Oath of the Hospitaller Paladin

[Grynning]

This was an idea a buddy of mine had, based on a 4th ed Paragon Path. The basic idea is a healing-focused Paladin that heals while hitting things, so I took some elements of the 3.5 ToB Crusader. It loses a lot of offensive punch vs. Oath of Devotion or Vengeance, but I think I made it on par with the Oath of the Ancients. I added in some bodyguard and travel themes as a reference to the historical order of Crusaders. Here it is, tell me what you think:

Oath of the Hospitaller

Oath Spells
3rd: Healing Word, Longstrider
5th: Calm Emotions, Warding Bond
9th: Beacon of Hope, Leomund's Tiny Hut
13th: Death Ward, Freedom of Movement
17th: Greater Restoration, Mass Cure Wounds

Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following channel divinity options.
Crusader's Strikes: As an action, you can imbue your strikes with positive energy that heals you and your allies. For one minute, your melee attacks are considered to be magical, and whenever you hit an enemy with a melee attack, you or an ally regains hit points equal to 1d4+your Charisma modifier. At 9th level, this improves to 1d6+your Charisma modifier. At 15th level, this improves to 1d8+your Charisma modifier.
Shelter the Weak: As an action, you can swear a magical vow to protect an injured ally. Choose a creature other than yourself that is currently below its maximum hit point total. For one minute, any hostile creature that can see or hear you within 30 feet of you has disadvantage on all attack rolls against that target, and the target has advantage on all saving throws against spells and abilities originating from those creatures.

Aura of Endurance: Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you gain resistance to poison and necrotic damage, and treat any effects of exhaustion as 1 lower (a 7th level still causes death). At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Divine Retribution: Beginning at 15th level, if an ally you can perceive falls to 0 hit points or below, you can use your Smite class feature against the creature who last attacked or cast a hostile spell on that ally without expending a spell slot on your next turn. If you hit that creature with an attack while the ally is still alive but unconcious, they immediately stabilize and regain hit points equal to 1/2 the damage you dealt with the attack (rounded up).
Additionally, whenever you use Lay on Hands to heal a creature, that creature regains additional hit points equal to your Charisma modifier (these extra hit points do not deduct from your pool for Lay on Hands).

Supreme Guardian: At 20th level, you can emanate an aura that protects your allies and spurs them on to victory. When you use your action to activate this feature, for 1 minute, a soft glow emanates from you, shedding dim light for 30 feet, and you gain the following benefits:
You and allies within 30 feet of you cannot be blinded, charmed, deafened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, or stunned. Any of these conditions on you or your allies immediately end when you activate the ability.
You and allies within 30 feet of you gain 10 temporary hit points at the start of each of your turns.

Edits: Reduced THP and clarified wording on capstone.

[Gnomes2169]

Divine Retribution should definitely have a 1/long rest limit on its smite ability, and should have the lay on hands portion moved to the level 20 ability. The former because similar abilities (such as the spell death ward, the level 15 Oath of Ancients ability and the Half-Orc ability) are all self-only, only keep you at 1 HP and are all 1/ long rest. This ability allows you to heal an ally by a lot* more and currently can be used as long as you have spell slots. It's a bit overpowered, comperatively. As for the healing thing, that just doesn't fit "divine retribution" all that well, and feels like it would work with the ultimate protector shtick more.

*Let's go with a sword n'board paladin. On a normal hit with a high-level slot and potentially a spell smite (level 4 at this point), they will deal 2d8+5 (weapon+improved smite)+5d8 (level 5 slot)+3d8 (the potential blinding smite) for a total of 10d8+5 (average 50) damage on the hit, and thus 25 points of healing to the target. With this subclass's channel divinity option up, you can increase this healing by 1d10+5 (average 10.5) on the hit, giving you an ally that was dying who is suddenly feeling very okay about themselves.

