Lord Kain pretty much answered the question for me. The code of conduct you presented certainly makes these guys more Lawful than your typical LE character, but it's the Good/Evil axis which is the problem. They seem almost halfway between LE and LN.
Okay--my dilemma is that for every step I take in trying to make them really, really strict and non-Chaotic, that reads as a step toward Neutrality. Let me demonstrate.
1] They must honor and obey the rules of all Evil societies, in both letter and spirit, most importantly the laws of the sect of their own god.
This still runs counter to being lawful evil. Lawful evil societies still only respect the letter of the law. There is no spirit of the law in a lawful evil societiy.
No spirit of the law
at all? I have little to no knowledge of countries like Thay, but even so, I find that rather difficult to believe. If your superior gives you an order (e.g., "Go kill this person"), it's in
your best interest to do not just what he
said, but also what he
meant ("Go kill this person,
today, as opposed to next week or whenever you feel like it"), even if only to avoid the whuppin' that you would get when he found out that you didn't do what you knew damn well he wanted you to do.
So, true, this character restriction is more Lawful than Evil, but I honestly think that the way it caters to the laws of Evil societies should be Evil enough. How would you feel if the Evil Paladin only jumped to obey the wishes of his own church, and nobody else?
2] They may never break their word to anyone. They may intentionally mislead only creatures who are known to be of Good alignment or serve a Good god. Outright lies are forbidden at all times.
This is actually quite nice, It would force a player to keep being clever, (never actually giving his word or leaving a gaping loop hole in the contract)
This restriction is so like #1 (one deals with laws stated by the Paladin himself, the other with laws of a society, with the same bias toward Evil and against Good) that I find it puzzling that you should like one but not the other.
3] They may not kill through means of stealth, trickery, traps, or poison.
Evil loves stealth, trickery, traps and poison. The champion of evil should use all of these things.
The Poison I can see as an issue mostly relevant to the Good-Evil axis, but the idea of essentially lying to your enemy strikes me more as a Law-Chaos thing. I'm open to being convinced, however. I should also point out that from the very beginning, the wording I chose is that Evil Paladins may not
kill using these tactics.
4] Must work to gain the maximum advantage (to his god, lord, or society) out of any deal, stopping short of actual cheating or intentionally hiding pertinent information from other parties. The Paladin is under no obligation to reveal such information, however.
This is a more Lawful Neutral guide line. The lawful evil villian is supposed to cheat the other parties in the deal.
Would it help if I included an 'Evil over Good' bias in here as well, similar to #1 and #2?
5] Must fight honorably whenever possible: One-on-one duels, preferably with the opponent allowed to choose between ranged and melee combat. The Paladin is, however, encouraged to deny any request for mercy, provided he was ever in any actual danger.
The evil paladin should use any tactic they see fit. Some might be "honorible" and like the 1 on 1 duel. Especially as the dark paladin would be facing several heroes at once.
Since the only Evil part of this rule is not allowing the enemy to surrender, yeah, I can see how this is too oriented toward Law as opposed to Evil. Maybe if he was only required to fight in single combat if requested or challenged to do so, or if the enemy was known to be non-Good in alignment, or something. Or maybe the Evil Paladin could be urged to challenge the enemy leader to single combat at all times--but is not allowed to discourage his companions from turning invisible and Backstabbing the other guy in the middle of the duel.
Or maybe this one should be abandoned altogether.
6] Must support and defend those in need, provided those in turn honestly pledge fealty to the Paladin's god, lord, or society.
You need to add or pay him a great deal.
Good call.
7] May not accept anything suspected of being stolen, nor knowingly derive any benefit from any crime.
Lawful evil guys steal, lawful evil socities steal, Evil steals alot. The lawful evil villian just shouldn't get caught
Again, I'm seeing crime more as a factor on the Law-Chaos axis than Good-Evil. How about "all items or wealth suspected of being stolen must immediately be donated to the Paladin's church?"
8] May never intentionally wrong a friend or ally unless a full and fair warning is issued well in advance.
Define "advance"
"I'll agree to go to this girl's castle with you and check out the odds, but if you allow said castle to end up in the hands of anybody as concerned with the "poor and unfortunate" as
that hopelessly misguided bit of skirt, I swear I'll run you through, whether we're members of the same party or not."
Your evil paladin code doesn't help them on the path of evil just law.
A good paladins code is ment to keep them on the path of good.
Okay. Feel free to make suggestions to change the code to make it more Evil.
Nearly everyone on Faerun is devoted to a god of somekind. We also disagree on how closly a paladin is tied to thier god. Your saying they are just as tied to the gods as clerics. I'm saying there not.
By that, I'm assuming that you mean, their devotion to their god is
less than a Cleric's. That's clear enough; a Cleric gets 7 levels of spells with 9+ spellslots per level, while a Paladin only gets 4 levels and 3 spellslots of each. That's the tradeoff that the Paladin makes to get Warrior combat stats. Or, to put it differently, Paladins
are just as devoted as Clerics, just in another way: Clerics strive to understand their god and let him act through them, while Paladins are content to serve their god and act as his enforcers.
