Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Paladin Class Implementation: Discussion & Feedback

Hi folks,

After the nth post talking (understandably) about issues specifically with paladin oathbreaking but struggling to find where it had been discussed before, I thought I'd try a new experiment to see if it helps us have and find constructive discussions about the class.

I'm creating this thread to talk about all things related to the way Larian have implemented paladins in BG3 including, but not limited to, oathbreaking, spells, progression, subclasses, problems and multiclassing paladins.

I'll make it a sticky for now, though obviously if it doesn't get much interest then I'll unsticky it and it can die a quiet death.

If it does work, then I can create similar stickies for other classes. Let me know if there's a specific class you want a thread for.

Cheers,
RQ

I haven't had any paladin issues at all in my lengthy play through. No falls at all, despite Astarion stealing 30k gold.

I am reposting here so the threads are consolidated.

The Paladin class is basically broke. The various Oaths have a generic description but no real guidance on in game options, so you end up being an Oath Breaker and seldom realize what you did wrong. I have an idea on how to fix this.

We get a warning if we are about to steal something from the game. How about a warning when an action or a dialog choice will break the chosen oath? If that is too complicated how about a little more resilience to our Oaths? Maybe you must do something that breaks the oath three or four times before you lose it.

On that note, get the crap rid of the "Oath Breaker" class. When a Paladin breaks his oath, he loses access to the "power" that gave him his special abilities. This does not transfer to another source; it just cuts him off. A Paladin that has fallen from grace is just a fighter. If people want the "evil" necromancy style Paladin there is an option, it was known as an Anti-Paladin. Even those could fall, doing too much good and they become, you guessed it a Fighter.

Finally please remove the option to buy your way back into your oath. If the righteousness of the oath could be bought, especially so cheaply, than it should not have the value and power it does. A BETTER method would be for a sub question that allows a fallen Paladin to redeem himself. He only gets one bite at that apple BTW, if he redeems himself and then breaks oath again he is forever after a fighter.

Paladins are one of the few classes that traditionally have real restrictions and consequences of actions. That was the balance of them being so powerful and something that made them a unique experience to play. The current watered down system just makes them a shadow of what they should be.

Seems like your issue is with 5E not BG3.

Some, but there are some BG3 related issues such as a clear definitions on what will cause an Oath to fail and the falling to the Fallen instead of dropping to fighter. Finally the buying back your Oath instead of earning back, these are BG3 issues.

True but if your main issue is with oathbreaking in general that's 5E. Everything bg3 related you mentioned arises out of that (oathbreaking).

The Oathbreaker subclass for Paladins is an official part of 5e (source: Dungeon Master's Guide). Since BG3 is based on 5e, I'm totally fine with the Oatherbreaker being part of BG3. There's no need to outright "ban" it from the game just because some players don't like it and prefer to handle oathbreaking in another way (with the paladin just losing all powers). Becoming an Oathbreaker is a heavy consequence in itself, and I personally love the concept of Oathbreakers being fallen Paladins who are slowly consumed by some mysterious darkness seeping out of the spiritual wound that breaking the oath has left on their very soul. However, I fully agree that BG3 should handle oathbreaking differently. That's why I'd like to see the following changes:

1. There should be some kind of warning when the player is about to make a decision that would break their character's oath. Make dialogue options that will lead to oathbreaking appear in a different colour, or put in a confirmation prompt such as "You feel your consience twitch and realise that you are about to break your sacred oath. Do you really want to continue on this path?"; if the player clicks "no", the action in question should be canceled. It's totally strange to assume that a Paladin has no idea what actions will break their oath.

2. If an Oathbreaker wishes to redeem themselves, make them do an "act of penance". There is so much content in BG3 that adding another small side quest or short cutscene just for Paladins doesn't seem excessive. If you want to make this a gold sink, let it require some expensive item (a special kind of incense that needs to be burned when the Paladin is swearing a new oath or something like this). But buying yourself back into an oath doesn't make any sense.

