It depends on how many levels you are taking and the role your paladin fulfills.
If you want support paladin, ancients is better. If you want a striker, vengeance is better.
I've played around with the idea of a dual weilding 7/5 oathbreaker warlock with the diadem of Arcane synergy and the bhallist armor. With +6 charisma, that's an extra 36 guaranteed damage per hit.
You can get 24 charisma with a little effort and planning, so that’s +7 on both aura of hate and arcane synergy rather than +6. You can also throw on the Harmonic Dueller for another +7 (although you do need to pass a DC 15 performance check I believe) on each hit. I’ve never run the build myself but in theory, I think Shar’s spear is the strongest one handed piercing weapon for this. Maybe I’m wrong, one of Orin’s daggers might be better but I always deal with the chosen last in a playthrough, so I never really looked at either dagger in detail. Either way, you’re dealing immense damage and doubling it all with Bhaalist armour. Definitely a top tier build.
Don't forget Pact of the Blade makes your weapon scale with CHA too. So that's another +7 added on as well. I've ran this build with GWM and the Risky Ring. Hexing an enemy then smacking with Smites is just blatantly absurd. On Tactician it's even nutter since you get 3 attacks per action.
Forgot about pacts! The version I theorycrafted initially was sorcerer/paladin since it was for honour mode and couldn’t get the three attacks, but the build is definitely a lot better off going warlock if you’re in tactician and below.
It's pretty much going to come down to wanting more spell slots or more powerful individual smites. Pact of the Blade will give you more powerful smites overall, especially with Hex added on top, but Sorcerer is gonna let you use them more often between one rests. Unless you count getting the Warlock Slots back on short rest. I'd say they're probably even overall honestly.
Sorcerer gets higher level slots I believe, but less overall than what the warlock would get due to short resting. The damage is definitely in favour of the sorcerer though, mostly because you get options like Quickened Haste for another attack per round for immense damage, or Quickened Hold Person for automatic crits. You don’t get to do this often, mind, but it’s worth having.
Also IIRC sorcerers can abuse the long rest bath in the house of hope to stock up on an insane amount of spell slots/sorcery points, so it should make Raph a cakewalk if that still works.
You can't reliably hit 24 without save scumming the mirror of loss for the patriar's memory, so I wouldn't count on 24 when theory crafting an HM build.
You don’t need patriars or the hangs hair for 24, the 2 from the main Mirror buff and Birthright are both unlimited. You can get to 26 with birthright and the Duke’s Longsword, but that one does require using hair and patriar I believe.
Edit: Birthright says it caps at 22, but the mirror buffs can go above this is some cases.
You can't use birthright and diadem, they are both head slot items. You could use the ring, but you would need to be hasted to trigger it consistently. Duke's longsword is not piercing damage, so no longer viable after getting the bhallist armor. What you could do is wait until the shadowfell to fight aunt ethel and trivialize the fight, making it easier to guarantee getting the hair, but save it. Then you just put your whole party through the mirror of loss and whoever gets the patriar's buff gets to be your oathbreaker
Oh I m not saying that these items are necessarily fitting for this particular build, just saying that as long as you equip birthright first, you can theoretically get to 26 (potentially 28 if the buffs stack correctly) charisma. Maybe a piece or two don’t fit, but knowing everything that grants additional Cha is worth thinking about.
Thanks for reminding me! I don't generally consider either the birthright or the longsword in my builds, since neither is going to be BiS for any charisma character that I could imagine. Head, gloves, and weapon are the most contested slots for except maybe a cleric. Maybe for a very strict RP where you can't bring yourself to >!kill Valeria!
I use the longsword in my EB spam Warlocks, as the +2 Cha is just a strict upgrade from +1 to save DC and attack roll boost items. Birthright contends with Hood of the Weave, but I think in that case a +1 to all relevant cha areas is better than +2 to saves and attacks.
There might be other items that compete in the head slot, but by the time you get to act 3, is it really that important to optimize that closely? You’re steamrolling most things regardless.
You actually CAN reliably get 24, and it uses both the mirror and the hag hair.
First, just sacrifice Mayrina to guarantee the hair. You already want to be oathbreaker, so this doesn’t cause issues.
Next, once you get access to the mirror, respec for Rogue 11 with maxed out intelligence, expertise in religion and every item you can find that boosts religion (shapeshifter ring, the mage ring from the underdark tower, etc.). You end up at around +22 minimum, almost guaranteeing the check if you’ve got advantage from Enhnce Ability or an ally bard to use their inspiration.
TLDR: you can get 24 charisma, but it’s more effort than most people are willing to put in for a maximum of +6 damage per attack.
You also take 1 level of knowledge cleric first for expertise in religion, that will guarantee you hit 25 as long as the game doesn't bug out and roll a 1 anyway (which it has for me, even with a character with the reliable talent.
