Undead Paladin?

[loras]

Yo guys,

I got a question and I'm quite curious how you think about this. Why aren't Undead Paladins a thing? They're dead humans revived basically right?
So what if it was a Paladin before it died. I've heard arguments that Undead are not able to wield Holy magic, however, Undead Priests are a thing as well.

So I basically don't see why it shouldn't be, but you guys probably could tell me.

Presumably you either need to be a "different" sort of undead than the player (i.e. personal attention of the lich king, personal attention of the naaru, being incorporeal, etcetera), or you need to be insane (consider that extreme devoutness crosses over into insanity aswell), as the light burns the common forsaken.
And being insane kinda precludes player control.

So yeah, there are definitely pretty good as-is lore reasons, that said it can always be expanded upon or rewritten, as we've seen in the past, so the real answer as always is "Devs say no.".

[Shadowferal]

Bad writing should never have been encouraged to begin with.
The very idea of an undead paladin should be given the few seconds of screaming in the sun's fire before falling into ashes. All the twisting and contorting of logic and ridiculous lore just to say differently reeks of "I want what I want dammit!"

[Razion]

Bad writing should never have been encouraged to begin with.
The very idea of an undead paladin should be given the few seconds of screaming in the sun's fire before falling into ashes. All the twisting and contorting of logic and ridiculous lore just to say differently reeks of "I want what I want dammit!"

Are you saying it's absolutely impossible to write a compelling story about Undead that wield the Light, and if so what do you think is so immutable about this to make it so, or are you just saying it's not your preference? (There's a pretty good 2010 WoW writing contest story about an Undead Priest that wields the Light I remember reading called 'Fresh' that I'd reccommend.) Do you have examples of Undead Paladins that you can point to you didn't like, and what about these stories would you change if you wanted to make them better?

[Shadowferal]

Undead wielding the light should never have been given currency to begin with... Not much better than "Twilight" fanbois.

[cuafpr]

It should have happened after WotLK with a story about how with the LK's fall some undead managed to sense the light, do a quest at lvl 1 for their libram and bam undead pally.

Go back further in WoW's dev and undead priest should use shadow to heal vs holy, and undead pallies could use shadow versions of holy spells.. same numbers just purple vs yellow.

[Shadowferal]

Go back further in WoW's dev and undead priest should use shadow to heal vs holy, and undead pallies could use shadow versions of holy spells.. same numbers just purple vs yellow.

I would lean in that direction myself. The aesthetic makes logical storyline sense (certainly more so than what has followed) Keeping the overall undead "flavor." And perhaps what heals the undead could be used offensively against champions of light. Which is a throwback to when paladins could stun a dot undead and demons even as they healed themselves.

[Soon-TM]

I agree.
If someone insists on playing forsaken then he shouldn't want to play a paladin.

If anything, Forsaken were the epitome of Lawful Evil in WoW, at least before BfA turned Sylvanas into a Saturday morning cartoon villain. And the Scarlet-type of paladins very much fits with the Lawful Evil archetype.

[Razion]

If anything, Forsaken were the epitome of Lawful Evil in WoW, at least before BfA turned Sylvanas into a Saturday morning cartoon villain. And the Scarlet-type of paladins very much fits with the Lawful Evil archetype.

I do think there's room for the Paladin faith to maybe branch into something that leans into that Forsaken trope of something like practicality at all costs, that kind of Scourge mentality of going for ultimate efficiency and evolving just for the purpose of ultimate domination. Of killing any who would get in your way to make sure the dark plans come to fruition, to ensure the rising of the new world order for Forsaken is something that could take on a very uncomfortable and pointed perspective other faiths in WoW don't really lean on - a bend for ultimate pragmaticism and the dangers of it and leaning too heavily on a logic that is less feeling. We see often with Forsaken they'll do anything, from chemical warfare and desecration of the dead in order to achieve their means, so a religion that holds those kinds of tenants as virtues not only to strive for but to exploit along their path would be twisted enough to be different from what Scarlets do, I think.

[Shadowferal]

Pfft...hmm...Scarlet Crusaders had spells provided by big bad demon... That's my story and I'm sticking to it...at least until I can give it more thought.

