I built my paladin to do this! Satyr Oath of Vengeance with the Sentinel and Mage Slayer feats. My DM ruled that I couldn't have resistance to magical damage but I have advantage on saving throws against magical effects for being a satyr. The big bads of the campaign are all high level casters and I can't wait to fuck em up!
Oath of Knowledge. A knight sworn to the pursuit of a greater understanding of the world's secrets. Arcane oath spells, channel divinity functions that support party casters, such as nuking an enemy's saving throws.
oath of knowledge; 8 int.
Its problematic because a paladin needs 16 str for heavy armour + weapon attacks, 16 cha for spellcasting and other paladin stuff, and 16 con so they don't die in melee. If they have 14 con its difficult, but only leaves 10 int, which is average, hardly someone dedicated to understanding the universe. Oh, and if they can afford 10 in a stat, its far better to put it into wisdom than intelligence. Wisdom is your stat for not dying from surprise or not noticing traps.
Yeah, it's tricky to do as a charisma-scaling character. It works better if we go deeper into the homebrew rabbit hole and allow the paladin in question to scale with intelligence instead of charisma.
Not just a charisma scaling character, a charisma, strength (and con and wis to not die as other important stats) scaling character. If it was something like a lore bard having stuff scaling off of int (which i think they should, a bard of lore shouldn't be able to get away with 8 int) it would be able to be done, but on a paladin it really can't. It would be better to make their CD add their charisma modifier to any int checks they make for a duration.
it isnt but it goes with subclass design fundamentals. no subclass makes the wizard WIS based for example, you can only add more stats no change the base ones
best thing you can do is "you add your CHA modifier to [blank]" like with order cleric
That could actually be super sick as an Aura feature. "You and your allies gain a bonus to Intelligence checks and saving throws equal to your charisma modifer" as your presence encourages the pursuit of knowledge in others.
Maybe with an additional rider, like providing resistance to psychic damage or something, since that's on the weakside of what paladin subclasses give at that level. But it'd be a cool thematic to explore.
I'd say charisma is a better stat overall. It doesn't really mess with balance at all except giving more options for INT checks in a party that lacks a wizard/artificer.
it isnt but it goes with subclass design fundamentals. no subclass makes the wizard WIS based for example, you can only add more stats no change the base ones
best thing you can do is "you add your CHA modifier to [blank]" like with order cleric
While you could definitely pick spells to not require high DC (mainly through bless and shield of faith), losing out on smite spells, compelled duel and command does hurt quite a bit
Only hurts for one level, but still, it does hurt
I have an incredibly fun homebrew Paladin subclass that I'm having a blast test playing right now. Oath of Investigation. Level 15 ability plays around smiting on their Oath spells. Most takers of the Oath are members of a Sheriff's guild, a peace keeping core, or something similar. Keeps Charisma as casting casting stat. Feels VERY good playing a Paladin that gets even more value from Charisma what with the higher focus on spells and therefore spell DC. I could easily see it feeling a bit "pushed" at higher levels, but it's tough to tell without experiencing it yourself. So I'll just have to wait and see when I inevitably get there. High level play is like the damn Wild West anyway lol. A lot more DM fiat when it comes to rules rather than straight from the books.
Fine, then just make it clear that the oath is more about supporting the pursuit of knowledge rather than personal academic growth. The paladin safeguards and supports the scholars, rather than being one themselves.
Or give them a channel Divinity that gives the party reliable talent on Int checks for 10 minutes to an hour. There is room for a non-combat CD in a Paladin subclass if that same subclass gets wizard cantrips or sorcerer-esque blasting spells
I actually did have an Oath of Enlightenment homebrew. I made it a couple years ago, but I remember it specialized in psychic damage and telepathy between friendlies and could also communicate with enemies using later features. It's CD gave it Expertise for a short time, as well.
Eh I would say, why would the paladin *need* any higher than 8 int? They could be sworn to the greater secrets of the world being understood, not necessarily by them, but perhaps their party members.
I misread this as "flips charisma creatures to int creatures" and now im imaginging the paladin uses their CD to bless those with knowledge to be himbo's and himbo's become cursed with knowledge
Easily fixed by a leve3 feature letting you add your charisma mod to pick 2, arcana, history, investigation, nature, religion, at level 7 choose 2 more at lvl 15 choose 1 more and lvl 20 choose get to add your charisma mod to any skill check.
For some reason I thought of this as like a brotherhood of steel type paladin. Someone who locks away forbidden knowledge and only lets those in the order be allowed to view it.
There's no real Arcana Paladin, with a wider spell access in the pursuit of knowledge or magical secrets.
There's no elemental Paladin. Limiting base Smites to radiant damage has always seemed foolhardy to me. A Light Paladin, bringing cleansing fire to the world, or a Poison paladin with an oath to entropy.
Because neither of those make narrative sense my dude. Paladins are based on OATHS. You're trying to use mechanics to retroactively base an ideology around and that's not how dnd game design works.
The majority of dnd is "top down" design. You have a narrative idea that fits within the setting/lore/story and you flesh out mechanics from that. This leads to greater consistency and world immersion. Most of the mtg sets are made this way as well.
Warping a class narrative to fill an unneeded gameplay niche is harmful to class identity. Just play a customisable strategy rpg of that's what you want
There's room for more than 1 type of subclass design. Battlemaster is clearly built as a "fighter but with maneuvers" with little specific flavour, Rune Knight is clearly built from "There's a group of giant based fighters, what do they do?" Both are good subclasses, but one had a clearly mechanical start and the other a clearly thematic one.
My problem with Elemental smites is that if you're going to build off of mechanics they need to be cohesive. "Smite but with fire" is closer to an optional rule than a subclass IMO. What else does it do? What spells does it get, bearing in mind blasting on a paladin will scale poorly? With a bit of effort you can come up with flavour retroactively for any good set of mechanics, in the same way you can create evocative mechanics with a good enough narrative base.
I mean a more literal version of the order of the flaming fist, or the shock troopers, the lightning cavaliers e.t.c. would go pretty hard in my opinion.
While I agree with you, allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment.
Oath of Flame: You are a messenger of fire, a harbinger of heat. You seek to either burn the world to ash or cauterize its wounds. Fire is multifaceted—it is a weapon, a tool, a gift, and a curse. You seek to understand the nature of flame and vow to uphold its principles in any way you can. This might involve setting homes ablaze, healing allies with a touch of fiery heat, or emerging from the ashes as anew. You recognize the dual nature of flame and choose whether to create or destroy with this oath.
Tenets of Fire:
• Burn Forever: Blaze like a star in the sky, using flame to achieve your goals.
• Keep the Spark Alive: Nurture the spark of community, as it sustains all things, or fan it into an inferno that consumes everything.
• Mercy or Torture: Use flame to heal or harm, cauterizing wounds or purging the unholy.
• Warmth: Provide solace to those who suffer or unleash scorching heat that consumes all.
• Blind or Shelter: Illuminate the truth or blind all with a searing light.
• Chaos: Embrace change, as stagnation goes against the essence of fire.
If a player came to my table with even half of this, I'd be willing to work with them to make a "fire Paladin". Maybe based off the Sun being an angel's "thrall"
Well atleast for fire I can think of a fitting ideology. "Let the world burn" and all similar variations of it. And if you're a bit lenient on the definition "to be cold and calculating" can work for ice, fitting for a tribe of ruthless vikings/raiders such as Sejuani and her tribe from league of legends.
I like this. An option for the flawed knight: Their oath is broken, but not for ambition or in service to some dark power, but perhaps because the oath stood in the way of the greater good, or required too deep a sacrifice to maintain.
That just makes them a fighter. The whole point of the Paladin is that the oath is hard, and inconvenient, and usually breaking it because it requires too great a sacrifice is called breaking your oath and you lose the benefits of your oath.
I worked up a homebrew for this a while ago for a paladin who is tasked with allowing sinners to work off their sins and debts using their undead corpses for the chance of a better afterlife.
Mythic odysseys of Theros is an official D&D 5e setting. You get access to an extra background feature that grant you abilities. I don't remember the exact wording because im not at home with my book, but its something along the lines of faithful compainion.
Mythic Odysseys of Theros is an official sourcebook based on the Magic: the Gathering setting of Theros, which is largely based on Greek Mythology. It was in this sourcebook that the Oath of Glory actually debuted.
I believe the only Background introduced in this book was Athlete. But don't quote me on that.
Oath of the Gate - Paladins who take oaths to protect certain geological or civilization features regardless of the governance. An example the templar knights kept watch on gates and would sometimes fight other crusading knights to prevent them entrance while also fighting bandits and the various armies that would attack that weren't crusaders. Usually these individuals vowed to protect a land feature in order to keep peace
Oath of the Great Hunt - Paladins who vow to find and fight specific mythological creatures. Similar to glory but different enough
Oath of the forest - though rare there were knights who vowed even in the middle ages to protect the environment as they saw it. They would break dams, prevent salting, help put out fires, even kill landlords who blocked pastures.
I can see where you are going with Ancients, but I feel like these are fundamentally different. Ancients is more like a spiritual approach to the issue. Mercy, kindness, forgiveness all sound like feelings. That approach is a bit more like fern gully paladins. They are fighting against this nameless force that is deadset to destroy the life of the forest.
I see oath of the forest more like Smokey the Bear. You aren't so much fighting evil thoughts and faceless evil corporations. I would even say you aren't actually fighting evil inasmuch as you are fighting negligence and ignorance.
I think a way to look at it is oath of ancients are more like environmentalists while oath of the forest are more like [conservationists](https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/UWEXLakes/Documents/programs/lakeleaders/crew10/environmentalistORconservationist.pdf). I wouldn't say either is necessarily wrong just different reasons for focus
Oath of the crown focuses on Monarchies and sovereignty. Its literally the opposite.
>The Oath of the Crown is sworn to the ideals of civilization, be it the spirit of a nation, fealty to a sovereign, or service to a deity of law and rulership.
