Subclass for paladin, want some feedback on balance issues mostly.
Original:
Paladins who swear the oath of the dawn become the vanguard in the battle against darkness and deception. They hunt down creatures of darkness like liches and death knights, reveal the deceptions of evil cultists and corrupt nobles, and uncover secret knowledge to share with the world.
Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Radiance of the Dawn. As an action, you present your holy symbol, and any magical darkness within 30 feet of you is dispelled. Additionally, each hostile creature within 30 feet of you must make a Constitution saving throw. A creature takes radiant damage equal to 2d10 + your cleric level on a failed saving throw, and half as much damage on a successful one. A creature that has total cover from you is not affected
Blinding Strike. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack on your turn, you can flood the target with radiant energy. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your paladin spell save DC. On a failure, the target takes radiant damage equal to 2d6 + your paladin level and is blinded until the end of its next turn. On a success, the creature takes no damage and is blinded until the start of its next turn.
Oath Spells
You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.
Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you have advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks to tell if a creature is lying and Intelligence (Investigation) checks to determine if something is an illusion. Additionally, any invisible creatures of your choice within this aura become visible while in the aura. The aura persists only while you are conscious.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Undecievable Vision
Beginning at 15th level, you have truesight out to a range of 60 feet. Additionally, you can tell whenever a creature is lying if you can see it.
Champion of the Dawn
At 20th level, as an action, you can become a conduit for the light of dawn. You gain the following benefits for 1 minute:
You have immunity to necrotic damage
Your attacks ignore resistance to radiant damage
When you make a weapon attack, you can choose to have all of its damage be replaced by radiant damage. If you do, the attack deals an extra 2d8 radiant damage on a hit. You can deal this extra damage only once per turn.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Version 1.1
Paladins who swear the oath of the dawn become the vanguard in the battle against darkness and deception. They hunt down creatures of darkness like liches and death knights, reveal the deceptions of evil cultists and corrupt nobles, and uncover secret knowledge to share with the world.
Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Radiance of the Dawn. As an action, you present your holy symbol, and any magical darkness within 30 feet of you is dispelled. Additionally, each hostile creature within 30 feet of you must make a Constitution saving throw. A creature takes radiant damage equal to 2d10 + your paladin level on a failed saving throw, and half as much damage on a successful one. A creature that has total cover from you is not affected
Blinding Strike. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack on your turn, you can flood the target with radiant energy. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your paladin spell save DC. On a failure, the target takes 1d10 radiant damage and is blinded until the end of its next turn. On a success, the creature takes no damage and is blinded until the start of its next turn.
Oath Spells
You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.
Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you have advantage on Intelligence (Investigation) checks to determine if something is an illusion. Additionally, any invisible creatures of your choice within this aura become visible while in the aura. The aura persists only while you are conscious.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Undecievable Vision
Beginning at 15th level, you have truesight out to a range of 60 feet. Additionally, you can tell whenever a creature is lying if you can see it.
Champion of the Dawn
At 20th level, as an action, you can become a conduit for the light of dawn. You gain the following benefits for 1 minute:
You have immunity to necrotic damage
Your attacks ignore resistance to radiant damage
When you make a weapon attack, you can choose to have all of its damage be replaced by radiant damage. If you do, the attack deals an extra 2d8 radiant damage on a hit. You can deal this extra damage only once per turn.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Radiance of the Dawn - there should be a limit on how magical of darkness it can dispel, as with the Daylight spell, or an ability check to dispel higher-level darkness, as with Dispel Magic.
Blinding Strike - I think it should be half damage and no blindness on the failure. Also, adding your level to a damage roll is kind of a lot, isn't it? Why not add your charisma or spellcasting bonus?
In general, DMs don't like it if you can overcome their effect, no matter how powerful, without any roll.
Aura of Revealing - Permanent advantage is pretty powerful. Could you make this a limited-use ability?
I made a similarly themed subclass - College of Truth Bard - and in addition to Insight, I gave them abilities that helped with Persuasion. Knowing the truth is out there is nice, but if you can't convince anyone, you're like Mulder in the X-Files. The more interesting ability was a Song ability similar to the Calm Emotions spell. It would let you make creatures hostile to a faction or idea indifferent, or indifferent creatures friendly.
Thanks for the advice. I don't want to change the channel divinity too much. Ill remove the bonus to damage entirely, but the blindness even on a failure is intentional. Its meant to be blinding, but without any damage I felt it wasn't very good.
Radiance of the dawn is directly copied from the light cleric's channel divinity. I'll change the damage to fire, which is more heavily resisted than radiant, but I wanted to keep in mostly the same.
For the aura, ill remove advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks.
Are these changes still reducing the power level enough?
Also, I've been wanting to make a series of paladin subclasses that are not the Lawful Good kind of paladin that most of the subclasses emulate. Things like an Oath of Blood, Oath of the Night, or Oath of Ruin. People still swear oaths for things that are not necessarily just causes, but there just aren't any oaths that currently show this.
I would like some ideas as to what the subclasses might be like. Names, Themes, and Abilities are all welcome.
Actually, I didn't notice before that the blindness is only until the start of their turn on failure. That's actually pretty limited, so it's fine. It will let you escape opportunity attacks, hide more easily, and give you advantage. Whereas blindness during their turn gives them disadvantage and makes certain spells unusable.
I'd keep the radiant damage because it's more thematically appropriate.
I like keeping just the advantage on Investigation against illusions, because it's a limited subset of Investigation that only comes up from time to time, whereas liars are everywhere.
