There is one Aspect also important to the Hexblade: The Hexblades Curse not beeing a Spell and adding critchance. Also there is a nice advantage to the multiple Warlock level because of Relentless Hex beeing a free misty step when transferring hex to friendly targets - a dastardly move.
You don't account for it in the math (from what I can tell), but the attacks that our mount make also benefit from our aura of hate. It uses the statblock of a warhorse but is technically a feind celestial or undead.
Not at all. Nothing tops "Dick Pixie - Seducer Bard". Also, autotranslate make this a Pull out Master.... Oathbreaker.... seriously, randomness is dirty on its own.
So let me get this straight: If Multiple Ability Dependent is equal to MAD, and Single Ability Dependent is equal to SAD. Is Dual Ability Dependent equal to DAD?
"I'm taking polearm master, but I'm not doing what you think I'm doing" Well I guess we aren't multiclassing into hexblade then. ... "And we're going hexblade here" *I look into the camera like I'm on the office*
My favourite reflavour for a non evil Oathbreaker, is simply a paladin with powers like an exorcist, or spiritualism, able to communicate with ghosts and spirits, free them from necromantic magic that binds them or to "Hack" that magic. Being a very spirit based paladin would explain all your undead powers, as well as your fear abilities and such
This is straying from the single/dual character format, but a classic "halloween" optimized party would be pretty fun! A Vampire, a werewolf, a witch, an undead (zombie), and a devil
@@linuxpenguin823 Hmmm..... Vampire: Damphir - (Tank) Paladin/ Sorc - "I've come to take over" Werewolf: Shifter - (DPR) Blood Hunter/ Barbarian - "Arooooooooo!" Witch: Hexblood - (Arcane/ Support) Bard/ Warlock/ Sorc - "I curse you!" Undead: Reborn - (Heals/ DPR) Cleric - "Your job isn't done yet" Devil: Tiefling - (Face/ Ranged Sneaks) Ranger/ Rogue - "What you don't see can hurt you" I like this concept. How do we optimize this group? I started it ... ideas?
@@wolfthunderspirit2709 I feel like if you're going a paladin multiclass for a vampire character then conquest paladin/undead warlock is extremely on brand
@@Marabcd315 so few Spells, most are concentration, none really with any oomph. I mean, a level or two, but no heavy investment. Conquest/ Shadow has potential, but the fear thing he already did, and then, why Damphir when Leonin did it better? There's no Enchantment/ Charm sorc is there?
A good oath to break if you're dipping Warlock is the Oath of Watchers. You swore to defend the world against the horrors of the Outside. You fought demons and faeries, and aberations, but something whispered in your ear. Something helped you in your time of need, when the gods would have let you and those you protect die.
Minor correction: Creatures affected by Dreadful Aspect do not get saving throws on their turns unless they move 30 feet away. Moving that far away doesn't simply end the effect; rather it allows them to start making saving throws. Really powerful feature!
Dude. I just had the greatest/silliest idea. An oath of conquest paladin, who breaks their oath by doing the morally right thing, thus becoming an oath breaker.
My longest running character is a lawful evil bard. In 3.5 she was a dirge singer, and now in 5e she's a prosecution lawyer. You know, lawful evil! My friend has a concept "The Imp of the Perverse". It's that little voice that says "what would happen if you just closed your eyes and stepped on the gas pedal, how far do you think you'd get before you crashed?" I play evil characters that way. I'm not always going to kick puppies, but if the clearly evil mayor asks me to kill his son-in-law and the price is right, I'm going to do it. I'm not going to sabotage the group, I'm not a sociopath. Lots of evil people live full, productive lives! They become world leaders, tech giants and religious leaders. Just because you're evil doesn't mean good people can't like you.
Heel turn after 4th, Babyface turn at 15?! *Mind blown* Wait - Find Greater Steed takes on celestial, fey, or FIEND! So your Steed will do extra damage on attacks! You likely accounted for that, but I think I missed it when you were talking about it.
2:35 older editions dictated your alignment based on class. In 3.5 in order to play a druid you had to be neutral, and if your alignment changed to anything else you lost all levels of druid and became a level 0 commoner. Clerics and paladins we're similar with good alignments, but you could atone and get your powers back.
To add to the “not evil just misunderstood” part, my example would be the OG Ghost Rider. I know a guy here on UA-cam that actually built him (Oathbreaker/Fiend Warlock), and it was BADASS!!
Awesome Video. I highly recommend becoming a member. The ease with with Colby has made it to access the graphs, tables and character concept sheets is awesome. I've been playing for decades and I love that I can just whip up a character on NPC using the spreadsheets to challenge my party. Amazing job team!!!!
Love this concept! Reminds me of the Scarlet Crusade from WoW. Originally devoted to protecting mortals, their zeal drives them insane and sees anyone who isn’t part of the crusade as a hindrance defeating the blight of the undead.
Love your videos, currently in the process of putting a OOV pally together off your build from last year. Great advise, doesn't leave anything out and explains the why behind everything.
I love this build because I am obsessed with spear/shield paladins right now. Currently playing an oath of the open sea paladin with a spear reflavored as a harpoon. PAM, crusher, fury of the tides, and shield master make for a great shove character :)
TBH, I think the thing with “evil“ in DND is that evil doesn’t necessarily mean stereo typical bad guy, but more someone that is selfish or self-serving or would do the thing that benefits themselves versus the thing that benefits everyone else. Like, I’ve always liked the idea of a character being “evil“ that isn’t really someone who’s actively trying to hurt everyone else around them, but it’s just selfish or if they are going to help others it’s only because they’re getting a benefit out of it directly, like everything they do even if it does help others Is being done for the wrong reasons, like wanting fake or glory or not caring about the little guy
I've played evil characters in two different campaigns over my long, long years of playing D&D (33 years now). One was a "pragmatic" evil warlock - not bloodthirsty or needlessly violent, he was basically a very focused guy who didn't have any moral scruples to kill people who were in the way of his plans and his research. For the rest, he was very sociable and pleasant - a pretty likable sociopath. The other was a real piece of work. A paladin, broken by calamity, who spiraled into drinking and violent behavior, forsake his vows and ultimately became a sadistic and depraved psycho who consorted with demons on a regular basis and brutally sacrificed dozens of innocents to appease his dark gods.