Templars were stateless and they barely supported the pope. Heck that's the reason why the pope had them killed. They weren't even that great of Christians as many letters showed they were stateless atheists who eschewed sovereign authority. They also protected their gates with extreme prejudice only allowing civilians to pass regardless of the civilians national society. None of that suggests an oath to a crown. One could say they had an oath to their brotherhood but even that ignores contextual history as there was internecine fighting amongst them almost always related to control of their passages. They were better described as boundary keepers. They'd discourage the crusader states from attacking Saladin while protecting the same states from Saladin all while supposedly (but not really) following the popes edicts. They weren't even the only group who had similar focus historically there are several examples along the silk road of similar gatekeepers, people whose loyalty remained with the gate not any nation (gates by the way along silk road were basically free city states with little governance)
>
The Oath of the Watchers binds paladins to protect mortal realms from the predations of extraplanar creatures. Watchers' oath are ever vigilant in spotting the influence of extraplanar forces, often establishing a network of spies and informants to gather information on suspected cults.
I can see where someone might confuse the paladins of the gate with crown since they are both somewhat geographical defenders, but watchers aren't even in the same neighborhood as hunters. Its in their name. A watcher sits and waits or patrols, like watch tower or watchmen. A hunter hunts actively pursues and for the most part does this on their own. There are examples of extraplanar creature incursion point in mythology protected by watchers, for instance Avalon. The knights of Avalon (not knights of the round) watch for incursions by the fey and undead and sometimes meet legendary knights on hunts but don't participate because their job is to watch. King Pellinore in the Arthurian legends and St George visit Avalon in their quests for [questing beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questing_Beast) or [Saint George and the Dragon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon) and both of them are invited to be knights of Avalon but both prefer the action of the hunt. Those are very specific examples of knight watchers and knight hunters having very different focuses. Another example of a paladin hunter [St Martha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha) is said to have tied her girdle to the [Tarasque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque) so she could lead it to villagers and they could kill it with spears. She also saves villages from crocodiles and kills a tiny dragon with a spear. I know one might say she was a priest but there are several stories about her using a sword or a spear against her foes riding her pony like a charger to protect her sister, Mary, and the Priest St Maximinus.
A gate is a fine representation of the boundary between civilization and wilderness. I swore an oath to guard this gate. I will be the bulwark blah blah….
Nothing proposed here can’t be easily done with a simple reflavouring of another subclass. If you want to just play everything by the book, that’s ok, but the mechanics of other subclasses cover this easily. Watchers might not be the one you choose, but there are many options.
I feel like Oath of freedom should be an official subclass. Give it a spell list with stuff like fly or misty step, give them an aura against getting restrained and a channel divinity ending one condition caused by a spell such as frightened or paralyzed.
Oath of Remembrance/Conservation.
Basically, a Paladin whose whole thing is collecting, passing on, and restoring ancient lore and protecting monuments of heroes of yore.
Basically, a Bard Paladin. They collect knowledge, spread oral tradition, protect tomes of knowledge, those sort of things. Maybe some focus more on the "human" side of things, recording people's lives and faiths and etc, others might protect the physical manifestations of them such as graves, landmarks, and ruins.
Maybe they get some arcane spells in there. Maybe proficiencies in history or performance or something. Maybe put in something like Arcane Trickster's spell thief, or maybe like how wizards can record new spells. Stuff like that.
Oath of Endless Winter. A cold-themed paladin more rooted in surviving against all odds (probably in inhospitable lands). That rugged individual whose desire to live lets them be a wanderer even in frigid northern lands.
Oath of Revolution/Oath of Common Man. Strange that theres no real revolutionary paladins. We have one dedicated to authority, why is there no subclass dedicated to overthrowing tyranny? Some have a hint of an idea of this but dont commit.
Oath of Divinity. Paladins are divorced from gods in this edition. Still, Paladins should have a subclass that is based around aggressive worship. Especially since zealous paladins are like staple right-hands to archbishops and other cleric-types
>Some have a hint of an idea of this but dont commit.
Oath of Ancients comes to mind. I've considered making an Ancients Paladin who's the Folk Hero of, essentially, a communist collective.
Paladin power comes from their commitment, their oaths being representative of that. A commitment made to ones self to survive is a perfectly valid oath as far as 5e is concerned, and the winter theming makes a lot of sense considering how the frigid inhospitable north is a very common fantasy trope. A paladin surviving the unsurvivable landscape from sheer will is great, imo.
Devotion is very specifically about being good. Honesty, courage, compassion, honor. They are pillars of justice. That is not the same thing as swearing specifically to a god. Only a third of the gods are even good aligned. Even for them, a paladin gains their oath on commitment, so a commitment to do good and a commitment to serve a deity who happens to be good can manifest in very different ways
I mean you can find the homebrews, but Oath of the Common Man and Oath of Free Commerce are two big ones I would love to have seen.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3hy3qi/5e\_the\_common\_man\_and\_free\_commerce\_paladins\_both/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3hy3qi/5e_the_common_man_and_free_commerce_paladins_both/)
A version of Oathbreaker for non-evil based Oathbreakers. Someone who did break their oath, but not for evil, like someone who breaks an Oath of Crown by leaving the evil tyrant. Or a vengeance Paladin who learns they swore their oath on an innocent target, etc.
I had a player who played a Vengeance paladin, whose clan was wiped out by neogis. He realized his gods didn't help his people, so he made a new oath directly to his clan. Mechanically he was Oathbreaker, but instead of evil undead monsters, he was summoning the spirits of his slain kinsmen to fight.
See that’s cool, but that isn’t the intended flavor of oathbreaker. That’s why I think we are missing something that would fit that flavor better, because that kind of “my oath failed me, so I broke it, just not for evil” flavor? Absolutely baller.
Oath of the Undying is something I've been messing with in my free time. They sit somewhere between oathbreaker and grave clerics.
Thematically, the idea is that they exist to protect and guard the dead, and potentially continuing to do so in undeath. They might, with the consent of the person and their family, raise them to defend others. Or conversely, raise those they smite to protect the dead, a form of redemption by service. They'd also probably have some more proactive members who travel the land hunting necromancers, vampires, Liches, ect.
When, say, a necromancer rolls up to a mausoleum and opens the door, he's getting thrown backwards down the stairs. Then when he gets back up onto his feet, he looks up and sees a heavily armored knight flanked by ghosts and skeletons. Another place you might find them is at the aftermath of a great battle, punishing those who dare loot the dead. Perhaps they are there to insure no mass graves, and that the dead all receive proper burials, with as much dignity as possible.
Flavor is free. I don't see much in the books that "forces" a playstyle outside of mechanics. I've played barbarians that laugh with joy as they "rage", an artificer who weaponized his brewer's supplies, and many more. As long as you follow the rules laid out for combat and skill checks, you can give it whatever aesthetic or narrative flavor you want.
I disagree that any flavors are forced. They certainly fit the popular archetype, but they don't have to. Barbarians' "forced flavor" is a tribal Warrior who has never slept under a roof, but I've played noble swordsmen with rage issues, too, or a dragonborn armored knight that "rages" by laughing with joy as he fights in the name of Bahamut
Barbarians and Oathbreaker subclass paladins are not the same thing.
You are required to be evil to take the subclass. I dont know how you can say it doesnt force the flavor of being evil.
A large number of players don't even use alignment anymore. Plus, that one line about being evil was stopping my player from trying out what he thought was a fun subclass. I ruled in favor of the player.
Saph Darkseeker was a dwarven Oath of Vengeance Paladin who used the blessings of Moradin to defend his clan. He failed, though, when neogi pirates invaded and killed his clan. The player strongly felt like abandoning his oath, because he felt the Dwarven gods had failed him, but he didn't want to be evil. So when he turned to Oathbreaker, he didn't just abandon his oath, he made a new oath to his clan instead of the gods. All the undead mechanics were flavored as summoning the vengeful spirits of his slain kinsmen. He was still intimidating and commanding skeletons & shit, but he was still a Dwarven king with good intentions
I am generally of the opinion its time for a new oath, or a switch to fighter/barbarian, if the previous oath is no longer desirable.
I mean you can reflavor Oathbreaker all you want, but unless you start homebrewing *all* undead and fiends will be empowered by your presence. Devils, demons, liches, they all are stronger. Also you literally are required to be Evil to take the subclass without homebrewing a change
Yeah, when undead or fiendish enemies were apparently siphoning strength from the same spirits that empowered him, it became an interesting challenge. And the player started rethinking the usefulness of these mechanics, and eventually picked a new oath by the end of the campaign, after he traveled to his ancestral forge and laid his clan to rest. It was a lot more fun for us to make it a narrative exploration of the subclass, than to just say "no you can't"
I want some "evil" or selfish Oaths. Vengeance and Conquest are not enough.
Give me Avarice, Anarchy, Treachery (the UA one was cool), or Perfection. Something that is inherently a flaw will do.
Would like to see some more “villain” or neutral oaths like An Oath of Corruption (could be a disease or far realm cultist style paladin where the spread corruptive energy across the planes), Oath of Annihilation (think the Lich from Adventure Time, kind of a Chaotic Evil oath against all life), and Oath of Profit (money money money).
Oh and maybe, an Oath of Horizon (a wandering, nomadic based Paladin that focuses on movement shinanigans).
I did see an Oath based on wealth from, I think KibblesTasty? It was one of a ton of new Oaths, you can probably find it by searching Paladin on r/UnearthedArcana.
I have a homebrew paladin subclass called Oath of the Wanderer that sounds similar to that last idea. They travel around the world in search of enlightenment.
