Why are paladins called paladins?

Question

NOTE: This is not a hate RP thread or anything alike, just trying to find some logic on the matter; I have curiosity on the subject, hope nobody gets offended. I don't flag this as opinion-based as maybe there is some reason behind this.

So, back in the days, the paladins were merely archers. They did not have any "holy" spell that I can recall. They threw spears and arrows. Hence I used to wonder, what was the point of calling this vocation "paladin"? I saw them more as archers or explorers if you will, rather than anything else.

Years later, "holy" based spells were introduced into the game. Still, they remained ranged characters. In role playing games, paladins tend to be more melee based.

Therefore, the following intertwined questions arise:

• On which grounds was the name of this vocation chosen?
• Was it just sort of random, or was there a real strong premise behind?
• Did they add holy spells later to make sense out of the vocation name, or were they planning to do so from the very moment they created the game and they could not implement holy spells until years after?

Comments

Thanks for making it clear you are not looking for opinions here!

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Based in the earlier versions information tibia really tried to show the paladin as a balanced warrior who could fight from a distance and melee (which is also a paladin), sadly that was pointless because in the game a knight easily could beat them in every aspect. So isn't like they actually sold paladin as mere archers or explorers, is just that in terms of efficiency they were doing more damage and taking less risk being just ranged characters. So Probably isn't like they didn't knew that paladins were not suiting the role efficiently, is more like they didn't capture the essence of the paladin correctly.and players exploited that

In terms of statistics paladins aren't explorers or archers because their "strenghtness" which breaks every concept of a ranger who improves their dexterity/agilty to be quicker and accuratier. also had a lot of mana and they improved their magic skill very well, so in other words they didn't suit even that role properly but was the only thing were they stood out enough

i don't know about any other dated old information who can suit any other affirmation

Answer 1

It's hard to say what Cipsoft had in mind when they named the paladin, and I couldn't find any interviews or news articles about it. But to follow up on what Tynusiiaa wrote, we know that Cipsoft took a lot of inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons and the classic pen and paper games when making Tibia. Dungeons & Dragons is probably also the reason we have the famous paladin trope as we know it today, a holy warrior combining aspects of both a warrior and a cleric.

When you read the information on tibia.com about vocations, this is how Cipsoft describes a paladin: "Paladins, too, are gifted melee fighters. Their ability to train melee skills is second only to that of knights. Also, they know how to handle shields very well, and experienced paladins can block most enemies even though they are not as resilient as Knights." ... "They are also magic users of considerable skill who have an impressive range of spells at their disposal. Even though their magic skill cannot be compared to that of pure magic users such as druids or sorcerers, paladins have access to many additional spells because they can use a large number of runes."

Sounds familiar, right? It certainly has a resemblence with the balanced class of paladins in DnD, combining the strengths of a warrior but with the abilities of a mage/cleric. This is what a paladin in Tibia is, you can carry heavier armor but you're not as sturdy as a knight, you can heal and wield magic, but you can't heal as well as a druid. In recent years the paladin class of Tibia has also been given a lot more characteristics of the pen and paper-paladin, such as curing curses, holy spells and having an advantage when fighting undeads.

Now, the classic version/trope of paladin, which we probably also have Dungeons & Dragons to thank for, often appears as the "knight in a shiny armor", but nowhere is it stated that a paladin has to be a knight. This trope is probably also the reason as to why the paladin is so heavily associated with swords and maces, although there is nothing in the legends that confirm the use of these weapons. And even though it's the most common weapons for paladins in games today, there are other games besides Tibia that chose a different path: in Guild Wars the paladins fight with spears, and in Fire Emblem the paladin is a mounted unit.

As I said, it's hard to know what Cipsofts intentions were when they named it paladin - and as this isn't an opinion based question I won't speculate too much about it. I do think that paladin was a great choice for a balanced class, if based on the pen and paper-paladin. In the old days I would probably have agreed that paladins should had been named hunter or archer but today, with the addition of more typical paladin-characteristics such as holy spells, I think it's a perfect name  I also think it adds a lot more flavour to the story; rather than being a simple hunter or archer, you're a paladin who has sworn to destroy all evil. Also, I like the fact that Cipsoft took a well establied trope and did something unique with it, made it their own paladin, when they could have gone the simple route and copied most other games.

