Technically, the Oathbreaker was presented as an NPC class, but like the Death Cleric, is allowed as a PC subclass in a number of games. What you're describing is "reskinning" or "reworking" the lore of the Oathbreaker and that's the sort of narrative work you'll need to do with a DM, basically coming up with a non-evil Oath to stand in for the "oathbreaker" aspect. Maybe some sort of mashup between Oath of Vengeance and Ancients. It's a bit edgelordy, especially the "but not evil" angle, but again its something a DM could consider.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The main problem with a non-evil Oathbreaker is that boosting fiends and undead is kinda ... unhelpful for a good character (note that fiends and undead are boosted even if they're hostile to the Oathbreaker...).
RAW, you must be evil to be an Oathbreaker. It is also RAW that RAW itself can be ignored with a GM's permission. Unless you GM is intent on running a campaign in very specific way insistent that strict alignments be followed, I do not think most GMs would oppose a non evil Oathbreaker.
And as mentioned above, aura of hate is a huge double edged sword, although I think most GMs would be more than happy to use that as an adventuring hook to send you on a quest and reward you with a way to only affect friendly undead and fiends.
If you really want a lore reason, maybe the paladin is so desperate and so far gone into despair and pain that not even Oath of Vengeance can satisfy them. They might not be necessarily evil at heart, but they do not care about morality anymore as long as they can achieve whatever their goals are, so it is up to the party to guide them back into the light or something.
I recently played a Good Oathbreaker Paladin. My character's backstory involved the love of his life dying and him turning to necromancy to try and bring her back. It both did not work and constituted a violation of his Oath, turning him into an Oathbreaker. Rather than interpret the "darkness" referenced in the Oathbreaker description as "evil", I couched it to my DM as the dark void of depression and loss of love and identity. Beyond just the death of his love, the character's struggles to reconcile his "good" nature with the "evil" nature of the necromancy he learned were another factor in his crippling issues.
What started as the first steps on a journey through mental health issues unfortunately went pretty much nowhere. Our DM was... not great when it came to characters' personal stories, so around 4th level they had a deus ex machina moment where my character's wife rode in on a non sequitur and said "all is forgiven". That and our DM never gave us any undead bad guys, so there was no chance to actually use any of the low-level necromancy powers and explore that aspect of the character. I think it was an interesting enough take on the Oathbreaker class--completely derailed by a DM who just mishandled the individual narrative (and did so for the other PCs in the group as well, in various ways).
All that's to say, the RAW "Oathbreakers must be evil" rule is like most other alignment preconditions--something that is better off ignored. Your "Good" Oathbreaker just needs a reason to break his Oath--something he or she sees as so important, that whatever Oaths sworn to a god would pale in comparison. Perhaps the God wants you to focus on "the greater good" but you choose to defy the god to save someone. Perhaps you realize your god's goals might actually be making things worse. You don't even have to delve into necromancy during the oathbreaking process--you could just have necromancy occur naturally as a side effect of radiance leaving you behind and some kind of darkness creeping into your soul to fill the void.
All that's to say, the RAW "Oathbreakers must be evil" rule is like most other alignment preconditions--something that is better off ignored. Your "Good" Oathbreaker just needs a reason to break his Oath--something he or she sees as so important, that whatever Oaths sworn to a god would pale in comparison.
I would expect a 'good' Oathbreaker to gain a different set of powers, presumably connected in some way to what caused them to break their oath.
All that's to say, the RAW "Oathbreakers must be evil" rule is like most other alignment preconditions--something that is better off ignored. Your "Good" Oathbreaker just needs a reason to break his Oath--something he or she sees as so important, that whatever Oaths sworn to a god would pale in comparison.
I would expect a 'good' Oathbreaker to gain a different set of powers, presumably connected in some way to what caused them to break their oath.
Yeah, as a DM, if a player came to me with that character concept, I'd offer them a homebrew alternative to the book version of Oathbreaker
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
All that's to say, the RAW "Oathbreakers must be evil" rule is like most other alignment preconditions--something that is better off ignored. Your "Good" Oathbreaker just needs a reason to break his Oath--something he or she sees as so important, that whatever Oaths sworn to a god would pale in comparison.
I would expect a 'good' Oathbreaker to gain a different set of powers, presumably connected in some way to what caused them to break their oath.
