Unsurprisingly, 43% of Redditors want to play a drow/dragonborn/tiefling, and only 18% want to play a fighter/magic-user/cleric/thief, lower than the 21% who want to play a nonsensical sorcerer/warlock. But we know that those playing the BG3 demo have differed greatly in their choices from Reddit's desires.
I though Paladin was supposed to be human only?
In 1970, maybe. Almost certainly this was changed before you were born.
Paladins are restricted to humans in four of the six versions of D&D/AD&D and absent in the other two (1977 Holmes Basic D&D and 1981 Moldvay/Cook B/X D&D).
Drow Paladin is about as "legal" as Drow Ranger.
They're Chaotic Evil. Lolth is Chaotic Evil. What's the ONE thing that defines Paladins? Their adherence to a fucking code, which means lawfulness.
Paladins are just religious warriors. If there are chaotic evil gods, there should be chaotic evil paladins. It was always stupid.
Gary Gygax conceived of paladins as emulating the protagonist of the Poul Anderson novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, meaning the class was associated with Lawful Good human civilization, not merely the equivalent of a fighter-cleric hybrid who could be any alignment, depending on the deity worshipped.
The notion of paladin-equivalents for alignments other than Lawful Good began with the article "The Anti-Paladin NPC" (by George Laking and Tim Mesford) in Dragon Magazine #39 (July 1980), which introduced a Chaotic Evil version to serve as an antagonist to the players. This article resulted in a terse rejoinder by Gary Gygax in a letter appearing in issue #41: "The anti-paladin is as useful as a third leg. Paladins were designed to counter balance the weight of evil monsters in AD&D. If DMs must resort to such, to control their games, why not use a 16-ton block instead? It is at least as subtle and rational." Despite Gary's displeasure, this article was included in The Best of Dragon Magazine Volume 2 collection in 1981! Moreover, the Fiend Folio, also published in 1981, included passing references to an anti-paladin class in the description of githyanki.
Moreover, paladin-equivalents soon became official in D&D with the BECMI 'Green Box' Companion Set in 1984, which not only allowed Lawful (BECMI D&D had a single-axis three alignment system) wandering fighters the option of becoming a Paladin after reaching name level, but also allowed Neutral wandering fighters the option of becoming a Knight in service to a secular liege rather than a Lawful church, while Chaotic wandering fighters were granted the option of becoming an Avenger in alliance with a Chaotic church.
An article titled "A Plethora of Paladins" by Christopher Wood in Dragon Magazine #106 (February 1986) introduced paladin equivalents for the other seven alignments (noting explicitly the earlier article on Chaotic Evil "anti-paladins").
It should be stressed that articles in Dragon Magazine were not equal to official rules, and AD&D 2nd edition maintained the LG-only alignment for paladins.
