Paladin of Love

[Major Moab]

Just as an exercise, I was trying to build a paladin of some love god/dess. The main concept being that his powers would derive from the multiple aspects of love, both positive and negative. Hence, the challenge would manifest as an overwhelming feeling of jealousy, the buffing powers would derive from affection and camaraderie, and the "splashy effects would derive from lust and passion.

Unfortunately, with the tools I have available, this was not an easy build. Very few of the powers in the paladin's world derive from emotional concepts. And none of the paragon paths lend themselves to this ideas.

So my question for my fellow enworlder's:
How would you realize this character on paper? How would you justify his abilities? And what modifications would be necessary to the stereotypical paladin to realize him in full, both toward optimization, and to his detriment? And what god would you use? Sehanine seems like "love" is an afterthought for her.

 

[Mengu]

Sune is the first goddess I can think of for Love, but that's a FR deity. Sehanine should be fine. You just need to create your own dogma within the religion. You could approach it from a love is unconditional (neutral) stand point, as many other aspects of Sehanine seem to preach neutrality.

Everything can be attached an emotion. It's just fluff. Enfeebling Strike and similar powers that give penalties or weaken, could invoke longing and despair, sapping away the will of a creature to fight. Powers that daze or stun like Radiant Delirium might put the creature in a serendipitous state, making them less responsive to their current surroundings. Powers that pull, like Call to Arms could be the beckoning of your goddess. Astral Thunder could be the wail of a forgotten love, or a song of harpies.

Build whatever paladin you want, and you can lovify it afterwords, and maybe make a few fitting tweaks.

 

[Incenjucar]

My Invoker of Love uses powers that punish enemies on undesired behavior, such as Offering of Justice, Mantle of the Infidel, or Vanguard's Lightning.

Basically, "Be loving or die."

It works out quite well.

 

[RavenBlackthorne]

How about creating an Ardent, but playing him as a zealot of a god's faith? The majority of the Ardent's powers are about manipulating emotion? Just an idea. I don't want it to come across as a "don't bother trying" post, because the idea of re-fluffing really appeals to me. It was just that it sounded like your main aim was to create an emotional based character, rather than a "defender with leader secondary". Just went at it from the other direction!

 

[ppaladin123]

Actually Sune has an associated paragon path called, "Heartwarder" that is very good for paladins.

Also check out the Divine feats: Power of Love and Loving Sacrifice (though the former isn't very good).

You might also want to check out the very good paladin guide over on the wotc boards:

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I think you'll find a lot of powers and feats that can be flavored with aspects of lust, love, sacrifice, jealousy, etc.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6677003]Major Moab[/MENTION]
There a feat in Dragon called Duty's Virtue which gives you more healing in a self-sacrificial way, which certainly could be seen as the epitome of love.

Or...

Name him Leon Phelps and use every sex euphemism you can find in the most innocent and high-minded way possible.

 

[Unwise]

My vote would be like Blackraventhorn, i would go for an Ardent as a paladin of love. They are all about sending emotions to all of those around them and using that to cripple enemies and help allies. Seems like a pretty good choice for a chosen one of a love god/dess.

<edit> Also it would really pay to be a class with a good charisma. If you chose paladin you would likely want to be a Cha based one, the idea of being a unattractive follower of love is a little unusual.

 

[Incenjucar]

<edit> Also it would really pay to be a class with a good charisma. If you chose paladin you would likely want to be a Cha based one, the idea of being a unattractive follower of love is a little unusual.

You're confusing love and lust.

Love would actually have more to do with Wisdom, since that brings insight and empathy. D&D does tend to attatch it to physical attractiveness, as do many real-world mythologies, but love is caring for someone, not just wanting to rip their clothes off - a follower of love could easily be a kindly old wrinkly person who bakes everyone cookies.

 

[DracoSuave]

You're confusing love and lust.

Which means it's appropriate for the OP's depiction of the diety's portfolio.

 

[Ramius613]

When I saw this thread, it immediately brought to mind the episode of Xena where Ares and Aphrodite got switched. Ares, God of Love. Lol.