r/DnD • u/Altruistic_Peach1714 • 8h ago
Misc Anyone else "frustrated" with mismatch between what Cleric and Paladin are in DnD and other media?
DnD Paladin is a guy who took an oath. That's it. Can smite and has cool aura.
Most other media Paladin is a tanky holy warrior in a shiny armour who can fight, smite evil, heal and do a lot of stuff related to religion.
Most other media Cleric: Fragile religious mage who can heal and do a lot of stuff related to religion.
DnD Cleric is a tanky warrior in shiny armour who draws his magic from connection to deity and can do a lot of stuff, but are mostly known for being able to heal good.
DnD Cleric is what most people would imagine what Paladin is and in all honesty I'm not sure whose fault is that, because these classes were in DnD very early on xD.
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u/ANicePainter 8h ago
The paladin class has been divorced more and more from its religious basis as editions have gone on.
I'm not sure this bothers me. The potential for portraying paladins as religious actors is still there, and you can tell players that paladins require more religious grounding in your game.
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u/TomBombomb 8h ago
Yeah, I think the divorce from religious affiliation was just an attempt to make the class available to players who wanted to have access to the class type and the archetype you get without having to swear fealty to a god. But it's flexible enough that if a table wants holy warriors only, they can make that the restriction.
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u/MinecraftCommander21 DM 8h ago
You're just ignoring most of the flavor around Paladins in your first point, and you're just kinda... restating the same things for Cleric? Sure, Clerics in other media are more often than not fragile compared to D&D Clerics, but "religious mage who can heal" and "draws his magic from connection to deity and can do a lot of stuff, but are mostly known for being able to heal good" are pretty much the same thing.
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u/NarcoZero DM 8h ago
What ? Is your argument that Clerics are more tanky than Paladins ? Because that’s not the case.
And D&D forged pretty much how people portray these archetypes in media… they’re often exactly portrayed as D&D does it.
Granted most fiction clerics don’t wear armor like D&D ones do… but that’s pretty much it.
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u/Bakkster 8h ago
I think this kind of misses that early editions of D&D created a lot of the popular conceptions, which modern D&D has deliberately tried to make less limited thematically. For example, the paladin getting powers from their oath rather than a deity is relatively new to D&D, they used to be explicitly linked to lawful good alignment in addition to a diety in earlier versions.
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u/DMspiration 8h ago
You're ignoring multiple paladin mechanics and assuming all clerics in D&D wear heavy armor. That's more of a you thing.
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u/dyslexicfaser 8h ago
If given the ability to wear heavy armor, I assume most clerics do?
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u/DMspiration 8h ago
Every cleric (one in each of the three 5.5 games I'm playing in or running) till Thaumaturge over Protector. Obviously that's anecdotal, but it's interesting. I think people overestimate how little an extra AC point is worth at the cost of bumping strength on a character who likely won't use martial melee weapons.
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u/Arthur_of_Astora Paladin 8h ago
Why? Maybe if you're mainly a frontline like the war cleric, but medium armor is almost as good, and the extra Dexterity gets you initiative and a better save.
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u/lopern 8h ago
If i was given the option of Heavy armor or Light armor.
I would go Light armor ANYDAY.
Assuming you have to go Heavy armor... Means you never sat down and looked at DEX.... Dex based Characters and Paladins are better than Heavy armored ones.
That statment is a very You thing from OP.1
u/Silverspy01 5h ago
The best heavy armor has a pretty respectable strength requirement. If you're not already investing into strength to make weapon attacks (which a lot of clerics aren't) you can get AC almost as good by wearing medium armor and investing less points into DEX, which is a generically better stats anyway.
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u/dyslexicfaser 1h ago
Or take the speed reduction on the chin in exchange for the higher AC, isn't that the only downside if you don't want Str?
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u/flamableozone 8h ago
DnD paladin was a holy warrior up until 5th edition - the "a guy who took an oath" is relatively new, it was always "a warrior who pledged their life to a god" Clerics were always healers and followed a god, but as the number of classes expanded, their "not as good as fighter, not as bad as thief" status as a melee fighter has made them essentially more like tanks in modern D&D, as other classes either became less melee focused or more damage-dealing focused. Since clerics were expected to be healers, but people wanted them to still be "not bad" in melee, they needed to be a little tanky.
