Paladin Subclass: Oath of the Traveler

[LiteralMachine]

In a campaign that I'm DM-ing, one of my players is a Paladin who serves a god called the Traveler. The Traveler is the god of the road, journeys, wanderers, and the nighttime. He offers protection to mortals in the form of the welcoming darkness to hide them, and his clerics and paladins are forbidden from owning land. Even staying at an inn for more than a week or two is frowned upon. I drew inspiration from a few published subclasses in an attempt to keep things balanced. It's working quite well so far!

I'm eager to hear any feedback! Let me know how it goes if you use this (or a reskinned version of it for another deity) in your game!


Oath Spells

You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed in the Oath of the Traveler Spells table. See the Sacred Oath class feature for how oath spells work.




Paladin Level
Spells


3rd
Expeditious Retreat, Protection from Evil and Good


5th
DarkvisionMisty Step, Pass Without Trace


9th
Magic CircleLeomund's Tiny Hut, Haste


13th
Arcane Eye, Freedom of Movement


17th
Teleportation Circle, Circle of Power



Channel Divinity

When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.

Guard the Path. You call upon the Traveler to shield you and your companions. As an action, a blanket of dark mist rises from the ground in a 25 foot radius that heavily obscures the area, centered on you and following you as you move. You and an additional number of creatures you designate up to your CHA modifier (minimum of one creature) instead treat the area as lightly obscured. The mist lasts for 10 minutes, spreads around corners, and cannot be dispersed.

This option only works outdoors, inside abandoned structures, or inside natural structures.

Clear the Path. You can use your Channel Divinity to abjure beings who prey on travelers. As an action, you present your holy symbol and each aberration, monstrosity, elemental, ooze, or fiend within 30 feet of you that can hear you must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is turned for 1 minute or until it takes damage.

A turned creature must spend its turns trying to move as far away from you as it can, and it can't willingly end its move in a space within 30 feet of you. For its action, it can use only the Dash action or try to escape from an effect that prevents it from moving. If there's nowhere to move, the creature can take the Dodge action.

Aura of the Traveler

Starting at 7th level, you and your companions have an uncanny ability to navigate safely through the night. While you are not incapacitated, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you are not slowed by moving through nonmagical difficult terrain, have darkvision out to a range of 60 feet, and do not have disadvantage on Perception checks in lightly obscured areas (including dim light). If a creature already has darkvision due to a race or class feature, its darkvision range increases by 30 feet, to a minimum of 60 feet.

At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Defender of the Road

Starting at 15th level, you can strike back against foes who attempt to waylay travelers. Whenever you or a creature you can see within 30 feet of you succeeds on a Dexterity, a Strength, or a Constitution saving throw, you can use your reaction to deal 2d8 + your Charisma modifier force damage to the creature that forced the saving throw is forced to make a saving throw by an enemy, as a reaction you may move up to double your base movement speed toward that enemy, and you may make a melee weapon attack against it if this movement puts you within range.

Traveler's Flight

At 20th level, you may call upon a spark of the Traveler's power to augment your body and abilities. Using your action, you undergo a transformation. For 3 hours, you gain the following benefits:


Wings sprout from your back (or your existing wings transform, if applicable), giving you a flying speed of 60 90 feet. The wings have a form of your choosing (e.g. draconic, angelic, insectoid), and any armor or clothing you are wearing reshapes itself to allow for flight. If you already have a flying speed, it increases by 30 45 feet, to a minimum of 60 90 feet.
You may take the dodge action as a bonus action.
You gain truesight out to a range of 120 feet.
Your carrying capacity quadruples, as though you were two size categories larger than usual. Any weight you carry does not obstruct the use of your hands.
You can force an attack targeted at willing creatures that you are carrying to target you instead.

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

[MrStabby]

A few thoughts:

I would swap magic circle for leomund's tiny hut on the spell list. THe Hut feels more like a travellng shelter to me.

I don't like darkvision on the list because the later aura makes it redundant. I would be tempted to swap in misty step instead - a good mobility spell that works well on a paladin and doen't really conflict with your others.

I do like clear the path, but it seems to miss a lot of comon hazards of the road: bandits, packs of wolves, environmental hazards etc.. Maybe guard the pah could be good for flushing ou hazards instead?

