D&D 5E Paladin oath breaker question?

[Sloblock]

[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Hello all [/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]So we have started a new adventure path and one of my players has asked to use the non standard Paladin Oath Breaker class[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Oathbreaker_(5e_Class)[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]This takes the original class and twists it slightly. It does work with his character concept.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]However we had an issue at the table with one of these new abilities. So I am hoping someone on here may have used this or have a better explanation/interpretation of the ability. [/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]So without further ado here is the ability[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Sinful Sense[/FONT][FONT=&quot][edit][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]When you are in the presence of people who committed a sinful act, they start to show signs that reveal to the practiced eye an idea of what they did. As an action, you can open your awareness to detect such signs. Until the end of your next turn, you can sense if a person within 60 ft. has done any good or bad act or deed, you will know if the deed is good or bad and also the person who committed the act; however, you can't know what is the deed itself. Within the same radius, you also detect the presence of any place or object that has been used or have a connection to the act.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]You can use this feature a number of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier. When you finish a long rest, you regain all expended uses.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[MarkB]

Wow, that just looks perfectly awful as an ability. First of all, it doesn't give any timescale on how recently the deeds must have been committed, or any indication that you can sense the degree of 'badness' or 'goodness' of the deeds, or necessarily a full tally of how many of each type of deed they did. So generally speaking, pretty much every person (and a fair number of objects) will ping up on both the 'good' and 'bad' readout.

It's also an oldschool-style ability that requires the DM to take an absolutist view of what constitutes good and evil, and the player to be on board with that view. Which pretty much goes against the point of playing a paladin who's rejected all that stuff.

Useless as written, and pretty terrible as flavour. Toss it out and use the standard Paladin version - it's still perfectly useful to an oathbreaker.

 

[The Human Target]

Yeah, it stinks.

 

[epithet]

The only way to save the ability is to come up with a list of about 4 "virtuous acts" and a list of 4 "wicked deeds." When the pally uses divine sense this way, he can sense the presence of any creature within 30 ft. who has willfully committed an act on either list within the past 10 days, and knows which list (or both) applies to each sensed creature. As a bonus action, the paladin can focus on one of the creatures and determine one specific act or deed that was committed, and how many days ago it was done.

Still, it's not a great ability and it could require the DM to come up with some BS on the spot that might divert the adventure.

 

[Sloblock]

thanks for the replies, I will chat to the player when we meet on Thursday to suggest he uses the original Paladin ability.

I agree with you folks that as written it is bad