Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The Problem with Paladins in D&D

I haven't read the thread, but I've been looking into the DnD Paladin in general a bit myself lately. In my opinion, he's a bit immersion-breaking to begin with. The ambivalence and ambiguity is simply due to the fact that in the video game world, the Paladin has always been a warrior of an holy order. Attempts have been made to tone this down or do away with it altogether with the DnD Pala, but IMHO they have failed to rename the paraphrases of his skills and abilities accordingly.

Terms like Divine Sense / Smite / Health , Sacred Oath, Blessed Warrior always inevitably bring to mind gods and religion. Opposing or at least more neutral terms are hardly present. Of course, this dissolves a bit as soon as, for example, a righteous Paladin Oath of Devotion becomes an Oathbreaker. Nevertheless, ambivalences and ambiguities remain, e.g. the Blessed Warrior fighting style. A blessing comes from a deity and usually has a positive connotation. Now, however, the description reads: "An Oathbreaker is a Paladin who breaks his sacred oaths to pursue a dark goal or to serve an evil power. The light that burned in the Paladin's heart is extinguished. Only the darkness remains." But what if he was already in the service of an evil deity like Auril and then breaks his oath. Except for other abilities, there is no real gain, I think.

For example, when redesigning the DnD Paladin, it would have been better to stick to the old Japanese Bushidô code around honor, pride, etc. or any other "Lifestyle", to free the Paladin from the tight corset of the divine and religious. For example, "Divine Sense" could have been renamed to "Focus." The term "Pride Warrior" instead of "Blessed Warrior" can be both positive (fatherhood) and negative (arrogance), which fits all other alignments (Devotion, Vengeance, Crown, etc.), except perhaps the Oath of Redemption. Of course, these were only first basic considerations...