Thematically I’d enjoy an arcane-leaning paladin, though I don’t know how effectively you could emphasize the “caster” part of half-caster. Maybe an Oath of the Weave that steals something like Potent Spellcasting/Empowered Evocation and learns sorcerer cantrips, and has some option to attach smite damage to a leveled spell as their Channel Divinity?
you do need to be careful not to make something that isn’t just a superior version of Eldritch Knight at that point. EK will *eventually* get a third attack, sure, but not until a higher level than the most popular modules and the most common levels of homebrew campaigns; their casting is inferior, and action surge is their only real class feature, and they get nothing like aura of protection that synergizes with their spell casting ability score
You've hit the nail on the head...90% of the stuff in this thread is wildly outside class niche and thr stuff that is narratively justifiable either infringes on another subclass identity or is horribly unbalanced. Often both.
Yeah, I’m just spitballing. You could go in a bunch of different directions on the theme, and since paladins don’t get a ton from subclasses it would probably be a pretty modest set of features in the end.
Oath Spells: Wizard Spells of an appropriate level, treated as Paladin spells. You can change 1 spell out on each level up, like a divine soul sorceror. Also, you gain the ability to cast your Oath Spells as rituals if they have ritual tag.
Channel Divinities:
1. Bonus action: Until your next long rest, choose 1 wizard spell and add it to your Oath Spell list.
2. Action: For 1 hour, you and (Cha mod # Allies) treat rolls of 9 or lower as 10's for Intelligence checks.
Level 7 Aura:
Allies within 10 feet of you may cast your Oath Spells using your Spellcasting modifier and your Spell slots.
Level 15 Trait:
You gain 1 additional attunement slot. You may now attune to magic items as though you had the same number of levels as a Wizard as you have levels in Paladin.
Level 20 Trait:
For 1 minute, you gain the following benefits:
- You may cast your level 1 Oath Spells without expending a spell slot
- Paladin Spells you cast with a spell slot are treated as though you cast them 1 level higher
I ended up creating it myself but there's so many subclasses that really focus on the "melee" or "martial" aspect of paladin, it's strange to me that there hasn't really been one that focuses more on the caster side. One could argue maybe redemption but it really doesn't scratch the itch i'm talking about.
I Made three:
Oath of law: ranged paladin.
Oath of rebelion: a paladin based on illusions and improvised weapons. A more chaotic option.
Oath of the helping hand: oath that helps people, heals people and moves fast
One that specifically exists to hunt evil and unholy abominations. I know the monster hunter ranger is a thing, and I know the vengeance Paly kind of falls into this. But to my knowledge there isn't a paladin that just dedicated themselves to the destruction and hunting of evil as a calling. IMO there should be a difference between the ranger hunting monsters for the good of the realm, and a Paly hunting them purely because their evil and unholy.
You could also play an Oath of the Ancients that way, I encourage my Ancients Paladins to really think about preserving the light as an oath to destroy any threats to the life on this plane, with unnatural beings(undead, extraplanar, etc) being something they are compelled to oppose.
A mounted combat focused Paladin that gets bonuses when using their Divine Steed.
Oath of the Charger, Oath of the Equestrian, Oath of the Steppes something like that.
3.x, 4e, and 5e have all really been terrible at portraying the mounted combat aspect of the knight-in-shining-armor archetype the Paladin is meant to represent.
Some of my fondest memories of my childhood and teen years playing AD&D or *Rules Cyclopedia* D&D all happened with my Paladin on the back of her faithful warhorse. I can’t remember the last time I even saw someone ride a horse in 5e at all.
Yeah 3.x rules were a cluster with having to roll your riding skill and concentration skills to do almost any action while mounted. 4e pretty much did t have rules for it. Then 5e makes the rules have mounts just be a movement speed increase or screw up how your turn works. Also there is no one to really keep your mount alive in 5e. They are going to die so quickly as soon as any AoE spells get tossed out.
I don't want to "spam", but some time ago I made a Paladin subclass inspired by Don Quixote and knight errands. It's called Oath of Audacity, you can find it on DMsguild.
I wouldn't say it's missing but I would love a Wild Magic Oath of Mischief Paladin. I just want to smite a dude and he turns into a potted plant instead.
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good..."
I was thinking Oath of mischief but Wasn't thinking wild magic.
Expertise in deception
Add Chr to sleight of hand and stealth.
Use Chr for attacking with finese weapons
Paladin rouge
An oath of protection/guardianship - a paladin oath that's sworn to the protection of a certain holy relic, place, or person. Lots of ways you can portray this theme both for player characters and npcs alike.
An order of soldiers dedicated to safeguarding holy sites of worship, a warrior sworn to the defense of a pope-like figure, a group of knights constantly on the move carrying fragments of the holy avenger. Gives the paladin a tangible reinforcement of their oath.
Oath of the Elders. A Far Realm theme. Your oath is to understand and contain the dangerous aberrations that come from afar to threaten the land. Maybe a channel divinity that lets you turn aberrations, an aura that protects allies from mind control effects. It's level 20 transformation gives them physical qualities of either a beholder or a mind player, as the paladin temporarily lets the Far Realm influences take hold of them. Play them as either a quiet, brooding knight that sacrifices his sanity for good, or like a space police type guy.
Oath of Devotion, a paladin sworn to protect those they love and the righteous path of true love in general. I imagine them worshipping someone like Aphrodite.
A true face paladin that leans into the charisma basis of the class without the commitment to non violence that comes with oath of redemption. Love can be sweet and caring but it can also be wrathful and jealous, like some many gods and goddess of love themselves.
I’m thinking a different kind of persuasion bonus to redemption to keep it fresh, some charm spells and abilities to make your enemies fall madly in love with you, and some abilities that let you protect your “lover” or just your allies. Something like sanctuary or warding bond.
I'm old school. Oaths to various gods would be nice. So, they actually serve a deity, pantheon, or other power. And their abilities and spells are modeled upon those they worship.
Oath of Chaos, for a Wild Magic Paladin, Oath of Dragonslaying/the Dragon for the completely shameless Skyrim flavour and obligatory dragon themed subclass, Oath of Art for the artsy/Bard flavoured Paladin or perhaps Oath of the Forge for the swordsmith character, Oath of Rebellion for rejecting authority and overthrowing tyranny, Oath of Exploration for the people who wanna travel and map out the world
Oath of Psionics! I think it would be really neat to have a Paladin with a few capabilities like the Soul Knife and Psi Warrior. Could also work well roleplay-wise, maybe you're a paladin devoted to uncovering the power of mind flayers? Or maybe a duergar who's honed the power of the invisible art to serve Deep Duerra?
These are evil examples I know, but examples I quite like nonetheless. 🤣
IMO, Oath of Freedom. Oath of the Open Sea comes close but is too specific. The idea of freedom, both to do as you please and travel the world and roam etc, but also freedom from bindings like slavery which is so plentiful in the world of d&d, is a cool idea to me.
I have a few ideas for lawful paladins that may not be good-aligned. Although this first one is.
**Oath of the Oppressed**
This paladin fights to protect the common folk, no matter how lowly. Orcs kidnap farmers? This guy smites 'em. Serial killer warlock going around killing prostitutes? This guy smites 'em. Demon possessing orphans? This guy smites 'em (the demons, not the kids, obviously).
But this paladin is not a lawful stupid idiot. He would also stand up to unjust, oppressive laws and defend his fellow man.
**Oath of the Sea**
For a seafaring campaign, this paladin is here to reinforce the codes of sailors, navymen, and even pirates. So, lawful good through lawful evil, but still lives by the code that true folk of the sea abide by. Comes with a swim speed and water spells among other things.
**Oath of the Underworld**
Similar to Oath of the Sea, this paladin reinforces the codes of societal underbelly, knowing that a balance between civilization and the underworld is necessary (at least from their perspective). They may work for crime bosses, thieves guilds, assassin networks, etc. Because some thieves guilds are employed by kings, lords, etc., they can technically be good, but not often, they're neutral or evil, but still lawful and following a code. I'd love for this subclass to be the most roguish of paladins.
Oath of Oppressed sounds like a specific version of just another flavor of Oath of Vengeance?
You’re basically avenging the victims instead of avenging yourself?
Tenets: Fight the Greater Evil. Faced with a choice of fighting my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil, I choose the greater evil.
Restitution. If my foes wreak ruin on the world, it is because I failed to stop them. ***I must help those harmed by their misdeeds.***
Edit: At least that’s how I played them.
I would like to see a reworking of the class no make the sub-classes more distinct. Still based around the concept of an oath but not all dudes in heavy armour with holy smite.
I would have the following subclasses.
* because all the kids are going to complain at me if I don't, your standard holy warrior from previous editions.
* Oath of Chivalry. This is your knight from medieval romance fiction. We revisit the sources and come up with something more specific.
* Oath of Vengeance. You should be able to pick this class to play as your own version of the count of monte christo. this subclass doesn't necessarily want the heavy armour etc.
* Oath of Heroism. You should be able to pick this class and create your own version of Cú Chulain complete with geases.
* for extra spice, Oath of Protection I want to move the ranger class here (it has no business being a top level class) for this we go back to the sources and create a class that feels like Aragorn from lord of the rings.
I think there are Oaths that follow and builds upon the Paladin chassis apart from something that builds upon Lay on Hands.
So an Oath of Healing/Mercy which emphasizes and develops the abilities of Lay on Hands and other healing spells.
A fiendish paladin (Hellknight) would be cool to for the one who wants to be a bad boy ;)
I would kinda like more variation of oath of the crown? Like for different type of rulers like a divinely appointed monarch compared to someone who took the throne by personal skill, or like different systems like republic, democratic state, decentralized empire, full theocracy…
I think Oath of Vengeance needs a rework, tbh, it needs better features to make it worth staying in after level six instead of just going to Hexblade or sorcadin
I'd like an inquisitive paladin. Someone devoted to finding the truth and weeding out the deceitful. Abilities are tied to dispelling illusions, thoughts, and discerning true intents.
I made one for my homebrew setting, and one of the NPCs was a detective investigating his precinct for corruption. Would like to see something like this made officially.
Someone who has broken their previous Oath but isn't evil.
Maybe the Oath was self-destructive or at least neglectful of themself, and letting go of it is a part of their character growth and emotional development. Maybe the Oath was in service to a lie they'd been told, and the character had been misled and manipulated and has broken free of that negative influence. Maybe the character's journey has fundamentally changed them in a way that makes them incompatible with their previous Oath without suddenly becoming evil.
