Taint as an Alternate Paladin Mechanic

Paladins are one of those classes that provoke a disproportionate amount of debate and/or hate. One of the big problems with Paladins is the use of alignment (a mechanic with a long history of pointless argument and other sturm and drang) to balance the extra goodies that Paladins get as a 'holy warrior' class. The need to maintain Lawful Good alignment and use only Good allies and henchmen can become a pain for the whole party; the Paladin player's choice of character ends up limiting what his fellow players can do and what concepts will work within the game. It might be great for high-immersion groups who are primarily interested in telling a good story, but as a game mechanism it's a source of tension and bother without an accompanying upside. If alignment is ignored (as 4e did, and as some DMs irritated by the whole thing certainly did in pre-4e), Paladins end up being rather flavorless- they're just a super-Fighter with magic powers.

The all-or-nothing nature of 'loosing' Paladinhood is also a particularly blunt instrument- either you're in the favor of your God, or you're not. There is no mechanic that reflects 'skating on thin ice' or a gradual descent into naughtyness- you're either one of the Divine Elect or you're a nobody. So here's an alternative:

Taint Points: Paladins start with a Taint score of zero. For every unlawful act they personally commit ('unlawful' in this case meaning out of alignment with the goals and values of the deity they serve), they gain one Taint point.

Taint Points in Play: Whenever a Paladin invokes a class ability, spell, or spell-like ability, roll 1d20. If the result is less than the current Taint score of the Paladin, the attempt to use the ability fails and that ability can not be used again that day until the Paladin has slept and prayed (i.e., the next time he has the opportunity to prepare spells for the day). This applies to casting spells, lay on hands, auras, turning undead, immunities, and other supernatural and spell-like effects, but not to base attack bonus/THAC0, level/attribute determined saving throws, weapon and armor use, etc.

Getting Rid of Taint Points: To get rid of Taint points, the Paladin must complete some action to bring himself back into the favor of his deity. This can include:

• An Atonement spell cast by a cleric at least two levels higher than the Paladin. The cleric will likely require the Paladin to complete some task (possible a Quest/Geas) to earn the spell, but not one as complex as the quest option described below. The cleric may also require a donation to his or her temple.
• Tithing 5% of the Paladin's current wealth to an appropriate temple. The donation can be cash or equivalent magic items/treasure. The donation must be for the use of the temple- the player/character can not, for example, donate treasure to a temple that is part of their own fortress or castle or donate to a temple that they are in control of. If you ordinarily give XP for class-appropriate treasure spending, the character receives no XP for this donation.
• Undertaking a major quest for the appropriate deity or temple, for which the character receives no XP and donates all recovered treasure to the temple, might be worth wiping a Taint score back to zero.
• Laboring under a vow for an appropriate amount of time. A god of war might want you to refuse using missile weapons for five combats. A god that protects the poor might want you to give generously to anyone who asks for money or other help for a month. Any god might accept fighting without magical weapons or armor for an appropriate number of combats or using crude and simple weapons (possibly ones that you are not proficient in) like daggers and clubs.

Support the Myth & Magic GM's Guide Kickstarter!

I posted recently about how much I'm loving New Haven Games' Myth & Magic, so I feel obligated to do my part in spreading the word about the Myth & Magic Gamemaster's Guide Kickstarter that launched last week. I'm already in as a supporter- they reached their funding goal in the first 25 hours and are now cruising towards hitting their $15k stretch goal, which will add stats for an extra 50 monsters to the Guide's bestiary. At $20k, a hard copy GM's screen unlocks for purchase.

Myth & Magic is a really nice system for anyone who enjoyed 2e play or likes the feel of 3e, but dislikes the accompanying complexity. As the post above describes, it puts together a lot of the things that I'd hoped would end up as part of D&DNext with a more retro feel that can easily be made to work for both dungeoncrawls and more narrative adventures. New Haven Games put together a great product for their Player's Guide kickstarter, so I fully expect to be similarly impressed by the art and organization of the new GM's guide.

