Making an Anti-paladin

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Okay, so Paladin in 5e is no longer alignment locked and no longer has 'stick up his pigu' as a class feature. So I figured... okay, let's see if I can maybe come up with a custom oath to make an Anti-Paladin... a fighter who channels divine energy, but to the detriment of his enemies rather than the benefit of his allies. I'm envisioning this as a Tank with DPS and Debuffing as his shtick, instead of Tank with DPS and Buffing/Healing.

But many of the things I'm wanting to change are core Paladin abilities, not simply Oath archetype options. Which are somewhat more troublesome to change and remain in the class. Instead of Aura of Courage, it would be something like Aura of Fear (although probably simply applying penalties rather than stacking fear effects, which would be quite broken). That sort of thing.

Now, I could simply create a whole new class out of whole cloth, using the Paladin as a guideline and flipping a few things around, but that seems... inelegant.

Does anyone else have any ideas before I decide to drop down to source-code and build up a whole new class from the ground up?

[nickl_2000]

There was a Blackguard class that Ravinsild wrote that you could borrow or use as a base.

Here is the link to the thread http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ersion-(PEACH)
Or direct link to the homebrew http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1rgJ--Fb

It looked pretty cool when I last looked at it.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There was a Blackguard class that Ravinsild wrote that you could borrow or use as a base.

Here is the link to the thread http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ersion-(PEACH)
Or direct link to the homebrew http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1rgJ--Fb

It looked pretty cool when I last looked at it.

That's... kind of what I'm looking for? But not really. Still, it is interesting, so thanks for linking it to me.

[Millstone85]

For WotC's idea of an antipaladin in this edition, see the DMG's Oathbreaker and UA's Oath of Conquest and Oath of Treachery.

But those indeed do not change the trunk of the class.

[nickl_2000]

That's... kind of what I'm looking for? But not really. Still, it is interesting, so thanks for linking it to me.

Well it was worth a shot.

[rbstr]

Not finding something to like out of the Oathbreaker, Conquest, or Treachery oaths?
These days it seems like there are more ways to be an evil paladin than a good one.

But I guess your problem is more with, like, Lay one Hands and the spell list?

[Ravinsild]

That's... kind of what I'm looking for? But not really. Still, it is interesting, so thanks for linking it to me.

Yeah I did a conversion from 4e to 5e. Most of the features are for "you" alone, or to debuff enemies with your auras rather than help your allies. It's less of a debuffer and more of a "I buff myself/keep myself alive and deal damage" class. I mostly did it because I felt the core Oath of Conquest and Oathbreaker oaths made no sense on the base Paladin class.

I didn't understand why they'd still have "Lay on Hands" and "Cure Disease" as class features. So I converted the 4e Blackguard and picked abilities that seemed interesting. So basically I didn't make it up. I just made the 4e Blackguard 5e and then tacked on the Oath of Conquest (Vice of Domination) and Oathbreaker (Vice of Hate).

[Ravinsild]

Not finding something to like out of the Oathbreaker, Conquest, or Treachery oaths?
These days it seems like there are more ways to be an evil paladin than a good one.

But I guess your problem is more with, like, Lay one Hands and the spell list?

That was my problem with it. So I made a "selfish" Paladin that's more focused on self heals, buffs, and survival to tank damage and regain HP or at least Temp Hp and keep going whilst channeling their vice to unleash tons of damage.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Not finding something to like out of the Oathbreaker, Conquest, or Treachery oaths?
These days it seems like there are more ways to be an evil paladin than a good one.

But I guess your problem is more with, like, Lay one Hands and the spell list?

Yea, for an anti-paladin, who shows no mercy or compassion, class abilities like Lay On Hands, Aura of Protection, and Aura of Courage seem... diametrically opposite to what I'm looking for.

Yeah I did a conversion from 4e to 5e. Most of the features are for "you" alone, or to debuff enemies with your auras rather than help your allies. It's less of a debuffer and more of a "I buff myself/keep myself alive and deal damage" class. I mostly did it because I felt the core Oath of Conquest and Oathbreaker oaths made no sense on the base Paladin class.

