weaseldust
2015-04-25, 06:52 PM
... by which I mean 4 new Paladin oaths, and also another subclass based on a sort of quasi-oath, which is intended to serve as a stop-gap for Paladins who abandon their original oath. The emphasis is on flavourfulness throughout.
I found it difficult balancing the Channel Divinities. They have to define the flavour of the subclass and compete for a scarce resource without letting the already-powerful Paladin do too much. I mostly used them to imitate those spells that partly suited the subclass but not enough to become oath spells. Designing level 20 abilities is also a struggle. The theme of the existing Paladin capstones is always just 'wreck everything with ludicrous ease for one minute per day', which is hard to do in novel ways.
Oath 1: Oath of Simplicity
Much like a vow of poverty: a Paladin who swears to set aside worldly comforts, like shoes and edged weapons, and to retreat to the woods to learn to live as the animals do. The spells and abilities are mostly based around being self-sufficient without using money or technology, and also destroying the wealth or equipment of enemies. Notable features include making your shirt act like plate and embarrassing rich enemies until they give away some of their wealth.
Tenets:
- You vow to possess no wealth but a staff and sackcloth garments (some may even go without the sackcloth garments). You may carry tools necessary for survival if they are ‘homespun’, which means that you either made them yourself or adapted them from natural materials.
-You vow to forswear all the artifice of civilisation and seek its eventual destruction; you must avoid technology, politics and all but the smallest settlements.
- You vow to achieve complete self-sufficiency using only what is provided by nature, which includes living with and learning from the example of wild animals.
- You vow to free creatures who have been enslaved or exploited for the sake of another's greed.
- You vow to encourage and enable charity among those who have not yet set aside the burden of worldly wealth.
Oath Spells:
Level 1: Animal Friendship, Create/Destroy Water
Level 2: Barkskin, Heat Metal
Level 3: Create Food and Water, Water Breathing
Level 4: Freedom of Movement, Fabricate
Level 5: Commune with Nature, Creation
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
All I Need
In a ritual lasting one minute, you may cause your staff to take on the mechanical properties of any weapon or tool of the same size, or cause your sackcloth to take on the properties of any armour or protective clothing that would fit you. You may instead cause a homespun tool to take on the properties of a tool of similar size and shape. The effect lasts until your next short rest. Your equipment does not change its appearance, only its abilities. To copy a magic item, you must have already attuned to it.
Nature Will Provide
After completing a ritual lasting ten minutes, you gain +10 to survival checks within 1 mile of your current location until you next leave the area.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Equality
Whenever any creature carrying wealth worth more than 100 GP starts their turn within 10 feet of you or attempts to approach to within 10 feet of you (at level 18, 30 feet in both cases) you may choose to force them to pass a charisma check against your spell-casting DC or be filled with shame. If the creature fails, all items worth more than 100 GP carried by them are as if the spell Antipathy had been cast on them with the affected creature as the target. A creature that passes the save is immune until the next day.
Level 15 ability:
Unmaking
Through a ritual lasting 1 hour, you may unmake any artificial device or structure (a trap, a wall, a crossbow, a pocket-watch) that fits into a cube with sides of length ten feet, whether or not you know how it works. Over the course of the hour, it harmlessly falls apart into its component pieces. If you extend your ritual to 8 hours, you may unmake a structure that fits into a cube with sides of length 100 feet. You may rest, but not sleep, while performing the ritual.
Level 20 ability:
Rule of Simplicity
Once per long rest you may activate this ability as an action. When you do so, nominate any number of creatures as allies. For one minute, every artificial object within 30 feet not belonging to yourself or any of them is replaced with a similar, inferior object costing at most 1 gold piece (e.g. swords with wooden swords). All homespun weapons belonging to yourself and your allies in 30 feet gain a +1 bonus to hit and do damage; likewise, your homespun clothing or armour gains a +1 bonus to AC.
Oath 2: Oath of Extermination
A Paladin who takes this oath has identified some insidious Threat to them, their community, or to all living things. The Threat might be Aboleths, or vampirism, or anarchist cells, or rats. It may be a genuine threat, or exaggerated, or entirely imaginary. In any case, their response is to root out all instances of the Threat and burn it with fire. The spells and abilities centre around spying on people, protecting the places you know are safe, and burning everything else with holy flame.