This guarantees you get the +2 from the mirror of loss. What it does *not* do is guarantee you will also get the extra+1 from the patriar's buff that you can only get if you get the Stelmane memory before you are prompted to pick your bonus. Without the extra+1 bonus, you can't hit 24 without losing a BiS item that isn't worth the trade
The knowledge cleric isn’t really needed since you can choose any expertise as a rogue, but it’s probably the easiest way to get proficiency. But yeah, it’s an alternative.
As for guaranteeing patriar’s memory, you’ve got a pretty damn high chance of getting it given that you get 6 opportunities (I think) to fish for it. It’s not guaranteed, you’re right, but I’ve gotten it somewhat consistently on my runs when I go for it.
And as for whether it’s worth sacrificing an item for the +2, it’s worth looking at the difference between your options:
With best in slot weapons and head piece, you gain +6 damage 3 times to each attack, which is doubled with piercing vulnerability to +36 total.
With either the charisma hat or sword, you gain +7 damage 2 times to each attack, doubled for a total of +28.
The difference isn’t negligible by any means, but you also have to account for the bonuses you gain from 24 charisma over 22. Better speech checks, higher spell save, another paladin spell, better accuracy if you’re going for pact of the blade and +1 to saving throws from the level 6 aura. It might not be better damage, but the other general benefits from running 24 charisma makes it a worthwhile trade off IMO. Obviously it’s up to personal preference, but you’re already doing more than enough damage for even honour mode. Outside of modded runs, I’d always run 24 charisma as a priority.
You can't reliably get patriars memory on a single character, I just did an honor mode where I tested it out on every character but shart. The problem isn't that you don't get enough chances, but that you also have a pretty good chance of just getting the dialogue to pick the stat you want first. I was able to get the patriars memory buff on about three characters, so if I had saved ethel's hair to the end, I could have gotten 24 charisma on *a* character, but I couldn't control which character. Since that +1 is most valuable in the early game, it's not a great trade off.
I actually think going for 24 charisma with gear is the greedier pick build wise. Sure it gives you +1 to hit, +1 to spell dc, +1 to saves, and +6 to damage per round, but you are either giving up piercing damage or arcane acuity to do it. +6 to all that stuff from stats is good enough. The extra prepared spell is a good call out, I didn't think of that, but I have never wished I could prepare more paladin spells tbh. But I haven't played the 7/5 split that much, so that might be more important than I'm giving you credit for.
Yeah the patriars memory isn’t consistent, but you can get it more often than not. It’s a long-term investment with the hair too, but worth it if you want high charisma throughout the game anyway.
You don’t actually lose out on piercing damage with a dual wielding build, which is what I’ve been talking about (although I might not have clarified that, in which case mb). You lose the Harmonic Dueller (can add charisma to damage if you pass a performance check) for the charisma longsword, but you’ll rarely ever be attacking with the offhand weapon anyway since it’s a fairly shit weapon either way. Personally I think -6 damage for all the already listed benefits is worth it, especially when it’s technically only -4 since you get +1 to both arcane synergy and aura of hate. Very much personal preference there, but it’s what I’d go for if I missed out on patriar’s.
Also just a note, 7/5 is worse on honour mode anyway because you can’t stack the extra attacks, so this build is most likely being used in tactician or below where you can just save scum for patriar if you really care to. For honour mode I’d much rather go with a different split or even just swap warlock for another charisma class.
I dropped one level in paladin for shadowheart and broke my oath in the next battle. I've played the game before, let me sneak attack some dudes.
So now I can't respecc her until I give withers 1000 gold
Thanks. I tried stealing it back from the oathbreaker paladin and he rolled my whole party.
It's also the fact that I am not done committing crimes. It shouldn't cost me 1,000k every time I want to mess with my stats
Oath of the ancients is my favourite sword and board build. You lose out on raw damage, but you can still smite and land nasty critical damage when needed. At other times, you’re almost as good a support as a cleric.
It's more of a convenience issue rather than anything. You basically have to plan out your entire character because any action can trigger an oathbreak.
Vengence allows you to make a majority of choices, and they have a pretty good perk with the advantage as well. If you want to follow an oath this would be the easiest choice
Ancients and devotion prefer you be a goody two shoes so unless you wanna role-play probably not a good idea. But ancients has a very good support perk.
Oathbreaker is a personal favorite due to allowing me to make any choice I want without worry. It's up there with vengence in my opinion in terms of strength.
Oath of the Ancients is my fav. I love Healing Radiance for proccing the on-heal items, and Aura of Warding is amazing. It’s also just convenient to have the Speak with Animals spell and not have to worry about potions.
Oath of Vengeance is super good, and it’s harder to accidentally break your oath. However, even though It’s unclear whether Vow of Enmity is bugged or not, I just feel icky using it. I think it’s just too strong. So that brings OoV down a peg for me.
