gloryblaze
2021-10-25, 03:59 PM
Sacred Oath: Oath of the Marshal
The frontier can be a brutal and deadly place—bandits roam unchecked, food and water shortages can spell death for a town, disease runs rampant, and monsters encroach on what few outposts of civilization there are. All this makes the frontier the ideal place for a paladin: not just to arrest bandits and slay monsters, but to protect and serve the people by healing the sick, giving food to the hungry, and offering shelter to those in need. Paladins who choose to undertake these endeavors swear the Oath of the Marshal.
Tenets of the Marshal:
Marshals who are officially appointed or elected as law enforcement officers usually take an oath specific to the government they serve, but all Marshals generally believe in the following tenets:
Accountability. Always take responsibility for your own actions. When you err, take swift action to make things right.
Community. Your duty is not to the law in the abstract, but to the people you serve. You must always uphold the values of your community.
Mercy.Your mission is to protect, not to punish. Given the choice between providing aid to the innocent or delivering justice to the guilty, always choose the former.
Oath Spells:
You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.
Oath of the Marshal Spells
Paladin Level
Spell
3rd
command, sanctuary
5th
hold person, zone of truth
9th
beacon of hope, create food and water
13th
death ward, Mordenkainen’s faithful hound
17th
geas, hold monster
Bonus Proficiencies:
Starting at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with firearms. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a firearm, you can knock the creature out instead of killing them.
Channel Divinity:
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Hands in the Air! As an action, you bark an order to a creature you can see that can hear and understand you. The target must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or drop everything it is holding and be paralyzed for 1 minute or until it takes damage.
Justice is Blind. You can use your Channel Divinity to see even when others try to obscure the truth or hide from you. As a bonus action, you gain blindsight out to 30 feet for 10 minutes.
Aura of the Posse:
By 7th level, your leadership allows you to enhance the attacks of your allies. Whenever a friendly creature other than you within 10 feet of you hits with a weapon attack, you can use your reaction to expend a spell slot and apply your Divine Smite feature to that attack's damage.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Deputize:
At 15th level, you can nominate an ally to act in your stead. You can touch a willing creature as a bonus action to deputize them. You can see through the deputized creature's eyes and hear through its ears as if you were located where it is. On each of your turns as a bonus action, you can switch from using its senses to using your own, or back again. While you are using its senses, you are blinded and deafened in regard to your own surroundings, and you can cast your paladin spells as if you were in the deputized creature's space.
Additionally, a deputized creature can add your Improved Divine Smite damage to the damage of its weapon attacks, and it can benefit from your Aura of the Posse no matter its distance to you.
A creature's deputization ends if you deputize another creature or if you choose to end it (no action required). While you have a creature deputized, you can't benefit from your Improved Divine Smite feature.
Law Incarnate:
At 20th level, you can empower yourself with the law itself. As a bonus action, you gain the following benefits for 1 minute:
You can cast command as a bonus action without expending a spell slot.
You can't be charmed, frightened, paralyzed, or stunned.
When a friendly creature other than you within 30 feet of you is attacked, the attack roll is made at disadvantage.
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.
When designing a set of gun subclasses, the barbarian and paladin pose unique challenges because they have core class features that rely on melee weapon attacks. While my Path of the Shotgun Messenger (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?637874-Path-of-the-Shotgun-Messenger-A-Primal-Path-for-settings-with-firearms) throws a bone to barbarians by just straight-up letting them apply Rage and Reckless Attack to shotgun attacks, I decided to go a different route with this paladin oath: instead of using your Divine Smite and Improved Divine Smite yourself, the subclass lets you grant them to your allies to use on your behalf! This is meant to reinforce this paladin’s role as a protector and team player, which also lets it play foil to my similarly-themed Lawman ranger (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?637954-The-Lawman-A-Ranger-Archetype-for-settings-with-firearms). While the Lawman represents the lone-wolf Texas ranger who rides from town to town hunting down outlaws, the Marshal represents the local sheriff who rounds up a posse to protect the town from invaders. I've been trying to post only one subclass each day or one every couple of days to avoid flooding the subforum, but because of this dichotomy I decided to post both half-casters at the same time.
The other unique challenge posed by the paladin is the fact that paladin subclasses typically get exactly 2 features at level 3: oath spells and Channel Divinity. Nothing else. I went ahead and gave them firearm proficiency at 3, instead of 7, so that the gunslinging sheriff fantasy comes online ASAP. It's a bit on the strong side, but hopefully not overpowered when you consider that you can't Divine Smite with guns and you won't be able to donate your Divine Smite to your allies until 7th level.