I currently didn't finish the video BUT I have to stop and comment : when the short for this video got out, I commented and talked about my Oathbreaker Pally and why playing in an evil character worked for me... And I'm sooo amazed to see that for now (20 mins into the video), it's the exact build I've been running for the past 2 years (except he's a V-Human instead of Custom Lineage) + the design by Randall just looks like him. This channel never ceases to feel like home ❤️
Not sure if included but I've just been doing my own Hexblade Paladin build and saw on the wording of Find Steed you can choose for it to be a fiend, so then your warhorse gets the damage bonus from Aura of Hate! I'm sure you included it in your calculations, but I thought it was neat - almost tempted to break my oath, though kind of hard to break a vengeance oath haha
Great video. I like this particular combination. I have a similar build that starts with 1 level of Divine Soul followed by 1 level of Hexblade. This gives me Constitution Saves and a Spell Slot Progression bump, but delays Extra Attack to level 7. I then go 12 levels of Oathbreaker followed by 6 levels of Divine Soul.
Very nice concept, i like the distinct and different feel to a "usual" paladin. Most people shy away from necromantic paladins. As another idea for a different kind of Paladin, maybe a mind controlling, telekinetic or psychic damage dealing bastion who disturbes his enemys by his mere presence. Loved the Psi Knife btw ;)
An alternative start to consider: Begin with Warlock 1, giving you access to some very nice spells and early charisma boons. From there, you could say that your character's relationship with their evil patron changes significantly, from a form of transaction to godly worship. Channeling your devotion to the dark side, you can start to gain oathbreaker features and move forward with your dark side paladin.
Here’s a way to play a non-evil Oathbreaker with DM permission - have the oath you broke be the Oath of Conquest. You’re still stained and cursed by whatever god it was, but you broke your oath because you no longer believed conquest was for the greater good.
I played an evil glamor bard with great success for years. Evil, imo, is just being willing to go that extra step to achieve your goals, even if the step is "wrong". I guess with the added step of not feeling bad about taking said steps.
I know we would all love to hear your thoughts on the new playtest document, and all the documents to come. I would also love a video of you taking the survey when it goes up.
I actually love playing (lawful) evil characters. You get to blur the line between alignments and generally grasp for power, as long as it's within your sense of right.
28:51 to 29:00 small correction, they only get to roll for a save if they end up at 40 or more feet away from the paladin, which makes it a whole lot better
Given you'll be riding around on a horse mount (large), you could get reliable advantage by taking mounted combatant - adv on all creatures smaller than your mount. Most enemies will be medium or smaller, so this is pretty reliable. Just not against bosses obviously
This build reminded me of the critlander and can indeed be re-specced as such. would've been cool if you just didn't pass over control undead and talked about it as imo that's the most powerful oathbreaker ability if you have high cha. Getting a revenant (or any other CR 5 undead) pet at level 6 is pretty solid. can inspire party collab too in terms of the party helping you maintain control of that high CR undead pet. then it also scales. if you're a level 19 oathbreaker you can have a CR 18 hollow dragon as a pet and pretend you're an undead targaryen dragon rider.
I love the idea of a lawful Evil, who likes to cause pain and death, but knows that following laws and restricting their killing to "evil" folks. Seems logical, you can kill and loot bandits and monsters all you want with no repercussion
loved this video, couple missed opportunities mostly involving your mount though. feat at level 13 should definitely have been mounted combatant for both a fairly reliable advantage and a way to keep your mount alive longer. the other big thing all the spells you can share with your mount make a huge difference. for starters you can actually share spirit shroud with your mount so long as you do not target creatures with the slowing effect. you can also use enlarge reduce from sorcerer to make you and your mount a size larger and give you advantage against large or smaller creature. oh and you can make your mounts fiends to let the aura of hate flow through them also.
Alright I mathed it out and the results are below. I also noticed some oddities in the spreadsheet math for this episode that I am going to need to watch the video again to double check. Lvl 17 Spirit Shroud 2d8 AC 10: 66.55+112.8=179.35 AC 18: 34.75+86.8=121.55 Enlarge/mounted combatant AC 10: 54.85+107.18=162.03 AC 18: 28.25+99.79=128.04
Reminds me of the Blackguard archetype. Nice work this week Colby! Re: Evil alignment. There was a breakdown somewhere that basically described the good/evil axis of alignment is more like selfless vs selfish. Good aligned characters put others first, evil aligned ones put themselves ahead of all else.
nice build for my favorite class. My take on the Oathbreaker is to go V.Human with piercer and mounted combatant, so you can use Find Steed to run across the battelfield while having 20 AC (shield+ plate) and d12 damage (lance), Find Steed and Find Greater Steed are such great spells
Colby! Thank you so much for this channel. You're a font of knowledge who's depths know no bounds. I've been listening to your videos for almost 2 years and I owe you much for my understanding of class mechanics. I've watched over a hundred videos and played 2 of your builds but listening to your breakdowns of classes, spells, feats and the rest have peeled back the veils and demystified the minutia of 5e. I am a MUCH better player just from listening to your nerd-crooning. Under $2 a month to be a member on your channel is silly. I've paid so much more for so much less. :'D Have you removed the build breakdowns? I still see dmg charts but I seem to be missing the level by level guides that were tucked in to your perks section. Thanks again for all the care, consideration and "welcomeness" that you put in to your home for character builders! I hope the new year brings you much goodness, kindness and happiness; Keep those Princess Bride references coming! PS. I'd buy swag ;)
I’m glad people are starting to recognize how great oathbreaker paladins are. I’ve been playing this exact character for the last two year and I couldn’t recommend it more. It’s extremely fun and you have a ton of options. I ended up going 3 levels in warlock, and tbh I’d recommend it if your campaign goes to higher levels, though maybe wait till after improved divine smite.
As a former WoW player, how did you not make a Lich King reference? A Paladin, who finds a cursed weapon, and then starts making the dead serve him? That's Arthas....
