Oath of Ancients laughable conundrums....

[Jaeleth]

I... Am... Baffled...

Oath of Ancients, spent already a FORTUNE regaining my Oath 3 times on most stupid things...

Not indulge in necromancy, nor kill unprovoked, blah, blah, fine, fine... But then this:

1. Even if unprovoked I can bring ANYONE to the brink of death, as long as another party member deals the death blow... Hmmmm, right.

2. I must defend the natural order, life, etc... yada, yada... BUT I cannot KILL (you mean, DISASSEMBLE, right, Larian?) A Steelwatch... (lol) unprovoked... It's a DAMN machine, for Mystra's sake, built around a stolen brain, it's the ULTIMATE contempt for the natural order and life, as an Oath of Ancients I should be FORCED to destroy ALL those abominations, not being "fined" for """""killing""""" one unprovoked...

3. ...On the other hand... I MUST kill a living being (Viconia) when she's down and beaten and all her cloister destroyed. Fine, she attacked me, but if I show mercy, at the end, is that breaking Oath? For what? For letting "evil" escape? I sided with a Cambion, summoned by SELUNE's Shadowheart to fight Viconia, and that's... just fine? But letting Viconia walk away with her life, beaten, oh nooo, that's outright EVIL... lol (not to mention they bastardized good old BG2 Viconia altogether, but that would be theme for another long conversation). What's more EVIL than a robot built around a stolen, unwilling, emptied brain?

I think it would be a great idea to have some kind of warning (like when casting new spells will break your concentration) that if you take THAT action you'll be breaking the oath...

[Super Cosmic Space Magnet]

Yeah, my first playthrough was as Paladin and I found myself getting pretty frustrated with all the oathbreaking - even though I felt I was being consistent. Attacking torturers/cultists in Moonrise? Yeah that's oathbreaking too lol but only if you do the final blow. (???).

It doesn't bother me so much now, since I've gotten used to the eccentricities of Oathbreaking. Your idea about an Oathbreaking warning is an excellent one! I'd have appreciated that.

[wtiger27]

This is why when I play a paladin or re-class other party members into one, I pick Oath of Vengeance. Harder to break it. Even if you do manage to break it, the penalties is no big deal and you get replaced spells that are effective also.

[Metrod125]

A Steelwatcher can break your Oath of Ancients? Even tho it was all unprovoked?
What the ♥♥♥♥

[alanc9]

Yeah, the oath should be broken the moment you attack, instead of when something dies.

Just another cheese strategy, as if we needed more.

[Jaeleth]

Originally posted by Metrod125:

A Steelwatcher can break your Oath of Ancients? Even tho it was all unprovoked?
What the ♥♥♥♥

Yep... I went partial ceremorphosis so I got "devour intellect" ability. that ability is a joy to use against steel watchers, you get to just "turn them off" without screams, without bloodshed, without harming Flaming Fists (actually I am saving their jobs in spite they become pissed off when I destroy the robot, lol), it's very funny. But ... NO... My Paladin Tav cannot """"" kill """"" a robot without breaking his oath, so I got Gale to learn that ability too and appointed him "robot disassemble engineer" of the party, lol.
I even created my own game within game which is having Gale flying from roof to roof in Baldur's Gate, devouring a steel watcher intelect and then just run and get back to camp to neutralise Flaming Fist hostility. I don't touch an hair of the Flamig Fists, the game is only de-activate the robots, so fun... lol

[Oonayah]

Originally posted by Metrod125:

A Steelwatcher can break your Oath of Ancients? Even tho it was all unprovoked?
What the ♥♥♥♥

Dig deeper into the story. The Steelwatch are not purely mechanical constructs. I don't play paladins, so I can't be sure, but I'm guessing this is why it breaks the paladin Oath.

[Romnia]

Originally posted by Jaeleth:

...On the other hand... I MUST kill a living being (Viconia) when she's down and beaten and all her cloister destroyed. Fine, she attacked me, but if I show mercy, at the end, is that breaking Oath? For what? For letting "evil" escape?

That's the most passive aggresive insult towards Viconia if you think about it: Even the gods think she's better of dead. Another spoon-full disrespect towards her character from Larian.
They probably went with Shar = Bad, so automatically it's against the oath.