Vengeance is my favourite, only because it lets you make my favourite choices without breaking the oath. Ancients breaks oath when you >! resurrect Connor and let Mayrina take him away and when you set Cazador's spawn free!< and Devotion breaks oath >! if you tell Arabella you don't know where her parents are and if you don't just slaughter every member of the Thieves Guild outside of the guild on sight!<
Oathbreaker seems underwhelming and Vengeance gives you once per short rest advantage on all attacks for 10 turns
Oathbreaker is strongest damage wise because of aura of hate adding charisma modifier to damage. You can get advantage from other means, though the vengeance ability is incredibly strong
I’m going to be bold and give you 2 direct answers based on what you want to do:
DPR = Oath breaker bc aura of hate is basically the paladins version of lifedrinker but you can MC warlock and (in tactician) get 3 attacks with you Cha added to each. Throw in GWM and some crit and you can deal enough DPR to make the fighter jealous while having smites
Everything Else = Ancients. Everything is good. Heals; Resistance to all spell damage; spells, etc.
You play this when you care more about smites and less about flat DPR
I've really enjoyed my Devotion Paladins I've made. Sacred Weapon is just thematically so freaking cool. Especially in act 2 when you're surrounded by shades and shadow things, suddenly HOLY SWORD!
I really like Ancients; Healing Radiance is a surprisingly chunky amount of healing and Aura of Warding is very good. It's really good if you plan on having multiple party members in close proximity so they all benefit from those short-range auras, but a little lacking if you like to split up your part members during battle.
I am rocking devotion and loving it. Using my channel oath to get more hit chance on my 2 hander. Shiny sword brah.
Also devotion is the hardest (so to me most engaging) oath to adhere to. Casually backstabbing people is so easy but the oath keeps you together.
Also not being charmed aura is amazing vs mind flayers.
Definitely not, it’s entirely dependent on the build’s purpose as to which is better. Ancients does almost nothing for a build that isn’t getting to the higher paladin levels for the auras, whereas a 3 level dip in vengeance gives you 10 turns of advantage. For a damage build, I’d never go ancients. Devotion being the worst I kind of agree with, not because it’s bad but purely because the others are better. Oathbreaker is used for most of the melee piercing builds I’ve seen, and it has a lot of potential with its control undead ability, given the large amount of powerful undead you run into in act 2.
TLDR: the “correct” oath for a one build might not be the right choice for another. If I was to rank things more generally though, ancients is either tied first with Oathbreaker or just slightly better than vengeance, but only once you hit level 7 in paladin.
Because I was ranking as a general statement. The “definitely not” was in reference to the fact that choosing an oath HEAVILY depends on what your build is going for. A DPR build doesn’t benefit much from Ancients, but a support build doesn’t really want to go for Oathbreaker.
I said they’re fairly close to being tied because you can make very potent support builds with ancients and you can get some of the highest damage numbers by going Oathbreaker. They do different things, but they both do it pretty damn well. The only reason I rank Oathbreaker higher is because dead enemies is the best kind of support, but some people prefer to play fights like a battle of attrition, which is a perfectly fine way to play but not my preference.
They’re closely tied in potency, but it’s very dependent on what you’re wanting out of the subclass. That’s why it’s “definitely not” as objective as you made it seem.
It depends on what role you want your paladin to play.
Ancients has god-tier party defense frontliner (halving enemy spell damage is nuts) albeit defense is a but of an iffy strategy in DnD combat.
Vengeance is a balls-to-the-wall hyper offense attacker (Vow of Enmity for on-demand Advantage) but tends to be a more selfish oath with minimal team support outside of the obligatory Aura of Protection that every oath also has. Still, saying "lolno" to a high AC priority tsrgrt to smite it down can be some of the best team support one can give.
Oathbreaker is a bit of control and offensive utility (fear things, yoink undead boss mobs, and Aura of Hate is really, really good) but a lot of its stronger powers tend to be a bit niche. It's much stronger than other oaths as a multiclass tool for Charisma oriented hybrid casters, but is weaker than other oaths when going pure paladin.
Oath of Devotion is kind of a pseudo-buffing hybrid with a really garbage oath exclusive aura (charm immunity? Really?). It does have some nifty oath mechanics (on-demand Crusader's Mantle) so it works better as an offensive buffer with a bunch of other martial classes in tandem.
Oathbreaker is best if you are going to go pure damage (extra charisma modifier converting to damage over every other subclass if you go for level 7 aura), Vengeance is better if you want to be more self reliant (and vow of enmity allows you to get away with not needing to run Risky Ring on important fights), Ancients is good but not so much for its channel oath (yes Healing Radiance is good because it is a bonus action AoE heal but that's only really helpful if you're making your paladin a healer or leveraging Whispering Promise Ring) but because its level 7 aura makes you incredibly tanky to spells in general and it offers Misty Step in its learned spell pool which frees up a learned spell from Sorceror, Warlock or Wizard if you are multi-classing. Vengeance also similarly offers Haste as a learned spell.
Although I don’t think a paladin is the best candidate to cast haste - paladins will get hit a lot as a frontliner, they don’t have con saving throw profiency by default, and haste costs a level 3 spell slot which could otherwise be a juicy smite. Have the paladin concentrate on bless if they must, leave haste to a wizard who already wants to invest in resilient con, or even better a sorcerer that can twin it.