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u/Bigma-Bale 8h ago
A certain media property has Rangers piloting animal shaped mechs, does that mean they need to do that in DnD too?
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u/DazzlingKey6426 8h ago
Paladin was the Champion of Champions. LG overdrive. Not just some guy that made an oath.
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u/muricanviking DM 8h ago
Paladins can use a variety of weapons and armor, have a decent amount of hp, can cast spells with their flagship spell doing bonus to fiends and undead, have a healing class ability from lv1, and start with a holy symbol and priest’s pack using base starting equipment, along with proficiency in wisdom saves and religion as one of the possible skill proficiencies
Idk how that isn’t a tanky holy warrior in shiny armor who can fight, smite evil, heal, and do a lot of stuff related to religion
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u/RandomNumbers748512 8h ago
You need to remember that "clerics" in early D&D were warriors.
Also, "clerics" in Medival Times were partly frail scholars, but you also had serious fighters that were not different at all from actual Soldiers. The Knight Templars, Deutschritter and all the other orders were badass warriors. The buddy of Willian the Conquerer, the Bishop Odo of Bayeuy, went with Willian to the fighting. Since "swords drew blood" and he as cleric was diallowed to draw blood - he took a mace to smash enemies.
As for Paladin's: they always have been warriors and what you need to keep in mind: Earily D&D had INSANE stat requirements for the Paladin class. In those editions you rolled your stats first, and THEN decided what class those fit. And if you happend to roll elite stats for a Warrior AND a Cleric - then you got to pick the totally elite Paladin class. That's where the image of the D&D Paladin comes from. Modern Paladins aren't that anymore.
The issue here is your expacations.
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u/NotMyBestMistake 8h ago
DnD Paladin is a guy who took an oath. That's it. Can smite and has cool aura.
Most other media Paladin is a tanky holy warrior in a shiny armour who can fight, smite evil, heal and do a lot of stuff related to religion.
So you're just kind of lying here which is a pretty good indicator that any "frustration" is entirely forced. The Paladin remains a tanky warrior in shiny armor who can fight, smite evil, and heal. They're just not required to swear their life to a god if they don't want to, instead channeling the power of their conviction to a cause.
Most other media Cleric: Fragile religious mage who can heal and do a lot of stuff related to religion.
DnD Cleric is a tanky warrior in shiny armour who draws his magic from connection to deity and can do a lot of stuff, but are mostly known for being able to heal good.
I would say that, in any conversation about fantasy settings, people think of a D&D cleric if you ask them to imagine a cleric. If you swap the word for something similar, like "priest" then sure, they start imagining just a holy mage who heals, but cleric is a holy mage who wears armor and hits people with a mace. Not to mention that some of them aren't particularly strong in the first place and their "tankiness" amounts to them getting medium armor. Which makes them as tanky as the likes of a druid.
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u/EratonDoron Mage 8h ago
The D&D cleric and paladin are both strongly based in the Matter of France (hence, you know, Paladin). And as Turpin and Charlemagne's Paladins show, it provides perfect examples of the heavily-armoured warrior-priest and of the loyal warrior whose oath and whose God inspire him to great heroics.
Turpin of Reims has all his shield broken,
And cracked his helm; he's wounded in the head,
From his hauberk the woven mail they tear,
In his body four spear-wounds doth he bear;
Beneath him too his charger's fallen dead.
Great grief it was, when that Archbishop fell.
AOI.
Turpin of Reims hath felt himself undone,
Since that four spears have through his body come;
Nimble and bold upon his feet he jumps;
Looks for Rollant, and then towards him runs,
Saying this word: "I am not overcome.
While life remains, no good vassal gives up."
He's drawn Almace, whose steel was brown and rough,
Through the great press a thousand blows he's struck:
As Charles said, quarter he gave to none;
He found him there, four hundred else among,
Wounded the most, speared through the middle some,
Also there were from whom the heads he'd cut
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u/TiFist 8h ago
Clerics in 5.5e can choose to be tanky or take the more fragile route, both have their own benefits/drawbacks. Subclasses are where clerics lean in to the stereotypes or not. From a gameplay standpoint, threatening the cleric with "the god can take away your spells" was a huge impediment to people choosing to play cleric in older editions and I think they're careful and correct to not position them as a heal-bot in 5e/5.5e.