[Oneirophobia]

The Light burns them.

They had this whole thing in a lore Q&A where holy priests exist because of their personal devotion, using light magic causes them immense pain. Plus they balance it with shadow magic, just like living priests balance a shadow spec with light magic to keep them sane. Paladins simply can't be reborn as forsaken, their bodies are too ...irradiated.

There is one undead paladin and the necromancy controlling him is a higher level than the scourge's plague and valkyr.

Now Calia exists though so fuck it.

It's also canon that light and shadow cant interact without explosive and deadly results (Alleria and Turalyon), but we have the discipline spec that is themed around combining the light with shadow, with extensive lore about the disc priest artifact Lights Wrath which.. you guessed it, combines light and shadow.

There are also dozens of undead paladins in icecrown being raised by ambient plague, Fjola and Edyss combined light and shadow all the time, and we have necrolord paladins as the most recent addition.

TLDR - The cosmic forces in this game and how they interact are inconsistent soup. Any and all reasoning as to why a player can't be X race with Y class combo boils down to "Blizz does not see how this would cause growth they could demonstrate to shareholders and so they won't be bothering with the resources to do so." That is, we will have to wait for an expac theme that suits more race and class combos.

[Traveler Voltin]

channeling light or void.(priest) is dfferent than being infused with light(paladin/lightforged) and being void infused(Void elves)

[Razion]

Pfft...hmm...Scarlet Crusaders had spells provided by big bad demon... That's my story and I'm sticking to it...at least until I can give it more thought.

The Light has shown to give blessings, and Dreadlords have some holding in the Light currently with Lothraxion (if even the Dreadlord of Stratholme could do this, as he hasn't shown any such proficiency with The Light - though he has for Shadow with mind manipulation). Even so, this doesn't account for all the other Undead Paladins there are like Zeliek, or the Scourgeholme reanimated, or the Darrowshire ghosts, or the Draenei ghosts near Auchindoun, and so on so it seems still there's more methods than infusion - more Undead Paladins seem to be Paladins in life first anyway, and I think we can be confident that the Scarlets were anyway, as that's kind of their thing regardless.

Not that it isn't a cool angle, it would've been cool if Varimathras had stuck around and remained loyal so he could lend the secrets of the Light to the Forsaken.

[Razion]

channeling light or void.(priest) is dfferent than being infused with light(paladin/lightforged) and being void infused(Void elves)

Would you rather Forsaken be infused with Light like Calia, or have their own unique religion like the Cult of Forgotten Shadow leaning to the Light when/if the cosmic balance shifts, or remain Light worshipers closer to what they were in life, or be blessed by a figure like Faol?

[Traveler Voltin]

Would you rather Forsaken be infused with Light like Calia, or have their own unique religion like the Cult of Forgotten Shadow leaning to the Light when/if the cosmic balance shifts, or remain Light worshipers closer to what they were in life, or be blessed by a figure like Faol?

what you even talking about?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Paladin light.. a no go.. priest light.. well... I guess that's ok.

[HateTrain]

Paladin light.. a no go.. priest light.. well... I guess that's ok.

It's the same fucking light, yes?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

It's the same fucking light, yes?

Depends. Maybe one class has a prism that breaks the light down into more basic wave lengths. Fuck. Put that last word in just to be like.. yo.. this guy for real.

[jazen]

lore is out the window in wow, the reason the undead can't be paladins is just an arbitrary rule.

[Traveler Voltin]

It's the same fucking light, yes?

different methods of use.
Priests channel light.
paladins infused with light.

[Stormdash]

Yo guys,

I got a question and I'm quite curious how you think about this. Why aren't Undead Paladins a thing? They're dead humans revived basically right?
So what if it was a Paladin before it died. I've heard arguments that Undead are not able to wield Holy magic, however, Undead Priests are a thing as well.

So I basically don't see why it shouldn't be, but you guys probably could tell me.

Every race, every class. There are no more excuses, especially with it all but explicitly confirmed that there's a timejump after 9.x. Stop artificially restricting character customization when there is no longer any plausible lore justification. These races/societies have comingled for decades of story time, they would adopt each other's practices just like in real life we do each other's cooking and music.