Tenets:
- You vow to be ever vigilant in your search for the Threat, maintaining suspicion wherever you are.
- You vow to study the Threat, but guard against its influence; the truth about it perhaps should not be discussed openly, and you might well mistrust those who share your interest in it (more than you already mistrust everybody anyway, that is).
- You vow to preserve those spaces that remain free from the Threat as havens against it, with the cooperation of their inhabitants or otherwise.
- You vow to purge the Threat from where it is found and leave no traces. Purging should be done with fire. Always and everywhere, with fire.
Oath Spells:
Level 1: Alarm, Burning Hands
Level 2: Detect Thoughts, Scorching Ray
Level 3: Fireball, Glyph of Warding
Level 4: Arcane Eye, Banishment
Level 5: Flame Strike, Passwall
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
Leave No Trace
As an action, you touch a dead creature, which becomes engulfed in holy flames for one minute. All magical effects on the body cease and it resumes its original form if that is different from its current one. The body then burns away over the course of the minute until only vapours and scorched ground remain. Any object or creature on the body takes 2d6 radiant damage per round it remains there and is purged of magical effects and returned to its original form.
Trust No-One
You attach an invisible sensor (to creatures that can see invisible items, it appears like the sensor from the spell Clairvoyance) to a creature and choose a name or concept; should the creature ever entertain a thought featuring that name or concept, the sensor disappears and you immediately learn where the creature is and the content of that thought.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Suspicion
Within 10 feet (at level 18, 30 feet), creatures and objects that are invisible, disguised, shape-changed or constitute Threats are wreathed in faint flames and take d6 radiant damage at the start of any round begun in that area.
Level 15 ability:
Sniff Them Out
It seems to you that there is a unique scent found only on the Threat or objects or creatures touched by it in the last hour; you can use an action to tell whether a creature or object has the scent; further, you are always aware when some creature or object within 60’ has the scent, though not which one.
Level 20 ability:
Meticulous Purgation:
Once per long rest, you may activate this ability as an action. When you do so, nominate any number of creatures as allies. For 1 minute, every creature, object or surface within 30 feet of you, except those nominated, catches light. Flammable things continue to burn once you are more than 30 feet away. At the start of each of your turns, all burning objects within 30 feet take d6 additional radiant damage. Every time you hit with an attack, you may increase the amount of radiant damage the target takes per turn by 1d6. The scorched area that remains after use of this ability acts as if the spell Antipathy had been cast on it, with the target being the Threat.
Oath 3: Oath of Abnegation
A Paladin who swears this oath has identified a particular kind or source of magical Power as a force of evil in the world (or, if they are evil themselves, a force for hateful good) and has undertaken to avoid using it and to prevent its use by others. The Power might be necromancy, all magic granted by fey, all magic not granted by Orcus, etc. The spells and abilities centre around countering magic users. Features of note are the ability to smite people with their own spell slots, and the ability to jump on magic grenades for your allies.
Tenets:
- You forswear all use of the Power whatsoever.
- You vow to rid the world of all sources, users and traces of the Power.
- You vow to protect innocents from the use of the Power.
- You vow to counter the temptations of the Power; you might demonstrate its inferiority relative to other kinds or sources of magic or provide non-magical alternatives to its use.
Oath Spells:
Level 1: Detect Magic, Identify
Level 2: Silence, Warding Bond
Level 3: Counterspell, Dispel Magic
Level 4: Aura of Purity, Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere
Level 5: Circle of Power, Hallow
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
Quell Magic
As an action, you may inhibit magic within a number of feet equal to 10 times your Paladin level. Roll a d3: all DCs for spells cast into or from within the area decrease by that amount for the next minute.
Redirect Magical Energies
When you pass a save against the effects of a spell, or are targeted by a spell whose effects you are immune to, use your reaction to make an attack against one target within reach. If you hit, you may smite the target without using any of your spell slots, but instead as if using a slot of the level of the spell you overcame.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Spell Magnetism
Whenever a point, object or creature within 10 feet (at level 18, 30 feet) is chosen as the target of a spell, you may switch the target to be a creature (including yourself), object or point within 5 feet of you. If you choose yourself or the point where you are standing as the target and the spell forces a dexterity save, you may choose to fail the save to give every other creature within range advantage on it.