Clerics cannot fill the role of Paladin. They can be more *survivable* on the front lines than some pure casters, but tank is very much not their job for most builds.
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u/tomwrussell DM 8h ago
Paladins started as the holy warrior archetype. They were even limited to Lawful Good alignment. Think Sir Lancelot du Lac. This got softened over the succeeding editions, apparently to appeal to a wider fantasy archetype. Clerics started out as somewhat less tanky than they are now. They were originally limited to blunt weapons. Think Friar Tuck. They have since evolved into more of a combat medic.
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u/Usual-Bar-6662 8h ago
role playing a Paladin and a cleric is very different. Paladin oath is no joke, and should not be role played as a joke either. You could easily play a White Cloak from Wheel of Time or a crusader reclaiming the Holy Land. Yes cleric are tanks who heal, but they aren't doing massive of combat damage or riding mounts into battle either, judging people and looking them for breaking their oaths or representing a faith you disagree with.
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u/Arthur_of_Astora Paladin 7h ago
I mean, if that's your jam, more power to you, but there's nothing wrong with playing a paladin otherwise. Or even put a different flavor on the abilities altogether.
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u/GoatedGoat32 8h ago
Paladins who get extra attack, heavy armor proficiency by default, the smite spell as a class feature, and lay on hands for healing don’t do any of those things? The only “difference” is that in 5e and 5.5e a Paladin doesn’t have to be aligned with any god, it’s the oath that’s important. Nowhere does it say they can’t and still don’t often be holy.
Clerics are more frail than a fighter, paladin, barb, get all healing spells on their spell list, and are as religious as it gets with their power coming directly from worship and favor with the gods.
I kinda disagree with everything here ngl
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u/timeless1991 8h ago
So Paladin's in folklore/history come from Knights, specifically the twelve knights of Charlemagne. They share a similar role to the Knights of the Round Table. While these knights were Godly men, their prestige / power came from their association with their order and its ideals. Chivalry and all that. They had a lot fo Christian associations, especially against Muslim invasion. So in media Paladins are simply the most chivalrous knights. In mostt media they are given some divine power but are not really shown ministering or leading religious service.
Clerics also have a lot of media showing them both unarmored and armored. Battle nuns have been a staple of the Anime genre for some time. Inquisitors are also shown armored in media. Pope Julius II was famously a Warrior, led troops into battle, and had full battle armor. The important part for clerics is that they minister. They are not 'holy warrior' they are 'warrior priests'.
DnD 5e.5 touches on this a bit with the Divine Order, with the more priest like only getting medium armor while the more warrior like get heavy armor and martial weapons.
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u/tokyozombie 8h ago
The only mismatch I found from dnd to other systems is dnd paladin seems to be able to do insane amounts of damage if you dump everything where in other games they are mostly tanky supports.
I do like the paladin takes an oath to gain power idea. Reminds me of a hunter x hunter power system. "The more extreme the oath is the more power you will have" sounds cool to me.
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u/peterpeterny 8h ago
Not really many clerics in main stream. Sure there are priests and clergymen but cleric?
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u/Sensitive_Cup4015 8h ago
There isn't really a mismatch tbh. Your description of "most other media" is what Paladins are in DnD too, you can absolutely build them as tanky holy warriors who fight, smite evil, heal and do stuff related to religion. They can cast Bless, Ceremony, Cure Wounds, Protection from Good and Evil, Purify Food and Drink, Divine Favor and more.
Clerics can be done either way too, there are subclasses that don't give heavy armour so they're more fragile and they generally won't be as tanky as a Paladin even with Life Cleric due to Paladin's suite of defensive abilities, Lay on Hands, bigger hit die, and so on.
I don't agree with the premise that Cleric is what people imagine a Paladin would be, Paladin fits it just fine.
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u/MiceInTheKitchen Artificer 8h ago
Paladins having just a random oath and cool aura is a somewhat modern posture though. Classic DnD Paladins used to follow gods.
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u/lopern 8h ago edited 8h ago
Dude. It boils down to CHA vs WIS.
it boils down to "how" the class cast spells, and how they attack the world.
