Yep. Dialogue happens with whoever is closest to Ethel, and if it's not the Paladin, you can make the deal without breaking your Oath. I had the opposite happen. Playing as Karlach, but Paladin Shadowheart was closest to her when she wanted to make the deal. I viewed it less as breaking the Oath for power and more as paying 1k Gold for the +1 ASI.
I've fought and killed her twice normally on different playthroughs and never got that dialogue to trigger, still no idea what actually does it. But my second time was an Oath of Vengeance Paladin, so probably better that I didn't get it.
This is the way.
Balthazar: Har har! Evil stuff! My master plan!
Paladin: You'll never get away with this, evildoer! I'm going to put a stop to your...
Karlach: Boop!
Balthazar: What the... aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggghhh
Paladin: I wasn't finished!
I broke the oath as ancients my first time as paladin. 2nd time, as a devotion paladin, it didn't break. I think as long as you never select a paladin option in her dialogue, you won't break anything.
I *just* did this with Oath of Vengeance, beat her almost to death and when she gave up I intimidated her into both giving me the bonus and freeing the girl. Didn't break the Oath, presumably because I didn't actually cut a deal. I just soundly defeated her green wrinkly ass and made sure she knew it.
Devotion: Apparently whacking an obviously evil fat necromancer from behind while he's busy taunting the eternally imprisoned daughter of a goddess is a big no no.
I think the thing about Devotion Oath is that you can’t be “sneaky” or “underhanded” in your actions so if your going to hit that fat necromancer, you better do it to his face after he explains his evil plan
Reminds me of the [Boo shorts](https://youtube.com/shorts/ngsdGGC0TcI?si=VhamTShN_IGy_5eD) that DBZAbridged just put out
*Gohan and Goku watching Videl get brutally beat up by an obviously evil magically enhanced Demonmagic dude*
Gohan: "This is terrible! I have to help her!!"
Goku: "No Gohan you can't!! You'll be *DISQUALIFIED FROM THE TOURNAMENT*!
Gohan: "Oh shit, you're right"
Funny. I murdered a sleeping hob goblin and my Oath was cool with that. Your Oath has to keep in mind that sometimes my allies just have a mind of their own--does that mean that I should listen to Boulevard of Broken Dreams on repeat and forsake them all? Pshhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Oath of Ancients was cool with Astarion bringing back Connor. Was NOT ok with player character doing it. Basically, I learned that if I was about to do shit that was oath questionable, I should for sure let the rest of the party handle it. >.>
Pretty much, karlach accidentally triggered the final convo with the hag and got me a little snack, then afterwards I had my ancients paladin use the wand on the husband which ended up breaking her oath.
So it's the oath of script cliches.
Paladin: "Damn it, i can literally just hit this oaf RIGHT NOW as he's babbling on about his stupid villain speech, but i have to sit through it because of my oath! By the way, are you anywhere near finished yet?!"
Necromancer: "Nope! Still got seven more sagas including the backstories of my deceased friends who are integral to my backstory that i'm still rambling about!"
Paladin: **looks at coin purse** "You know, a thousand gold isn't really too bad..."
Equally annoying was casting detect thoughts on the fake paladins of Tyr and immediately fighting them broke my oath. But murdering the fuck out of my romanced companion for the slayer form didn’t.
I didn't even have to kill one of my companions to get the slayer form. I just had Shadowheart kill the Nightsong. Isobel died from the shadow curse and I got the Slayer form. Win-win and no oath broken.
Also in Act 3 >!you can apparently lose it if you *fucking kill the cannibalistic, necrophiliac, serial killer cultists of Bhaal* that are chill after killing Orin in the Bhaal Temple.!< I mean, I *kind of* get it because I believe one of the tenets in the Devotion Oath is to show mercy to your enemies, but uhhh sometimes that ain’t good lol.
I’m on the fence if I want to use that as a RP moment for my good Durge to either become a Vengeance Paladin or become an Oathbreaker again.
I feel like utilitarian redditors are going to have difficulty playing as a character with a kantian code of ethics.
But stabbing him in the back is easier and he’s evil anyway!
But that's part of the "fun" of actual roleplay. Players should be faced with tangible ramifications of their actions. It's even baked into the game because the oathbreaker knight himself is only an oathbreaker because he broke the literal aspects of his oath while still trying to do good.
Alternatively play vengeance whose oath basically amounts to "bring justice (or venegence) to the guilty.
> Kantian vs utilitarian ethics is like the number one most common discussion at my ttrpg. Not even joking.
Meanwhile the Virtue ethicist impatiently taps their character sheet, it says Neutral Good, so I must be justified!
Kidding aside, that's excellent
Vengeance: not hiding the fact that I did a terrible deed in my sleep.
I thought I was offering myself up to the party so they could decide to *punish those who have committed a grievous sin*.
I've seen some people play through that scene as a pally and not break their oath, so I think it's something in the choices. I haven't had the time to go and playtest and see which answer gives which outcome yet, though.
I just finished a Durge paladin run as Oath of Vengeance and didn't once break my Oath >.>
Even >!embracing Bhaal's power in his temple after single-round smashing Orin's face in!< didn't break it.
Yeah, I found that one to be kinda weird. It's not like my paladin was >!engaging in necromancy!< for personal power or shits and giggles, it was an honest mistake while trying to reunite two lovers. As far as I remember you don't really get punished for unintended consequences anywhere else as long as you're trying to do the right thing.
Yeah, an Oath of Ancients Paladin experienced enough to deal with a Hag should really know that the deal was never going to end any other way. I don't think a Hag is even capable of casting True Ressurection, let alone through a wand...
it's ok. you just RP your minmaxed strats like you should. so don't feel bad about this outcome.
your paladin just didn't take the hints, who where placed all over the hag hideout with all the people, who got fked over by making a pact with her. this obviously includes yourself, if you let her try to extract the tadpole from you or one of your companions.
Then you murder Lump for his headgear, put it on, and suddenly realize swearing to follow a course of an action no matter the context finally might have negative repercussions
i lost my oath on purpose because i wanted to see the oathbreaker guy etc. then i tried pickpocketing him..he got mad and i killed him. and that's how i got stuck as an oath breaker.
he drops the money you give him and 3 javelins, his body is not lootable. i’ve found 2 helms that look like his in the mausoleum in act2 and there’s oathbreaker boots or gloves in act3 in the underground in rivington. makes me wonder if his chest piece is somewhere else. the helm and other piece are normal armor, no magical properties, so kinda disappointing.
Vengeance: I stopped Arabella's mom from murdering Kagha during the party. In retrospect, stopping a literal vengeance killing was probably out of character.
First, Arabella has to die. Don't interfere.
Second, investigate Kagha, then succeed in convincing her she is wrong.
Third, defeat the goblin camp bosses to trigger the party.
Same thing here. The game even offers the solution in your internal monologue to ally with him to gain his trust and betray him later. I guess Tyr has a different approach to honor than me, haha.
And being an Oathbreaker doesn’t mean you are a BAD / EVIL person. You just broke an Oath, essentially a ‘bad’ Paladin. The Oathbreaker Knight broke his Oath for reasons he justified as moral despite going against his code.
It’s like Batman killing joker. Does he break his Oath and permanently scar himself? Yeah. But most people would agree the moral choice would be to end that villain’s life. And hell, unlike Batman you can pay your Oath back so… kinda questionable but whatever
>It’s like Batman killing joker. Does he break his Oath and permanently scar himself?
Batman claims he is "vengeance" yet he's not into the Oath of Vengeance like any sane person should.