Level 15 ability:
Counterstrike
When you successfully cast Counterspell against a spell that targets an individual or a point, you may choose to make a charisma check against the spellcasting DC of the caster. You have advantage on the roll if the spell is an instance of the Power. If you succeed, the spell is cast but you may re-designate the caster or the point where they are located as the target of the spell.
Level 20 ability:
Mage Bane:
Once per long rest, you may activate this ability using an action. For one minute, every time a spell-slot is used within 30 feet you may use your reaction either to cause the spell to fail or to cause the user to take damage as if you had smited them using a slot of that level (the damage is doubled if the slot is used for the Power). Whenever you hit a creature with spell-slots with an attack, you may choose to burn one of their slots to smite them with.
Oath 4: Oath of Advancement
This is the oath for Paladins who have discovered the joys of arcane magic and are evangelical about its possibilities. They look to make the world a better place by uncovering ancient secrets not meant for mortal eyes and fireballing anyone who disagrees with their vision of magic-fuelled prosperity for all. The spells and abilities essentially focus on becoming a bit like a wizard with a very overactive Unseen Servant.
Tenets:
- You vow to advance the state of arcane knowledge, perhaps through research but, as you're most likely hardier and less bright than the average wizard, more likely through investigating ancient relics and ruins and so on.
- You vow to use arcane knowledge to advance the well-being of your people (or all people if you prefer): magic houses, magic servants, magic arms and armour, and so on.
- You vow to make glorious exhibitions of arcane power in order to demonstrate its worth and cow its opponents.
- You vow to frustrate those who would keep their arcane secrets for themselves, and to liberate those secrets by force if necessary.
Oath Spells:
Level 1: Identify, Unseen Servant
Level 2: Levitate, Magic Weapon
Level 3: Fireball, Leomund’s Tiny Hut
Level 4: Conjure Minor Elementals, Dimension Door
Level 5: Animate Objects, Telekinesis
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
Arcane Armsmith
You may use your action to cast Mending on a weapon of piece of armour. Alternatively, you may enhance them with magical force. If you choose a weapon, you enhance it so it deals force damage for 1 minute. If you choose a piece of armour, you enhance it so the wearer is resistant to force damage for 1 minute. If it is hit by the spell Disintegrate, the wearer takes half damage but the effect on the armour is ended.
Arcane Companionship
You may cast Find Familiar as a ritual lasting 1 hour. If not an animal, your familiar may be an invisible being of force as per Unseen Servant.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Arcane Assistance
You have a permanent medium-sized servant made of pure force. It remains within 10 feet (at level 18, 30 feet) of you at all times, understands your instructions and knows who your allies are. It will not attack but will attempt to protect you (or, if you are not threatened, your closest ally within its allowed range) from falling objects or traps; when it does so, you gain advantage on any dexterity saves against their effects. If it is not engaged in protecting you, you may give it orders as if it were an instance of Bigby’s Forceful Hand, Bigby's Interposing Hand or Unseen Servant. It has a strength score of 16 and a dexterity score of 10.
Level 15 ability:
Arcane Ambitions
You gain a spellbook and can inscribe wizard spells of level 1 or 2 in it. You may cast rituals from it like a wizard and may use scrolls of wizard spells. When you prepare spells, you may prepare spells from the book, each in place of one of your Oath spells of the same level or higher. You may not prepare spells from it otherwise.
Level 20 ability:
Open Source Arcanist
Once per long rest you may activate this ability as an action. For one minute, you are aware of all spell-casters within 30 feet and all magical effects on creatures, objects or locations within 30 feet. At the beginning of each of your turns, you may ask the DM for the list of spells prepared of any creature within 30 feet. You may add one spell from the list of level no higher than 5 to your list of spells prepared and remain able to cast it until your next short or long rest is finished, or until you learn another spell in this manner.
