Immediate reaction to Oathbreaker; it looks cool, but obviously the 3rd level Channel Divinity options have some bizarre ceilings: Conjure Undead will see little, if any, use after a point because its summoning CR 1/4 Undead, with almost no health, and a +5 to hit.
Aura of Hate, or some other feature, would need to make those Skeletons/Zombies way more sturdier: Suggestion: Just turn Conjure Undead into an option to pick the Undead up to a certain CR that scales with the Paladin. Make it their Wildshape type of flavor for their 1 minute of Necromancy.
This Paladin doesn't need 3 Fear effects. Dreadful Aspect; Abjure Foes; Fear (two at level 9) is TOO much Fear. You could swap Fear for Bestow Curse or something to that effect.
Also a carve out for Dread Lord to not break Abure Foes at level 20 with the damage it causes (a Frightened target), like Sear Undead, would be nice.
I'm not gonna lie, I kinda wish that they would use the opportunity of updating the Oathbreaker to change up its abilities a bit more drastically. I like the idea of a Paladin that is evil or has fallen from grace, but I dont like it being a mini necromancer. It would be cool if its kit played more on twisting traditional Paladin abilities.
Dreadful Aspect kinda does this by adding a Frightening effect to Divine Smite, but like you said the subclass already has alot of Fear abilities. Maybe it could instead allow you to change the damage type of any smite spell you cast to necrotic damage and add some other rider effect. As another idea, they could toy with Lay on Hands and let you expend HP from it to drain life from an enemy as opposed to restoring life to an ally.
Like, overall, I feel that someone playing an Oathbreaker should be able to use their entire base Paladin kit without it clashing with a more evil or corrupted theme.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
I'm not gonna lie, I kinda wish that they would use the opportunity of updating the Oathbreaker to change up its abilities a bit more drastically. I like the idea of a Paladin that is evil or has fallen from grace, but I dont like it being a mini necromancer. It would be cool if its kit played more on twisting traditional Paladin abilities.
Dreadful Aspect kinda does this by adding a Frightening effect to Divine Smite, but like you said the subclass already has alot of Fear abilities. Maybe it could instead allow you to change the damage type of any smite spell you cast to necrotic damage and add some other rider effect. As another idea, they could toy with Lay on Hands and let you expend HP from it to drain life from an enemy as opposed to restoring life to an ally.
Like, overall, I feel that someone playing an Oathbreaker should be able to use their entire base Paladin kit without it clashing with a more evil or corrupted theme.
I think one of the fun things about Chaosium/Cthulhu by Torchlight book was adding a 2nd feature at level 7 on Oath of the Guardian; though, Aura of Hate is also an inherently a weak feature (you need a decent Str. score to the hit the target, you also need a decent Cha. score for the damage to be noticeable, and the value if offers beyond that is tied to Cha. number of minions with a +5 to hit/Summon Undead at level 9) - but most damning - its a passive feature (the most *dreaded* of features).
...and so is "Supernatural Resistance" at 15 level.
For 12 levels, your Oathbreaker's Subclass isn't really *doing* anything to change how you've been playing since level 3 beyond evil-ish subclass spells at levels 5, 9, and 13.
Now, admittedly, these are basically 2014 Oathbreaker features/part of their identity, but at the same time, not only are the weakest Paladin subclass features in the game, they're also boring.
So if there *was* an effort to overhaul the Oathbreaker, to bring in *more* of the Baseclass' in an twisted kinda of way, either modifying or *just adding* a feature at 7/15 would do wonders for the players. Like, MAYBE have LoH Poison a target, have a feature that revisits your undead minions, or gives them something to do with a Reaction (well, beyond Hellish Rebuke, lol) something, anything, to make levels 7-19 a little more interesting for the player.
At the same time, I'm not sure if the design team wants the Oathbreaker to be a subclass non-DMs play, given they yeeted it from the 2024 books.
Ideally, I'd like to see some polish on the spell list, some scaling for their minions to be useful at higher levels, but if we're looking to make them more of an engaging experience for an Oathbreaker, looking at 7/15 would be a good start for the design team.
I still don’t like how’s it’s a one-size-fits-all. No matter what your original oath was, if you break it you’re suddenly friends with zombies. So a vengeance pally who shows mercy is in the same boat as a crown pally who ignores his liege, or an ancients pally who ruins a work of art. And that boat is full of undead. I get that it would be impractical to design a separate version for each of the other subclasses, I just wish there was some kind of customization. Sometimes you’re buddies with the undead, but maybe sometimes it’s aberrations or monstrosities or something. I dunno.
Either that, or make it just the evil option (as it now says you can do from the start) and have it not be about a broken oath.
I still don’t like how’s it’s a one-size-fits-all. No matter what your original oath was, if you break it you’re suddenly friends with zombies. So a vengeance pally who shows mercy is in the same boat as a crown pally who ignores his liege, or an ancients pally who ruins a work of art. And that boat is full of undead. I get that it would be impractical to design a separate version for each of the other subclasses, I just wish there was some kind of customization. Sometimes you’re buddies with the undead, but maybe sometimes it’s aberrations or monstrosities or something. I dunno.
Either that, or make it just the evil option (as it now says you can do from the start) and have it not be about a broken oath.
I don't think an invocation type system that plays off other channel divinities is actually difficult to design, though I don't think that's a good fit for the Oathbreaker.
The power you channel, the spells, the channel divinity, was shaped/regulated by the oath (though, new more recent continuity of multiple oaths before level 3/your Abjure Foes being nonsensically consistent across the oaths, muddies those waters); when it goes, as does the core aspect of what drives your character's identity/perception of reality, so a more default set of abilities for that power twisted makes sense.