Just my two cents.

Edit: Typos.

In DnD 5e the Anti-Paladin appears to be gone (homebrue), seemingly replaced by Oathbreaker paladin.

I agree, currently $ 0.04.

The entire concept of Oath Breaker seems a bit of a stretch to be honest. So lets work with the current premise. A Paladin is someone with such a firm conviction about whatever they have given their oath to, that powers have resulted from this conviction. (The removal of the Holy Warrior makes no sense but this is what we have)

Now during the course of adventuring, your commitment to your Oath has waned and eventually you fall from that Oath. That means you lose those special abilities, right? Evidently not because somewhere the same level of crazy commitment has developed over night for now an evil commitment. This insane commitment has come on so hard and fast that you instantly transform into a new set of powers. But hey for a few thousand gold pieces the powers can be switched back.

I am sorry but for a game that has good, solid lore and story lines does this not seem insane? I am not opposed to the concept of an anti-Paladin, there should be such a class and I am okay with it being a sub class. However to force the change on my character with no real way to know the change is coming until it happens seems insane. For someone to make a Paladin just to purposefully work to become Fallen seems insane, why not start that way?

We need highlighting options in the dialogue that can break the oath.

You can break the oath of the ancients with a terrible choice at the very beginning of the game, when you need to attack either Laezel or her jailers, it's not cool.

You also need a fix for the disappearance of the dark knight, he does not come to the second violation of the oath, and as a result, it is impossible to retrain, and you have to play with the debuff until the end of the game.

You have to agree to become an oathbreaker once your oath is broken.

Left with a vacuum of power you are offered an alternative means to accomplish your objectives.

Not so insane to me. Oathbreaker doesn't necessarily mean evil. It means you are unbound.

The two cases where my oath of ancients paladin ending up breaking their oath were:


The other case was more complicated, and I can see why it broke the oath but I still don't agree with it:


This is where the hard game mechanics run into the problem of having no actual DM; with a DM running the game they and the player can discuss the issue, and be more clear about the paladin's intent in what they're doing. A DM could also give more warning by threatening to change your alignment, or even just flat out say "this will break your vow".

I think short term the game needs to fix enemy groups that are misidentified as neutral when they're not, and it should really add dialogue tags to options that will immediately affect your vow, i.e- [Paladin] to the "correct" choice, or [Oathbreaker] for the "wrong" one.

Had my first fall, 200+ hours in at Act 3.


Regarding the Astarion plot:

My problem with their implementation of Oathbreaker's has nothing to do with Rules as Written - it relates to game content that gets broken when you accidentally or purposefully break your oath.

You basically, In my experience, lose ALL access to Withers functions. You can't resurrect any NPC's or yourself, you can't hire mercenaries, etc. He states he doesn't know you and you need to resume your original oath before accessing him. This happens whether you are an Oathbreaker before or after you encounter Withers in the temple.

Which ever way you want to play an Oathbreaker or get stuck with it as a consequence of your actions, the game shouldn't break for you for taking a legitimate game choice as offered by the devs.

I was honestly believing that Larian would implement Paladin last because they didnt like them.

Turns out its the most kickass implementation of Paladin I've ever seen anywhere.

So I'm very happy about that. Paladin is planned to be my second playthrough.

i agree with what was said above about the Paladin Oathbreaker not being able to just buy their way back in. Redemption shouldn't be a matter of coin, it should at the very least require effort and dedication on the part of the paladin to prove themselves worthy of redemption, i.e. a quest chain or some such.

To date, the paladin is by far my favorite class in any game, but here, it feels... hollow. Aside from spells and dialogue choices, there is nothing that makes the paladin "special". No communing with a chosen deity to reaffirm their faith and connection to the source of their power.

