[Oath of vengeance] Roleplay

[ximitta]

Hi,

I'm curently playing as a Oath of vengeance Paladin. I did let a village of savage-humanoid-slavers be murdered by a goup of monsters in order to aquire a artifact to protect the entire realm against a cruel god who is trying to enslave all the world. This caracterize a reason to oathbreak?

I know its a bit rough, but we was without time to make another approach and we choose war over diplomacy.

In my point of view, i did this for the greater good, but my DM disagrees with me :(

[KorvinStarmast]

In my point of view, i did this for the greater good, but my DM disagrees with me :( You need to have this discussion in person with your DM. That's whose table you are playing at. What do you want out of the posters here, since we don't play at your table? :smallcool:

[coyote_sly]

This is going to be between you and your DM. However, I'd also like to point out that Vengeance oath players often like to focus on the "by any means" part of the oath to do edgy, evil type stuff, and totally forget the "necessary". Did you HAVE TO watch the village get slaughtered to end up with the maguffin?

No, you almost certainly did not. This is D&D, there are always choices. If you were a Devotion oath, you would have found another way. And since you were Vengeance if that (and everything else you tried) actually failed, you'd write off the village.

Jumping straight to torture, genocide, etc is boring RP for Vengeance oaths, IMO. There's always an alternative, and it increases the impact of your actions at the table if your hands only get REALLY dirt in those cases where it turns out to be ACTUALLY needed.

[ximitta]

This is going to be between you and your DM. However, I'd also like to point out that Vengeance oath players often like to focus on the "by any means" part of the oath to do edgy, evil type stuff, and totally forget the "necessary". Did you HAVE TO watch the village get slaughtered to end up with the maguffin?

No, you almost certainly did not. This is D&D, there are always choices. If you were a Devotion oath, you would have found another way. And since you were Vengeance if that (and everything else you tried) actually failed, you'd write off the village.

Jumping straight to torture, genocide, etc is boring RP for Vengeance oaths, IMO. There's always an alternative, and it increases the impact of your actions at the table if your hands only get REALLY dirt in those cases where it turns out to be ACTUALLY needed.

At first place, we thought it was a military camp with slavers and other stuff, but during the attack we saw women and children too, we tried to redirect the attack of the monsters to the 'temple' where the artifact was located, but the monsters ignored us, after that we choose to enter the temple to find the artifact (our important mission), and a lot happened after that.

My question is, my action that leads to this massacre (even if i didn't mean to) is enought to caracterize an oathbreak?

[DarkKnightJin]

At first place, we thought it was a military camp with slavers and other stuff, but during the attack we saw women and children too, we tried to redirect the attack of the monsters to the 'temple' where the artifact was located, but the monsters ignored us, after that we choose to enter the temple to find the artifact (our important mission), and a lot happened after that.

My question is, my action that leads to this massacre (even if i didn't mean to) is enought to caracterize an oathbreak?

Not if you show remorse for it happening, and go to a temple to atone for your transgression.
Oathbreaker is for Paladins that break their Oath repeatedly, willingly, and don't make any attempted atonement.

[Unoriginal]

I'm curently playing as a Oath of vengeance Paladin. I did let a village of savage-humanoid-slavers be murdered by a goup of monsters in order to aquire a artifact to protect the entire realm against a cruel god who is trying to enslave all the world. This caracterize a reason to oathbreak?

No it doesn't.

First, you are a Vengeance Paladin. Not a Redemption Paladin.

Second, you let slavers die. You had no obligations to save them. If you did nothing to free the slaves, it's true it's much more ruthless, but could you have saved the slaves?

Third, this is NOT how you break your Oath in 5e. This is not 3.X, and your DM should know that.




I know its a bit rough, but we was without time to make another approach and we choose war over diplomacy.

If you couldn't try another approach, why is it even a question? If you had the choice, and even if diplomacy had worked, why would you tolerate slavers getting a sweet deal out of it?