I didn't understand why they'd still have "Lay on Hands" and "Cure Disease" as class features. So I converted the 4e Blackguard and picked abilities that seemed interesting. So basically I didn't make it up. I just made the 4e Blackguard 5e and then tacked on the Oath of Conquest (Vice of Domination) and Oathbreaker (Vice of Hate).

I'm thinking something between an old Everquest ShadowKnight and a WoW Death Knight. Someone who tanks, has fear and hate effects on tap to ensure he's the one tanking, and applies debuffs to his enemies.

Mind you, the Blackguard you linked isn't a bad stab, but it doesn't quite have the vibe I'm looking for. But it has given me some ideas, I may post my own homebrew for PEACHing later.

Basically, it's not that he's 'selfish', it's not that he is hoarding his power... it is that rather than relying on his own strength, as a paladin does, he relies on sapping his opponent's strength to bring them down to level.

[JellyPooga]

Rogues are pretty good at killing Paladins due to Paladins typically dumping Dex and thus losing initiative, combined with hide shenanigans vs. typically low Perception. Rangers are pretty boss for the same reasons. For obvious reasons, spellslingers tend to struggle, so I wouldn't go that route...

....
...oh wait. You're after a different kind of anti-Paladin

[ATHATH]

You could refluff an appropriate debuff-focused class to be an Anti-Paladin.

[Ravinsild]

Yea, for an anti-paladin, who shows no mercy or compassion, class abilities like Lay On Hands, Aura of Protection, and Aura of Courage seem... diametrically opposite to what I'm looking for.



I'm thinking something between an old Everquest ShadowKnight and a WoW Death Knight. Someone who tanks, has fear and hate effects on tap to ensure he's the one tanking, and applies debuffs to his enemies.

Mind you, the Blackguard you linked isn't a bad stab, but it doesn't quite have the vibe I'm looking for. But it has given me some ideas, I may post my own homebrew for PEACHing later.

Basically, it's not that he's 'selfish', it's not that he is hoarding his power... it is that rather than relying on his own strength, as a paladin does, he relies on sapping his opponent's strength to bring them down to level.

Yeah I don't think the 4e Blackguard was a debuffer so much as just a tanky DPS, so I went with that. I didn't focus too much on debuffing or harming the enemy so much as buffing themselves (as opposed to the group) and dealing a lot of damage. You might spin a new vice for the Blackguard though, that has channel divinities and plague auras and debilitating touches, etc?

[KorvinStarmast]

What does vengeance paladin lack that you need?

[Afrodactyl]

How about a fighter 1/warlock X Great Old One Bladelock? The Claw of Acamar from UA gives you a smite, and warlocks have some debuffs/self buffs to play about with.

[Ravinsild]

What does vengeance paladin lack that you need?

Literally everything, lol. First it comes with the chassis of the "base Paladin" so all class features are designed around team support, healing, helping, buffing, and being a team player.

The Anti-Paladin is the polar opposite. It's about being a walking debuffer, reducing the entire enemies fighting capabilities, inflicting them with damage over time, control, negative stats, slowed movement, and other CC and status conditions.

The ultimate Anti-Paladin would be like a bad breath from a Malboro. Silenced, confused, berserkered, zombified, petrified, poisoned, etc... and each layer has to be taken off one at a time.

[Specter]

"a fighter who channels divine energy, but to the detriment of his enemies rather than the benefit of his allies. I'm envisioning this as a Tank with DPS and Debuffing as his shtick, instead of Tank with DPS and Buffing/Healing. "

A Cleric/Fighter wouldn't be enough for you?

[Spacehamster]

Make it a 1/3rd divine caster with the fighter chassis perhaps?

[90sMusic]

Why not just reverse all the base paladin features?

Lay on Hands could be use an action to touch someone, you make a melee spell attack to touch them, on a hit you pump as much of your pool of necrotic damage into them as you want. On a miss, they take no damage but it also doesn't expend any of your pool of energy.