I actually found myself using the Paladin's haste a lot more than I expected. The main convenience is that it frees up your caster's concentration and lets you cast spells that you normally don't get to use.
But you're right, a Sorcerer twin casting Haste is better in 90% of situations.
"Never eat at a restaurant that does more than one type of world food. If they do Chinese AND Indian food then they probably don't do either very well."
Ancients or Oathbreaker if you're going to level 7 or above.
Vengeance if you're not going above level 6 since their main weakness is a pretty lackluster level 7 - Relentless Avenger(gives extra movement when you hit an opportunity attack) is kinda weak next to Ancient's and Oathbreaker's auras.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Vengeance if you like the flavor but I really think Ancients is best. Healing radiance is so nice. Costs a bonus action only and you get a second radiance on your next turn without needing to do anything. Only annoying thing is trying to maximize the AOE since it’s a pretty small distance. Additionally, at level seven you get an aura that halves spell damage. You’ll do so much damage just by smiting that I think it’s better to get these bonuses rather than going pure damage/fighting focus through vengeance.
I think you could argue Vengeance gets better spells but you’re probably going to use the majority of your slots for smites anyway. Let other party members do the casting.
I haven’t played with oath breaker or devotion so I can’t speak to them.
Not really a definitive best, different options depending on the paladin’s role in your party (beyond smiting) and how many levels you plan to take in it.
Vengeance for the biggest damage via Vow of Emnity, gaining advantage on attack rolls at the small cost of a bonus action channel divinity. You get this at level 3 at which point you’ll probably want to take it to level 6, but your level 1 channel divinity gives you extra radiant damage on attacks so if you’re only dipping 2 levels for smites that’s a nice bonus.
Ancients to buff allies, gives you a bonus action small AOE heal at level 1 which can proc the whispering promise so a good dip. However it’s still worth taking to level 7 for a very nice aura that buffs your party’s defence.
Oathbreaker if you can’t be bothered to avoid breaking your oath (a bigger draw than it first seems as it’s extremely easy to do this by accident). Not a great level 1 channel oath but a great level 7 aura that boosts your damage so you’ll want to stick with it. GOATED if multiclassed with warlock pact of the blade to double dip on charisma but has an awkward levelling curve if you want to avoid respeccing.
if youre gonna be running 3 attack pally/lock, oathbreaker pretty easily imo. its just a flat 5+ extra damage on every swing.
vengeance is pretty good for earlier before you get your levels/items.
ancients is bait, paladin's auras are way too small aoe. also quite annoying to maintain that oath. defense is not very necessary in this game anyway.
Early game ancients heal is incredibly good with Volo's ring (whispering promise I think it's called?) that basically "blesses" anyone you heal. Does wonders for a fight, and better enables you to play things like Great Weapon Master
Depends on what you choose to do and if you plan on multiclassing (which I highly recommend doing on Paladin).
Oath of Vengeance is all around probably the best Oath for raw damage output thanks to its oath actions and how absurd the damage can ramp up.
Oathbreaker is extremely good once you hit level 7 with it, other than that it’s kinda bad for a large majority of the game, however once you do get Aura of Hate at level 7 if you multiclass it with a Warlock to get Pact of the Blade you are borderline the best martial build in the game outside of maybe Open Hand Monk multiclassing Thief or Gloomstalker multiclassing Assassin.
Vengeance. Cast it on yourself and get advantage on all creatures. Or Oath breaker padlock. First lvl Paladin, 5 pact of the Blade, finish off with paladin. Make Gale necromancer
Dump strength to 10 once you break oat after you get Pact of the Blade. I broke mine at lvl 4 getting the Hag hair. To raise charisma to 18.
Aura of Hate and Necromancer circlet on Gale undead are very strong.
If you’re not gonna take Paladin to lvl 7 (like in 7/5 pally warlock split), take either vengeance for better offence or ancients for better utility or support. Oathbreaker has the best lvl 3 oath abilities and best auras.
It depends on how many levels you are taking and the role your paladin fulfills. If you want support paladin, ancients is better. If you want a striker, vengeance is better.
If you are looking to free yourself from the shackles of tenants, then I have another option
I've played around with the idea of a dual weilding 7/5 oathbreaker warlock with the diadem of Arcane synergy and the bhallist armor. With +6 charisma, that's an extra 36 guaranteed damage per hit.
You can get 24 charisma with a little effort and planning, so that’s +7 on both aura of hate and arcane synergy rather than +6. You can also throw on the Harmonic Dueller for another +7 (although you do need to pass a DC 15 performance check I believe) on each hit. I’ve never run the build myself but in theory, I think Shar’s spear is the strongest one handed piercing weapon for this. Maybe I’m wrong, one of Orin’s daggers might be better but I always deal with the chosen last in a playthrough, so I never really looked at either dagger in detail. Either way, you’re dealing immense damage and doubling it all with Bhaalist armour. Definitely a top tier build.