If you reduce a paladin to a simple geshant of fighter and cleric. It becomes easy to play. Just pick a god thats easy for you to roleplay under.
I'm assuming "geshant" means "combination." I should point out that where certain overpowered Paladin-specific items are not concerned, a Fighter/Cleric is more powerful than a Paladin any day of the week. That's why I think introducing Evil Paladins is a great way to encourage more roleplay, instead of just forcing players to make Evil Fighter/Clerics. What's
wrong with choosing a god that fits your style, such as Tymora? Whether or not it's easy to play is a matter caused by an individual kit, not whether there can be Paladins of Evil gods in the first place.
The blackguard has evil versions of many of the paladins good abilites. However a blackguard is not immune to disease or fear like a normal paladin. They can't use lay on hands, unless they are also a fallen paladin in which case there's is self only.
All of this would work quite well for an Evil Paladin. I'm tempted to say they should get some other kind of immunity to compensate for not being immune to disease, but it happens so rarely in-game that it's about as useful as being immune to Intoxication. In place of Lay On Hands, they should get a variation of Vampiric Touch: A touch-range spell that saps 1 hitpoint per Paladin's level, and adds it to the Paladin's hp.
Borsook: How's that? As for healing spells, Evil people bleed too. Healing is too basic a need to have it dependent on alignment.
A blackguard can use posion with out risk of posioning themself, they can also do some bonus sneak attack damage like a rouge but no where near as good. There spellcasting is also a bit below a paladin's level. .... But a blackguard has no code and can be any evil alignment.
See, that's what
I don't want: Evil Paladins should have a very sharply defined code and should be 1 step more Lawful than their god. Including Blackguards is fine, but Evil Paladins should be an option as well.
As for how these traits would work with an Evil Paladin, I don't think he would condone using Stealth or illusions to the degree that he would actually Backstab someone himself, nor do I think his spellcasting abilities should suffer simply because he's Evil. I also don't see how this detail about Poison would be that relevant.
the anti-paladin shouldn't be quite as powerful as the Good one, because they should be free to be evil in any fashion.
Again I must insist that I
really don't want the overall power to be a function of alignment. Surely this would be better handled by increasing the Evil Paladin's roleplaying restrictions, as opposed to taking away his abilities.
A major problem for the kit in baldur's gate is coding issues trying to maintain the seperate fallen coding for the standard paladin and the evil kit. Other people who've attempted the anti-paladin made it a fighter kit, with a must be human and evil resitriction.
If the engine simply cannot handle a Paladin that Falls at
high values of Rep/Virtue instead of
low ones, that indeed would be a problem. But if so, I feel confident that someone like SimDing0 or Andyr or Ghreyfain would have mentioned it by now. Personally, I consider Weimer's Anti-Paladin kit to be more of a bad joke than anything meant to be taken seriously--or, god forbid, used as a positive example.
Class: Fighter kit Blackguard
Race: Human (for now)
Alignment: Any Evil
ADVANTAGES:
- Special Ability of Detect Good 1x/day per level
- Special Ability of Protection from Good 1x/day per level
- Can cast the 3rd-level spell "Unholy Blight" 1xday per four levels
- Can cast invisbilty 1x/day
- Can backstab for x2 damage at level 15.
- May use weapons reserved for Evil Fighters and Paladins, such as Unholy Reavers
- No penalty for losing Virtue.
DISADVANTAGES:
- Does not gain ability to Detect Evil
- Does not gain ability of Protection from Evil
- Can not turn undead or cast spells beyond the ones granted above.
- Can not lay on hands.
- May not use weapons reserved for Good Paladins, such as Holy Avengers
- Turn Undead ability can Charm Undead instead of destroying them
- Will lose status if Virtue rises above 6.
Unfortunately, while your intentions were good, your design for a Blackguard kit shares many of the same errors that Weimer built into the Anti-Paladin: Your Disadvantages section merely states that the Blackguard is denied a whole bunch of things that
Fighters do not get anyway. So, essentially, they suffer the "limitations" of being Evil and having to stay that way, and in return they get to cast Detect Good, Protection from Good, Unholy Blight, and Invisibility, and they can Turn Undead and Backstab--in full armor, too. You can just imagine how munchkin a high-level Blackguard->Mage would be. That's why I
strongly prefer that Evil Paladins be based off the
Paladin class: Gains levels slowly, weapon specialization capped at 2 stars, Turn Undead, an alignment-specific assortment of Cleric spells, the inability to Dual-class. [ADD:] Oh, and the -2 bonus to Saving Throws. [/ADD]
Honestly I was quite sure we were talking about the nature of paladins in D&D in general, not just in BG terms.
Each influences the other, to my mind. After all, ideally the only difference between the two is that one is played on a tabletop, and the other is played on a desktop.