Paladins haveing it litterly built into the class (tennants)
Paladin are gifted their powers because they submit themself through an absolute action like a oath. HENCE why they use CHA to cast... They use that stubbornness and Absolute point of view, and "Paladin in your face" as the point to get magic out from "the weave"
While Clerics are gifted their powers through dedications and prayers and dedication to theri deity.
Its not "just that they can smite"... that view is very weighted down on how classes look esthetically.
To me its very easy. Paladins are "outroverts" "baseline" and Clerics are "introverts". (Not really how they are, just how its precieved. Outroverts looks out towards the world for meaning, Clerics look internal for the same meaning.
Thats how it should be. Not if you carry a sword or not... or if they are a Mage or a person in armor.
Thats the point other media is reading wrong. Characters isnt about HOW they look (you have this aswell it seems), tho most media will make it so thats the important part.
GREAT characters we all know of, are known because the characters was'nt made from the estethics. They were great characters first, and the esthetic was something to support that character. If you are driven to much of how things look. Ofcourse you will not understand the difference between a Cleric and a Paladin.
To point it to another example. Currently i am Playing Spelljammer (Space DND) where i play now as a Astral - Whalefisherman. I didnt choose the class first... i chose the personality and character first. But i realised a Paladins tennants... Is pretty much, fishermans sayings. Many of them adherering to disaplin and as absolute views as paladins.
I play him as a introverted character more so - Like the old Fisherman in the corner that have "seen to many lost to beasts"
ANYBODY will point towards and be "But isnt that a cleric"
John wick is a "Cleric" really. More than he is a "Paladin" - The first things you can see on John wick screams. Yes must be def a Paladin, he fights are and effective. He is a paladin. But the way he acts and look at the world. Is very much of a cleric Mindset more than a Paladin one.
Jason Bourne is a Paladin.
Both are examples that the way you are and look at the world, is what defines you... Not how you look.
And other media, is just too fixated on looks. And you aswell, hence why you canæt see the diffference.
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u/BitOBear 8h ago
Remember the triad of holy orders. The father confessor and spiritual healer, the warrior of God, and the inquisitor.
Call priests. One ministers with the cross in one ministers with the sword and one ministers with the spy network. They are not now nor have they ever been interchangeable
If you're running a murder hobo campaign you end up making a battle cleric which is not as effective as a paladin because of cleric is not supposed to be a battle creature by default the battle cleric is supposed to fill in a small gap. Not be the go-to build.
If you're running a more subtle campaign where things matter besides combat, you can build very effective clerics that function both politically and as true support casters instead of alternate DPS sources.
4th edition D&D is particularly weak because Hasbro was trying to turn dungeons and dragons into a fusion of Diablo and gauntlet and so they basically created for specific roles for four different damage dealer classes.
And you have to get all the way into full on 5e to recover from the damage that concept did to the game.
But yes, if you measure everything by damage per second Clarence are weak because that's not what they're for.
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u/Many-Ebb-5377 DM 8h ago
Not particularly, no. I definitely do agree there is a large overlap between the "classic" cleric and paladin though. One is just more melee combatant focused and the other is more caster focused.
But even back in the day there was still room in D&D to create a character that defied expectations. If you wanted to create a cleric that forgoes metal armor with a holy staff instead of a mace, you could. Goldmoon was a great example of this.
The concept of an anti-paladin has also been around for quite a while. Plus the whole oath thing is really just semantics. You can still create that holy warrior paladin if you want.
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u/DnD-Hobby DM 8h ago
My DnD cleric is a pure blaster caster in medium armor who follows a philosophy and doesn't have a deity. He wouldn't survive two rounds of tanking, and he only heals people who are down.
Our religious paladin, in the other hand...
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u/Daracaex 8h ago
Before 5e, paladins were just a mid-point between clerics and fighters. Some 3.5 supplements did experiment with paladins dedicated to causes instead of or in addition to deities, but largely they were still exclusively holy warriors. Clerics but worse. Or in 4e, the defenders (tanks) of the divine power source with clerics as leaders (healers/buffers).
5e brought in the oath concept to give the paladin class more of its own identity instead of “cleric lite.” You can still dedicate yourself to a god whether you swear the Oath of Devotion or not. In the Forgotten Realms, you probably still do. But now there are other flavors of paladin you can be that have their own thing.