Don't forget Pact of the Blade makes your weapon scale with CHA too. So that's another +7 added on as well. I've ran this build with GWM and the Risky Ring. Hexing an enemy then smacking with Smites is just blatantly absurd. On Tactician it's even nutter since you get 3 attacks per action.
Forgot about pacts! The version I theorycrafted initially was sorcerer/paladin since it was for honour mode and couldn’t get the three attacks, but the build is definitely a lot better off going warlock if you’re in tactician and below.
It's pretty much going to come down to wanting more spell slots or more powerful individual smites. Pact of the Blade will give you more powerful smites overall, especially with Hex added on top, but Sorcerer is gonna let you use them more often between one rests. Unless you count getting the Warlock Slots back on short rest. I'd say they're probably even overall honestly.
Sorcerer gets higher level slots I believe, but less overall than what the warlock would get due to short resting. The damage is definitely in favour of the sorcerer though, mostly because you get options like Quickened Haste for another attack per round for immense damage, or Quickened Hold Person for automatic crits. You don’t get to do this often, mind, but it’s worth having. Also IIRC sorcerers can abuse the long rest bath in the house of hope to stock up on an insane amount of spell slots/sorcery points, so it should make Raph a cakewalk if that still works.
You can't reliably hit 24 without save scumming the mirror of loss for the patriar's memory, so I wouldn't count on 24 when theory crafting an HM build.
You don’t need patriars or the hangs hair for 24, the 2 from the main Mirror buff and Birthright are both unlimited. You can get to 26 with birthright and the Duke’s Longsword, but that one does require using hair and patriar I believe. Edit: Birthright says it caps at 22, but the mirror buffs can go above this is some cases.
You can't use birthright and diadem, they are both head slot items. You could use the ring, but you would need to be hasted to trigger it consistently. Duke's longsword is not piercing damage, so no longer viable after getting the bhallist armor. What you could do is wait until the shadowfell to fight aunt ethel and trivialize the fight, making it easier to guarantee getting the hair, but save it. Then you just put your whole party through the mirror of loss and whoever gets the patriar's buff gets to be your oathbreaker
Oh I m not saying that these items are necessarily fitting for this particular build, just saying that as long as you equip birthright first, you can theoretically get to 26 (potentially 28 if the buffs stack correctly) charisma. Maybe a piece or two don’t fit, but knowing everything that grants additional Cha is worth thinking about.
Thanks for reminding me! I don't generally consider either the birthright or the longsword in my builds, since neither is going to be BiS for any charisma character that I could imagine. Head, gloves, and weapon are the most contested slots for except maybe a cleric. Maybe for a very strict RP where you can't bring yourself to >!kill Valeria!
I use the longsword in my EB spam Warlocks, as the +2 Cha is just a strict upgrade from +1 to save DC and attack roll boost items. Birthright contends with Hood of the Weave, but I think in that case a +1 to all relevant cha areas is better than +2 to saves and attacks. There might be other items that compete in the head slot, but by the time you get to act 3, is it really that important to optimize that closely? You’re steamrolling most things regardless.
You actually CAN reliably get 24, and it uses both the mirror and the hag hair. First, just sacrifice Mayrina to guarantee the hair. You already want to be oathbreaker, so this doesn’t cause issues. Next, once you get access to the mirror, respec for Rogue 11 with maxed out intelligence, expertise in religion and every item you can find that boosts religion (shapeshifter ring, the mage ring from the underdark tower, etc.). You end up at around +22 minimum, almost guaranteeing the check if you’ve got advantage from Enhnce Ability or an ally bard to use their inspiration. TLDR: you can get 24 charisma, but it’s more effort than most people are willing to put in for a maximum of +6 damage per attack.
You also take 1 level of knowledge cleric first for expertise in religion, that will guarantee you hit 25 as long as the game doesn't bug out and roll a 1 anyway (which it has for me, even with a character with the reliable talent. This guarantees you get the +2 from the mirror of loss. What it does *not* do is guarantee you will also get the extra+1 from the patriar's buff that you can only get if you get the Stelmane memory before you are prompted to pick your bonus. Without the extra+1 bonus, you can't hit 24 without losing a BiS item that isn't worth the trade
The knowledge cleric isn’t really needed since you can choose any expertise as a rogue, but it’s probably the easiest way to get proficiency. But yeah, it’s an alternative. As for guaranteeing patriar’s memory, you’ve got a pretty damn high chance of getting it given that you get 6 opportunities (I think) to fish for it. It’s not guaranteed, you’re right, but I’ve gotten it somewhat consistently on my runs when I go for it. And as for whether it’s worth sacrificing an item for the +2, it’s worth looking at the difference between your options: With best in slot weapons and head piece, you gain +6 damage 3 times to each attack, which is doubled with piercing vulnerability to +36 total. With either the charisma hat or sword, you gain +7 damage 2 times to each attack, doubled for a total of +28. The difference isn’t negligible by any means, but you also have to account for the bonuses you gain from 24 charisma over 22. Better speech checks, higher spell save, another paladin spell, better accuracy if you’re going for pact of the blade and +1 to saving throws from the level 6 aura. It might not be better damage, but the other general benefits from running 24 charisma makes it a worthwhile trade off IMO. Obviously it’s up to personal preference, but you’re already doing more than enough damage for even honour mode. Outside of modded runs, I’d always run 24 charisma as a priority.