Quasi-Oath: The Questioning Paladin
Sometimes a Paladin has to abandon their oath, through weakness or a change of priorities. They might adopt a different oath, become an Oathbreaker, or switch to a new class, but how should they decide which? Clearly they need to do some soul-searching, and for a being whose convictions give them magic powers, that soul-searching is going to take an interesting and potentially dangerous form. The abilities of this sub-class centre around being able to try on new identities for size, either at random or on a whim, until they find a new purpose in life to replace their old oath. It is intended to be a temporary stop-gap while the Paladin decides on what to do next, but it does go up to level 20 and is intended to be useful the whole way.
Tenets:
There are no vows, but there is a maxim: Question yourself, challenge yourself, know yourself. Then you can find your new calling.
Oath Spells:
Again, there are none. Instead, every day when you prepare spells you also prepare two spells of each level you have slots for at random from all lists (or have your DM choose two if you wish). If you get a spell you had prepared yesterday, choose again.
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
Experiment a Little
As an action, alter your own appearance, or that of some of your equipment (including a steed, familiar or animal companion if you have one), in a merely cosmetic way.
Seek Counsel, Seek Answers
State the name of, or a description of, a creature and a question you have for them. That creature communicates an answer to that question to you (or one that satisfies the description) at some time in the next hour. Your DM chooses the manner and content of their answer, which need not be one you anticipated or find useful. The target behaves in line with its usual character and priorities and is not guaranteed to be friendly.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Questioning
Your example inspires those around you to engage in self-reflection, but also self-doubt. All creatures within 10 feet of you (at level 18, 30 feet) have advantage on Intelligence and Wisdom checks and saves, but disadvantage on Charisma checks and saves. You yourself benefit from the former, but do not suffer the latter penalty.
Level 15 ability:
Eternal Apprentice
At the start of each day, randomly determine two skills to have expertise in. You may not choose the same skill two days in a row.
Level 20 ability:
Indefatigable Whimsy
At this point, you are clearly fated to derive your Paladin powers from your whim rather than your conviction, and they express themselves accordingly. Once per long rest, you may use your action to cast Wish without expending a spell slot, so long as the immediate effects do not extend beyond 30 feet or last beyond 1 minute. Any effects on yourself may last until the end of your next long rest.
(Edited in response to comments.)
I found it difficult balancing the Channel Divinities. They have to define the flavour of the subclass and compete for a scarce resource without letting the already-powerful Paladin do too much. I mostly used them to imitate those spells that partly suited the subclass but not enough to become oath spells. Designing level 20 abilities is also a struggle. The theme of the existing Paladin capstones is always just 'wreck everything with ludicrous ease for one minute per day', which is hard to do in novel ways.
Oath 1: Oath of Simplicity
Much like a vow of poverty: a Paladin who swears to set aside worldly comforts, like shoes and edged weapons, and to retreat to the woods to learn to live as the animals do. The spells and abilities are mostly based around being self-sufficient without using money or technology, and also destroying the wealth or equipment of enemies. Notable features include making your shirt act like plate and embarrassing rich enemies until they give away some of their wealth.
Tenets:
- You vow to possess no wealth but a staff and sackcloth garments (some may even go without the sackcloth garments). You may carry tools necessary for survival if they are ‘homespun’, which means that you either made them yourself or adapted them from natural materials.
-You vow to forswear all the artifice of civilisation and seek its eventual destruction; you must avoid technology, politics and all but the smallest settlements.
- You vow to achieve complete self-sufficiency using only what is provided by nature, which includes living with and learning from the example of wild animals.
- You vow to free creatures who have been enslaved or exploited for the sake of another's greed.
- You vow to encourage and enable charity among those who have not yet set aside the burden of worldly wealth.
Oath Spells:
Level 1: Animal Friendship, Create/Destroy Water
Level 2: Barkskin, Heat Metal
Level 3: Create Food and Water, Water Breathing
Level 4: Freedom of Movement, Fabricate
Level 5: Commune with Nature, Creation
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
All I Need
In a ritual lasting one minute, you may cause your staff to take on the mechanical properties of any weapon or tool of the same size, or cause your sackcloth to take on the properties of any armour or protective clothing that would fit you. You may instead cause a homespun tool to take on the properties of a tool of similar size and shape. The effect lasts until your next short rest. Your equipment does not change its appearance, only its abilities. To copy a magic item, you must have already attuned to it.
