Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Fix Oaths:

So I have played a Paladin 2x

the First time I was devotion and my oath was broken when I failed to save the guy from being shoved in the spider pit... fine I get it I didn't protect a life

The second I was Oath of the ancients and I did save him from being shoved in. I healed him up when he got damaged even applied temp HP, but he insisted on fighting and of course he got one shot by Boss Ragzlin cause his stupid ass decided to attack him. That broke my oath as well...

how in the ever fucking loving hells is him getting himself killed by making a dumb decision my fucking fault? I didn't fail to protect him he was just a dumb shit! So why is my Oath broken over his stupidity?!

That suuuuucks. Is that guy a new addition, because this most recent playthrough is the first time I've ever seen him, and I didn't know how to save him. I tried talking to the goblins and then to him but it did nothing. Maybe I misclicked?

Are you talking about Smythin (https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=836909)?

He’s not new, but easy to miss as depending on how you go about dealing with the sanctum he can get shoved in the pit before you get close enough to see him.

As per my linked post, he didn’t die immediately in my paladin playthrough though not because I did anything, and then he got killed by goblins but there was no impact on my oath (of Devotion, in my case). The oath breaking logic is extremely wobbly at the moment, though. I’m sure Larian are planning on working on this anyway, but it couldn’t hurt for you to submit a bug report outlining specifically what you did with respect to Smythin that resulted in a broken oath.

Yeah Oaths breaking is very messed up. My nephew's Oath was broken because he killed someone that attacked him. Lol. Love this game.

Report submitted... though as I see it this should be an easy fix (at least for this particular instance) just make the trigger for keeping your oath him not getting shoved in the pit.

Well, given that he can get shoved into the pit without your character having any chance to intervene, I think it probably should take a more active decision on the part of our paladin to not save him, rather than, eg, them just not being fast enough.

I’m not opposed in principle to the paladin’s oaths being breakable not by any intentional action of theirs but by them being just not good enough but (a) Smythin is just too hard to save, or at least he was in previous patches (particularly if you approached from up in the rafters) and (b) I don’t think this possibility is currently recognised by the dialogue options we have with the Oathbreaker Knight about why we broke our oath, which suggests instances of oathbreaking without intention are more likely to be bugs.

The thing is though preventing that is 100% do able. The way I did it was as soon asI got close enough to trigger the even (the guy begging for a sword) I clicked to go into turn based mode which essentially pauses the action allowing me to get in a surprise round and the goblin is weak enough that one good hit will hill him. It then givs you the options to attack, pay the other guard off, go to parison or talk your way out of it.

I don't mind having to do a little "puzzle solving" to figure out how to make something work in my favor like my example above, but what I do mind is making a condition that you can fail through no fault of your own.

I could argue that NOT attempting to save the man is a decision as viewed by the AI. That said if that is the case maybe also make it so that even auto triggers turn based mode and give you a round or two before they kick him in to make it a bit easier?

We might just have to agree to disagree here

My personal experience over a number of playthroughs has been that Smythin often dies before I'm anywhere near him, and the first time I see him he's already dead in the pit. Saving him every time requires metagaming, and I don't think we should need to metagame or save/reload in order to keep our oaths. And if the game is going to make oathbreaking through not being fast or good enough a thing, it should be way more consequential than this encounter.

Still, as long as Larian make a positive choice on how to handle this encounter I'll roll with it whether I agree or not, as long as it just doesn't feel inconsistent and buggy.

There definitely needs to be more warning *before* an oath-breaking action is taken (or inaction), because different paladins have different oaths, and it's not always easy as a player to be mindful of these things if you're jumping from one game (or even one save) to another. The goblin lair is the reason I'm abandoning my Paladin playthrough, which I was otherwise enjoying. Playing an Oath of the Ancients paladin, and every time I try to help Halsin in his quest to stop the goblins, I wind up breaking my oath, and I can't figure out what's triggering it.

Conceptually, I enjoy the idea of classes being integrated into roleplay, but the execution needs better communication between the "Dungeon Master" (the game's systems) and the player. It needs to be able to ask the player "what is the intent of this action? Do you understand the ramifications?" and give the player a chance to change direction.

This is why I think if it is a Dialog based thing its probably just a matter of reading your options and deciding what you think is best considering your oath (this should change slightly based on said oath). However when it comes events where action or inaction may cause you to loose your oath it should maybe auto trigger turn based mode, (Maybe for paladins in specific a little blip that indicates you are in an encounter that has an effect on your oath, but maybe not idk). That said I also think it should take more than one incident or that the incidents should be weighted to determine if you become an oath breaker.

Example 1: You fail to save Smythin, it counts against you a little but not totally oath breaking. However do that a few more times and Oath breaker knight shows up and the dialog about you breaking your oath comes in to play, however you do not yet suffer the consequences of either having to be an oath breaker or suffer without some of your abilities just yet. You then have the opportunity to make better choices before the consequences catch up with you.

Example 2: You run into a merchant that you think might be evil, but rather than taking the time to confirm you just choose to slay him in cold blood. That might weigh heavier and be an automatic breaking of your Oath.

I experienced the same thing (not with Smythin, but similarly accidentally while sorting out the goblins), and it was frustrating at first, but when I spoke to the Oathbraker at camp, there were dialog options for it being unintentional, and a path to reclaim the oath, and I'm okay with that, it felt very natural.