In my point of view, i did this for the greater good

That's not an excuse, though. The question you have to ask is "did I do good?" You can't do good by doing something evil for the greater good.

Now, that being said: why do you care? Is your character good?



but my DM disagrees with me :(

Which part is he disagreeing with?


Not if you show remorse for it happening, and go to a temple to atone for your transgression.
Oathbreaker is for Paladins that break their Oath repeatedly, willingly, and don't make any attempted atonement.


This. Though killing people participating in slavery and their kids is not something all Vengeance Paladins would see as a transgression.

Your Paladin might feel bad about it, but they didn't know and tried to stop it when they saw what happened.

War is ugly, and innocent kids die in any attack where they present, but you didn't try to murder them, right?

[NecessaryWeevil]

"Here are the Tenets of Vengeance from the PHB. Which one did my character flagrantly violate?"

[Legendairy]

Simple answer-up to your DM

Opinion on reading the oaths and whatnot-No it’s not enough to break your oath, you are vengeance I believe in the OP you said you didn’t stop it and were stopping the greater evil, kind of vengeance’s thing. As long as you aren’t constantly going out of your way to be evil, letting evil die is not evil in of itself with your oath as long as you try to get the greater evil and maybe help some innocents along the way.

[Unoriginal]

You can be a Vengeance Paladin and be evil, anyway.

[Legendairy]

You can be a Vengeance Paladin and be evil, anyway.

True, just don’t think he OP is. The DM seems a little heavy handed with oath yanking, harkens back to AD&D to 3.5 for me.

[Zanthy1]

True, just don’t think he OP is. The DM seems a little heavy handed with oath yanking, harkens back to AD&D to 3.5 for me.

Agreed, almost like the DM doesn't really care for the character and wants to make decisions for the players. In my mind, Oathbreaker is something a PC approaches a DM with, who would then approve the change, not the other way around.

[sithlordnergal]

From what I can tell, you should not have broken your Oath. You were focused on preventing a greater evil from occuring, which is what Vengeance Paladins do. Hell, it is a literal tenant.

Fight the Greater Evil: Faced with a choice of fighting
my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil. I choose the
greater evil.

It isn't a matter of Good or Evil in this case. Rather, it depends on which is worse? Preventing an evil god who is trying to enslave all the world? Or saving some slavers from being killed? Seems pretty cut and dry to me

[Avigor]

At first place, we thought it was a military camp with slavers and other stuff, but during the attack we saw women and children too, we tried to redirect the attack of the monsters to the 'temple' where the artifact was located, but the monsters ignored us, after that we choose to enter the temple to find the artifact (our important mission), and a lot happened after that.

My question is, my action that leads to this massacre (even if i didn't mean to) is enought to caracterize an oathbreak?

You allowed the attack to begin when you believed the camp was military slavers in nature, then discovered you were mistaken - you shouldn't be blamed for ignorance, especially given the fact that you at least made an attempt to stop the massacre before choosing the greater evil and doing what was necessary.

Otherwise, to me, choosing to focus on the greater problem fits under the Fight the Greater Evil tenant; making sure the monsters didn't overwhelm you while you did this fits under the By Any Means Necessary tenant.

Heck, not going out of your way to save the families of the SLAVERS can be argued to fit No Mercy for the Wicked between the fact that the families could be argued to have condoned the slavers by not leaving them or convincing them to leave, and even if that is argued against we are talking letting the slavers see or know that their families were about to die, and stopping that would've technically been a mercy, if a small one (even if that is an argument from my shoulder devil; also, I'm assuming throughout this that slavery was still being practiced by the camp and you hadn't completely misinterpreted everything to the degree of believing a completely innocent trading post was involved with slavery, which would throw this entire paragraph out the window).

Finally, did you attempt to at least look for survivors, especially innocent survivors after you got the macguffin? That is the Restitution tenant, and if you completely refused to even try and see if say any children had managed to hide in a barrel or whatever then you failed that one.