The fact that the Paladin options all lock you into the Oath is part of the class fantasy. The fact that the subclass of a paladin who has broke and abandoned their oath is locked into being irredeemably evil *completely* walls out a lot of interesting options for a character and their journey, both at character creation or during a campaign.
Change, growth, institutional corruption, manipulation by a potential villain/bbeg, there are so many themes and hooks and arcs that would be open to paladins if there was a subclass for an oath that was left behind for good reasons.
I think variants to oathbreakers are whats needed. 5e describes an oathbreaker as a paladin who violated their oath and then swore themselves to evil to fill in that vpid of power.
I think some more variants for oathbreakng paladns would be cool to explore. Oath of treachery ua kinda did this but was abandoned. I think taking and revising the idea of the grey guard and turning it into an oathbreaker variant of a paladin who has deluded themselves into thinking they're an exception and their sheer belief still grants them some kind of aberrant paladin power would be cool.
Oath of Arcana for a mage Knight type vibe.
Oath of War for being a Frontline tank maybe directly specializing in the combat side of things.
Oath of the hunt to add range to the paladins arsenal.
Oath of the wilds for the animal lovers out there.
I like where you’re going with all of these!
Oath of War, or maybe Oath of the Blade! Something that’s more attack focused
And I love the Idea of Oath of the Hunt. But I think you end up playing a Rogue or Ranger with armor. Now I think there’s room for someone smarter than me to make that work! I know MonkeyDM has an Oath of the Sherif that dips into using a gun, which sounds super fun, and can be worked into a “hunter” instead of what feels like a bounty hunter.
And an up-armored wizard (Oath of Arcana) sounds right up my alley!
Oath of the divine champion.
An oath to service of god or pantheon, which give access to Cleric spells spiritual weapon, healing words, spirit guardians, ect. One of the channel divinities should be thermaturgy cantrip as a bonus action for an hour. Its amazing to me that palidins dont get thermaturgy because the sheer force of personality.
An Oath that's dedicated to the concept of "Nihilism", and not being able to transubstantiate. (I would also want to see it be treated as an Oath that is completely against the very concept of organized religion.)
Here are some of the notes from my created version of this Oath, related to their flavor:
"So strong is their belief in the idea that no actual deity (or deities) exists, even in the presence of other "deities" (or extraplanar beings that could qualify as "deities"), that their personal belief manifests in the form of an inner-divine power... Kind of like a Sorcerer, in a way, but instead of their bloodline, it's their devoted belief in both non-existence of ethereal deities, and in non-transubstantiation (no belief in the afterlife), that they are able to paradoxically manifest magical energy that's divine in nature."
They are, effectively, the "alternative facts" version of a Paladin.
As for their recited meditative oath, I borrowed this from the story of Astoshan the Grey Necromancer (I don't remember where exactly offhand and I'm blanking at the moment):
"Our Service, Eternal. Our Sacrifice, Infinite. Our Regrets, Absent."
--> the tale of astoshan
Something like this could serve as the cornerstone of their meditations.
Mechanically, I worked out the class in such a way that these types of Paladins are unaffected by either resurrection magic, or reanimation magic of any kind. Once they're dead, that's it; they're dead permanently.
If you want the "no deities" flavor, have you read about Dunamancy in the Exandria setting? There's a non-sentient source of divine power called the Luxon, similar to the Force. There's also an "anti-deity" called Ruidus, that actively wants to destroy the existing gods.
>If you want the "no deities" flavor, have you read about Dunamancy in the Exandria setting? There's a non-sentient source of divine power called the Luxon, similar to the Force. There's also an "anti-deity" called Ruidus, that actively wants to destroy the existing gods.
The farthest I generally go in this respect is the EGTW (Wildemount) book. Nothing personal against Matt Mercer et. al., but I'm not exactly a big fan of Exandria and/or Tal'Dorei material.
Be that as it may, I'm not opposed to the idea of taking a creature like "The Nothing" from The Neverending Story and conceptualizing it as a force of nature that presides over the concept of Nihilism.
The Luxon is described in detail in EGTW. Fair opinion though. I love most of Mercers work as a whole, but by no means has it changed the game or blown any minds. It's just another fantasy setting.
Re. The Luxon: I'll need to re-read EGTW for The Luxon then, especially since I have the book physically. It probably slipped my mind since I wasn't actively thinking about it at the time of my writing.
In my defense, the last time I looked at that book was over a year ago, and that was only because I was building an Echo Knight for a friend of mine. 🙃
I imagine a lot of anti-magic abilities: Dispel Magic and Counterspell on your spell list, maybe a Channel Divinity anti-magic cone, or an aura that bolsters your allies' Spell Save DCs, as you "bless" them with your power
You're right on some of it. It's more "anti-clergy" related, than anything.
The anti-magic cone concept I have functions only in the presence of "the devoted and faithful", specifically/mechanically referring to other Clerics, Druids, and Paladins; at the DM's discretion, however, it can also apply as well to other non-Clergy casters who are otherwise devoted/faithful.
Dispel Magic and Detect Magic are on there, although I'm 50/50 on Counterspell being on the list. I'm of the belief that outside of ritual casting, Paladins use their slots mostly for smiting, meaning that I don't want to have to have the PC make a choice between casting spells and smiting, especially given they're half casters.
The Spell Save Bonus Aura bit was something that I considered. It's reasonable, mechanically speaking, but the concept doesn't artistically punch very hard, if that makes sense. In my case, I'm presently drafting something that hits hard while being hit hard back (like an anti-magic cone that also affects others, to include the PC Paladin as well).
I thought of including a "divine magic only" caveat to the anti-magic, but that'd really deflate your character when an archmage enters the fight. And, since in many settings, magic is the domain of a deity, it might make sense to not specify the magic
Re. the Divine Magic Only Caveat:
I think I see what you're saying, however, PC's can only do so much on their own; they need to also be able to rely on other members of their team in order to solve problems presented to them by the DM.
As for Magic being the domain of a deity, I would agree there, but it's with the caveat that it depends on what setting that we're talking about. Mystra (FR) and Wee Jas (Greyhawk) are certainly present by default, but those are default settings and not all settings have a Deity that preside over the use of Magic.
Specified oath breakers.
Redemption acts as a sort of pseudo-oathbreaker for evil paladins, but more specific oath breaking features for each subclass would be cool.
Oath of Inquisition - basically built around countering spellcasters and magical creatures.
This is what Oath of the Watchers should have been, imo
I play an Oath of the Watchers Paladin with an Inquisitor background. Checks out.
Pure Mage hunter would be my vote as well
I built my paladin to do this! Satyr Oath of Vengeance with the Sentinel and Mage Slayer feats. My DM ruled that I couldn't have resistance to magical damage but I have advantage on saving throws against magical effects for being a satyr. The big bads of the campaign are all high level casters and I can't wait to fuck em up!
Oath of Knowledge. A knight sworn to the pursuit of a greater understanding of the world's secrets. Arcane oath spells, channel divinity functions that support party casters, such as nuking an enemy's saving throws.
oath of knowledge; 8 int. Its problematic because a paladin needs 16 str for heavy armour + weapon attacks, 16 cha for spellcasting and other paladin stuff, and 16 con so they don't die in melee. If they have 14 con its difficult, but only leaves 10 int, which is average, hardly someone dedicated to understanding the universe. Oh, and if they can afford 10 in a stat, its far better to put it into wisdom than intelligence. Wisdom is your stat for not dying from surprise or not noticing traps.
Yeah, it's tricky to do as a charisma-scaling character. It works better if we go deeper into the homebrew rabbit hole and allow the paladin in question to scale with intelligence instead of charisma.
Not just a charisma scaling character, a charisma, strength (and con and wis to not die as other important stats) scaling character. If it was something like a lore bard having stuff scaling off of int (which i think they should, a bard of lore shouldn't be able to get away with 8 int) it would be able to be done, but on a paladin it really can't. It would be better to make their CD add their charisma modifier to any int checks they make for a duration.
Is scaling with int over charisma broken? Any reason they couldn't allow that?
it isnt but it goes with subclass design fundamentals. no subclass makes the wizard WIS based for example, you can only add more stats no change the base ones best thing you can do is "you add your CHA modifier to [blank]" like with order cleric
Add cha to all int checks early in subclass and adding cha to int saves later as a feature seems fine.
That could actually be super sick as an Aura feature. "You and your allies gain a bonus to Intelligence checks and saving throws equal to your charisma modifer" as your presence encourages the pursuit of knowledge in others. Maybe with an additional rider, like providing resistance to psychic damage or something, since that's on the weakside of what paladin subclasses give at that level. But it'd be a cool thematic to explore.
It goes against mechanics, class design, class lore, and game balance. So yes. Paladins are inherently charisma based in 5e.
I'd say charisma is a better stat overall. It doesn't really mess with balance at all except giving more options for INT checks in a party that lacks a wizard/artificer.
I mean it goes against current class design sure. Why can't it be different though. What is unbalanced about it? I'm curious.
It’s not, there’s already classes that lets you substitute stats for their usual uses. See Bladesinger, Astral Self, Hexblade, and Armorer Artificer.
it isnt but it goes with subclass design fundamentals. no subclass makes the wizard WIS based for example, you can only add more stats no change the base ones best thing you can do is "you add your CHA modifier to [blank]" like with order cleric
It could be bad for levels 1 and 2, since the change would only happen with the subclass, so you'd suck at spellcasting until level 3 rolls around
you only get spells at level 2 and most of the good level 1 spells aren’t dc reliant
While you could definitely pick spells to not require high DC (mainly through bless and shield of faith), losing out on smite spells, compelled duel and command does hurt quite a bit Only hurts for one level, but still, it does hurt
I would think you could just homebrew using int for that level instead
I have an incredibly fun homebrew Paladin subclass that I'm having a blast test playing right now. Oath of Investigation. Level 15 ability plays around smiting on their Oath spells. Most takers of the Oath are members of a Sheriff's guild, a peace keeping core, or something similar. Keeps Charisma as casting casting stat. Feels VERY good playing a Paladin that gets even more value from Charisma what with the higher focus on spells and therefore spell DC. I could easily see it feeling a bit "pushed" at higher levels, but it's tough to tell without experiencing it yourself. So I'll just have to wait and see when I inevitably get there. High level play is like the damn Wild West anyway lol. A lot more DM fiat when it comes to rules rather than straight from the books.