I know it's the same for the other classes (no meditation for the monk, etc.), but i feel it more keenly with the paladin. /shrug

I have a lot of focus on the Paladin as it was always one of my favorite classes. The role of the Holy Warrior, was something that was very appealing. The 5E rule changes have "diminished" the Paladin. It is no longer a special class that is hard to play due to stat restrictions and play limitations. Those were in place BTW to balance out the advantages of being a Paladin.

The whole concept of an "Oath" granting power to me seems a bit off. The Oath is not a higher power and thus has no power to grant, further the oath would not limit to specific powers if it is just unlocking hidden potential. The Paladin was always answerable to a higher call, the Oath was the commitment to a Higher Power that granted a boon to the person willing to do the work. A Paladin is in many ways a Warrior with a Cleric lite addition.

The same however can be said of Rangers which are the Paladin's of Nature, the Druid lite Warrior. Traditionally when a Paladin or a Ranger broke with their faith ( was not as simple as a mistake unless it was a pattern of bad mistakes) they lost that divine favor and became just a warrior. They could not buy their way back, they had to seek redemption and atone for their transgressions.

The oaths BTW fit with this approach as the Oaths can be attributed to specific Gods. The basic 5E rules leave them open because different game worlds handle Gods differently. In the Forgotten Realms the Gods are a major part of the lore and storylines, even the BG3 storyline. Yet instead of making the class fit within the lore as it always has the Devs basically neutered the class.

The first thing to say about paladins is, as always, that no, they should not need any connection to any god or religion.
They are absolutely better as a power born of the conviction born with an oath made, regardless of what to.
Someone could obviously make that oath to a god, but even then it still would not be that god giving them power. Just their conviction, same as any other paladin.
If you actually get your power from a god, you're a cleric. Said and done. Unless you made a deal for it, then you're a warlock. (But those don't generally go with full gods, only comparatively lesser entities.)
A particular paladin being devoted to a god, in terms of their power, is incidental. It's still the same power they'd get if devoted to anything else.
And there's nothing out of place with that conviction forming power in the world of DnD. We've already got Kuo-Toa literally creating gods via belief ffs.

Someone said something earlier about paladins being unique in their capacity to lose their power, and/or restrictions on it?
In BG3 that seems to be the case, but in DnD in general that's very much not true.
It's worth remembering that Clerics and Warlocks are both highly liable to lose their power too. Clerics are the most at risk, if any class is.
A cleric is granted use of a gods power. That only lasts as long as the god wants. It could stop on a whim, let alone after the cleric doing something the god doesn't like. Warlocks could do something that violates the pact, and have the power they were given taken away.
...if you factor in amnesia you could also suggest wizards can lose their power, since they have to actually know what they're doing. But that's pushing it.

5e, at least according to the subclass page on dndbeyond.com, makes the mistake of stating an oath-breaker should be evil. Which also at least somewhat implies any non oath-breaker paladin is good.
Which would be a ridiculous restriction on both counts.
Most of the subclasses could be formed with an evil person making an evil oath. In which case, that paladin would become an oath-breaker by becoming a better person, chances are. There should be good oath breakers, both in BG3 and 5e.
The oath-breaker npc in game seems like an example of this, from what little I saw of them. [My friend wanted to be a breaker in a multiplayer run, so I got to spectate conversations with the npc about why they broke their oath, and it sure sounds like "I stopped the evil man from doing evil things, and refused to do them myself". Making him an oath breaker by being a hero. Go figure. For my part I've only played paladin without breaking my oath so far, barring a few moments where I saved and reset just to test if an action would break it, to make sure I understood the oath text the game provides.

Focusing more on the game now:
The text on the oaths we get in that book and subclass choice is a level of understanding I can reasonably expect from a player. But from the character?
I would expect the character who's actually living that life to have a much better and deeper understanding of their oath than a player would. To be far more capable of realizing that some action or choice would violate their oath.
And since anything the character knows, the player should be told, that means that in most if not all cases, the game should simply indicate that an option would break the oath. It would be obvious to the character, so it should be obvious to the player.
Would you really expect paladins to violate their oaths accidentally? No, they'd make that choice knowing exactly what they're doing, at least most of the time.
Also it's a bit too easy to steal an item entirely by accident, not having meant to pick it up at all. A player unintentionally looting when they were just trying a movement command is hardly equatable to an oathbreaking action.