Aura of the Traveler is very fitting, but possibly on the weak side. Under a lot of circumstances there are diminishing returns to extra radius on dark vision and so many races already have some. I think a perception based buff is great here but maybe something a bit stronger - say also removing disadvantage on percpetion checks in dim light conditions.

Defender of the Road - slight issue with the lack of range/site to the source of agression. Someone casts storm of vengeance on the party from over the horizon, hidden and invisible and you can still hit them with this. My other issue is that it is pretty niche - needs a save, a subset of saves at that, needs your reaction (so if someone fireballs multiple party members you only get to do this once) and the damage doen't really scale at all. I would be tempted to change it so something like use your reaction to move and make a single attack. The movement plays to the mobility theme of the character, getting in the face of the enemy to protect allies feels a bit more in line with the name of the ability and mechanically it can scale just a little bit with more spell slots for smiting, party buff spells, magic weapons etc..

Traveler's flight. This is cool, though decidedly unglamorous. I would even be inclined to extend it's duration. It is less combat focussed as a capstone and I don't think a 10 min duration (or even longer) would break anything but might help avoid envy of other classes in this regard.

[LiteralMachine]

Thank you for your feedback! I've spoken to the player, and we both like this new version. I've edited the original post to strike through any text that I've removed, and put new text in bold blue so it's easy to see the changes. Here are my thoughts:


A few thoughts:

I would swap magic circle for leomund's tiny hut on the spell list. THe Hut feels more like a travellng shelter to me.

I don't like darkvision on the list because the later aura makes it redundant. I would be tempted to swap in misty step instead - a good mobility spell that works well on a paladin and doen't really conflict with your others.



Agreed on both counts


I do like clear the path, but it seems to miss a lot of comon hazards of the road: bandits, packs of wolves, environmental hazards etc.. Maybe guard the pah could be good for flushing ou hazards instead?

In principle that makes sense, but this particular campaign runs very heavy towards non-humanoid enemies, so I'm keeping Clear The Path as-is. If other people want to use this subclass in their campaigns, I'd recommend tweaking the list of monster types to suit your setting.

I think I'd also like to keep Guard the Path the same, because now it meshes very well with your suggested changes to Aura of the Traveler.



Aura of the Traveler is very fitting, but possibly on the weak side. Under a lot of circumstances there are diminishing returns to extra radius on dark vision and so many races already have some. I think a perception based buff is great here but maybe something a bit stronger - say also removing disadvantage on percpetion checks in dim light conditions.

I've added the perception check bonus. Given that darkvision gives people "dim light" vision, this is helpful for creatures that already have darkvision, as well as creatures hidden within the Guard the Path ability. I like the way Aura of the Traveler stacks with Guard the Path with your suggested change.


Defender of the Road - slight issue with the lack of range/site to the source of agression. Someone casts storm of vengeance on the party from over the horizon, hidden and invisible and you can still hit them with this. My other issue is that it is pretty niche - needs a save, a subset of saves at that, needs your reaction (so if someone fireballs multiple party members you only get to do this once) and the damage doen't really scale at all. I would be tempted to change it so something like use your reaction to move and make a single attack. The movement plays to the mobility theme of the character, getting in the face of the enemy to protect allies feels a bit more in line with the name of the ability and mechanically it can scale just a little bit with more spell slots for smiting, party buff spells, magic weapons etc..

Agreed. Turning this into a movement + melee attack for a reaction makes for a more dynamic experience. And even if the target is extremely far away, this way you at least know what direction it is and can move towards it. Also, instead of succeeding on a CON/DEX/STR throw, it's now simply making ANY saving throw, whether it succeeds or fails. This makes it more useful, while also not overlapping with the Sentinel feat.


Traveler's flight. This is cool, though decidedly unglamorous. I would even be inclined to extend it's duration. It is less combat focussed as a capstone and I don't think a 10 min duration (or even longer) would break anything but might help avoid envy of other classes in this regard.

Agreed. Changed it to 3 hours at a speed of 90 feet. My reasoning:


Find Greater Steed can get you a pegasus with a flying speed of 90 per round (six seconds), or 180 feet if you take the Dash action
The DMG says that one 8-hour day of travel at a Fast pace gets you 30 miles.
3 hours at 180 feet per round is 61 miles, or double the distance you'd get in a day. Plus, you can keep up with your flying mount. Between you and your steed, you can literally "carry the party" *rimshot*