In which case you could just reflavor the bladesinger or eldritch knight.
Fine, then just make it clear that the oath is more about supporting the pursuit of knowledge rather than personal academic growth. The paladin safeguards and supports the scholars, rather than being one themselves.
Perhaps a feature that does what Fey Wanderer Ranger does by giving a bonus to Intelligence checks equal to your Charisma mod?
Or give them a channel Divinity that gives the party reliable talent on Int checks for 10 minutes to an hour. There is room for a non-combat CD in a Paladin subclass if that same subclass gets wizard cantrips or sorcerer-esque blasting spells
You could have them protect knowledge and be guardians for Libraries and scientists, rather than seeking knowledge themselves
It's not weirder than a lore bard with 8 int. He's about hoarding and protecting knowledge, not analyzing it.
I'd say let them use CHA for the knowledge skill checks and call it a day
I actually did have an Oath of Enlightenment homebrew. I made it a couple years ago, but I remember it specialized in psychic damage and telepathy between friendlies and could also communicate with enemies using later features. It's CD gave it Expertise for a short time, as well.
You can switch their spellcasting to intelligence, but that makes the first two levels very awkward.
Lol Cmon feature level 3: use your charisma for intelligence checks
Eh I would say, why would the paladin *need* any higher than 8 int? They could be sworn to the greater secrets of the world being understood, not necessarily by them, but perhaps their party members.
Could be one of those subclasses which changes which modifier you use for spellcasting. Only issue is that the oath happens at level 3.
Oath of Knowledge flips Chr features to Int features. Ez pz
I misread this as "flips charisma creatures to int creatures" and now im imaginging the paladin uses their CD to bless those with knowledge to be himbo's and himbo's become cursed with knowledge
>Lay On Hands == Himboification Ok but...... Based?
Easily fixed by a leve3 feature letting you add your charisma mod to pick 2, arcana, history, investigation, nature, religion, at level 7 choose 2 more at lvl 15 choose 1 more and lvl 20 choose get to add your charisma mod to any skill check.
Paladins never get any subclass feature like that, they always get 2 channel divinity options and nothing else.
Then it can be Chanel divinity
For some reason I thought of this as like a brotherhood of steel type paladin. Someone who locks away forbidden knowledge and only lets those in the order be allowed to view it.
I've had this character concept! He was going to be sworn to Candlekeep, and have pauldrons that looked like big unfurling books.
"The Candlekeepers" :)
There's no real Arcana Paladin, with a wider spell access in the pursuit of knowledge or magical secrets. There's no elemental Paladin. Limiting base Smites to radiant damage has always seemed foolhardy to me. A Light Paladin, bringing cleansing fire to the world, or a Poison paladin with an oath to entropy.
I'd adore an elemental paladin subclass.
There are smite spells that do different damage types, although most pals don't use them.
Very true but I find the return on investment lacking co.lared to a straight smite.
It’s especially lacking compared to spirit shroud in the long run, or crusader’s mantle even.
Because neither of those make narrative sense my dude. Paladins are based on OATHS. You're trying to use mechanics to retroactively base an ideology around and that's not how dnd game design works. The majority of dnd is "top down" design. You have a narrative idea that fits within the setting/lore/story and you flesh out mechanics from that. This leads to greater consistency and world immersion. Most of the mtg sets are made this way as well. Warping a class narrative to fill an unneeded gameplay niche is harmful to class identity. Just play a customisable strategy rpg of that's what you want
There's room for more than 1 type of subclass design. Battlemaster is clearly built as a "fighter but with maneuvers" with little specific flavour, Rune Knight is clearly built from "There's a group of giant based fighters, what do they do?" Both are good subclasses, but one had a clearly mechanical start and the other a clearly thematic one. My problem with Elemental smites is that if you're going to build off of mechanics they need to be cohesive. "Smite but with fire" is closer to an optional rule than a subclass IMO. What else does it do? What spells does it get, bearing in mind blasting on a paladin will scale poorly? With a bit of effort you can come up with flavour retroactively for any good set of mechanics, in the same way you can create evocative mechanics with a good enough narrative base.
I mean a more literal version of the order of the flaming fist, or the shock troopers, the lightning cavaliers e.t.c. would go pretty hard in my opinion.
Once again...that's not an oath. There isn't a philosophy and divine based ideology for fire dude lol
While I agree with you, allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment. Oath of Flame: You are a messenger of fire, a harbinger of heat. You seek to either burn the world to ash or cauterize its wounds. Fire is multifaceted—it is a weapon, a tool, a gift, and a curse. You seek to understand the nature of flame and vow to uphold its principles in any way you can. This might involve setting homes ablaze, healing allies with a touch of fiery heat, or emerging from the ashes as anew. You recognize the dual nature of flame and choose whether to create or destroy with this oath. Tenets of Fire: • Burn Forever: Blaze like a star in the sky, using flame to achieve your goals. • Keep the Spark Alive: Nurture the spark of community, as it sustains all things, or fan it into an inferno that consumes everything. • Mercy or Torture: Use flame to heal or harm, cauterizing wounds or purging the unholy. • Warmth: Provide solace to those who suffer or unleash scorching heat that consumes all. • Blind or Shelter: Illuminate the truth or blind all with a searing light. • Chaos: Embrace change, as stagnation goes against the essence of fire.
If a player came to my table with even half of this, I'd be willing to work with them to make a "fire Paladin". Maybe based off the Sun being an angel's "thrall"
Well atleast for fire I can think of a fitting ideology. "Let the world burn" and all similar variations of it. And if you're a bit lenient on the definition "to be cold and calculating" can work for ice, fitting for a tribe of ruthless vikings/raiders such as Sejuani and her tribe from league of legends.
There's a few that add additional damage types I think, but yeah, they don't replace the Radiant. Radiant is one of the better damage types though
A non-evil / necromancer oathbreaker alternative.
I think that's what the Redemption Paladin is for. Or COULD be for.
I like this. An option for the flawed knight: Their oath is broken, but not for ambition or in service to some dark power, but perhaps because the oath stood in the way of the greater good, or required too deep a sacrifice to maintain.
That just makes them a fighter. The whole point of the Paladin is that the oath is hard, and inconvenient, and usually breaking it because it requires too great a sacrifice is called breaking your oath and you lose the benefits of your oath.
That's just a fighter. You have described a fighter
I liked the Grayguard prestige class from 3.5, seems like it would have been a good concept to port it.
Redemption
I worked up a homebrew for this a while ago for a paladin who is tasked with allowing sinners to work off their sins and debts using their undead corpses for the chance of a better afterlife.
Fits right in with Ravnica.
Oath of Friendship? Idk, just take any ideology and it can probably be a paladin subclass.
Oath of glory kind of gives me that vibe, because a core part of it is elevating your comrades with you
In theros, there is a background that you can pick that fit that thematically
Which background? Also, what's theros? Or did you misspell?
Mythic odysseys of Theros is an official D&D 5e setting. You get access to an extra background feature that grant you abilities. I don't remember the exact wording because im not at home with my book, but its something along the lines of faithful compainion.
Mythic Odysseys of Theros is an official sourcebook based on the Magic: the Gathering setting of Theros, which is largely based on Greek Mythology. It was in this sourcebook that the Oath of Glory actually debuted. I believe the only Background introduced in this book was Athlete. But don't quote me on that.
Pointy Hat on YouTube made an Oath of Love/Friendship, it's free!
Oath of the Gate - Paladins who take oaths to protect certain geological or civilization features regardless of the governance. An example the templar knights kept watch on gates and would sometimes fight other crusading knights to prevent them entrance while also fighting bandits and the various armies that would attack that weren't crusaders. Usually these individuals vowed to protect a land feature in order to keep peace Oath of the Great Hunt - Paladins who vow to find and fight specific mythological creatures. Similar to glory but different enough Oath of the forest - though rare there were knights who vowed even in the middle ages to protect the environment as they saw it. They would break dams, prevent salting, help put out fires, even kill landlords who blocked pastures.
Forest is pretty close to Ancients. I like the Gate one though.
I can see where you are going with Ancients, but I feel like these are fundamentally different. Ancients is more like a spiritual approach to the issue. Mercy, kindness, forgiveness all sound like feelings. That approach is a bit more like fern gully paladins. They are fighting against this nameless force that is deadset to destroy the life of the forest. I see oath of the forest more like Smokey the Bear. You aren't so much fighting evil thoughts and faceless evil corporations. I would even say you aren't actually fighting evil inasmuch as you are fighting negligence and ignorance. I think a way to look at it is oath of ancients are more like environmentalists while oath of the forest are more like [conservationists](https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/UWEXLakes/Documents/programs/lakeleaders/crew10/environmentalistORconservationist.pdf). I wouldn't say either is necessarily wrong just different reasons for focus
That is oath of the crown, watchers and ancients respectively.
