I know that the rules say that a paladin must be lg but why should this be the case? As far as I understand it a Paladin is a warrior who fights for his God and gets special powers as a blessing, why then do we not have True Neutral Paladins for Helm ( he is neutral isn't he), Chaotic Evil Paladins for Talos. On a simillar note why do the y have to be humans surely Mazzys god would favour her in the same way as she favours humans and give her paladin powers. Seems to me that a true neutral paladin would be great fun to play.

you're messing clerics up with paladins,
they are lawfull good cause............they're goody goody guys

In BG 2 they makers have only decided to bring in the paladin type who only strive for peace and justice, thus deeming them the Lg alignment, but on the pnp version of Ad&d there is also the fallen paladin with its own abilities (which are basically naught but is fairly easy to regain the full paladin status, usually by means of some task) and the dark paladin which strive for the dark order which makes them Le. I personally would like to see a dark paladin so that I could choose an evil fighter other than a regular standard fighter.

I'm not confusing clerics with paladins, just as clerics can be of any faith and religion why can't paladins. Is it only good gods who help their sworn warriors? A dark paladdin would be fun to play but so would a neutral one, a bit like a cleric but with a shiny suit of armour!

Rhodry, I won't get smarting about alignment, but it seriously hurts my feelings that I (half-elf) can't be paladin. Racists!

That's so called d&d rules. Those rules offend me and I hate 'em.

They changed that in 3rd ed. Any race can now be any class. Maybe the will change that too in ToB.

if you guys to any time to read any previews on tob you would have seen that clerics can now become paladins...

The paladin must be Lawful Good because his is the epitome of all things that humans strive to be. Naturally leaving the implication that if you don't strive for those things than you aren't human.

But they really are supposed to be the fighting force of the best of humanity.

Yes, only humans could be paladins in first and second edition, for good reason. Other races version of a paladin is called a warrior/cleric (basically)

theres a great thread on this in the AD&D forum I believe.

Read Le Morte De Artur. When lancelot falls from being lawfull good, what happens? He runs off to france and becomes a barbarian.

It's just a bad idea to aproach this from our real-world viewpoint. Haflings aren't short humans, elves aren't humans with pointy ears. Maybe the fact that they ever used the word "race" was a mistake from the begining. I would have to read up a bit more on faerun to apply this precisely to BG, but these different people wheren't even created by the same gods.
All races got thier special gifts. One of the few gifts humans got was the ability to be paladins.
And well, if you ever played pnp back in the day...straight 3 dice rolls arranged to taste without allowing point trading...paladins where almost always the weakest fighter you had because that 17 had to be in CHA. As the game was originaly designed, it wasn't some huge advantage, just different.

[This message has been edited by jester1137 (edited June 01, 2001).]

To be a Paladin you have to be a human and act lawful good for the goal of every paladin is helping other and always do good. So if you don't, you fail to be a paladin... and you fall. This is because it's not that you're race paladin. A paladin is just a fighter who has the intentions to be a paladin and who is member of a paladin's order.

I think that´d be cool if you could play as a fallen paladin. (With new abilities of course!)
I think that there is some site that I´ve been to where you can download new kits, for example fallen paladin wich can summon undead and such, but I´ve forgotten the adress. If I find it I will post it to you.

its in this sites download section for BG2, editors, hacks, and custom characters i think is the section.

Why would you need a palladin kit to summon undead. Normal palladins already can do that

Oh and by the way you can already play as a fallen paladin!
You just let your rep drop and your name changes to Fallen Paladin and then you can lead Viconia, Edwin and korgan with a Paladin!