My best and longest played character was NE. He was a Drow Lore Bard, follower of Vhaeraun. He lived and worked in Waterdeep, where he owned a brothel; he worked for the shadow thieves and laundered money for them, beside gathering info (people tend to talk a lot in brothels). He never did an evil act for the sake of it. All the atrocities he committed were motivated. Also, he, with the rest of the party, killed Xanatar. He was a pillar of the community, because if the city thrives, he would too.
Consider grabbing mounted combatant at level 12 for a feat! That could give advantage on all attacks on medium sized creatures and smaller. Kind of niche, but a potential buff to dpr for some reliable advantage for some combats.
It also gets even more fun very late when the sorcerer 3 comes online! That let's us take enlarge. We can then cast it on ourself and our mount since our mount gets the same spells cast on them. Meaning we are a large creature riding a huge creature!!! No only is that amazingly cool, but auto advantage on all attacks on creatures Large or smaller with the bonus enlarge damage which is technically better than using darkness for no bonus damage
Fun little factoid I found out about Find Greater Steed; Thanks to Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, there is a new mount option for the Find Greater Steed spell in the form of the Dragonnel. Just below the Dragonnel entry in the book, it states that a DM can allow Paladins to summon a Dragonnel for a mount when casting the Find Greater Steed spell.
Matt Colville made great videos about alignment, where he says that to him, an evil PC would be someone who, when faced with a choice between peaceful conflict resolution & violence, they would rather choose the most belligerant or warmonging option. Under that definition, you could totally be on the side of good and play and evil character. Like the Punisher says to Daredevil; "You hit'em and they get back up. I hit'em and they stay down!"
Similarly, I'd argue that being evil doesn't mean you can't care about people. You can play an evil character and totally care about your party and want to help them in any way you can. The character can even the party more than their own life. It's just that in some way they're going to deviate from righteous morality. And it's going to differ based on whether they're lawful, neutral, or chaotic. But evil, while it often manifests as selfishness, doesn't necessarily need to be selfish. There are many other kinds of evil out there that make for an interesting TTRPG character.
@@HSuper_Lee Totally agree, doesn't have to be a cartoonishly evil character, maybe they're just so dang angry all the time, and they're fighting against it, but it ends up getting the better of them.
One thing of note: Monsters by minimum come with proficiency in their default wielded options, so thats a extra 1d6+your Cha each skeleton could push out with their own bonus actions by dual wielding. Also find steed doesn't need be fiendish for the bonus, if you dip for a moment to ravenloft the mount can be undead!
Now you gotta do a Yuanti Sermentine build. I thought of this randomly, but it’s too cool to ignore. Yuanti, with oath of ancients paladin with the vines from nature’s wrath along with ensnaring strike, and possibly plant growth reflavored as spectral snakes. It has so much flavor potential, but it’s also perfect for resisting the effects of spells from evil mages.
Loving the "evil spartan" vibe! I think since you can use a quarterstaff to cast shield (since it's an arcane focus), you can probably convince most dms that a spear is nearly mechanically the same.
The way I interpret animate dead's text is, the first round in combat you use a bonus action to tell them to do a task like, "attack the creatures i'm attacking", and they will do that until the task is completed. So you don't have to use a bonus action every single turn
One little thought on the oath breaking. They don’t have to turn evil. It’s also possible that they embrace chaos. Maybe they witnessed that following the law blindly can lead into disaster… I like the idea of a chaotic good oath breaker Paladin. Like Robin Hood for example
I think there is a serious benefit to taking 3 levels of Warlock that you are potentially missing here. First, you now have two 2nd level spell slots that regen on a short rest, which are ideal for smiting with. You can save your Paladin slots for actual spell casting and the occasional extra smite, and primarily use your Warlock slots for smiting. It also gives access to a bunch of 2nd level Warlock spells which are really nice as well, and those can be cast with Paladin slots. Misty Step and Shadow Blade are not available to the Paladin, but they are at 3rd level to a Warlock, and if you're not taking Fey Touched as a feat, then having Misty Step is so good it's hard to pass up.
In an Eberron campaign which had a sort of gritty noir vibe, our party was a detective agency. Our leader was a lawful good paladin and I played a neutral evil rogue/monk. It worked great. As long as the players aren't jerks, that kind of intra-party tension can be an engine to drive the campaign. Tension is drama!
I played a LG dragonborn paladin in a party with two rogues who were chaotic neutral and neutral. My paladin was overbearing and confrontational when he knew about their antics, but that was only once in a while. The chaotic rogue ended up working with me and an ancient dragon to learn and grow together. The neutral rogue made a deal with a demon who ran a city and gained power and sweet outfits but my paladin didn't know about those details. I think it's a great dynamic that works best when the players are on good enough terms not to take the game personally
I read a post where people replaced the traditional alignments with sliding scales of morals (good vs evil) and ethics (order vs chaos). At least I think thats what the OP went with, it might be reversed. But this replaces good and evil with a dogma of "helping others first" vs "me first". And I found that this makes Evil a very playable alignment if you let your character's lack of morals get in the way every once in a while. Also as far as Im concerned, an oathbreaker doesnt need to be evil, they just found an aspect or five in their religion that they cant alig with their internal moral compass. Tiamat is canonically an evil goddess so a former paladin of hers who broke their oath would be good or neutral.
This was so inspiring, I imagined the character to be a Fallen Aasimar; the Necrotic Shroud visual just fit in so perfectly to me. Maybe the Aasimar was exposed to an unimaginable evil at a young age, but managed to keep the demon at bay and follow a righteous path... untill level 3.
Came for the D&D build, stayed for the relatable commentary! Still trying to learn how to resist using hoplite rushes in every single civilization game I play
My oathbreaker does good things for bad reasons. He manipulates people for self gain and hides behind a veneer of superficial charm and Bon homie. He doesn’t understand this about himself yet.
More militant paladins ftw! I love the idea of flipping the D&D norm on the head and having a party of evildoers. Anyone that played the West End Games Star Wars TTRPG, was tempted into creating a party of Sith, Imperial Troopers and Stormtroopers.
