For the record, I am not a casual gamer, and am a roleplayer, and I find myself enjoying the Paladin, and don't feel stifled at all. Especially seeing that, as a roleplayer, what class I start off with is irrelevant because I'm going to play the role of my character, whatever class I may be. If "we" don't want to be forced into playing a hero all the time, there's nothing stopping you from that...even if you start the game off as a Paladin. I have played through games as a Paladin that falls before, and I enjoyed them. If on my first playthrough of NWN2 I feel like that is the situation, I'll do it. It only becomes restrained if you're specifically trying to keep the Paladin class and progress fully, which isn't really roleplaying as far as I'm concerned.
And the expansions had the Blackguard PrC, which pretty much seemed like an evil Paladin IIRC.
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I never liked the Paladin because I thought Lawful Good was a thoroughly unrealistic alignment.
However, as
alignment roleplay is limited and even almost-impossible in cRPGs,
considering that a significant portion of the armour, weapons and equipment are all geared to fighter classes (not too many greatsword-weilding mages out there), and
I predominantly play a good-aligned character, then
I found myself drawn towards the tank-self-healer character. (I used to play a lot of monks, mainly because of the kewl immunities, like poison and magic at higher levels.)
Mages are still the more powerful of the higher level characters, though.
I'd really like to investigate a rogue character properly, too, if the full range of abilities were available (climbing walls) and thieving was integrated better into the game mechanics ... possibly even incorporating some spell-like beguiling powers for the very well gab-gifted, too.