Is it possible to play a Unitarian paladin in 5e?
Also knighty art thread.
>>45259863
What's a Unitarian?
>>45259968
According to wikipedia:
>Unitarianism is historically a Christian theological movement named for the affirmation that God is one entity, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism, which defines God as three persons in one being.[1]
>Traditional Unitarians maintain that Jesus of Nazareth is in some sense the "son" of God (as all humans are children of the Creator), but that he is not the one God himself.[2]
>They may believe that he was inspired by God in his moral teachings and can thus be considered a savior,[3] but all Unitarians perceive Christ as human rather than a Deity.
>Unitarianism is also known for the rejection of several other Western Christian doctrines,[4] including the soteriological doctrines of original sin and predestination,[5][6] and, in more recent history, biblical inerrancy.[7]
>Unitarians in previous centuries accepted the doctrine of punishment in an eternal hell, but few do today.
Can't see why you could not.
>>45259968
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism
Short answer, one who is against sectism, or dividing faiths. They are typically very open to other religious views, as they believe they all represent one God.
>>45259863
>Is it possible to play a Unitarian paladin
Oh sure, there are lots of ways you could run a paladin in creative ways that could be inspired by the unitar...
>in 5e
... no not really. 5e crunch and 5e fluff are pretty inseparable. It's actually what the playtest asked for so you shouldn't be surprised. If you're playing 5e, don't get too creative: just stck to something that can be accurately summed up with your [race]+[class]+[background] and have a backup or two. 5e games are more about the world, and less about the characters.
>>45259968
>>45260058
>>45260075
I think he is talking about Unitarian Universalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism
It's basically religion without religion.
>>45262407
At least put in a little effort
>>45260075
So a paladin of the Buha'I faith? That would be cool I guess.
>>45262407
False, crunch and fluff in 5e is just as separable as it was in 4e and 3e.
For example, my necromancer wizard's 'Grease' spell is actually a field of zombie hands growing from the ground. 'Disguise Self' is actually 'Wear Ghost'. 'Chill Touch' is 'throw a freezing cold skeleton bone'.
Refluffing is always cool and good in DnD.
Paladins in 5e don't even need to be religious at all anyway.
>>45262783
>'Chill Touch' is 'throw a freezing cold skeleton bone'.
3spooky5me
>>45262783
>crunch and fluff in 5e is just as separable as it was in 4e and 3e.
Which is it, as separable as they were in 4e (a lot, to the point where many players felt gyped out of their fluffs mattering) or as seperable as they were in 3e (not at all.) You can't lump those two together. They share six stats, some class names, and a brand, and that's it.
>>45262881
intentionally so, since the character himself is a mechanically a human, refluffed as a SpookyScarySkeleton.
he was so into his study that he forgot to eat, died, and didn't notice.
>>45262962
they share six stats, save names, battle mechanics (grid movement and attacks of opportunity) like bull rushing and charging, magic item names, monster names, monster themes, campaign settings, skills, etc.
People act like 4e is this weird different game when it's LITERALLY just 3e with fixed up mechanics and ten levels added on.
>>45259863
Maybe, but it'd be hard.
Paladin's are all about the religious zeal. Unitarians are religious folk with very little zeal and a whole lot of Mister Rogers style neighbour loving and acceptance. You'd be hard pressed to find a group more chill about how everyone else chooses to worship.
>>45262962
if that's the level you judge games on, then you must think 3e is this totally weird game that's nothing like 2e.
4e is MUCH closer to 3e than 3e is to 2e.
and it's pretty easy to separate fluff in both? you just describe shit different, I don't get what you mean
>>45262434
That's the Universal Life Church. Religion without religion, I mean.
I should know! I'm an ordained priest!
>>45263068
Paladins in 5e don't need to be religious at all. the book is pretty explicit on this point, describing a sample paladin swearing his oath on nothing more than "desperation and grief with the dead as his only witness".
Direct quote:
"Although many paladins are devoted to
gods of good, a paladin's power comes as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god."
'Many' paladins mean that not every paladin is devoted to gods.
>>45262962
I think people got attached to having a certain style of writing that mixed fluff and crunch.
I'm more of a fan of exposing the two.
Human life are already unclear enough without adding in confusion on purpose.
I will say that there is some limits to how you can streatch fluff around mechinics or vs versa, which is a bit way people don't like Rufus from SFIV as a fighting game character, because he's a self taught fast fighter who is supposed to be a normal human yet who is a tub of lard with no definition.
Paritcularly when you have other character like him who are waif with some serious ass muscles and some decently built 20 something guys, who play the same way and don't violate too much expectation (Cammy, Yun, and Yang).