I'm not sure how to feel about using a companion to do an action that would have been oath-breaking, in order to not break the oath.
On one hand, it is technically true that they did it, not you. On the other hand, they only did it because you made them.
When you order someone to do something, that doesn't pawn all blame off on them. You're both responsible. So logically, if my Oath of "never kill anybody ever" Tav sits there while I control Astarion to assassinate somebody, it's still really Tav that killed them, so it would be reasonable for the Oath to break. Astarian only acts as an extention of Tav.
In multiplayer, of course, the character and companions controlled by other players are not to be considered under your control, not extensions of you. So they could do something without it affecting your oath. We don't need players fighting over that.

But without a doubt, the most ridiculous thing about paladins in this game is:
Respeccing out of paladin, doing the oath breaking act, then respeccing back into paladin, so that the oath never breaks.
Just no. That absolutely should not work.
An oath, especially one with the conviction necessary to power a whole class, is not something you can just make and unmake willy nilly.
Once a player (character) takes the Paladin class, they should be subject to the oath of the chosen subclass for the rest of the game.
Respeccing out of paladin should not and can not be considered freedom from the oath, just an oathbound person who's not currently actively using the associated power.
Committing an oath breaking act while respecced out of paladin should still engage the oath breaking story. If not immediately, then as soon as the player ever tries to spec back into paladin. That plotflag needs to trigger regardless of what classes are currently active.
I have no comments on the redemption process available in game, I haven't seen it.

That certainly sounds like a problem.

I see can why they might want to prevent people from respecing around the consequences, but no reason not to allow everything else.

Exactly this. I love playing oathbreaker, but I just want to adjust my ability scores, feats, etc. I absolutely do not want to reclaim my oath, but basic game functions are being blocked behind a huge gold sink. Even with that, I took the gold sink and reclaimed and respecced...but now there does not appear to be a way to break my oath again...without potentially breaking end game quest lines and companions potentially. I went back and killed all the remaining goblins from now neutral blighted village. I fnished off all the npcs at the creche. I'm looking hard at killing off any remaining druids at emerald, but afraid it will break something end game if I do. It shouldn't be this problematic to just want to respec ability scores/feats. No other class has this much of an over the top struggle for a basic game function. Just let withers respec everything except the oath already.

I do not know how Paladin is handled with official D&D rules. However, my understanding from presented Paladin Oaths in game is this:
Stand between the victim/protectant and their tormentor. One oath has the focus of first bringing the victim/protectant to safety. The other oath immediately strikes at the bad guy. In both cases, the paladin is basically following his function in the game.
Plus of course general things like not stealing anything that is obviously in someone else's possession. Not entering houses when there is no reason to do so.
I would not put every dialogue option on the scale of the paladin, because do the oaths in the game always oblige to be honest?
In any case, there should be a more clear instructions in the inventory for each paladin about what the current oath requires and obliges and what endangers this oath. Then maybe include some kind of strike system, like the masquerade breaks in VtM Bloodlines.

Not really a missing class feature, per se, but where's the Holy Avenger? Baldur's Gate 2 did have one as I recall. Cormsyr. Also a Purifier I think.

In fact, a lot of the standard DMG magic items didn't make it in the game.

I'm personally envisoning a Sword in the Stone sort of thing where only a Pal 12 can draw it. Hell, even name it Excalibur if you want, it's public domain.

The issue with the Holy Avenger is that your kind of pushing the Paladin back to being a "Holy" warrior and 5E has removed that concept. Okay that is not really fair. 5E is designed to work with any game world but the concept of the Paladin can be adapted within the confine of it's rules to fit different options. For the Forgotten Realms, by lore the Paladin was aligned with a specific God or church. Under the 5E rules this is easy to implement however Larian decided to ignore this part of the lore.