Now the only thing is; why would a power defined by your sheer force of will bolstering your allies or even mitigating/negating magical effects targeting them become *all about* undead (& a pinch of Fiend in Aura of Hate)/fear - shrug.
I feel the Oathbreaker should look a little bit like LotR Sauron or the Nazgul, than anything else.
A Reaction Cha. times per Long Rest that forces Disadvantage on a D20 test at level 7 to a target within 60 ft. of the Oathbreaker would be pretty on theme, for example.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/2092-designer-insights-from-unearthed-arcana-subclasses
With the return of the Oathbreaker to the game, what are people's thoughts.
I'll repeat my comment from the article below this.
Immediate reaction to Oathbreaker; it looks cool, but obviously the 3rd level Channel Divinity options have some bizarre ceilings: Conjure Undead will see little, if any, use after a point because its summoning CR 1/4 Undead, with almost no health, and a +5 to hit.
Aura of Hate, or some other feature, would need to make those Skeletons/Zombies way more sturdier: Suggestion: Just turn Conjure Undead into an option to pick the Undead up to a certain CR that scales with the Paladin. Make it their Wildshape type of flavor for their 1 minute of Necromancy.
This Paladin doesn't need 3 Fear effects. Dreadful Aspect; Abjure Foes; Fear (two at level 9) is TOO much Fear. You could swap Fear for Bestow Curse or something to that effect.
Also a carve out for Dread Lord to not break Abure Foes at level 20 with the damage it causes (a Frightened target), like Sear Undead, would be nice.
I'm not gonna lie, I kinda wish that they would use the opportunity of updating the Oathbreaker to change up its abilities a bit more drastically. I like the idea of a Paladin that is evil or has fallen from grace, but I dont like it being a mini necromancer. It would be cool if its kit played more on twisting traditional Paladin abilities.
Dreadful Aspect kinda does this by adding a Frightening effect to Divine Smite, but like you said the subclass already has alot of Fear abilities. Maybe it could instead allow you to change the damage type of any smite spell you cast to necrotic damage and add some other rider effect. As another idea, they could toy with Lay on Hands and let you expend HP from it to drain life from an enemy as opposed to restoring life to an ally.
Like, overall, I feel that someone playing an Oathbreaker should be able to use their entire base Paladin kit without it clashing with a more evil or corrupted theme.
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
I think one of the fun things about Chaosium/Cthulhu by Torchlight book was adding a 2nd feature at level 7 on Oath of the Guardian; though, Aura of Hate is also an inherently a weak feature (you need a decent Str. score to the hit the target, you also need a decent Cha. score for the damage to be noticeable, and the value if offers beyond that is tied to Cha. number of minions with a +5 to hit/Summon Undead at level 9) - but most damning - its a passive feature (the most *dreaded* of features).
...and so is "Supernatural Resistance" at 15 level.
For 12 levels, your Oathbreaker's Subclass isn't really *doing* anything to change how you've been playing since level 3 beyond evil-ish subclass spells at levels 5, 9, and 13.
Now, admittedly, these are basically 2014 Oathbreaker features/part of their identity, but at the same time, not only are the weakest Paladin subclass features in the game, they're also boring.
So if there *was* an effort to overhaul the Oathbreaker, to bring in *more* of the Baseclass' in an twisted kinda of way, either modifying or *just adding* a feature at 7/15 would do wonders for the players. Like, MAYBE have LoH Poison a target, have a feature that revisits your undead minions, or gives them something to do with a Reaction (well, beyond Hellish Rebuke, lol) something, anything, to make levels 7-19 a little more interesting for the player.
At the same time, I'm not sure if the design team wants the Oathbreaker to be a subclass non-DMs play, given they yeeted it from the 2024 books.
Ideally, I'd like to see some polish on the spell list, some scaling for their minions to be useful at higher levels, but if we're looking to make them more of an engaging experience for an Oathbreaker, looking at 7/15 would be a good start for the design team.
I still don’t like how’s it’s a one-size-fits-all. No matter what your original oath was, if you break it you’re suddenly friends with zombies. So a vengeance pally who shows mercy is in the same boat as a crown pally who ignores his liege, or an ancients pally who ruins a work of art. And that boat is full of undead. I get that it would be impractical to design a separate version for each of the other subclasses, I just wish there was some kind of customization. Sometimes you’re buddies with the undead, but maybe sometimes it’s aberrations or monstrosities or something. I dunno.
Either that, or make it just the evil option (as it now says you can do from the start) and have it not be about a broken oath.
I don't think an invocation type system that plays off other channel divinities is actually difficult to design, though I don't think that's a good fit for the Oathbreaker.
The power you channel, the spells, the channel divinity, was shaped/regulated by the oath (though, new more recent continuity of multiple oaths before level 3/your Abjure Foes being nonsensically consistent across the oaths, muddies those waters); when it goes, as does the core aspect of what drives your character's identity/perception of reality, so a more default set of abilities for that power twisted makes sense.
Now the only thing is; why would a power defined by your sheer force of will bolstering your allies or even mitigating/negating magical effects targeting them become *all about* undead (& a pinch of Fiend in Aura of Hate)/fear - shrug.
I feel the Oathbreaker should look a little bit like LotR Sauron or the Nazgul, than anything else.
A Reaction Cha. times per Long Rest that forces Disadvantage on a D20 test at level 7 to a target within 60 ft. of the Oathbreaker would be pretty on theme, for example.