This is not about using a respec mechanic to change your build.
Tiring of being that melee with Str + Cha casting Smite all day, and swapping to something else to fight differently, is not the point here.
This is about the narrative of the Oath itself, not the class / subclass mechanics it goes with.
A paladin gets their power from an oath made with true, honest conviction. It's not something that can be made and unmade willy nilly.
A character for whom an oath was a trivial thing they could buy into or back out of at will (respec mechanic), they could never become a Paladin in the first place. The conviction, the true and honest oath, and therefor the power, would not exist.
The Oaths, should be treated as actual serious narrative oaths, regardless of the state of the characters build.
Once a character takes a Paladin level for the first time, and as such makes an oath, that Oath should be applied not just to the class, but directly to the character.
If they then respec and become, well, any other build, the oath should still be on their list of traits, and they should still be bound to it.
As it stands now, when playing as a Paladin, your oath really just doesn't matter.
If there's every an action you want to take that would be oath-breaking, you just pop over to Withers, respec into whatever else, go take the action that would break the oath, then go back to Withers and respec back into Paladin. Continuing forward having invalidated the very idea of making an oath by abusing a mechanic to do whatever you want with the same freedom a chaotic evil character would have, with no consequence.
This is ridiculous, and absolutely not how that process should work.
How it should work, is that once the oath was made, it directly part of the character regardless of their class. Respec would still let them play with another build, but remaining oathbound.
Upon taking the action in question, they would still have the plotflag of an oath, and still trigger the plotflag of breaking that oath.
It could play out immediately even though they don't have a Paladin level in the moment, or as soon as they try to spec back into Paladin. Better immediately I say. Let the whole of that story play out even if the Paladin class is never actually used again.
Then, just as how the oath was a permanent narrative character train, the Oathbreaker status would also be a permanent narrative character trait.
So respeccing back to Paladin would only allow Oathbreaker, not the other subclasses.
Additionally, with Oaths and Oathbreaker being character traits, not just class traits, we could also rationalize allowing Oathbreakers to respec, which I know various people have been requesting. [Underlined for emphasis because of those requests I've seen.]
There would not be any concern for bypassing the idea of what they've done, or the story of having broken an oath, because it would still be applied to them anyway, regardless of what build they respec to.
Whereas, as I covered earlier, the current system already does allow people to bypass the issue of oath-breaking. Larian blocked Oathbreaker access to respec to force players to address the story having broken an oath, but the same respec mechanic is also allowing them to avoid addressing it even more so than what they've blocked.
Sidenote / plug:
Adding in actual recognition of Paladin consequence of breaking on Oath, as opposed to just making Oathbreaker a subclass and not really utilizing oaths narratively, was a great thing to do.
Kudos to Larian and whoever else should be named for implementing actual oath-breaking.
Now they should take the next step and act on the consequence potential in other classes too, because such notions are not unique to Paladin.
A Cleric should suffer consequence for taking actions disliked by their god. If anything, a cleric would be more at risk of power loss or other consequence than a Paladin would be. Choosing a God should be like choosing and oath, in that it comes with behavioral expectations you have to maintain. Bhaal is not going to grant power to a pacifist (yes I know we can't pick Bhaal). Ilmater clerics are sworn to alleviate suffering, even by taking it. Ilmater isn't going to be so tolerant of one of her people causing suffering or refusing to help.
A Warlock should suffer consequence for taking actions that are contrary to their pact. That shouldn't be unique to Wyll. Non-Wyll warlocks should get actual pacts, akin to paladins having actual Oaths.
Though in a Warlock's case pact terms and subclass wouldn't necessarily be attached to each other. Could be for design ease though. [Shameless insert that cleric subclass reasonably should be deity restricted]
