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No, you're wrong. 5e paladins are not directly linked to a specific god by the rules. They often do worship a specific god, but it's no more required than any other non-cleric. Your interpretation of how paladins should work is totally valid for your own tabletop game, but is not based in the rules, and is not how the paladin behaves in this game.
In 5e a Paladin's power is derived from the Oath. Who or what that Oath is made to is up to the DM and players, and it can be to a god, but it's left intentionally ambiguous as part of the base rules so that individual tables can fit the class into whatever setting they are playing in, some of which don't even have gods (Eberron) but still have Paladins and Clerics.
Actually no, they got it right for the 5e mostly. The only thing wrong is picky your oath at the CC it should be level 3, and the deity for absolution of sins with another paladin or cleric of the same faith.
That's not even remotely how alignments or oaths work.
Just because a Paladin is good doesn't mean they murderhobo people of the opposite alignment on sight, and both of the Oaths make it a point that all life is important and that they should show mercy to their foes when able to.
More importantly, just because someone is of an evil alignment doesn't mean they're "evil" evil. It just means that they're either selfish or so committed to a specific cause that they're generally willing to let others suffer in order to achieve their own goals. Regill from Pathfinder is a good example of this as while he is willing to murder a bunch of his own injured men without hesitation or remorse, he does so only because they're slowing down the rest of his men too much behind enemy lines and to spare them from a far worse death by enemy hands. He may be willing to do evil things, but only so long as they pragmatically benefit the greater good and keep more people safe and alive in the long run.
Only two of your companions are of evil alignment, that being Lae'zel and Astarion.
Wyll made a pact with a devil sure, but even he admits it was a stupid decision that he wants to take back and he does genuinely want to help others. He's even the only one who will abandon your party 100% of the time if you commit too many evil acts.
Shadowheart, while worshipping an evil god and being kinda shady at the start, is 100% a lawful neutral character. All she wants is to deliver her artifact to Baldur's Gate as soon as possible and will get mad at you whenever you go out of your way to commit good or evil acts. And while she will still follow you if you choose to side with the goblins, she shows signs of clear guilt and regret for following your command.
Gale is the complete opposite of evil and will sometimes even get mad at you for killing goblins because he cares about the beauty of life that much. He's definitely reckless to the point of accidentally endangering people's lives, but he does genuinely care for others and hate when people are needlessly suffer.
Can you name me any example of there being a storyline with no clear good or neutral options in it?
Let's face it: as it's presented, Oath cannot be consistent in 5e. If it is only drawing power from the Oath itself then it's flawed at its core if we apply even a tiny bit of logic.
- Good/Evil have nothing to do with Oath then, because the judgement is subjective. If "paladin"s concept of "good" is flawed or allows for atrocities, it will do nothing for his Oath, he won't break it, he'll still be a "knight in shining armor" who "inflicts good upon the world"
- The source of power itself is .. dubious to say the least. If divinities are not mandatory then it's totally unclear from where the divine power comes. Some nonsensical "Oath" of a mortal grants a power of a god? Sure, looks like mortals need just to "really want something" and then it happens. I don't buy it.
- Just logical paradoxes connected to the Oath. One example - if paladin's actions at the time are "okay", but later he learns his actions were the cause for some people to die / some damsels to be in distress / some bunnies to be slaughtered, will he break his Oath retroactively? If yes then how does he know it's true, does "Oath" conducts an investigation for him? If yes we got a perfect lie detector, and.. yeah, you see where it's going.
I just don't understand the no-divinity paladins. It's not for me. Someone likes it - fine, but I would just make some "true paladin" class for myself that actually needs a deity and works on a consistent basis lore-wise.
P.S. there's one quote perfectly fitting to 5e "paladins" and flaws in their "Oath"
-- Voltaire.
I agree that you just don't understand.
In 5e the vanilla Paladin is constructed in such a way that they can fit into any setting.
They still have deities, in campaign settings where they need one.
The class asks the DM's and players to define that little bit of background for themselves, and this is the pary you are struggling with. You expect the game to tell you how something must be in all instances, but the class template is just that - a starting point for players to flesh out.
If you want Paladins that devote themselves to a specific god in your games, then just do that. Who's going to stop you? Also, the class description for Paladins literally crawls with references to Paladins that do just that.