>>45262407
>[race]+[class]+[background]
Outside of what you roleplayed, D&D was always about race-class combos. 3.5e was saved by virtue of having a downright gigantic array of races, classes, prestige classes, alternate classes and a good multiclassing system (if you ignore the multiclass penalties and favored classes, which everyone did) that allowed you to mix and match to your own desire. In that sense, 3.5e was a box of lego's.
I hope 5e will one day reach that level with enough splatbook support, but as for right now I'd say it's at least a step up from most other editions simply by allowing you to pick your skills as well as the introduction of backgrounds (I'd like to see even more backgrounds introduced in splatbooks, but it is stated that new ones can be made up at the DMs discretion). Backgrounds allow you to do things that are both fun and make sense mechanically. For example, not all sneaky guys need to be rogues or bards, you can now even make a stealthy fighter or barbarian with the right background. On top of that, it also allows you to mechanically introduce certain quirks, like the brutish barbarian who, despite of his fury and skill in combat, has developed a talent for baking pastries. Or maybe the cleric who has reformed from a life of crime, but still remembers some dirty tricks and still can't say no to a good game of dice.
In short, let's be fair and compare core 5e to core other editions. As much as I love 3.5e (maybe it's a bit of nostalgia too), core 5e trumps core 3.5e in most ways.
>>45263147
... despite being a massive fan of 4e who hate a lot of the love of 3.x, I can't help but love you.
I will say that 4e and 5e built off of 3.x for having launch character customization. (4e did powers and 5e basically make backgrounds from 4e's later years (not launch at the least) Launch.
I still will dislike 5e and 3e for making melee martial character uninteresting and mook-like.
>>45263136
DnD is a fantasy game just like Street Fighter is a fantasy universe.
Realism should never enter into it.
Game rules aren't a simulation of physics, they're an abstraction that lets us have fun.
>>45263264
Personally I never got into 4e (that's probably why I didn't know 4e did backgrounds first), but it did even the playing field for martials and casters. Aren't 5e mundane classes still pretty competent though?
>>45263076
>if that's the level you judge games on, then you must think 3e is this totally weird game that's nothing like 2e.
I did when 3e came out, and it made me quit D&D for almost a decade. 3e a shit, so much 2e grornard hate that will never die.
>4e is MUCH closer to 3e than 3e is to 2e.
That's where I'm going to have to dissagree with you. I know that the meme is 4e being an MMO, but 3e always felt very MMOtastic to me. You had to build with the last level in mind. The difference between high op and low op was so large it wasn't even funny. Most options never got used because they were intentionally traps. The online community was obsessed with optimization to to a huge degree where they started sounding like "competitive WoW players." Players became babys who complained when everything wasn't RaW with every book allowed.
Comparatively, 4e, while having "cooldowns" felt much more story focused, having mechanics essentially only for combat, and leaving everything else up to your imagination. The difference between low opp and high opp was there, but not disruptive to play, and the optimization community existed but nobody liked or talked to them.
As for refluff, I've never had an easier time making off the wall ideas work without any new mechanics whatsoever, and half the time, the players who weren't playing the refluffed class didn't even notice. It's only rare that a player notices that the monster they're fighting is just a refluffed [x.]
In 3em, and 5e, it's a different story. You can refluff sideways between types of spellcasters, maybe calling a sorcerer a favoured soul or something, but spells are irefutably spells, and non-spell options are fairly hard-wired to feel like what they were fluffed as. I've SEEN people try a "warlord" in 5e using a bard, and the hiccups weren't game destroying, but they were there (which they weren't for much weirder refluffs in 4e.) How come the warlord's inspiring speeches are disrupted by dispel magic?
>>45259968
Isn't it the zombie cult from Dead Space?
>>45263429
No, that's Scientology.
Er, *Unitology.
The difference is minimal, though.
>>45263404
5e martial classes are a bit better but caster supremacy is still a thing past level 10, if not earlier.
And some archetypes, like Beastmaster Ranger and Four Elements Monk, are a total joke. Also the Purple Dragon Knight from the SCAG.
>>45263404
>Aren't 5e mundane classes still pretty competent though?
Sort of. They are how mid-tier players viewed clerics in the 3e days: boring as fuck but necessary as a "just in case" button.
Instead of being a just-in-case someone gets hurt button (which could have been solved with a wand, leaving the cleric to end encounters said the high-op players.) SOMEONE needs to be able to do respectable damage once the casters are out of casts. That's literally it. Other than that, just spam your one repeatable option, and wait for the main characters to run out of slots and need rescuing.