Yeah, as a DM, if a player came to me with that character concept, I'd offer them a homebrew alternative to the book version of Oathbreaker
When I DM, I am all for changing powers for flavor reasons. But I know a fair number of DMs who might ask "why are you playing an Oathbreaker when it seems you want to be playing a reskinned Oath of X" Paladin?" I assume the OP wants to play an Oathbreaker specifically because it offers a unique suite of powers, including necromancy, and thus reskinning the powers sort of defeats the purpose. Figuring out a way to justify an Oathbreaker's set of stereotypically "evil" abilities with a "good" character, however, is just a matter of flavor to be justified to the DM.
One advantage from a flavor perspective is the lack of actually raising dead until rather late in the Oathbreaker's progression--you do not get Animate Dead until level 9. Thus, your character has time to grow accustomed to its new dark powers and reconcile the "evil" powers with "good" objectives. All your other necrotic powers can be explained away relatively easily with some variation of "other energies filling the void in your soul once governed by your oath"; the command of the undead could be reflavored to some sort of sympathetic bond between a creature with a damaged soul and a reanimated husk with no soul; etc. Plenty of ways you could preserve the powers of an Oathbreaker even if the breaking of your Oath had nothing to do with the powers themselves.
RAW, no. It is.a consequence.of breaking an Oath, not an Oath.
Still, mechanically it's no different really. Your DM has the power to do what ever he wants. If he is happy with it, just change the name to Oath of Necromancy or something, come up with an appropriate oath to go with it, and you're sorted.
The only potential issue with it is if you (or another Paladin, for that matter) break your Oath such that you would normally become an Oathbreaker. That's perhaps something you could help the DM work out (since you're the one that broke it) in advance.
Or actually become (or start as) an actual Oathbreaker with an understanding with the DM that you didn't become evil.
Either way, I think you have your work cut out working out how a class with such powers can be not evil. Still, the DM is the only gatekeeper here.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I assume the OP wants to play an Oathbreaker specifically because it offers a unique suite of powers, including necromancy, and thus reskinning the powers sort of defeats the purpose. Figuring out a way to justify an Oathbreaker's set of stereotypically "evil" abilities with a "good" character, however, is just a matter of flavor to be justified to the DM.
The problem is that Aura of Hate feature, as was pointed out earlier. There was an entire thread not too long ago about whether undead were inherently "evil", and I'm firmly in the "depends on the world and culture" camp on that, but it's really hard to justify having a "good" character give a melee boost to fiends
Whether I would do any further homebrew would depend on the actual story the player wanted to tell with the character, but at the very least that 7th-level feature would need some work
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I assume the OP wants to play an Oathbreaker specifically because it offers a unique suite of powers, including necromancy, and thus reskinning the powers sort of defeats the purpose. Figuring out a way to justify an Oathbreaker's set of stereotypically "evil" abilities with a "good" character, however, is just a matter of flavor to be justified to the DM.
The problem is that Aura of Hate feature, as was pointed out earlier. There was an entire thread not too long ago about whether undead were inherently "evil", and I'm firmly in the "depends on the world and culture" camp on that, but it's really hard to justify having a "good" character give a melee boost to fiends
Whether I would do any further homebrew would depend on the actual story the player wanted to tell with the character, but at the very least that 7th-level feature would need some work
It actually is really easy to justify, and the justification is built into the Aura of Hate itself. Aura of Hate does not take sides and the Paladin has no control over it. The easy explanation is that the Paladin does not want to boost the fiends, but the fiends still feed off of the energy given off by the Paladin. You could also just clarify that the "Hate" part of the "Aura of Hate" is not your Paladin's hatred, but some sort of cosmic/other hatred against you for breaking your oath--that way you do not have to have your paladin be hate-filled.
It actually is really easy to justify, and the justification is built into the Aura of Hate itself. Aura of Hate does not take sides and the Paladin has no control over it. The easy explanation is that the Paladin does not want to boost the fiends, but the fiends still feed off of the energy given off by the Paladin. You could also just clarify that the "Hate" part of the "Aura of Hate" is not your Paladin's hatred, but some sort of cosmic/other hatred against you for breaking your oath--that way you do not have to have your paladin be hate-filled.
The original question was whether a non-evil character could take an oath to get the Oathbreaker power set
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
It actually is really easy to justify, and the justification is built into the Aura of Hate itself. Aura of Hate does not take sides and the Paladin has no control over it. The easy explanation is that the Paladin does not want to boost the fiends, but the fiends still feed off of the energy given off by the Paladin. You could also just clarify that the "Hate" part of the "Aura of Hate" is not your Paladin's hatred, but some sort of cosmic/other hatred against you for breaking your oath--that way you do not have to have your paladin be hate-filled.