Edit: Typos, oh so many typos.

Comments

As u said the first concept of tibia paladins were similar to DnD. Based in old versions information Paladin was "a balanced warrior who can wield Melee Weapons efficiently while using magic to beat the evilness" that explain why paladins skill up faster than usual with melee weapons, their high health points and their capacity to carry a lot of weight which is totally different to any other vocation/profession/class who have damage based on distance weapons in any other game. this actually gave an original identity to tibia paladins, also that could explain too why there are spells (knight spells) that can only be casted while wielding melee weapons. but tibia couldn't keep that idea too long. specially with the update were they released the equipment vocation restrictions, they forced for a lot of years paladins to be rangers at all, nowadays tibia bring back again the idea of a close combat warrior but hardly they would return to the idea of paladin as a melee weapons carrier. Edit: typos too.

Answer 2

Paladin (Latin Palatinus, Italian: Paladino) - an outstanding knight, a model of knightly virtues.

An explanation of this in medieval literature called the number, archetypal warriors, most often 12 pairs of Charlemagne (at the same time his adjunct team). The name comes from the Latin word come palatinus (palace count), meaning administrator of the royal court, who replaced the monarch in issuing courts. In literature, and today in role-playing and computer games, the meaning of words has changed, they did not apply to court officials, but rather to classes of magical warriors serving deities.

this note from Wikipedia... Unfortunately, I don't know what cipsoft meant so it is a model of knightly virtues and magical warriors serving deities is this reason he also has the powers of holiness? Maybe this profession was considered too "simple" and gave it supernatural powers?

Ps. looking at some graphics on google, I noticed that the paladin has a sword in almost every picture. I think Hunter would be a better name for this profession btw.

Answer 3

This will be an answer based on the information obtained by multiple facts rather than by a direct clarification of cipsoft, expressed only to clarify the multiple incongruities of in-games story caused by the misrepresentation of a concept:

From Tyrnusiiaa answer we can know the most basic concept of a paladin:

Paladin (Latin Palatinus, Italian: Paladino) - an outstanding knight, a model of knightly virtues.

An explanation of this in medieval literature called the number, archetypal warriors, most often 12 pairs of Charlemagne (at the same time his adjunct team). The name comes from the Latin word come palatinus (palace count), meaning administrator of the royal court, who replaced the monarch in issuing courts. In literature, and today in role-playing and computer games, the meaning of words has changed, they did not apply to court officials, but rather to classes of magical warriors serving deities.

 So we know that a Paladin is a Warrior. also taken in RPG as a magical warriors serving deities. 

Also from lenorah answer we know aswell what actually is a paladin in tibia:

When you read the information on tibia.com about vocations, this is how Cipsoft describes a paladin: "Paladins, too, are gifted melee fighters. Their ability to train melee skills is second only to that of knights. Also, they know how to handle shields very well, and experienced paladins can block most enemies even though they are not as resilient as Knights." ... "They are also magic users of considerable skill who have an impressive range of spells at their disposal. Even though their magic skill cannot be compared to that of pure magic users such as druids or sorcerers, paladins have access to many additional spells because they can use a large number of runes."

Sounds familiar, right? It certainly has a resemblence with the balanced class of paladins in DnD, combining the strengths of a warrior but with the abilities of a mage/cleric. This is what a paladin in Tibia is, you can carry heavier armor but you're not as sturdy as a knight, you can heal and wield magic, but you can't heal as well as a druid. In recent years the paladin class of Tibia has also been given a lot more characteristics of the pen and paper-paladin, such as curing curses, holy spells and having an advantage when fighting undeads.

Now, the classic version/trope of paladin, which we probably also have Dungeons & Dragons to thank for, often appears as the "knight in a shiny armor", but nowhere is it stated that a paladin has to be a knight. This trope is probably also the reason as to why the paladin is so heavily associated with swords and maces, although there is nothing in the legends that confirm the use of these weapons. And even though it's the most common weapons for paladins in games today, there are other games besides Tibia that chose a different path: in Guild Wars the paladins fight with spears, and in Fire Emblem the paladin is a mounted unit.