Nature Will Provide
After completing a ritual lasting ten minutes, you gain +10 to survival checks within 1 mile of your current location until you next leave the area.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Equality
Whenever any creature carrying wealth worth more than 100 GP starts their turn within 10 feet of you or attempts to approach to within 10 feet of you (at level 18, 30 feet in both cases) you may choose to force them to pass a charisma check against your spell-casting DC or be filled with shame. If the creature fails, all items worth more than 100 GP carried by them are as if the spell Antipathy had been cast on them with the affected creature as the target. A creature that passes the save is immune until the next day.
Level 15 ability:
Unmaking
Through a ritual lasting 1 hour, you may unmake any artificial device or structure (a trap, a wall, a crossbow, a pocket-watch) that fits into a cube with sides of length ten feet, whether or not you know how it works. Over the course of the hour, it harmlessly falls apart into its component pieces. If you extend your ritual to 8 hours, you may unmake a structure that fits into a cube with sides of length 100 feet. You may rest, but not sleep, while performing the ritual.
Level 20 ability:
Rule of Simplicity
Once per long rest you may activate this ability as an action. When you do so, nominate any number of creatures as allies. For one minute, every artificial object within 30 feet not belonging to yourself or any of them is replaced with a similar, inferior object costing at most 1 gold piece (e.g. swords with wooden swords). All homespun weapons belonging to yourself and your allies in 30 feet gain a +1 bonus to hit and do damage; likewise, your homespun clothing or armour gains a +1 bonus to AC.
Oath 2: Oath of Extermination
A Paladin who takes this oath has identified some insidious Threat to them, their community, or to all living things. The Threat might be Aboleths, or vampirism, or anarchist cells, or rats. It may be a genuine threat, or exaggerated, or entirely imaginary. In any case, their response is to root out all instances of the Threat and burn it with fire. The spells and abilities centre around spying on people, protecting the places you know are safe, and burning everything else with holy flame.
Tenets:
- You vow to be ever vigilant in your search for the Threat, maintaining suspicion wherever you are.
- You vow to study the Threat, but guard against its influence; the truth about it perhaps should not be discussed openly, and you might well mistrust those who share your interest in it (more than you already mistrust everybody anyway, that is).
- You vow to preserve those spaces that remain free from the Threat as havens against it, with the cooperation of their inhabitants or otherwise.
- You vow to purge the Threat from where it is found and leave no traces. Purging should be done with fire. Always and everywhere, with fire.
Oath Spells:
Level 1: Alarm, Burning Hands
Level 2: Detect Thoughts, Scorching Ray
Level 3: Fireball, Glyph of Warding
Level 4: Arcane Eye, Banishment
Level 5: Flame Strike, Passwall
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
Leave No Trace
As an action, you touch a dead creature, which becomes engulfed in holy flames for one minute. All magical effects on the body cease and it resumes its original form if that is different from its current one. The body then burns away over the course of the minute until only vapours and scorched ground remain. Any object or creature on the body takes 2d6 radiant damage per round it remains there and is purged of magical effects and returned to its original form.
Trust No-One
You attach an invisible sensor (to creatures that can see invisible items, it appears like the sensor from the spell Clairvoyance) to a creature and choose a name or concept; should the creature ever entertain a thought featuring that name or concept, the sensor disappears and you immediately learn where the creature is and the content of that thought.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Suspicion
Within 10 feet (at level 18, 30 feet), creatures and objects that are invisible, disguised, shape-changed or constitute Threats are wreathed in faint flames and take d6 radiant damage at the start of any round begun in that area.
Level 15 ability:
Sniff Them Out
It seems to you that there is a unique scent found only on the Threat or objects or creatures touched by it in the last hour; you can use an action to tell whether a creature or object has the scent; further, you are always aware when some creature or object within 60’ has the scent, though not which one.
