Unearthed Arcana: Paladin

[TenaciousJ]

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/paladin-sacred-oaths/
http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UAPaladin_SO_20161219_1.pdf

The article lists Oath of Conquest and Oath of Treachery.

Take the survey for last week's monks. http://sgiz.mobi/s3/a6ca24df7196

Next UA is January 9th.

[Wilb]

Well, it seems I was relieved of my UA post , now I'm back to lurking until the forums change to somewhere else once again...

[TenaciousJ]

I didn't know it was a competition.  I saw it, came to the board and didn't see a topic, so I started one.

[Wilb]

No competition involved, its just that I felt that was my job. Once others started doing it more efficiently, its good for everyone, but I need to find something else to do here...

EDIT: 1st oath seems bland, but synergistic at least, as long as the enemy is not immune to charm and fear. The 2nd one seems apt for a sneaky character.

[TenaciousJ]

Oath of Conquest

Here's the lawful evil-ish oath.  They want it to be LE anyway, but it's just fine as LG or LN to me.  The oath spells are pretty good, but Armor of Agathys is an odd choice without the warlock's scaling pact magic slots.  I'm not certain a single-classed paladin would have enough casting power behind it to keep that spell relevant.  The Channel Divinity options are solid, though Guided Strike is notably weaker than comparable options in Devotion or Vengeance.  Aura of Conquest looks very powerful in the right party.  Immunity to charm is pretty good.  Invincible Conquerer is one of the better level 20 abilities conceived for the paladin so far.

Oath of Treachery

Here's the chaotic evil oath, and it's listed as an alternative to the Oathbreaker.  It's even called a blackguard in fluff.  This one has a fantastic set of oath spells.  Channel Divinity looks like the Trickery cleric's option and the Poison Strike option adds yet another way for a paladin to stack lots of damage on a single hit.  Aura of Treachery's first option is pretty good.  Turn Pack Tactics against the monsters that use it.  The second one is a little odd for having a limit, but it's not unprecedented ability.  Blackguard's Escape is just Archfey warlock's Misty Step 9 levels later.  Icon of Deceit is another rather strong level 20 ability.  With Icon of Deceit and Channel Divinity: Poison Strike going, you could cast Banishing Smite and get a single hit for 5d10+5d8+60 before factoring in weapon damage.

Conquest seems like another archetype that you'd likely multiclass out of after level 6 or 7.  Treachery has enough compelling 4th level spells to at least get you to consider staying in longer.

e: Poison Strike explicitly happens after the hit, so it doesn't critically hit.  Still, it's a pretty crazy feature at the level it's obtained.  With advantage, it's +23 to damage at level 3.  It's also a "smite" that doesn't break Invisibility or any other concentration spell to prepare.

[sambojin]

I meant to ask this a while ago, how would Conjure Duplicate interact with other personal illusions in your mind? Such as the Firbolg's Disguise Self (or basically, the spell)? Would your duplicate look like your glamoured self, or your actual appearance? Could be useful either way.


Treachery seems pretty nice though. Lots of ways of generating advantage and nice damage boosts available from it. Good spell list too. Even the capstone is worthwhile. At worst, unbreakable invis for a minute is a lot better than some other capstones, but it can come with +20 damage an attack for a minute (or +60 with divine poison for one attack) for great damage burst, as well as "don't hit me" utility.



Also, for rules lawyering, since "creature" can be yourself, and you are within 5 feet of yourself (for things like spell casting at least), and that goes for other creatures too assumedly, can Treacherous Strike be used to make a creature stab itself? RAI probably not, but RAW maybe.......
I might be thinking of PF definitions for stuff like that. They could probably insert "another" or "different" into that sentence to avoid any rules lawyering. The word "also" probably covers it, but not well.

With the hugely varying power of different abilities for classes at different levels, it really is hard to tell just what is intended rules-wise in 5th.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Conq
3 + 7 is quite tasty feedback, no need for Hex.
Guided Strike = no need for a War Cleric dip, personal fave of mine.

Feels very self contained (idk why, it's just a feeling).