Holy Avengers were in the previous two games and remain in the DMG.

If I wasn't on PS5 I'd just pay someone to mod it in, compete with the DMG graphic

My main problem with paladin right now is Control undead:

I didn't play pre patch, so l just kinda expected that the spell worked differently from summons, but l read from someone else that it used to work like a summon with its own controllable portrait like summons. I have been getting more and more annoyed by how differently it works now.
I want to control my undead, use its abilities and not just have it follow me around, do its own thing and then get occasionally stuck permanently causing me to have to get a new one and/or rest the charge back.
I had a problem by controlling a from it getting stuck from having a bigger hitbox to fit in some of the doorways, which causes the permanent freeze bug to happen, which waypoint teleporting does not fix.


I agree with the problem of withers and respeccing. I chose both str and dex and abandoned charisma until respec so l could use all weapon types. Broke my oath on purpose and went to respec at some point to see that l would have to use all of the saved up gold to fix the problem just to break my oath again on purpose.

Something I keep seeing come up in discussions of Paladins is that fact that 5e did away with using a God with the Paladin. That is not actually true. The Players Handbook is a general guide for the game mechanics and NOT a guide to game lore within specific worlds. For the Forgotten Realms and 5e we can reference The Sword Coast Adventurers Guide.

This is directly from page 132 of that book.

Quote

Most paladins in the Forgotten Realms, like clerics, are devoted to a particular deity. The most common paladin deities are those that embody action, decision, watchfulness, and wisdom. Torm and Tyr are both popular deities for paladins, as is Ilmater, who stresses self-sacrifice and the alleviation of suffering. Although less common, there are paladins of the following deities: Helm, Hoar, Lathander, Sune, Corellon Larethian, the Red Knight, Clangeddin Silverbeard, Arvoreen, and Mystra.

Their devotion to a higher ideal makes paladins popular folk heroes in the Realms. Many tales are woven about noble knights and oath-sworn champions, although pragmatists note that the tales often end with a tremendous sacrifice on the part of said champions.

The most common patrons of paladins of the Oath of Devotion and the Oath of the Crown (which is described below) are Helm, Torm, and Tyr—protection, courage, and justice—although Ilmater has his share of devoted champions. Those green knights sworn to the Oath of the Ancients might honor Arvoreen or Corellon, while avengers of the Oath of Vengeance follow patrons like Hoar, although there are also avengers of Helm and Tyr, meting out harsh justice.

Reading further we see the exception to the devotion to Deity appears to be the Oath of the Crown;


So when people bring up that the removal of the choice of Deity for a Paladin is because I of the game rules, I would point out that it's removal has in effect used game rules to break lore. In a GREAT RPG Lore is always king and supersedes rules require them to adjust to lore.

I found this thread because I would love to experiment with being an Oathbreaker. This is my first playthrough and I am doing it with three friends who are all very new to D&D and its lore, its rules, and roleplaying as a whole. We very much went into this blind, so we have used Withers quite a bit to experiment with our characters. I would love to dive into Oathbreaker, as I feel it would fit the roleplaying style of my group and how I want to play my character, but the concern of either being dead weight or a money sink to my group makes me hesitant to really pursue it.

Like everyone here has said, it makes sense to have a steep cost for reclaiming your oath if you choose to do so, and we should not be able to simply reclass/respec out of our broken oath. I don't think anyone is asking for that to change. I want to be able to keep my access to experiment with multiclasses and AS changes so I can have a build I am happy with as we finally progress past Act 1 (hopefully this weekend), while also actively playing as an Oathbreaker. I also don't want to have to preplan my character's entire build upfront because that breaks our fun of experimenting and filling in gaps for the party. Playing Paladin has been a blast so far, but I think it's unfortunate that we lose the ability to respec anything and can get it back only if we reclaim the oath.