The original question was whether a non-evil character could take an oath to get the Oathbreaker power set
Yes--which is exactly why I responded to your position that aura of hate is a problem by providing an easy way to justify a Good paladin boosting fiends--simply clarifying the boost is an unintentional and unwanted side effect of their being, not a conscious choice to boost evil creatures.
It actually is really easy to justify, and the justification is built into the Aura of Hate itself. Aura of Hate does not take sides and the Paladin has no control over it. The easy explanation is that the Paladin does not want to boost the fiends, but the fiends still feed off of the energy given off by the Paladin. You could also just clarify that the "Hate" part of the "Aura of Hate" is not your Paladin's hatred, but some sort of cosmic/other hatred against you for breaking your oath--that way you do not have to have your paladin be hate-filled.
The original question was whether a non-evil character could take an oath to get the Oathbreaker power set
Yes--which is exactly why I responded to your position that aura of hate is a problem by providing an easy way to justify a Good paladin boosting fiends--simply clarifying the boost is an unintentional and unwanted side effect of their being, not a conscious choice to boost evil creatures.
1. Your justification involves the character breaking an oath, so...
2. The point of the feature is to boost your allies -- it's just in that case, the allies are explicitly evil. If you like the idea of having it boost enemies because it fits the character's story, sure, but even then as a DM I'd want to homebrew the subclass to add some compensatory ability to make up for the nerfing of that specific feature
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
It actually is really easy to justify, and the justification is built into the Aura of Hate itself. Aura of Hate does not take sides and the Paladin has no control over it. The easy explanation is that the Paladin does not want to boost the fiends, but the fiends still feed off of the energy given off by the Paladin. You could also just clarify that the "Hate" part of the "Aura of Hate" is not your Paladin's hatred, but some sort of cosmic/other hatred against you for breaking your oath--that way you do not have to have your paladin be hate-filled.
The original question was whether a non-evil character could take an oath to get the Oathbreaker power set
Yes--which is exactly why I responded to your position that aura of hate is a problem by providing an easy way to justify a Good paladin boosting fiends--simply clarifying the boost is an unintentional and unwanted side effect of their being, not a conscious choice to boost evil creatures.
1. Your justification involves the character breaking an oath, so...
2. The point of the feature is to boost your allies -- it's just in that case, the allies are explicitly evil. If you like the idea of having it boost enemies because it fits the character's story, sure, but even then as a DM I'd want to homebrew the subclass to add some compensatory ability to make up for the nerfing of that specific feature
1. I fail to see the relevance of your first point--there has been plenty of discussion on how a "Good" character can break oaths both on this thread and in the entirety of literature stemming back to the dawn of the written word.
2. The point of this thread is the OP asking how to utilize the existing powers of the Oathbreaker on a Good character. Would you be able to make something better with homerules? Yes, but that is generally the case and it is irrelevant to the actual question posed by the thread. Perhaps the OP wants the additional challenge. Perhaps the OP is going to be in a campaign without many fiends. Perhaps they want to make the (generally foolish) mistake in thinking binding a fiend to obtain their Good ideals would be a wise idea. Maybe they have some other flavor reason for wanting to play an unmodified class.
I will note, the feature still would boost your allies--the Oathbreaker has a ways to take control of undead and eventually raise their own. Thus, they can still receive a boost from the ability, even it it also has a detriment. This really is no different than playing an evil Oathbreaker--even evil characters are more likely than not going to run into conflicts with other evils utilizing necromancy or fiends, so an Evil Oathbreaker is likely to spend a fair deal of time boosting enemies.
Pretty much all of the problems with a "Good" Oathbreaker stem from a RAW interpretation of the rules and/or a lack of imagination. Personally, I would love to see them receive similar errata that Bladesingers received in Tasha's, where a silly prerequisite (requirement to be an elf) was explicitly modified to be less absolute.
Yes, but that is generally the case and it is irrelevant to the actual question posed by the thread.
This is very funny, all things considered
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Jokes aside, the oath breaker is not really a paladin who just breaks their oath but an evil paladin being described as having a dark heart. Specifically I think it's designed as a paladin who breaks the oath of devotion. Where as devotion paladins celebrate angels and seek to emulate them, the oathbreakers work with fiends and undead. The devotion paladin creates light, the oath breaker creates shadow. Thinking of it like that I'd find it really hard to give to a good player and it would have to be reflavoured as like a shadow paladin.
