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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Paladin Subclass: Oath of Justice [PEACH]



zeek0
2017-03-13, 10:54 AM
This subclass is a lighter mirror to the Oath of Vengeance, and I hope you enjoy! Please critique everything, even if you love it.

Oath of Justice
The Oath of Justice binds a paladin to the single virtue of ensuring that individuals are suitably punished for transgressing law. Sometimes called adjudicators, these paladins often preside over an expanse of land in which they feel called to discern wrong acts and correctly punish those responsible. Some of these paladins are patriots to a state, enforcing those laws in the interest of order. Others are sheriffs or vigilantes, enforcing law in the absence of any civil authority or even defying the authorities so as to pay obeisance to some greater governing principle.

Tenets of Justice
The tenets of the Oath of Justice are in place to ensure that justice is applied well, fairly, and never on personal whim.
Law. Enforce justice from codified rules that are applied universally.
Truth. Only deem guilty those that are truly responsible.
Liberty. Punish the guilty in the interest of the welfare of the innocent.
Mercy. Use discretion in the application of justice, even when it contradicts law.

Oath Spells
You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.

Paladin Level...........Spells
3rd.........................ensnaring strike, longstrider
5th.........................hold person, zone of truth
9th.........................haste, speak with dead
13th.......................locate creature, Otiluke’s resilient sphere
17th.......................hold monster, wall of stone

Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Restrain. You can conjure firm restraints using your Channel Divinity. As an action, metal restraints are conjured and attempt to bind a large of smaller creature within 10 feet of you that you can see. The creature must succeed on a Strength or Dexterity saving throw (its choice) or be restrained. While restrained by the bindings, the creature repeats the saving throw at the end of each of its turns. On a success, it frees itself and the restraints vanish.
Entwine Fates. Using your Channel Divinity, you can entwine two fates, binding your fate in pursuit of a another. As an action, name a single target by their given name, or target a creature you can see within 120 feet. You gain advantage on Wisdom checks made to find the target. In addition, you deal 1d6 extra damage to the target whenever you hit it with a weapon attack. Your fate may only be entwined to one target at a time.

Strike Down
At 7th level, you can take advantage of a fleeing target and temporarily cripple them, preventing escape. When you hit with an opportunity attack, the creature’s speed becomes 0 until the end of your next turn.

Greater Entwining
At 15th level when you entwine your fate to the pursuit of another, the binding between you becomes stronger. You gain advantage on Charisma and Intelligence checks made to find or glean information about them.

Angel of Justice
At 20th level, you can assume the form of an angelic justicar. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For 1 hour, you gain the following benefits:
• Wings sprout from your back and grant you a flying speed of 60 feet.
• As a bonus action, you may change the subject of Entwine Fates to a creature within 60 feet.
• When a creature within 30 feet makes an attack against you, they take 10 radiant damage.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

Here's a link (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxfCiPA2FPFAMnFfM09KV1JxR2c) to a pdf version of the class, which I'll update as long as often as I can (~once a week).
An updated version of this homebrew lies in my signature (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20886261&postcount=285). Let me know if you have any questions!

Shadow_in_the_Mist
2017-03-14, 06:06 PM
Alright, first things first, I'm not a huge paladin fan, so I may not provide the best of feedback here. But still, you've been a huge help in my topics, so I'll see what I can do...

Let's start with the Oath proper. Oaths don't normally interest me much, but this seems to thematically stack up with what you want it to go after. The Law tenent is a little problematic because it looks like you're referring to some sort of universal law? You might want to instead focus it on either the Law of the Land or the Law of Your Country - the latter in particular offers more leeway when it comes to going into "obviously evil" places that allow slavery, torture, etc.

All in all, the features themselves seem thematic but not too overpowered. Entwine Fates is maybe a little iffy, but I'm really not certain enough of how ordinary paladins work to give a proper argument for or against it. I think it looks alright, though. As for the Angel of Justice feature, it's certainly no less powerful than some of the level 20 features to come out of past Unearthed Arcanas.

TinyBlooper
2017-03-14, 06:41 PM
Strike Down
At 7th level, you can take advantage of a fleeing target and temporarily cripple them, preventing escape. When you hit with an opportunity attack, the creature’s speed becomes 0 until the end of your next turn.

This seems too powerful. Being able to completely lock an enemy in place as long as you keep hitting (which will be most of the time) is too much for an at will.

zeek0
2017-03-14, 11:58 PM
On the subject of the law tenet:
I intended for this to mean that the laws that the paladin enforces are appliied to all people equally. I'll change the wording so it is more clear.

My intention is that there is conflict in this class, just how justice entails difficulty in real life. The individual paladin will need to decide how to apply justice in foreign countries and lawless lands while still remaining true to their oath.

As for Strike Down:
I understand. However, the feature does require you to hit the target. And the mechanic isn't unprecedented - it's basically a copy from the Sentinel feat, but enemies can still Disengage.

Do you think that it is too powerful for level 7?

TinyBlooper
2017-03-15, 12:54 AM
Huh, I completely forgot about Sentinel. Since its in the PHB...I guess its fine then? I still don't personally like, it, but I assume the devs put more thought into it than I have.

zeek0
2017-03-15, 02:00 AM
Huh, I completely forgot about Sentinel. Since its in the PHB...I guess its fine then? I still don't personally like, it, but I assume the devs put more thought into it than I have.

I think that the feature is much less powerful than Sentinel, which really doesn't let enemies escape. This feature lets them use the disengage action if they really want to run. I'll keep it, but I'll also think about alternative features.