Oathbound

Many knights, priests, nobles, and others swear oaths to do or not do certain things; to live in fealty to a king, prince, or god. Their oaths are important, but do not themselves give rise to power. For an oathbound, their Oaths are their devoted purpose. Their reason for existing. Obedience to those vows gives their lives meaning. The altar on which they sacrifice much, even their own lives if necessary. And the universe respects this sacrifice, this devotion, this purity of purpose. In return, the Oathbound is helped to become a warrior, bearing arms and magic both to uphold their Oath.

Unlike a priest, the oathbound’s power comes not from faith in an Ascendant or the teachings of a religion, although the oathbound might be devoutly faithful. An oathbound’s power comes from within as their soul reaches out to the universe itself in with wholehearted confidence in the righteousness of their cause and the necessity of their actions to further this cause. In effect, they demand that the universe give them power, and the universe looks at their confidence and stubbornness and bends to their will.

Oathbound excel at front-line defense and support. While they can output significant damage, many of their abilities revolve around assisting and protecting others nearby. Their weaknesses are enemies at range (like a brawler) and large groups of weaker foes. Their charismatic bent makes them natively good at social situations.

Quick Build

To quickly build an oathbound, put your highest ability score into Strength and your second ability score into Charisma, with Constitution higher than zero. If you want to focus more on damage, use a two-handed weapon (and pick either Two-handed or Cleaving as your Weapon Specialization). For a more defensive build, pick a one-handed weapon and a shield, and pick Versatile or Parrying as your Weapon Specialization.

Class Features

As an oathbound, you gain the following class features.

Hit Points

Proficiencies

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background

• (a) a non-two-handed weapon and a shield or (b) a two-handed weapon
• (a) five thrown weapons or (b) any melee weapon
• (a) a priest’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
• Heavy armor

Class DC

When a magical ability (one that expends aether) from this class requires a saving throw, the DC is given by

magical DC = 8 + your Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus

When a non-magical ability from this class requires a saving throw, the DC is given by

non-magical DC = 8 + your Strength modifier + your proficiency bonus

Divine Sense

The presence of strong astral and abyssal influence readily apparent to you. As an action, you can open your awareness to detect such forces. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any celestial, fiend, or undead within 60 feet of you. Total cover does not block this, but you cannot sense a creature who is behind more than two feet of stone or earth or a thin sheet of lead. You know the type (celestial, fiend, or undead) of any being whose presence you sense, but not its identity. Within the same radius, you also detect the presence of any place or object that has been consecrated or desecrated, as with the hallow incantation.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier. When you finish a long rest, you regain all expended uses.

Lay on Hands

Your blessed touch can heal wounds. You have a pool of healing power that replenishes when you take a long rest. With that pool, you can restore a total number of hit points equal to your oathbound level × 5.

As an action, you can touch a creature and draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points to that creature, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool.

Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit points from your pool of healing to cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use of Lay on Hands, expending hit points separately for each one.

This feature has no effect on undead and constructs.

Weapon Specialization

You have learned to wield one type of weapon better. Choose one of the properties below. You gain the bonus listed.

Spellcasting

By 2nd level, you have learned to draw on astral power through meditation and confidence in your own rightness to cast spells much like a priest does.

Preparing and Casting Spells

The Oathbound table shows how much aether (AET) you have to cast your spells and do other magical tasks. To cast a spell that requires aether, you must expend aether equal to its cost or greater. You regain all expended aether when you finish a long rest. It also shows your Aether Limit, which is the maximum aether you can expend on a single action.

You know a certain number of Oathbound spells, choosing from the oathbound spell list. You can trade out any known spell for any other spell you can learn from that list when you finish a long rest. When you do so, choose a number of oathbound spells equal to your Charisma modifier + half your oathbound level, rounded down (minimum of one spell). To prepare a spell you must be able to cast it without exceeding your Aether Limit.

Spellcasting Ability

Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your oathbound spells, since their power derives from the strength of your convictions. You use your Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for an oathbound spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Armored Caster

You can cast oathbound spells while wearing any armor or wielding a shield. You can use your weapon or shield as a focus for your oathbound spells as long as it has a symbol relevant to your Oath (of your choice) emblazoned (ie painted, engraved, or otherwise drawn) on it.

