Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[AnOminous]

Oathbreaking is so interresting as a concept and narrative tool that no player should ever start as an oathbreaker period.
We need to see the player evolve, change and be confronted by something that will cause him to doubt his oath and break it.

Or be faced by an evil asshole chracter like I always liked to play that put that paladin into a situation where he had to live up to his oath or break it just to deal with me.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Oathbreaking is so interresting as a concept and narrative tool that no player should ever start as an oathbreaker period.
We need to see the player evolve, change and be confronted by something that will cause him to doubt his oath and break it.

The issue with Oathbreakers is that they are more of a trope of classic fantasy tales than a class. They are linked with Paladins more due to literary origins than real logic. Within gameplay they are a paradox because a PC that wants to be an Oathbreaker should have never become a paladin and it's a reward for bad roleplay.

Also I wonder how can they be done ingame since the classic fallen Paladin is due to internal faults (lust for example). While breaking an oath to use an evil power is just being a Warlock (which Baldurs Gate 3 did), while "breaking my oath becuase it would do an evil action" is just Reddit atheism.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

It’s the fact people try to spin them around in a way where they’d be passable as a non-evil character. That goes back to the idea of using reddit and tiktok as inspiration for creating characters.

That's mainly people who don't have the imagination to play an evil character that's not a complete psycho, people who don't understand the concept of the banality of evil. They want to have their cake and eat it too, so they want to shift an overtly evil class into being a non-evil one, instead of coming up with an interesting way to play an evil character.

 

[Ghostse]

Easy solution to this problem:
5e is for fags. Don't play it.

 

[JamusActimus]

The issue with Oathbreakers is that they are more of a trope of classic fantasy tales than a class. They are linked with Paladins more due to literary origins than real logic. Within gameplay they are a paradox because a PC that wants to be an Oathbreaker should have never become a paladin and it's a reward for bad roleplay.

Also I wonder how can they be done ingame since the classic fallen Paladin is due to internal faults (lust for example). While breaking an oath to use an evil power is just being a Warlock (which Baldurs Gate 3 did), while "breaking my oath becuase it would do an evil action" is just Reddit atheism.

A bit of headcanon but here's how I see things.

Paladin's powers come from their oath and the tenets they follow.

A grave violation of their oath make them lose their power temporarily. They can still swing their sword but it loses power without convictions and principle.

A paladin that commits a mistake can still restore his oath if he repents and cleanse themselves. They will then regain their power.

Becoming an oathbreaker is when you're beyond redemption. You don't believe in the tenets anymore. In a way your belief is that the tenets are obsolete and should be broken. Your oath is pragmatism.

 

[Ghostse]

A bit of headcanon but here's how I see things.

Paladin's powers come from their oath and the tenets they follow.

A grave violation of their oath make them lose their power temporarily. They can still swing their sword but it loses power without convictions and principle.

A paladin that commits a mistake can still restore his oath if he repents and cleanse themselves. They will then regain their power.

Becoming an oathbreaker is when you're beyond redemption. You don't believe in the tenets anymore. In a way your belief is that the tenets are obsolete and should be broken. Your oath is pragmatism.

An Oathbreaker is a paladin who fell and then in this moment became euphoric.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

A bit of headcanon but here's how I see things.

Paladin's powers come from their oath and the tenets they follow.

A grave violation of their oath make them lose their power temporarily. They can still swing their sword but it loses power without convictions and principle.

A paladin that commits a mistake can still restore his oath if he repents and cleanse themselves. They will then regain their power.

Becoming an oathbreaker is when you're beyond redemption. You don't believe in the tenets anymore. In a way your belief is that the tenets are obsolete and should be broken. Your oath is pragmatism.

I think it needs to be a function of time and sacrifice. Like an Oathbreaker can't be a low level young person. It needs to be a 10+ level veteran adult who basically devoted his entire life for his oaths and came out of it thinking that he missed out in life because he stuck to it. If anything he still internally knows his oaths were right but he is so gripped with selfishness and self hatred that he lies to himself that they never meant anything.

It's not a gradual moral decline, but a sheer drop due to shattering of his moral bindings.

 

[2LtMashengo]

Just play a paladin of a god with a based oath.

Spoiler

Because Pozzo is run by gay faggots they removed the part where you're supposed to scatter your enemies' families so they don't threaten your people anymore.
Edit: found the original

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

It’s the fact people try to spin them around in a way where they’d be passable as a non-evil character. That goes back to the idea of using reddit and tiktok as inspiration for creating characters.