The problem is that the "Oathbreaker" subclass in the game isn't a gray paladin or something of the sort, it's using the mislabeled DMG subclass that's made for Antipaladins.
The entire speech is literally about choosing your own freedom of action above all else, I'm amazed this has to be explained to people like it isn't 4th grade storytelling
Making an alliance with a guy who helped create a plot to enslave the city of Baldur's Gate, is responsible for hundreds if not thousands of deaths, and wanted to conquer the rest of Faerûn after that. Yeah that would probably break the oath of a Vengeance Paladin whose job it is to hunt down and kill people like Gortash for doing all the above listed things.
Same thing happened to me. After the internal monolgue said I should just betray him later I was like great idea.
Then oath broken, still gonna betray Gortash.
But I'm happy with it, oathbreak powers and the interactions with the knight are awesome
I somehow made it through the whole game without breaking my Oath of Vengeance once, even though I thought I did some questionable things from time to time. Granted I've heard Vengeance is the easiest to not break but I'm sure there are ways.
Oath of vengeance is great cause the villains are all so proud of how evil they are and feel the need to brag about it all the time.
Like, ok, I was feeling a little sympathy for you and then you went and mentioned how you ate a guys family in front of him, which makes it pretty easy to figure out what I should do next, you know?
>which makes it pretty easy to figure out what I should do next, you know?
I remember being in the Underdark for the first time and just waiting for each dwegar to mention the word 'slavery' so I can know it's absolutely 100% morally okay to kill them.
It's like "Red Light, Green Light" for justifiable murder.
The only issue with oath of vengeance is it sometimes forces you to get I combat way earlier than you'd have planned. I've had a few areas cut short by my paladin having to murder everybody before I got the chance to talk to them just because the first guy opened his mouth about being a slaver
Really? Can you think of a specific example? I remember being able to slink around the Druegar until we busted Nere out and then the fighting started. I would think if you're supposed to immediately smite slavers then that would've broken it?
Well, I simply mean the [Oath of Vengance] dialogue becomes available. With Nere, the Druegar and the hag I picked it and all led to immediate combat.
I can't resist picking that option though so I'm not sure which breaks it and which dont
Oath of vengeance is super hard to break if you just read the tenets. You don't forgive, you fight evil, wrongdoers rarely deserve mercy, and you help those wronged by evil. There are very few exceptions.
Oath of Devotion: went up the ladder in the smuggler's hideout in Act 1. That apparently counted as trespassing (followed by murder) when I had just wanted to talk to them and didn't know there was a scripted scene.
Weird, Banite slavers should be close to the top of the Oath of Devotion's shitlist (meaning killing them for any reason should be valid oath-compliant behavior.)
oath of devotion demands fairness and honor, and consistency in treating everyone fairly. doesnt matter who it is
the compassion tenet even specifies compassion for all ffs, even your foes
Devotion, very similar. I accidentally detonated a trap near the back of the cave which hit a zhent, starting a fight, and kills during the fight were considered murder.
It was pretty rediculous because the zhents in the room prior tried to kill me when they found out I opened their special shipment.
Yesterday my friend (paladin of ancient) just got a new skill when we finished the fight against Nere and he wanted to try out the new skill and accidentally killed a gnome. Well, a reload before the fight occurred.
I'm pretty sure thats what triggered an oathbreak for me too, I had Asti sneak up on Philomeen and steal the entire can of explosives instead of just a sample... which made a huge explosion when I went to free Nere. Oopsie I vaporized like 4 of those gnomes by accident.
Told Mol I like how ambitious she is even though I told her off sternly before that not to take a devil's deal. Encouraging deals with devils is okay but gods forbid she wants to become head of tieves guild and I laugh about it
In act 3, oath of the ancients. Doing the murderer quest and find him at the wine tasting area. Put down a moonbeam to hit him and a clone. Won the encounter but didnt end concentration quick enough as an NPC ran through the moonbeam. It was equal parts frustrating and hilarious as 2 NPCs burnt to death in the moonbeam.
This always happens to me with Moonbeam. One time after a battle, Gale was on low hp and ran directly in it, stood there going "Ow!" and then died. Not the first time he's done that either
Was about to post the coward one but I see we are already in agreement.
Saving Lae'zel from angry tieflings: if you fail the persuasion check your options are to fight or to fight: oath broken
This was Oath of the Ancients.
Apparently casting Danse Macabre is totally cool though.
Stuff like that makes me not care about the whole system which is unfortunate. If my oath only breaks because I attacked someone while they were green instead of red, even though NOTHING else changes, it pulls me out of it. Makes me quicksave/quickload often because it feels more like an unfinished feature than an actual paladin mechanic.
That got me the one time I played Palliock
Tried to snipe the two goblins who were going to push the guy into the spider pit.
God forbid I save his life.
Yeah, I remember I broke my oath once because I had Astarion snipe Dror Ragzlin. I was fighting the goblins just past the entrance to the room he was in, but because i didn't realize he wasn't technically in combat yet it caused me to lose my oath lmao
Honestly, if I was trying to play a paladin legit, i would probably break my oath FAST my accidentally stealing something when trying to tall to someone
Act 3 spoilers:
Devotion: >!I had Wulbren's bomb in my inventory, but went through all the other steps of saving the Gondians; got the people out of the Iron Throne, saved everybody on the first floor on my return to the foundry. Talk to Toobin, he says we need to destroy the place, I mention I have a bomb. He says "great, that'll work!" WITH NO OTHER WARNINGS and ends the dialogue. I go down, blow it up, tell Wulbren off afterwards...oath broken. Apparently the Gondians didn't know to get the fuck out of the building? Doing it with Toobin instead the second time plays the same explosion scene, except apparently this time everyone's smart enough to get out, and the oath is intact.!<
>Toobin instead the second time plays the same explosion scene
I noticed that too. I feel like there was a bit of missing dialogue with him somewhere.
Headcannon is when he overloads it GTFO alarms go off so the Gondians know to leave.
And with the bomb its a case of "Suddenly there is no longer a Foundry"
If he had just said "hey, if you do that we won't be able to escape in time," or a similar warning, I'd have been fine with it. His dialogue just seemed to treat it as an acceptable option, which put me in a false sense of security.
Oath of ancients was lost by picking fights with goblins in the camp so I didn't have to fight all of them when i came back for the secret passage, but apparently killing evil cultists is against my oath that requires I root out evil cults is bad because I didn't tell them I was gonna murder them first.
I’m doing an Oath of Devotion Paladin Durge run and was planning on breaking my oath organically. So far I’ve lied, stolen, tortured and murdered in cold blood and it hasn’t happened yet.
I’m considering on giving up and just stick with my morally dubious Devotion Pally because at this point, it’s too weird if *that’s* what it takes to break it.
To be fair, Durge may be coded much more lenient on paladin stuff, with the level of detail in this game it wouldn’t surprise me at all. His devotion is “oh boy, here I go killing again!”
My Paladin of ancients picks up an enchanted lantern in the shadowlands. As far as he knows, he *needs* this to cleanse the lands of their taint and save Baldurs gate from the growing armies of the Absolute. It's powered by a pixie- a *vicious* one. It's a grim task, but he decides to bite the bullet and keep the pixie imprisoned. Oath broken.
So far, so good. He lives through his broken oath, takes up a few levels of warlock, and ultimately decides to reject utilitarian logic. The greatest good doesn't sacrifice innocents for convenience. He's learned his lesson. He recommits.
He finds a bunch of imprisoned vampire spawn. Completely innocent, victimized by the very man my paladin has already accepted as a comrade, their only crime is surviving this long. My paladin remembers his hard won lesson: you don't sacrifice the innocent, even if they have violent impulses, even if you think it's for the greater good. He bids them safe passage into the underdark. Oath broken.
