A Player in my upcoming game wanted to throw his own spin on a paladin oath. We are running a Tal'Dorei campaign and he wanted to be a stormlord paladin but wanted a more thematic spin on it. So he made this: Oath of the Storm however, I am a relatively new DM and thus have no idea what the balance of this would look like. He has agreed this will be a work in progress type deal and things maybe changed on the fly. But prior to starting I just wanted to reach out to this wonderful community for some feedback from thsoe with more experience.
I had a look at the subclass. The concept is nice and I particularly like Destructive Wrath and Tempestuous Champion features. What I could see a problem of balancing are the rest of the features.
- Storm’s Embrace: this is a nice idea, but the duration and speed are too high, imho. While I understand this would be intended as the defensive half of the channel divinity, granting one minute of flying at 60 feet (effectively doubling the usual movement speed and adding a third dimension to it) seems exaggerated. I would suggest to limit this to CHA modifier turns and 30 feet flying speed. The second part of the feature seems a bit odd to me, and it would probably be simpler to just make it "At the end of the effect, you count as under the effects of Feather Fall until you touch ground" or something along those lines.
- Aura of Storms: Auras are usually more defensive/control features rather than damage-improving (with the exception of the Oathbreaker Aura of Hate). You can either keep it as it is, if your player really wants a damage boosting feature, or you could maybe propose to turn it into a defensive one, granting resistance to lightning and thunder damage and maybe cutting by half the travel distance of any effect that would impose forced movement.
- Maelstrom’s Embrace: this one is obviously affected by the same issues I feel Storm's Embrace has. 1 hour of such free movement with no drawback is way too much, and again 60 feet seems like a lot to me. My suggestion would be to change this feature to improve Storm's Embrace granting 40 feet of flying movement, or instead granting the 30 feet for CHA modifier flying to CHA modifier creatures. I wouldn't toy with the duration, as already 1 minute is a lot, imho (most combat situations do not last more than 10 rounds, and 1 minute is effectively 10 rounds), and if you give a 1 hour flying capability to someone that has high AC, can cast spells and would (supposedly) carry a bow and be able to use it well, then you have a very difficult character to deal with.
All the above is obviously in my opinion, but I hope it can be of help :)
Thank you so much, I really appreciate this feedback, yes I was concerned with the length of time they were up and I was concerned it was OP at the later levels and just tries to make up for movement issues and being ground bound. I like his thematic process but needed some tweaks but I had very few ideas. I really like what you suggested. I will look them over and may come back to discuss further.
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A Player in my upcoming game wanted to throw his own spin on a paladin oath. We are running a Tal'Dorei campaign and he wanted to be a stormlord paladin but wanted a more thematic spin on it. So he made this: Oath of the Storm however, I am a relatively new DM and thus have no idea what the balance of this would look like. He has agreed this will be a work in progress type deal and things maybe changed on the fly. But prior to starting I just wanted to reach out to this wonderful community for some feedback from thsoe with more experience.
Any and all feedback is welcome
Hi Bigmanjoey! o/
I had a look at the subclass. The concept is nice and I particularly like Destructive Wrath and Tempestuous Champion features.
What I could see a problem of balancing are the rest of the features.
- Storm’s Embrace: this is a nice idea, but the duration and speed are too high, imho. While I understand this would be intended as the defensive half of the channel divinity, granting one minute of flying at 60 feet (effectively doubling the usual movement speed and adding a third dimension to it) seems exaggerated.
I would suggest to limit this to CHA modifier turns and 30 feet flying speed. The second part of the feature seems a bit odd to me, and it would probably be simpler to just make it "At the end of the effect, you count as under the effects of Feather Fall until you touch ground" or something along those lines.
- Aura of Storms: Auras are usually more defensive/control features rather than damage-improving (with the exception of the Oathbreaker Aura of Hate). You can either keep it as it is, if your player really wants a damage boosting feature, or you could maybe propose to turn it into a defensive one, granting resistance to lightning and thunder damage and maybe cutting by half the travel distance of any effect that would impose forced movement.
- Maelstrom’s Embrace: this one is obviously affected by the same issues I feel Storm's Embrace has. 1 hour of such free movement with no drawback is way too much, and again 60 feet seems like a lot to me. My suggestion would be to change this feature to improve Storm's Embrace granting 40 feet of flying movement, or instead granting the 30 feet for CHA modifier flying to CHA modifier creatures. I wouldn't toy with the duration, as already 1 minute is a lot, imho (most combat situations do not last more than 10 rounds, and 1 minute is effectively 10 rounds), and if you give a 1 hour flying capability to someone that has high AC, can cast spells and would (supposedly) carry a bow and be able to use it well, then you have a very difficult character to deal with.
All the above is obviously in my opinion, but I hope it can be of help :)
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Thank you so much, I really appreciate this feedback, yes I was concerned with the length of time they were up and I was concerned it was OP at the later levels and just tries to make up for movement issues and being ground bound. I like his thematic process but needed some tweaks but I had very few ideas. I really like what you suggested. I will look them over and may come back to discuss further.