Divine Smite

Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend 1 or more AET to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon’s damage. The extra damage is 1d8 + 1d8 per two additional AET to a maximum of 5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an undead or a fiend.

In addition to expending aether to deal more damage, you can expend aether to add additional effects (up to your aether limit).

Divine Health

By 3rd level, the divine magic flowing through you makes you immune to disease.

Sacred Oath

When you reach 3rd level, you swear the oath that binds you as an oathbound forever. Up to this time you have been in a preparatory stage, committed to the path but not yet sworn to it. Choose the Oath of Devotion, the Oath of the Sin’s Weight, or the Oath of Retribution, all detailed at the end of the class description.

Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 15th, and 20th level. Those features include oath spells and the Channel Divinity feature.

Oath Spells

Each oath has a list of associated spells. You gain access to these spells at the levels specified in the oath description. Once you gain access to an oath spell, you always have it prepared. Oath spells don’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day.

If you gain an oath spell that doesn’t appear on the oathbound spell list, the spell is nonetheless an oathbound spell for you.

Channel Divinity

Your oath allows you to channel divine energy to fuel magical effects. Each Channel Divinity option provided by your oath explains how to use it. When you use your Channel Divinity, you choose which option to use and expend 3 STA. Some Channel Divinity effects require saving throws. When you use such an effect from this class, the DC equals your magical class DC.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above +5 using this feature.

You can also pick a Skill Trick but you must meet the prerequisites for skill tricks learned in this way. See skill tricks for that list. You can swap out a known skill trick for another you can learn when you gain another skill trick.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Aura of Protection

Starting at 6th level, whenever you or a friendly creature within 10 feet of you must make a saving throw, the creature gains a bonus to the saving throw equal to your Charisma modifier (with a minimum bonus of +1). You must be conscious to grant this bonus.

At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Find Steed

At 7th level, you learn to summon a spirit that assumes the form of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal steed, creating a long-lasting bond with it. Summoning your steed takes 10 minutes of prayer and requires expending 5 AET. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the steed takes on a form that you choose: a warhorse, a pony, a camel, an elk, or a mastiff. Your GM might allow other animals to be summoned as steeds. The steed has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of its normal type. Additionally, if your steed has an Intelligence of 5 or less, its Intelligence becomes 6, and it gains the ability to understand one language of your choice that you speak.

Your steed serves you as a mount, both in combat and out, and you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a seamless unit. You and your steed act on the same turn, and you can control its actions (mounted or not) without spending any actions of your own. Unlike other controlled mounts, the steed can take the Attack action while you are mounted on it, but cannot take the Multiattack action if it has it. While mounted on your steed, you can make any spell you cast that targets only you also target your steed. In addition, while mounted on the steed, you can force any attack that targets the mount to instead target you.

When the steed drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. You can also dismiss your steed at any time as an action, causing it to disappear. In either case, using this ability again summons the same steed, restored to its hit point maximum.

While your steed is within 1 mile of you, you can communicate with it telepathically.

You can’t have more than one steed bonded by this ability at a time. As an action, you can release the steed from its bond at any time, causing it to disappear.

Starting at level 14, you can expend 8 AET when you summon your steed to instead summon a gryphon, dire wolf, saber-toothed tiger, or pegasus.

Aura of Courage

Starting at 10th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can’t be frightened while you are conscious.

At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Improved Divine Smite

By 11th level, you are so suffused with righteous might that all your melee weapon strikes carry divine power with them. Whenever you hit a creature with a melee weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d8 radiant damage. If you also use your Divine Smite with an attack, you add this damage to the extra damage of your Divine Smite.

Cleansing Touch

Beginning at 14th level, you can use your action to end one spell or magical effect on yourself or on one willing creature that you touch.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of once). You regain expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Sacred Oaths

Becoming an oathbound involves taking vows that commit the oathbound to the cause of righteousness, an active path of fighting wickedness. The final oath, taken when he or she reaches 3rd level, is the culmination of all the oathbound’s training. Some characters with this class don’t consider themselves truly oathbound until they have reached 3rd level and made this oath. For others, the actual swearing of the oath is a formality, an official stamp on what has always been true in the oathbound’s heart.

