D&D 5E Oath of Vengeance Paladin?

[Maxperson]

First, the fact that the OoV guy follows his tenets to the letter does not prevent his alignment from matching his behaviour. Nor does the fact that he believes he is doing good while he is in fact doing evil.

D&D good and evil are objective, not subjective things. You can change that for your game, but if you're following the rules, good and evil are objective.

Second, the fact that he is evil, or has become evil through his actions, in no way impacts his class abilities as game mechanics. There is no way to remove his powers because of his alignment, and you can only take away his powers based on his actions if those actions go against his tenets. Since he is following his tenets, he keeps his powers, whether he is evil or not.

There is a sidebar that says you're wrong. If he breaks his Cause of Righteousness oath, he can lose his powers every bit as easily as if he breaks one of the other oaths. Being evil breaks that oath.

Third, him being evil is not 'solved' by changing his game mechanics. It is 'solved' for him in exactly the same kind of ways as it would be for anyone else doing such evil: the only way evil can flourish is if good men do nothing. The other inhabitants of the world will not stand for his evil! They will view him as a misguided terrorist, and they cannot know about his class' game mechanics and do not care how he justifies himself. If he tortures kiddies, they won't care that he has an insane excuse!

Change that to "not always solved" and I would agree. Sometimes it is solved by changing the mechanics. Not every table works like yours.

The solution is simple to state: actions have consequences. The actions of the character in the game world should have the logical consequences in the game world, not on his character sheet.

Sometimes changes on a sheet ARE the logical consequences in the game world.

Another thing: if you have three characters who want to hunt the BBEG that you wrote an adventure about, and one player who deliberately creates a PC who doesn't want to do that, then why are they still with him? They should part as friends, and you as DM should allow the OoV to ride off into the sunset and allow his player to create a new PC who does want to go on the same quest as the others. DMs are under no obligation to write adventures for those who don't want to go on the adventure you wrote.

This has nothing to do with Paladins or oath violations. If a player is building a character that goes against what was agreed to, that player is the problem.

 

[KahlessNestor]

If this guy is supposed to be working for the government shutting down taverns (why, in an era when drinking ale is safer than water and a significant portion of daily nutritional need. I don't know), then if they get word he is torturing people, I'm pretty sure they would yank his license right quick and brand him outlaw.

 

[Pssthpok]

I have (or rather, had, up until a jaw-dropping TPK in the Gallery of Angels in OotA) a similar situation with a player in my group using an Oath of Vengeance Paladin to justify basically doing whatever the hell she felt like justifying at the time. I had plans to strip her of her subclass and make her an Oathbreaker, but honestly that seemed like it would only fuel her errant behavior.

Thankfully, the entire party fell to one of their own in OotA and everyone has to roll up new characters for the follow-up campaign that takes places 50 years after the demon lords broke out of the Underdark and raided the surface world.

 

[Eltab]

I wonder what would happen to OP's party if somebody else DM'ed for a few sessions?

I'm saying this as a person who went from player to DM in one campaign (HotDQ / Tiamat) and am PC'ing in another (PotA).
I had to fix a Defective Adventurer the previous DM left behind because ... he was leaving and didn't HAVE to deal with it any more.