D&D 5E How exactly does a Paladin break it's Oath?

[MechaTarrasque]

Just spitballing:

The power comes from the Oath. So it's not about belief, really, it's about actions. Taking a look at the Tenets of the Crown, here's the Things You Can Do To Break It:

• Law: Willingly and voluntarily disregard or break the laws of your land.
• Loyalty: Oppose your monarch's actions or openly defy and flout their commands.
• Courage: An open and craven display of cowardice; advocating for fleeing your enemies
• Responsibility: Flout your mandated guard duty, fail to submit to punishment for an infraction

As a DM, I'd probably be a little flexy on the Courage angle (as written, just running away from a fight might be considered an infraction), less flexy on the others. But to echo the advice upthread, the specifics of the player's goal for the character probably matters more than anything else.

So you could totally be a law-abiding, loyal, courageous, and responsible kind of Evil. I mean, that's Darth Vader (up until the final moments, anyway). That's the Malfoys. That's half of the "BBEG's Sidekick" characters out there in fiction.

That makes me think of looking at the other half of the "BBEG's Sidekicks", and the best way for a Crown Oath paladin to fall would be to pull a Starscream.

 

[CTurbo]

Wow getting some great answers. I appreciate that.

I was having trouble wording the question of "how to break the oath" when I asked. I think I was more looking for how it's judged maybe or by whom(other than the DM). I originally thought the Pally's "powers" come from it's god similar to the Cleric, but I see that's not the way. Obviously the DM decides if the Oath has been broken and acts accordingly if it has. I think I was looking for how the DM would explain it. I was thinking the respective god would remove the powers if said oath was broken. Some of you are saying that the oath is broken if the Pally doesn't truly believe in it.


Anyway, all of this stemmed from a campaign that begin as a one-shot campaign that we did involving some completely random rolled characters. We random rolled for stats in order, then race, then class, a free starting feat, background, skills, and alignment. Pretty much everything but weapons and armor. We agreed to continue to random roll when it came time for archetype, subclass, etc...

We had so much with these character that we wanted to explore them further.

I ended up with a lawful evil Halfling Pally with the dueling style. I would have never chosen a lawful evil Pally, but now I have one, and we'll level up to 3 after next encounter. That's what sparked the discussion on whether we should even roll for oath or just make me take the Oathbreaker, or maybe possibly Vengeance. Of course it would be fun to RP an evil Pally with an oath that's almost always GOOD. Of course an evil Crown oath for an evil king makes total sense, and that could very well be the answer to that question if it arises.

After racial bonuses, I ended up with 10 Str, 16 Dex, 17 Con, 14 Int, 9 Wis, but only 12 Cha and the Martial Adept feat. I got lucky that my 2 best scores happened to be in 2 important stats. +1 to Cha hurts though.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I would say killing an unarmed bouncer who has surrendered and thrown himself on the paladin's mercy would break the oath....

 

[Yunru]

Take the Oath of Devotion. Nothing says evil like handing out free candy and petting puppies. And then slaughtering them all for the greater good because you're an amoral bastard.

 

[Hand of Evil]

It all comes down to the wording of the oath and the tenets.

Do not have info on the Oath of the Crown but would assume one would be "loyalty" and would be something about swearing it to the crown. But what does that mean? Is that loyalty to the royal blood, the throne, or the land itself? Each one may allow a greater freedom to the paladin based on the answer.

You can look at all of the tenets and find loopholes within them, like "law", as a land could have a few; such as church law (inquisition), or state laws (laws of the land). You can even place values to them, like which comes first just by the wording of the tenets. An easy loophole here is being able to write the laws of the land to take advantage.

Work with your DM to come up with the Oath and the wording, think about what changing a word may imply. There are a number of historical references that can be used as examples.

 

[Henry]

I think it's easy to take the old cancepts of "Paladin" from pre-4th edition D&D and slide them into 5e, but in doing so I think it sells the 5e opportunities of concept too short. The 5e paladin is "rarely" evil, but not "never". The Vengeance Oath is tailor made for a neutral or evil paladin. The divine sense ability is intentionally written loosely to avoid preconceptions of an always good paladin.

I dealt with this very thing in a 5e game last year. I played a Vengeance Paladin who was Lawful Neutral who was devoted to the god Moradin. However, he was devoted to revenge on the Orcs, and their allies, who scourged his childhood dwarf-hold even more. When he had the opportunity to return and help retake his childhood home, he did so happily.

When clearing a section of city, he and his allies came across a tribe of goblins who had settled a block of rooms. In there was a goblin nursery. I won't go into details, but he did his job. Evil act? Without question. In accordance to his oath of vengeance? I believe so, without question. Should he have eventually fallen to evil? Probably would, had the campaign continued. (Real world commitments forced us to end it about a month later). But he stuck to his oath to avenge all the dwarven men, women, and children who had their homes forcefully ripped from them decades ago, even if it meant doing the unthinkable.

Even later, he probably would have taken a further step towards evil because through campaign events he even ousted the worship and clergy of a DIFFERENT Dwarven godfrom their temple in the newly reclaimed city, because there was no representation of Moradin in the city. He entrenched Moradin-worship, and let the old god and clergy have a small shrine in the temple, as part of a deal with the city's ruler in exchange for a favor to him. No doubt, he was a "Richard Nixon", but was without a doubt to me true to god and oath.

 

[tglassy]

Actually, dwarves wouldn’t even consider that evil. In recent Salvatore books, apparently dwarveshave an old saying when attacking a goblin settlement: “Where’s the baby’sroom?” And they’d just take them allout. Men, women, children, they’re allevil to the Dwarven eyes, and if you were a follower of Moradin, then you werelikely a dwarf.

That’s why I don’t like the whole “Good and Evil” bit. While there are some moral absolutes, thereare more instances when one person will see it as good and another asevil. Who’s right? In the books, Drizzt cannot be convinced thatmurdering a goblin child in its sleep is good. But his wife believes that all goblins are evil, through and through, asthey were created by evil to be evil, and therefore they should not be giventhe same status as the ‘good’ races, and can be killed without guilt. Who’s right? It would depend on your perspective, I guess. And you DM’s.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I mean like technically and mechanically speaking. What if I'm an evil level 2 Paladin, and I want to take the Oath of the Crown because I feel like I could abuse it and/or gain power and profit from doing so. Is this possible, or restricted due to my "god" not allowing it? Could the Paladin break it's tenets when nobody is around to see and get away with it?

You can't, because you are level 2. You don't take an oath until you hit level 3.

Beyond that - there's no rule about what a paladin is thinking, only governance on what he does. So you could have an evil character who becomes a paladin purely to get awesome powers... but he still has to abide by whichever oath he takes. You could easily have an evil oath of the crown paladin, even one who works for a good king. His king just needs to be very, very careful about what he tells the paladin to do. This is "who will rid me of this meddlesome priest" sort of territory.

I think you could have an evil ancients paladin. As others have pointed out - excessive brutality in the course of protecting life and beauty would do it.

I think you could have a character who is evil become a devotion paladin... but I think if he stuck to his oath to keep his powers, he'd find himself acting good regardless of how he feels.

 

[CTurbo]

You can't, because you are level 2. You don't take an oath until you hit level 3.

I know I have to wait till level 3 but we are sitting at 875xp at the moment so the time to be thinking about it is NOW

 

[jgsugden]

The only person who can answer that question is the character's DM, hopefully after discussion with the paladin's player.