Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Ways to break Oath of the Ancients

Hello! I was doing my best to play as an Oath of the Ancients paladin, while doing my best to roleplay as a clueless "girl who doesn't yet know she's a paladin inspired by Anne of Green Gables" when I accidentally broke my oath -- by opening Sazza's cage with the justification "nobody deserves to be locked up like that".

I guess that if I squint it kind of makes sense... (as Sazza was trying to snuff out the light of the Druid's Grove, and the game doesn't yet know that my intentions are **pure**) but the tennets imply that there is a certain amount of chaos acceptable to that tennet, and the goblin **was** in mortal danger if she stayed in the Goblin's Grove, what with vengeful tieflings wanting to take out their trauma on her with a bow.

So now I'm a goody-to-shoes Oathbreaker (and poor as a rat to boot, because my Anne will not steal, condone stealing, or even take supplies from those poor refugees), damned for doing something that seems a really grey area. We are not talking about breaking truces, or eating helpless owlbear eggs for dinner here, more like the opposite.

So -- what are the ways in which you can break the Oath of the Ancients? Is there a detailed guide of things to avoid somewhere?

[Edited for OATH OF THE ANCIENTS lived oathbreaking experiences]


FREEING FIENDS
(after striking an agreement "for the greater good")?

- Freeing Sazza from the Druid camp -> Beebee
- Letting the hag go [after freeing Mayrina] -> Painbringer


KILLING INNOCENTS

General:
- Attacking any and all yellow dots

Animals:
- Killing baby owlbear (even if he's "hostile-red"?)
- Eating the owlbear egg -> Swen Vincke

Goblin camp:
- Killing Gribbo -> Count Dooku
- Killing Abdirak -> Count Dooku



[img]https://ibb.co/61sV2q8[/img]

I think, I've read somewhere, that attacking Ragzlin and company when they are not attacking first breaks the Oath. Doesn't matter, that they are an evil bunch of murderhobos, it seems you can't take initiative.

I had a heck of a time figuring this out. what can I do to keep my oath.

I got to the cut scene of the hag ... saved the girl hag escapes... i have broken the oath... Not even sure why

I want to be a paladin not a oath breaker.... so it's a game of eggshells... all encounters are a save and do actions till I get through the encounter alive and oath intact.

They need better guidance I like what they have done.... I hate having to do everything in my power not to break the dang oath.

I broke my oath for some strange reasons. My group is in the old temple of Selune to kill the Leaders together with Helsin.
The Goblins saw me and start the fight. I killed Gribbo in my first try and Abdirak in the second run and always I hear that I have broke my oath.

From my point of view this is not true. They started to attack me and both characters are not innocent.
This must be a bug.

I'm going to keep addding to the top thread with those oath breaking instances you've experienced directly, so that we can get an idea of the moon logic behind this ancient oathbreaking thing.

@Count Dooku, I've had many playthroughs and Abdirak has never been hostile, even when fighting all the goblins at once -- at most he's been a cowering yellow dot. I think that he might be tagged as an innocent bystander somewhere. Same with Gribbo, other than adopting Volo and staring wistfully into the distance she has never attacked my party.

The main issue is that it is VERY HARD to test all the possible oath-breaking scenarios on one playthrough, particularly as the rules are unclear. For instance, who knew that sparing Sazza and the hag would break the oath? Would sparing Mayrina's zombie husband, and allowing her to take him home to find a solution also break both the Devotian and Ancients oaths (even though it **is** merciful, and encourages light, in the sense of aiming to find knowledge and hope?

Does allowing Astarion to feed from you break your oath? He is an undead (albeit sexy) abomination.

Testing this thoroughly would require either an infinite amount of money to buy back the oath, or saving constantly and reloading from the point before breaking the oath for the first time, which seems a little tedious. The player should know as much as the character, to be able to assess if the possibility of breaking the oath is **worth it**, which would lead to a more satisfying character development and storyline.

Besides, I don't regret freeing Sazza; it will allow for a more peaceful access to the Goblin Camp later on - which was the whole logic behind it. However, now I wonder how the endgame plays out if Sazza is still in prison when I defeat Minthara and co. What's her dialogue, etc.?

