Anyway, you're probably wondering who I am and what I'm all about. I'm half of the team over at Sundered Blade Games. My wife and I publish RPG adventures and source-books together, which is pretty fantastic. I also write an irregular guest feature over on my wife's art blog Markers and Meows that I call Maps and Meows. Basically, I draw maps, post them, and detail my drawing processes.
Now that I've bored you with all this new blog introduction stuff, I'll bring you to the actual topic of this post: The Paladin. This is a S&W variant class that's in early stages - I'm going to label these kinds of things "half-baked". It's an idea that I haven't done much testing on.
The Paladin
Uncompromising Bastion of GoodPrime Attribute: Strength 13+ (+5% experience bonus)
Hit Dice: 1d8/level (Gains 2 hp/level after 9th)
Armor/Shield Permitted: Any.
Paladin Advancement
Level
|
XP
|
HD
|
BHB
|
ST
|
Spells
Known
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
0
|
1d8
|
+1
|
14
|
0
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
2
|
2,500
|
2d8
|
+1
|
13
|
0
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
3
|
5,000
|
3d8
|
+2
|
12
|
0
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
4
|
10,000
|
4d8
|
+3
|
11
|
1
|
1
|
-
|
-
|
5
|
20,000
|
5d8
|
+3
|
10
|
2
|
2
|
-
|
-
|
6
|
40,000
|
6d8
|
+4
|
9
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
-
|
7
|
80,000
|
7d8
|
+5
|
8
|
4
|
2
|
2
|
-
|
8
|
160,000
|
8d8
|
+5
|
7
|
5
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
9
|
320,000
|
9d8
|
+6
|
6
|
6
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
10
|
640,000
|
9d8+2
|
+7
|
5
|
7
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
(Yep. That's an ugly table. Thank Blogger.)
Requirements and Limitations
Alignment: Paladins must be of Lawful alignment. Furthermore, a paladin’s code requires that he respect legitimate authority, act with honor, help those in need, and punish those who harm or threaten innocents. A paladin who ceases to be Lawful alignment or who violates his code will lose all class features until he can atone.
Magic Items: Paladins may own a suit of magical armor, a magical shield, up to 3 magical weapons, and no more than four additional permanent magical items. They can use any magic items that can normally be used by fighters.
Charity: Other than whatever is needed for food and shelter, a paladin must donate all treasure to charities or temples associated with the Lawful alignment.
Alliances: While a paladin may adventure with characters of any non-Chaotic alignment, he will never knowingly associate with Chaotic characters, nor will he continue an association with someone who consistently offends his moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or retainers who are of Lawful alignment.
Class Features
Lay on Hands: A paladin can lay on hands once per day to cure others of 2 hit points of damage per level of the paladin.
Immune to Disease: Paladins are immune to all diseases.
Paladin Sword: In the hands of a paladin, a magical sword, or otherwise suitably blessed blade, becomes wreathed in fire and imbued with additional properties. These properties are dependent on the paladin’s choice of oath, and are described in the next section.
Spells: Starting at 4th level, the paladin can cast spells from the paladin spell list. Unlike other spell casters, the paladin does not prepare his spells from a spell book. His spells manifest naturally due to his unwavering dedication to good and Law.
Instead of researching spells and recording them in a spell book as other spell casters do, the paladin instead has a growing list of spells he knows. At 4th level, he knows one spell, and learns an additional spell per level that he gains to a maximum of 7 at 10th level.
The paladin must still prepare these spells, spending an hour each morning to select spells from his list of known spells and assign them to each of his spell slots.
Paladin Oaths
When a paladin first picks up his sword in the name of Law, he must make an oath.
Oath of the Champion: The paladin has sworn an oath to lead his allies in glorious battle in the name of Law. While his paladin sword is drawn, it burns a pure white fire and provides the paladin and all allies within 20 feet of him a +1 bonus on all melee attack rolls.
Oath of the Healer: The paladin has sworn an oath to heal the ailments of the land and its people. While his paladin sword is drawn, it burns a soft green fire and provides all allies within 20 feet (though not the paladin himself) a +1 bonus to all saving throws.
Oath of Mercy: The paladin has sworn an oath to be merciful to his enemies and seek to redeem them rather than destroy them. While his paladin sword is drawn, it burns a brilliant yellow fire and provides the paladin and all allies within 20 feet of him a +2 bonus on all subdual damage rolls.
Oath of the Protector: The paladin has sworn an oath to protect those in need even at the cost of his own life. While his paladin sword is drawn, it burns a bright blue fire and provides the paladin and all allies within 20 feet of him a +1 bonus to their Armor Class.
Oath of Reckoning: The paladin has sworn an oath to actively seek out and destroy the enemies of Law. While his paladin sword is drawn, it burns a deep purple fire and provides the paladin and all allies within 20 feet of him a +2 damage bonus on successful melee attacks against creatures of Chaotic alignment.
Paladin Spells
Paladins learn their spells known by picking spells from the following list:
Level 1
1 Cure Light Wounds
2 Detect Evil
3 Light
4 Protection from Evil
Level 2
1 Bless
2 Continual Light
3 Cure Disease
4 Signet of Might
Level 3
1 Cure Serious Wounds
2 Protection from Evil, 10-foot radius
3 Protection from Normal Missiles
4 Remove Curse
(I think the Paladin deserves a full set of unique spells tailored to him. This isn't that list. This is just a list made using the spells available in the Complete book to make the class playable now.)
You may have noticed a few things like XP requirements and base hit bonus don't really match the Complete book. Well, that's because these are my house-rules that may or may not show up in a variant rule-book at some point. If these don't fit in well with your game, no worries - the XP and attack progressions of the Paladin in the Complete book should work just fine.
Hey Steve, have you read Three Hearts and Three Lions by Anderson? If so, how does Carlsen (in some ways the Ur paladin) compare to the class in Quest for Glory (which I've not played)?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your homebrew material.
I have! There's definitely some similarities in terms of commitments, but the QFG paladin is much more magical than even the AD&D paladin (the flaming paladin sword concept in my variant class is straight from QFG). The whole "a warrior whom God gave more than common gifts and then put under a more than common burden" definitely applies to the QFG paladin.
DeleteIn QFG, the paladin shows up in the second game. You can't pick the class when you create your character, but you can earn the class by being good and honorable the entire game. You are then awarded the paladin class at the end of the game, and your character can be imported into the next game as a paladin.
Later installments of the game series added an Honor stat, which increased as you did more good stuff. The Honor stat was used to determine which Paladin abilities you had access to. So, the more good you did, the more powerful you became.