Which let us know that paladin also have holy properties and is also the only one who can use them. show us aswell that there are other games as FE and GW who have a different way to show up paladins.

So here starts the clarifications:

•  Why they are called paladins? Because they are holy warriors who use their special holy magic to beat their enemies.
  So yes, this fullfill the basic concept of both In-game paladins and history paladins.
   
• Why if they are Warrior don't they use melee weapons? Tibia initially encouraged paladins to use melee weapons until they had to be restricted to their vocation, So they were created with that characteristic on mind.
   
• Why those restrictions? To answer this we have to go back a lot of years (at least 15), in the beggining of tibia the game was so far different from what it is now, in the first versions there were a lot of things way differents, between them a lack of balance on weapons which meant a lot of troubles with vocations exploiting advantages from weapons. So Tibia chose to restrict the best weapons to their vocations that way another one wouldn't take advantage of it. 
  That way they easily could start implementing such things as better ammo for paladins, better wands/rods for mages better weapons both two and one handed for knights without risking other vocation take advantage of it.
   
• This was against the paladin concept of themselves in their manual right?  Absolutely, certainly, positively, completely yes. But tibia chose a better path to let a paladin be a paladin as giving they their own and exclusive holy damage.
  which travel us to this interesting question:
   
• Why if they were holy knights they haven't holy damage until later versions? Simple, there weren't enough ways to use that in combat properly.
   
• WHY?! In that times were spells, potions, equipments had to be casted/used manually and nowaday low lvl mobs were the most formidable ones tibia was TOO much complicated and so slowly developed to implement and do a well-use of things as that. It was finally implemented when could be used properly.
   
• so they are now holy fighters but they fight at distance aren't they holy archers? Nope at all. paladin have a lack of stats/characteristics necessary to survive as a ranger even more they survive thanks to their high hp and abilities to restore it, those stats are way too different from archers but close to a knight or a mage instead, and if an arecher from other game can compare those stats that would mean sacriface their survivability or their damage while in paladins magic scale beside their distance and hp.
  
  So is a mistake to call paladins archers, u could compare then to every other game similars and u will actually notice that its only real similarity it is that they fight shooting with distance weapons, nothing else.  Think at paladins as a DPS as a WoW warrior but who is based into shooting at close-combat to do damage properly.
   
• Why close combat fighters? aren't they encouraged to attack from distance? absolutely... No. a paladin is so versatile that he can become a sharpshooter/ranger but they are desgined to be close with their enemy doing the most ammount of damage at 2-3 sqm of distance, their set of spell is developed to be used that way too, also now they can fullbox enemies, they can take most of the damage and even in teamhunts they do a great work taking the aggro to protect mages That base concept is not and never will be a ranger/shooter/hunter by itself.
   
• There is one question yet, why if they are warriors cipsoft make them the shooters? why there aren't other shooters beside them? easy, if there were shooters beside paladins they would be useless AF. 
  
  Beyond the years tibia have improved and change a lot of things, but now and at the beggining releasing a shooter would mean the dissappearance of paladins, a character who sucks in every aspect isn't a balanced one but an useless one.

yet paladins are a wonderful and incredibly versatile vocation who can fight in different ways and can take advantage of almost every sittuation, so now more than ever paladins fulfill their name in every aspect possible.

Tibia also is a game who have seen a LOT of changes and even now they are improving slowly so that's why a lot of things doesn't work properly in the paladin lore/mechanism and their differences with other games paladins

TL;DR: Paladins are holy warriors not archers and Tibia now and years ago always keeps that concept properly and is polishing it as much as possible.

Source: years of experience with the different versions of the game, Tibia Manual and Tibia wiki

Edit: shortening the bible for quality and quantity's sake, also typos.

Comments

I don't agree with all the arguments, but I think it is a very elaborated answer. Kudos!

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it's possible express ur disagreement as feedback so don't be afraid, also if is a point that should have an answer specially dedicated to that thread turning it into a question could help someone else who disapprove the answer for the same reason