E d i t o r ' s   i n t r o d u c t i o n
This article was received and accepted prior to the publication of
the  Unearthed Arcana  volume, in which paladins were made a
subclass of the cavalier. Thus, the article presents these variant
paladin "subclasses" as subclasses of the fighter. Of course, these
classes may be treated as separate from true paladins, since the
article makes "paladin" a generic term for any holy warrior who
promotes the causes of his or her alignment.

Anti-paladins were dealt with in the article, "The Anti-Paladin,"
reprinted from DRAGON® issue #39 in the Best of DRAGON
Magazine, Volume 2. Use of these classes as player characters is not
recommended, as they have not been playtested for balance and
tend to duplicate powers from existing classes.
Through breaks in the dense foliage overhead, Aan could see the
moon, full and imposing, burned deep orange by the fallin

Night covered him as he rode through the forest, and he shivered at
the realization that darkness was the element of his enemy.
Aan felt his bold mount beneath him. The warhorse had served
him well in his years of service to the church, hard years of the service that only a paladin can give. He rode now in that service, toward
the stronghold of Gulgazh the shadowed, the chaotic, the antipaladin. Swords would be bloodied before the sun rose again. . .  .
The struggle is as ancient as life itself. The two vastly diverging
alignments, lawful good and chaotic evil, represent the truest of
convictions. They are the extremes.

But extremes are always facets of a greater whole, and without the
middle, the extremes represent nothing. Paladins and anti-paladins
such as Aan and Gulgazh are the extremes of a spectrum of holy
fighters. Until now, there was no greater whole.

This article offers the concept of the whole. Paladins -- holy fight

Character Classes Table I: Hit dice, spell ability, and class level limit

Class of character (alignment)	Hit dice type	Maximum  hit dice	Spell ability	Class level limit
Myrikhan (NG)	d6+3	9	yes (6)	none
Garath (CG)	d8	9	yes (8)	none
Lyan (LN)	d12	15	yes (3)	none
Paramander (N)	d8+1	9	yes (8)	none
Fantra (CN)	d10	10	yes (1)	none
Illrigger (LE)	d10	11	yes (5)	none
Arrikhan (NE)	d8+1	9	yes (7)	none

Note: The number in parentheses under ?spell ability? shows the level at which spell ability is gained.

Character Classes Table II: Armor and weapons permitted
 

Class of  character	Armor	Shield	Weapons	Oil	Poison
Myrikhan	C	any	any	yes	never
Garath	any	any	any	yes	never
Lyan	any	any	any	yes	never
Paramander	any	any	any	yes	never
Fantra	C	wooden	any	yes	never
Illrigger	any	any	any	yes	yes
Arrikhan	any	any	any	yes	yes

Note: An entry of C under "armor" indicates that the class may use any armor up to the quality of chainmail, but will use
nothing heavier or bulkier.

Character Classes Table III: Character ability limits
                                                            Ability score minimums/maximums

Character  class	STR	INT	WIS	DEX	CON	CHA
Myrikhan	8/18(00)	12/pr	13/pr	9/18	8/18	10/18
Garath	9/18(00)	10/18	12/pr	8/18	8/18	13/pr
Lyan	12/pr	7/16	12/pr	9/16	12/pr	7/16
Paramander	10/18(00)	14/pr	10/16	9/18	8/18	8/18
Fantra	11/18(00)	9/18	13/pr	10/18	11/18	9/18
Illrigger	9/18(00)	13/pr	12/pr	9/18	10/18	7/18
Arrikhan	10/18(00)	9/18	13/pr	9/18	10/18	6/15

Note: Ability minimums are to the left of the slash, and maximums are to the right. An entry of "pr" indicates that the score is
a prime requisite with a maximum that can be higher than 18.

ers? can be of any alignment. Players cannot use paladins other
than the lawful good ones, but NPCs may be encountered who are
of every other sort.

Seven new NPC character classes follow: the Myrikhan, the
Garath, the Lyan, the Paramander, the Fantra, the Illrigger, and the
Arrikhan. All are holy fighters of deep alignment convictions and
should be played as such. Alignments, the entire basis of these paladin classes, must be played to the hilt. Punishment for deviations
should be severe.

A distinction must be made here. Like the word "level" in the
AD&D® game, "paladin" now takes on more than one meaning.
The first denotes the lawful good human player character as described in the rules; the second denotes a holy fighter of any alignment (including those characters who might be called anti-paladins).

All paladins (second meaning) are fighter subclasses and use the
attack and saving-throw matrices for fighters. These paladin types
are also exclusively human.

Weapon proficiency table
 

Character class	Initial number of weapons	Non-proficiency penalty	Added proficiency in weapons/level
Myrikhan	2*	-3	1/4 levels
Garath	5	-1	1/2 levels
Lyan	4	-2	1/3 levels
Paramander	2	-3	1/3 levels
Fantra	3	-2	1/3 levels
Illrigger	3	-2	1/2 levels
Arrikhan	2	-3	1/2 levels

*-- One of the myrikhan's initial weapons is a ?"favorite weapon"
(see the text for details).

Attacks per melee round table
                                        Levels for attacks per round of:

Character  class	1/1	3/2	2/1	5/2	3/1
Myrikhan	1-6	7-12	13 & up	-	-
Garath	1-6	7-12	13 & up	-	-
Lyan	1-7	8-14	13 & up	-	-
Paramander	1-5	6-10	11-15	16-20	21 & up
Fantra	1-7	8-14	15-21	22 & up	-
Illrigger	1-6	7-12	13 & up	-	-
Arrikhan	1-7	8-14	15 & up	-	-

.   . . The forest thinned and became a sea of thorns. Beyond it,
Aan saw the ominous towers of Castle Gulgazh, the last rays of the
sun bleeding red around their edges.
Aan reined his horse up and stared silently at the sight before
him. The drawbridge lay open. Hanging from chains in the entryway, the body of Gulgazh swayed in the evening breeze, his unhelmed head matted with blood. Deep knife gouges in the dark
breastplate sent chills through Aan ? Gulgazh bore the crossedguantlet sigil of the paremandyr, Fein. With Gulgazh dead, on
whom would Fein next prey?
Aan knew all too well. His right hand strayed to his sword hilt as
he eyed the forest warily. Slowly he turned his mount around and
forged back the way he came. The sun vanished soon after. Only the
moon, massive and orange, remained.


For humans only
Dear DRAGON,
In Christopher Wood?s article on "paladins"
(issue #106), it is said on page 46 that ?These
paladin types are also exclusively human.? On
page 55 in the description of the Arrkihan, it
mentions halflings and dwarves as eligible in that
class. So are these classes open only for humans,
or can other races be part of them?
    Sylvain Robert
    Trois-Rivieres, Quebec
    (Dragon #108)

In a word . . . oops. During our review and
editing of the manuscript, we decided to insert
the stipulation (on page 46) that these classes
were for humans only, since the regular (lawful
good) paladin was also originally designed as a
human-only class. Unfortunately, we neglected to
remove all the demi-human references from the
later sections of the manuscript. (Hey, folks,
we're only human, too.)

It?s pretty easy to tend to the things we forgot;
just delete references to demi-human members of
these classes wherever they appear: To fix the
?Race of follower? tables, combine the entries for
?human? and ?same race as the (whatever)? into
one category with a single die range; for instance,
on the myrikhan table a result of 9-18 indicates a
human follower. -- KM