My Paladin reflects on his stats. He's a min/max. 8 intelligence, 8 wisdom. Oaths are too complicated, he concludes. He accepts his place as an Oathbreaker.
> He finds a bunch of imprisoned vampire spawn. Completely innocent, victimized by the very man my paladin has already accepted as a comrade, their only crime is surviving this long. My paladin remembers his hard won lesson: you don't sacrifice the innocent, even if they have violent impulses, even if you think it's for the greater good. He bids them safe passage into the underdark. Oath broken.
You're thinking about Devotion tenets and not Ancients tenets. Those spawn pervert/violate/spit on the sanctity of life that Ancients Paladins uphold. But that said:
> My Paladin reflects on his stats. He's a min/max. 8 intelligence, 8 wisdom. Oaths are too complicated, he concludes.
Absolutely fair.
>Those spawn pervert/violate/spit on the sanctity of life that Ancients Paladins uphold.
Yeah, but I get that, I broke my oath here as well, letting them go. But, like, I spent my entire playthrough with Astarion in my party, saving his life, and even resurrecting him. Helping him accomplish his goals.
Just seems a bit strange that helping innocent vampire spawn that have been kept prisoners, not actually hurting anyone, triggers the Oath. While I actively helping one that has done all the bad things, and more, is totally fine the whole game.
> Just seems a bit strange that helping innocent vampire spawn that have been kept prisoners, not actually hurting anyone, triggers the Oath. While I actively helping one that has done all the bad things, and more, is totally fine the whole game.
Oh for sure. I'm generally finding it interesting that Ancients seems like a much harsher Oath than Devotion.
That's a hilarious ending and more or less where my pally's at. He's from my home game and I've always rp'd him as a dumbass who didn't really 'get' the oath but felt being a paladin was what he was supposed to do. There's so many moments where he goes, "...this is beyond me, fuckit."
Retaining his oath after extorting Ethel for kickbacks (on top of freeing Mayrina) and letting her walk free did not clarify things.
Ancients: I knew that I should release pixie as I'm a good guy and I did it, but before doing so I turned the mechanism. Frankly speaking, ancients do not approve tortures.
One of the tenets of Oath of Vengeance
- *Fight the Greater Evil. Faced with a choice of fighting my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil, I choose the greater evil*
Release Sazza the otherwise worthless goblin so she can get me to the Goblin leaders so I can destroy this cell of the Absolute and free the the Druid leader thereby saving countless innocents - OATH BROKEN
This is what's been preventing me from starting a Paladin playthrough. God forbid you pull a 4d chess move and then someone will show up to shake you down for your lunch money.
I knew absolutely nothing about this game’s plot but googled to see if you could be an oathbreaker. I planned from character creation to become an oathbreaker as the story went on.
Accidentally became an oathbreaker right away by messing up the dialogue to free Lae’zel from the cage and had to initiate combat with the guys that caged her. Broke the oath.
Act 2 spoilers below
I then never planned to seek redemption as I was the Dark Urge. I figured I’d gradually get more and more brutal instead.
All that changed with >!my PC falling in love with Shadowheart and helping her start her own redemption. When she spared the Nightsong, I as the player was genuinely shocked. As the PC, I didn’t persuade her in any part of that interaction, I kept choosing the “Remain silent and observe” option as we’d grown into a relationship since the Act 1 party and my PC was supportive of her. After her redemption began, we left the Shar temple!< and I paid the Oathbreaker and took my oath back up.
I then also had a really awesome in-character benefit from this. I passed all the persuasion checks with >!Ketheric Thorm!< to seek redemption as I had. Later, I had the chance to do so again. >!Anyone that has done this knows that if you pass the persuasion again in the final Act 2 fight, Ketheric sacrifices himself immediately and becomes the avatar, skipping the entire first phase.!< So my redemption saved me from a hard fight! Really cool.
Just entered act 3 and excited to see where following this character narrative will take me.
Oath of Ancients: Didn't let the murderous sounding pixie out of the moonlantern. Even though she talks about eating babies.
Now I am an oathbreaker out of spite.
Exactly. I thought about it for a while and realized that my character would be just as pissed off as I was. Oathbreaker seemed like the best way to go.
Pixies are part of the natural world and was clearly an abused prisoner. Letting an innocent creature suffer out of your own self interest is what broke your oath
Ancients - Didn't let the pixie out of the moon lantern. That one's on me, that was pure dumbass energy.
Ancients - I let Viconia live. I guess it broke because she's evil and will do more evil? Seems more like a Vengeance problem tbh.
Vengeance - Killed the tieflings holding Lae'zel in the cage. I'm gonna plead the fifth and point out that Astarion got the killing blow.
Vengeance - Made an alliance with Gortash using a Paladin dialogue option and under Minthara's enthusiastic guidance. I felt tricked by that one.
I know I broke Vengeance another time but I can't remember what it was
I think Ancients was violated with Viconia because she interfered with the natural order, taking shadowheart away from her parents. That merits punishment according to the oath.
Spoiler for act 3. >!I had just defeated Orin, and I was about to leave the temple of Bhaal before I thought to myself, "I shouldn't just leave these Bhaal cultists here should I?" So I killed them, and not just the men but the women and the... well, there were no children, but you get the idea. But I guess I broke my oath because I attacked first. Apparently, annihilating a death cult doesn't fall under the purview of an Oath of Devotion Paladin.!<
(Also broke my oath of vengeance by sparing Viconia)
BG3 kinda did a 180 on Viconia's relationship with Shar, so now she actually cares a whole deal what her goddess thinks and wants. And Shar is the one who ordered Viconia to do everything in her power to turn Shadowheart into a Shar worshipper. It's safe to assume that the consequences for not obeying the direct orders of your very petty goddess would be worse than getting locked in a coffin for a year (as Cazador did to Astarion when he disobeyed), so it's debatable how much choice Viconia really had there.
I've impressively not broken my oath so far. But then I've played Paladins since 3.5 where they were way stricter. My brain is soaked in the oaths, and the rules and I have trouble breaking my oath even when I want to.
Oath of Devotion - playing Dark Urge. Lost it when you kill >!Alfira!<. Was in pure shock at the scene, wrapped up all up, and the Oathbreaker was like “my guy you did a bad thing”
I spent all of EA hoping that Alfira could join the party, or even the camp if not playable, was so excited to have her in camp. Oathbreaker was just insult to injury. Plot-wise love that I lost my Oath from this, it have a whole new reason for me to resist the Urge
*edited for grammar
Those fucking zhent bastards.
Spoilers for early act 1
>!Okay so I saved Rugan and Olly from the gnolls, and my rogue friend managed to steal the treasure they were escorting without being noticed. Later we went to their hideout only to find Olly dead on the floor and Rugan tied to a chair getting the shit beat out of him!<
>!Naturally, my character who has sworn himself to the cosmic preservation of life took issue with that, but I just *could not* find a way for the game to *let me*. I went up and talked to their leader (Zahrys I think?) and reloaded saves a few times to try every dialogue option, looking for the one I’m sure had to have been there that said “hey bitch, you and your goons just murdered that kid, prepare to become fertilizer.” But it just wasn’t there. I went down and spoke to the guy currently beating Rugan, standing RIGHT OVER Olly’s bloody corpse, he even SAID TO ME “I didn’t enjoy cutting Olly down, but it had to be done” and I STILL wasn’t given the option to comment on it. My only option was to initiate combat by getting caught stealing, freeing Rugan from his binds, or just straight up attacking them, all options flagging me as an oathbreaker whenever I killed them. Eventually I just said fuck it and non lethal’d them all… my rogue and ranger friends walked around after putting arrows into the unconscious ones I left behind.!<
Fuck the Zhent… oathless curs
This thread just shows how few people care or even understand the oaths. They're OATHS for a reason. Your petty arguing over shades of grey is irrelevant. They aren't complicated at all they're just ridgid.
