Minthara ambush and Paladin oath

[Ellixer]

I'm at the bit where I am to get rid of the generals at the goblin camp.

So I decided to set up an ambush for Minthara to outnumber her forces. In doing so I gave her the location of the grove (having selected prior that this is my intention). The game then judges it as me having broken my oath as soon as the conversation is over.

This feels incongruous with the oath of vengeance, no? It feels exactly like the kind of pragmatic strategy that would be allowed under vengeance's "defeating evil at any cost" whole thing, especially when the game earlier recognizes this as a possible motive.

[Xan]

I believe it's a holdover from early access where once she got to the grove there was no option to betray her, i.e., you were committed to siding with her, or letting her slaughter the grove on her own.

Hasn't been fixed yet.

[id795078477]

Originally posted by Ellixer:

I'm at the bit where I am to get rid of the generals at the goblin camp.

So I decided to set up an ambush for Minthara to outnumber her forces. In doing so I gave her the location of the grove (having selected prior that this is my intention). The game then judges it as me having broken my oath as soon as the conversation is over.

This feels incongruous with the oath of vengeance, no? It feels exactly like the kind of pragmatic strategy that would be allowed under vengeance's "defeating evil at any cost" whole thing, especially when the game earlier recognizes this as a possible motive.

This is "5e paladins" for you. A lot of stuff around them is just dumb. This whole "oath" conundrum makes it so that paladins cannot be tactical and oftentimes they're expected to be stupid or even reckless in their decisions.

A good example is the Moonrise tower prison and the escape of the gnomes. If you are a paladin and you try to clear out the guards first - well "the guards are not hostile, so you break the oath". You can't be smart there so that you save lives of the gnomes without risks. Instead you're expected to start the escape sequence and then fight off and kill the same guards, but now with gnomes lives on the live. It's stupid.

This is why I won't ever agree that the "oath" based paladins make sense. There are just too many logical inconsistencies and other problems with it. Who is judging that the oath was broken? Who is that "arbiter of truth" here? Paladins aren't divine in 5e, so what gives? And the list of nonsense goes on. 3e and deity-based paladins had so, so much better footing.

[Xan]

Originally posted by id795078477:

Originally posted by Ellixer:

I'm at the bit where I am to get rid of the generals at the goblin camp.

So I decided to set up an ambush for Minthara to outnumber her forces. In doing so I gave her the location of the grove (having selected prior that this is my intention). The game then judges it as me having broken my oath as soon as the conversation is over.

This feels incongruous with the oath of vengeance, no? It feels exactly like the kind of pragmatic strategy that would be allowed under vengeance's "defeating evil at any cost" whole thing, especially when the game earlier recognizes this as a possible motive.

This is "5e paladins" for you. A lot of stuff around them is just dumb. This whole "oath" conundrum makes it so that paladins cannot be tactical and oftentimes they're expected to be stupid or even reckless in their decisions.

A good example is the Moonrise tower prison and the escape of the gnomes. If you are a paladin and you try to clear out the guards first - well "the guards are not hostile, so you break the oath". You can't be smart there so that you save lives of the gnomes without risks. Instead you're expected to start the escape sequence and then fight off and kill the same guards, but now with gnomes lives on the live. It's stupid.

This is why I won't ever agree that the "oath" based paladins make sense. There are just too many logical inconsistencies and other problems with it. Who is judging that the oath was broken? Who is that "arbiter of truth" here? Paladins aren't divine in 5e, so what gives? And the list of nonsense goes on. 3e and deity-based paladins had so, so much better footing.

While I agree that oaths are pretty restrictive, the thing you mentioned with the guards is Oath of Ancients only iirc. That oath forbids killing (have to specifically get the killing blow) on any npc who isn't hostile by default.

[brendan_in_china]

Oath of devotion doesn't have this problem, what's the difference?

[id795078477]

Originally posted by Xan:

Originally posted by id795078477:

This is "5e paladins" for you. A lot of stuff around them is just dumb. This whole "oath" conundrum makes it so that paladins cannot be tactical and oftentimes they're expected to be stupid or even reckless in their decisions.