I too have issues with playing evil characters in games like DnD. I am very much a lawful good paladin personally and it is hard for me to maintain a level of evil befitting of a villain. So, your explanation for this character rings true with me for sure. Also, playing a male Shep is pretty much default/implied in the eyes of BioWare as canon (aside: Mark Meer's work on the ME series is one of my favorite examples of stellar voice acting in video games), my canon Shep is female (due in large part to Jennifer Hale's badass take on our favorite N7 Spectre). Great job with this build as always!
For the has to be evil thingy I always thought of it as "evil in the eyes of your god". So that opens more doors etc (like the evil cleric to "good" paladin)
One of my favorite characters I played was a homebrewed variation of the oathbreaker. My DM didn't like all the necromancy aspects of it and it didn't really work thematically in our campaign, and I didn't want to play him as evil. Tevye had been an oath of ancients paladin who served the goddess of the moon and tide, but broke his oath when he found out his goddess had made a deal with the BBEG demon to flood most of the world and wipe out civilization because she thought it would expand her domain of power. The actual build subbed in aspects of the oath of ancients and oath of vengeance subclasses for some of the undead stuff. I miss playing that character.
I actually made a build quite like this the other day, picked the Aasimar race for the bonus action "Celestial Radience", that allows to add your proficiency to the damage of 1 attack on your turn for 1 minute, as well as doing your proficiency amount of damage to all enemies within 10 feet of you each time you end your turn. add the dueling fighting style, hexblade's curse the plus 5 from charisma and the aura of hate and you're looking at a solid +16 per attack, as well as and additional 4 on the first one and 4 each time you end your turn. Had considered taking heavy weapon master to bump it up to +26, but wanted to prioritize ability score increase and the use of my shield.
Always love watching your optimized build series. Would love to see you make a separate series focusing on individual spells and builds which would use such spell to the most interesting/best of its ability. For example, immovable object from the dunamancy list.
Polearm masters do it with bonus butt stuff. Oaths are clearly a big deal in and D&D universe. A level 2 paldain is just thinking about taking an oath, but because of that, they get to lay on hands, smite, and even use a smite slot to cast a spell if they have to. And this works even if they are planing to immediately break the oath. :D
my favorite character of all time i made for a 1-shot version of dead in thay. General Kraxx, Hobgoblin oathbreaker-lore bard. yeah. level 6 paladin. level 3 bard when we started. the jack of all trades aspect is, nuts. the fact that he felt moralistically aligned with many of the intelligent monsters in the dungeon, and his insane persuasion skills, allowed him to negotiate with basically all of them. and those they didnt? ass-whoopins. demeanor and voice wise i modeled him after general Martok in Ds9. absolutely a character ive wanted to play again so very, very badly.
Awesome build as always! Just make sure if your group runs into a Marilith you run the the back and throw Javelins and buff your casters with your Aura and stay away from melee! lol
Errata! Dreadful aspect doesn't allow for saves *until* the enemy is 30+ feet away from you at the end of their turn - before that, no saves.
I second the suggestion of spooky builds! Perhaps a blood hunter again?
@@_malprivate2543 You shall be pleased with the script I'm writing now...
There is one Aspect also important to the Hexblade: The Hexblades Curse not beeing a Spell and adding critchance.
Also there is a nice advantage to the multiple Warlock level because of Relentless Hex beeing a free misty step when transferring hex to friendly targets - a dastardly move.
You don't account for it in the math (from what I can tell), but the attacks that our mount make also benefit from our aura of hate. It uses the statblock of a warhorse but is technically a feind celestial or undead.
That thumbnail is cursed beyond belief
nope he just forgot to put the filter on
@@esbeng.s.a9761 lol!
Bahahaha!
I'm just disappointed he isn't actually in guyliner, black lipstick and black nail polish. He'd ROCK it
Not at all. Nothing tops "Dick Pixie - Seducer Bard".
Also, autotranslate make this a Pull out Master.... Oathbreaker.... seriously, randomness is dirty on its own.
That thumbnail automatically gives this build a +2 to intimidation checks.
But so, so accurate.
+2 to emo damage
So let me get this straight:
If Multiple Ability Dependent is equal to MAD, and Single Ability Dependent is equal to SAD. Is Dual Ability Dependent equal to DAD?
lol. I like.
I can see you are making a DAD joke...
I guess playing a sad build is fatherless behavior
A TAD bit, sure.
@@Thriving_in_ExileTriple Ability-Score Dependent?
"I'm taking polearm master, but I'm not doing what you think I'm doing"
Well I guess we aren't multiclassing into hexblade then.
...
"And we're going hexblade here"
*I look into the camera like I'm on the office*
LOL
I assume he meant PM/Sentinel. XD
@@christopheregger1091 Indeed
@@christopheregger1091 or PM/HWM
I gotta say I'd have considered the Undead Warlock, for the Dreadful aspect.
My favourite reflavour for a non evil Oathbreaker, is simply a paladin with powers like an exorcist, or spiritualism, able to communicate with ghosts and spirits, free them from necromantic magic that binds them or to "Hack" that magic.
Being a very spirit based paladin would explain all your undead powers, as well as your fear abilities and such
The Oathbreaker Paladin: d4 #111
Level 1:(see above) [paladin 1 & race]
Level 2:(see above) [paladin 2 & fighting-style]
Level 3:(@17:02) [paladin 3 & sub-class]
Level 4:(@17:53) [warlock 1 & patron]
Level 5:(@26:38) [paladin 4 & ASI]
Level 6:(@30:05) [paladin 5]
Level 7:(see above) [paladin 6]
Level 8:(@35:32) [paladin 7]
Level 9:(@36:50) [paladin 8 & ASI]
Level 10:(see above) [paladin 9]
Level 11:(@41:52) [paladin 10]
Level 12:(@42:16) [paladin 11]
Level 13:(@42:31) [paladin 12 & ASI]
Level 14:(see above) [paladin 13]
Level 15:(@45:46) [sorcerer 1 & sub-class]
Level 16:(@49:21) [sorcerer 2]
Level 17:(@49:34) [sorcerer 3]
Can we get some spooky builds for Halloween? Like a witch or necromancer or something?
