Oath of the Revenant (necromancer paladin)

[KittenMagician]

Oath of the Revenant
(Paladin subclass)

Tenets of the Revenant
The tenets of the Revenant tend to be considered dark and evil and any who keep them are often demonized.

Mercy is for the Weak. You never let live those you could kill. When presented with the choice of sparing an enemy or killing them you always choose to end them.

Waste Not, Want Not. You use everything you get your hands on. Everything has a use and you make sure it reaches its potential, even corpses.

Fear Not the Shadow of Death. Death falls upon everyone eventually. You shouldn't fear your own death for it will come eventually and you may even continue fighting post mortem.


Oath Spells
(3rd Level)

You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.


Oath of the Revenant spells
| Paladin Level | Spells |
|:----:|:-------------|
| 3rd | False Life, Hex |
| 5th | Darkness, Shadow Blade |
| 9th | Animate Dead, Vampiric Touch |
| 13th | Blight, Phantasmal Killer |
| 17th | Danse Macabre, Negative Energy Flood |

Channel Divinity
(3rd level)

You gain the following two Channel Divinity Options. See the Sacred Oath class feature for how Channel Divinity works.

Subdue Undead. As a bonus action you present your holy symbol and force an undead creature you can see within 30 ft. of you to roll a Wisdom saving throw or come under your command for a number of hours equal to your Charisma modifier. While under your control in this way the undead creature follows your commands to the best of its ability. The undead can reroll the save against this effect if you or any of your allies deal damage to it.

Corpse Consumption. As an action, you may magically consume all the corpses within 30 feet of you. Corpses consumed this way are destroyed. For each corpse consumed this way you gain 5 hit points. If this healing would be greater than your maximum number of hit points, you gain temporary hit points equal to the excess.

Aura of Death
(7th level)

You emit an aura of negative energy while you aren't incapacitated. Whenever any nonundead creatures of your choice moves within 5 feet of you for the first time or start their turns there you may have them take necrotic damage equal 1d10 + your charisma modifier. Undead of your choice within 5ft of you are healed by this amount instead.

At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 15 feet.

Fight Beyond Death
(15th level)

When you would die, you may have your spirit continue fighting outside of your body. When your spirit leaves your body you become a wraith as found in the Monster Manual retaining your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain the use of your Divine Sense, Aura of Protection, Aura of Courage, Cleansing Touch, and Aura of Death features but are unable to cast spells or use any other class or racial features. If your spirit form is killed, your are dead forever and can never be resurrected.

Avatar of Death
(20th level)

You can take on the spirit of death itself. As a bonus action, you gain the following benefits for 1 minute:

- You double all damage and healing dealt by your Aura of Death feature.
- Whenever a creature dies while within your Aura of Death it is brought back as a zombie, skeleton, or some other appropriate undead creature as determined by your DM. Undead raised this way are under your command and follow your orders to the best of their abilities. These undead are under your control for 24 hours, after which they stop obeying any commands you've given them.

Once you use this bonus action you can't use it again until you finish a long rest, unless you expend a 5th-level spell slot to use it again.






not totally set on the name, tenets or corpse consumption but overall i think i rather nailed a necromancer paladin. any thought or critiques are appreciated
other name options i thought of were Oath of Death, Oath of the Grave, and Oath of the Reaper

[Bjarkmundur]

I love homebrewed Paladin subclasses!

I feel like the tenets are *bit* on the nose. Don't be afraid to be subtle! I love the message of the tenets, but the descriptions could be a bit more modest.

I'm surprised that dealing damage to the subdued undead doesn't end the effect immediately. BUT maybe that's just me. I'm also kinda shocked that it says "hours" and not "rounds" for the duration.

Corpse Consumption kinda killed it for me. I do how ever recognize that I am somewhat of a timid homebrewer, and I tend to steal mechanics whenever I can. It makes learning a homebrewed class feel a little bit less alien for players not from the community.

I imagined something more along the lines of "If a creature has been reduced to 0 hit points within 10 feet of you since your last turn, you can spend an action to gain a number of hit points equal 1dx + twice your paladin level"

The healing of undead part of Aura of the Dead feels kinda tacked-on, but with Subdue Undead lasting hours, I can see why you would want some way to bring your thrall up in Hp.

But you could add to the healing bit to the "corpse consumed" if you want.

I kinda love the idea of a necromancer paladin, but a single channel divinity for hours of necromancy almost feels too easy, and also makes it so that if you are not currently constantly fighting hordes of undeads your CD just go to waste :/


P.s. Oath of the Grave, for sure. "Revenant" makes it feel like it's the paladin that's the undead one.

[sandmote]

The spells fit well, although I have the following homebrew I'd like to recommend instead of Darkness

2nd-level necromancy

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Components: V, S, M (a vial of blood)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute.
A crimson rain drizzles down in a 5-foot-radius, 40-foot-high cylinder centered on a point within range.

When a creature enters the spell's area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it is doused in the crimson liquid, which festers on the skin, and unless it is undead it must make a Constitution saving throw. It takes 2d10 necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

When an undead creature enters the spell's area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it gains 2d6 temporary hit points, which last until the end of the creature's next turn.

On each of your turns after you cast this spell, you can use an action to move the beam up to 60 feet in any direction.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d10 and the temporary hit points increase by 1d6 for each slot level above 2nd.

(Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock) Its based on Moonlight, and like moonlight is intended to not affect creatures it moves past.

Subdue Undead should list a minimum duration. 30 minutes, maybe?

Aura of Death feels way too powerful. Compare Aura of Conquest, which only deal damage to frightened creatures, deals 3 damage when you get it and maxes out at 10 damage. Aura of death deals (assuing 14 Cha) 7.5 damage when you get it and maxes out at 10.5 damage, without any prerequisite. I'm not sure the halved range is enough to justify the increase.

The penalty against ever being resurrected feels excessive. Perhaps have the paladin count as dead for the purposes of resurrection spells, and material components for spells can be substituted with the wraith body?

Avatar of Death should probably only turn humanoids into undead. Compare Finger of Death. It could probably also use a third bullet, but I'm not sure what that would be.

"nonundead creaure" is not a 5e term. Should say "creature other than an undead."

Maybe rename "Corpse Consumption" to "Power from Death," or something similar?

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'm with Bjarkmundur on the tenets being a little too on the nose; give them some breathing room, some space for flexibility.

So the first CD is a "nerfed" version of the Oathbreaker Control Undead. Why not just steal that one, if I may ask? Seems to be the flavour that you're looking for.

Not a fan of Corpse Consumption, but that's more of a personal thing.

I'd probably adjust Aura of Death to deal damage to non-living foes exempting constructs from the damage as well. Fits the flavour better, and doesn't really impact the power (Though it's already on the quite powerful side; compare to Conquest).

Fight Beyond Death needs to be clarified.
"When your spirit leaves your body" needs to be better defined. Is it only after three failed death saving throws? Does it apply to auto-death abilities, like power word kill? What happens if something that traps the soul like soul cage is in play?
I love the flavour of becoming a wraith, but you absolutely need to specify that you cannot use Create Spectre (or have some sort of sanity limit on it).
Most importantly, how do you get back into your body and become living again? Do your allies have to blow a spell and components to shove you back in? Does this happen every single time that you die?
I'd probably have an exception for wish to be able to bring you back - it'll work anyways, and this way you aren't potentially locking your ally out of the spell if they fail the check.

There should probably be a cap on the undead created by the Avatar of Death. Yes, I'm aware that it's a 20th level capstone, but let's pretend that some sort of balance exists at that level, eh? I'm aware that you're probably only intending it to work on Humanoids, but it needs to be specified.