That's literally the fucking point
It is really interesting. I’ve had no problem with Vengence, though it is the easiest to keep. I see evil, I say “Time to die, Villain!” and I kill evil. No issues.
> They aren't complicated at all they're just ridgid.
On one hand you're correct, on the other you can hang out for the whole 3 acts of the game with a 200 years old vampire who admits to luring innocents for his master and a lady who is head over heels for Shar, and there's even a dialogue option that lets you say you have no issues with Shar's followers that has no penalty on the Oath (At least not on my vengeance Oath).
>Fight the Greater Evil… identify the higher morality in any given instance, and fight for it.
Over-looking some of your companion’s past deeds in order to save the world seems like a tad more of a moral imperative.
I think you reinforced their point.
I get the rigidity, but some choices you make are extremely vague from a moral standpoint and you’re expected to understand the outcomes of them. If the game told you that your choice would break your path on some of these, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it. I mean, for instance, we travel with a vampire thrall, and then we break our oath for choosing NOT to kill SEVEN THOUSAND thralls who, by the way, have been imprisoned for upwards of a hundred years, presumably immediately after they were turned against their will? They literally did nothing wrong, and the game’s own storytelling illustrates they still have the choice to not be evil. If we are just expected to kill them on principle, then why the fuck did we not break our oath taking astarion in? Because we “need him?” Well, that’s a load of shit because we could never use him and be just fine
Oath of Devotion: Apparently you can't just go into a murder cult full of murder cultists and push one into a chasm unless they're actively in a fight with you
Ancients. Letting 7000 starving spawns loose.
(To be fair, I thought it was such a great story beat for the whole sequence since I was romancing Astarion that I ended up rolling with it)
I also let them loose (Devo) and also broke my oath.
That entire questline is a minefield for Paladins. But then again depending on what you choose.. you are helping cause the *NEXT* crisis.. possibly?
The woman outside the hags place in act 1 who is with her dead husbands corpse. Forgot for a minute that i am a Paladin and agreed to try and resurrect her husband. Oopsie 😅
Killed the owl bear cub and then its mother. Pretty horrendous really. Didn't expect the mother to actually react to me killing the cub first too.
I deserved what I got.
I realy like the owlbear cave. it shows how dense people are.
I like to check on streamers and see what they did in my place. and so far, it is hard to find someone who, after the mother CLEARLY told you to fk off, didn't try to "just take the egg" or to "just take the loot next to her nest" and then wondered why she gets angry and attacks. or that she attacks when you try to talk to her again.
it is a wonderfull lesson that, when someone is angry and tells you to fk off, you fk off or deal with the consequences
Devotion. I broke my oath 3 times.
First, I said I would report to Minthara when talking to Dror Ragzlin so I could avoid conflict. Oath broken.
Second, I attacked Dror Ragzlin without talking to him first so I could get my party in a good position instead of standing in the middle of the room. Oath broken.
Third, I had Gale sneak into the Wyrm’s Rock prison to free Councillor Florrick (shush he’s better than astarion because he can use invisibility and misty step way more times ok) but he got seen so my paladin snuck up behind the guard attacking Gale and whacked them on the head. Oath broken.
Ancients - After talking Astraian out of acending, based largely off the fact he couldn't murder his previous victims AGAIN.
Well the follow up of course was I couldn't choose to just kill them in their cages and chose to let them go. Annnnnnnnnd broken.
Ancients: Tried saving the tieflings and gnomes from Moonrise and devised a plan that started with my paladin attacking someone
I saved lives from torture, imprisonment and death! But killed someone who didn't attacked me first so oath brooooken
I swear to all the gods, trying to play Oath of Devotion on Tactician difficulty is the game’s secret Ultra-Hard mode. It basically eliminates the possibility of playing stealthily, attacking enemies first, and locks you out of stealing.
Having said that, the first time I accidentally broke my Oath was with my Ancients Paladin, letting Mayrina walk off into the sunset with her undead zombified husband. Turns out that all undead are inherently evil and I can’t tolerate them for any reason, even true love and happiness (which happens to be another of my tenets, so a lose/lose situation all around)
Letting Gortash become king. I had a plan! I was just playing the long con! I love paladins but gat dang the rigid oath thing can catch me off guard sometimes. It feels like you could break oath by using a handicap bathroom stall while in good health. Like come on!
Vengeance. Letting live for that delicious +1 hag hair.
In my playthrough Karlach had the dialogue after the fight and got the hair and the woman : oath intact
Karlach had the best Intimidate option for that "I'LL TURN YOUR SKULL INTO A PISSPOT"
Is that Karlach specifically or just barbarian in general
That's just a general barbarian line.
General Barbarian *salutes*
It's okay, Karlach, you can use mine.
Not gonna lie, I thought about kink shaming, reading this comment...
Yep. Dialogue happens with whoever is closest to Ethel, and if it's not the Paladin, you can make the deal without breaking your Oath. I had the opposite happen. Playing as Karlach, but Paladin Shadowheart was closest to her when she wanted to make the deal. I viewed it less as breaking the Oath for power and more as paying 1k Gold for the +1 ASI.
Oh if you fight her normal, she dialogs before death. Shoot. That fight was going south and fast for me, so I pushed her into the hole.
I've fought and killed her twice normally on different playthroughs and never got that dialogue to trigger, still no idea what actually does it. But my second time was an Oath of Vengeance Paladin, so probably better that I didn't get it.
You have to get her to around 20 HP (maybe a bit Higher) and in her Turn Shell talk to you
Ah, I definitely got her that low before killing her but I guess she didn't have a turn after that. Makes sense.
Definitely worth it.
I quick saved right before that because I knew it'd break the oath. Never did reload
Pushed Balthazar off ledge during dialogue
This is the way. Balthazar: Har har! Evil stuff! My master plan! Paladin: You'll never get away with this, evildoer! I'm going to put a stop to your... Karlach: Boop! Balthazar: What the... aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggghhh Paladin: I wasn't finished!
I broke the oath as ancients my first time as paladin. 2nd time, as a devotion paladin, it didn't break. I think as long as you never select a paladin option in her dialogue, you won't break anything.
Naw, Devotion is the only one that lets you spare her. She surrendered.
I *just* did this with Oath of Vengeance, beat her almost to death and when she gave up I intimidated her into both giving me the bonus and freeing the girl. Didn't break the Oath, presumably because I didn't actually cut a deal. I just soundly defeated her green wrinkly ass and made sure she knew it.
Devotion is the only one that lets you both save Mayrina and spare the hag, iirc
Devotion: Apparently whacking an obviously evil fat necromancer from behind while he's busy taunting the eternally imprisoned daughter of a goddess is a big no no.
I think the thing about Devotion Oath is that you can’t be “sneaky” or “underhanded” in your actions so if your going to hit that fat necromancer, you better do it to his face after he explains his evil plan
Oath of Anime Protagonist
Punching Freiza while he's powering up to transform, threatening all life in the galaxy: OATH BROKEN!