This is straying from the single/dual character format, but a classic "halloween" optimized party would be pretty fun! A Vampire, a werewolf, a witch, an undead (zombie), and a devil
@@linuxpenguin823 Hmmm.....
Vampire: Damphir - (Tank) Paladin/ Sorc - "I've come to take over"
Werewolf: Shifter - (DPR) Blood Hunter/ Barbarian - "Arooooooooo!"
Witch: Hexblood - (Arcane/ Support) Bard/ Warlock/ Sorc - "I curse you!"
Undead: Reborn - (Heals/ DPR) Cleric - "Your job isn't done yet"
Devil: Tiefling - (Face/ Ranged Sneaks) Ranger/ Rogue - "What you don't see can hurt you"
I like this concept. How do we optimize this group? I started it ... ideas?
@@wolfthunderspirit2709 I feel like if you're going a paladin multiclass for a vampire character then conquest paladin/undead warlock is extremely on brand
Would love to see a pure hag.
@@Marabcd315 so few Spells, most are concentration, none really with any oomph. I mean, a level or two, but no heavy investment. Conquest/ Shadow has potential, but the fear thing he already did, and then, why Damphir when Leonin did it better?
There's no Enchantment/ Charm sorc is there?
A good oath to break if you're dipping Warlock is the Oath of Watchers. You swore to defend the world against the horrors of the Outside. You fought demons and faeries, and aberations, but something whispered in your ear. Something helped you in your time of need, when the gods would have let you and those you protect die.
Minor correction: Creatures affected by Dreadful Aspect do not get saving throws on their turns unless they move 30 feet away. Moving that far away doesn't simply end the effect; rather it allows them to start making saving throws. Really powerful feature!
Thanks for the catch! Pinned a comment.
Revan was a good guy! Gotta love the KOTOR reference.
KOTOR was GOAT for it's time
Dude. I just had the greatest/silliest idea. An oath of conquest paladin, who breaks their oath by doing the morally right thing, thus becoming an oath breaker.
CRITS HAVE BEEN REVERTED BACK IN ONE DND!!!! It's ok now, you can rest easy :3
It was playtest, nothing was certain.
My longest running character is a lawful evil bard. In 3.5 she was a dirge singer, and now in 5e she's a prosecution lawyer. You know, lawful evil! My friend has a concept "The Imp of the Perverse". It's that little voice that says "what would happen if you just closed your eyes and stepped on the gas pedal, how far do you think you'd get before you crashed?" I play evil characters that way. I'm not always going to kick puppies, but if the clearly evil mayor asks me to kill his son-in-law and the price is right, I'm going to do it. I'm not going to sabotage the group, I'm not a sociopath. Lots of evil people live full, productive lives! They become world leaders, tech giants and religious leaders. Just because you're evil doesn't mean good people can't like you.
Mass Effect, Princess Bride, and Star Wars references all within the first 10 minutes. Colby's going for the cycle!
300 & Civ. He's done it folks!
Heel turn after 4th, Babyface turn at 15?! *Mind blown*
Wait - Find Greater Steed takes on celestial, fey, or FIEND! So your Steed will do extra damage on attacks! You likely accounted for that, but I think I missed it when you were talking about it.
2:35 older editions dictated your alignment based on class. In 3.5 in order to play a druid you had to be neutral, and if your alignment changed to anything else you lost all levels of druid and became a level 0 commoner. Clerics and paladins we're similar with good alignments, but you could atone and get your powers back.
I’ve been on a binge watch since knowing you from your bg3 builds
To add to the “not evil just misunderstood” part, my example would be the OG Ghost Rider. I know a guy here on UA-cam that actually built him (Oathbreaker/Fiend Warlock), and it was BADASS!!
Awesome Video. I highly recommend becoming a member. The ease with with Colby has made it to access the graphs, tables and character concept sheets is awesome. I've been playing for decades and I love that I can just whip up a character on NPC using the spreadsheets to challenge my party. Amazing job team!!!!
Thanks!
Love this concept! Reminds me of the Scarlet Crusade from WoW.
Originally devoted to protecting mortals, their zeal drives them insane and sees anyone who isn’t part of the crusade as a hindrance defeating the blight of the undead.
Love your videos, currently in the process of putting a OOV pally together off your build from last year. Great advise, doesn't leave anything out and explains the why behind everything.
I love this build because I am obsessed with spear/shield paladins right now. Currently playing an oath of the open sea paladin with a spear reflavored as a harpoon. PAM, crusher, fury of the tides, and shield master make for a great shove character :)
“Ugh, you’re cramping my style, whitey” has so much meme potential
😂
This is one of my favorite thumbnails 😂
Shoutout to that KOTOR reference though.
Edgy alter ego Colby ftw
TBH, I think the thing with “evil“ in DND is that evil doesn’t necessarily mean stereo typical bad guy, but more someone that is selfish or self-serving or would do the thing that benefits themselves versus the thing that benefits everyone else. Like, I’ve always liked the idea of a character being “evil“ that isn’t really someone who’s actively trying to hurt everyone else around them, but it’s just selfish or if they are going to help others it’s only because they’re getting a benefit out of it directly, like everything they do even if it does help others Is being done for the wrong reasons, like wanting fake or glory or not caring about the little guy
I've played evil characters in two different campaigns over my long, long years of playing D&D (33 years now).
One was a "pragmatic" evil warlock - not bloodthirsty or needlessly violent, he was basically a very focused guy who didn't have any moral scruples to kill people who were in the way of his plans and his research. For the rest, he was very sociable and pleasant - a pretty likable sociopath.
The other was a real piece of work. A paladin, broken by calamity, who spiraled into drinking and violent behavior, forsake his vows and ultimately became a sadistic and depraved psycho who consorted with demons on a regular basis and brutally sacrificed dozens of innocents to appease his dark gods.
Apparently we need "If You Give a Mouse A Cookie" but remade into a D&D version, "If You Take A Level In Warlock."
I currently didn't finish the video BUT I have to stop and comment : when the short for this video got out, I commented and talked about my Oathbreaker Pally and why playing in an evil character worked for me...