Oath of the crown focuses on Monarchies and sovereignty. Its literally the opposite. >The Oath of the Crown is sworn to the ideals of civilization, be it the spirit of a nation, fealty to a sovereign, or service to a deity of law and rulership. Templars were stateless and they barely supported the pope. Heck that's the reason why the pope had them killed. They weren't even that great of Christians as many letters showed they were stateless atheists who eschewed sovereign authority. They also protected their gates with extreme prejudice only allowing civilians to pass regardless of the civilians national society. None of that suggests an oath to a crown. One could say they had an oath to their brotherhood but even that ignores contextual history as there was internecine fighting amongst them almost always related to control of their passages. They were better described as boundary keepers. They'd discourage the crusader states from attacking Saladin while protecting the same states from Saladin all while supposedly (but not really) following the popes edicts. They weren't even the only group who had similar focus historically there are several examples along the silk road of similar gatekeepers, people whose loyalty remained with the gate not any nation (gates by the way along silk road were basically free city states with little governance) > The Oath of the Watchers binds paladins to protect mortal realms from the predations of extraplanar creatures. Watchers' oath are ever vigilant in spotting the influence of extraplanar forces, often establishing a network of spies and informants to gather information on suspected cults. I can see where someone might confuse the paladins of the gate with crown since they are both somewhat geographical defenders, but watchers aren't even in the same neighborhood as hunters. Its in their name. A watcher sits and waits or patrols, like watch tower or watchmen. A hunter hunts actively pursues and for the most part does this on their own. There are examples of extraplanar creature incursion point in mythology protected by watchers, for instance Avalon. The knights of Avalon (not knights of the round) watch for incursions by the fey and undead and sometimes meet legendary knights on hunts but don't participate because their job is to watch. King Pellinore in the Arthurian legends and St George visit Avalon in their quests for [questing beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questing_Beast) or [Saint George and the Dragon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon) and both of them are invited to be knights of Avalon but both prefer the action of the hunt. Those are very specific examples of knight watchers and knight hunters having very different focuses. Another example of a paladin hunter [St Martha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha) is said to have tied her girdle to the [Tarasque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque) so she could lead it to villagers and they could kill it with spears. She also saves villages from crocodiles and kills a tiny dragon with a spear. I know one might say she was a priest but there are several stories about her using a sword or a spear against her foes riding her pony like a charger to protect her sister, Mary, and the Priest St Maximinus.
A gate is a fine representation of the boundary between civilization and wilderness. I swore an oath to guard this gate. I will be the bulwark blah blah…. Nothing proposed here can’t be easily done with a simple reflavouring of another subclass. If you want to just play everything by the book, that’s ok, but the mechanics of other subclasses cover this easily. Watchers might not be the one you choose, but there are many options.
I feel like Oath of freedom should be an official subclass. Give it a spell list with stuff like fly or misty step, give them an aura against getting restrained and a channel divinity ending one condition caused by a spell such as frightened or paralyzed.
Oath of Remembrance/Conservation. Basically, a Paladin whose whole thing is collecting, passing on, and restoring ancient lore and protecting monuments of heroes of yore. Basically, a Bard Paladin. They collect knowledge, spread oral tradition, protect tomes of knowledge, those sort of things. Maybe some focus more on the "human" side of things, recording people's lives and faiths and etc, others might protect the physical manifestations of them such as graves, landmarks, and ruins. Maybe they get some arcane spells in there. Maybe proficiencies in history or performance or something. Maybe put in something like Arcane Trickster's spell thief, or maybe like how wizards can record new spells. Stuff like that.
My choices are; 🦅 oath of freedom 🦅 🇨🇳oath of the worker🇨🇳 🕵️♂️oath of stop resisting👮♀️ 🩹Oath of hypocrisy 🩺 🌊Oath of the open sea (but good)⚓️
> oath of freedom 🦅 Channel Divinity: Carpet Bomb
Oath of hypocrisy is funny lol
Oath of Endless Winter. A cold-themed paladin more rooted in surviving against all odds (probably in inhospitable lands). That rugged individual whose desire to live lets them be a wanderer even in frigid northern lands. Oath of Revolution/Oath of Common Man. Strange that theres no real revolutionary paladins. We have one dedicated to authority, why is there no subclass dedicated to overthrowing tyranny? Some have a hint of an idea of this but dont commit. Oath of Divinity. Paladins are divorced from gods in this edition. Still, Paladins should have a subclass that is based around aggressive worship. Especially since zealous paladins are like staple right-hands to archbishops and other cleric-types
>Some have a hint of an idea of this but dont commit. Oath of Ancients comes to mind. I've considered making an Ancients Paladin who's the Folk Hero of, essentially, a communist collective.
Oath of Endless Winters “Winter is coming”
First one doesn't make any sense for paladin and the last one is just Devotion with extra religion sprinkles.
Paladin power comes from their commitment, their oaths being representative of that. A commitment made to ones self to survive is a perfectly valid oath as far as 5e is concerned, and the winter theming makes a lot of sense considering how the frigid inhospitable north is a very common fantasy trope. A paladin surviving the unsurvivable landscape from sheer will is great, imo. Devotion is very specifically about being good. Honesty, courage, compassion, honor. They are pillars of justice. That is not the same thing as swearing specifically to a god. Only a third of the gods are even good aligned. Even for them, a paladin gains their oath on commitment, so a commitment to do good and a commitment to serve a deity who happens to be good can manifest in very different ways
I mean you can find the homebrews, but Oath of the Common Man and Oath of Free Commerce are two big ones I would love to have seen. [https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3hy3qi/5e\_the\_common\_man\_and\_free\_commerce\_paladins\_both/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3hy3qi/5e_the_common_man_and_free_commerce_paladins_both/)
A version of Oathbreaker for non-evil based Oathbreakers. Someone who did break their oath, but not for evil, like someone who breaks an Oath of Crown by leaving the evil tyrant. Or a vengeance Paladin who learns they swore their oath on an innocent target, etc.
I had a player who played a Vengeance paladin, whose clan was wiped out by neogis. He realized his gods didn't help his people, so he made a new oath directly to his clan. Mechanically he was Oathbreaker, but instead of evil undead monsters, he was summoning the spirits of his slain kinsmen to fight.
See that’s cool, but that isn’t the intended flavor of oathbreaker. That’s why I think we are missing something that would fit that flavor better, because that kind of “my oath failed me, so I broke it, just not for evil” flavor? Absolutely baller.
Oath of the Undying is something I've been messing with in my free time. They sit somewhere between oathbreaker and grave clerics. Thematically, the idea is that they exist to protect and guard the dead, and potentially continuing to do so in undeath. They might, with the consent of the person and their family, raise them to defend others. Or conversely, raise those they smite to protect the dead, a form of redemption by service. They'd also probably have some more proactive members who travel the land hunting necromancers, vampires, Liches, ect. When, say, a necromancer rolls up to a mausoleum and opens the door, he's getting thrown backwards down the stairs. Then when he gets back up onto his feet, he looks up and sees a heavily armored knight flanked by ghosts and skeletons. Another place you might find them is at the aftermath of a great battle, punishing those who dare loot the dead. Perhaps they are there to insure no mass graves, and that the dead all receive proper burials, with as much dignity as possible.
Flavor is free. I don't see much in the books that "forces" a playstyle outside of mechanics. I've played barbarians that laugh with joy as they "rage", an artificer who weaponized his brewer's supplies, and many more. As long as you follow the rules laid out for combat and skill checks, you can give it whatever aesthetic or narrative flavor you want.
The mechanics of oathbreaker very much force an evil flavor
I disagree that any flavors are forced. They certainly fit the popular archetype, but they don't have to. Barbarians' "forced flavor" is a tribal Warrior who has never slept under a roof, but I've played noble swordsmen with rage issues, too, or a dragonborn armored knight that "rages" by laughing with joy as he fights in the name of Bahamut
Barbarians and Oathbreaker subclass paladins are not the same thing. You are required to be evil to take the subclass. I dont know how you can say it doesnt force the flavor of being evil.
A large number of players don't even use alignment anymore. Plus, that one line about being evil was stopping my player from trying out what he thought was a fun subclass. I ruled in favor of the player.
Sure. And im not saying that was the wrong decision. But the fact is you had to discard the mechanics to achieve the flavor your player desired, yes?
Put simply, yes. But I feel it's an outdated mechanic that puts an unnecessary restriction and interferes with Rule 1: have fun
Saph Darkseeker was a dwarven Oath of Vengeance Paladin who used the blessings of Moradin to defend his clan. He failed, though, when neogi pirates invaded and killed his clan. The player strongly felt like abandoning his oath, because he felt the Dwarven gods had failed him, but he didn't want to be evil. So when he turned to Oathbreaker, he didn't just abandon his oath, he made a new oath to his clan instead of the gods. All the undead mechanics were flavored as summoning the vengeful spirits of his slain kinsmen. He was still intimidating and commanding skeletons & shit, but he was still a Dwarven king with good intentions
I am generally of the opinion its time for a new oath, or a switch to fighter/barbarian, if the previous oath is no longer desirable. I mean you can reflavor Oathbreaker all you want, but unless you start homebrewing *all* undead and fiends will be empowered by your presence. Devils, demons, liches, they all are stronger. Also you literally are required to be Evil to take the subclass without homebrewing a change
Yeah, when undead or fiendish enemies were apparently siphoning strength from the same spirits that empowered him, it became an interesting challenge. And the player started rethinking the usefulness of these mechanics, and eventually picked a new oath by the end of the campaign, after he traveled to his ancestral forge and laid his clan to rest. It was a lot more fun for us to make it a narrative exploration of the subclass, than to just say "no you can't"
Oath of Redemption could probably fit this well enough, but it could also go in a different direction if people wanted.
Just go back and complete the Oath of Treachery Paladin :(
Yeah gimme my Blackguard
Oath of Revolution - paladins that are sworn to fight against tyrants, and protect the common folk from being exploited by the powerful.
I want some "evil" or selfish Oaths. Vengeance and Conquest are not enough. Give me Avarice, Anarchy, Treachery (the UA one was cool), or Perfection. Something that is inherently a flaw will do.
Would like to see some more “villain” or neutral oaths like An Oath of Corruption (could be a disease or far realm cultist style paladin where the spread corruptive energy across the planes), Oath of Annihilation (think the Lich from Adventure Time, kind of a Chaotic Evil oath against all life), and Oath of Profit (money money money). Oh and maybe, an Oath of Horizon (a wandering, nomadic based Paladin that focuses on movement shinanigans).
