Sacred Oath: Oath of Superiority

[Sredni Vashtar]

Packs of gnolls lay siege on the dwarven homeland. A noble dwarf wearing immaculate plate armor steps forward and presents his holy symbol. As the symbol glows with righteous power, the gnolls are compelled to flee, as are the elves that came to the dwarves aid.

A wave of violence sweeps through neighboring human and elven communities. The charismatic half-elf who claims responsibility calls for other hybrids to join her crusade. No longer will they be outcast for their superiority.

A human warrior and his dwarven ally stand against the tide of vicious goblins while a group of farmers make their escape. When the dwarf is overrun and swept up in the horde, the warrior ignores his cry for help. The loss of an ally was unfortunate, but the dwarf had served its purpose.

According to tradition, the Oath of Superiority is taken by those who represent the greatest heroes their race, their nation, their social class, or their god has to offer the world. In reality, many of those who take the Oath are arrogant and xenophobic. Nonetheless, they often become personalities of great importance in their respective societies. Charismatic and fanatical about their cause’s excellence, paladins who swear the Oath gather legions of followers and gain the support of nations. For better or worse, such men and women can and will shape the course of history.

Oath of Superiority
(A villainous paladin class option for D&D5e.)

Tenets of Superiority
The tenets of the Oath of Superiority vary depending on the individual paladin and what virtues are important to their people, but all put their people first, even if they don’t necessarily side against others that don't fit their criteria. The four fundamentals of the Oath are universal.
Confidence. You and those who share your background are the pinnacle of existence. Act like it.
Comradery. Cultivate a group of fellows of the same kind. Treat them as you would like to be treated, and lead them to glory.
Supremacy. Beings of other races, citizens from other lands, and worshippers of other gods are inferior. You need not treat them poorly, but they are not to be treated as equals.
Quintessence. Be the perfect specimen of your kind. Display your people’s superiority by leading by example.

Oath Spells
You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed.

Paladin Level	Spells
3rd	Command, Heroism
5th	Enhance Ability, Suggestion
7th	Fear, Spirit Guardians
13th	Banishment, Compulsion
17th	Banishing Smite, Dominate Person

Prideful Nature
You are intensely proud of who you are and where you came from, stemming from a belief that those not like you are weak or inferior. When you take this oath at 3rd level, choose a category that you belong to; either race, class, sex, land of origin, patron deity, or social class. Creatures that belong to your category are considered your chosen kind. Many of your abilities depend on this choice.

Channel Divinity
At 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Vainglorious Prowess. As an action, you can call upon the best of your ancestors to grant you increased aptitude in a specific skill. For 1 minute, you add your Charisma modifier to any rolls made for that skill. If the skill already utilizes your Charisma, double your Charisma modifier.
Turn the Inferior. As an auction, you present your holy symbol and speak a prayer of condemnation, using your Channel Divinity. Choose a number of humanoid creatures equal to your proficiency bonus. These creatures must be within 30 feet of you, able to see and hear you, and must not be of your chosen kind. The creatures must make a Wisdom saving throw, unless it is immune to being frightened. On a failed save, the creature is Frightened of you for 1 minute or until it takes damage. While frightened, the creature's speed is 0, and It can't benefit from any bonus to its speed.
On a successful save, the creature's speed is halved for 1 minute or until the creature takes any damage.

Aura of Superiority
Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures of your chosen kind within 10 feet of you add your Charisma bonus to melee weapon attack rolls while you are conscious. At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet. A creature can only benefit from one Aura of Superiority at any given time.

Prideful Retribution
Those below you grow envious of your higher station, and you are always ready to put them back in their place, violently if necessary. Starting at 15th level, when a humanoid not of your chosen kind makes an attack against you, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against that creature if it is within range.

Supreme Paragon
At 20th level, you can use an action to express your superiority as the ideal member of your chosen kind. For 1 minute, you gain the following benefits:

• You are nigh unstoppable. You have resistance to all damage, and have advantage on all saving throws.
• Your mere presence rallies those around you. Creatures of your chosen kind have advantage to all attack rolls and saving throws while they are within 60 feet of you and are able to see you.

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

[Mr.Moron]

I'm not sure the game needs a racial superiority class.

[Sredni Vashtar]

It's a villainous option, a sort of less on-the-nose antipaladin. The Oathbreaker, personally, doesn't quite meet the ideal of a truly loathsome individual. It's more of a moustache-twirler. The xenophobe is a very visceral thing. It's one of the most detestable attributes someone could have. Sure, it's an all too real part of reality, but part of fiction is being able to confront those evils and strike them down. The Superiority Paladin is meant to be that arrogant, xenophobic scum that will be destroyed at the end of the story.


I could change it to represent other forms of hateful pride, like nationalism or some such. I'm looking for feedback.

EDIT: Edited the original post to expand it beyond species specific xenophobia.

[noob]

Was any class ever needed?
Nothing is ever needed.

[Sredni Vashtar]

Look, this isn't the discussion I was looking for. The class was designed with a society of duergar from my homebrew campaign setting in mind. They're dwarf-centric, hateful slavers who view any non-duergar as little more than chattel. They're one of the big bads on the continent. That's where this came from. It's not meant for Player Characters.

I'm just looking to see if the mechanics were balanced.

If it comes off as offensive, I apologize. I'll take it down if necessary.

[Draken]

I think Noob is just using a very old counter-argument against the "do we need X in the game?" on Mr. Moron.

Anyway, onwards to usefulness. Two things.