>>45263561
True dat, though at least the eldritch knight, paladin and battle master have some other options.
>>45263426
>Most options never got used because they were intentionally traps.
I agree with the general thrust of your post, but this is a myth. Many options had very specialized purposes and were useless otherwise. The example often cited is toughness -- it can be life-saving for 1st level elven wizards, but is pretty much useless to anybody else. You're not supposed to feel clever for realizing that it's a trap option; you're supposed to feel clever for realizing that it can make a 1st level elven wizard more survivable even though it doesn't seem that great otherwise.
I still think this is shit design, especially since an elf nerd is the last person you'd expect to be "tough" (i.e. have toughness), but the whole "deliberate trap feats" idea about 3e just isn't true.
>>45263561
>Other than that, just spam your one repeatable option, and wait for the main characters to run out of slots and need rescuing.
I've not played 5e, and I've certainly not played 5e with your DM, but I was under the impression that mundane classes in TSR D&D (and, by extension, presumably 5e) were expected to do a lot of improvising. Tripping your opponents, kicking dust into their eyes, stuff like that.
>>45264400
1: you assumed wrong. None of the D&D systems have been built to handle improvising on the part of the martials well.
2: in 5e, all of that, no matter how creative, can be summed up in three words "you get advantage."
>>45264400
5E isn't built on improvising anything, because the only bonus built into the system is Advantage/Disadvantage, which doesn't stack.
So once you've applied disadvantage to an enemy, or advantage to yourself, you've accomplished everything the system is designed to do, unless your DM just hands out arbitrary roll bonuses on top of things.
>>45263068
>>45263130
In fact, there's an Oath in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide that is explicitly non-divine.
>>45260075
>Paladin thinks all sects represent one god/religion
>In a world where there are multiple gods
that's as retarded as an athiest cleric
>>45259863
>knighty art thread
i only came for this
tho i admit most of what i got is weeb fantasy knights
>>45269092
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman
>>45259863
I go to a Unitarian Universalist church myself. The religion was originally founded in Romania during the protestant reformation- the king basically said something along the lines of:
>"Guys, maybe we shouldn't be killing each other in the name of guy who said things like 'turn the other cheek' and 'do unto others as they would to unto you'- maybe we shouldn't worry about the details so much and be nice to each other? "
And thus passed the first religious tolerance laws.
A 5e UU paladin would probably be oath of devotion or ancients with the following tenets:
>Treat everyone you meet with a basic level of respect and dignity.
>Defend yourself and others with justice and compassion, do not attack out of hatred or spite.
>Respect other interpretations of the divine. Do not become dogmatic or narrow-minded.
>Lead by example. Do not proselytize or convert others by force.
>Listen to your conscience and consider consequences before acting, encourage others to do the same.
>Encourage democracy and discourage authoritarianism.
>>45273903
>>45273911
>>45273923
did you guys really forget the most knightly of knights
>>45275571
>not posting best knight
>>45275630
Heretic
>>45275571
>>45275630
>>45275662
Souls is trash
>>45275706
>>45275662
>>45275630
>>45275571
Peasants, please. You all know the true knight: Dragonslayer, royal guard, captain of the knights, last of his kind, ready to die while guarding an illusion just to act as a trial, honoring his fallen companions, even if they are cannibalistic trash...
We all can learn lessons of chivalry and duty from Ornstein
>>45275765
Artorias went alone into the abyss to stop the corruption. Sacrifices his shield to save Sif. Even when under so much corruption he tries to warn us to stay away.
Havel served the gods for a long time until he realized of their lies and tried to bring them to justice.
Also pic related, chivalry and duty aren't always the best ways to go
>>45275888
They may not be the best way to go, but as far as I know they're amongst the defining qualities of a knight/paladin. They don't have to be good persons, they have to honor the code.
>>45275630
Man, I wish there was a little more Tarkus in game, he seemed like a pretty great guy.
>>45276729
Tarkus is always a great guy.
>>45260075
>>45269092
Not really, it's how any "Lawful Neutral" paladin should work.
>The true heresy is your divisions!
>Too long have the temples feuded, their warriors slaying each other over minutae and meaningless principles
>Each temple in this way letting the chaos into your hearths and hearts!
>I say NO MORE!
>Today, I Unitus, Factol of The Order of Lawful Organisations, bring to thee a simple summons:
>Come fight under our banner against the Chaos!
>Worship seperately, but fight united!
>But fight seperately, and die to the chaos you unwittingly serve!
>BRETHREN UNDER GODS! TO ARMS!
