D&D 5E Paladin oath. What constitutes willingly breaking your oath/code?

[Fanaelialae]

I include being forced under duress as falling under the auspices of an unwilling act. Obviously, this requires that the threat is a legitimate one. An ordinary kobold threatening a level 20 paladin is almost certainly not duress, unless perhaps it has a dagger to the throat of an innocent. A CR13 dragon threatening a lone level 7 paladin is most certainly duress, as the dragon can easily kill the paladin with hardly any effort, and there's likely to be nothing the paladin can do about it.

I do not consider being forced to do something as a willing act, and I find the notion preposterous. It's that exact mentality wherefrom people end up blaming the victim rather than the perpetrator (aka the person who is ACTUALLY to blame). You cannot be forced to do something willingly. Forced and willingly are opposed at a conceptual level.

 

[Li Shenron]

All those poll options except when unconscious and when they die imply the Paladin is making some decision and is therefore "willing".

"Status effect" depends on what effect... obviously under a magical compulsion the Paladin is not "willing", but that's just one possible status among many, so in general having a status effect doesn't remove willingness.

The whole issue is simpler that what the poll makes it seem like, but it's not only about the character being in control of herself, there is also a matter of awareness: a Paladin might be deceived into breaking her code even when committing a willful act. Think for example a Paladin killing an innocent who was magically disguised to appear like the villain: it is a willful act but without awareness, and I don't think it counts for making the Paladin fall.

 

[Fanaelialae]

The whole issue is simpler that what the poll makes it seem like, but it's not only about the character being in control of herself, there is also a matter of awareness: a Paladin might be deceived into breaking her code even when committing a willful act. Think for example a Paladin killing an innocent who was magically disguised to appear like the villain: it is a willful act but without awareness, and I don't think it counts for making the Paladin fall.

An interesting point, although I don't think it constitutes the willful killing of an innocent per se. The paladin was willfully killing what he believed was the villain, who then turned out to be an innocent.

While paladins of certain oaths ought to have remorse over such an incident, I agree that it wouldn't cause the paladin to fall.

 

[S'mon]

I include being forced under duress as falling under the auspices of an unwilling act. Obviously, this requires that the threat is a legitimate one. An ordinary kobold threatening a level 20 paladin is almost certainly not duress, unless perhaps it has a dagger to the throat of an innocent. A CR13 dragon threatening a lone level 7 paladin is most certainly duress, as the dragon can easily kill the paladin with hardly any effort, and there's likely to be nothing the paladin can do about it.

I do not consider being forced to do something as a willing act, and I find the notion preposterous. It's that exact mentality wherefrom people end up blaming the victim rather than the perpetrator (aka the person who is ACTUALLY to blame). You cannot be forced to do something willingly. Forced and willingly are opposed at a conceptual level.

Duress is a legal concession to human frailty. I'd say if a Paladin is a Paladin, then it doesn't apply to oath breaking. That's kind of the point of the Oath, that it makes demands above & beyond. The 1e UA Cavalier Code says "Cheerful Service Willingly Unto Death"; and I'd expect no less from a Paladin.

Edit: But maybe extreme duress could mean the oath breaking was effectively 'unwilling'. In Law we talk about duress as 'the will overborne'. Maybe not all Paladins are paragons, some get scared and fail. Maybe that is 'unwilling' in a sense. Still a big personal fail of course, much moreso than being deceived.

 

[S'mon]

An interesting point, although I don't think it constitutes the willful killing of an innocent per se. The paladin was willfully killing what he believed was the villain, who then turned out to be an innocent.

While paladins of certain oaths ought to have remorse over such an incident, I agree that it wouldn't cause the paladin to fall.

Being deceived isn't Willing, yup.

 

[Oofta]

With some people thinking that paladins must be death before dishonor lawful stupid types that will never survive a campaign it's no surprise paladins have a bad name for some people.

Players make mistakes. They do things they regret not because their intent was to break their oath but because they honestly thought they were doing the best they could. A dominated paladin (which I'm assuming counts as a status effect) is in no way responsible for anything their body does, it's effectively a puppet of some other force.

But most of these questions are too vague to answer. Depends on the oath, depends on the situation applies to 3/4 of them.

 

[S'mon]

With some people thinking that paladins must be death before dishonor lawful stupid types that will never survive a campaign it's no surprise paladins have a bad name for some people.