Instead of Divine Health giving you immunity to diseases, you get Plague Bringer instead, which means you suffer no negative effects of diseases but you can still be infected by them and act as a carrier for them.

Instead of Aura of Protection adding your charisma to all allies' saves, make it Aura of Despair and instead subtract your charisma from enemies' their saving throws.

Instead of Aura of Courage, make it Aura of Cowardice and make all enemies within it have disadvantage on saves against fear effects.

Divine Smite instead of doing radiant damage, have it do necrotic damage.

For Cleansing touch... Probably have it inflict some kind of disease or something on a successful touch. Maybe have it mimic the Contagion spell but you just roll a d6 to randomly choose the disease instead of specifying which one you want to afflict. Make it a melee spell attack as well. Same rules for number of times per day equal to charisma modifier.

Every one of these things is how anti-paladins work in older editions.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Why not just reverse all the base paladin features?

Because some of them are really stupidly powerful when flipped. Also because you can't do that unless you go into homebrew territory, which it seems I'm going to have to do, so yes, this will be effectively what I will do but without quite the literality.

Lay on Hands could be use an action to touch someone, you make a melee spell attack to touch them, on a hit you pump as much of your pool of necrotic damage into them as you want. On a miss, they take no damage but it also doesn't expend any of your pool of energy.

Problem with this is the granularity of the attack. One of the huge things about LoH is that you can heal in 5 point increments, to top off stuff, and give you exactly what you need. Doing that with damaging is... problematic.

So instead, "I Am Your Foe". when in melee with the Anti-Paladin, attacking anyone BUT said Anti-Paladin provokes an Opportunity attack. Oh, and gain Cha bonus on Opportunity attacks. Basically, punish people for not respecting you as a threat, so you can do your job (tanking) better.

Instead of Divine Health giving you immunity to diseases, you get Plague Bringer instead, which means you suffer no negative effects of diseases but you can still be infected by them and act as a carrier for them.

Actually, I could still see being immunity to diseases, simply for no other reason than the whole 'undead wannabe' shtick, or perhaps simply immunity due to over-exposure. But it would have to be renamed and retitled.

Instead of Aura of Protection adding your charisma to all allies' saves, make it Aura of Despair and instead subtract your charisma from enemies' their saving throws.

Do you know how powerful a -5 to all saving throws is? That's right on par with Disadvantage, in numerical terms, on average. Still, maybe possible.

Instead of Aura of Courage, make it Aura of Cowardice and make all enemies within it have disadvantage on saves against fear effects.

I was thinking more like 'Aura of Dread', since disadvantage against fear effects would be stupidly strong with Vow of Fear Ant-Paladins who do fear effects as their shtick. Aura of Dread, enemies take a penalty on attack rolls within the aura. Basically, fear-lite, it's hard to hit someone when you are shaking in your boots.

Divine Smite instead of doing radiant damage, have it do necrotic damage.

Naturally.

For Cleansing touch... Probably have it inflict some kind of disease or something on a successful touch. Maybe have it mimic the Contagion spell but you just roll a d6 to randomly choose the disease instead of specifying which one you want to afflict. Make it a melee spell attack as well. Same rules for number of times per day equal to charisma modifier.

Inflicting diseases is pretty nasty. Better idea: Augment Smite. You have two options: 1) add Cha modifier to damage when you smite, OR 2) self-heal half the damage smiting does. Call it 'deathtouch' or 'leechtouch' with the base smite 'Harmtouch'. The former basically turns you into a DPS machine, although action economy still limits it to reasonable levels for a level 14 ability. The latter is for being tankier because of action-free small but steady trickle of self-healing.

[90sMusic]

That is how anti-paladins have always worked though.

Even the damage dealing land on hands equivalent, it is usually called Touch of Corruption but uses the exact same lay on hands mechanics, except reversed. So for instance in pathfinder it did 1d6 healing per 2 paladin levels or could be used on undead to do 1d6 damage per 2 paladin levels. 5e of course removes the variation of rolling and just gives you straight up 5 per level.

