New UA Paladin Sacred Oaths are Oath of Conquest and the Oath of Treachery

I'm disappointed about no Oath of Liberty, but I'll take a look at what they are bringing, when they get around to getting the page to work.

 

[TwoSix]

That is true. They have said "major mechanical expansion", not "one book." Their publishing style has been more "one book", but who knows? Feelings towards most of these UA options seem bimodal (some love, some hate), so that could lead to 2 or more books......

The "Book of Stuff People Love", and the "Book of Stuff People Hate"?

 

[Barantor]

Oath of Conquest will make a great Paladin of Hextor.

I like these, good additions and fill in some spots for paladin.

 

[Li Shenron]

I have to reject both of these. The don't feel like paladins. They don't even feel like oaths.

My thoughts exactly...

"Just caring for yourself" isn't much of an Oath, I would prefer that Paladins keep representing warriors that are empowered by a very strong and epic ideal. Just having a demon sponsor that grants you a couple of abilities because you amuse him, doesn't sound like it makes you an (un)holy warrior, you could be a Fighter with Magic Initiate (Warlock).

If you want to have a LE/CE Paladin, rather than making a character who merely enjoy conquest/treachery, you should make a character who believes in conquest/treachery as the meaning of everything.

Maybe it's just a matter of presentation, but if you want to get a good start, pick the best model ever i.e. Darth Vader.

 

[pemerton]

I notice the irony that because Oath of Treachery has no tenents, you can be a Lawful Good Oath of Treachery Paladin, there is absolutely nothing that requires or encourages evil unlike like Oath Breaker.

<snip>

How is this for an irony, a Lawful Evil Oath of Conquest Paladin can fall by doing a act of mercy and kindness to become a Lawful Good Oath of Treachery Paladin.

From the UA PDF (emphasis added):

A paladin who embraces the Oath of Treachery owes allegiance to no one. There are no tenets of this oath, for it lacks any substance. Those who are unfortunate enough to have close contact with blackguards have observed that a blackguard’s overwhelming concern is power and safety, especially if both can be obtained at the expense of others.​

The first emphasised bit seems at odds with "lawful", and the second with "good".

If we look at the class abilities, they are based around deceit (eg invisibility, illusion, poison, mind control). That doesn't really scream "lawful good" to me either.

 

[Parmandur]

Since they just gave us hellknights and blackguards, I am not sure if the first statement is still in effect, to quote:

Fallen Paladins
The Oath of Treachery is an option for the paladin who has strayed from another Sacred Oath or who has rejected the traditional paladin life. This option exists alongside the Oathbreaker in the Dungeon Master’s
Guide. DMs are free to use either option to model villainous or fallen paladins.
If you switch to this oath from another one, replace all of the previous oath’s features with the features of this one, and if you renounce this oath, replace its features with the features of the new one.

I would not be surprised if the Big Book of Crunch has a DM section where these paladins and the skeezy bards end up.

They sure seem to be providing a lot of creepy options, but I agree that under the current AP release rate, it would be a bad decision to release an evil AP. Of course, if they started releasing more AP's......

Weeeelll, the power sources are questionable; but the PHB already lets you deal with Cthulu or the Devil for Arcan power, without requiring the PC be Evil (indeed, insisting that the DM shouldn't let an evil aligned Warlock of Asmodeus!), so the Big Book of Crunch will probably similarly dissuade using these subclasses for an evil PC.

So now we have seven Paladin types: LG/LN Devotion, NG/TN Green Knight, CG/CN Avenger, LE/LN Hell Knight, NE/TN Oathbreaker, CE/CN Treachery knight,giving the alignment chart (and crown out there doing its thing...).

 

[Istbor]

Well first off, it pretty much says the 'Oath' of Treachery doesn't adhere to any actual oaths, but simply wants to accumulate power and continue to exist. The other clearly does adhere to a set of oaths or frames of mind. Whether you like them or not is a different story. There are a lot of example of order working the way the Conquest portraits itself. The Strong rule the weak.

I like these both. I am so tired of the clean and spotless fairy tale paladin. These are real people, who can do terrible things for what they perceive as good intentions. I am glad there there are some more areas of grey for myself and my players to work in. I certainly don't view these as 'must be evil' sub-classes. One who no longer follows a set of ideals or broke their oaths is not an evil person, there is a lot of room for wiggle there. The same can be said for the paladin of Conquest. I see a lot of talk on keeping the rule of law after taking new territory, but nothing that says you have to be cruel or be evil.


I don't know. I don't see the end of the Good paladin in this, I see an end to the MUST be good all the time paladin though. I see a strict militant sect of a church, and an interesting way to play a paladin when you no longer want to follow some oaths you swore, but also don't want to raise the dead.

I mean, people know that the fluff here, is first off provisional, and second off just one way to play it. Right? I am not alone in understanding that you can take these mechanics and apply them to similar but different fluff for your use.

 

[Jester David]

Again, this is a PLAYTEST people. A concept test. They don't need to get feedback on the easy, obvious classes. Because they know people will like them.


Conquest. Not *really* evil, although the big example is. They could easily be the Templar/inquisitor hardass version of lawful good. "The impure must burn" type good. LN could also fit for them.
Really, they're just hardcore Lawful.
Although... the heavy emphasis on making this frightened is odd in that case. Still, I could totally picture this as a Judge Dredd type guy. Or the goddamn Batman.

Oh man, I totally want to make a Dark Knight conquest paladin now...

Treachery. The trickery paladin. Another nice alternative to the Oathbreaker. Blackguard and anti-paladins are slightly different things. It does the job.

 

[Patrick McGill]

Again, this is a PLAYTEST people. A concept test. They don't need to get feedback on the easy, obvious classes. Because they know people will like them.

You're quite right, but I think everything in this thread would be useful feedback for Wizards in some way. They probably want to gauge initial reactions as well as deeper survey stuff.

 

[Jester David]

You're quite right, but I think everything in this thread would be useful feedback for Wizards in some way. They probably want to gauge initial reactions as well as deeper survey stuff.

True. I'm just reacting to the "awww man, why not the <X> paladin?!" reactions. And the answer is the pretty obvious, "because they already know people like it."
Unearthed Arcana isn't just free content for free, it's free content that they're curious what people think about, either in terms of flavour or in terms of mechanics.

 

[renevq]

Am I the only one getting a Khorne Berserker/Sorcerer of Tzeentch vibe from this article?