Originally Posted by Madscientist
I say usually clerics and paladins have a diety because their power could also come from another powerful creature.
I was told that the difference to a warlock is that clerics worship this creature while warlocks have a pact with it.

Warlock are those magically inclined people who didn't want to or couldn't get classes from the reputed arcane teachers like Wizards do, so they went to find a creepy untrustworthy teacher and signed a servitude pact instead. Their abilities are mostly learned via studies, from the PHB: Drawing on the ancient knowledge of beings such as fey nobles, demons, devils, hags and alien entities of the Far Realms, warlocks pieces together arcane secrets to bolster their own (magical) power.

Cleric and Paladin don't study to get their abilities, they are granted.

Originally Posted by Vitani
But the core of roleplaying a paladin is... meh. I get that most of the things are effects of the various EA bugs, but there are a few things that stand out. Like the deity, I know the 5ed paladins don't need a chosen deity. Even Anders (not sure I got his name right?), the oathbreaker we meet during the Karlach quest clearly was a paladin of Tyr, now sworn to a devil. During a dialogue with him we can even say something about him "betraying our god to serve a devil" or something in those lines.

What god? Did the game defult us to following Tyr?

Paladin used to have a deity selection. It was disabled in the UI for patch 9, but they haven't removed all the reference in dialogues and it default. Ethel's vicious mockery apparently refer to Lolth as the Paladin's god (it might require playing a Drow, I'm not sure).

There is another place in-game that refers to Paladin having divine power too. The sentient door in Ethel lair has a cutscene that has the narrator mention Paladins with divine powers came to visit (and that scene was added in patch 8). If all the NPCs Paladin are divine powered, but ours can't have a chosen deity to be, it's going to feel really weird while playing.