gs to atone.

The only Paladin I want to play is a Lord Soth variant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Soth
With that said I have a epic dwarven paladin on DDO who solo's raids. pretty bad ass build. Very sturdy.

An Oath is required, and your oath becomes a Law when breaking it incurs consequences.

Pretty sure that at the very least implies "lawful".

This seems pretty logical to me. I always thought lawful not as following and obeying the law of men, but as an opposition to chaos. Paladins perfectly organize their life against their oath which propells them to avoid chaotic influences and even abandon some portion of their feelings while making an act. That immediately pushes all of them, except for an oathbreaker, into the lawful category.

Indeed, the usual explanatrion of Lawfull is "following some sort of code".

The rule I figured when playing Oath of Ancients palladin: if in doubt, stay on heals, don't land any finishing blows. Also, delegate the shady stuff you want to be done (i.e. hag hair, stats above oath, duh).

Meh, while following an Oath Code is a moderately lawful single trait, I don't think it's necessary that all Paladins are Lawful as a whole.

E.g., Oath of Ancients is all about [paraphrased] "loving life, *not* belief in principles of honor, courage, and justice." An Ancients Paladin could very easily be any type of Good - Lawful, Neutral, or even Chaotic. Whereas Oath of the Crown is definitely Lawful - "dedicate to serving society and the just laws that hold society together."

Using a non-real Oath example, anyone who makes an oath to destroy civilizations (e.g., eco-terrorist druids) would certainly be Chaotic, not Lawful just because of their oath.

This would go a long way to help clarify about the oaths. Hopefully 1.0 demystifies them.

And OP: +1 to everything

I think this might be a Damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. Those who make the Oath of Ancients primarily lose faith by indiscriminate killing and less so in conversation, which really means conversation ques would almost completely protect devotion paladins and offer no protection at all for Ancients paladins. I feel confident the paladin Druids would call foul at that point and ask for overhead tags on NPC's to warn an archer before they released an arrow that it would break the oath.

Then Larian would spend the rest of their lives doing nothing but making Paladins happy.

They probably have better things to do.

Paladins are big boys, girls, and non-binaries; they can protect their own oaths..... or hit F5 a lot.

I tried playing a paladin in EA. I usually take roleplaying very seriously, even in computer games, because it is half the fun, and playing a paladin was no exception. However, I still ended up being an oath breaker without knowing what I did wrong. I suspect it was promising to go after the kidnapped duke then following some other quests, but in EA you can't follow the trail towards Baldurs Gate because you can't access the area??? Anyways, this has caused me to exclude paladin from my list of possible choices for a class. I don't want to play a fallen paladin, there's no fun in that. It is actually a pity because I do like the paladin class. However with all the shady personalities in the party perhaps paladin would be difficult to play anyways.

Also I don't understand the idea of calling a lawful good paladin lawful stupid, there's nothing stupid about making a moral choice in life. It still leaves options. But then again I never understood the fascination in playing evil which seems to be widespread. I guess I am a 'kill the dragon, save the princess' kind of guy. And with a decent IQ I may add

Well they dont really, because they havent implemented an option for choosing a deity. Most paladins follow a deity.

SCAG: ".. most paladins are dedicated to a deity".

And there are tons of other examples I could give. Point being, They SHOULD ABSOLUTELY have the option to choose a deity, most paladins are dedicated to one. And all Paladins get their powers from divinities or divine beings (or in rare cases infernal, but these are also divinities in most cases". Even if a paladin isnt dedicated to a deity, their powers come from one. They are sponsored through their oaths.

Its a very quick fix for Larian: Add the same option that Clerics have, (ive seen it done with mods). But they should also add "none" as a choice to please those who are vehemently against it (even though dedicated to a deity is the defualt). Heck they could have "none" as the default.

That's the Chaotic folks at work ...

BG series not totally follows ad&d handbooks. For example paladin did not select a deity when create, maybe to simplify game play. You can write this in your character biliography instead.

Paladins are considered Lawful Stupid due to the Paladunce meme.

Paladins need a lot of stats and in a point buy system, are forced to dump Int.

Also paladins usually have to play stupid so that the rest of the players can play the way they would without a paladin in the party.

There is lots of hurtfull stereotypes, sir ...
May we come in?