Oath of Protection

The Oath of Protection is an oath for paladins who, for some reason or another, have dedicated their lives to the protection of others. Ranging from dedicated bodyguards to champions of royalty, the paladins who swear this oath dedicate themselves to ensuring the survival and well being of their companions or charges.

Tenets of Protection

The tenets of the Oath of Protection are not formalized throughout the order, and depend on the paladin. Though the tenets vary on an individual basis, they generally emphasize the following tenets.

Safety. You alone are responsible for the physical protection of others, and you must make sure they are defended at all times. If you companions do not feel safe, you must try your best to make them feel safer.

Readiness. You must always be prepared to defend your charge, forgoing your own resting if needed. Constant vigilance is required to ensure your companion's safety.

Self-Care. You must keep good care of yourself; you can’t protect others if you can’t protect yourself. You must become an unbreakable wall so that those you defend cannot be harmed.

Channel Divinity

When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.

Guardian's Shield. As an action, you can empower one shield that you are holding with positive energy, using your Channel Divinity. For 1 minute, you add 1 to the Armor Class granted by that shield. While the shield is empowered, if an ally you can see within 30 feet of you is targeted by an attack, you may use your reaction to grant them a bonus to their armor class equal to your shield's AC until the start of your next turn. The shield also emits bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light 20 feet beyond that. If the shield is not already magical, it becomes magical for the duration.

You can end this effect on your turn as part of any other action. If you are no longer holding or carrying this shield, or if you fall unconscious, this effect ends. The bonus to the shield's armor class increases to 2 at level 7, and to 3 at level 15.

Deny the Violent. As an action, you present your holy symbol and speak a command declaring the end of combat. All creatures besides you within 100 feet of you that you can see or who can hear and understand you gain disadvantage on attack rolls and advantage on saving throws for the next minute, and you may choose to make all affected creatures make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, that creature must drop all weapons it is holding. You and all affected creatures also gain temporary hit points equal to your Paladin level, which are lost after a minute passes.

Oath Spells

You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.

Oath of Protection Spells

Aura of Vigilance

Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can’t be blinded, and gain darkvison out to a range of 60 feet while you are conscious.

At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Master of Defense

Beginning at 15th level, your mastery of defense makes you an unbreakable wall. You gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

Invulnerable Guardian

At 20th level, your very presence renders your opponents’ weapons worthless. As an action, you can become a champion of defense. For 1 minute, you gain the following benefits:

• You gain immunity to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, and resistance to all other damage.
• Your allies within 30 feet of you regain 5 hit points on the start of each of their turns.
• Your allies within 30 feet of you gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.