Oath of Oration: Leader and Postal Paladin Subclass (PEACH)

[sandmote]

This page on the homebrewery

My previous attempts at brewing paladin subclasses have focused heavily on some sort of "bookworm" paladin concepts. That seems to be getting replaced with more "leader" paladin themes. I think the following homebrew ended up feeling very much like a paladin dipping their toes into bard business. Comments on both balance and theme would be very much appreciated.

Oath of Oration
Paladins of the Oath of Oration are dedicated to the spreading of information, holding the news to be crucial for livelihood across distance and necessary for organization between groups.

Tenets of Oration
Paladins of the oath of oration fill many roles. High ranking nobles or who rise to military command take the oath to train the skills they need in their role. Other paladins of this oath serve as couriers, traveling difficult and dangerous paths so the news can get through. Whatever their role, paladins of this oath share the following tenets.

Communicate Clearly. For speech to have its full effect, it must be clearly understood. Your works should make the news clearer, whether spoken or written, that can be done by those who cannot project properly or who choose their language poorly.

Give the Speaker’s Meaning. Individuals often stumble on their words and phrase events poorly. The goal is to give the speaker’s meaning as clearly as possible, and their exact words are typically a fair cost.

Heighten the Emotion. People don’t remember individual terms, they remember what they felt when they heard the news. You must take care to bring out the proper emotion in the speeches you make and the news you spread.

Let Truth Triumph. While not forbidden from lies, you must make sure the truth comes out over falsehoods, which otherwise spread faster and convince more.

---

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

Oath of Oration Spells
Paladin Level Level
3rd Expeditious Retreat, Thunderwave
5th Animal Messenger, Zone of Truth
9th Tongues, Sending
13th Find Greater Steed, Freedom of Movement
17th Dream, Telepathic Bond

Really don't seem to be any good options for 4th level communication spells. Would Locate Creature fit better than wither of the ones currently listed?

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

Establish Diplomacy. You present your holy symbol as an action, and cast the calm emotions spell without expending a spell slot.

Shout of Fury. You present your holy symbol as an action, and unleash a dominating shout in a 15 foot cone. Each creature in the cone must make a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC or be stunned until the end of your next turn.

Aura of Communication
Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can communicate telepathically with other creatures within your aura while you are conscious. The creatures must share a language to communicate in this manner.

Additionally, creatures within your aura have immunity to being deafened.

When you reach 18th level in this class, the range of the aura increases to 30 feet.

The first effect felt a bit weak, so I figured the second one might help make up for it.

Cowing Strike
By 15th level, your strikes force your orders onto the creatures you strike. When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can cast the command spell targeting that creature as a bonus action. When you cast the spell in this manner, you cannot make opportunity attacks against the target of the spell until the end of your turn.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Extolling Command
At 20th level, you can deliver a commanding speech, spurring yourself and others to complete great tasks. As an action you and up to six creatures of your choice you can see within 30 feet gain the following benefits for 10 minutes.

• You gain immunity to the deafened and frightened conditions.
• You gain resistance to thunder damage.
• Whenever you make a skill check or saving throw, you can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the skill check or saving throw.

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

Hopefully these are weak enough to warrant being able to share the bonuses with other creatures. Ideally I would have given a long range teleportation effect, but I think this needs more of a combat bent.

[JNAProductions]

Thematic, but kinda weak. Especially the Aura.

Admittedly, Paladin, so it’ll be fine as a weak subclass, but could use some buffs.

[sandmote]

Thematic, but kinda weak. Especially the Aura.

Admittedly, Paladin, so it’ll be fine as a weak subclass, but could use some buffs.

Thank you for the assessment; the comment on power is about what I expected.

Ideas for Buffs:
Expand the area of Shout of Fury. 30 feet, guess.
Something to do with Verbal spell components. Removing verbal components could be a bit too strong, and removing all other components might not fit the theme very well.

Maybe replace Establish Diplomacy with a telepathic/silent spell effect?

Grant Mindspeech. As a bonus action you can present your holy symbol, granting magical speech to a creature of your choice within 60 feet that you can see. Until the end of your next turn, the target can communicate telepathically to any other creature within 60 feet whether or not they have a common language and can cast spells without requiring verbal spell components.