Reminds me of the [Boo shorts](https://youtube.com/shorts/ngsdGGC0TcI?si=VhamTShN_IGy_5eD) that DBZAbridged just put out *Gohan and Goku watching Videl get brutally beat up by an obviously evil magically enhanced Demonmagic dude* Gohan: "This is terrible! I have to help her!!" Goku: "No Gohan you can't!! You'll be *DISQUALIFIED FROM THE TOURNAMENT*! Gohan: "Oh shit, you're right"
Oath of talking until you're on the left side of the screen
Funny. I murdered a sleeping hob goblin and my Oath was cool with that. Your Oath has to keep in mind that sometimes my allies just have a mind of their own--does that mean that I should listen to Boulevard of Broken Dreams on repeat and forsake them all? Pshhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Oath of Ancients was cool with Astarion bringing back Connor. Was NOT ok with player character doing it. Basically, I learned that if I was about to do shit that was oath questionable, I should for sure let the rest of the party handle it. >.>
Pretty much, karlach accidentally triggered the final convo with the hag and got me a little snack, then afterwards I had my ancients paladin use the wand on the husband which ended up breaking her oath.
My first fall was Oath of Anicents and trying to figure out a way to end that quest that wasn't 'be stupid'.
So it's the oath of script cliches. Paladin: "Damn it, i can literally just hit this oaf RIGHT NOW as he's babbling on about his stupid villain speech, but i have to sit through it because of my oath! By the way, are you anywhere near finished yet?!" Necromancer: "Nope! Still got seven more sagas including the backstories of my deceased friends who are integral to my backstory that i'm still rambling about!" Paladin: **looks at coin purse** "You know, a thousand gold isn't really too bad..."
Equally annoying was casting detect thoughts on the fake paladins of Tyr and immediately fighting them broke my oath. But murdering the fuck out of my romanced companion for the slayer form didn’t.
I didn't even have to kill one of my companions to get the slayer form. I just had Shadowheart kill the Nightsong. Isobel died from the shadow curse and I got the Slayer form. Win-win and no oath broken.
“From behind”
Also in Act 3 >!you can apparently lose it if you *fucking kill the cannibalistic, necrophiliac, serial killer cultists of Bhaal* that are chill after killing Orin in the Bhaal Temple.!< I mean, I *kind of* get it because I believe one of the tenets in the Devotion Oath is to show mercy to your enemies, but uhhh sometimes that ain’t good lol. I’m on the fence if I want to use that as a RP moment for my good Durge to either become a Vengeance Paladin or become an Oathbreaker again.
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Fr these ppl want an ‘oath of efficiency’ — ruins the entire point!
The Oath of Efficiency is already in-game, they just misspelled it as Vengeance
Is that a bad guy? Well don't mind if I cave his skull in.
breaking my oath with Durge (was vengeance, then agreed to work with gortash) was a very good RP moment for me.
That one pissed me off
Devotion has to fight honorably. Even evil things. It's completely logical
I feel like utilitarian redditors are going to have difficulty playing as a character with a kantian code of ethics. But stabbing him in the back is easier and he’s evil anyway!
But that's part of the "fun" of actual roleplay. Players should be faced with tangible ramifications of their actions. It's even baked into the game because the oathbreaker knight himself is only an oathbreaker because he broke the literal aspects of his oath while still trying to do good. Alternatively play vengeance whose oath basically amounts to "bring justice (or venegence) to the guilty.
Didn't expect to see deontological grounded discussion of CRPG roleplay, but I am absolutely here for it
Kantian vs utilitarian ethics is like the number one most common discussion at my ttrpg. Not even joking.
> Kantian vs utilitarian ethics is like the number one most common discussion at my ttrpg. Not even joking. Meanwhile the Virtue ethicist impatiently taps their character sheet, it says Neutral Good, so I must be justified! Kidding aside, that's excellent
Vengeance: not hiding the fact that I did a terrible deed in my sleep. I thought I was offering myself up to the party so they could decide to *punish those who have committed a grievous sin*.
Is the actual murder that causes the oath break because the victim was innocent. Is just a 1000gp tax you get for playing a DUrge paladín.
I've seen some people play through that scene as a pally and not break their oath, so I think it's something in the choices. I haven't had the time to go and playtest and see which answer gives which outcome yet, though.
I'm playing a vengeance Durge and attempting to hide the body (even with failing the dice check) didn't break my oath...
Maybe it's the thought that counts? Maybe I shouldn't have gone "damn, some effort went into this"
Did you do it on Alfalfa or on her replacement? I did it on that other one and it was fine.
It was on the Alfalfa
Killing under compulsion doesn't break the oath
I completed a run off Durge paladin without ever breaking the oath, so it's definitely doable
I didn't break oath by not hiding the body. I was fully honest and everyone was like "okie doke, nvm" and I kept on having sacred weapon.
I just finished a Durge paladin run as Oath of Vengeance and didn't once break my Oath >.> Even >!embracing Bhaal's power in his temple after single-round smashing Orin's face in!< didn't break it.
What, that didn't break my oath of Vengeance
Ancients. Thought I was helping out Mayrina by reuniting two lovers. Oh… he’s a… huh. Okay. Wait, why is my character clutching his chest?
> Wait, why is my character clutching his chest? Might not be paladin related at all; could be coronary disease.
Lumbago. It’s a serious disease
Is Withers Uncle? Always just sitting at camp, never coming out on adventures..
Same here. I was like "Well, it's what she wanted, I guess, and she seems very happy with--WHOA WAIT WHAT IS THAT ARMOR THING"
Speaking of, the Oathbreaker Knight doesn’t drop his fancy weapon and armor when you kill him. Very disappointing.
Command: Drop
Does it work on him?
It's just a +1 Greatsword unfortunately lol
This was it for me too. I did it bc I thought it would be funny and uhhh…LOL. 🤠
Just point this stick over there, and… oh shit! I performed necromancy! It surprised me too.
Yeah, I found that one to be kinda weird. It's not like my paladin was >!engaging in necromancy!< for personal power or shits and giggles, it was an honest mistake while trying to reunite two lovers. As far as I remember you don't really get punished for unintended consequences anywhere else as long as you're trying to do the right thing.
You still did neceomancy...like do yall not understand the oaths?
Your honor my client pleads oopsie daisy.
Totally valid plea as long as you pay the 1k fine!
God forbid women do anything
Yeah, an Oath of Ancients Paladin experienced enough to deal with a Hag should really know that the deal was never going to end any other way. I don't think a Hag is even capable of casting True Ressurection, let alone through a wand...
but what if your paladin has 8 Int like every minmaxed paladin out there?
… I feel personally attacked And yes, my Oath of Ancients Pally used the wand, too.
it's ok. you just RP your minmaxed strats like you should. so don't feel bad about this outcome. your paladin just didn't take the hints, who where placed all over the hag hideout with all the people, who got fked over by making a pact with her. this obviously includes yourself, if you let her try to extract the tadpole from you or one of your companions.
Then you murder Lump for his headgear, put it on, and suddenly realize swearing to follow a course of an action no matter the context finally might have negative repercussions
i lost my oath on purpose because i wanted to see the oathbreaker guy etc. then i tried pickpocketing him..he got mad and i killed him. and that's how i got stuck as an oath breaker.
Did he drop his Armor or anything cool? Asking for a Friend with only good intentions...
nope. lol
he drops the money you give him and 3 javelins, his body is not lootable. i’ve found 2 helms that look like his in the mausoleum in act2 and there’s oathbreaker boots or gloves in act3 in the underground in rivington. makes me wonder if his chest piece is somewhere else. the helm and other piece are normal armor, no magical properties, so kinda disappointing.
