More on Paladins and Balance

It seems that the owner of Point of Lights decided to respond to my Friday rant on his blog here. And that's fine and I'd like to answer some of his points.

"This does not mean that paladins should also be an ideal choice no-matter-what. A good tenent of game design is that there shouldnt be an immediate "best choice". ", Antioch

The original Paladin n D&D was hardly a 'best choice', for all his additional abilities he was still a Fighter making him combat wise a better choice than that fighter- but he was hardly a replacement for any of the remaining classes.

Even as a Combat selection, there are cases in which he is very much a inferior choice. Various tactical options are off the table when the character is a Paladin. He won't consider them, and perhaps worse from his group's PoV- he won't allow them to consider them. Torture, stealing, taking of hostages, endangering innocents, or just walking away from evil unless it's overwhelming does not fly. His limit on wealth and magic items reduced resources that other Fighters could call upon. And that's just hitting the highlights.

Further the Paladin is interested in his task as an opponent of evil, and this takes away many adventure options that groups typically come across even in the most railroaded campaigns. You don't join up with Joan of Arc and decide that you're rather go dungeon crawling at the crypt instead of fighting the English...

"Now alignment is only as good as the DM enforcing it, so thats not really a balancing mechanic", Antioch

This is an extremely common mistake, i.e. thinking that the rules instead of the GM is the primary enforcer of game balance. It's a common mistake because rules can be viewed as 'balanced' or 'imbalanced' on their own. The error happens when one refuses to see the effect when the players or GMs use those rules, especially those rules that grant them goals and judgment such as Paladin concept.

To use a slightly different example, in the HERO Rules the Stealth ability costs 3 points, points used to buy your character stats and abilities. Out of the box, that's we may say that is mechanically 'balanced'. But such balance can easily fail if the GM is running a Social Romance campaign when the Stealth skill is never used. Or it can be under-costed if the GM is calling for multiple Stealth rolls per session for each character. Rules are very useful, but they are as dumb as bricks. They live only through us.

How people can ignore the players and the GM when evaluting rules and the roles of concepts is a complete mystery to me. But if anything it's becoming more common.


"especially if the player actually wants to play a generally nice guy.", Antioch

I would hope that people playing their characters want to play their character, their weaknesses and limits as well as their strengths. I must wonder at people who want their players to run character they don't want to. And I wonder more at players who stay at that gaming table.

Just because a player is willing, or even enjoying playing under limits that others don't- doesn't mean those limits don't apply.


"I dont care if paladins are supposedly called upon by gods to perform heroic deeds. Its really just a concept, and I dont want their holier-than-thou auras overshadowing the rest of the cast, just 'cause.", Antioch

This was the one completely correct thing Antioch stated. If he doesn't want them, he shouldn't be required to take them.

Running a campaign with a Paladin in the mix is demanding, it will and should take on a air very different than your typical campaign and it's certainly not suited for all groups. I've seen many players in mine and related campaigns attempt to run a Paladin, and after encountering the challenges in do so- give up and went back to the 'lowly' Fighter with his much greater range of freedom and in comparsion care-free life.

Where Antioch (and many modern game designs including 3rd and 4th edition D&D) errors is not refusing to accept the Paladin concept, but instead sticking the players with some pretend 'combat balanced' class with the name of something they are not.

Paladins Shouldn't be Balanced

It's Friday so it's time for a look around the web to see if there's anything to comment on. This post over at Points of Light caught my attention. It's all about how the Paladin is in fact a balanced class in 4th Edition.

I find the point somewhat amusing. The Paladin, a divine warrior- balanced? To ask the question is to highlight that something is missing out of the gate. There is no ratioanl reason for a Paladin to be 'balanced', they are called by God (or god for those multiple deity worlds although IMO splitting Paladins from their Judo-Christian background is a serious mistake). They were called to BE unbalancing. They are there to correct a wrong that cannot otherwise be corrected. Anything else does the concept a disservice.

This is what they were in original D&D. ALL the abilities of a Fighter plus MORE. In exchange for such power, they had a number of social limits. Only that wealth (in money and gear) needed for the task combined with a very high bar of alignment behavior. To fail in meeting those limits was to become a mere Fighter.

So balance as Points of Light is considering it (i.e. combat balance) is absurd on its face. Let Paladins be Paladins, they are more than just a difference of style or professional choice.

