D&D 5E How do you interpret the Oath of Ancients?

[MonkeezOnFire]

So up until now I have thought of the Oath of the Ancients as a paladin oath with a bit of a druid bent. A lot of it's abilities are themed with plant life, it has spells from the druid spell list, it's channel divinity is associated with fey (which are in turn associated with forests), and it's called a green knight. In my mind it allowed a paladin to follow a more nature themed god, whereas the oath of devotion paladin can seem a bit too based in ideas of civilization (after all the devotion paladin is a hyper idealized knight from the age of chivalry).

But recently I came across this question on the RPG Stack Exchange site where most of the answers argue that the Oath of Ancients paladin is not entirely about nature, they just use nature as a metaphor for resisting darkness and corruption. The main backing of this interpretation comes from the set of oaths, which admittedly are not very nature centric by themselves. These paladins are all about sheltering the light which creates an environment for all life to live peacefully and grow. But this raises the issue of how they differ in attitudes from the oath of devotion paladin if both sets of rules pretty much amount to "Be a good person and fight against bad things."

So now I'm curious what other people think. Without referring to your books, what is your personal idea of an Oath of Ancients paladin? How do you think they differ from the oath of devotion?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I don't think the two views are incompatible. A druid or oath of ancients paladin might view "Civilization" or cities as manifestations of darkness/corruption. [That is a fairly common theme in real world religious and political texts.] Stopping the expansion of a city (or farmland to feed all those city dwellers) into the wild might be seen as no different than stopping a marauding horde of orcs. Whether that is true in an alignment sense may be a different story (probably DM dependent), but in 5e, paladins aren't expected to be infallible. As long as the paladin isn't torturing farmers or setting cities ablaze, then their actions to stop urban expansion probably won't violate the overarching paladin oaths, and a DM who thinks that the ancient paladin isn't doing enough good while doing so can easily afterschool special something (probably to the order of "how are the poor orphans going to eat with no farmland producing food? Go out and kill some trolls.").

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[thethain]

5e is purposefully open about the lore of even the lore heavy classes like paladin or warlock.

That said, I personally view them as:

Devotion - stereotypical paladin, do gooder, could be part of a holy order or a lone quest for betterment of of the world.
Ancients - devoted to a more naturalistic existence, more directly connected to earth and primal spirits
Vengeance - Grey knights, inquisition, batman. Rather than the other orders which swear to uphold an ideal, vengeance is sworn to destroy an evil (or multiple evils)

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

It's A Christmas Carol, innit.

Ghost of Christmas Past - Devotion
Christmas Future - Vengeance
Christmas Present - Ancients

"Come in, and know me better, man!" (Slash, slash, stab) "Ho, Ho, Ho!"

 

[BookBarbarian]

While Oath of the Ancients gives some Nature themed examples, the Tenants are certainly more general than that. A Halfling Oath of the Ancients paladin that defends a Brothel because of beauty and happiness it brings to world, doesn't seem like it would fit at first, but is actually not that much of a stretch. In short I think the Ancients Paladin is defined by what she fights for rather than what she fights against.

My simple Breakdown:
Devotion: I fight against evil by being good
Vengeance: I fight against evil by any means necessary
Ancients: I fight *for* good, life, and beauty

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The way I see it, it's like a druid-themed version of the paladin. Where a paladin is already just a slightly-more-martial version of the cleric, this weird variant paladin is a slightly-more-martial version of the druid.

There's no point in digging too deep or second-guessing beyond its obvious appearances. A character class is supposed to represent an iconic character archetype, and pretending otherwise is counter-productive.

 

[pukunui]

Here's how I see it:

Devotion: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Ancients: Qui-Gon Jinn
Vengeance: Mace Windu


That said, I played an ancients paladin who was a bit of a hedonist, living (and loving) it up. Being immune to disease helps!

 

[Saeviomagy]

Appropriately:
The ancients paladin could pull off the green knight role in "Gawain and the Green knight", while a devotion paladin would be walking on thin ice with the initial challenge, and wouldn't be able to deceive Gawain throughout. Gawain himself is a devotion paladin, as he lies upon pain of his own death... but then atones for it.

The way I see it, the ancients paladin is concerned less with the technicalities and more with the bigger picture - for the protection of good, almost anything goes, while a paladin of devotion is sort of the reverse - one must be a paragon of virtue for good to thrive.

Finally the paladin of vengeance just wants evil to die - he doesn't actually care about good flourishing.

 

[Olive]

Oath of Vengeance- this is the Paladin that is seething because you are in the 12 items or less lane in the supermarket, and you have 18 items, and you're paying with a check.

I am totally a Paladin of Vengeance...