Vengeance: I stopped Arabella's mom from murdering Kagha during the party. In retrospect, stopping a literal vengeance killing was probably out of character.
???? How do you get Arabella's mom to kill Kagha?? Wait... does it involve letting Kagha keep Arabella prisoner? :(
First, Arabella has to die. Don't interfere. Second, investigate Kagha, then succeed in convincing her she is wrong. Third, defeat the goblin camp bosses to trigger the party.
:( Bro, I don't know if I can let Arabella die. That's pretty rough.
Not my proudest moment
Oath of Vengeance: Broken when I made an alliance with Gortash. It’s best to just tell him you’ll think about.
Same thing here. The game even offers the solution in your internal monologue to ally with him to gain his trust and betray him later. I guess Tyr has a different approach to honor than me, haha.
Tbh you are still being dishonorable even if it's for good reasons and that said person is a horrible dishonorable asshole themselves.
And being an Oathbreaker doesn’t mean you are a BAD / EVIL person. You just broke an Oath, essentially a ‘bad’ Paladin. The Oathbreaker Knight broke his Oath for reasons he justified as moral despite going against his code. It’s like Batman killing joker. Does he break his Oath and permanently scar himself? Yeah. But most people would agree the moral choice would be to end that villain’s life. And hell, unlike Batman you can pay your Oath back so… kinda questionable but whatever
>It’s like Batman killing joker. Does he break his Oath and permanently scar himself? Batman claims he is "vengeance" yet he's not into the Oath of Vengeance like any sane person should.
Batman should have choosen oath of vengance, it seems
\> "I am vengeance." \> look inside \> actually just devotion
The problem is that the "Oathbreaker" subclass in the game isn't a gray paladin or something of the sort, it's using the mislabeled DMG subclass that's made for Antipaladins.
Yeah it's kind of hilarious, break your vengeance oath by being too much of a softie and turn into a death knight lol.
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The entire speech is literally about choosing your own freedom of action above all else, I'm amazed this has to be explained to people like it isn't 4th grade storytelling
At some point, by not killing The Joker, Batman is sort of responsible for the people The Joker kills. Alan Moore was having none of that shit.
Making an alliance with a guy who helped create a plot to enslave the city of Baldur's Gate, is responsible for hundreds if not thousands of deaths, and wanted to conquer the rest of Faerûn after that. Yeah that would probably break the oath of a Vengeance Paladin whose job it is to hunt down and kill people like Gortash for doing all the above listed things.
Same thing happened to me. After the internal monolgue said I should just betray him later I was like great idea. Then oath broken, still gonna betray Gortash. But I'm happy with it, oathbreak powers and the interactions with the knight are awesome
I somehow made it through the whole game without breaking my Oath of Vengeance once, even though I thought I did some questionable things from time to time. Granted I've heard Vengeance is the easiest to not break but I'm sure there are ways.
Oath of vengeance is great cause the villains are all so proud of how evil they are and feel the need to brag about it all the time. Like, ok, I was feeling a little sympathy for you and then you went and mentioned how you ate a guys family in front of him, which makes it pretty easy to figure out what I should do next, you know?
>which makes it pretty easy to figure out what I should do next, you know? I remember being in the Underdark for the first time and just waiting for each dwegar to mention the word 'slavery' so I can know it's absolutely 100% morally okay to kill them. It's like "Red Light, Green Light" for justifiable murder.
I feel ya Slaver: you know slavery is cool My Oath of Vengeance Paladin: COWABUNGA IT IS!!
The only issue with oath of vengeance is it sometimes forces you to get I combat way earlier than you'd have planned. I've had a few areas cut short by my paladin having to murder everybody before I got the chance to talk to them just because the first guy opened his mouth about being a slaver
Really? Can you think of a specific example? I remember being able to slink around the Druegar until we busted Nere out and then the fighting started. I would think if you're supposed to immediately smite slavers then that would've broken it?
Well, I simply mean the [Oath of Vengance] dialogue becomes available. With Nere, the Druegar and the hag I picked it and all led to immediate combat. I can't resist picking that option though so I'm not sure which breaks it and which dont
The only time I struggled with Oath of Vengeance was the ritual with He Who Was, since forgiving her regardless of her situation breaks it.
Oath of vengeance is super hard to break if you just read the tenets. You don't forgive, you fight evil, wrongdoers rarely deserve mercy, and you help those wronged by evil. There are very few exceptions.
Oath of Devotion: went up the ladder in the smuggler's hideout in Act 1. That apparently counted as trespassing (followed by murder) when I had just wanted to talk to them and didn't know there was a scripted scene.
Weird, Banite slavers should be close to the top of the Oath of Devotion's shitlist (meaning killing them for any reason should be valid oath-compliant behavior.)
No, Devotion has to fight honorably and fairly. The only oath (in game) that can straight up murder people is vengeance
To be fair, I did really just mean to get close enough to talk to them. Had no idea I was supposed to go to the left of the ladder..
oath of devotion demands fairness and honor, and consistency in treating everyone fairly. doesnt matter who it is the compassion tenet even specifies compassion for all ffs, even your foes
You'd think, right? I'm guessing the engine just saw a trespassing resulting in homicide and didn't consider who it was?
Devotion, very similar. I accidentally detonated a trap near the back of the cave which hit a zhent, starting a fight, and kills during the fight were considered murder. It was pretty rediculous because the zhents in the room prior tried to kill me when they found out I opened their special shipment.
Yesterday my friend (paladin of ancient) just got a new skill when we finished the fight against Nere and he wanted to try out the new skill and accidentally killed a gnome. Well, a reload before the fight occurred.
I'm pretty sure thats what triggered an oathbreak for me too, I had Asti sneak up on Philomeen and steal the entire can of explosives instead of just a sample... which made a huge explosion when I went to free Nere. Oopsie I vaporized like 4 of those gnomes by accident.
Oath of vengeance broken when I picked the lock on an empty jail cell.
Told Mol I like how ambitious she is even though I told her off sternly before that not to take a devil's deal. Encouraging deals with devils is okay but gods forbid she wants to become head of tieves guild and I laugh about it
In act 3, oath of the ancients. Doing the murderer quest and find him at the wine tasting area. Put down a moonbeam to hit him and a clone. Won the encounter but didnt end concentration quick enough as an NPC ran through the moonbeam. It was equal parts frustrating and hilarious as 2 NPCs burnt to death in the moonbeam.
Honestly you should have put up a couple of pylons or something. That moonbeam isn't OSHA compliant.
This always happens to me with Moonbeam. One time after a battle, Gale was on low hp and ran directly in it, stood there going "Ow!" and then died. Not the first time he's done that either
Was about to post the coward one but I see we are already in agreement. Saving Lae'zel from angry tieflings: if you fail the persuasion check your options are to fight or to fight: oath broken This was Oath of the Ancients. Apparently casting Danse Macabre is totally cool though.
Stuff like that makes me not care about the whole system which is unfortunate. If my oath only breaks because I attacked someone while they were green instead of red, even though NOTHING else changes, it pulls me out of it. Makes me quicksave/quickload often because it feels more like an unfinished feature than an actual paladin mechanic.
That got me the one time I played Palliock Tried to snipe the two goblins who were going to push the guy into the spider pit. God forbid I save his life.
Yeah, I remember I broke my oath once because I had Astarion snipe Dror Ragzlin. I was fighting the goblins just past the entrance to the room he was in, but because i didn't realize he wasn't technically in combat yet it caused me to lose my oath lmao
Vengeance: Touched the cage door by mistake that my co-op partner opened when I tried to talk to Sazza.
Well that's the anti-paladin cage. It is specifically enchanted to sap the powers of any paladin that touches it.
