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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 7823402" data-attributes="member: 6677017">Okay, so I dug down into what's bothering me about it more, by looking at every published paladin subclass so far.Some other subclasses have situational Channel Divinity features, but every other subclass has at least one non-situational, bread and butter ability you will be using regularly in the situation of "combat". Both of the Oath of Devotion's Channel Divinity features are situational.I also did math. Assuming you don't need the magical weapon element to overcome damage resistance (a pretty good assumption for a paladin in most campaigns starting somewhere around mid-level) it will take 4-5 rounds for the buff to pay off in damage output. Running into a fight that you can reliably predict will go 4-5 rounds 1/short rest is pretty situational in my experience.The other situation is setting up ambushes. Again, this isn't something you can reliably assume you can pull off, especially with the Stealth Disadvantage you probably have from heavy armor, though at least if you fail to pull it off you don't blow your Channel Divinity. But while it isn't an oath violation, there is something thematically wrong about having a signature ability of the classic paladin most reliably trigger when ambushing foes.Since it isn't a spell, you can still cast a bonus action spell when you use this. So I started looking at bonus action spells to see if there was anything that you would substantially benefit from casting on your first round. About the only one that I was seeing was compelled duel. Now, activating Sacred Weapon and casting compelled duel for your first round is pretty cool, no denying that. But it uses up a spell slot, requires committing to a certain strategy that you shouldn't have to commit to, and it's still situational.So that's what it comes down to--they need a non-situational Channel Divinity feature to be on par with other paladins.The obvious solution is to make Sacred Weapon a bonus action, and since (unless I'm mistaken), Oath of Devotion is generally considered the weakest PHB paladin subclass, I'll probably go with that. But I don't really like it because the paladin class in 5e is a strong class as it is and none of the subclasses need buffs, and because that makes it stronger than Oath of Enmity, which is otherwise similar.Any obvious mistakes in that analysis? Any suggestions for better ways to fix the feature?</blockquote>

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