so the oathbreaker's 7th level aura doesn't specify friendly creatures like every other paladin aura (and i think also all the aura spells). is that intentional, or is that an oversight on the creator's intentions? i was going to play an oathbreaker in an undead themed campaign but took pause when i remembered that the aura would also buff enemy undead attacking me and my allies.
edit: would it be balanced to change the aura to (undead) allies only if it is not a mistake that it also effects enemies?
edit 2: i did get permission from my dm to use the oathbreaker subclass
edit 3: fixed edit 1 to undead allies. also, the first edit would be assuming i would be the only one in the party with created undead.
I believe it is intentional. The Aura of Hate specifically impacts you, fiends, and undead, not your allies.
Oathbreakers are twisted and essentially evil by design. They are more likely to be the villain in an undead campaign, rather than an anti-hero.
It could be massively imbalancing to only affect allies, as you could, and likely would, end up selectively empowering hundreds of friendly undead at level 18.
Even with a 10ft radius, that is still a potential 24 enhanced undead, where a typical adventuring party is 4-8 and wouldn't stand so close together.
so obviously there is potential for abuse with large quantities of undead, but the problem with your assumption is all the undead are clustered together. it would be impossible for their melee attacks to reach enemies from adjacent to me if they were surrounded by other undead on all sides. hypotheticallly, the buff would be very significant, but at the same time it would require a great deal of spell slot upkeep, as well as the fact that the attack bonus of undead doesn't scale, nor do they have naturally magical attacks. so at higher levels they wouldn't be doing much damage, as resistance to nonmagical damage and the tendancy towards higher ac lowers their effectiveness. yes, the self buff is significant, but the other paladin auras are also quite strong with the watcher's adding cha to initiative, the ancient's granting spell damage resistance (situational, but against casters is absurdly powerful) and devotion gets immunity to charmed (also situational, but charmed does prevent you from directly harming the charmer), conquest can freeze people in their tracks with fear aura (barring fear immunity which is relatively rare), redemption lets you soak damage for allies (working well with their 15th level feature), amplifying other tanks like barbarians even further, and vengeance can move after opportunity attacks, without provoking themselves (and with haste active you effectively get full movement, meaning creatures with equal or lower speed to you cannot escape your wrath). yes, i do agree that the oathbreaker feature is the most powerful, as a direct static damage buff, but at the same time the drawback is heavily dependent on the types of monsters you face. it is possible, that due to the lower amount of undead at mid to high-ish cr (most are 1-5 like zombies, or very strong like liches, with outliers, of course) meaning that it is entirely possible that in a non-undead focused campaign to never encounter decent cr undead, such that the drawback is moot. however in a game where there are a large amount of undead foes, the drawback of the aura is a huge punishment to the oathbreaker, as enemy undead get the same flat damage boost to all melee attacks, significantly reducing the paladin's survivability. imagine your fighter takes 5 more damage from every attack, and so do nearby allies. it is a strong feature, but in a campaign dominated by undead and/or fiends, it is excessively punishing to the player(s).
Ah yes, I misread that it only applied to melee damage. This does substantially change the power level of the aura. A swarm of undead could be equipped with reach weapons to make up the difference, but I'm not too worried about that for a 10ft aura.
The more important factor is that each Paladin aura has built in balance. Many are either highly situational, or consume a reaction and cause the paladin to take damage. Allowing Oathbreaker's aura to only affect allies would make it substantially better than any other aura.
One option would be to swap it out for something more player friendly. For Example:
Aura of Betrayal:
When you take damage, you can use your reaction to magically transfer half of that damage to a friendly creature within 10 feet of you. This feature doesn’t transfer any other effects that might accompany the damage, and this damage can’t be reduced in any way.