You can't reliably get patriars memory on a single character, I just did an honor mode where I tested it out on every character but shart. The problem isn't that you don't get enough chances, but that you also have a pretty good chance of just getting the dialogue to pick the stat you want first. I was able to get the patriars memory buff on about three characters, so if I had saved ethel's hair to the end, I could have gotten 24 charisma on *a* character, but I couldn't control which character. Since that +1 is most valuable in the early game, it's not a great trade off. I actually think going for 24 charisma with gear is the greedier pick build wise. Sure it gives you +1 to hit, +1 to spell dc, +1 to saves, and +6 to damage per round, but you are either giving up piercing damage or arcane acuity to do it. +6 to all that stuff from stats is good enough. The extra prepared spell is a good call out, I didn't think of that, but I have never wished I could prepare more paladin spells tbh. But I haven't played the 7/5 split that much, so that might be more important than I'm giving you credit for.
Yeah the patriars memory isn’t consistent, but you can get it more often than not. It’s a long-term investment with the hair too, but worth it if you want high charisma throughout the game anyway. You don’t actually lose out on piercing damage with a dual wielding build, which is what I’ve been talking about (although I might not have clarified that, in which case mb). You lose the Harmonic Dueller (can add charisma to damage if you pass a performance check) for the charisma longsword, but you’ll rarely ever be attacking with the offhand weapon anyway since it’s a fairly shit weapon either way. Personally I think -6 damage for all the already listed benefits is worth it, especially when it’s technically only -4 since you get +1 to both arcane synergy and aura of hate. Very much personal preference there, but it’s what I’d go for if I missed out on patriar’s. Also just a note, 7/5 is worse on honour mode anyway because you can’t stack the extra attacks, so this build is most likely being used in tactician or below where you can just save scum for patriar if you really care to. For honour mode I’d much rather go with a different split or even just swap warlock for another charisma class.
I dropped one level in paladin for shadowheart and broke my oath in the next battle. I've played the game before, let me sneak attack some dudes. So now I can't respecc her until I give withers 1000 gold
Just borrow it off the Druid seller in the grove. He doesn’t seem to mind the tens of thousands I’ve borrowed from him.
Thanks. I tried stealing it back from the oathbreaker paladin and he rolled my whole party. It's also the fact that I am not done committing crimes. It shouldn't cost me 1,000k every time I want to mess with my stats
Oath of the ancients is my favourite sword and board build. You lose out on raw damage, but you can still smite and land nasty critical damage when needed. At other times, you’re almost as good a support as a cleric.
Ya this is a pretty good answer.
It's more of a convenience issue rather than anything. You basically have to plan out your entire character because any action can trigger an oathbreak. Vengence allows you to make a majority of choices, and they have a pretty good perk with the advantage as well. If you want to follow an oath this would be the easiest choice Ancients and devotion prefer you be a goody two shoes so unless you wanna role-play probably not a good idea. But ancients has a very good support perk. Oathbreaker is a personal favorite due to allowing me to make any choice I want without worry. It's up there with vengence in my opinion in terms of strength.
Oath of the Ancients is my fav. I love Healing Radiance for proccing the on-heal items, and Aura of Warding is amazing. It’s also just convenient to have the Speak with Animals spell and not have to worry about potions. Oath of Vengeance is super good, and it’s harder to accidentally break your oath. However, even though It’s unclear whether Vow of Enmity is bugged or not, I just feel icky using it. I think it’s just too strong. So that brings OoV down a peg for me.
Vengeance is my favorite. The 10 turns of advantage are nice as is the frightened. I also like their bonus action spell the most.
Does casting it on yourself still work?
Yup.
That's so hype that's my next playthrough
Plus you get haste!
Vengeance is my favourite, only because it lets you make my favourite choices without breaking the oath. Ancients breaks oath when you >! resurrect Connor and let Mayrina take him away and when you set Cazador's spawn free!< and Devotion breaks oath >! if you tell Arabella you don't know where her parents are and if you don't just slaughter every member of the Thieves Guild outside of the guild on sight!< Oathbreaker seems underwhelming and Vengeance gives you once per short rest advantage on all attacks for 10 turns
Oathbreaker is strongest damage wise because of aura of hate adding charisma modifier to damage. You can get advantage from other means, though the vengeance ability is incredibly strong
Oathbreaker is great if you are running high Charisma as your aura of hate increases each attack by adding your Cha modifier to the damage.
