What's the Oath logic?

[id795078477]

Not in-lore, but game mechanics. I'm getting oath broken in dubious circumstances and I can't quite figure out how it functions.

For instance:

-- Why does it break when I want to rescue Tieflings so I dispose of the guards?
-- Assaulting a guard in Moonrise does not break it. Nor does "stealing" anything (looting items with the red overline)
-- Killing the guard causes the Oath to break - but not all the guards, just some of them. Also killing the watching eyes never breaks it. For instance, one of the investigators in the room there is perfectly okay to kill and another one is not
-- The Oath only breaks if it's the Paladin that lands a killing blow. If that Paladin dealt 74 out of 75 HP damage and then someone else pokes it to kill - nope, all is good, the Oath is not broken.

So - I'm very confused as to how it works. Sure - I found a "workaround" there and pray it doesn't crit but still I find this sort of rules .. bizarre.

[ProestUnicorn]

Originally posted by VirtuoBravo:

Originally posted by ProestUnicorn:

That depends on the oath, but paladins are not as much ''good'' , but way more ''lawful'' than they were, even though morality is not really in the game, on top of that they were reworked from the knights of god to something like sworn-knights. Generally what it means that Paladins are either Knights that stick to the rules of their oath to the letter, or are oathbroken.

Pallys are weird in 5e, and even weirder in this game, since it is pretty big, and it is hard to balance for every possible action. If You are interested to why is Your oath broken at X moment, then I might be able to help if You tell me Your oath.

What's funny is that lots of Paladin dialogue options involves something to do with deities, it's how you can get a special kind of sword in the Underdark along with passing a religion check for one example. It could be said that Paladins are perhaps less monotheistic than Clerics and still have a strong theme of respecting the divinity of various gods in the setting.

Also I think the oaths themselves, while not explicitly stated so, are still powered by gods in certain ways, some form of higher power is still needed to command divine magic after all.

That is true, Paladins aren't atheists, but they aren't clerics in full plate anymore compared to previous editions.

[AngelKnight]

Originally posted by The1Kobra:

Originally posted by VirtuoBravo:

I didn't really have a problem with Devotion until maybe act 3 where picking a Paladin option to swear an oath to Gortash breaks the oath. (I knew it was wrong, but still feels like maximum trolling that Larian would have such an option for a class that normally has to pick Paladin options to avoid oath break.)

Gortash is a Dreadmaster of Bane, who is a very Lawful Evil deity. Swearing an Oath to ally with someone that evil who is responsible for MANY of the problems in Baldur's gate (Colluding with the Absolute to terrorize the region, tormenting the helpless refugees, installing a tyrranical regime where he has absolute authority, etc, and Gortash makes this very clear if you ally with him.) would definitely break the Oath of Devotion. Oath of Devotion paladins are sworn to defend the innocent and defeat those who would prey upon them. Of course allying with a villain would break this oath.

That was the problem I had with it for sure, the vast majority of Paladin dialogue options are made specifically to avoid oathbreaking, but this one option went completely against the grain. It is completely un-characteristic for a Paladin to ever want to do something like that.

I think that one should have been an Oathbreaker option and that there should have been a different class flavored option, you feel very trapped in that moment because one wrong choice and you have a big fight on your hands so many players just assume it's better to make a temporary agreement. (Thankfully just saying "I'll think about it" doesn't break oath even though it's less colorful of a response than something a cooler class option would have given.)

[jonnin]

I found the oathbreaking to be gamebreaking. Its just coded badly: apparently killing a bunch of goblins who have a chopped up dwarf on a spit to eat, who are tormenting an animal, and who have imprisoned volo and halsin, attacked the druid grove (actually hard to blame them for this) is just flat out wrong and immoral if you don't talk to them first but instead use the element of surprise from the high ground. This same theme repeats just about every fight: if you don't do every fight by standing on a powder keg at the lowest ground and most fully surrounded deathtrap, its immoral. It even goes so far as to break if you miss a die roll while TRYING to do the right thing -- critical fail saving the kid from the snake, and its off to pay 1000 gold again.

[Metrod125]

Oath of Ancients/Devotion imo just suck in this game.
Not that they're weak oaths that they suck, but because they're too easily breakable. You can argue semantics all day long but at the end of the day, the way Larian implemented breakpoints for these oaths are ridiculous and tedious at best, am surprised that nobody (as far as am aware) even mention these (granted, EA was limited to act 1 only).
Vengeance tho? Seems to be the most forgiving of oaths and hardest to break in my experience.

[AngelKnight]

*shrugs* I found it pretty easy to keep my Devotion oath all the way up to act 2 and even there it was a situation that made sense for why it broke.

Maybe my playthrough was bugged though, I was surprised what I could get away with and it not breaking. May try a new game with all the fixes to see if it's harder now.

Most challenging part was getting into fights because I refused to compromise with slavers and necromancers but Paladin is one of the strongest classes in the game that such fights were easily settled.

[wendigo211]

I was okay with it until Act 3, then it just seemed to be purely random. Attack the Flaming Fist, oath doesn't break; kill a Bhaalist Assassin, oath broken. It's the same with what's considered stolen and/not stolen. Even some quest stuff is considered stolen (Fireworks Factory for example). Act 3, definitely needed some bug passes and play testing before release.

Luckily, most of the time as long as the paladin doesn't initiate combat and you're careful about landing the killing blow, the oath doesn't break.

Maybe Torm is off his meds in act 3?