Oath of Conquest Paladin

[KingFerret]

So I wanted to start a discussion thread about my favourite of the unearthed arcana subclasses that I am very much hoping to see in Xanathar's - the Oath of Conquest Paladin. Specifically I want to talk about the revised version which can be found here: https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/June5UA_RevisedClassOptv1.pdf

In my opinion this revised version is stronger, cooler and a better thematic fit.

So what do you think?
How powerful is the oath? Better than other ua oaths? Better than Phb oaths? Or does it seem weak?

How would you go about building/playing this oath? What's your character concept?

Do you like it overall? Would you be happy to play with one in your party? Would you be happy to DM for one?

Which characters from fiction seem to fit this oath? For me Darth Vader fits very well, which of course is why I love it ;)

Thanks in advance for any replies!

[Maxilian]

Well the Channel divinities are ok-

-The first one is pretty strong at low lvl, but as you lvl up, you will find more and more enemies that are completely inmune to the condition

-Guided Strike.... pretty sure someone else already have that (So... it bothers me, like give it something more unique -though is pretty good-)

-The lvl 7 ability is more thematic than anything, hate the big condition it give (but i guess it push you to use your Smite spells to fear the enemy, so i guess it goes well), in the end, this one have the same problem than the first one, the frightened condition become less and less of a real possibility as you lvl up, so in many cases, this ability will do nothing but give you a cool look.

-Lvl 15 ability is nice, though a part of me feels that it would make me want to go naked to a fight (if fighting many weak enemies), don't get me wrong, is good, and having in mind that at this lvl mobs will be hitting every now and then (they have really big hit chance like +13 to hit), so won't be useless.

-Lvl 20 ability, is pretty good, it does give enemies that cannot be frightened by normal abilities a reason to fear you.

In general, i love that UA, IMHO one of the best UAs for Paladins (it does have some problems, like how weak the frightened condition is, so it basically have the same problem as going with a Poison damage build -to many enemies that are not affected by it)

[Mortis_Elrod]

gonna agree, its my favorite paladin oath and i would love for it to make it into Xanathar's .

Build wise i have a few ideas:

Full paladin, this is the only oath i would play without multiclassing. I just love the theme and the flavor

Hexblade/Conquest = Ultimate conqueror/Live and die by the sword. These two would go so well together, and i think you could/should go with sword and shield and focus on AoE and Scaring people, with nice single target if need be.

Long death monk 8/ Conquest 12. This is focusing on the Monks fear effect and your aura. I think it thematically fits too for a Evil warmongering Monk with a long life span type of character.

Racially i think a Revenant Dragonborn would be cool, With Dragon Fear feat as well. Or Hobgoblin because conquering is what hobgoblins do. Anyway here's options.

[M Placeholder]

Hard pass from me. After a hard day adventuring, I would rather have a nice cup of tea with some biscuits, rather than spending more time dominating.

Also, just like getting the name of a romantic partner tattooed on your body, its a bad idea to get the tenets seared onto your arm.

[KingFerret]

Hard pass from me. After a hard day adventuring, I would rather have a nice cup of tea with some biscuits, rather than spending more time dominating.

Also, just like getting the name of a romantic partner tattooed on your body, its a bad idea to get the tenets seared onto your arm.

As much as my opinion differs from yours, I'm giving you many bonus points for an extremely amusing way of expressing it XD

So in terms of power level where do you guys think it falls? Is the ubiquity of Frightened Immune monsters just too much for the Oath to be considered on par with other oaths?

Oh and also I have to agree this is an oath more than any other that I want to single class take to 20. Partly because the higher level abilities are so strong and partly because I love the flavour so
Much!

[DarkKnightJin]

I thought up a Dragonborn Paladin of Conquest, beholden to Tiamat, and actually making use of the Dragon Fear feat. Possibly 2 level of Warlock (Hexblade seems a good fit) for Eldritch Blast, with the Agonizing Blast and Eldritch Spear invocations.
Mostly to fluff EB as literal spear that he chucks into some poor, unfortunate souls.

Agonizing Blast would be something to grab, the other Invocation could be anything you feel os worthy. Devil's Sight is always a good pick.
"You think the Darkness is your ally. You merely adopted the darkness. I was born in it. Molded by it. I did not see the Light until I was already a man."