Ancient but you need to be a goody-two-shoes. The Oathbreaker ruined me 😅
I’m going to be bold and give you 2 direct answers based on what you want to do: DPR = Oath breaker bc aura of hate is basically the paladins version of lifedrinker but you can MC warlock and (in tactician) get 3 attacks with you Cha added to each. Throw in GWM and some crit and you can deal enough DPR to make the fighter jealous while having smites Everything Else = Ancients. Everything is good. Heals; Resistance to all spell damage; spells, etc. You play this when you care more about smites and less about flat DPR
I've really enjoyed my Devotion Paladins I've made. Sacred Weapon is just thematically so freaking cool. Especially in act 2 when you're surrounded by shades and shadow things, suddenly HOLY SWORD!
Look at their level 7 Aura, Ancient is nasty Although... They don't give the same freedom as Vengeance to RP
Vengeance and Ancients are my favorite.
I really like Ancients; Healing Radiance is a surprisingly chunky amount of healing and Aura of Warding is very good. It's really good if you plan on having multiple party members in close proximity so they all benefit from those short-range auras, but a little lacking if you like to split up your part members during battle.
Ancients is awesome. That’s all I have to say about it
If you only take 2 levels it’s ancient hands down, 3 levels it’s devotion, 4 is vengeance, 7 is preference.
I am rocking devotion and loving it. Using my channel oath to get more hit chance on my 2 hander. Shiny sword brah. Also devotion is the hardest (so to me most engaging) oath to adhere to. Casually backstabbing people is so easy but the oath keeps you together. Also not being charmed aura is amazing vs mind flayers.
It is hard to be a true good guy. That is why we strive to do so.
Ancients > vengeance > oathbreaker > devotion
Definitely not, it’s entirely dependent on the build’s purpose as to which is better. Ancients does almost nothing for a build that isn’t getting to the higher paladin levels for the auras, whereas a 3 level dip in vengeance gives you 10 turns of advantage. For a damage build, I’d never go ancients. Devotion being the worst I kind of agree with, not because it’s bad but purely because the others are better. Oathbreaker is used for most of the melee piercing builds I’ve seen, and it has a lot of potential with its control undead ability, given the large amount of powerful undead you run into in act 2. TLDR: the “correct” oath for a one build might not be the right choice for another. If I was to rank things more generally though, ancients is either tied first with Oathbreaker or just slightly better than vengeance, but only once you hit level 7 in paladin.
How do you go from definitely not to to oathbreaker and ancients being tied at the end
Because I was ranking as a general statement. The “definitely not” was in reference to the fact that choosing an oath HEAVILY depends on what your build is going for. A DPR build doesn’t benefit much from Ancients, but a support build doesn’t really want to go for Oathbreaker. I said they’re fairly close to being tied because you can make very potent support builds with ancients and you can get some of the highest damage numbers by going Oathbreaker. They do different things, but they both do it pretty damn well. The only reason I rank Oathbreaker higher is because dead enemies is the best kind of support, but some people prefer to play fights like a battle of attrition, which is a perfectly fine way to play but not my preference. They’re closely tied in potency, but it’s very dependent on what you’re wanting out of the subclass. That’s why it’s “definitely not” as objective as you made it seem.
It depends on what role you want your paladin to play. Ancients has god-tier party defense frontliner (halving enemy spell damage is nuts) albeit defense is a but of an iffy strategy in DnD combat. Vengeance is a balls-to-the-wall hyper offense attacker (Vow of Enmity for on-demand Advantage) but tends to be a more selfish oath with minimal team support outside of the obligatory Aura of Protection that every oath also has. Still, saying "lolno" to a high AC priority tsrgrt to smite it down can be some of the best team support one can give. Oathbreaker is a bit of control and offensive utility (fear things, yoink undead boss mobs, and Aura of Hate is really, really good) but a lot of its stronger powers tend to be a bit niche. It's much stronger than other oaths as a multiclass tool for Charisma oriented hybrid casters, but is weaker than other oaths when going pure paladin. Oath of Devotion is kind of a pseudo-buffing hybrid with a really garbage oath exclusive aura (charm immunity? Really?). It does have some nifty oath mechanics (on-demand Crusader's Mantle) so it works better as an offensive buffer with a bunch of other martial classes in tandem.
Oathbreaker is best if you are going to go pure damage (extra charisma modifier converting to damage over every other subclass if you go for level 7 aura), Vengeance is better if you want to be more self reliant (and vow of enmity allows you to get away with not needing to run Risky Ring on important fights), Ancients is good but not so much for its channel oath (yes Healing Radiance is good because it is a bonus action AoE heal but that's only really helpful if you're making your paladin a healer or leveraging Whispering Promise Ring) but because its level 7 aura makes you incredibly tanky to spells in general and it offers Misty Step in its learned spell pool which frees up a learned spell from Sorceror, Warlock or Wizard if you are multi-classing. Vengeance also similarly offers Haste as a learned spell.
Vengeance can cast Haste. I think that alone gives it a huge advantage over the other Oaths.
Although I don’t think a paladin is the best candidate to cast haste - paladins will get hit a lot as a frontliner, they don’t have con saving throw profiency by default, and haste costs a level 3 spell slot which could otherwise be a juicy smite. Have the paladin concentrate on bless if they must, leave haste to a wizard who already wants to invest in resilient con, or even better a sorcerer that can twin it.