A good example is the Moonrise tower prison and the escape of the gnomes. If you are a paladin and you try to clear out the guards first - well "the guards are not hostile, so you break the oath". You can't be smart there so that you save lives of the gnomes without risks. Instead you're expected to start the escape sequence and then fight off and kill the same guards, but now with gnomes lives on the live. It's stupid.

This is why I won't ever agree that the "oath" based paladins make sense. There are just too many logical inconsistencies and other problems with it. Who is judging that the oath was broken? Who is that "arbiter of truth" here? Paladins aren't divine in 5e, so what gives? And the list of nonsense goes on. 3e and deity-based paladins had so, so much better footing.

While I agree that oaths are pretty restrictive, the thing you mentioned with the guards is Oath of Ancients only iirc. That oath forbids killing (have to specifically get the killing blow) on any npc who isn't hostile by default.

But how does that make sense "in-lore"? In that example - the guards are not hostile only because the "paladin" pretends to be someone he isn't. And regardless of the choices - if that paladin wants to free prisoners, he will need to fight the guards. So why does it matter is it's before releasing those prisoners or after? If we are not talking game mechanics here and look exclusively in how that makes sense within the game world - not only it's stupid, it is actively putting the prisoners in danger by following a reckless plan (or rather, jumping into it with no plan).

[Ellixer]

Originally posted by id795078477:

Originally posted by Ellixer:

I'm at the bit where I am to get rid of the generals at the goblin camp.

So I decided to set up an ambush for Minthara to outnumber her forces. In doing so I gave her the location of the grove (having selected prior that this is my intention). The game then judges it as me having broken my oath as soon as the conversation is over.

This feels incongruous with the oath of vengeance, no? It feels exactly like the kind of pragmatic strategy that would be allowed under vengeance's "defeating evil at any cost" whole thing, especially when the game earlier recognizes this as a possible motive.

This is "5e paladins" for you. A lot of stuff around them is just dumb. This whole "oath" conundrum makes it so that paladins cannot be tactical and oftentimes they're expected to be stupid or even reckless in their decisions.

A good example is the Moonrise tower prison and the escape of the gnomes. If you are a paladin and you try to clear out the guards first - well "the guards are not hostile, so you break the oath". You can't be smart there so that you save lives of the gnomes without risks. Instead you're expected to start the escape sequence and then fight off and kill the same guards, but now with gnomes lives on the live. It's stupid.

This is why I won't ever agree that the "oath" based paladins make sense. There are just too many logical inconsistencies and other problems with it. Who is judging that the oath was broken? Who is that "arbiter of truth" here? Paladins aren't divine in 5e, so what gives? And the list of nonsense goes on. 3e and deity-based paladins had so, so much better footing.

I'm fine with the zealotry being strategically dumb sometimes. I actually really like that. Problems with interpretation aside, I like the enforced roleplay. You attain power through your oath. If you break your oath, it goes away. If anything as I understand it 5e paladins are more permissive than prior editions even. Even redemption paladins explicitly make allowances for taking out enemies who are beyond redemption, which reads to me like the creator preparing safeguards against lawful stupid behaviors.

The exception, however, is oath of vengeance, because their whole thing is being pragmatic, "by any means necessary" (literally one of their four tenets). I'm fine with there being lines that vengeance paladins won't cross. However, Minthara's case was laid out as explicitly a strategic choice. Even if we interpret it as being dishonest or endangering the grove with a gamble, which I may still accept as an argument for devotion or ancients oathbreaking, it's exactly within the realm of the oath of vengeance to take down greater evils by any means necessary.

Xan's answer of this being a holdover from early access and them overlooking it for paladin oaths makes sense to me. There are a lot of interpretations of paladins that I think are just flatly "wrong" (by 5e paladins standards, oathbreakers are just evil and self-serving rather than merely rebellious) or make them less interesting (Minthara qualifying for vengeance paladin dilutes the oath of vengeance in my opinion), but even the most uncharitable interpretation ought to make this basically a very typical vengeance paladin act, and the only explanation I can think of is that they overlooked it.