By "freeing" the paladin from the tight corset of the divine and the religious, you kill the Paladin.
A paladin is defined by his limitations.
Just that we do not misunderstand. I have made observations, not demands.... I assume that you are also an advocate who wants to be able to choose a deity for the Pala? If so, I can understand that very well. Exactly that is my statement with 5e one said goodbye to it, but left other class-specific attributions so. It does not kill the Paladin. My point here was just about framing certain terminology, which in the end fits the individual subclasses better. By the way, the fact that the Paladin is defined by his limitations does not exclude this at all, nor did I in any way imply to change this to his disadvantage. As I said, I was only interested in reducing or eliminating certain attributive ambivalences and ambiguities.
Short example: We surely agree that the term "holy war" is an absolute contradiction in terms, since nothing about a war is holy, as it only results in suffering, cruelty, etc.
I feel the same way about "Blessed Warrior Oathbreaker" etc., only that there are a few more of these contradictory attributions...
It doesn't help that the name Paladin is inherently Religious to begin with, even before it's use in DnD, at least of it that was used for inspiration (Going REALLY early with it's origin and root name is basically means Palace Guard.......which doesn't fit this at all and thus isn't relevant.).
It's kinda goofy to try and change that, I think it's too little too late to try and change that, it's already what people think of in fantasy when you use the name.
That it is too late for that was also clear to me. Yes, the mini-adjustment from 4 to 5e Pala failed in its implementation in terms of selectivity. As far as I can see, the only elemental change was that you can no longer select a deity. This was an attempt to free the Paladin as a predefined god warrior (you can still become one if you want to), at least that's how I understand it. I hope a future DnD version can define this better. But indeed for the current version, that ship has already sailed....