My D&DNext Looks like Myth and Magic

I learned to play D&D during the AD&D 2nd edition era. Not everything about that era was great for the game (bankrupting TSR, for instance), but I still have a lot of nostalgic memories of it. That is the form of the game that is familiar to me, and certain things about earlier editions (Dwarves being a class, no baseline Bard class) and later editions (sorcerers, Dragonborn and Tieflings) will always feel a little out of place for me.

But nostalgia isn't everything. 2nd editions rules were baroque and confusing in a lot of places. There were arbitrary restrictions from earlier editions ported over whole cloth (restricted class/race combos, alignment restrictions for rangers and thieves) that never really seemed justified within the game. 3e cleaned up a lot of the mess and added a nice unified skill system for task resolution, but added things that over-complicated the picture like multi-class/PrC fever and complex feat/Prc 'builds' that varied from the unplayable to the game breaking. The refined math made the game more intuitive, but also introduced us to the arms race of optimization and 'effectiveness' that swallowed 4e whole.

So when the Next playtest packets started appearing, I was excited. D&DNext, to me, looks a lot like 2nd edition looked before kits and optional rules and torturous attempts at re-building the non-weapon proficiency system into a general purpose skill system turned it into a morass. Shortly before the second playtest packet came out, I started putting together my own criteria for what I wanted from a D&D-ish experience. As of a couple days ago, it appears that what I was looking for is already here: a 2e retro-clone(ish) called Myth & Magic.

5e feels familiar

I've had the 5th Edition (or D&D Next! or New D&D, or whatever they're calling it) playtest docs in my hands for about as long as anyone else.  Haven't actually played with it yet, but a few scattered impressions:

• Reminds me a lot of second edition AD&D.  This is very nostalgic for me, personally, because 2nd ed. AD&D was what was out and what I was playing when I got into roleplaying games.
• The OSR seems to have won the day.  Wizards is still claiming that the final version of the game will support styles of play that accommodate people who like the 4e style of play, but what they're giving people as their first taste of the game looks as little like 4e as 4e looked like 3rd edition.  Instead, we get something that looks like the style of game TSR published 20 years ago, with a few modernish tweaks.
• That being said, I know that AD&D 2nd Edition is where things really "went wrong" in the minds of some OSR purists (growth of tons of player options that unbalanced the game, endless supplements and official settings, added "realism", novel tie-ins, the Dragonlance "game is story" railroad, etc.).
• Based on looking over the book and the character sheet, I can see teaching someone 5e who was new to gaming.  It seems like a single character sheet actually contains enough information to give a newbie a reasonable idea of how to run their character.  I don't feel like I can say the same about 3e or 4e.  4e seemed to cater to kids who grew up with the Magic-style "cards are powers" paradigm, but not everyone who comes to an RPG is going to know collectible card games.
• Waiting for character creation rules to see how far back we're going on the race/class/level restriction stuff- will Dwarf Wizards and Elf Paladins get the heave-ho again?  Will we see the return of limited progression in non-favored classes?  Personally I hope not- I always found those things to be a pointless barrier to playing the sort of character that you want to play.
• Waiting with anxiety to see what indignity is going to be inflicted on my beloved gnomes by this new edition.  Current guess: left out of the core races for the 5e equivalent of the PBH, gain bug eyes and rock crystals instead of hair, favored class continues to be Bard, some obscure interaction between a STR penalty, size levels, and encumbrance renders them incapable of carrying both a missile weapon and sufficient ammunition for it.  You heard it here first.
• Backgrounds and themes/schemes look interesting.  Backgrounds look like an attempt to merge the old 2e Secondary Skills with the skill/proficiency system,  and Themes/Schemes hopefully prevent infinite class proliferation.  The difference between Themes and Schemes looks a bit unclear at the moment.

Read on for my take on the game as a whole and thoughts for the future.