At the risk of sounding like an autistic broken record, you can thank Baldur's Gate 3 for that; there's been an untick of people wanting to run good-aligned Oathbreakers ever since that game came out. People wanting to run a character similar to BG3's Oathbreaker Knight.

Spoiler: Oathbreaker Knight

For those that don't know, the Oathbreaker Knight was formerly a Paladin of the Oath of Conquest who previously served an evil king. Eventually, the knight got sick of following the king's increasingly sociopathic orders, so he killed the king and forsook his oath. Story-wise, he serves as a sort-of "guide" to Oathbreaker PCs, telling them about the Oathbreaker abilities and making it clear that you can use the powers for good or bad, however you see fit.

Of course, there's also been some stories of DMs that have been using BG3 as a "guide" on how to handle Paladin oaths; i.e., even the slightest deviation from the oath means instantly becoming an Oathbreaker.

Here's one: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1at826m/dm_making_me_go_oathbreaker/. Now, granted, it is from Reddit, so whether it's real is questionable. Still, given the number of loons on that site, I could certainly see someone doing this...

 

[Sunflower Samurai]

Oathbreaking is for fags and anyone who wants to play one should just take the effort to homebrew a ripoff of a Death Knight or Dark Knight from MMO shit like WoW and FXIV respectively
You can steal more logical reasons to do good using dark powers from those two's plot beats than relying on redditors who just steal and then dilute those to you through their autistic lenses anyways

 

[Abella]

That's mainly people who don't have the imagination to play an evil character that's not a complete psycho, people who don't understand the concept of the banality of evil. They want to have their cake and eat it too, so they want to shift an overtly evil class into being a non-evil one, instead of coming up with an interesting way to play an evil character.

Like @Scream Aim Fire was saying about people wanting to do it after BG3, it really does show the creative bankruptcy that became prevalent with D&D in the current age. The MtG settings used to be just something people wanted because they were lazy and ravnica was lightning in a bottle in terms of settings and aesthetics. Now they have an official book because that’s an easy cash cow, same with theros and strixhaven. Shit, Rick and Morty and stranger things got products because they could make cash grabs from uncreative consumers just like rereleasing 2 monster manuals as one and writing the 2 off.

More often than not, so many players today will look at these short form videos of a man soy facing telling you how to play as some character from another franchise rolling up a character, or how to do some broken thing to completely take all of the challenge out of a situation. It’s why I can’t stand seeing shit from DMs academy or r/DnD.

Easy solution to this problem:
5e is for fags. Don't play it.

Unfortunately this is the case. I started noticing it more and more about 6 years ago when people who’d never played D&D before 5e all of a sudden started demanding that there’d be changes to things that have been established since ‘74.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately it looks like the game won't be salvaged. That said, I really like the sound of White Plume Mountain, and will keep that in my pocket for the future.

Tomb of the Serpent Kings. Get your group off the gay-frog 5e tit and back to old school.

I remember that module. Meant to teach OSR fundamentals. First door is a save or die trap meant to teach players that traps can be deadly. Clearly a parody of OSR meat grinders and not intended to actually be played.


What do you guys think of solo/DMless games like 4 against darkness and Ker Nethalas?

The latter has an optional deck of dungeon cards I'm thinking of buying just to random gen dungeons.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

Of course, there's also been some stories of DMs that have been using BG3 as a "guide" on how to handle Paladin oaths; i.e., even the slightest deviation from the oath means instantly becoming an Oathbreaker.

Here's one: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1at826m/dm_making_me_go_oathbreaker/. Now, granted, it is from Reddit, so whether it's real is questionable. Still, given the number of loons on that site, I could certainly see someone doing this...

I can believe that, since GMs making Paladins fall for retarded or trivial reasons has been a story ever since paladins existed as a class.

 

[Ghostse]

I remember that module. Meant to teach OSR fundamentals. First door is a save or die trap meant to teach players that traps can be deadly. Clearly a parody of OSR meat grinders and not intended to actually be played.

Wrong tomb.
The first thing the players encounter is a 1d6 poison cloud if they just start smashing sarcophogi. There is only one insta-death trap on the first floor and its 100% avoidable with a little foresight.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

I don't know where people get the idea that a paladin will fall for executing an unrepentant criminal that is clearly evil. This isn't kindergarten where the teacher punishes the one sane kid that punches the spastic retard that constantly antagonizes everyone around him.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

I don't know where people get the idea that a paladin will fall for executing an unrepentant criminal that is clearly evil. This isn't kindergarten where the teacher punishes the one sane kid that punches the spastic retard that constantly antagonizes everyone around him.