And I'm sooo amazed to see that for now (20 mins into the video), it's the exact build I've been running for the past 2 years (except he's a V-Human instead of Custom Lineage) + the design by Randall just looks like him. This channel never ceases to feel like home ❤️
Perfect timing as the Oath of Redemption Paladin in my campaign is going through his villain arc
Feel like a Dhampir Oathbreaker would nicely allow you to be a good evil Paladin because you didn’t choose to become a dhampir but you just gotta deal
Not sure if included but I've just been doing my own Hexblade Paladin build and saw on the wording of Find Steed you can choose for it to be a fiend, so then your warhorse gets the damage bonus from Aura of Hate! I'm sure you included it in your calculations, but I thought it was neat - almost tempted to break my oath, though kind of hard to break a vengeance oath haha
The biggest plot twist in this video is that he said "Do say that" in the outtakes. Never thought I'd live to see the day.
Thanks for still having the peaceful renaissance music in the background once you get going despite the rockin’ into.
You're amazing Colby! Every time you say "welcome home" my heart melts a little! Be good and kind! ❤️
Great video. I like this particular combination. I have a similar build that starts with 1 level of Divine Soul followed by 1 level of Hexblade. This gives me Constitution Saves and a Spell Slot Progression bump, but delays Extra Attack to level 7. I then go 12 levels of Oathbreaker followed by 6 levels of Divine Soul.
Very nice concept, i like the distinct and different feel to a "usual" paladin. Most people shy away from necromantic paladins. As another idea for a different kind of Paladin, maybe a mind controlling, telekinetic or psychic damage dealing bastion who disturbes his enemys by his mere presence. Loved the Psi Knife btw ;)
An alternative start to consider:
Begin with Warlock 1, giving you access to some very nice spells and early charisma boons. From there, you could say that your character's relationship with their evil patron changes significantly, from a form of transaction to godly worship. Channeling your devotion to the dark side, you can start to gain oathbreaker features and move forward with your dark side paladin.
I love these badass named builds... If for no other reason, it means that the episode will start with the hard rock intro!
That thumbnail gives your melee damage rolls extra psychic damage equal to your Charisma modifier.
This looks like the best pally build for me, I'm always wanting a Melee build that can do more and this can do it all. Thank you for the video!
Here’s a way to play a non-evil Oathbreaker with DM permission - have the oath you broke be the Oath of Conquest. You’re still stained and cursed by whatever god it was, but you broke your oath because you no longer believed conquest was for the greater good.
I played an evil glamor bard with great success for years. Evil, imo, is just being willing to go that extra step to achieve your goals, even if the step is "wrong". I guess with the added step of not feeling bad about taking said steps.
Record labels are certainly lawful evil
Achieving ultimately wrong ends is what evil is about in reality, alternative realities and the respectively idealized reality
I know we would all love to hear your thoughts on the new playtest document, and all the documents to come. I would also love a video of you taking the survey when it goes up.
I'm hoping to actually find some time to dive in soon!
I actually love playing (lawful) evil characters. You get to blur the line between alignments and generally grasp for power, as long as it's within your sense of right.
28:51 to 29:00 small correction, they only get to roll for a save if they end up at 40 or more feet away from the paladin, which makes it a whole lot better
Also, at 48:00 one can just pick an evil god and not got for that stinky redemption and continue our evil ways xD
Given you'll be riding around on a horse mount (large), you could get reliable advantage by taking mounted combatant - adv on all creatures smaller than your mount. Most enemies will be medium or smaller, so this is pretty reliable. Just not against bosses obviously
This build reminded me of the critlander and can indeed be re-specced as such.
would've been cool if you just didn't pass over control undead and talked about it as imo that's the most powerful oathbreaker ability if you have high cha. Getting a revenant (or any other CR 5 undead) pet at level 6 is pretty solid. can inspire party collab too in terms of the party helping you maintain control of that high CR undead pet. then it also scales. if you're a level 19 oathbreaker you can have a CR 18 hollow dragon as a pet and pretend you're an undead targaryen dragon rider.
Always punch the reporter! Renegade for life!
ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ ʜɪᴍ☝️ɴᴏᴡ ғᴏʀ ʜᴇʟᴘ ᴛᴏ ʙʀɪɴɢ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ᴅᴀʏs 🤞🏿🤞🏿☝️🤞🏿🤞🏿
17:21
Breaking the Oath of Redemption = "Relapsing" on addictive dark powers.
I had tons of fun playing my LE Divine Soul devotee of Lolth. In the aftermath of the campaign, she became the High Matron of Menzoberranzan. :-)
I love the idea of a lawful Evil, who likes to cause pain and death, but knows that following laws and restricting their killing to "evil" folks.
Seems logical, you can kill and loot bandits and monsters all you want with no repercussion
loved this video, couple missed opportunities mostly involving your mount though. feat at level 13 should definitely have been mounted combatant for both a fairly reliable advantage and a way to keep your mount alive longer.
the other big thing all the spells you can share with your mount make a huge difference. for starters you can actually share spirit shroud with your mount so long as you do not target creatures with the slowing effect. you can also use enlarge reduce from sorcerer to make you and your mount a size larger and give you advantage against large or smaller creature.
oh and you can make your mounts fiends to let the aura of hate flow through them also.
I was thinking the same thing
Alright I mathed it out and the results are below. I also noticed some oddities in the spreadsheet math for this episode that I am going to need to watch the video again to double check.
Lvl 17
Spirit Shroud 2d8
AC 10: 66.55+112.8=179.35
AC 18: 34.75+86.8=121.55
Enlarge/mounted combatant
AC 10: 54.85+107.18=162.03
AC 18: 28.25+99.79=128.04
Reminds me of the Blackguard archetype. Nice work this week Colby!
Re: Evil alignment. There was a breakdown somewhere that basically described the good/evil axis of alignment is more like selfless vs selfish. Good aligned characters put others first, evil aligned ones put themselves ahead of all else.
nice build for my favorite class. My take on the Oathbreaker is to go V.Human with piercer and mounted combatant, so you can use Find Steed to run across the battelfield while having 20 AC (shield+ plate) and d12 damage (lance), Find Steed and Find Greater Steed are such great spells
Colby! Thank you so much for this channel. You're a font of knowledge who's depths know no bounds. I've been listening to your videos for almost 2 years and I owe you much for my understanding of class mechanics.