Now while this is good (very good in fact), you can miss. So adding a tag written like so would probably work for the best: "After you successfully use this ability to heal an ally, you may not use it again until you complete a long rest." This allows you to swing until it works, but keeps your party from being basically immortal before then.

[Takewo]

Just a thing about that Divine Retribution, I might be mistaken, but if I remember properly, once you drop to 0 hit points any amount of healing brings you back to 1 hit point. Therefore, it doesn't matter how much hit points you heal, the poor fellow will always go back to 1 hit point, innit?

[Ninja_Prawn]

Divine Retribution should definitely have a 1/long rest limit on its smite ability, and should have the lay on hands portion moved to the level 20 ability. The former because similar abilities (such as the spell death ward, the level 15 Oath of Ancients ability and the Half-Orc ability) are all self-only, only keep you at 1 HP and are all 1/ long rest. This ability allows you to heal an ally by a lot* more and currently can be used as long as you have spell slots. It's a bit overpowered, comperatively. As for the healing thing, that just doesn't fit "divine retribution" all that well, and feels like it would work with the ultimate protector shtick more.

*Let's go with a sword n'board paladin. On a normal hit with a high-level slot and potentially a spell smite (level 4 at this point), they will deal 2d8+5 (weapon+improved smite)+5d8 (level 5 slot)+3d8 (the potential blinding smite) for a total of 10d8+5 (average 50) damage on the hit, and thus 25 points of healing to the target. With this subclass's channel divinity option up, you can increase this healing by 1d10+5 (average 10.5) on the hit, giving you an ally that was dying who is suddenly feeling very okay about themselves.

Now while this is good (very good in fact), you can miss. So adding a tag written like so would probably work for the best: "After you successfully use this ability to heal an ally, you may not use it again until you complete a long rest." This allows you to swing until it works, but keeps your party from being basically immortal before then.

Agree with this.

And I will add:

At some point, you'll need to write up a proper gumpf about who the Hospitaller Paladin is and what he/she holds most sacred. We need to know what the Tenets are and what they might do to break them.
A whole minute for Shelter the Weak is a bit good. Would you consider making it cost concentration?


Really though, this is pretty good, from both mechanical and flavour perspectives.

[Grynning]

Thanks for the feedback y'all.

I think perhaps a short rest limitation on Divine Retribution is more appropriate than long rest, since it is very situational (it's unlikely an ally will drop to 0 multiple times per day, but it could happen), but you're right, it is very strong. I will also clarify the wording.
I also already revised the Lay On Hands ability to require a minimum investment in my doc, I'll put the updated version below. Still working on the fluff, it's not exactly my strong suit.

[Grynning]

Updated version. Limitations added to Shelter the Weak and Divine Retribution. Added Oath Tenets fluff.

Oath of the Hospitaller

Paladins of this oath share these tenets:
Defend the Defenseless: Help those who are unable to help themselves. Protect the poor, the elderly, and children.
Heal the Body: Tend to the sick and injured whenever the opportunity presents itself. Aid communities in curing plagues and famine.
Mend the Spirit: Council those suffering from grief or anger. Drive out possessing fiends and corruption of the soul.
Make Safe the Roads: Travel frequently to bring your skills to new lands, and escort fellow pilgrims and travelers so they may complete their own journeys in safety.

Oath Spells
3rd: Healing Word, Longstrider
5th: Calm Emotions, Warding Bond
9th: Beacon of Hope, Leomund's Tiny Hut
13th: Death Ward, Freedom of Movement
17th: Greater Restoration, Mass Cure Wounds

Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following channel divinity options.
Crusader's Strikes: As an action, you can imbue your strikes with positive energy that heals you and your allies. For one minute, your melee attacks are considered to be magical, and whenever you hit an enemy with a melee attack, you or an ally regains hit points equal to 1d4+your Charisma modifier. At 9th level, this improves to 1d6+your Charisma modifier. At 15th level, this improves to 1d8+your Charisma modifier.
Shelter the Weak: As an action, you can swear a magical vow to protect an injured ally. Choose a creature other than yourself that is currently below its maximum hit point total. For one minute, any hostile creature that can see or hear you within 30 feet of you has disadvantage on all attack rolls against that target, and the target has advantage on all saving throws against spells and abilities originating from those creatures. This effect ends if the target is restored to full hit points or if you can no longer perceive any creatures that are hostile to the target.

