DamnedRegistrations said:
See, the problem with this is it doesn't make sense for a religious order to heavily arm their low ranking members. Low ranking members are low ranking because they're untrustworthy, you don't give them a fucking sword and armor and have them enforce justice on the world.
Why should the order provide them their arms and armour? They might come from wealthy families and have to purchase/acquire the equipment on their own, like the medieval knights did. If you can't afford the arms and armour, then you can't serve the order's militant arm.
You don't grant them authority to speak on behalf of your order.
A dude in blue uniform who has completed the required training has been granted the authority to enforce the laws of the state irl (within certain parameters). A dude in chainmail armour who has completed the required training could be granted the authority to enforce the will of a religious order in generic fantasyland (within certain parameters).
They'd go around with emblems on their gear, waving flags and proclaiming shit in the name of the holy spaghetti monster.
Why should every paladin act like a caricature? Again, why couldn't they just be members of a militant arm of a religious order, who don't engage in antics like waving flags and running around proclaiming "I smite thee villain in the name of Blarghablabla"?
wikipedia said:
The paladins, sometimes known as the Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, according to the literary cycle known as the Matter of France.
Irrelevant. The magic in fantasy settings has little in common with how magic was (or is, by those who practice what could be termed magic in modern times) believed to work in the real world, fantasy dwarfs don't have a whole lot in common with the dwarfs from myths and folklore, fantasy zombies are not that similar to zombies in voodoo and so on and so forth.
If the terms used in fantasy settings would not be allowed to deviate from their real world origins, pretty much every fantasy setting should stop using them or be completely rewritten.
Also, you seem to think that a level 1 character in D&D terms would be a "dirty peasant who has never done anything of note", whereas actually in order for someone to reach level 2, he would already have to be quite an accomplished figure by any non-absurd standards (if we're going to care about verisimilitude in the first place. If no, then this entire discussion is quite pointless. Hell, eitherway this discussion seems quite pointless).