That oath I'd give tenents like:
Show no fear playing on its fear aura and damaging the afraid
Use any means for like controlling the undead
Turn enemies against themselves because why not fight undead with undead
Game play wise I'd mainly change aura of hate. I'd let you choose which it effects and may even give you a bonus action that lets you instill hate in some one else and get them to make an attack using that bonus. Maybe even let you do a save to force an enemy to do it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
What I am saying is can a paladin make an oath that gives him/her the powers of the Oathbreaker subclass, even if the paladin is not evil?
Technically, the Oathbreaker was presented as an NPC class, but like the Death Cleric, is allowed as a PC subclass in a number of games. What you're describing is "reskinning" or "reworking" the lore of the Oathbreaker and that's the sort of narrative work you'll need to do with a DM, basically coming up with a non-evil Oath to stand in for the "oathbreaker" aspect. Maybe some sort of mashup between Oath of Vengeance and Ancients. It's a bit edgelordy, especially the "but not evil" angle, but again its something a DM could consider.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The main problem with a non-evil Oathbreaker is that boosting fiends and undead is kinda ... unhelpful for a good character (note that fiends and undead are boosted even if they're hostile to the Oathbreaker...).
RAW, you must be evil to be an Oathbreaker. It is also RAW that RAW itself can be ignored with a GM's permission. Unless you GM is intent on running a campaign in very specific way insistent that strict alignments be followed, I do not think most GMs would oppose a non evil Oathbreaker.
And as mentioned above, aura of hate is a huge double edged sword, although I think most GMs would be more than happy to use that as an adventuring hook to send you on a quest and reward you with a way to only affect friendly undead and fiends.
If you really want a lore reason, maybe the paladin is so desperate and so far gone into despair and pain that not even Oath of Vengeance can satisfy them. They might not be necessarily evil at heart, but they do not care about morality anymore as long as they can achieve whatever their goals are, so it is up to the party to guide them back into the light or something.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
I recently played a Good Oathbreaker Paladin. My character's backstory involved the love of his life dying and him turning to necromancy to try and bring her back. It both did not work and constituted a violation of his Oath, turning him into an Oathbreaker. Rather than interpret the "darkness" referenced in the Oathbreaker description as "evil", I couched it to my DM as the dark void of depression and loss of love and identity. Beyond just the death of his love, the character's struggles to reconcile his "good" nature with the "evil" nature of the necromancy he learned were another factor in his crippling issues.
What started as the first steps on a journey through mental health issues unfortunately went pretty much nowhere. Our DM was... not great when it came to characters' personal stories, so around 4th level they had a deus ex machina moment where my character's wife rode in on a non sequitur and said "all is forgiven". That and our DM never gave us any undead bad guys, so there was no chance to actually use any of the low-level necromancy powers and explore that aspect of the character. I think it was an interesting enough take on the Oathbreaker class--completely derailed by a DM who just mishandled the individual narrative (and did so for the other PCs in the group as well, in various ways).
All that's to say, the RAW "Oathbreakers must be evil" rule is like most other alignment preconditions--something that is better off ignored. Your "Good" Oathbreaker just needs a reason to break his Oath--something he or she sees as so important, that whatever Oaths sworn to a god would pale in comparison. Perhaps the God wants you to focus on "the greater good" but you choose to defy the god to save someone. Perhaps you realize your god's goals might actually be making things worse. You don't even have to delve into necromancy during the oathbreaking process--you could just have necromancy occur naturally as a side effect of radiance leaving you behind and some kind of darkness creeping into your soul to fill the void.
I would expect a 'good' Oathbreaker to gain a different set of powers, presumably connected in some way to what caused them to break their oath.
Yeah, as a DM, if a player came to me with that character concept, I'd offer them a homebrew alternative to the book version of Oathbreaker
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
When I DM, I am all for changing powers for flavor reasons. But I know a fair number of DMs who might ask "why are you playing an Oathbreaker when it seems you want to be playing a reskinned Oath of X" Paladin?" I assume the OP wants to play an Oathbreaker specifically because it offers a unique suite of powers, including necromancy, and thus reskinning the powers sort of defeats the purpose. Figuring out a way to justify an Oathbreaker's set of stereotypically "evil" abilities with a "good" character, however, is just a matter of flavor to be justified to the DM.
One advantage from a flavor perspective is the lack of actually raising dead until rather late in the Oathbreaker's progression--you do not get Animate Dead until level 9. Thus, your character has time to grow accustomed to its new dark powers and reconcile the "evil" powers with "good" objectives. All your other necrotic powers can be explained away relatively easily with some variation of "other energies filling the void in your soul once governed by your oath"; the command of the undead could be reflavored to some sort of sympathetic bond between a creature with a damaged soul and a reanimated husk with no soul; etc. Plenty of ways you could preserve the powers of an Oathbreaker even if the breaking of your Oath had nothing to do with the powers themselves.
