Paladin Oath of the Undying - Please Critique

[superninja109]

deleted......

[JNAProductions]

Banish The Unholy should have a set time (probably one minute), require Concentration, and allow a new save every round. For reference, look at Banishment. This is WAY THE HECK BETTER.

Holy Shield looks fine.

Aura Of Protection is a duplicate name. Effects seem okay, I think. I'd want playtesting, though.

Eternal Shield... I guess it's okay.

Undying Guardian is okay, except I just noticed it only ends if you take psychic damage.

First off, why psychic? And second of all, that makes you WAY TOO HARD to kill. You need to take three failed death saves BEFORE YOUR TURN or take psychic damage, which very few monsters do.

I'd rather you make it one of the Paladin Super Saiyan things... Maybe something like this:


Undying Guardian

As an action, you steel yourself against all that might harm you. For the next minute, you regain 10 Hit Points at the start of each of your turns, may cast Healing Word at its lowest level without expending a spell slot, gain resistance to all damage, and immunity to non-magical damage.

In addition, all the time, you no longer suffer the infirmities of age, and can live to be as old as ten times your normal lifespan, as well as not requiring food or water to survive.

[stoutstien]

Expanded spell list is a tad weak. It doesn't add a lot of depth.

[jiriku]

Expanded spell list is a tad weak. It doesn't add a lot of depth.


Thank you for the critique! I'm not sure I entirely understand what you mean. Are you saying tghat the spells are all too similar and could use more versatility in function, that they don't expand on the standard spell list enough, or that it doesn't really add anything to the class. I'm sorry that I am confused by such a simple statement, but could you please clarify/paraphrase?

Most of the spells are on the paladin list, so they don't add new capabilities. If more spells were taken from non-paladin spell lists, it would add more depth to the subclass.
This is especially true because most of your features are enhancing defense and durability on a class that is already the #1 most defensive and durable class in the game. There comes a time when that particular horse has been killed and there's no need to keep on beating it.

Tenet / Oath Spells
This is thematic, interesting, and internally consistent. But you are kind of living in the shadow of the Oath of Devotion. There is already a paladin oath that emphasizes duty, caution, and protection of the weak, turns fiends, and is hard to kill. I am not sold on why there is a compelling case to introduce this homebrew into campaigns when the Devotion paladin is already published and is so similar. I think you should reconsider how the Undying paladin is different from the Devotion paladin, and then fine-tune the writeup to emphasize those differences and really sell the reader on why the Undying paladin brings something new and valuable to the game.

Banish the Unholy
There's no obvious reason why your paladin should have special powers against fiends and elementals. What's the motivation behind this power? I'd like to know more about the connection between those who swear the Oath of the Undying and fiends from the lower planes.

Aura of Protection
At a very rough estimate, I am guessing that this ability represents about 30 - 50 points of healing for a typical encounter for a party of five 7th level PCs, scaling up as high as about 100 points of healing for a hard encounter with a group of five PCs of level 16+. That seems like a lot. Were you aiming for that much?

Eternal Shield
A couple of concerns here. First, this is permanent shield of faith on a class that already receives shield of faith as a bonus spell. So a later feature is obsoleting an earlier one. Class features should not poach from one another in such a fashion. Second, this is +2 AC for a class that has proficiency with heavy armor, shield proficiency, access to the Defense Fighting Style, and a bunch of spells that improve AC. I don't think you really need more AC at this point. Why not use this level to introduce something more compelling than just more of what paladin is already good at?

Undying Guardian
Too unkillable.

[JNAProductions]

I'd still prefer a more typical Paladin super-mode. This pseudo PWK is... Probably not good. At all.

A 7 day resurrection is completely fine. It could even be True Resurrection and I don't think it'd break anything, since whatever you were trying to do has an entire week to stew and get worse if you fail and die.

[jiriku]

Your revised version is much more distinctive, and really stands on its own as a different type of paladin than the other oaths. Good work.

[JNAProductions]

Banish the Unholy is far too good.

A single failed save can kill an undead or construct of any CR.

[JNAProductions]

It should allow a save to enter.

[JNAProductions]

Grant 5 THP, not real HP. That way it can’t stack. As it is now, if you have 5 people in range, you regain 25 HP.

And maybe add something minor else.