The frontier can be a brutal and deadly place—bandits roam unchecked, food and water shortages can spell death for a town, disease runs rampant, and monsters encroach on what few outposts of civilization there are. All this makes the frontier the ideal place for a paladin: not just to arrest bandits and slay monsters, but to protect and serve the people by healing the sick, giving food to the hungry, and offering shelter to those in need. Paladins who choose to undertake these endeavors swear the Oath of the Marshal.
Tenets of the Marshal:
Marshals who are officially appointed or elected as law enforcement officers usually take an oath specific to the government they serve, but all Marshals generally believe in the following tenets:
Accountability. Always take responsibility for your own actions. When you err, take swift action to make things right.
Community. Your duty is not to the law in the abstract, but to the people you serve. You must always uphold the values of your community.
Mercy.Your mission is to protect, not to punish. Given the choice between providing aid to the innocent or delivering justice to the guilty, always choose the former.
Oath Spells:
You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.
Oath of the Marshal Spells
Paladin Level
Spell
3rd
command, sanctuary
5th
hold person, zone of truth
9th
beacon of hope, create food and water
13th
death ward, Mordenkainen’s faithful hound
17th
geas, hold monster
Bonus Proficiencies:
Starting at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with firearms. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a firearm, you can knock the creature out instead of killing them.
Channel Divinity:
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Hands in the Air! As an action, you bark an order to a creature you can see that can hear and understand you. The target must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or drop everything it is holding and be paralyzed for 1 minute or until it takes damage.
Justice is Blind. You can use your Channel Divinity to see even when others try to obscure the truth or hide from you. As a bonus action, you gain blindsight out to 30 feet for 10 minutes.
Aura of the Posse:
By 7th level, your leadership allows you to enhance the attacks of your allies. Whenever a friendly creature other than you within 10 feet of you hits with a weapon attack, you can use your reaction to expend a spell slot and apply your Divine Smite feature to that attack's damage.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Deputize:
At 15th level, you can nominate an ally to act in your stead. You can touch a willing creature as a bonus action to deputize them. You can see through the deputized creature's eyes and hear through its ears as if you were located where it is. On each of your turns as a bonus action, you can switch from using its senses to using your own, or back again. While you are using its senses, you are blinded and deafened in regard to your own surroundings, and you can cast your paladin spells as if you were in the deputized creature's space.
Additionally, a deputized creature can add your Improved Divine Smite damage to the damage of its weapon attacks, and it can benefit from your Aura of the Posse no matter its distance to you.
A creature's deputization ends if you deputize another creature or if you choose to end it (no action required). While you have a creature deputized, you can't benefit from your Improved Divine Smite feature.
Law Incarnate:
At 20th level, you can empower yourself with the law itself. As a bonus action, you gain the following benefits for 1 minute:
You can cast command as a bonus action without expending a spell slot.
You can't be charmed, frightened, paralyzed, or stunned.
When a friendly creature other than you within 30 feet of you is attacked, the attack roll is made at disadvantage.
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.
When designing a set of gun subclasses, the barbarian and paladin pose unique challenges because they have core class features that rely on melee weapon attacks. While my Path of the Shotgun Messenger (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?637874-Path-of-the-Shotgun-Messenger-A-Primal-Path-for-settings-with-firearms) throws a bone to barbarians by just straight-up letting them apply Rage and Reckless Attack to shotgun attacks, I decided to go a different route with this paladin oath: instead of using your Divine Smite and Improved Divine Smite yourself, the subclass lets you grant them to your allies to use on your behalf! This is meant to reinforce this paladin’s role as a protector and team player, which also lets it play foil to my similarly-themed Lawman ranger (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?637954-The-Lawman-A-Ranger-Archetype-for-settings-with-firearms). While the Lawman represents the lone-wolf Texas ranger who rides from town to town hunting down outlaws, the Marshal represents the local sheriff who rounds up a posse to protect the town from invaders. I've been trying to post only one subclass each day or one every couple of days to avoid flooding the subforum, but because of this dichotomy I decided to post both half-casters at the same time.
The other unique challenge posed by the paladin is the fact that paladin subclasses typically get exactly 2 features at level 3: oath spells and Channel Divinity. Nothing else. I went ahead and gave them firearm proficiency at 3, instead of 7, so that the gunslinging sheriff fantasy comes online ASAP. It's a bit on the strong side, but hopefully not overpowered when you consider that you can't Divine Smite with guns and you won't be able to donate your Divine Smite to your allies until 7th level.