Subclass for paladin, want some feedback on balance issues mostly.
Original:
Paladins who swear the oath of the dawn become the vanguard in the battle against darkness and deception. They hunt down creatures of darkness like liches and death knights, reveal the deceptions of evil cultists and corrupt nobles, and uncover secret knowledge to share with the world.
Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Radiance of the Dawn. As an action, you present your holy symbol, and any magical darkness within 30 feet of you is dispelled. Additionally, each hostile creature within 30 feet of you must make a Constitution saving throw. A creature takes radiant damage equal to 2d10 + your cleric level on a failed saving throw, and half as much damage on a successful one. A creature that has total cover from you is not affected
Blinding Strike. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack on your turn, you can flood the target with radiant energy. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your paladin spell save DC. On a failure, the target takes radiant damage equal to 2d6 + your paladin level and is blinded until the end of its next turn. On a success, the creature takes no damage and is blinded until the start of its next turn.
Oath Spells
You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.
Oath of Devotion Spells
3rd
bless, guiding bolt
5th
continual flame, warding bond
9th
counterspell, daylight
13th
aura of life, staggering smite
17th
flame strike, scrying
Aura of Revealing
Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you have advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks to tell if a creature is lying and Intelligence (Investigation) checks to determine if something is an illusion. Additionally, any invisible creatures of your choice within this aura become visible while in the aura. The aura persists only while you are conscious.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Undecievable Vision
Beginning at 15th level, you have truesight out to a range of 60 feet. Additionally, you can tell whenever a creature is lying if you can see it.
Champion of the Dawn
At 20th level, as an action, you can become a conduit for the light of dawn. You gain the following benefits for 1 minute:
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Version 1.1
Paladins who swear the oath of the dawn become the vanguard in the battle against darkness and deception. They hunt down creatures of darkness like liches and death knights, reveal the deceptions of evil cultists and corrupt nobles, and uncover secret knowledge to share with the world.
Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Radiance of the Dawn. As an action, you present your holy symbol, and any magical darkness within 30 feet of you is dispelled. Additionally, each hostile creature within 30 feet of you must make a Constitution saving throw. A creature takes radiant damage equal to 2d10 + your paladin level on a failed saving throw, and half as much damage on a successful one. A creature that has total cover from you is not affected
Blinding Strike. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack on your turn, you can flood the target with radiant energy. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your paladin spell save DC. On a failure, the target takes 1d10 radiant damage and is blinded until the end of its next turn. On a success, the creature takes no damage and is blinded until the start of its next turn.
Oath Spells
You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.
Oath of Devotion Spells
3rd
bless, guiding bolt
5th
continual flame, warding bond
9th
counterspell, daylight
13th
aura of life, staggering smite
17th
flame strike, scrying
Aura of Revealing
Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you have advantage on Intelligence (Investigation) checks to determine if something is an illusion. Additionally, any invisible creatures of your choice within this aura become visible while in the aura. The aura persists only while you are conscious.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Undecievable Vision
Beginning at 15th level, you have truesight out to a range of 60 feet. Additionally, you can tell whenever a creature is lying if you can see it.
Champion of the Dawn
At 20th level, as an action, you can become a conduit for the light of dawn. You gain the following benefits for 1 minute:
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Radiance of the Dawn - there should be a limit on how magical of darkness it can dispel, as with the Daylight spell, or an ability check to dispel higher-level darkness, as with Dispel Magic.
Blinding Strike - I think it should be half damage and no blindness on the failure. Also, adding your level to a damage roll is kind of a lot, isn't it? Why not add your charisma or spellcasting bonus?
In general, DMs don't like it if you can overcome their effect, no matter how powerful, without any roll.
Aura of Revealing - Permanent advantage is pretty powerful. Could you make this a limited-use ability?
I made a similarly themed subclass - College of Truth Bard - and in addition to Insight, I gave them abilities that helped with Persuasion. Knowing the truth is out there is nice, but if you can't convince anyone, you're like Mulder in the X-Files. The more interesting ability was a Song ability similar to the Calm Emotions spell. It would let you make creatures hostile to a faction or idea indifferent, or indifferent creatures friendly.
Thanks for the advice. I don't want to change the channel divinity too much. Ill remove the bonus to damage entirely, but the blindness even on a failure is intentional. Its meant to be blinding, but without any damage I felt it wasn't very good.
Radiance of the dawn is directly copied from the light cleric's channel divinity. I'll change the damage to fire, which is more heavily resisted than radiant, but I wanted to keep in mostly the same.
For the aura, ill remove advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks.
Are these changes still reducing the power level enough?
Also, I've been wanting to make a series of paladin subclasses that are not the Lawful Good kind of paladin that most of the subclasses emulate. Things like an Oath of Blood, Oath of the Night, or Oath of Ruin. People still swear oaths for things that are not necessarily just causes, but there just aren't any oaths that currently show this.
I would like some ideas as to what the subclasses might be like. Names, Themes, and Abilities are all welcome.
Actually, I didn't notice before that the blindness is only until the start of their turn on failure. That's actually pretty limited, so it's fine. It will let you escape opportunity attacks, hide more easily, and give you advantage. Whereas blindness during their turn gives them disadvantage and makes certain spells unusable.
I'd keep the radiant damage because it's more thematically appropriate.
I like keeping just the advantage on Investigation against illusions, because it's a limited subset of Investigation that only comes up from time to time, whereas liars are everywhere.
Thanks Ill make the change back to radiant