Level 20 ability:
Meticulous Purgation:
Once per long rest, you may activate this ability as an action. When you do so, nominate any number of creatures as allies. For 1 minute, every creature, object or surface within 30 feet of you, except those nominated, catches light. Flammable things continue to burn once you are more than 30 feet away. At the start of each of your turns, all burning objects within 30 feet take d6 additional radiant damage. Every time you hit with an attack, you may increase the amount of radiant damage the target takes per turn by 1d6. The scorched area that remains after use of this ability acts as if the spell Antipathy had been cast on it, with the target being the Threat.
Oath 3: Oath of Abnegation
A Paladin who swears this oath has identified a particular kind or source of magical Power as a force of evil in the world (or, if they are evil themselves, a force for hateful good) and has undertaken to avoid using it and to prevent its use by others. The Power might be necromancy, all magic granted by fey, all magic not granted by Orcus, etc. The spells and abilities centre around countering magic users. Features of note are the ability to smite people with their own spell slots, and the ability to jump on magic grenades for your allies.
Tenets:
- You forswear all use of the Power whatsoever.
- You vow to rid the world of all sources, users and traces of the Power.
- You vow to protect innocents from the use of the Power.
- You vow to counter the temptations of the Power; you might demonstrate its inferiority relative to other kinds or sources of magic or provide non-magical alternatives to its use.
Oath Spells:
Level 1: Detect Magic, Identify
Level 2: Silence, Warding Bond
Level 3: Counterspell, Dispel Magic
Level 4: Aura of Purity, Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere
Level 5: Circle of Power, Hallow
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
Quell Magic
As an action, you may inhibit magic within a number of feet equal to 10 times your Paladin level. Roll a d3: all DCs for spells cast into or from within the area decrease by that amount for the next minute.
Redirect Magical Energies
When you pass a save against the effects of a spell, or are targeted by a spell whose effects you are immune to, use your reaction to make an attack against one target within reach. If you hit, you may smite the target without using any of your spell slots, but instead as if using a slot of the level of the spell you overcame.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Spell Magnetism
Whenever a point, object or creature within 10 feet (at level 18, 30 feet) is chosen as the target of a spell, you may switch the target to be a creature (including yourself), object or point within 5 feet of you. If you choose yourself or the point where you are standing as the target and the spell forces a dexterity save, you may choose to fail the save to give every other creature within range advantage on it.
Level 15 ability:
Counterstrike
When you successfully cast Counterspell against a spell that targets an individual or a point, you may choose to make a charisma check against the spellcasting DC of the caster. You have advantage on the roll if the spell is an instance of the Power. If you succeed, the spell is cast but you may re-designate the caster or the point where they are located as the target of the spell.
Level 20 ability:
Mage Bane:
Once per long rest, you may activate this ability using an action. For one minute, every time a spell-slot is used within 30 feet you may use your reaction either to cause the spell to fail or to cause the user to take damage as if you had smited them using a slot of that level (the damage is doubled if the slot is used for the Power). Whenever you hit a creature with spell-slots with an attack, you may choose to burn one of their slots to smite them with.
Oath 4: Oath of Advancement
This is the oath for Paladins who have discovered the joys of arcane magic and are evangelical about its possibilities. They look to make the world a better place by uncovering ancient secrets not meant for mortal eyes and fireballing anyone who disagrees with their vision of magic-fuelled prosperity for all. The spells and abilities essentially focus on becoming a bit like a wizard with a very overactive Unseen Servant.
Tenets:
- You vow to advance the state of arcane knowledge, perhaps through research but, as you're most likely hardier and less bright than the average wizard, more likely through investigating ancient relics and ruins and so on.
- You vow to use arcane knowledge to advance the well-being of your people (or all people if you prefer): magic houses, magic servants, magic arms and armour, and so on.
- You vow to make glorious exhibitions of arcane power in order to demonstrate its worth and cow its opponents.
- You vow to frustrate those who would keep their arcane secrets for themselves, and to liberate those secrets by force if necessary.
Oath Spells:
Level 1: Identify, Unseen Servant
Level 2: Levitate, Magic Weapon
Level 3: Fireball, Leomund’s Tiny Hut
Level 4: Conjure Minor Elementals, Dimension Door
Level 5: Animate Objects, Telekinesis
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
Arcane Armsmith
You may use your action to cast Mending on a weapon of piece of armour. Alternatively, you may enhance them with magical force. If you choose a weapon, you enhance it so it deals force damage for 1 minute. If you choose a piece of armour, you enhance it so the wearer is resistant to force damage for 1 minute. If it is hit by the spell Disintegrate, the wearer takes half damage but the effect on the armour is ended.