[Crusher]

I thought up a Dragonborn Paladin of Conquest, beholden to Tiamat, and actually making use of the Dragon Fear feat. Possibly 2 level of Warlock (Hexblade seems a good fit) for Eldritch Blast, with the Agonizing Blast and Eldritch Spear invocations.
Mostly to fluff EB as literal spear that he chucks into some poor, unfortunate souls.

Agonizing Blast would be something to grab, the other Invocation could be anything you feel os worthy. Devil's Sight is always a good pick.
"You think the Darkness is your ally. You merely adopted the darkness. I was born in it. Molded by it. I did not see the Light until I was already a man."

Its funny how many ways there are to run essentially the same character. I'm running a Sorcadin paladin of Tiamat (dragon Sorc, vHuman) in a campaign right now. He's level 6 right now (2 Paladin/4 Sorc), dumb as a stump academically but understands people (8 INT/16 CHR), and was raised from birth (by his dragon cultist mother) with the expectation that he was going to rule the world.

He's not delusional, exactly, but he's absolutely sure he's eventually going to rule the world and is grateful every day that Tiamat has blessed him with such an amazing group of minions (the rest of the party, who view him with tolerance and humor so I try not to overplay it). He actually views it as "taking one for the team" and a bit of a burden, because if he DOESN'T rule the world, Tiamat will have a dragon do it instead or, worse, do it herself. And believe me, you'd rather have my Sorcadin in charge, even if he is Lawful Evil (the party leans evil already).

He's more of a diplomat and opportunity seeker than a CONQUEROR so far, because he's spent a lot of time dealing with people more powerful than he is. But in the relatively near future he's going to pick up a little more steel in his spine, take a 3rd level in Paladin, and evolve into a Conquest Paladin.

[PeteNutButter]

The obvious use of the fear lock-down is to go PAM and keep foes at 10 feet once they are frightened, forcing them to attack with ranged weapons unless they also have reach. GWM also works well with the war cleric style +10 to hit channel divinity. Both of those feats are already top tier on a paladin so that's pretty good.

The level 15 ability is really cool, but in practice features like this seem to just slow down gameplay, as the damage numbers are relatively small, but cause the DM to adjust hit point totals on foes. As is I feel like an early 2 level dip in barbarian is both thematic and mechanically cool with this.

Overall I'm a bit torn on the sub-class. Part of me likes it, as it feels like a cooler dark paladin/fighter. But another part of me feels like it is a lazy work, with mostly stolen abilities (war cleric, champion fighter, bearbarian resistance, stolen spells).

I feel like the fear lock-down ability should also work somehow with turned undead, although I guess damaging them would break it anyways.

[Sception]

In terms of borrowed abilities, the Fear-causing channel divinity is also mechanically very similar (though not identical) to the Oathbroken paladin from the DMG.

I like the revised version of conquest a lot (and in particular a lot more than its original form), but the eventual accumulation of fear-immune monsters does seem like it would hamper you a lot at later levels. then again, ime most campaigns only really run from levels 1 to 12ish anyway, and in that sort of context you should be fine.

I personally prefer Oathbroken, for Animate Dead, and the more reliable aura, and the fact that it multiclasses nicely with warlock and sorcerer. The oathbreaker aura also has downsides, but instead of situations where it just doesn't do anything, you run into situations where the monsters get to use it against you and your party. That's even worse mechanically, but it's also a lot more dramatic and fun.

That said, conquest is a close second for me. As already mentioned, human variant PAM/GWM halberd-using conquest paladin is super cool. I played a character a few years ago that would have worked much better thematically and mechanically as a conquest paladin.


As a huge Oathbreaker fan, I also love Conquest paladin in particular for allowing an in to Oathbreaker without having to role play 'turning evil' or getting your GM to homebrew oathbreaker as an oath of its own. Instead you start as an evil conquest paladin, your party teaches you mercy, and you jump over to Oathbreaker because you 'turned good' instead. Enemy Undead and Daemons using your aura against your party then makes even more thematic sense as the forces of darkness punishing you for your betrayal. :p