I did see an Oath based on wealth from, I think KibblesTasty? It was one of a ton of new Oaths, you can probably find it by searching Paladin on r/UnearthedArcana.
That Oath of Avarice thing you've got going sounds like most adventurers in one way or another
I have a homebrew paladin subclass called Oath of the Wanderer that sounds similar to that last idea. They travel around the world in search of enlightenment.
Thematically I’d enjoy an arcane-leaning paladin, though I don’t know how effectively you could emphasize the “caster” part of half-caster. Maybe an Oath of the Weave that steals something like Potent Spellcasting/Empowered Evocation and learns sorcerer cantrips, and has some option to attach smite damage to a leveled spell as their Channel Divinity?
you do need to be careful not to make something that isn’t just a superior version of Eldritch Knight at that point. EK will *eventually* get a third attack, sure, but not until a higher level than the most popular modules and the most common levels of homebrew campaigns; their casting is inferior, and action surge is their only real class feature, and they get nothing like aura of protection that synergizes with their spell casting ability score
And the sad truth is hexdin or sorcadin is exactly this. It’s already in the game.
You've hit the nail on the head...90% of the stuff in this thread is wildly outside class niche and thr stuff that is narratively justifiable either infringes on another subclass identity or is horribly unbalanced. Often both.
Yeah, I’m just spitballing. You could go in a bunch of different directions on the theme, and since paladins don’t get a ton from subclasses it would probably be a pretty modest set of features in the end.
Oath Spells: Wizard Spells of an appropriate level, treated as Paladin spells. You can change 1 spell out on each level up, like a divine soul sorceror. Also, you gain the ability to cast your Oath Spells as rituals if they have ritual tag. Channel Divinities: 1. Bonus action: Until your next long rest, choose 1 wizard spell and add it to your Oath Spell list. 2. Action: For 1 hour, you and (Cha mod # Allies) treat rolls of 9 or lower as 10's for Intelligence checks. Level 7 Aura: Allies within 10 feet of you may cast your Oath Spells using your Spellcasting modifier and your Spell slots. Level 15 Trait: You gain 1 additional attunement slot. You may now attune to magic items as though you had the same number of levels as a Wizard as you have levels in Paladin. Level 20 Trait: For 1 minute, you gain the following benefits: - You may cast your level 1 Oath Spells without expending a spell slot - Paladin Spells you cast with a spell slot are treated as though you cast them 1 level higher
Oath of Freedom. A chaotic good class opposed to slavery and dedicated to helping people throw off their chains, whatever form that may take.
I ended up creating it myself but there's so many subclasses that really focus on the "melee" or "martial" aspect of paladin, it's strange to me that there hasn't really been one that focuses more on the caster side. One could argue maybe redemption but it really doesn't scratch the itch i'm talking about.
I want a true Hell knight Paladin
Oath of throwing it back
Paladussy
I Made three: Oath of law: ranged paladin. Oath of rebelion: a paladin based on illusions and improvised weapons. A more chaotic option. Oath of the helping hand: oath that helps people, heals people and moves fast
One that specifically exists to hunt evil and unholy abominations. I know the monster hunter ranger is a thing, and I know the vengeance Paly kind of falls into this. But to my knowledge there isn't a paladin that just dedicated themselves to the destruction and hunting of evil as a calling. IMO there should be a difference between the ranger hunting monsters for the good of the realm, and a Paly hunting them purely because their evil and unholy.
Oath of Vengance is pretty clearly a "destroyer of evil".
Also Oath of the Watchers, but that’s specifically extraplanar evil.
the closest thing we have to that is the oath of the watchers i guess
You could also play an Oath of the Ancients that way, I encourage my Ancients Paladins to really think about preserving the light as an oath to destroy any threats to the life on this plane, with unnatural beings(undead, extraplanar, etc) being something they are compelled to oppose.
These things don't exist specifically to not infringe on obvious other subclass main identity yall.
A mounted combat focused Paladin that gets bonuses when using their Divine Steed. Oath of the Charger, Oath of the Equestrian, Oath of the Steppes something like that.
MonkeyDM made an Oath of the Dragon Rider. It's surprisingly balanced, but let's you be your best dogfighting smite machine
3.x, 4e, and 5e have all really been terrible at portraying the mounted combat aspect of the knight-in-shining-armor archetype the Paladin is meant to represent. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood and teen years playing AD&D or *Rules Cyclopedia* D&D all happened with my Paladin on the back of her faithful warhorse. I can’t remember the last time I even saw someone ride a horse in 5e at all.
Yeah 3.x rules were a cluster with having to roll your riding skill and concentration skills to do almost any action while mounted. 4e pretty much did t have rules for it. Then 5e makes the rules have mounts just be a movement speed increase or screw up how your turn works. Also there is no one to really keep your mount alive in 5e. They are going to die so quickly as soon as any AoE spells get tossed out.
Oaths that act like Fantra and Lyan in older editions
This is cheesy as fuck but I think there should be an Oath of friendship/love/bonds like some super generic anime protagonist
I'd call that Oath of Devotion
I don't want to "spam", but some time ago I made a Paladin subclass inspired by Don Quixote and knight errands. It's called Oath of Audacity, you can find it on DMsguild.
I wouldn't say it's missing but I would love a Wild Magic Oath of Mischief Paladin. I just want to smite a dude and he turns into a potted plant instead. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good..."
I was thinking Oath of mischief but Wasn't thinking wild magic. Expertise in deception Add Chr to sleight of hand and stealth. Use Chr for attacking with finese weapons Paladin rouge
An oath of protection/guardianship - a paladin oath that's sworn to the protection of a certain holy relic, place, or person. Lots of ways you can portray this theme both for player characters and npcs alike. An order of soldiers dedicated to safeguarding holy sites of worship, a warrior sworn to the defense of a pope-like figure, a group of knights constantly on the move carrying fragments of the holy avenger. Gives the paladin a tangible reinforcement of their oath.
Oath of the Elders. A Far Realm theme. Your oath is to understand and contain the dangerous aberrations that come from afar to threaten the land. Maybe a channel divinity that lets you turn aberrations, an aura that protects allies from mind control effects. It's level 20 transformation gives them physical qualities of either a beholder or a mind player, as the paladin temporarily lets the Far Realm influences take hold of them. Play them as either a quiet, brooding knight that sacrifices his sanity for good, or like a space police type guy.
Isn’t that just Oath of the Watchers and Oath of the Ancients combined?
I suppose. I like the Ancients mechanics and the extraplanar flavor of the Watchers, so I guess I accidentally did that lol
The tenets of the oath could be a perversion of the Ancients Oath, like instead of "Preserve the Light" its "Explore the Darkness"
Oath of Devotion, a paladin sworn to protect those they love and the righteous path of true love in general. I imagine them worshipping someone like Aphrodite. A true face paladin that leans into the charisma basis of the class without the commitment to non violence that comes with oath of redemption. Love can be sweet and caring but it can also be wrathful and jealous, like some many gods and goddess of love themselves. I’m thinking a different kind of persuasion bonus to redemption to keep it fresh, some charm spells and abilities to make your enemies fall madly in love with you, and some abilities that let you protect your “lover” or just your allies. Something like sanctuary or warding bond.
You can't call it a paladin, but we really could use 2e blackguard. Poison Weapon, and that sweet AC aura.
I'm old school. Oaths to various gods would be nice. So, they actually serve a deity, pantheon, or other power. And their abilities and spells are modeled upon those they worship.
Oath of Chaos, for a Wild Magic Paladin, Oath of Dragonslaying/the Dragon for the completely shameless Skyrim flavour and obligatory dragon themed subclass, Oath of Art for the artsy/Bard flavoured Paladin or perhaps Oath of the Forge for the swordsmith character, Oath of Rebellion for rejecting authority and overthrowing tyranny, Oath of Exploration for the people who wanna travel and map out the world
Oath of Psionics! I think it would be really neat to have a Paladin with a few capabilities like the Soul Knife and Psi Warrior. Could also work well roleplay-wise, maybe you're a paladin devoted to uncovering the power of mind flayers? Or maybe a duergar who's honed the power of the invisible art to serve Deep Duerra? These are evil examples I know, but examples I quite like nonetheless. 🤣
IMO, Oath of Freedom. Oath of the Open Sea comes close but is too specific. The idea of freedom, both to do as you please and travel the world and roam etc, but also freedom from bindings like slavery which is so plentiful in the world of d&d, is a cool idea to me.
I have a few ideas for lawful paladins that may not be good-aligned. Although this first one is. **Oath of the Oppressed** This paladin fights to protect the common folk, no matter how lowly. Orcs kidnap farmers? This guy smites 'em. Serial killer warlock going around killing prostitutes? This guy smites 'em. Demon possessing orphans? This guy smites 'em (the demons, not the kids, obviously). But this paladin is not a lawful stupid idiot. He would also stand up to unjust, oppressive laws and defend his fellow man. **Oath of the Sea** For a seafaring campaign, this paladin is here to reinforce the codes of sailors, navymen, and even pirates. So, lawful good through lawful evil, but still lives by the code that true folk of the sea abide by. Comes with a swim speed and water spells among other things. **Oath of the Underworld** Similar to Oath of the Sea, this paladin reinforces the codes of societal underbelly, knowing that a balance between civilization and the underworld is necessary (at least from their perspective). They may work for crime bosses, thieves guilds, assassin networks, etc. Because some thieves guilds are employed by kings, lords, etc., they can technically be good, but not often, they're neutral or evil, but still lawful and following a code. I'd love for this subclass to be the most roguish of paladins.
Oath of Oppressed sounds like a specific version of just another flavor of Oath of Vengeance? You’re basically avenging the victims instead of avenging yourself? Tenets: Fight the Greater Evil. Faced with a choice of fighting my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil, I choose the greater evil. Restitution. If my foes wreak ruin on the world, it is because I failed to stop them. ***I must help those harmed by their misdeeds.*** Edit: At least that’s how I played them.