Unfortunately, it is extremely common for DMs to do precisely that and fall a paladin because they slew a man who was unarmed, surrendered, or a prisoner, regardless of the fact that they are evil and would have been executed for their crimes anyway.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

I can believe that, since GMs making Paladins fall for retarded or trivial reasons has been a story ever since paladins existed as a class.

Kinda surprised that so many GMs would go after Paladins; seriously, what's with the Paladin hate? I never got it myself...

Also, now I'm curious; are there any other classes that get bashed by killer GMs? I know Cleric's got some hate from Reddit Atheists; any others?

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Kinda surprised that so many GMs would go after Paladins; seriously, what's with the Paladin hate? I never got it myself...

Also, now I'm curious; are there any other classes that get bashed by killer GMs? I know Cleric's got some hate from Reddit Atheists; any others?

Because a lot of people are moral relativists
my GM punished the paladin because he was a paladin of the God of justice who demanded money for saving a farmer and his kids from a bullet

but didn't punish him for executing a group of rapey bandits for being human detritus

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Kinda surprised that so many GMs would go after Paladins; seriously, what's with the Paladin hate?

Paladins are easy targets because they are one of the few classes that have to follow a specific moral code, opening them to attack from GMs who either don't care for moral precepts or simply want to be a dick.

Also, now I'm curious; are there any other classes that get bashed by killer GMs?

Wizards, specifically because they are dependent on their spell books, which are easy targets for lazy/killer DMs. Monks and Samurai, when not getting shit on for being shitty classes, dependent on the edition, are generally targeted by the GM for the same reason that Paladins are; they have a code of rules they have to follow. Rogues tend to get the side eye because of the bad ones having a propensity to rob the party or be played as chaotic stupid, giving them a bad rep. Fighters tend to catch hell for just being a relatively shitty class from 3e onward compared to casters.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I don't know where people get the idea that a paladin will fall for executing an unrepentant criminal that is clearly evil. This isn't kindergarten where the teacher punishes the one sane kid that punches the spastic retard that constantly antagonizes everyone around him.

Going back to the roots with Gary Gygax's own words on the subject:

Paladins are not stupid, and in general there is no rule of Lawful Good against killing enemies. The old adage about nits making lice applies. Also, as I have often noted, a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before they can backslide.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is by no means anything but Lawful and Good. Prisoners guilty of murder or similar capital crimes can be executed without violating any precept of the alignment. Hanging is likely the usual method of such execution, although it might be beheading, strangulation, etc. A paladin is likely a figure that would be considered a fair judge of criminal conduct.

The Anglo-Saxon punishment for rape and/or murder of a woman was as follows: tearing off of the scalp, cutting off of the ears and nose, blinding, chopping off of the feet and hands, and leaving the criminal beside the road for all bypassers to see. I don't know if they cauterized the limb stumps or not before doing that. It was said that a woman and child could walk the length and breadth of England without fear of molestation then...

Chivington might have been quoted as saying "nits make lice," but he is certainly not the first one to make such an observation as it is an observable fact. If you have read the account of wooden Leg, a warrior of the Cheyenne tribe that fought against Custer et al., he dispassionately noted killing an enemy squaw for the reason in question.

I am not going to waste my time and yours debating ethics and philosophy. I will state unequivocally that in the alignment system as presented in OAD&D, an eye for an eye is lawful and just, Lawful Good, as misconduct is to be punished under just laws.

Lawful Neutrality countenances malign laws. Lawful Good does not.

Mercy is to be displayed for the lawbreaker that does so by accident. Benevolence is for the harmless. Pacifism in the fantasy milieu is for those who would be slaves. They have no place in determining general alignment, albeit justice tempered by mercy is a NG manifestation, whilst well-considered benevolence is generally a mark of Good.

People thinking Paladins are walking around fearing for their oaths as they turn around every corner are missing the point of the class. Paladins aren't feeble fools, they're the fantasy equivalent of Judge Dredd: they're steeled in the precepts of their faith and empowered by their god to act as jury, judge and executioner against their enemies. They might feel guilty after executing a whole gang of highwaymen, but that's what prayer is for. Hell, a Paladin might get into more trouble with their Oath if they are too merciful and the bandits he keeps letting go end up just committing more crimes.