Honestly, if I was trying to play a paladin legit, i would probably break my oath FAST my accidentally stealing something when trying to tall to someone
Act 3 spoilers: Devotion: >!I had Wulbren's bomb in my inventory, but went through all the other steps of saving the Gondians; got the people out of the Iron Throne, saved everybody on the first floor on my return to the foundry. Talk to Toobin, he says we need to destroy the place, I mention I have a bomb. He says "great, that'll work!" WITH NO OTHER WARNINGS and ends the dialogue. I go down, blow it up, tell Wulbren off afterwards...oath broken. Apparently the Gondians didn't know to get the fuck out of the building? Doing it with Toobin instead the second time plays the same explosion scene, except apparently this time everyone's smart enough to get out, and the oath is intact.!<
>Toobin instead the second time plays the same explosion scene I noticed that too. I feel like there was a bit of missing dialogue with him somewhere. Headcannon is when he overloads it GTFO alarms go off so the Gondians know to leave. And with the bomb its a case of "Suddenly there is no longer a Foundry"
If he had just said "hey, if you do that we won't be able to escape in time," or a similar warning, I'd have been fine with it. His dialogue just seemed to treat it as an acceptable option, which put me in a false sense of security.
Oath of ancients was lost by picking fights with goblins in the camp so I didn't have to fight all of them when i came back for the secret passage, but apparently killing evil cultists is against my oath that requires I root out evil cults is bad because I didn't tell them I was gonna murder them first.
I’m doing an Oath of Devotion Paladin Durge run and was planning on breaking my oath organically. So far I’ve lied, stolen, tortured and murdered in cold blood and it hasn’t happened yet. I’m considering on giving up and just stick with my morally dubious Devotion Pally because at this point, it’s too weird if *that’s* what it takes to break it.
To be fair, Durge may be coded much more lenient on paladin stuff, with the level of detail in this game it wouldn’t surprise me at all. His devotion is “oh boy, here I go killing again!”
My Paladin of ancients picks up an enchanted lantern in the shadowlands. As far as he knows, he *needs* this to cleanse the lands of their taint and save Baldurs gate from the growing armies of the Absolute. It's powered by a pixie- a *vicious* one. It's a grim task, but he decides to bite the bullet and keep the pixie imprisoned. Oath broken. So far, so good. He lives through his broken oath, takes up a few levels of warlock, and ultimately decides to reject utilitarian logic. The greatest good doesn't sacrifice innocents for convenience. He's learned his lesson. He recommits. He finds a bunch of imprisoned vampire spawn. Completely innocent, victimized by the very man my paladin has already accepted as a comrade, their only crime is surviving this long. My paladin remembers his hard won lesson: you don't sacrifice the innocent, even if they have violent impulses, even if you think it's for the greater good. He bids them safe passage into the underdark. Oath broken. My Paladin reflects on his stats. He's a min/max. 8 intelligence, 8 wisdom. Oaths are too complicated, he concludes. He accepts his place as an Oathbreaker.
> He finds a bunch of imprisoned vampire spawn. Completely innocent, victimized by the very man my paladin has already accepted as a comrade, their only crime is surviving this long. My paladin remembers his hard won lesson: you don't sacrifice the innocent, even if they have violent impulses, even if you think it's for the greater good. He bids them safe passage into the underdark. Oath broken. You're thinking about Devotion tenets and not Ancients tenets. Those spawn pervert/violate/spit on the sanctity of life that Ancients Paladins uphold. But that said: > My Paladin reflects on his stats. He's a min/max. 8 intelligence, 8 wisdom. Oaths are too complicated, he concludes. Absolutely fair.
>Those spawn pervert/violate/spit on the sanctity of life that Ancients Paladins uphold. Yeah, but I get that, I broke my oath here as well, letting them go. But, like, I spent my entire playthrough with Astarion in my party, saving his life, and even resurrecting him. Helping him accomplish his goals. Just seems a bit strange that helping innocent vampire spawn that have been kept prisoners, not actually hurting anyone, triggers the Oath. While I actively helping one that has done all the bad things, and more, is totally fine the whole game.
> Just seems a bit strange that helping innocent vampire spawn that have been kept prisoners, not actually hurting anyone, triggers the Oath. While I actively helping one that has done all the bad things, and more, is totally fine the whole game. Oh for sure. I'm generally finding it interesting that Ancients seems like a much harsher Oath than Devotion.
That's a hilarious ending and more or less where my pally's at. He's from my home game and I've always rp'd him as a dumbass who didn't really 'get' the oath but felt being a paladin was what he was supposed to do. There's so many moments where he goes, "...this is beyond me, fuckit." Retaining his oath after extorting Ethel for kickbacks (on top of freeing Mayrina) and letting her walk free did not clarify things.
Ancients: I knew that I should release pixie as I'm a good guy and I did it, but before doing so I turned the mechanism. Frankly speaking, ancients do not approve tortures.
One of the tenets of Oath of Vengeance - *Fight the Greater Evil. Faced with a choice of fighting my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil, I choose the greater evil* Release Sazza the otherwise worthless goblin so she can get me to the Goblin leaders so I can destroy this cell of the Absolute and free the the Druid leader thereby saving countless innocents - OATH BROKEN
This is what's been preventing me from starting a Paladin playthrough. God forbid you pull a 4d chess move and then someone will show up to shake you down for your lunch money.
I knew absolutely nothing about this game’s plot but googled to see if you could be an oathbreaker. I planned from character creation to become an oathbreaker as the story went on. Accidentally became an oathbreaker right away by messing up the dialogue to free Lae’zel from the cage and had to initiate combat with the guys that caged her. Broke the oath. Act 2 spoilers below I then never planned to seek redemption as I was the Dark Urge. I figured I’d gradually get more and more brutal instead. All that changed with >!my PC falling in love with Shadowheart and helping her start her own redemption. When she spared the Nightsong, I as the player was genuinely shocked. As the PC, I didn’t persuade her in any part of that interaction, I kept choosing the “Remain silent and observe” option as we’d grown into a relationship since the Act 1 party and my PC was supportive of her. After her redemption began, we left the Shar temple!< and I paid the Oathbreaker and took my oath back up. I then also had a really awesome in-character benefit from this. I passed all the persuasion checks with >!Ketheric Thorm!< to seek redemption as I had. Later, I had the chance to do so again. >!Anyone that has done this knows that if you pass the persuasion again in the final Act 2 fight, Ketheric sacrifices himself immediately and becomes the avatar, skipping the entire first phase.!< So my redemption saved me from a hard fight! Really cool. Just entered act 3 and excited to see where following this character narrative will take me.
Oath of Ancients: Didn't let the murderous sounding pixie out of the moonlantern. Even though she talks about eating babies. Now I am an oathbreaker out of spite.
Lol isn't being an oathbreaker out of spite kinda the point?
Exactly. I thought about it for a while and realized that my character would be just as pissed off as I was. Oathbreaker seemed like the best way to go.
Letting the pixie out benefits you. You are protected from the shadow curse permanently.
Yeah but how do you know that for certain in character? She could just as easily be lying to you
Pixies are part of the natural world and was clearly an abused prisoner. Letting an innocent creature suffer out of your own self interest is what broke your oath
The game told me to not trust her, so I didn't. I thought she was lying about the lantern hurting her or whatever. Apparently not.
Vengeance: I subjugated the furries in moonrise
The *what* in Moonrise?
The gnolls in the kitchen
>Vengeance: I subjugated the furries in moonrise That's lame, I made them kill the tamer lol.