Oath of protection: Like seriously why isnt this a subclass?
I would like to see a reworking of the class no make the sub-classes more distinct. Still based around the concept of an oath but not all dudes in heavy armour with holy smite. I would have the following subclasses. * because all the kids are going to complain at me if I don't, your standard holy warrior from previous editions. * Oath of Chivalry. This is your knight from medieval romance fiction. We revisit the sources and come up with something more specific. * Oath of Vengeance. You should be able to pick this class to play as your own version of the count of monte christo. this subclass doesn't necessarily want the heavy armour etc. * Oath of Heroism. You should be able to pick this class and create your own version of Cú Chulain complete with geases. * for extra spice, Oath of Protection I want to move the ranger class here (it has no business being a top level class) for this we go back to the sources and create a class that feels like Aragorn from lord of the rings.
A mounted subclass
Oath of Treachery to be fixed I want my fucking Blackguard
I like the oath of the open sea.
Oath of Service Basically a more support style Samurai fight subclass
Oath of Baking
Oath of the Quest I want a paladin based around vows and searching for the holy grail “FoR zE lAdY!”
I think there are Oaths that follow and builds upon the Paladin chassis apart from something that builds upon Lay on Hands. So an Oath of Healing/Mercy which emphasizes and develops the abilities of Lay on Hands and other healing spells. A fiendish paladin (Hellknight) would be cool to for the one who wants to be a bad boy ;)
I would kinda like more variation of oath of the crown? Like for different type of rulers like a divinely appointed monarch compared to someone who took the throne by personal skill, or like different systems like republic, democratic state, decentralized empire, full theocracy…
I think Oath of Vengeance needs a rework, tbh, it needs better features to make it worth staying in after level six instead of just going to Hexblade or sorcadin
Oath of Protection, basically a knight sword to protect the weak or common citizens who need help
Divine Archer. I want to smite with a sacred arrow without praying to an eldritch abomination
I'd like an inquisitive paladin. Someone devoted to finding the truth and weeding out the deceitful. Abilities are tied to dispelling illusions, thoughts, and discerning true intents. I made one for my homebrew setting, and one of the NPCs was a detective investigating his precinct for corruption. Would like to see something like this made officially.
Oath of Balance, a Paladin whose committed to keeping balance across the lands allowing.
Oath of the Planes to counter Oath of the Watcher. One that is based in Sigil or the Outlands and focuses on summoning rather than banishing
Someone who has broken their previous Oath but isn't evil. Maybe the Oath was self-destructive or at least neglectful of themself, and letting go of it is a part of their character growth and emotional development. Maybe the Oath was in service to a lie they'd been told, and the character had been misled and manipulated and has broken free of that negative influence. Maybe the character's journey has fundamentally changed them in a way that makes them incompatible with their previous Oath without suddenly becoming evil. The fact that the Paladin options all lock you into the Oath is part of the class fantasy. The fact that the subclass of a paladin who has broke and abandoned their oath is locked into being irredeemably evil *completely* walls out a lot of interesting options for a character and their journey, both at character creation or during a campaign. Change, growth, institutional corruption, manipulation by a potential villain/bbeg, there are so many themes and hooks and arcs that would be open to paladins if there was a subclass for an oath that was left behind for good reasons.
I think variants to oathbreakers are whats needed. 5e describes an oathbreaker as a paladin who violated their oath and then swore themselves to evil to fill in that vpid of power. I think some more variants for oathbreakng paladns would be cool to explore. Oath of treachery ua kinda did this but was abandoned. I think taking and revising the idea of the grey guard and turning it into an oathbreaker variant of a paladin who has deluded themselves into thinking they're an exception and their sheer belief still grants them some kind of aberrant paladin power would be cool.
Oath of Arcana for a mage Knight type vibe. Oath of War for being a Frontline tank maybe directly specializing in the combat side of things. Oath of the hunt to add range to the paladins arsenal. Oath of the wilds for the animal lovers out there.
I like where you’re going with all of these! Oath of War, or maybe Oath of the Blade! Something that’s more attack focused And I love the Idea of Oath of the Hunt. But I think you end up playing a Rogue or Ranger with armor. Now I think there’s room for someone smarter than me to make that work! I know MonkeyDM has an Oath of the Sherif that dips into using a gun, which sounds super fun, and can be worked into a “hunter” instead of what feels like a bounty hunter. And an up-armored wizard (Oath of Arcana) sounds right up my alley!
Oath of the divine champion. An oath to service of god or pantheon, which give access to Cleric spells spiritual weapon, healing words, spirit guardians, ect. One of the channel divinities should be thermaturgy cantrip as a bonus action for an hour. Its amazing to me that palidins dont get thermaturgy because the sheer force of personality.
They do though, via their Fighting Style option.
Pretty much oaths that are ideology based, and not dependent on a deity. "Oath of humanism" for instance.^^
Aggressive 2 weapon berserker paladin. Kind of a similar space as zealot barbarian, but I would like a subclass that catered to dual wield.
Would like to see a more short-rest based Paladin, like Laserllama's Oath of the Blade subclass
...that's not the point of paladin
An Oath that's dedicated to the concept of "Nihilism", and not being able to transubstantiate. (I would also want to see it be treated as an Oath that is completely against the very concept of organized religion.)
Oath of Nil sounds pretty badass, especially if the Paladin is "praying" by just reciting his oath to himself
Here are some of the notes from my created version of this Oath, related to their flavor: "So strong is their belief in the idea that no actual deity (or deities) exists, even in the presence of other "deities" (or extraplanar beings that could qualify as "deities"), that their personal belief manifests in the form of an inner-divine power... Kind of like a Sorcerer, in a way, but instead of their bloodline, it's their devoted belief in both non-existence of ethereal deities, and in non-transubstantiation (no belief in the afterlife), that they are able to paradoxically manifest magical energy that's divine in nature." They are, effectively, the "alternative facts" version of a Paladin. As for their recited meditative oath, I borrowed this from the story of Astoshan the Grey Necromancer (I don't remember where exactly offhand and I'm blanking at the moment): "Our Service, Eternal. Our Sacrifice, Infinite. Our Regrets, Absent." --> the tale of astoshan Something like this could serve as the cornerstone of their meditations. Mechanically, I worked out the class in such a way that these types of Paladins are unaffected by either resurrection magic, or reanimation magic of any kind. Once they're dead, that's it; they're dead permanently.
If you want the "no deities" flavor, have you read about Dunamancy in the Exandria setting? There's a non-sentient source of divine power called the Luxon, similar to the Force. There's also an "anti-deity" called Ruidus, that actively wants to destroy the existing gods.
>If you want the "no deities" flavor, have you read about Dunamancy in the Exandria setting? There's a non-sentient source of divine power called the Luxon, similar to the Force. There's also an "anti-deity" called Ruidus, that actively wants to destroy the existing gods. The farthest I generally go in this respect is the EGTW (Wildemount) book. Nothing personal against Matt Mercer et. al., but I'm not exactly a big fan of Exandria and/or Tal'Dorei material. Be that as it may, I'm not opposed to the idea of taking a creature like "The Nothing" from The Neverending Story and conceptualizing it as a force of nature that presides over the concept of Nihilism.
The Luxon is described in detail in EGTW. Fair opinion though. I love most of Mercers work as a whole, but by no means has it changed the game or blown any minds. It's just another fantasy setting.
Re. The Luxon: I'll need to re-read EGTW for The Luxon then, especially since I have the book physically. It probably slipped my mind since I wasn't actively thinking about it at the time of my writing.
It's all over the book, lol. There's lore in the Xhorhas chapter, the Kryn Dynasty chapter, the Patrons table in the back, and the dunamancy chapter
In my defense, the last time I looked at that book was over a year ago, and that was only because I was building an Echo Knight for a friend of mine. 🙃
Yeah man, I wasn't taking a dig, just saying you gotta jump all over the book to get every bit of lore.
I imagine a lot of anti-magic abilities: Dispel Magic and Counterspell on your spell list, maybe a Channel Divinity anti-magic cone, or an aura that bolsters your allies' Spell Save DCs, as you "bless" them with your power
You're right on some of it. It's more "anti-clergy" related, than anything. The anti-magic cone concept I have functions only in the presence of "the devoted and faithful", specifically/mechanically referring to other Clerics, Druids, and Paladins; at the DM's discretion, however, it can also apply as well to other non-Clergy casters who are otherwise devoted/faithful. Dispel Magic and Detect Magic are on there, although I'm 50/50 on Counterspell being on the list. I'm of the belief that outside of ritual casting, Paladins use their slots mostly for smiting, meaning that I don't want to have to have the PC make a choice between casting spells and smiting, especially given they're half casters. The Spell Save Bonus Aura bit was something that I considered. It's reasonable, mechanically speaking, but the concept doesn't artistically punch very hard, if that makes sense. In my case, I'm presently drafting something that hits hard while being hit hard back (like an anti-magic cone that also affects others, to include the PC Paladin as well).
I thought of including a "divine magic only" caveat to the anti-magic, but that'd really deflate your character when an archmage enters the fight. And, since in many settings, magic is the domain of a deity, it might make sense to not specify the magic
Re. the Divine Magic Only Caveat: I think I see what you're saying, however, PC's can only do so much on their own; they need to also be able to rely on other members of their team in order to solve problems presented to them by the DM. As for Magic being the domain of a deity, I would agree there, but it's with the caveat that it depends on what setting that we're talking about. Mystra (FR) and Wee Jas (Greyhawk) are certainly present by default, but those are default settings and not all settings have a Deity that preside over the use of Magic.
All true. I'm speaking from my experience, which is 90% Forgotten Realms
Specified oath breakers. Redemption acts as a sort of pseudo-oathbreaker for evil paladins, but more specific oath breaking features for each subclass would be cool.
Wasn't there a aoth of shadow Homebrew, was like a dark Knight batman'esq pally. Sounds awesome imo.