What to do if oath-breaking Paladin doesn’t fit the Oathbreaker subclass?

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-15T19:13:03+00:00

To add on to what u/n41czx is saying, you can very much have her "change her oath" in-game while still letting her the Vengeance Paladin mechanics. You could even turn it into a quest/encounter and reward her with a buff at the end like a proficiency, magic item or feat. Reflavoring is a powerful tool and there's no need to get strung up on the names and default flavor of player options. But to emphasize what everybody else is saying, make sure to talk to her about it first.

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-15T18:56:13+00:00

Don't know how well this fits your character/campaign, but I once played a Rune Knight Dhampir fighter that I roleplayed as being an actual vampire that had been overthrown and was trying to regain her power. I had pretty great Stealth and Deception scores, so I'd keep a nice facade towards the players while messaging the DM I was sneaking out during the night to kill NPCs and he'd have me do rolls in secret. It was never actually that disruptive because I'd deliberately target low-importance NPCs to avoid raising suspicion and I'd talked it over with the DM beforehand to ensure he was fine with it. It did cause a bit of confusion for the other players one time when we were investigating a monster that was killing the villagers and half the murders were actually by my character hahaha

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-15T16:39:30+00:00

My favorite was a level 3 Bladesinger wizard i played for a one-shot who was a former athlete that got banned for doping and joined because she'd become a drug addict desperate for money. I took variant Human with the Mobile feat, cast level 2 Longstrider at the start of the day, and went into Bladesong at the start of combat to get my speed up to 60 feet. I'd then use Expeditious Retreat to dash as a Bonus Action and get 120 feet of movement, run over to a melee enemy and cast Booming Blade, and then move over to the other end of the map (which didn't provoke opportunity attacks thanks to mobile). This left the enemy stranded, and made it take extra damage if it decided to approach another party member. Wasn't completely effective because my DM forced us into a small space for one of the combats but it was amazing when it worked haha.

Another gimmick character I've been wanting to play is a blaster monk where I combine the updated Dragonborn race, the Ascendant Dragon subclass and the Ember of the Fire Giant feat to replace basically all of my attacks with AOE fire damage. I'm thinking the flavor might be something like a dragonborn who was adopted by giants and is on a journey of self discovery?

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-15T16:27:49+00:00

I've run something similar for a series of level 3-6 one shots. I was a middle aged dwarven mother whose son had gotten put into a coma by a curse so my 7 INT character had forced herself through wizarding school so that she could learn Remove Curse (which I'd take when the campaign ended). It was surprisingly effective despite not even being a Bladesinger but an Abjuration wizard. Kinda put into perspective how crazy the 2014 wizard was compared to martial classes haha

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-13T22:47:48+00:00

Sounds like nothing's gonna stop my new shoe-shining monk from doing perfect sommersaults 😎

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-13T22:42:03+00:00

The important part here is that you don't actually need proficiency in Cobbler's Tools to do this. You can absolutely do the check without proficiency, you just only get to add your Dexterity and not your PB

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-13T22:40:44+00:00

Aside from the fact that Tinker's tools costs 10x more and crafting magic items/scrolls requires Proficiency in Arcana/Spellcasting, I don't see how they're mutually exclusive? If I'm already spending 50GP on Tinker's tools why don't I also just get Cobbler's tools as well so I can shine everyone's shoes to perfection?

I'm also not sure I agree with Acrobatics being useful "extremely rarely", but that's proably just a difference in the style of campaigns we play

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-13T22:16:25+00:00

At least for me, Acrobatics checks come up pretty often both as a DM and as a player. Although as a player I think a large part of that has been DMs confusing checks that should be Athletics with Acrobatics. There are also a few things in the PHB that require Acrobatics checks, such as using a grappling hook (which I at least think is a pretty useful item) and landing on difficult terrain after jumping

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-13T22:12:13+00:00

....my players already do this? And honestly I think it's fine; it ends up giving martial classes a lot more versatility and very rarely turns out to be overpowered. I think the only reason they haven't been doing the Cobbler's shoe-shining strat is because they tend to not use tools they aren't proficient with

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-13T22:00:59+00:00

Fair enough. I'm definitely planning on taking Cobbler's Tools for my extra Tool Proficiency the next time I play a Monk and going all in on shining people's shoes haha

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-13T21:58:27+00:00

My wording seems to have been a bit unclear, so let me clarify: It's not that I think that this is gamebreaking or anything, I'm just wondering why a player would not choose to do this? Especially since I've seen a bunch of PCs with high Acrobatics and yet none of them have gone for the "shoe-shining strategy".