If anyone has any news if Larian ever plans to change this, I would greatly appreciate them sharing it. The interview response makes sense, but it's not like I want to get out of breaking the oath. I just want to play the game and learn the system with my friends without having to fall back on saves from before I knew something didn't work.

Fancy Falcon can't you just save then re-spec see if you like it and then re-load thus saving the cost of the oath breaking?

An alternative might be Withers respecs Oathbreaker for 1000 gp, the same as if you were taking your Oath back

I would rather see, since we are stuck due to mechanics with the "rebuying" your Oath, that we actually see the cost go UP, this should be a HUGE DEAL.

You mean 1000 for the first break, 2000 for the second break...

No I mean like 3K to 5K when you first break and a second break no salvation.

this is funny when you break oath from the ancients when you kill paladins in act 1 from quest before you talk to them

same for quest saving gnomes in underdark

in both cases my ancient oath has been broken for making this quest

also there is bug that you cant change class if you break oath

also i like paladin class but oath breaking is annoying that just mean you will have steal more gold from npc to recover it

I agree with whats been said. Gaining back your oath should be a whole quest line as it feels cheap just to be able to buy it back or at least cost much more. Deities would be a great addition to add some flavor to our character, they're already in the game for clerics and monks so it shouldn't be too hard to let paladin select theirs.

The idea to add a quest to regain your oath is fantastic! Perhaps the quest could be different for each of the oaths.

On Withers breaking, it should be easy enough to just restrict Paladin as a class once the oath has been broken. This would prevent a player from using this feature to restore the oath, and allow them to select a completely different class from level 1 now that they are a fallen Paladin. Perhaps the oath restoration quest could still be there for the player to complete and restore the ability to respec as a Paladin (or available as a multiclass option).

I've given this (too) much thought and I'd simply kill the Paladin class as it is today/in BG3.
It started off as a CLERIC then drifted into a Chivalric KNIGHT - thus both Lawfull and Good. Then it started drifting even more, into Divine Enforcer territory ... and into the mess it is in 5ed, with Oath, no Divine angle, yet with legacy mumbo-jumbo about Good even though Allignments for Paladins were ditched.
Hence in BG3 I'd axe the Class as such, instead adding it as Subclass of Fighter at 3rd lvl. The Oathbound Knight. A warrior abiding by a CODE.
Channel Oath charges are used for Smiting (not called Divine anymore, but Righteous or something like that), Lay On Hands becomes Help as Extra Action (they are skilled in battlefield first aid :P), and no Divine Magic Spells.
This eliminates the messy religious angle. They are OATHBOUND KNIGHTS. And lose their Smites if they do not abide to their bushido
Devotion - for the classic feel, LG
Ancients - LN, I'd guess
Vengeance (can use mechanics of Larian's Oathbreaker) - LE

On the other hand I'd like to see implementation of Oath Breaking for Clerics - e.g. if a Priest of Melikki kills the Owlbear Cub, Priestess of Lollth kissy-kissy with Astarion ewww, a SURFACE ELF?!? wot u thinking gurl?!?, Shaman(ess) of Gruumsh aiding weaking Tieflings against the go-getter upwardly mobile Absolutist Gobbos - then bye-bye Spells until Atonement.

First with the Oathbreaker, YES PLEASE put some choices in colors or a warning!! IN my first play through I broke my Oath THREE times with the last one dealing with last portion of Astarion's quest which I thought I was making the right moral choice. That time it cost me 10,000.....just damn. I didnt even come close to having that amount so I had to do Shadowhearts personal quest with no powers bc I still wanted my Oath. And I know this is a little of topic but I think your characters powers should also shift or break with choices, Like Shadowheart. You chose option A/B in Nightsong quest your powers should reflect on those two choices. In my opinion they missed the mark big time with certain characters making these story changing choices.