I've watched over a hundred videos and played 2 of your builds but listening to your breakdowns of classes, spells, feats and the rest have peeled back the veils and demystified the minutia of 5e.
I am a MUCH better player just from listening to your nerd-crooning.
Under $2 a month to be a member on your channel is silly. I've paid so much more for so much less. :'D
Have you removed the build breakdowns?
I still see dmg charts but I seem to be missing the level by level guides that were tucked in to your perks section.
Thanks again for all the care, consideration and "welcomeness" that you put in to your home for character builders!
I hope the new year brings you much goodness, kindness and happiness; Keep those Princess Bride references coming!
PS. I'd buy swag ;)
I’m glad people are starting to recognize how great oathbreaker paladins are. I’ve been playing this exact character for the last two year and I couldn’t recommend it more. It’s extremely fun and you have a ton of options. I ended up going 3 levels in warlock, and tbh I’d recommend it if your campaign goes to higher levels, though maybe wait till after improved divine smite.
'Really cramping my style, whitey.' Is the name of my debut album.
As a former WoW player, how did you not make a Lich King reference? A Paladin, who finds a cursed weapon, and then starts making the dead serve him? That's Arthas....
My best and longest played character was NE.
He was a Drow Lore Bard, follower of Vhaeraun.
He lived and worked in Waterdeep, where he owned a brothel; he worked for the shadow thieves and laundered money for them, beside gathering info (people tend to talk a lot in brothels).
He never did an evil act for the sake of it. All the atrocities he committed were motivated.
Also, he, with the rest of the party, killed Xanatar.
He was a pillar of the community, because if the city thrives, he would too.
Consider grabbing mounted combatant at level 12 for a feat! That could give advantage on all attacks on medium sized creatures and smaller. Kind of niche, but a potential buff to dpr for some reliable advantage for some combats.
It also gets even more fun very late when the sorcerer 3 comes online! That let's us take enlarge. We can then cast it on ourself and our mount since our mount gets the same spells cast on them. Meaning we are a large creature riding a huge creature!!! No only is that amazingly cool, but auto advantage on all attacks on creatures Large or smaller with the bonus enlarge damage which is technically better than using darkness for no bonus damage
Fun little factoid I found out about Find Greater Steed; Thanks to Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, there is a new mount option for the Find Greater Steed spell in the form of the Dragonnel.
Just below the Dragonnel entry in the book, it states that a DM can allow Paladins to summon a Dragonnel for a mount when casting the Find Greater Steed spell.
Matt Colville made great videos about alignment, where he says that to him, an evil PC would be someone who, when faced with a choice between peaceful conflict resolution & violence, they would rather choose the most belligerant or warmonging option. Under that definition, you could totally be on the side of good and play and evil character. Like the Punisher says to Daredevil; "You hit'em and they get back up. I hit'em and they stay down!"
Similarly, I'd argue that being evil doesn't mean you can't care about people. You can play an evil character and totally care about your party and want to help them in any way you can. The character can even the party more than their own life. It's just that in some way they're going to deviate from righteous morality. And it's going to differ based on whether they're lawful, neutral, or chaotic. But evil, while it often manifests as selfishness, doesn't necessarily need to be selfish. There are many other kinds of evil out there that make for an interesting TTRPG character.
@@HSuper_Lee Totally agree, doesn't have to be a cartoonishly evil character, maybe they're just so dang angry all the time, and they're fighting against it, but it ends up getting the better of them.
One thing of note: Monsters by minimum come with proficiency in their default wielded options, so thats a extra 1d6+your Cha each skeleton could push out with their own bonus actions by dual wielding.
Also find steed doesn't need be fiendish for the bonus, if you dip for a moment to ravenloft the mount can be undead!
Now you gotta do a Yuanti Sermentine build. I thought of this randomly, but it’s too cool to ignore. Yuanti, with oath of ancients paladin with the vines from nature’s wrath along with ensnaring strike, and possibly plant growth reflavored as spectral snakes. It has so much flavor potential, but it’s also perfect for resisting the effects of spells from evil mages.
“You are really cramping my style, whitey” chill 😂
Loving the "evil spartan" vibe! I think since you can use a quarterstaff to cast shield (since it's an arcane focus), you can probably convince most dms that a spear is nearly mechanically the same.
Shield has no material components to replace with an arcane focus and thus you need a free hand or War Caster
The way I interpret animate dead's text is, the first round in combat you use a bonus action to tell them to do a task like, "attack the creatures i'm attacking", and they will do that until the task is completed. So you don't have to use a bonus action every single turn
Love the build almost as much as I love the story arc for the character. 11/10
One little thought on the oath breaking. They don’t have to turn evil. It’s also possible that they embrace chaos. Maybe they witnessed that following the law blindly can lead into disaster… I like the idea of a chaotic good oath breaker Paladin. Like Robin Hood for example
I think there is a serious benefit to taking 3 levels of Warlock that you are potentially missing here. First, you now have two 2nd level spell slots that regen on a short rest, which are ideal for smiting with. You can save your Paladin slots for actual spell casting and the occasional extra smite, and primarily use your Warlock slots for smiting.
It also gives access to a bunch of 2nd level Warlock spells which are really nice as well, and those can be cast with Paladin slots. Misty Step and Shadow Blade are not available to the Paladin, but they are at 3rd level to a Warlock, and if you're not taking Fey Touched as a feat, then having Misty Step is so good it's hard to pass up.
In an Eberron campaign which had a sort of gritty noir vibe, our party was a detective agency. Our leader was a lawful good paladin and I played a neutral evil rogue/monk. It worked great. As long as the players aren't jerks, that kind of intra-party tension can be an engine to drive the campaign. Tension is drama!