RAW, no. It is.a consequence.of breaking an Oath, not an Oath.
Still, mechanically it's no different really. Your DM has the power to do what ever he wants. If he is happy with it, just change the name to Oath of Necromancy or something, come up with an appropriate oath to go with it, and you're sorted.
The only potential issue with it is if you (or another Paladin, for that matter) break your Oath such that you would normally become an Oathbreaker. That's perhaps something you could help the DM work out (since you're the one that broke it) in advance.
Or actually become (or start as) an actual Oathbreaker with an understanding with the DM that you didn't become evil.
Either way, I think you have your work cut out working out how a class with such powers can be not evil. Still, the DM is the only gatekeeper here.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
The problem is that Aura of Hate feature, as was pointed out earlier. There was an entire thread not too long ago about whether undead were inherently "evil", and I'm firmly in the "depends on the world and culture" camp on that, but it's really hard to justify having a "good" character give a melee boost to fiends
Whether I would do any further homebrew would depend on the actual story the player wanted to tell with the character, but at the very least that 7th-level feature would need some work
EDIT: the thread is here
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
It actually is really easy to justify, and the justification is built into the Aura of Hate itself. Aura of Hate does not take sides and the Paladin has no control over it. The easy explanation is that the Paladin does not want to boost the fiends, but the fiends still feed off of the energy given off by the Paladin. You could also just clarify that the "Hate" part of the "Aura of Hate" is not your Paladin's hatred, but some sort of cosmic/other hatred against you for breaking your oath--that way you do not have to have your paladin be hate-filled.
The original question was whether a non-evil character could take an oath to get the Oathbreaker power set
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Yes--which is exactly why I responded to your position that aura of hate is a problem by providing an easy way to justify a Good paladin boosting fiends--simply clarifying the boost is an unintentional and unwanted side effect of their being, not a conscious choice to boost evil creatures.
1. Your justification involves the character breaking an oath, so...
2. The point of the feature is to boost your allies -- it's just in that case, the allies are explicitly evil. If you like the idea of having it boost enemies because it fits the character's story, sure, but even then as a DM I'd want to homebrew the subclass to add some compensatory ability to make up for the nerfing of that specific feature
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
1. I fail to see the relevance of your first point--there has been plenty of discussion on how a "Good" character can break oaths both on this thread and in the entirety of literature stemming back to the dawn of the written word.
2. The point of this thread is the OP asking how to utilize the existing powers of the Oathbreaker on a Good character. Would you be able to make something better with homerules? Yes, but that is generally the case and it is irrelevant to the actual question posed by the thread. Perhaps the OP wants the additional challenge. Perhaps the OP is going to be in a campaign without many fiends. Perhaps they want to make the (generally foolish) mistake in thinking binding a fiend to obtain their Good ideals would be a wise idea. Maybe they have some other flavor reason for wanting to play an unmodified class.
I will note, the feature still would boost your allies--the Oathbreaker has a ways to take control of undead and eventually raise their own. Thus, they can still receive a boost from the ability, even it it also has a detriment. This really is no different than playing an evil Oathbreaker--even evil characters are more likely than not going to run into conflicts with other evils utilizing necromancy or fiends, so an Evil Oathbreaker is likely to spend a fair deal of time boosting enemies.
Pretty much all of the problems with a "Good" Oathbreaker stem from a RAW interpretation of the rules and/or a lack of imagination. Personally, I would love to see them receive similar errata that Bladesingers received in Tasha's, where a silly prerequisite (requirement to be an elf) was explicitly modified to be less absolute.
This is very funny, all things considered
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Jokes aside, the oath breaker is not really a paladin who just breaks their oath but an evil paladin being described as having a dark heart. Specifically I think it's designed as a paladin who breaks the oath of devotion. Where as devotion paladins celebrate angels and seek to emulate them, the oathbreakers work with fiends and undead. The devotion paladin creates light, the oath breaker creates shadow. Thinking of it like that I'd find it really hard to give to a good player and it would have to be reflavoured as like a shadow paladin.
That oath I'd give tenents like:
Game play wise I'd mainly change aura of hate. I'd let you choose which it effects and may even give you a bonus action that lets you instill hate in some one else and get them to make an attack using that bonus. Maybe even let you do a save to force an enemy to do it.