Make Every Race Able to Play Paladin

Classes Paladin
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I’ve always felt that this canonical character essentially negates any arguments about “who can channel holy power”.

If a Dreadlord can be a Paladin then … wait, that undersells it …

If a Dreadlord can be the High Commander of the Army Of the Light, then anyone should be able to at least join up.

The dude is chilling in my class hall right now!

When I became Highlord, I took him into my service.

If I can do that; the surely I can take a former knight of Lordaeron, who fell in battle and was brought back and dedicated themselves to the Light and mentor and train them.

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22

There is no reason not to at this point. Especially for night elves, orcs, undead, void elves etc. Can make all of those work pretty easily but definitely should be all eventually.

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23

Yes . I cant wait for a gnome paladin.

24

They kind of retconned the Nathrezim from being demons to being constructs of Denathrius, designed to adapt to and embody any element they meet. In essence, the demonic Nathrezim we first knew were actually Nathrezim who had come to serve the Legion, and so adapted to fel energies, whereas Lothraxion merely changed his “alignment” to the light.

Tl:dr; I don’t agree with restricting Paladins, but the Nathrezim are designed to come in multiple flavors by Denathrius.

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25

Retcon being the operative word.

Maybe they can just retcon forsaken to be able to channel and embody the light.

Their lore is a mess at this point so the purists who still feel that anyone but humans, and begrudgingly, dwarves, should be allowed to be paladins heed to go play 1st and 2nd edition D&D which is where that originated.

26

Well, they actually did retcon the lore. Apparently undeath is just the act of binding a soul back to its body. You can apparently use any energy to perform the rite, not just unholy energy. That’s why Calia is so well preserved, they used the light to do it.

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27

Undead has been able to use the Light since vanilla. Undead priests.

The justification is it really hurts them, though.
If any race can be both a priest and a warrior, they should be able to be a paladin.

It does feel weird, though.

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28

Lore-wise, there were only two forms of Paladin:

  1. A knight or sworn blade in a martial holy order (e.g., the Order of the Knights of the Silver Hand, as created by Alonsus Faol and itself the martial branch of the Church of Holy Light), who at least allegedly carried at least some form of holy blessing. (Though in the post-war years, some offshoots were better known for murdering purported mages and witches, and dedication to the cause certainly trumped any magic-wielding ability in terms of fit, so take the actual divine blessing/mission bits each with a grain of salt.)
  1. A literal priest who has been trained for martial service (e.g., in the capacity of a knight, squire, or man-at-arms). Notable examples include Turalyon, who, before joining the front, was simply your typical slightly bookish priest, and Uthar, who was apprentice cleric to then-Bishop Alonus Faol before becoming a knight of Lordaeron.

More generally / irl: The word “paladin” just comes from the Latin palatinus / palatine – i.e., a retainer of a palace (be it papal or, far more often, simply royal). A royal guard will very literally be paladins. A papal guard, the same.

Lordaeron had something of a state religion (Tirenus was also essentially the [figure]head of the faith in coordination with the various Archbishops, just as he coordinated with the loosely connected Lords of the aptly named Lordaeron), so in Uthar’s case, the two were the one and the same.

Edit:
Man, this stuff makes me want a A Council of Lords / Lord of the Clans RTS (perhaps in place of WC4 since it’d compete so much in timeline / lore construction with WoW) that can really flesh out the political minutia of northern kingdom(s) and of the later-day Old Horde…

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29

The difference between a mage and a warrior using a magic sword.

That said, here paladins do both. They have at least subtly done so since WC3, but especially since Vanilla. So, the distinction is kind of mute.

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Only people who don’t know pally lore says this…

Tuaren and zanda trolls is embued by light from the entities they worship.

Blood elves is embued from the light within the sunwell.

Alliance paladins is embued with light from rituals inside churches.

They are the same, each paladin is embued with the light.

You forgot the rituals of being embued by the light parts. Yes training is required, but you don’t fully become a paladin until that ritual in WoW.

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Until WoW, all Paladins were Lorderanean. Though increasingly many among what knights Alonus Faol could poach from the national garrisons were trained in the priestly arts, not all were despite becoming paladins, and any ritual of imbuement was almost wholly metaphorical. The overall idea of the Silver Hand was to do for Lordaeran what the Clerics of Northshire had done for Stormwind, but less attrition (lesser chance of casualties); to Faol, that meant better martial training for the priests, and training enough to heal and endure long hours of exertion for those knights already otherwise well capable. That would eventually capitalize in teaching them how to be a vessel of the light but back then that was largely metaphorical; the main strength “The Light” granted was of little difference from, say, Bunshi (a warrior’s spirit) or other concepts related to meditation or “battle trance,” etc. Its job was to keep you sharp, efficient, undespairing.