Ah, was there? I remembered an option to say I didn’t know the consequences of my action, but not one for me just not being fast or good enough to do what I’d have wanted to do. Mind you, as failing to save Smythin didn’t break my oath and I didn’t come across any other scenarios where this would have applied, it wasn’t something I was specifically looking for so possibly it just didn’t register.

I have a serious problem with actively trying to uphold your oath and failing triggering an oathbreaker situation. If you're genuinely undertaking actions that uphold your oath and you imply aren't physically able to do so, that's not breaking your oath, that's just failing to do a thing. Oathbreaking should be an active, conscious choice in some way. Even if you don't choose to specifically break your oath, you should at least have chosen to do the thing that broke it.

I can go either way on this. Broadly I agree, but having sworn to protect the weak I could see an argument for making it possible for a paladin who fails to do this break their oath, even if it’s through no fault of their own. It would be a cosmic injustice, sure, but that has dramatic potential!

Still, given it would no doubt be extremely traumatic for the paladin in question, it’s not something that should be done trivially, such as by failing to save one bloke who can be shoved into a pit while the paladin is on the other side of the room or else runs foolishly into a pack of hostile cultists.

The only issue with choosing to reclaim your oath is that you are "unable to reach the light" for a while and thus two of your abilities are locked away.

Yes, I know that you can pay to reclaim your oath and that doesn’t have any long term consequence in EA. What I was trying to say was that breaking an oath through no real fault of the paladin, just because they were too slow to save someone not because they intentionally decided not to, is such a controversial case that if Larian do decide to include this possibility then I would very much want to be able to give this as a specific explanation to the Oathbreaker Knight when asked why I’d broken my oath. I didn’t recall an option to do so.

This is exactly why I was afraid about them implementing an Alignment system. Larian determines whether you break your oath or not, but oaths can be a bit more subjective and not super black and white.

Here's how it reads, and my interpretation in brackets:

Tenets of Devotion
Though the exact words and strictures of the Oath of Devotion vary, paladins of this oath share these tenets.

Honesty. Don't lie or cheat. Let your word be your promise. [Straight forward for this one. Not much room for interpretation. Don't intentionally deceive. If you lie unintentionally, you haven't broken your oath as long as you admit to being wrong as soon as you are able. So, example of oath breaking would be telling Minthara you'll help her slaughter the grove and then fight her instead when she gets there.]

Courage. Never fear to act, though caution is wise. [Don't know how they'd implement this in a game since the devs can't know what a player is thinking, but essentially the player would only break an oath here if they allowed fear to keep them from doing something they should do. This is REAL subjective, though, and could probably only be done in dialogue with warnings. Example would be option says "Nevermind Ethel. We're leaving. [Because you are hesitating, doubting whether you can actually win this fight - this will cause you to break your oath."]

Compassion. Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom. [Temper with wisdom. That's the key here. Saving the grove keeps your oath. Siding with Minthara breaks it. Saving a person about to be executed by Ragzlin and his cultists in the heart of their lair and you don't even know much about him - he could be a terrible person for all you know - would not break your oath.]

Honor. Treat others with fairness, and let your honorable deeds be an example to them. Do as much good as possible while causing the least amount of harm. [Again, somewhat straight forward. Don't be disrespecting others and mouthing off and attempting to trick them. If it's shifty, it's not honorable.]

Duty. Be responsible for your actions and their consequences, protect those entrusted to your care, and obey those who have just authority over you. [If your party member dies, and you did something that left them exposed and that's why they died, you broke your oath. If they died in combat by chance, doing as your party planned but things just went wrong, you didn't break your oath. Example. I send my paladin up ahead to attack a rothe and recklessly trigger more duergar to attack my party, and as a result Lae'zel dies, that's my fault because I recklessly attacked the rothe. Oath broken. If my party is fighting Gith and Lae'zel runs off to fight 3 of them by herself, my paladin has not broken his oath.]

This is super tangential to the thread, but more germane here than starting a new thread about it. One of the things that fussed me about paladins is that the descriptions of what each subclass mean, what the oaths entail, are totally lacking. I had to find my PHB to get the full descriptions.

As others have pointed out, real time feedback about how your actions align with your oath would be extremely helpful. One idea would be to grant XP for choices that are oathy, and apply mild debuffs for choices that are out of line; ignore these consequences too often, and become an oathbreaker.

As it is, the assumption is that the player is deeply versed in the rules and understands what's going on, and that may work for EA where most folks can be assumed to either know this already or have a PHB available, it will be a big source of confusion after release if there isn't more clarity around what oaths entail.

Why do you even care about breaking your oath? is it just for RP? I prefer oathbreaker in all version of D&D because it is not restricting, its paladin without any remorse or limits on morality. That makes it fun, your closer to a Heratic from Dragon's Nest and that is SICK. Base paladin is over rated

Yes, for roleplay. And for narrative cohesion. Even if I play an oathbreaker, I want the story of how they became one to make sense.

Oh, and to experience the variations on subclass abilities and progression.

I don’t see it as picking between a base paladin and an oathbreaker. Chances are, I’m going to try both (or rather all, given there are different oaths) in different playthroughs.