For devotion, you don't break your oath animating Connor if you naively say you've got a wand of resurrection, say 'oh no!' afterwards, and then Mayrina snatches the wand to take him back to Baldur's Gate.

Basically be helpful, shocked, then clutch at air impotently.

Interesting! What if you have Astarion in the party and you make a couple of insensitive jokes, does the oath break then?

With the new patch they are not marked as yellow. Both characters attacked my group at first before I did anything.
So I think this is a bug.
Another issue which I have in this temple is the destruction of the drums.
If I destroy one of them, Dror Rhagzlin started the attack. Even if nobody could see that I do this.

Not 100% accurate (on Of the Ancient, I haven't tested Devotion).

Non-hostile (yellow) Lae'zel can be killed without causing oath breaking after she's free from her cage and you refuse to let her join the party. or killed in her cage too.
The tieflings who captured her can be killed without oath breaking:
- if you haven't triggered the cutscene yet (i.e. haven't talked to any of them) and attack them at range to start the fight.
- if you select to not take side during the cutscene (use the "leave" options and reject Lae'zel). This start a fight where the tieflings are yellow and Lae'zel is red. No oath breaking for killing all of them. I believe this also happens if you fail the [Paladin][Deception] dialogue choice, but I haven't been unlucky enough to test that one.

Oath breaking only happens if you pick the "attack tielfings" dialogue options. I tested this quite a bit, making sure my Paladin started the hostilities and gave the killing blow to at least one tiefling and/or Lae'zel.

This is so odd --- I would love to understand why what amounts to ambushing and killing three displaced people for no good reason doesn't break the oath, but saying that you will attack them in dialogue (the more honorable option) does.

I wonder if a big part of this oathbreaking feature will go the way of Astarion's water allergy -- AKA completely disappear because it's too hard to implement consistently.

The companions don't appear to be flagged at all, but the tielfings are probably a "bug".

I don't think it's going away, since breaking oaths is an important part of playing as a Paladin in 5e. And the concept of Fallen Paladin is old, very old. Even BG1/BG2 had it.

I didn't mean all oathbreaking, but maybe oathbreaking will be streamlined down to clear "this is an oathbreaking situation" dialogue screen, or a blanket "no killing yellow dots" rule will manifest, or (the better option, in my opinion), paladins will come with a Paladining 101 manual so that for the player's it's crystal clear what they can and cannot do -- or at least as clear as it would be for their characters.

Also wanted to share my oath breaking experience (Oath of Ancients):

I freed Halsin and then asked him to fight with us to clear out the goblins. Everything went well until the room with Plagg, Nik-Nuk, and Crub. The goblins aggroed on sight of Halsin (bear), and as soon as combat ended, I got the oathbreaker cinematic. I was confused and reloaded to see if I'd done something amiss. Nope -- not sure why those goblins triggered the oath break but other goblins and even the Zhent didn't.

I don't mind a sensitive oath that actually needs to be obeyed, but it's frustrating to feel like I stumbled into breaking my oath and don't understand what specifically I did.

I found a case where Of the Ancient should break their oaths but do not: breaking Alfira's lute.

It seems oath breaking is mostly limited to killing creatures right now (or doing decisions that leads to that).

Also, I'm never making that choice again...

I tried this Plagg, Nik-Nuk, and Crub fight some more times and figured out the trigger:

If Wyll has joined you but isn't in your party when you kill PNC, the game breaks your oath -- regardless if you've ever talked to Wyll at camp or adventured with him. I reloaded, added Wyll to my party, talked to him at camp, and had him with me to kill PNC. Oath remained intact.

I would think so, but I'll have to check my save files to confirm.

Other players have complained about oath breaking after animating Connor, so dialogue choices seem to matter. a lot

If you knock out any enemy even demons and after that .
You kill them is breaking for both type of paladin the oath.
I think this is stupid.

That's a weird way to break your oath or not. Looks like some oath breaking trigger is mixed with companion's quest flags maybe.

Fought the rooftop gobbos in Blighted Village and somehow broke my oath. Wyll was with me.