[.Master Jiren, The Strongest]

playing a paladin other than oathbreaker is mythological, like a unicorn.
no other class has a mechanic that literally makes you lose all your powers.
terrible, awful choice by Wizards of the Coast, and absolutely shocking that Larion, with all their homebrew, would choose to keep the worst DnD mechanic in the game, in the game.

[⎛⎝ Kupo ⎠⎞]

Paladin oaths in general are quite nonsensical and dogmatic.
A lot of the '' lawful good '' choices in Pathfinder for instance are just straight up evil by our moral standards.
It's basically like calling Judge Dredd the good guy, I mean sorta I guess but also not really?

[tecaraofu]

I'm currently playing Oath of Ancients as Durge and all I can say is that keeping or breaking oath is wildly inconsistent.
Most Dark Urge interactions where you kill someone don't trigger the oath at all (even if they are helpless paralyzed tieflings or bards who only wanted shelter).
However when my thief missed a pickpocket roll against the zentharim leader in act 1, whose factions practice slavery and are ruthless beyond believe, and I started to defend myself, my oath was instantly broken.

[Mike Garrison]

As best I can tell, this is the history of Paladins in D&D:

0) Didn't originally exist.
1) People wanted to be able to play the "knight in shining armor" trope, so they were invented. Required to be Lawful Good.
2) People complained that Lawful Good was too restrictive, so the "Blackguard" Evil Paladin was created.
3) Turns out that a lot of players just wanted the stats and combat mechanics and didn't bother with the roleplay. Also, people still unhappy about the alignment restrictions.
4) Thus the "Oaths" replaced the alignment restrictions. Also the "Oathbreaker" rules were created.

Now) Many people still just want the game mechanics (love those smites!) and don't care about the roleplay. BG3 devs had to decide how to interpret the oaths in the context of a computer game that has no real way to account for all possible context.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by JetFlash:

I'm currently playing Oath of Ancients as Durge

Playing a paladin Durge seems like a problem in and of itself.

[Chaosolous]

I've never enjoyed the concept of Paladins and even less so in DnD's implementation.

All I see is people complain about them. Going around just smiting stuff sounds boring AF anyway.

Then again, I get a lot of my enjoyment out of tactical turn based games like this by coming up with weird strategies that work.

[Metrod125]

Originally posted by Oonayah:

Originally posted by Metrod125:

A Steelwatcher can break your Oath of Ancients? Even tho it was all unprovoked?
What the ♥♥♥♥

Dig deeper into the story. The Steelwatch are not purely mechanical constructs. I don't play paladins, so I can't be sure, but I'm guessing this is why it breaks the paladin Oath.

I knew the steelwatchers are unwilling brains taken from likely unwilling victims and turned into fleshy A.I. like rip off Cybermen from Doctor Who.
What I was shocked/surprised by is that even if you had not provoked a steelwatcher, but another circumstance made it hostile to you, that broke the Ancients Oath, including other things that the OP said that their mere existence should be an AFFRONT to said oath.

I already knew that Ancients/Devotion had mildly weird/stupid break points, but this instance was new.
I guess it goes to show that Vengeance is THEE superior oath in this bloody video game because you almost can never break it unless in specific encounters.

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Originally posted by JetFlash:

I'm currently playing Oath of Ancients as Durge

Playing a paladin Durge seems like a problem in and of itself.

I played Durge Paladin twice with Oath of Vengeance. Seemed appropriate.

[Jaeleth]

Originally posted by Oonayah:

Originally posted by Metrod125:

A Steelwatcher can break your Oath of Ancients? Even tho it was all unprovoked?
What the ♥♥♥♥

Dig deeper into the story. The Steelwatch are not purely mechanical constructs. I don't play paladins, so I can't be sure, but I'm guessing this is why it breaks the paladin Oath.

Yes, I know, that's what I wrote in the OP, a robot built around a stolen, unwilling, brain. Its very existence is an affront to nature, a mockery of life. It should be an Oath of Ancients duty to destroy it. On the other hand Viconia is a living, natural, sentient, being. Why am I obliged to kill her if I have the chance to spare her?