Clerics and Paladins, Warriors and Priests

[Merlion]

This has been on my mind for a while now and I'd like to get some other opnions.
Now as virtualy all of you know, I am against the alignment restriction for paladins. I feel that if they are supposed to be holy champions of goodness and justice they should have to be good not neccsarily lawful. if all gods get clerics why shouldnt all gods get holy warriors/knights/champions?
Well in the course of my thoughts and discussions on this matter I have realized how much overlap their is between the two classes...especialy if you figure on paladins being universal. The Cleric steps on the Paladins toes. Or I suppose it could be seen the other way around.
Clerics are the priests, the earthly servants of deities, powers or forces. clerics are usualy used to represent many things....maybe to many. the village priest. the scholar priest. the warrior-cleric of Tempus. They are supposed to be priests who are capable of physicaly defending themselves and others.
The paladin is the divine champion, the warrior of the church. he is devoutly religious in whatever sense...may well be considererd a memeber of the clergy...and gains some divine powers including spells. But he is primarily a warrior. he's got the best base attack progression and can use all armors and essentialy all weapons, and a d10 HD.
But the thing is the cleric can fill the role of "holy champion/knight/warrior" almost as well as the paladin. And still fill the role of the priest and master divine spellcaster. To the point where seemingly the Cleric makes the paladin almost redundant and at the same time almost doesnt fit into some of his own roles. He's got the next best BAB, can use all armor and shields, and simple weapons...and if he's got the War Domain probably another quality weapon for free...or at the most the price of a single feat. and a d8 HD..only one type down from the Paladin. but would the all-but-cloistered scholar priest or even the divinely blessed vicar of a small town have thease qualities? and do the make the Paladin somewhat redundant?
Now I am not saying the way things are is bad, broken, or doesnt work. But it does seem a little off.
I know a lot of people here use what amount to variant cleric classes. I saw one called the Ecclesiastic in the Net Book of Classes that was like a divine wizard..d4 lowest BAB etc and got more skills and knowledge related benefits.
So one could replace the cleric with something like that. Or have all 3...although that probably just makes it worse as then all 3 step on each others toes.
Probably if one is going to change it, altering the cleric slightly would be the best way. Of course its really an issue for those of us who would house rule away the alignment restriction for paladins.
Well anyway enough rambling. I apologize if that was a tad incoherent. I just find the whole thing interesting and would like to get other viewpoints

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Well you could make the Adept class the actual clergy, the Cleric class as their fighting priests and Paladins as the religious head of all the rest of the fighting faithful. It really comes down to individual campaign specifics, non-Clerics could be religious too.

I believe that Sepulchrave II (story hour) uses experts and prestige classes a lot in the main religion's hierarchy.

In my campaign world, the Paladin is a special independant agent of one specific diety. They talk and theorize with their priests but have their own wee agendas.

 

[Merlion]

Well if you gave the adept a full spell progression something like that could work.
I guess I am thinking in terms of archtypes. and although "solutions to the problem" are interesting I'm looking more specficaly for opnions on the issue.
I get the impression that clerics are "supposed to be" the temple clergy. I mean many temples are outfitted with major spells and stuff. but many see them as the "holy warrior" class as well and they really can be.
I guess if I was to run a campaign I would probably create a variant cleric to be...well...the cleric, the priest...and have the Paladin be the holy warrior/knight champion. but I just mainly want to hear the thoughts of others...along with their treatments of it if they do change anything.

 

[haiiro]

Have you checked out the holy warrior class from Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous? It's specific to the pantheon presented in that book (although that pantheon is fairly generic, in a good way ), but the idea is malleable and extendable to other settings.

The holy warrior is basically a customizable paladin, with different abilities based on which deity she is a champion of. One of the combinations reproduces the PHB paladin's abilities, but all of the rest receive different things in place of turning undead, laying on hands, etc. It's a neat, well thought-out class -- definitely worth a look if you haven't already seen it -- and it addresses some of your concerns, IMO.

Monte's Book of Hallowed Might also presents a variant paladin class that includes options for chaotic good and neutral good paladins (who get different abilities), which seems like it might also be of use to you.

Both options will further differentiate the paladin from the cleric -- but I also really like FreeTheSlaves' suggestion: make the clergy and church functionaries adepts or experts. That sounds like it would work out quite well.

 

[Merlion]

I am going to check out the book of the righteous. I like Monte Cook's variant paladin...I dont really like the variant abilities for other classes tho especialy the NG(my personal alignment) one. it loses smite evil for a bless effect which I dont like. As far as my personal opnion I see the cleric as being more the problem than the paladin...if you call it a problem...if I was going to change things I'd use Montes paladin, remove the alignment restriction and change the cleric a bit. mainly, I just want other peoples views on the issue...wether they think their is one where they think it lies etc.

 

[jerichothebard]

Well you could make the Adept class the actual clergy, the Cleric class as their fighting priests and Paladins as the religious head of all the rest of the fighting faithful. It really comes down to individual campaign specifics, non-Clerics could be religious too.

In my campaign world, the Paladin is a special independant agent of one specific diety. They talk and theorize with their priests but have their own wee agendas.

That is exactly what I did in my world - the Clerics, Paladins, and Monks represent three really bad-ass orders of those whom the god (there's only one) has chosen as his own. The NPC Adepts, who can channel a little of the god's will, are the bulk of the clergy that actually does the real work of the day-to-day church organization - ministering, taxing, healing, teaching, etc. The adventurer classes are the main soldiers in the fight against the orcs and the undead.

And yeah, all three have different agendas - the paladins are extreme fundamentalists, the monks are chaotic freewheelers (I inverted the monk alignment restriction to create a rivalry), and the clerics try to keep the two from starting a holy civil war.

jericho