Plenty of death before dishonour types survive campaigns IME. They don't have to be stupid about it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

For me its a simple roleplaying exercise. Does the paladin have a code of conduct based upon what they've sworn an oath to? Great. Then if at some point the paladin acts against that code of conduct for whatever reason (willingly, unwillingly, knowingly, unknowingly)... how does the paladin FEEL about it afterwards? Any player worth their salt will know exactly how their paladin character felt about going against their oath, and if there is any guilt there, then the paladin acknowledges their mistake, feels guilty about it, and the character will WANT to atone for it no matter how difficult that atonement might be. If the paladin is truly the noble knight they say they are... they will want to legitimately atone and thus will not fracture their oath completely. Breaks can heal with proper treatment, the paladin just has to want to allow the healing process to proceed.

But if the player chooses not to have their paladin feel regret or remorse for what they did, and in fact would do it again if given the chance... then yes, obviously then they have broken their oath and the player should WANT to switch to the oathbreaker subclass because it makes sense for the character's story.

Joe Manginello wasn't forced by his DM to switch Arkhan's subclass to oathbreaker because of what Arkhan did... Joe made the character choice to do it himself. Because that is what he believed Arkhan believed. Arkhan willingly swore allegiance to Tiamat thereby not atoning for whatever his original oath was to. And thus the paladin "fell".

 

[Hussar]

Duress is a legal concession to human frailty. I'd say if a Paladin is a Paladin, then it doesn't apply to oath breaking. That's kind of the point of the Oath, that it makes demands above & beyond. The 1e UA Cavalier Code says "Cheerful Service Willingly Unto Death"; and I'd expect no less from a Paladin.

Edit: But maybe extreme duress could mean the oath breaking was effectively 'unwilling'. In Law we talk about duress as 'the will overborne'. Maybe not all Paladins are paragons, some get scared and fail. Maybe that is 'unwilling' in a sense. Still a big personal fail of course, much moreso than being deceived.

But, this is the problem. The 1e Cavalier is only one kind of paladin.

5e has multiple types of paladins. Sure, an Oath of Devotion paladin is going to worship Pelor or Heironeous or someone similar and yup, Captain America is the go to archetype.

But, again, that's only 1 kind of paladin. Number 1, an Oath of Conquest Paladin most certainly wouldn't give two copper pieces if you wanted to sacrifice some peon. His fault for not being strong enough. Heck, ask me nicely and I might even help. So, right off the bat, you cannot apply older edition standards to all paladins.

But, let's go with the paladin that started all this - an Oath of Ancients paladin. Now, Captain America is very much not the archetype here. This is a paladin that likely worships some nature god - Mieliki or Silvanus. He's tied to the fey courts and bound by fey morality. A better archetype might be maybe Storm from X-men? Maybe? I'm actually rather drawing a blank here to be honest, because this type of paladin is new and I'm not sure where I'd look to for inspiration. But, I do know that it's not Captain America. I can't see some Nature goddess insisting on sacrificing yourself for others. Not when the primary focus of the oath is life and living and beauty.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Duress is a legal concession to human frailty. I'd say if a Paladin is a Paladin, then it doesn't apply to oath breaking. That's kind of the point of the Oath, that it makes demands above & beyond. The 1e UA Cavalier Code says "Cheerful Service Willingly Unto Death"; and I'd expect no less from a Paladin.

Edit: But maybe extreme duress could mean the oath breaking was effectively 'unwilling'. In Law we talk about duress as 'the will overborne'. Maybe not all Paladins are paragons, some get scared and fail. Maybe that is 'unwilling' in a sense. Still a big personal fail of course, much moreso than being deceived.

I agree that paladins try to live up to something that is greater than themselves. That said, they are nonetheless fundamentally human.

The PHB sidebar on Breaking Your Oath states that paladins are fallible and can fail to live up to their oaths, but that only a willing and unrepentant failure can cause them to violate their oath to the degree that they fall from paladinhood.

If what you are saying is that a paladin whose life is in danger isn't exempt from their oath, I agree. Paladins are expected to place themselves in dangerous situations.

I don't think the same thing applies to an insurmountable threat, particularly when there is nothing to be gained by the paladin's death. In my opinion, a paladin who is unwilling throw his life away for no benefit, other than to obey the letter of his oath, has not willfully violated his oath.