I'm Roleplaying A Jedi In Baldur's Gate 3 By Playing A Paladin

I’ve never played a paladin in Dungeons & Dragons and neither have any of my friends. I’ve never seen the class in action since I don’t even watch any D&D shows. Frankly, I don’t know much about anything to do with D&D past the basics of actually playing. Baldur’s Gate 3 was my introduction to the majority of D&D’s classes, forcing me to learn the intricacies of the ones I chose for my characters and those of my companions. Do I understand the lore behind each of these classes? No, not really, and I don’t need to.

I’m trying to get stuck into the lore, though, because Baldur’s Gate 3 is such a deep roleplaying experience and investing more into that aspect of the game allows me to get more out of it. I recently started a new campaign (I can’t play my original on Xbox and I’m ditching the one I started with my partner) which meant creating an all-new character, and I wanted to try something different that also wouldn’t make one of the companions redundant. I’d already played as a sorceror and a druid, and I knew that I wanted to play a character that leaned towards morally good choices, so paladin caught my eye. At the same time, I’ve been extremely bitter about the Knights of the Old Republic remake seeming to be cancelled, for real this time. You see where I’m going with this.

I’ve never been very interested in paladins until I read this news article about a player who somehow ended an Honour Mode run by throwing a ball for Scratch to catch. Apparently, if you break your oath (which is laid out in a set of tenets specific to the subclass of paladin you choose), an Oathbreaker Knight will show up in your camp and ask you if you want to become an Oathbreaker Paladin. By taking the ball from Scratch, or perhaps accidentally throwing it at Scratch, the player broke their oath and caused the entire camp to become hostile, which led the level 12 Oathbreaker Knight to kill them all.

What I found most interesting about this was the fact that there are tenets, and characters that forcibly hold you accountable to them. Usually, the Oathbreaker Knight doesn’t lop off your head. He either allows you to reaffirm your oath by paying a big sum of gold, or you can choose to give up your oath and become an Oathbreaker like him, unlocking a new powerful subclass. You have to face real consequences for not adhering to the oath you chose.

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I chose the Oath of Vengeance, because it seemed the most interesting and the most flexible, which means I have to Fight the Greater Evil, identifying the higher morality in a situation and fighting for it, show No Mercy for the Wicked, and murder bad people. A little book of paladin oaths and tenets in my inventory tells me that while other paladins may have dedicated themselves to protecting nature and other people, I have dedicated myself to eliminating evil from the world in all its forms, and that “Your wrath cannot rest - for the wicked certainly won’t.” According to my research, consisting mostly of anecdotes posted on Reddit, the easiest way to break this oath is to help people who have done bad things, showing mercy to villains instead of slaughtering them, and betraying those I should avenge.

I think this approach to morality is very interesting, and it immediately reminded me of the rigidity of the Jedi Order and how easy it is to be considered a ‘Grey Jedi’ because you broke a rule. It doesn’t make you evil to do so – many Oathbreakers aren’t evil, they just unwittingly forsook their oath – but moving outside of the system has its consequences. There are accepted interpretations of your oaths, whichever you may choose, and breaking it will bring a terrifying dude to your camp who asks you to answer for your actions.

Yes, I’m aware there’s a lot of discourse around the idea of the Grey Jedi.

Other parallels: Jedi use the Force and physical attacks, as do paladins, except the Force is magic. Jedi often do unethical, borderline cruel things in service of the perceived greater good – lying, brainwashing, indoctrinating children to the cause – which sounds like a Vengeance Paladin to me! It’s not a perfect match, but it works well enough. I can play my Cal Kestis-type half-drow Jedi sans lightsaber and see if she gives in to her desire to show mercy, or if she adheres to her oath and actually does massacre every criminal en masse. I’m heavily against capital punishment, so I’m expecting a real roleplaying journey with this build.

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