Arcane Companionship
You may cast Find Familiar as a ritual lasting 1 hour. If not an animal, your familiar may be an invisible being of force as per Unseen Servant.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Arcane Assistance
You have a permanent medium-sized servant made of pure force. It remains within 10 feet (at level 18, 30 feet) of you at all times, understands your instructions and knows who your allies are. It will not attack but will attempt to protect you (or, if you are not threatened, your closest ally within its allowed range) from falling objects or traps; when it does so, you gain advantage on any dexterity saves against their effects. If it is not engaged in protecting you, you may give it orders as if it were an instance of Bigby’s Forceful Hand, Bigby's Interposing Hand or Unseen Servant. It has a strength score of 16 and a dexterity score of 10.
Level 15 ability:
Arcane Ambitions
You gain a spellbook and can inscribe wizard spells of level 1 or 2 in it. You may cast rituals from it like a wizard and may use scrolls of wizard spells. When you prepare spells, you may prepare spells from the book, each in place of one of your Oath spells of the same level or higher. You may not prepare spells from it otherwise.
Level 20 ability:
Open Source Arcanist
Once per long rest you may activate this ability as an action. For one minute, you are aware of all spell-casters within 30 feet and all magical effects on creatures, objects or locations within 30 feet. At the beginning of each of your turns, you may ask the DM for the list of spells prepared of any creature within 30 feet. You may add one spell from the list of level no higher than 5 to your list of spells prepared and remain able to cast it until your next short or long rest is finished, or until you learn another spell in this manner.
Quasi-Oath: The Questioning Paladin
Sometimes a Paladin has to abandon their oath, through weakness or a change of priorities. They might adopt a different oath, become an Oathbreaker, or switch to a new class, but how should they decide which? Clearly they need to do some soul-searching, and for a being whose convictions give them magic powers, that soul-searching is going to take an interesting and potentially dangerous form. The abilities of this sub-class centre around being able to try on new identities for size, either at random or on a whim, until they find a new purpose in life to replace their old oath. It is intended to be a temporary stop-gap while the Paladin decides on what to do next, but it does go up to level 20 and is intended to be useful the whole way.
Tenets:
There are no vows, but there is a maxim: Question yourself, challenge yourself, know yourself. Then you can find your new calling.
Oath Spells:
Again, there are none. Instead, every day when you prepare spells you also prepare two spells of each level you have slots for at random from all lists (or have your DM choose two if you wish). If you get a spell you had prepared yesterday, choose again.
Channel Divinities (level 3 abilities):
Experiment a Little
As an action, alter your own appearance, or that of some of your equipment (including a steed, familiar or animal companion if you have one), in a merely cosmetic way.
Seek Counsel, Seek Answers
State the name of, or a description of, a creature and a question you have for them. That creature communicates an answer to that question to you (or one that satisfies the description) at some time in the next hour. Your DM chooses the manner and content of their answer, which need not be one you anticipated or find useful. The target behaves in line with its usual character and priorities and is not guaranteed to be friendly.
Aura (level 7 ability):
Aura of Questioning
Your example inspires those around you to engage in self-reflection, but also self-doubt. All creatures within 10 feet of you (at level 18, 30 feet) have advantage on Intelligence and Wisdom checks and saves, but disadvantage on Charisma checks and saves. You yourself benefit from the former, but do not suffer the latter penalty.
Level 15 ability:
Eternal Apprentice
At the start of each day, randomly determine two skills to have expertise in. You may not choose the same skill two days in a row.
Level 20 ability:
Indefatigable Whimsy
At this point, you are clearly fated to derive your Paladin powers from your whim rather than your conviction, and they express themselves accordingly. Once per long rest, you may use your action to cast Wish without expending a spell slot, so long as the immediate effects do not extend beyond 30 feet or last beyond 1 minute. Any effects on yourself may last until the end of your next long rest.
(Edited in response to comments.)