I played a LG dragonborn paladin in a party with two rogues who were chaotic neutral and neutral. My paladin was overbearing and confrontational when he knew about their antics, but that was only once in a while. The chaotic rogue ended up working with me and an ancient dragon to learn and grow together. The neutral rogue made a deal with a demon who ran a city and gained power and sweet outfits but my paladin didn't know about those details. I think it's a great dynamic that works best when the players are on good enough terms not to take the game personally
Colby out of context: "Ughhhh... you are REALLY cramping my style, whitie!" 😂
😬😂
Great job Colby! I enjoyed the build and presentation.
I read a post where people replaced the traditional alignments with sliding scales of morals (good vs evil) and ethics (order vs chaos).
At least I think thats what the OP went with, it might be reversed.
But this replaces good and evil with a dogma of "helping others first" vs "me first". And I found that this makes Evil a very playable alignment if you let your character's lack of morals get in the way every once in a while.
Also as far as Im concerned, an oathbreaker doesnt need to be evil, they just found an aspect or five in their religion that they cant alig with their internal moral compass. Tiamat is canonically an evil goddess so a former paladin of hers who broke their oath would be good or neutral.
This was so inspiring, I imagined the character to be a Fallen Aasimar; the Necrotic Shroud visual just fit in so perfectly to me. Maybe the Aasimar was exposed to an unimaginable evil at a young age, but managed to keep the demon at bay and follow a righteous path... untill level 3.
Came for the D&D build, stayed for the relatable commentary! Still trying to learn how to resist using hoplite rushes in every single civilization game I play
Colby once had to walk all the way to Mount Doom...it was flipping Mordor on the feet!
Old intro, so fitting for the build
I've always wanted to see Colby go through an emo phase, let's see how this goes XD
Haha
"you are really cramping my style whitey."
We finally get a hoplite, as well as an oathbreaker. Two birds. Fun.
Come for the dnd videos, stay for the princess bride references
Inconseivable!
You seem a nice fellow
My oathbreaker does good things for bad reasons. He manipulates people for self gain and hides behind a veneer of superficial charm and Bon homie. He doesn’t understand this about himself yet.
Love the video! Cant wait for the day that I can play my own Oath breaker who broke his oath to an evil king/kingdom.
More militant paladins ftw! I love the idea of flipping the D&D norm on the head and having a party of evildoers. Anyone that played the West End Games Star Wars TTRPG, was tempted into creating a party of Sith, Imperial Troopers and Stormtroopers.
Please make a teleporter who attacks with weapons! I think fey touched, mark of passage human, horizon Walker would be a good base for the build.
I too have issues with playing evil characters in games like DnD. I am very much a lawful good paladin personally and it is hard for me to maintain a level of evil befitting of a villain. So, your explanation for this character rings true with me for sure. Also, playing a male Shep is pretty much default/implied in the eyes of BioWare as canon (aside: Mark Meer's work on the ME series is one of my favorite examples of stellar voice acting in video games), my canon Shep is female (due in large part to Jennifer Hale's badass take on our favorite N7 Spectre). Great job with this build as always!
Jennifer Hale... 😍😍😍
For the has to be evil thingy I always thought of it as "evil in the eyes of your god". So that opens more doors etc (like the evil cleric to "good" paladin)
One of my favorite characters I played was a homebrewed variation of the oathbreaker. My DM didn't like all the necromancy aspects of it and it didn't really work thematically in our campaign, and I didn't want to play him as evil.
Tevye had been an oath of ancients paladin who served the goddess of the moon and tide, but broke his oath when he found out his goddess had made a deal with the BBEG demon to flood most of the world and wipe out civilization because she thought it would expand her domain of power.
The actual build subbed in aspects of the oath of ancients and oath of vengeance subclasses for some of the undead stuff. I miss playing that character.
I actually made a build quite like this the other day, picked the Aasimar race for the bonus action "Celestial Radience", that allows to add your proficiency to the damage of 1 attack on your turn for 1 minute, as well as doing your proficiency amount of damage to all enemies within 10 feet of you each time you end your turn. add the dueling fighting style, hexblade's curse the plus 5 from charisma and the aura of hate and you're looking at a solid +16 per attack, as well as and additional 4 on the first one and 4 each time you end your turn.
Had considered taking heavy weapon master to bump it up to +26, but wanted to prioritize ability score increase and the use of my shield.
I feel the into so much! It reminds me of playing Fable. I would always try a second playthrough as Evil and it just never worked out for me.
Micheal the archangel is screaming from this build as he slays Lucifer
Always love watching your optimized build series.
Would love to see you make a separate series focusing on individual spells and builds which would use such spell to the most interesting/best of its ability.
For example, immovable object from the dunamancy list.
Polearm masters do it with bonus butt stuff.
Oaths are clearly a big deal in and D&D universe. A level 2 paldain is just thinking about taking an oath, but because of that, they get to lay on hands, smite, and even use a smite slot to cast a spell if they have to. And this works even if they are planing to immediately break the oath. :D
Can we please appreciate this man? He's literally the guy that plays Undertale ONLY in full pacifist
Soon, you're gonna have to put DSS in the same box as Hexblades and only take both out once a season
ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ ʜɪᴍ☝️ɴᴏᴡ ғᴏʀ ʜᴇʟᴘ ᴛᴏ ʙʀɪɴɢ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ᴅᴀʏs 🤞🏿☝️☝️🤞🏿🤞🏿
my favorite character of all time i made for a 1-shot version of dead in thay.
General Kraxx, Hobgoblin oathbreaker-lore bard.
yeah. level 6 paladin. level 3 bard when we started.
the jack of all trades aspect is, nuts. the fact that he felt moralistically aligned with many of the intelligent monsters in the dungeon, and his insane persuasion skills, allowed him to negotiate with basically all of them.
and those they didnt? ass-whoopins.
demeanor and voice wise i modeled him after general Martok in Ds9. absolutely a character ive wanted to play again so very, very badly.
Congrats on hitting 60k Colby! Glad ive been here since the 1k days
Awesome build as always! Just make sure if your group runs into a Marilith you run the the back and throw Javelins and buff your casters with your Aura and stay away from melee! lol
Don't take this the wrong way but, I so enjoy seeing how uncomfortable you are with the mere thought of being evil 😅 You have such a good soul.
other paladins with a hex blade dip go from MAD to SAD but when an Oath Breaker does it they go CHAD lol
lol