This would let you use a zombie under your control as a meat shield for one hit per turn. It would essentially be the antithesis of the Aura of the Guardian.You would be able to use it on an ally, but doing so might make them hostile.
so the oathbreaker's 7th level aura doesn't specify friendly creatures like every other paladin aura (and i think also all the aura spells). is that intentional, or is that an oversight on the creator's intentions? i was going to play an oathbreaker in an undead themed campaign but took pause when i remembered that the aura would also buff enemy undead attacking me and my allies.
edit: would it be balanced to change the aura to (undead) allies only if it is not a mistake that it also effects enemies?
edit 2: i did get permission from my dm to use the oathbreaker subclass
edit 3: fixed edit 1 to undead allies. also, the first edit would be assuming i would be the only one in the party with created undead.
I believe it is intentional. The Aura of Hate specifically impacts you, fiends, and undead, not your allies.
Oathbreakers are twisted and essentially evil by design. They are more likely to be the villain in an undead campaign, rather than an anti-hero.
It could be massively imbalancing to only affect allies, as you could, and likely would, end up selectively empowering hundreds of friendly undead at level 18.
Even with a 10ft radius, that is still a potential 24 enhanced undead, where a typical adventuring party is 4-8 and wouldn't stand so close together.
so obviously there is potential for abuse with large quantities of undead, but the problem with your assumption is all the undead are clustered together. it would be impossible for their melee attacks to reach enemies from adjacent to me if they were surrounded by other undead on all sides. hypotheticallly, the buff would be very significant, but at the same time it would require a great deal of spell slot upkeep, as well as the fact that the attack bonus of undead doesn't scale, nor do they have naturally magical attacks. so at higher levels they wouldn't be doing much damage, as resistance to nonmagical damage and the tendancy towards higher ac lowers their effectiveness. yes, the self buff is significant, but the other paladin auras are also quite strong with the watcher's adding cha to initiative, the ancient's granting spell damage resistance (situational, but against casters is absurdly powerful) and devotion gets immunity to charmed (also situational, but charmed does prevent you from directly harming the charmer), conquest can freeze people in their tracks with fear aura (barring fear immunity which is relatively rare), redemption lets you soak damage for allies (working well with their 15th level feature), amplifying other tanks like barbarians even further, and vengeance can move after opportunity attacks, without provoking themselves (and with haste active you effectively get full movement, meaning creatures with equal or lower speed to you cannot escape your wrath). yes, i do agree that the oathbreaker feature is the most powerful, as a direct static damage buff, but at the same time the drawback is heavily dependent on the types of monsters you face. it is possible, that due to the lower amount of undead at mid to high-ish cr (most are 1-5 like zombies, or very strong like liches, with outliers, of course) meaning that it is entirely possible that in a non-undead focused campaign to never encounter decent cr undead, such that the drawback is moot. however in a game where there are a large amount of undead foes, the drawback of the aura is a huge punishment to the oathbreaker, as enemy undead get the same flat damage boost to all melee attacks, significantly reducing the paladin's survivability. imagine your fighter takes 5 more damage from every attack, and so do nearby allies. it is a strong feature, but in a campaign dominated by undead and/or fiends, it is excessively punishing to the player(s).
Ah yes, I misread that it only applied to melee damage. This does substantially change the power level of the aura. A swarm of undead could be equipped with reach weapons to make up the difference, but I'm not too worried about that for a 10ft aura.
The more important factor is that each Paladin aura has built in balance. Many are either highly situational, or consume a reaction and cause the paladin to take damage. Allowing Oathbreaker's aura to only affect allies would make it substantially better than any other aura.
One option would be to swap it out for something more player friendly. For Example:
Aura of Betrayal:
When you take damage, you can use your reaction to magically transfer half of that damage to a friendly creature within 10 feet of you. This feature doesn’t transfer any other effects that might accompany the damage, and this damage can’t be reduced in any way.
This would let you use a zombie under your control as a meat shield for one hit per turn. It would essentially be the antithesis of the Aura of the Guardian.You would be able to use it on an ally, but doing so might make them hostile.