  • That precedent mentioned above for the Order of Knights of the Silver Hand (the “paladins,” or retainers of the kingdom as a whole —instead of any single lord’s levy— whose chief focus was on the communities less valued or aided by the individual city-states) was the efforts by the (Holy Order of the) Clerics of Northshire before they lost nearly the entirety of their forces in the first war. They, in turn, treated the greater area of Stormwind (the city-state turned kingdom) as their domain, and worked in the conjunction with the Stormwind Army (which, though for good reason, prioritized the most long-term critical encounters over lives saved in the short-term), just as the (Order of the) Silver Hand’s paladins later would work alongside the Army of Lordaeran (though its situation was a bit… messier, especially during less strained times, due to Lordaeran being less centralized than Stormwind was).
  • In both cases, they were a national pseudo-volunteer force chartered as an independent wing of or allied to the royal armies and focused on protecting the citizenry while forsaking any narrower sectional affiliations.
This, by the way, is the only direct recounting we have of, prior to WoW, anything like the ceremony you speak of. You'll note the blessing involves no Na'aru or glowing light or even magic or the like, but merely a commencement pledge:

Archbishop Alonsus Faol: In the Light, we gather to empower our brother. In its grace, he will be made anew. In its power, he shall educate the masses. In its strength, he shall combat the shadow. And, in its wisdom, he shall lead his brethren to the eternal rewards of paradise.

The Archbishop closed the book and turned toward the men on the left.

Alonsus Faol: Clerics of the Northshire, if you deem this man worthy, place your blessings upon him.

One of the clerics comes with a blessed dark blue embroidered stole in his hands, which he placed reverently around Arthas’ neck. Then, he dipped his thumb in a small vial of sacred oil and anointed Arthas’ forehead.

Cleric: By the grace of the Light, may your brethren be healed.

The Archbishop turned to the men on the right.

Alonsus Faol: Knights of the Silver Hand, if you deem this man worthy, place your blessings upon him.

Two of the armored men comes, the first laid the warhammer before Arthas’ feet. The second, Uther the Lightbringer, placed the silver plates upon Arthas’ shoulders.

Gavinrad: By the strength of the Light, may your enemies be undone.

Alonsus Faol: Arise and be recognized.

Arthas stood up in front of the Archbishop.

Alonsus Faol: Do you, Arthas Menethil, vow to uphold the honor and codes of the Order of the Silver Hand.

Arthas Menethil: I do.

Alonsus Faol: Do you vow to walk in the grace of the Light and spread its wisdom to your fellow man?

Arthas Menethil: I do.

Alonsus Faol: Do you vow to vanquish evil wherever it be found, and protect the weak and innocent with your very life?

Arthas Menethil: By my blood and honor, I do.

The Archbishop closed the book and walked back toward the center of the altar, he turned to face the entire assembly.

Alonsus Faol: Brothers — you who have gathered here to bear witness — raise your hands and let the Light illuminate this man.

Each of the clerics and knights raised their right hands and pointed toward Arthas, empowering him with the holy light.

Alonsus Faol: Arise, Arthas Menethil — Paladin defender of Lordaeron. Welcome to the Order of the Silver Hand.

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33

Yes and no, while i appreciate your perspective of it, the ritual is not just a metaphor.

Besides our differences in veiws, until blizz, and or wow writers, actually give us a more clear updated lore on classes we have very l8ttle to go off of this includes, how each of us see the class and how they become who they are.

This happens to many classes thou, not just pallys, there really needs to be more lore completions done by blizz to explain these things, where they come come out and just straight up say whats possible and whats not.

Until then, what people read from the books and in game lore is all they can go off of, which means there will be many perspectives of what a paladin is or isnt, the rituals or lack of.

34

Try telling that to the arthas novel with it explaining exactly what was happening.

35

No, people who realize that there isn’t anything special about the race of the character itself that allows them to be paladins say this. You go on to claim that Tauren are filled with the light by what they worship, but orcs can choose so worship the same thing if they want. Rare? Probably. Possible? Yes.

There’s nothing special about the lore of these races that should exclude paladins. They even put a night elf paladin in the game themselves.

Let’s be real for a second. The reason this isn’t happening is so they can do it later to get another surge of race change $.

36

I think a lot of people tend to overvalue the role of the player character. As far as any canonized lore, our “role” is fulfilled by a nameless adventurer/soldier/champion who aided the big-named NPCs during the event. The game is designed so that players get a firsthand experience of events, but that’s just how Blizz keeps players engaged with the story.

There’s a distinct disconnect between gameplay and lore that a lot of people fail to grasp. Players can be whatever we want as the lore restrictions still exist, but we aren’t literally a part of the lore.

I can agree that Blizz could stand to stop introducing asynchronous class trainers of certain races, but even then that doesn’t mean we need to be shackled by it.

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Ff online is that way ------>

Player charecters represent the racial culture.

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Right, because there has never been a single racial exception in the entirety of wow’s lore. Because all races are culturally monolithic and never deviate from their shared existence. Never been any civil wars, cultural splits, or power struggles over the ideal of a race and its people. Never, no, who could think such a thing?

40

Sorry but if that’s your rebuttal, it shows you have no logical counter. /discussion

41

N ah, just had this discussion so many times with the same statements from others making excuses that racial culture/personalities should be ignored to make this game into another game like FF online that it get’s boring to keep rebutting over and over again, I much prefer to just keep telling you.

You could I dunno, go also read the arthas book, and go look up the thousand sources of paladin lore all over the internet instead turning blue in the face and screaming at the people who are actual fans of the class that likes what makes the class lose what the class feels special with and ruining it for everyone else.

Oh, and just to help you to point you in the right direction;

Also betting you’ll make another reply saying a total of nothing stating you could care less and they should be playable in every race too.