How specific is the Oath of Vengeance?

[Craulnober]

I'm building my Oath of Vengeance paladin and while I'm all set in terms of stats and mechanics, I'm not sure about the role-playing of the Oath.
I don't find the info in the PHB very detailed.
I find this "get to 3rd level and then take the oath" a bit problematic. I know the backstory of my paladin, but I'm not sure what could be possibly be included in the oath when I reach 3rd level.

My question is this, should the oath have to do something with his past prior to becoming a paladin? If so, then why wait until the 3rd level?
If for example someone killed his parents and he was saved by an Order of paladins, the oath would be probably made before even getting to 1st level.

If not, should it be something specific from his first adventures? But isn't this a bit limiting? What if he fulfills this oath pretty soon?
Could it be a bit broader? For example a village was destroyed by some goblins. Should the oath be to avenge only this goblin tribe (and fulfill the oath pretty fast) or could be a bit broader "every goblin tribe" or "protect villages" or something like that.

Is it possible to have a broader OOV? Not things like "I swear to kill all baddies", but for example "help people suffering from tyrants" or "liberate victims of slavers" etc?
What is the general consensus about it?

[KRSW]

I see all of the oaths as the paladins gaining a sense of purpose in their lives, and their purpose gives them strength. If you are starting the campaign before level 3, tie something in to their backstory where maybe you were powerless to stop something so you became an adventurer to gain the strength to avenge whatever happened.

The tenets for the oaths are important, I would say much more important than the characters alignment. I would try to write a sentence or two for each tenet and try to imagine what your character would say for those tenets when they actually take the oath.

As for what you want to avenge, it can be broad or narrow, maybe both. Say a family member was falsely accused of a crime and was executed unjustly, you can take on oath of vengeance against corrupt government in general, and also against specifically the person who framed them, the executioner, both of their families, the guards who arrested them, the higher ups in the judicial chain who let it happen with little to no evidence, etc.

Also, throughout the campaign you can also swear to avenge new things. I like to think of it as the Book of Grudges from Warhammer Fantasy Dwarves.

[Consensus]

What is the general consensus about it?
Consensus, general of the Gitp armed forces declares that usually I think my paladins have taken the oath before becoming adventurers. I see the subclass choice as a mechanical choice, explicitly not a fluff one. Although it would be interesting to play a character that takes an oath as a result of an adventure, but that strikes me as better done without preplanning it and as a multiclass (which further points to the value getting the oath at first level would have)

[Unoriginal]

The Oath is more your mindset and methods than anything in your backstory.

You could play a Vengeance Paladin who's a rich person with their whole family alive and happy, and who never personally suffered from anything.

Same way you can play a Redemption Paladin who was forced to watch as a tyrant flayed their friends alive.

A Paladin is someone whose willpower and unflinching determination allow them to use divine power. At 3rd level, you crystalize which path you're going to take.

People from all paths in life can end up taking one Oath or the other. Maybe the Dwarf prince hell-bent on avenging his parents' murder will be visited by their spirit, who will show him how what's really worth defending is the beauty of the world in all its forms, not the inexistant well-being of the dead, and so he'll end up a Paladin of the Ancients. Maybe the happy halfling knight will see a city being destroyed due to its evil leaders' malevolence and stupidity, and draw the conclusion to prevent it from happening, she must remove that kind of leader from power and find better ones, taking the Oath of Conquest.

In any case, as long as the Paladin can think, their Oath is never fulfilled. It's not promising to do a predetermined task, it's promising to *be* a kind of person.

[Craulnober]

I see all of the oaths as the paladins gaining a sense of purpose in their lives, and their purpose gives them strength. If you are starting the campaign before level 3, tie something in to their backstory where maybe you were powerless to stop something so you became an adventurer to gain the strength to avenge whatever happened.

We are starting with 0 XP, but I have a small backstory regarding my character's childhood which explains why he became a paladin and why he will later on choose the path of vengeance. I'd like this to be the basis for my oath, but not limiting the character to this event only.


The tenets for the oaths are important, I would say much more important than the characters alignment. I would try to write a sentence or two for each tenet and try to imagine what your character would say for those tenets when they actually take the oath.

I agree. Fortunately the tenets in PHB are pretty good and give ideas for other ones. It's the oath by itself that made me wonder how it should be done and how much leeway there is.