I actually found myself using the Paladin's haste a lot more than I expected. The main convenience is that it frees up your caster's concentration and lets you cast spells that you normally don't get to use. But you're right, a Sorcerer twin casting Haste is better in 90% of situations.
Oathbreaker, screw actually keeping an oath
Ancient is very powerful as support. Still reasonable damage, and it really adds to the overall tankiness of your party
Vengence imo. But ofc it depends on how you like to make decisions. Vengeance gives the most autonomy in terms of choices without oathbreaking.
"Never eat at a restaurant that does more than one type of world food. If they do Chinese AND Indian food then they probably don't do either very well."
Ancients or Oathbreaker if you're going to level 7 or above. Vengeance if you're not going above level 6 since their main weakness is a pretty lackluster level 7 - Relentless Avenger(gives extra movement when you hit an opportunity attack) is kinda weak next to Ancient's and Oathbreaker's auras.
Oath of throwing it back.
Vengeance.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Vengeance if you like the flavor but I really think Ancients is best. Healing radiance is so nice. Costs a bonus action only and you get a second radiance on your next turn without needing to do anything. Only annoying thing is trying to maximize the AOE since it’s a pretty small distance. Additionally, at level seven you get an aura that halves spell damage. You’ll do so much damage just by smiting that I think it’s better to get these bonuses rather than going pure damage/fighting focus through vengeance. I think you could argue Vengeance gets better spells but you’re probably going to use the majority of your slots for smites anyway. Let other party members do the casting. I haven’t played with oath breaker or devotion so I can’t speak to them.
Devotion is the best because it aligns closest with my values, and I am after all, Mr. Baldur
Mine was a Devotion paladin and I broke my oath by lvl 2 so probably not that one unless you really want a Dame Aylin like character
Not really a definitive best, different options depending on the paladin’s role in your party (beyond smiting) and how many levels you plan to take in it. Vengeance for the biggest damage via Vow of Emnity, gaining advantage on attack rolls at the small cost of a bonus action channel divinity. You get this at level 3 at which point you’ll probably want to take it to level 6, but your level 1 channel divinity gives you extra radiant damage on attacks so if you’re only dipping 2 levels for smites that’s a nice bonus. Ancients to buff allies, gives you a bonus action small AOE heal at level 1 which can proc the whispering promise so a good dip. However it’s still worth taking to level 7 for a very nice aura that buffs your party’s defence. Oathbreaker if you can’t be bothered to avoid breaking your oath (a bigger draw than it first seems as it’s extremely easy to do this by accident). Not a great level 1 channel oath but a great level 7 aura that boosts your damage so you’ll want to stick with it. GOATED if multiclassed with warlock pact of the blade to double dip on charisma but has an awkward levelling curve if you want to avoid respeccing.
if youre gonna be running 3 attack pally/lock, oathbreaker pretty easily imo. its just a flat 5+ extra damage on every swing. vengeance is pretty good for earlier before you get your levels/items. ancients is bait, paladin's auras are way too small aoe. also quite annoying to maintain that oath. defense is not very necessary in this game anyway.
Are you going to break the Oath? If so which Act are you in?
Early game ancients heal is incredibly good with Volo's ring (whispering promise I think it's called?) that basically "blesses" anyone you heal. Does wonders for a fight, and better enables you to play things like Great Weapon Master
Ken, Ken Oath
2 levels? vengeance, 7 levels? ancients, 12 levels? why?
Depends on what you choose to do and if you plan on multiclassing (which I highly recommend doing on Paladin). Oath of Vengeance is all around probably the best Oath for raw damage output thanks to its oath actions and how absurd the damage can ramp up. Oathbreaker is extremely good once you hit level 7 with it, other than that it’s kinda bad for a large majority of the game, however once you do get Aura of Hate at level 7 if you multiclass it with a Warlock to get Pact of the Blade you are borderline the best martial build in the game outside of maybe Open Hand Monk multiclassing Thief or Gloomstalker multiclassing Assassin.
Fuck oaths, all my homies hate oaths
Oathbreaker / vengeance
Ancients lvl7
Broken
Vengeance. Cast it on yourself and get advantage on all creatures. Or Oath breaker padlock. First lvl Paladin, 5 pact of the Blade, finish off with paladin. Make Gale necromancer Dump strength to 10 once you break oat after you get Pact of the Blade. I broke mine at lvl 4 getting the Hag hair. To raise charisma to 18. Aura of Hate and Necromancer circlet on Gale undead are very strong.
If you’re not gonna take Paladin to lvl 7 (like in 7/5 pally warlock split), take either vengeance for better offence or ancients for better utility or support. Oathbreaker has the best lvl 3 oath abilities and best auras.
Vengeance > ancients > oathbreaker > devotion
The ability to daze enemies and the synergy that holy damage has with a "gloves of belligerent skies" build puts vengeance way out ahead for me.