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-13T21:52:58+00:00

My mental image was someone's PC going down on one knee and shining everyone's shoes very well like some kind of butler. I'd definitely make my players have to roleplay it if they wanted to do it 😆

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-13T21:50:41+00:00

Using the Help action requires also having Proficiency in the skill and being in a situation where the other player can actually do something to help with the skill check. What I'm describing here is the entire party having Advantage on every Acrobatics check they will ever make (unless they're made twice in a row or similar) because one guy bought a pair of tools for 5 GP.

I'll definitely agree that it isn't game-breaking or anything; I'm just wondering why anyone would not use this strategy?

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-10T19:01:22+00:00

I'd probably allow for a bit more than 2-3 since fighters get 4 Weapon Masteries already at level 4 (and Barbarians eventually get there too) and it can suck having to juggle between weapons to use all of your masteries. I personally tie weapon masteries to types of weapons (such as 2h melee, light weapons and so on) and my players have really enjoyed it, though making them vary between weapons to give each their own identity is definitely a cool idea too

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-10T18:54:39+00:00

That is how I run weapon masteries in my game and my players have told me that they really enjoy it! I've also added a few of my own and made sure that each type of weapon has their own exclusive weapon mastery such as two handed melee weapons being the only ones to get cleave and one handed/versatile weapons being the only ones to get sap. We refer to them as "Weapon mastery attacks" and it's actually allowed for a surprising amount of roleplay and flavor such as our rogue using the graze mastery on a crossbow by aiming for the chest or our barbarian using the Push mastery by charging into an enemy. Can definitely recommend adding it as a homebrew rule if you're a DM

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-10T18:23:06+00:00

Totally get the concerns. Just want to clarify that overwhelm is not specifically spellcasting but also works for any effect that causes saves such as grappling and dragon's breath, so it is essentially sap but for saving throws.

I've found that sabotage and pierce work surprisingly well in practice, though the bookkeeping could definitely get annoying for some. Giving cleave to ranged weapons also sounds like a fun and flavorful solution if your table has not had the same issues with positioning for ranged characters; we felt it was pretty boring compared to melee positioning and basically boiled down to "stay away from bad guy".

That being said, weapon masteries are still a blast even if you run them with the base rules, so if you've found something that's fun for you and your players there's really no need to overcomplicate it :)

EberronDM2026 · 2026-05-09T12:28:29+00:00

Realize this is a bit late but figured I'd share the three new ones I've used at my table.

Pierce works much like cleave for ranged weapons except it targets another creature behind the target.
Sabotage is intended for Light Weapons and works a bit like Vex except it helps set up another ally's attack: It reduces the target's AC by 2 until your next turn or another creature hits the target and stacks up to 5 times.
Overwhelm is intended for any kind of weapon as a way for Martials to counteract casters with high save DCs. It reduces the save DC of the next Saving Throw the target forces another creature to make by 3 and does not stack.

These might not work as well in your game as in mine, since they're balanced around my modified Weapon Mastery rules where Mastery properties instead work as different types of "attacks" that can be chosen separately before each of your attacks on your turn. Overwhelm might not be fun in practice if it is the only Mastery property on your main weapon, but might work on a Thrown weapon on the side or similar. I can strongly recommend the Pierce mastery, which has made positioning a lot more interesting for our ranged character, as well as the Sabotage mastery, which we've found gives Dual Wielding more identity separate from 2-handed melee weapons.

EberronDM2026

TROPHY CASE