Antipaladins touch of corruption is 1d6 necrotic damage or it heals 1d6 when used on undead.

The damage isnt gamebreaking. At level 5, best you could do is 25 damage per long rest. Comparing to making two longsword attacks, that is 2d8+8 presumably for 17 damage, great sword would be 22 damage average. It's not a big deal really, especially as it is once per day and you give up your ability to heal yourself to get it. If anything it's too weak.

The -5 to saving throws only affects enemies within 10 feet of you unless you're doing high level play and also assumes you have 20 charisma which you also wont have for a long time. Furthermore, it's all relative. +25% chance your ally will resist a spell is relative to -25% chance the enemy will resist a spell. If the defensive one isn't overpowered, i can't see how the offensive one would be. Still has no impact on legendary resistances and the like.

Also... Again... This is exactly how anti-paladins have always worked in older editions. They reduce the saves of those in their aura the same value that a paladin increases saves in their aura.

And of course it's homebrew. People already said use the Oathbreaker or Treachery archetypes but you said it wasn't enough and you took issue with the base class. If you want to change the base class, it only leaves homebrew my man. :)

[ShneekeyTheLost]

That is how anti-paladins have always worked though.

Even the damage dealing land on hands equivalent, it is usually called Touch of Corruption but uses the exact same lay on hands mechanics, except reversed. So for instance in pathfinder it did 1d6 healing per 2 paladin levels or could be used on undead to do 1d6 damage per 2 paladin levels. 5e of course removes the variation of rolling and just gives you straight up 5 per level.

Antipaladins touch of corruption is 1d6 necrotic damage or it heals 1d6 when used on undead.

The damage isnt gamebreaking. At level 5, best you could do is 25 damage per long rest. Comparing to making two longsword attacks, that is 2d8+8 presumably for 17 damage, great sword would be 22 damage average. It's not a big deal really, especially as it is once per day and you give up your ability to heal yourself to get it. If anything it's too weak.

The -5 to saving throws only affects enemies within 10 feet of you unless you're doing high level play and also assumes you have 20 charisma which you also wont have for a long time. Furthermore, it's all relative. +25% chance your ally will resist a spell is relative to -25% chance the enemy will resist a spell. If the defensive one isn't overpowered, i can't see how the offensive one would be. Still has no impact on legendary resistances and the like.

Also... Again... This is exactly how anti-paladins have always worked in older editions. They reduce the saves of those in their aura the same value that a paladin increases saves in their aura.

And of course it's homebrew. People already said use the Oathbreaker or Treachery archetypes but you said it wasn't enough and you took issue with the base class. If you want to change the base class, it only leaves homebrew my man. :)

I know how anti-paladins worked. I'm just saying that it won't work that way in any sort of balanced manner in 5e.

Defensive options, at worst, cause an enemy to lose an action due to a successful saving throw, although most spells have a secondary effect that goes off regardless. Offensive options, however, are ALWAYS more powerful because killing an enemy ends him as a threat permanently. Put in someone else in the party who has Save or Lose effects, such as a Bard or Wizard, and you go right back to 3.5 level shenanigans.

For the archetypes to the new base class, I was going with Vow of Fear, Vow of Hatred, and Vow of Debilitation. Vow of Fear gets fear effects, both from the Channel Divinity and on his spell list. Giving enemies disadvantage on that is HUGE, and a massive synergistic increase in power to Vow of Fear Anti-Paladins, which in turn unbalances that particular vow as compared to other vows.

[MeeposFire]

Rather than outright reversing the abilities of the paladin why not just make it selfish?

For instance lay on hands for this anit paladin only works on himself but since as I recall it being an action maybe for him it is a bonus action.

He still gets his saving throws boost at level 6 but it no longer is an aura and just affects him.

Then choose one of the oaths that fits you best and I think you will have what you want.

If at any time you think some ability needs a little something extra because it no longer affects more than yourself maybe tweak it a little bit (like I thought with lay on hands).

[Spiritchaser]

How about reflecting a hexblade or f1 hexblade x?