Originally Posted by Odieman
Niara:

Most Paladins are sworn to a deity. But all Paladins recieve their powers from deities, whether or not they are aware of it or not. Thats a given. Their powers and spells use Divine magic, they use Holy symbols, they recieve powers before they swear oaths (if you want to go technical).

Their powers dont come from Thin air.

An aasimar or part god (Bhallspawn, etc) sure. But they still recieve powers from deities. They are just born with it/its in their blood.
Not to be pedantic, but part of my confusion here is that post Second Sundering, it seems that the divine portfolios exist independently of the deities. So all divine casters draw their powers from portfolios, but only clerics (and most paladins) do it with the explicit consent of the deity?

Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):