Treachery = et tu Brutus 
Conj Dupe ... does anyone remember the early 4e c.o. Dupe Hax thread/idea?  Hopefully this isn't that bad (or good). 
Agree on the tasty spell list, except Half-caster doing Full-caster shtick isn't necessarily best use or tactics.
Poison idk I think these numbers are out of line, anyone wanna Hard Math it?
7 = pack tactics ; and Treacherous Strike is supposed to be an AOE killer, wtf I think it is.  Fits with the 6 aura idea at least.
15 seems to be priced about right, Misty Step + Quicken + (Swift -> Immediate) + Short Rest recharge.

[sambojin]

Poison seems incredible for how early you get it. But it "sort of" gets worse as the game goes on.

Compared to AS though, is it really that good? It depends on a hell of a lot of factors. Without bothering to math it, I'd ballpark it as about that level of good for damage boosting, better early on, but only because Pallies have quite a lot of other damage boosters too. Not as versatile as AS, and plenty of things resist poison, but it's a nice chunk of damage that doesn't ever whiff in execution (you need to have hit them for it to "pop" anyway).

This maths is too hard, because good or too good is comparative. It's good, and probably too good early on (considering the class's advantage giving abilities), but it's probably not as good as AS at Fighter lvl11+.


It's good enough that it makes other pally oaths not seem as good though. Which is probably where the problem lays. You can read it as "have a free poison smite", or "have a single target mini-AS", or whatever, and it gets nasty damage with advantage. There's lots of ways of getting advantage, especially with this class. So it might be "too good". But there are lots of things that aren't worried by poison, and you can't guarantee advantage either.

[TenaciousJ]

Rules lawyering situations with UA material will get hammered out in the feedback surveys as long as people bother to ask.  If you're not sure how powerful something is supposed to be, put that in the survey too.  Generally class archetypes are only comparable with archetypes within the same class for how powerful they're supposed to be.  Treachery is pretty good, but I'd be hard-pressed to say it's strictly better than Vengeance or Ancients.  Ancients gets a lot more of its power from its defensive capability, which is underrated as offense tends to be more appreciated.  Vengeance sticks to enemies so well and has incredibly useful Channel Divinity options.

While Treachery does have great tricks via its spell list, a lot of those spells could be cast on the paladin by someone else.  It's a fine oath in a vacuum but in the context of some party builds (mechanically, not even touching the RP stuff), it might be more useful to take a different oath.

Conquest's Channel Divinity options are worth a second look because both of them do not cost any actions.

I'm drawing a blank on what AS is supposed to be.

[Childe]

I'm drawing a blank on what AS is supposed to be.

I'm fairly certain ze means Action Surge.

[Wilb]

Conq
3 + 7 is quite tasty feedback, no need for Hex.
Guided Strike = no need for a War Cleric dip, personal fave of mine.

Feels very self contained (idk why, it's just a feeling).
...

And it frees concentration for elemental weapon at high levels! At lower levels (7-9) you just use Wrathful Smite and save the channel for Guided Strike.

[TenaciousJ]

I'm drawing a blank on what AS is supposed to be.

I'm fairly certain ze means Action Surge.

I kept thinking it was supposed to be a smite or something since this is a paladin thread.

[sambojin]

Sorry, I should have specified. It's a pretty common acronym, but not so much in pally threads. Action Surge tends to be the go-to explanation for "how do I get more dpr?", and as Poison Strike is a 1-round damage booster available at low levels, it seemed to be a somewhat fair comparison.

Action Surge is better and far more versatile, but it's hard to ignore the damage numbers of Poison Strike under optimal conditions.

[TenaciousJ]

Weirdly, I'm not used to seeing AS even in fighter threads.  I think a lot of online discussion burned out on talking about Action Surge really early on because it was such an obviously good dip.

I like Poison Strike as-is, but I foresee that getting toned down because things that start strong and taper off later on are always decried by people who never get to play their characters past level 10.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

OK y'all've talked me off the ledge (so to speak).

Green Flame Blade surpasses it easily at level 11.
And while Fire is right there with Poison as most
commonly resisted, it also has that nifty bypass feat

Should an equivalent custom Poison Resistance Item
to bypass like the feat, be a Rare or a Very Rare ?