As for what you want to avenge, it can be broad or narrow, maybe both. Say a family member was falsely accused of a crime and was executed unjustly, you can take on oath of vengeance against corrupt government in general, and also against specifically the person who framed them, the executioner, both of their families, the guards who arrested them, the higher ups in the judicial chain who let it happen with little to no evidence, etc.

Also, throughout the campaign you can also swear to avenge new things. I like to think of it as the Book of Grudges from Warhammer Fantasy Dwarves.

I like this Book of Grudges thing. Now about the broad/narrow thing, I really like your approach and it is something I was thinking of. For example specific tyrant/lord but then again vengeance against all of his type. This could work in my case, as unfortunately the module that we will be playing will take us far away. Choosing to avenge a specific person and then leaving until level 12 would be very bad.



Consensus, general of the Gitp armed forces declares that usually I think my paladins have taken the oath before becoming adventurers. I see the subclass choice as a mechanical choice, explicitly not a fluff one.

Hello General. That's my take on it too. It's something that is part of yourself. It's fluff at the beginning and becomes "mechanics" later on.



In any case, as long as the Paladin can think, their Oath is never fulfilled. It's not promising to do a predetermined task, it's promising to *be* a kind of person.

So there would not be a specific oath to "act" but more of an oath on how to "behave"? More like the tenets.

Thanks for the input guys, you really made it easier for me.

[MintyNinja]

In my own game I made several Holy Orders throughout the land and gave the Paladins of specific Orders access to one Oath. So the Crownsguard would be Oath of the Crown, the Order of the Radiant Star was an Oath of Devotion group, etc. The level 3 turning point was when the Paladin Player finished his trials and was formally accepted into the Order as a full member. They had a ceremony, with a passage that harkened back to the Tenets, and they swore an Oath to be true to the Order.


In your case, if you talk to your GM about it, maybe your character can be on the road to joining the particular group of Vengeance Sworn Paladins and there's some sort of trial they must complete to hit level 3.

[CIDE]

It varies i think. In my case i was originally going to take a different oath in the most recent game of hoard of the dragon queen. Because of events at the start, though, only oath of vengeance made sense after that. Without that i had an entire reasoning in the characters backstory for their other oath.

my character was also the volunteer at the end of the greenest invasion and "died" because of it.

[Avigor]

While you can ultimately RP this however you want (full Oath comes into play at level 1, it only applies at level 3, whatever) my personal interpretation has been that to start as a Paladin, you merely need to swear yourself to the fight against evil, then at level 3 your own take on that cause kind of crystallizes or coalesces into the specific Oath you then live by.

However, don't forget: You can roleplay your character however you want!!! It is YOUR character, after all!

[Ganymede]

I find this "get to 3rd level and then take the oath" a bit problematic. I know the backstory of my paladin, but I'm not sure what could be possibly be included in the oath when I reach 3rd level.

My question is this, should the oath have to do something with his past prior to becoming a paladin? If so, then why wait until the 3rd level?

Third level is when the gravity of your quest for vengeance crystallizes into a tangible force. You might have had a hated foe before this moment, but third level is when this fury becomes a weapon in its own right.

[Rhaegar14]

My interpretation is that you can kinda do what you want. One interpretation I've seen is that the paladin is a squire or initiate before 3rd level, and swearing their oath is basically their full commitment to the cause. I also had a character where I initially planned to go Vengeance, but the way events unfolded over the course of the first two levels of his adventuring career actually pushed him toward Devotion in the end (kind of the opposite of what you'd expect). Before that he was already a paladin, he just wasn't entirely committed on which kind of paladin he wanted to be yet -- his patron deity was the god of justice, so both oaths fit pretty well.

[MaxWilson]

I'm building my Oath of Vengeance paladin and while I'm all set in terms of stats and mechanics, I'm not sure about the role-playing of the Oath.
I don't find the info in the PHB very detailed.
I find this "get to 3rd level and then take the oath" a bit problematic. I know the backstory of my paladin, but I'm not sure what could be possibly be included in the oath when I reach 3rd level.

My question is this, should the oath have to do something with his past prior to becoming a paladin? If so, then why wait until the 3rd level?

You can give your PC a backstory from the get-go, but he doesn't get mechanical benefits from it until 3rd level. Feel free to swear vengeance on your enemies at first level though.