Oath of Devotion

The Oath of Devotion binds an oathbound to the loftiest ideals of justice, virtue, and order. Sometimes called cavaliers, white knights, or holy warriors, these oathbound meet the ideal of the knight in shining armor, acting with honor in pursuit of justice and the greater good. They hold themselves to the highest standards of conduct, and some, for better or worse, hold the rest of the world to the same standards. Depending on culture, they may be particularly devoted to one of the Congregation such as Ytra (goddess of justice) or Tor Elan (god of summer and honor), although many also feel strong connections to Melara (goddess of mercy and winter). They hold angels—the perfect servants of duty and unbending conduct—as their ideals, and incorporate images of angelic wings into their helmets or coats of arms.

The Oath of Devotion gets a bad rap as being hidebound, stodgy, and anti-fun for other players. Remember that you may be law-abiding, but you’re not a robot. Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The law and your oath can be in conflict. The tenets of the Oath are written to give you flexibility to work within a party and not cause undue discomfort. That said, it’s incumbent on everyone to adapt their characters to fit, not just you.

Tenets of Devotion

Though the exact words and strictures of the Oath of Devotion vary, oathbound of this oath share these tenets.

Oath Spells

Your Oath provides you with the following spells, which are oathbound spells for you. You always have them prepared and they do not count against your spell limit.

Channel Divinity

When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.

Improved Lay on Hands

Starting when you swear this Oath at 3rd level, you can spend STA to refill your Lay on Hands pool. As an action, spend 1+ STA. The available pool of healing increases by 5 for every STA spent, up to a maximum of 5 × your level.

Aura of Devotion

Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can’t be charmed while you are conscious.

At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Purity of Spirit

Beginning at 15th level, you are always under the effects of a protection from otherworldly influence spell.

Holy Nimbus

At 20th level, as an action, you can spend 5 or more AET to emanate an aura of sunlight. For 1 minute, bright light shines from you in a 30-foot radius, and dim light shines 30 feet beyond that.

Whenever an enemy creature starts its turn in the bright light, the creature takes radiant damage equal to twice the AET spent.

In addition, for the duration, you have advantage on saving throws against spells cast by fiends or undead.

Oath of Sin’s Weight

Those who swear the Oath of Sin’s Weight (the Sinners, as they’re often called) are those who have felt the pain that their betrayals, murders, and other sinful actions have caused themselves and others. Many of them believe themselves beyond any hope of redemption and have dedicated the remainder of lives to taking on the hard jobs, the dirty jobs, the necessary jobs so that others do not have to pay the price, do not have to lose their innocence. Many Sinners have lost their faith in the gods and ascendant powers. They still believe in their existence, but no longer consider themselves worthy of being worshippers. When they do worship, it tends to be the Redeeming Blades, demigods who accept everyone as long as they are willing to sacrifice their past for redemption. Not out of hope for redemption for themselves, but as models in helping others.

Sinners are generally pragmatic and often cynical, but not uncaring. In fact, they often care too much about everyone else but themselves. The cynicism and rough manners are a defense. As an archetype, they are the Knight in Sour Armor, the Jerk with a Heart of Gold.

Tenets of Sin’s Weight

Oath Spells

As a Sinner, your fervent devotion to your Oath grants you certain spells.

Once you gain access to a oath spell, you always have it prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn’t appear on the oathbound spell list, the spell is nonetheless an oathbound spell for you.

Channel Divinity

When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options. Once you use either one, you cannot use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Bear Another’s Burden

Starting at 3rd level, you can expend 10 hit points of your Lay on Hands pool as a bonus action to remove the staggered, stunned, shaken, frightened, or broken conditions. Alternatively, you can expend 5 points to remove the condition in question, but become afflicted with it instead, using the remaining duration, saving throw, and any other effects.

