What Paladin oath did you take and why?

[|Nick]

I cannot decide between oath of the ancient and devotion, both seem to be very similar.
What are the biggest differences RP/lore wise?
What oath do you prefer for what reasons?

[Glyph]

Vengeance because vow of enmity is great and they get both misty step and haste as spells.

[Euphoria]

Vengeance because I don't like lawful stupid.

[Sterling]

Vengeance both for mechanical and RP reasons.

[n#n#m#]

Oath of the Ancients because I wanted to become an Oathbreaker as soon as possible

[Khryst]

Put it like this, as a way to best explain the differences between the oaths.

You have a person being attacked by a bandit.

You will stop the bandit because you're a paladin.

how you do is based on the Oath.

Ancients, jump in between the bandit and the person raising your shield to defend them.
Devotion, call out challenging the bandit to combat. Something along the lines of "FACE ME VILLIAN!"
Vengeance, grab your sword and try to kill the bandit first.

a longer explanation is more like this.


Ancient Paladins are life savers/bringers of hope. Think a follower of the God Illmater. Compassionate, anti-suffering, inspiring, willingly take on pain yourself if it relieves the suffering of another. If you must fight, kill quickly/efficiently to minimize the suffering of your foe as well as friends.

Devotion Paladins are the "white knights" of old fantasy trope. Protect the Innocent, Fight the evil, rescue the damsel, yada yada yada.

Vengeance Paladins are willing to stain their hands with blood to stop the evil, but not BE evil in the process. He's willing to hunt people that willingly serve their "master" or "lord" in efforts to thwart or gain information needed, and if it comes to it kill them, but he/she's not going to go out there with the intent of killing him.

[|Nick]

Originally posted by kblaze13:

Put it like this, as a way to best explain the differences between the oaths.

You have a person being attacked by a bandit.

You will stop the bandit because you're a paladin.

how you do is based on the Oath.

Ancients, jump in between the bandit and the person raising your shield to defend them.
Devotion, call out challenging the bandit to combat. Something along the lines of "FACE ME VILLIAN!"
Vengeance, grab your sword and try to kill the bandit first.

a longer explanation is more like this.


Ancient Paladins are life savers/bringers of hope. Think a follower of the God Illmater. Compassionate, anti-suffering, inspiring, willingly take on pain yourself if it relieves the suffering of another. If you must fight, kill quickly/efficiently to minimize the suffering of your foe as well as friends.

Devotion Paladins are the "white knights" of old fantasy trope. Protect the Innocent, Fight the evil, rescue the damsel, yada yada yada.

Vengeance Paladins are willing to stain their hands with blood to stop the evil, but not BE evil in the process. He's willing to hunt people that willingly serve their "master" or "lord" in efforts to thwart or gain information needed, and if it comes to it kill them, but he/she's not going to go out there with the intent of killing him.

Hm, oath of the ancients sounds very pacifistic, but I looked up their spells and they look really cool. How pacifistic are these paladin compared to the devotion ones? Always avoiding fight when possible, letting murderers escape and stuff like that?

[Daliena]

Oath of the Ancients for me. I've tried to be reasonable and polite, but every so often you gotta choke a ♥♥♥♥♥ and I haven't broken my Oath yet.

Here's a few ways you can break the Oath of the Ancients from a quick Googling, to give you an example of how they roll.

Kill an innocent person
Free the goblin Sazza in Emerald Grove (so indeed, it's by letting an unrepentant murderer loose that you'd break your Oath, not by leaving them to rot)
Kill both the Owlbear and the Owlbear cub in Owlbear Cave (in fairness, if you kill Mamabear first, the cub will stop fighting you so come on now)
Use Auntie Ethel's wand to bring Mayrina's husband back from the dead
Kill the Tiefling Pandima at Emerald Grove

So don't kill innocents or pervert the natural order by being all "Woo necromancy!" and you'll probably be fine even if you gotta lay down the law sometimes.

[Khryst]

Originally posted by |Nick:

Hm, oath of the ancients sounds very pacifistic, but I looked up their spells and they look really cool. How pacifistic are these paladin compared to the devotion ones? Always avoiding fight when possible, letting murderers escape and stuff like that?

They aren't Pacifist's at all, but they fight to Defend others, not to really "defeat evil" persay. They would let a murderer escape if the current victim was still alive and needed to heal them first though.

There is an Oath for Paladins that is Pacifists, although it's not in bg3 just the PnP, called Oath of Peace.

In PnP there's also the Paladins that don't give a damn about good/evil just absolute Law, called Oath of Conquest.

then there is the "evil" fallen paladins called Oathbreakers which are in the game.

I can't say with certainty how well Larian did a good job with the Oaths though as I've seen a number of things I would mark Vengeance as Oathbreakers that the game just shrugs at. and I've heard from other players similar instances with Devotion/Ancients as well.

[Settings]

I tried Paladin for a bit and went Vengeance because it was the easiest not to break, but ultimately I decided I wanted more freedom to take the occasional evil choice and opted out of Paladin entirely.

[Veylox]

Oathbreaker, because of dark urge

Didn't have much of a choice

[The1Kobra]

Oath of Ancients I find is nice because of the healing abilities.

[Shinkiro]

Zariel Tiefling Paladin of Vengeance because i was carrying on my descent into Avernus Paladin.

[|Nick]

Originally posted by kblaze13:

They aren't Pacifist's at all, but they fight to Defend others, not to really "defeat evil" persay. They would let a murderer escape if the current victim was still alive and needed to heal them first though.

So does it mean that:
ancient = neutral good
devotion = lawful good
vengeance = lawful neutral?

I assume the vengeful pala would follow the murderer and risk letting the vicitm die.
What would the devotion pala do in this situation?

Btw,
it seems there are lots of vengeance Palas here

[Blood of Kerensky]

Vengeance, because it was easiest to break at the time.

[Khryst]

Originally posted by |Nick:

So does it mean that:
ancient = neutral good
devotion = lawful good
vengeance = lawful neutral?

I assume the vengeful pala would follow the murderer and risk letting the vicitm die.
What would the devotion pala do in this situation?

Btw,
it seems there are lots of vengeance Palas here

It's a fairly close assessment of the alignments with Vengeance being the only incorrect one. As they would be Chaotic Good.

It's part of the reason you'll find alot of people being that Oath, as falling in the CG spectrum allows you to have the "paladin power" still being "good" without having the "stick up the arse" so many portrayals of Paladins give.