As far as BG3 is concerned, we'll have to wait and see where Larian goes with it. I suspect the biggest limitation is the work involved in writing all the extra dialog choices. It's one thing to give the character a check box for a god for their own private head-canon, another to write multiple dialog trees for every god a Paladin could choose to worship in every single dialog where it matters.
BG3 already has an actual example of a Paladin following a god - the fallen Paladin of Tyr. This means, at least in principle, that Larian already acknowledges the Divine source of a Paladin's power, but it remains unclear how much of that will translate to the PC's.
I'm content to believe that a Paladin's power comes from a plane of existence (Mount Celestia, Arcadia, etc.) rather than an individual god. It's as good an explanation as any other and the way I'll roleplay them in my head-canon.
To me, it's a total non-issue.
Way to start your argument. Then - I agree that you just don't understand mine. Let's leave it at that.
Except a paladin's own concept of good/evil has nothing to do with oaths since the oaths themselves are objective rules that they must follow regardless of their own actual morality. While this can allow wiggle room for a Paladin of Devotion to be evil or chaotic, a Paladin of Devotion can never allow an atrocity to happen without breaking their Oath since it states that they must protect the weak and punish those who threaten them.
The divine power comes from the metaphysical nature of the dnd multiverse. Similar to how alignments exist and aren't dictated by any particular god or force, so too do oaths exist as a divine force that empowers those who are able to completely commit themselves to embody the oaths.
The answer is no, the Paladin will not break their oath for something that happened indirectly without their knowledge or intention. If a Paladin of Devotion sees a woman who is about to be killed by wolves and is begging for help, it doesn't matter what that woman might do in the future as its the Paladin's duty to protect her. Hell, even if the Paladin knew she was an evil criminal, its still their duty to protect her and then make sure she gets sent to jail for her crimes if she agrees to surrender. Paladin's of Devotion have sworn a sacred oath to always protect the weak and show mercy to their foes when reasonably able to.
I like how you came up with a hypothetical scenario with a yes or no question and instead of even trying to look at it from both sides, you just delved the most illogical(and wrong) answer and didn't even entertain a more sensible and simple answer.
Its really not hard to understand. A 5e Paladin has a set of OBJECTIVE rules they must commit themselves, and if they break them they lose the powers granted to them by their oath. The Oath itself is a natural metaphysical part of the dnd multiverse just like alignments are, so there's nothing to be subjective about. A paladin can not subjectively decide if they broke their oath anymore than a heated up liquid can subjectively decide to turn into ice rather than a gas.
Well, your argumentation is fundamentally flawed. So I have to agree with Pan on his observation, especially since you seem to ignore what he wrote.
Firstly: Logic isn't a prerequisite for game rules. It is nice when there is logic in rules, but trying to force logic, especially biased opinions disguised as logic onto a setting doesn't work well.
Your Good/Evil analogy is flawed. The paladin make an oath not to himself, so his own understanding of what a knight in shining armor means isn't relevant to whether he uphold his oath.
On the source of power, your argument is flawed. Because you lack the imagination to see an oath as anything but the mortal just wanting something really bad and it then manifesting, doesn't make it the logical conclusion that this is what is happening. If you want to fit it into a setting where the power come from gods, then gods in D&D have been known to grant powers to people even though they weren't their worshipers, so it isn't a stretch to think that Paladins are sponsored by a God who sense their devotion to their oath and agree to the tenets.
Your logical paradox is totally irrelevant. Either you have a crappy DM, who wants to warp your previous actions against you. Or you have a better DM who hold your accountable for your current actions. Either way your DM will try to warp your actions if he is so inclined regardless of your power coming from an oath or a god.
As far as your companions issue, I agree the characters all seem... tainted.
You people just won't quit with the misinfo, will you?
Yeah I know that you can rp oath starting from 1st lvl, but that's the point
Yeah I have mixed feelings about Paladin's choosing their subclass at level 3.
On one hand, it makes more sense for Paladin's to get their subclass at level 1 since the entire point of the class is that they get their power from being committed to a specific oath.
On the other hand, it makes more sense for a Paladin to get their subclass at level 3 since levels 1 and 2 are supposed to represent them becoming dedicated enough to their Oath in order to finally unlock its powers at level 3.
Yeah dm certainly can build story around lvl 3 oath, but in video game its much more complicated, and lvl 1 oath makes 100% sense