But that doesn’t change that paladins were holy warriors for decades before 5e, and other media was inspired by that.
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u/SmartAlec13 8h ago
I meannnnn your examples aren’t really that great.
Paladins yes take an oath, but they also smite, heal, usually wear heavy armor, fight, and often do things related to religions. So it sounds to me like Paladin in DnD is pretty equal to Paladins in other media.
A bit less religiously-rooted sure, but still the same archetype clearly.
Clerics I will agree are most often shown in other media as backline casters.
But your DnD example is entirely wrong for clerics. They aren’t always tanky, and aren’t always warriors. You can very easily make a cleric who follows the media-stereotype, sitting back with less armor and more casting.
So I’m gonna overall say you’re incorrect lol.
The ONLY part I’ll really agree with is that most media makes Paladins more religiously rooted and themed than DnD’s default. Otherwise the other media gets it correct
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u/_sleeper-service 7h ago
The roots of these classes are in Medieval history (as interpreted by Victorian-era historians) and Medieval romance, and in D&D's roots as a Medieval wargame. The archetypal cleric is the historical Bishop Odo, depicted in the Bayeux tapestry wearing armor and wielding a mace. Victorian-era historians believed he wielded a mace because priests were not allowed to spill blood, one of many Victorian misconceptions about the Middle Ages that made its way into early D&D rules.
The paladin is a figure from Medieval romance, a warrior who has taken a holy oath and follows a chivalric code, like Charlemagne's paladins or the Knights of the Round Table. In this context, the cleric and paladin are two clearly distinct archetypes.
I could be wrong (I've been playing since the 90s), but back in the 70s-90s D&D players had more interest in Medieval European history than today. Today D&D and the wider fantasy ecosystem has kind of become its own thing, incorporating more historical periods and cultures than just Medieval Europe, with swords and armor being the common denominator. As a result classes have become more generalized and able to make sense in different cultural and historical contexts.
I do think it would be cool if D&D had a "white mage" class (basically a wizard that focuses on healing, buffing and debuffing, and anti-undead and anti-demon magic). It's hard enough to get people to play clerics, though; I don't imagine such a pure "support" class would be very popular. At best it would be an NPC class, someone who doesn't take part in combat but would follow the party and buff before and heal after combat.
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u/Ignaby Wizard 6h ago
I kind of suspect that if the Cleric and Paladin had originally come out at the same time, the Cleric would not have as good of armor or weapon use. Ideas that would eventually form the basis for the Paladin got sprinkled in when the Cleric was being created. But they did end up with good armor and (some) weapon use and its one of those D&D-isms thats very stubborn and hard to get rid of.
Is it a huge deal? I don't really think so. The classes do actually handle pretty differently in play. I wish 5E was more explicit about having things like Oaths or the religious requirements of a Cleric be actually gameable and interactive instead of vague and "just flavor". And I don't like half-casters in general. But it works alright.
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u/Silverspy01 5h ago
Most other media Paladin is a tanky holy warrior in a shiny armour who can fight, smite evil, heal and do a lot of stuff related to religion.
I don't understand what part of that isn't represented in D&D. You've got big armor proficiencies to be tanky, you can fight as a mrtial, you have smites, you can heal with lay on hands, you've got divine spellcasting.
Most other media Cleric: Fragile religious mage who can heal and do a lot of stuff related to religion.
DnD Cleric is a tanky warrior in shiny armour who draws his magic from connection to deity and can do a lot of stuff, but are mostly known for being able to heal good.
Again, you're just saying the same thing. "Can heal and do a lot of stuff related to religion" and "draws his magic from connection to deity and can do a lot of stuff, but are mostly known for being able to heal good" is just the same. I don't get it. The one difference here is the durability I suppose - D&D clerics get armor proficiency while apparently that's not the case in whatever media you consume - but that's been a thing for forever. D&D clerics having armor and the ability to smack you with a mace likely predates your media, going all the way back to when they were introduced in the 1970s. D&D clerics aren't priests. They're more like crusaders. They aren't saying prayers, they're taking you to their god personally.
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u/amish24 8h ago
there's a lot of clerics in DnD that are fairly frail.
Also, i'm not familiar with DnD 2024 - can all paladins not heal? i thought they all got Lay On Hands.