1. Turn the Inferior: I feel like this one is trying to reinvent the wheel. Any particular reason why it doesn't simply inflict Frightened, instead of this new, similar, but much more potent form of crowd control?

2. More of a nitpick, I am guessing you made the changes to be less racial focused before I got to reading it, so the name of the Capstone, "Racial Paragon" sounds a bit too specific since it looks like the Oath can also stand for Nationalism, Religious Supremacism and... Hmm... Class Supremacy, except not in the way we understand classes in the real world (social strata, as opposed to, literally, a specific job).

Same applies for Xenophobia itself, looks like it needs a new name.

Also, might want to include social strata as an option for your supremacist ideals. You know, nobility, proletariat, whatever.

[Sredni Vashtar]

I think Noob is just using a very old counter-argument against the "do we need X in the game?" on Mr. Moron.

Anyway, onwards to usefulness. Two things.

1. Turn the Inferior: I feel like this one is trying to reinvent the wheel. Any particular reason why it doesn't simply inflict Frightened, instead of this new, similar, but much more potent form of crowd control?

2. More of a nitpick, I am guessing you made the changes to be less racial focused before I got to reading it, so the name of the Capstone, "Racial Paragon" sounds a bit too specific since it looks like the Oath can also stand for Nationalism, Religious Supremacism and... Hmm... Class Supremacy, except not in the way we understand classes in the real world (social strata, as opposed to, literally, a specific job).

Same applies for Xenophobia itself, looks like it needs a new name.

Also, might want to include social strata as an option for your supremacist ideals. You know, nobility, proletariat, whatever.

1. Good point. I was looking at the official Paladin Oaths, and after some deliberation, decided to go with the normal Turning route than the Vengeance Oath's fear thing. I'm not attached to it though. It's just a different way to get the same result, but if Turning is too potent when targeting such a large pool of potential targets, I'll change it to a Frightened effect.

2. I meant to just rename it to "Paragon", but I missed that part. Oops. Good call on the social class inclusion.

Thanks.

EDIT: Made changes to first post. Added in the social class as well as sex/gender into the Chosen Kind options, and edited the Turn the Inferior to be similar to the Oath of Vengeance's Abjure Enemy ability. Also changed a few names of things.

[weaseldust]

Aura of Superiority is too much as it stands. It applies to all weapon and spell attacks and it increases the damage you and your allies deal significantly more than Crusader's Mantle, which is a 3rd level concentration spell (albeit one with a 30ft range).

How about if it just added your charisma modifier to melee weapon attack rolls against creatures not of your kind?

EDIT: You should probably say you can only gain the benefit from one creature at a time too. Otherwise, groups of duergar paladins will have their auras stack and will fail their attack rolls only on a 1. In general, the auras are defensive effects anyway, so perhaps you should just pick a different effect unrelated to improving your attacks.


I should say that I like how the channel divinity encourages you to pick a very narrow kind (e.g. 'duergar from my clan') and the aura encourages you to pick a very inclusive one (e.g. 'humanoid' or 'creature native to the material plane'), but you have to be careful to balance the two against each other, and at the moment the aura wins out. Though if it's an NPC class, it doesn't matter so much.

[Sredni Vashtar]

Aura of Superiority is too much as it stands. It applies to all weapon and spell attacks and it increases the damage you and your allies deal significantly more than Crusader's Mantle, which is a 3rd level concentration spell (albeit one with a 30ft range).

How about if it just added your charisma modifier to melee weapon attack rolls against creatures not of your kind?

EDIT: You should probably say you can only gain the benefit from one creature at a time too. Otherwise, groups of duergar paladins will have their auras stack and will fail their attack rolls only on a 1. In general, the auras are defensive effects anyway, so perhaps you should just pick a different effect unrelated to improving your attacks.


I should say that I like how the channel divinity encourages you to pick a very narrow kind (e.g. 'duergar from my clan') and the aura encourages you to pick a very inclusive one (e.g. 'humanoid' or 'creature native to the material plane'), but you have to be careful to balance the two against each other, and at the moment the aura wins out. Though if it's an NPC class, it doesn't matter so much.

Sounds fair enough. The difference between "attack", "melee attack", and "melee weapon attack" is sort of fuzzy to me. I understand that they're different, but it slips through the cracks when I'm writing things up. I'll make sure to prevent stacking auras as well.

Thanks!

[Draken]

Sounds fair enough. The difference between "attack", "melee attack", and "melee weapon attack" is sort of fuzzy to me. I understand that they're different, but it slips through the cracks when I'm writing things up. I'll make sure to prevent stacking auras as well.

Thanks!

Attack: Any weapon or spell attack, regardless of range.
Weapon Attack: Any attack attack that is not called out as a spell attack, tend to use Strength or Dexterity for their rolls.
Spell attack: Any attack called out as such. Usually use Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma for their rolls.
Melee attack: an attack at melee range, can be a weapon attack or a spell attack.
Ranged attack: Generally speaking, any attack made beyond a range of 10 feet. Usually called out as such.

[Sredni Vashtar]

Attack: Any weapon or spell attack, regardless of range.
Weapon Attack: Any attack attack that is not called out as a spell attack, tend to use Strength or Dexterity for their rolls.
Spell attack: Any attack called out as such. Usually use Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma for their rolls.
Melee attack: an attack at melee range, can be a weapon attack or a spell attack.
Ranged attack: Generally speaking, any attack made beyond a range of 10 feet. Usually called out as such.

Neat. Thanks.