Aura of Endurance: Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you gain resistance to poison and necrotic damage, and treat any effects of exhaustion as 1 lower (a 7th level still causes death). At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Divine Retribution: Beginning at 15th level, if an ally you can perceive falls to 0 hit points or below, you can use your Smite class feature against the creature who last attacked or cast a hostile spell on that ally without expending a spell slot on your next turn. The Smite does extra damage as if you had expended a Paladin spell of the highest level you can cast. If you hit that creature with an attack while the ally is still alive but unconcious, they immediately stabilize and regain hit points equal to 1/2 the damage you dealt with the attack (rounded up). Allies are able to be brought above 0 HP with this ability. Once you heal an ally using this ability, you may not use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Improved Lay on Hands: At 15th level, you add 25 points to your Lay on Hands pool, and add an additional 5 points for every paladin level you gain from now on. You can expend 10 points from your pool of healing to remove one level of exhaustion from the target in addition to the other uses of the ability.

Supreme Guardian: At 20th level, you can emanate an aura that protects your allies and spurs them on to victory. When you use your action to activate this feature, for 1 minute, a soft glow emanates from you, shedding dim light for 30 feet, and you gain the following benefits:
You and allies within 30 feet of you cannot be blinded, charmed, deafened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, or stunned. Any of these conditions on you or your allies immediately end when you activate the ability.
You and allies within 30 feet of you gain 10 temporary hit points at the start of each of your turns.
Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

[Jurai]

I'm looking at Divine Retribution. Can you decide what level of spell slot the smite uses or is it the highest level slot available? The class feature does not specify.

[Grynning]

Good catch. I was intending it to be the highest available. I will edit that in.

[Takewo]

About the lay on hands thing. Well, it's just a thought, but I'm not sure I like it as it is stated. With that, it means that at level 15 and Cha 18 I can heal a total of 135 hit points if I heal 10 by 10 or 79 if I do it all at once. It's okay if that's what you're looking for. But maybe you could consider increasing the healing pool by your Charisma modifier multiplied by half your paladin level instead or something like that.

[Grynning]

About the lay on hands thing. Well, it's just a thought, but I'm not sure I like it as it is stated. With that, it means that at level 15 and Cha 18 I can heal a total of 135 hit points if I heal 10 by 10 or 79 if I do it all at once. It's okay if that's what you're looking for. But maybe you could consider increasing the healing pool by your Charisma modifier multiplied by half your paladin level instead or something like that.

Yeah, that bit is tricky. I don't want the math to be that complicated. I think I need to scrap that ability all together. I am thinking of maybe adding something for spending hit dice during short rests and removing exhaustion with Lay on Hands instead.

[Grynning]

Ok, I changed the Lay on Hands enhancement as follows (edited into the last version)

Improved Lay on Hands: At 15th level, you add 25 points to your Lay on Hands pool, and add an additional 5 points for every paladin level you gain from now on. You can expend 10 points from your pool of healing to remove one level of exhaustion from the target in addition to the other uses of the ability.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Ok, I changed the Lay on Hands enhancement as follows (edited into the last version)

Improved Lay on Hands: At 15th level, you add 25 points to your Lay on Hands pool, and add an additional 5 points for every paladin level you gain from now on. You can expend 10 points from your pool of healing to remove one level of exhaustion from the target in addition to the other uses of the ability.

I like it. It's simple, fits the theme and does something the other Oaths can't. Nice. :smallsmile: