Paladin Oath
Oath of Awakening
Some paladins are dedicated to serving others, saving kingdoms, or honoring the gods. Awakening paladins do not care for such worldly pursuits. They have glimpsed a higher order of being, and aspire to become it. Their quest is not for power, not exactly. Rather, the Oath of Awakening is about pushing into unknown frontiers, transforming oneself into something greater.
Awakening paladins can come from any background, and may begin their careers as any alignment. But their oath most often comes from a brush with the unnatural, a glimpse into a far plane and a fascination with the horrors that reside there. So by the time a paladin takes this oath, they invariably have a certain level of self-absorption, and are rarely wholeheartedly good.
Tenets of Awakening
Paladins who swear the Oath of Awakening see their power as a sign of progress, an indication that they're on the right path.
- Revere the Unknown: Eldritch beings are to be honored and emulated, not feared.
- Trust in Confusion: The path of awakening is rarely clear or easy to understand. Confusion is a sign of progress.
- Fret Not For the World: Worldly affairs are but a step on the journey. Look to your glorious eternity.
Oath of Awakening Features
| Paladin Level | Features |
|---|---|
| 3rd | Oath Spells, Channel Divinity |
| 7th | Aura of Communion |
| 15th | Higher Existence |
| 20th | True Metamorphosis |
Oath of Awakening Spells
Starting at 3rd level, you learn an additional spell when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown in the table below. The spell counts as a paladin spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of paladin spells you can prepare.
| Paladin Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 3rd | charm person, induce headacheK |
| 5th | detect thoughts, suggestion |
| 9th | mounting paranoiaK, sending |
| 13th | black tentacles, confusion |
| 17th | dominate person, seeming |
Spells marked with a K are by KibblesTasty and also included in the appendix.
Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options. See the Sacred Oath class feature for how Channel Divinity works.
Terrifying Insight
You can use your Channel Divinity to give another creature a vision of the true workings of reality. As an action, choose a creature within 30 feet. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the target becomes frightened of you for 1 minute. While frightened in this way, it takes 2d6 psychic damage at the start of each of its turns. It can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns.
Open Mind
As an action, you can Channel Divinity to expand your consciousness and see the world as it truly is. For 10 minutes, you gain blindsight and telepathy to a range of 5 feet for every two levels in this class. Targets for your telepathy can respond telepathically, but you must share a language to be able to communicate in more than simple images.
While this ability is active, your creature type is Aberration.
Aura of Communion
Starting at 7th level, your psychic receptiveness extends to your allies. This aura extends 10 feet from you in every direction, but not through total cover. Creatures of your choice within your aura can communicate telepathically with one another. Creatures in your aura gain resistance to psychic damage, and if one of them fails a saving throw to avoid being charmed, frightened, stunned, or possessed, you can choose to take the condition onto yourself. You repeat the saving throw and suffer the condition on a failure.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Higher Existence
At 15th level, you continue your metamorphosis into a greater being. You have advantage on saving throws to avoid being charmed, frightened, stunned, or possessed. Anytime you succeed on a saving throw against one of those conditions, the creature that forced the saving throw takes psychic damage equal to your paladin level.
True Metamorphosis
At 20th level, you can temporarily transform yourself into an ascended form. As a bonus action, you can transform for 1 minute. Your creature type becomes Aberration, you gain immunity to psychic damage, and you gain a 30-foot fly speed with hover. In addition, you can select one of the following benefits:
- You gain 10 temporary hit points at the start of each of your turns.
- Your limbs elongate, giving you a 15-foot reach on all your attacks.
- All your attacks and spells deal psychic damage.
- Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with an attack, you can force it to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, it is charmed by you for 1 minute. It can repeat the saving throw anytime you deal damage to it.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Oath of Awakening quirks
The following are some optional quirks for a player of this Oath to choose from.
| d6 | Quirk |
|---|---|
| 1 | Your eyes are an iridescent purple. |
| 2 | The skin beneath your raiments is slick and rubbery. |
| 3 | Your hair tends to fall out in great clumps. |
| 4 | Your fingers and toes are unnaturally long and smooth. |
| 5 | When you channel divinity, you mutter "line my brain with eyes" to yourself. |
| 6 | Your blood is a pearlescent white. |
Appendix 1: Optional Class Features
The following are some optional class features that are suggested for use with the Oath of Restlessness.
Psychic Smite
2nd-level paladin feature, which replaces the Divine Smite feature
Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal psychic damage to the target, in addition to the weapon’s damage. The extra damage is 2d6 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d6 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 5d6. The damage increases by 1d6 if the target is a beast or a humanoid, to a maximum of 6d6.
Improved Psychic Smite
11th-level paladin feature, which replaces the Improved Divine Smite feature
By 11th level, you are so suffused with unholy power that all your melee weapon strikes carry that foulness with them. Whenever you hit a creature with a melee weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d8 psychic damage.
Appendix 2: Spells
Spells used are available in these collections, all of which are free to use and reference for any purpose.
- Spells That Don't Suck is a set of spells by Omega Ankh and somanyrobots, creating replacements for problematic spells contained in first-party WotC materials.
- So Many Spells is a set of wholly original spells written by somanyrobots.
- Kibbles' Casting Compendium is the complete set of spells written by KibblesTasty.
Induce Headache
1st-level evocation
- Classes: Bard, Wizard
- Casting Time: 1 action
- Range: 60 feet
- Components: : V, S, M (a bad pun written on a scrap of parchment)
- Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Targeting a creature with 6 or more intelligence, you inflict an instantaneous headache on it. The target takes 1 psychic damage at the start of its turn, and has disadvantage on Constitution saving throws to maintain Concentration and Intelligence ability checks.
Mounting Paranoia
3rd-level illusion
- Classes: Warlock, Wizard
- Casting Time: 1 action
- Range: 60 feet
- Components: : V, S
- Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
You shroud the mind of a creature you can see within range in shadow, twisting their view of the world around them. Everything more than 15 feet from the target becomes wreathed in shadow and indistinct noises, distorting how they perceive it. If the target attempts to target a creature wreathed in shadow in this way with an attack or spell, it must pass a Wisdom saving throw, or it instead targets a random different target within range. When the target creature becomes able to see a creature that was previously wreathed in shadow, it must pass a Wisdom saving throw, or become frightened of that creature until the start of its next turn.
At the end of each of the creatures turns, it makes a Wisdom saving throw. On failure, the shadows draw 5 feet closer, closing off the distance the target can see clearly. If the target's entire vision becomes shrouded with shadows (after making 3 failures), they become paralyzed with fear until they pass the saving throw against the spell. If the target passes their saving throw, the spell ends.
Change Log
v0.3
- Added Spells Appendix
v0.2
- Renamed from Ascension to Awakening
v0.1
- Rough Draft
Credits & References:
Oath of Awakening created by somanyrobots Discord | Patreon
Spells
- Induce Headache, Mounting Paranoia by KibblesTasty
Art
Meditative Bloodrager, by Alifka Hammam Nugroho
Background Image Stains
License
© 2024 somanyrobots, CC BY-NC 4.0
Includes spells from Kibbles' Casting Compendium 2.0 by KibblesTasty Homebrew LLC, which is licensed CC-BY and available here.
5E SRD Content
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available here.
The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available here.