HERO System: Does Call of Cthulhu

I've mention before that one example of useful Personality Mechanics is the metaphysical attack, effectively something outside the character's mind damaging his mental abilities (as opposed to him giving into his own weaknesses).

I used Call of Cthulhu as a possible example, although with that system the players and GM have to define the mechanics to work that way.

Here's how you manage the same concept n HERO System, plus gain the advantage of the cause behind the effect being clear:

• Insanity Transform: target to insane version of the target (Minor 10 pts per die): 1d6; No End Cost (+1/2), Continuous (+1), Persistent (+1/2), Based on Ego Combat Value- affects Ego (+1), Area Effect- Radius 4x (+1 1/2), Adds Damage to other CoC Insanity Transforms (+1/2), Fully Invisible (+1), Can affect individual targets only once per encounter (-1), Always on (-1/4), No Range (-1/2). Total Active Points 70, Real Cost: 25 points.

Each creature that causes insanity would buy this ability. One can buy more effect die to represent the more Sanity Blasting creatures. That would also increase the radius of the effect (4" per die) and that suits my tastes. You could for the worst of the setting even add Mega-Scale to the Area Effect and have it blast entire cities with its mere presence...

While this handles the basic CoC Sanity Mechanic, you might want something to represent the short term immediate impact of encountering fearsome critters. Try this:

• Fearsome: +1d6 PRE (5 pts), may only be used for Presence Attacks based on Fear (-1). Active Cost 5 pts, Real Cost 2 pts.

Again, more dice can be brought for the more fearsome encounters. Presence Attacks in HERO nicely represent the immediate "oh my..." reaction. Unlike the transform above the effect is likely limited to a single Character Phase.

The above is a slightly different favor than the CoC mechanic, but hits all the core requirements of the setting.

Personality Mechanics: NPCs

Finishing up the series on Personality Mechanics, we have another possible good usage. While PMs are restrictive and often breaking of role-playing by players- they can actually be quite useful for GMs who typically play their NPCs from a much higher level and greater distance.

Some NPCs are as fully formed as any PCs, and those will encounter the same problems I've detailed previously. Most however are spear carriers and minor characters that the GM likely put little thought into, and are in any case less dependable and more subject to wild flights of behavior in any case.

Such minor PCs can make full use of any PMs to provide inspired moments of RP and interesting twists to the campaign. If combat is a focus, Morale rules are an obvious choice. One must be careful not to involve too much bookwork- otherwise the added burden could easily exceed the benefits gained.

For some genres, this is even accurate simulation. Many horror stories for example has secondary characters fall to insanity or overwhelming terror while the main character keeps his head. Most rpg campaigns are concerned with the lives of 'Heroes', and giving PMs rule over non-heroes is yet another way of highlighting the difference.

So if one encounters a otherwise interesting system that includes troublesome PMs, consider restricting their use to NPCs that you wouldn't put significant Role-playing investment in. They result may be better than dropping them completely.

Personality Mechanics: Genre Conventions

Now that I've covered the downsides of Personality Mechanics, I thought I'd look at a couple of the upsides. One of the reasons given for having them at all is to represent the genre being played. That people should be afraid in horror, or be influenced in political intrigue.

I'm of the opinion that players should role-play such things, because that's really the point of a role-playing game in the first place, and that any mechanical system will restrict that range of role-play and wreck the players internal model of both the character and the world.

Some genres however are a tid bit different. Settings such as Call of Cthulhu, Deadlands- the Weird West, and Dark Heresy are about creatures and threats that may well not just be frightening- they may actually on a psychic level induce terror and shatter minds. An actual metaphysical attack every bit as real as any physical one.

Thus any result that breaks with the player's model of the character can be viewed in the same light as any outside mind control- it broke the model because it in-game broke the model. This is far more acceptable to me than a mechanic intended to in effective role-play my character for me.

Of the three examples, Deadlands provides the best system both for the fact that it offers a range of results that vary by the 'level' of the threat, and for a good number of Edges and advancement options that allow experienced characters to overcome these attacks much like experienced characters can overcome physical ones. Dark Heresy shares some of these although not to the same extent, while CoC provides little help in this area.

Making the Personality Mechanic external to the character removes much of the sting. Allowing in-game methods to defeat the Mechanic completely overturns it, making it a true force for the character to combat and defeat.

So not all PMs are actually PMs, and not all of them are bad. It depends upon the setting and the use.