Aura of Weight

Starting at 7th level, you can expend 4 STA as a bonus action to impose burdens on enemies within the area of your Aura of Protection. Enemies in the area must make a Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, their speed is reduced to half and they deal half damage with attacks for one minute. On a success, they are shaken until the end of your next turn. Enemies that fail their saving throw can attempt the saving throw again at the end of each of their turns that they are not inside your Aura of Protection (including the effects of total cover), ending the effect on themselves on a success.

Penance Stare

Starting at 15th level, you spend 3 AET and an action to target one creature you can see within 60 ft and force it to relive its mistakes and sins. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target takes 8d6 psychic damage and is incapacitated for one minute. On a success, the target takes half as much damage and is frightened of you until the end of your next turn. Incapacitated targets can attempt the saving throw again at the end of each of their turns, ending the effect on a success.

Inner Demon

At 20th level, as an action you can become what others think you are by spending 4 STA and 5 AET, at least outwardly: a ravening fiend. You gain the following benefits for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated

• You grow shadowy wings, gaining a flight speed of 60 ft for the duration
• Your attacks deal extra fire or necrotic (your choice) damage equal to one roll of the weapon’s base damage die. Damage dealt by Divine Smite or Improved Divine Smite becomes that same damage type
• You gain 20 temporary hit points whenever a creature is reduced to 0 HP within your Aura of Protection
• The area within your Aura of Protection cannot be brighter than dim light, regardless of sources of illumination. If it already would be dimly illuminated, it becomes complete darkness.

Oath of Retribution

Those who take the Oath of Retribution are generally those who have lost something or someone dear to them at the hand of a villain or foe. For some, this villain is concrete—the Lord of Castle Keep, who murdered their daughter—for others, it may be as abstract as “those who enslave others”or“the gods themselves”. Importantly, their target is individual to them. Of all the Oaths, this is the one least likely to have an organization or order backing them. Lone wolves, joining with the party out of shared motives or because their paths happened to coincide for a while. An oathbound of Retribution devotes themselves to the destruction of their sworn foe and all those who assist or aid them. Generally, good backstories for oathbound of Retribution generalize to match the campaign’s themes. If your sworn foe is one specific person, there’s really no good path for the character if the campaign steers the party away from that person or if they’re defeated early on. In a campaign with a narrow focus, a narrow foe works best. In a more open-ended campaign, a more open-ended sworn foe is more appropriate.

Tenets of Retribution

Oath Spells

Your Oath provides you with the following spells, which are oathbound spells for you. You always have them prepared and they do not count against your spell limit.

Channel Divinity

When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.

Retributive Strike

As a reaction when you are hit with an attack from within 5 feet, you may make a melee weapon attack against them with an unarmed strike or weapon or shield you are wielding. If you use a shield or an unarmed strike, it counts as a martial bludgeoning weapon you are proficient in with the battering feature and a base 1d6 damage die. If you hit, you deal additional radiant damage as if you had spent 1 AET on your Divine Smite ability but do not have to pay the aether. If you hit with a shield, the target is also knocked prone as if it had failed the saving throw against the Crushing Weapon Mastery option (even if you did not select that mastery).

Aura of Haste

Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you gain advantage on Initiative checks and your speed increases by 10 feet.

At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Scorn the Unworthy

Beginning at 15th level, you are immune to being charmed. If you are bloodied, you have advantage on all Wisdom saving throws.

Executioner

At 20th level, as an action, you can attempt to execute an enemy. Choose a bloodied target you can see and expend 5 STA and 11 AET. If they are your Designated Target, you can teleport next to them as part of this action. Otherwise, the target must be within your reach. Make a melee weapon attack against them with a weapon you are wielding. If you hit, you deal radiant damage to them equal to the maximum critical damage roll with the weapon plus a maximized critical damage roll for your Divine Smite (as if you’d spent your aether limit on additional damage). If this is enough to reduce them to zero hit points, they die regardless of any regeneration, death saving throws, or other effects (such as Relentless Endurance or death ward effects). If you are bloodied, you regain hit points equal to one quarter of your maximum hit points.

Oathbound Spell List

The Oathbound Spell List table contains a list of the spells available to all Oathbound, ordered by aether cost.