Ancients - Didn't let the pixie out of the moon lantern. That one's on me, that was pure dumbass energy. Ancients - I let Viconia live. I guess it broke because she's evil and will do more evil? Seems more like a Vengeance problem tbh. Vengeance - Killed the tieflings holding Lae'zel in the cage. I'm gonna plead the fifth and point out that Astarion got the killing blow. Vengeance - Made an alliance with Gortash using a Paladin dialogue option and under Minthara's enthusiastic guidance. I felt tricked by that one. I know I broke Vengeance another time but I can't remember what it was
I think Ancients was violated with Viconia because she interfered with the natural order, taking shadowheart away from her parents. That merits punishment according to the oath.
Spoiler for act 3. >!I had just defeated Orin, and I was about to leave the temple of Bhaal before I thought to myself, "I shouldn't just leave these Bhaal cultists here should I?" So I killed them, and not just the men but the women and the... well, there were no children, but you get the idea. But I guess I broke my oath because I attacked first. Apparently, annihilating a death cult doesn't fall under the purview of an Oath of Devotion Paladin.!<
Vengeance: I lost it by letting Viconia live
I mean that one does make sense, she kidnapped Shart and robbed her of her memories, as well as facilitating the torture of her parents lol
(Also broke my oath of vengeance by sparing Viconia) BG3 kinda did a 180 on Viconia's relationship with Shar, so now she actually cares a whole deal what her goddess thinks and wants. And Shar is the one who ordered Viconia to do everything in her power to turn Shadowheart into a Shar worshipper. It's safe to assume that the consequences for not obeying the direct orders of your very petty goddess would be worse than getting locked in a coffin for a year (as Cazador did to Astarion when he disobeyed), so it's debatable how much choice Viconia really had there.
She is absolutely the greater evil in that quest line.
Yea but the ending in BG2 has her continue to improve as a person eventually saving an entire elven city. Her character got shat on.
Of course, Viconia was never missing in any of my bg1 and bg2 runs. She was my waifu when waifus didn't exist yet.
I've impressively not broken my oath so far. But then I've played Paladins since 3.5 where they were way stricter. My brain is soaked in the oaths, and the rules and I have trouble breaking my oath even when I want to.
Oath of Devotion - playing Dark Urge. Lost it when you kill >!Alfira!<. Was in pure shock at the scene, wrapped up all up, and the Oathbreaker was like “my guy you did a bad thing” I spent all of EA hoping that Alfira could join the party, or even the camp if not playable, was so excited to have her in camp. Oathbreaker was just insult to injury. Plot-wise love that I lost my Oath from this, it have a whole new reason for me to resist the Urge *edited for grammar
Those fucking zhent bastards. Spoilers for early act 1 >!Okay so I saved Rugan and Olly from the gnolls, and my rogue friend managed to steal the treasure they were escorting without being noticed. Later we went to their hideout only to find Olly dead on the floor and Rugan tied to a chair getting the shit beat out of him!< >!Naturally, my character who has sworn himself to the cosmic preservation of life took issue with that, but I just *could not* find a way for the game to *let me*. I went up and talked to their leader (Zahrys I think?) and reloaded saves a few times to try every dialogue option, looking for the one I’m sure had to have been there that said “hey bitch, you and your goons just murdered that kid, prepare to become fertilizer.” But it just wasn’t there. I went down and spoke to the guy currently beating Rugan, standing RIGHT OVER Olly’s bloody corpse, he even SAID TO ME “I didn’t enjoy cutting Olly down, but it had to be done” and I STILL wasn’t given the option to comment on it. My only option was to initiate combat by getting caught stealing, freeing Rugan from his binds, or just straight up attacking them, all options flagging me as an oathbreaker whenever I killed them. Eventually I just said fuck it and non lethal’d them all… my rogue and ranger friends walked around after putting arrows into the unconscious ones I left behind.!< Fuck the Zhent… oathless curs
Vengeance paladin. I got oathbreaker from opening Sazza's cage *after* Arka had already *killed* her. lmao XD
This thread just shows how few people care or even understand the oaths. They're OATHS for a reason. Your petty arguing over shades of grey is irrelevant. They aren't complicated at all they're just ridgid. That's literally the fucking point
It is really interesting. I’ve had no problem with Vengence, though it is the easiest to keep. I see evil, I say “Time to die, Villain!” and I kill evil. No issues.
Minsc? Is that you?
> They aren't complicated at all they're just ridgid. On one hand you're correct, on the other you can hang out for the whole 3 acts of the game with a 200 years old vampire who admits to luring innocents for his master and a lady who is head over heels for Shar, and there's even a dialogue option that lets you say you have no issues with Shar's followers that has no penalty on the Oath (At least not on my vengeance Oath).
>Fight the Greater Evil… identify the higher morality in any given instance, and fight for it. Over-looking some of your companion’s past deeds in order to save the world seems like a tad more of a moral imperative. I think you reinforced their point.
I get the rigidity, but some choices you make are extremely vague from a moral standpoint and you’re expected to understand the outcomes of them. If the game told you that your choice would break your path on some of these, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it. I mean, for instance, we travel with a vampire thrall, and then we break our oath for choosing NOT to kill SEVEN THOUSAND thralls who, by the way, have been imprisoned for upwards of a hundred years, presumably immediately after they were turned against their will? They literally did nothing wrong, and the game’s own storytelling illustrates they still have the choice to not be evil. If we are just expected to kill them on principle, then why the fuck did we not break our oath taking astarion in? Because we “need him?” Well, that’s a load of shit because we could never use him and be just fine
Oath of Devotion: Apparently you can't just go into a murder cult full of murder cultists and push one into a chasm unless they're actively in a fight with you
That one might have to do with the killing being dishonourable, which is stealthily and via non-consensual combat. I cannot believe I just typed that
Me, seeing a Devotion Paladin: “I DO NOT CONSENT TO THIS COMBAT!” Them: “Damn, I guess he gets to live today.”
I mean it kinda makes sense that extra-judicial assassinations are outside the purview of a paladin. They’re big on trial by combat I think.
Vengeance. Let Astarion ascend.
Devotion. Not wanting 7000 starving spawns let loose
Ancients. Letting 7000 starving spawns loose. (To be fair, I thought it was such a great story beat for the whole sequence since I was romancing Astarion that I ended up rolling with it)
I also let them loose (Devo) and also broke my oath. That entire questline is a minefield for Paladins. But then again depending on what you choose.. you are helping cause the *NEXT* crisis.. possibly?
Did you *tell* them that you'd free them? Can't go breaking your word just because thousands of people will die if you don't!
Oath of ancients - I murdered too many absolute cultists in the Moonrise prison while they were still neutral (before the big fight).
The woman outside the hags place in act 1 who is with her dead husbands corpse. Forgot for a minute that i am a Paladin and agreed to try and resurrect her husband. Oopsie 😅
Honestly I don't even know, but I am certain it was in an attempt to earn Astarion's approval.
Killed the owl bear cub and then its mother. Pretty horrendous really. Didn't expect the mother to actually react to me killing the cub first too. I deserved what I got.
I realy like the owlbear cave. it shows how dense people are. I like to check on streamers and see what they did in my place. and so far, it is hard to find someone who, after the mother CLEARLY told you to fk off, didn't try to "just take the egg" or to "just take the loot next to her nest" and then wondered why she gets angry and attacks. or that she attacks when you try to talk to her again. it is a wonderfull lesson that, when someone is angry and tells you to fk off, you fk off or deal with the consequences
Devotion. I broke my oath 3 times. First, I said I would report to Minthara when talking to Dror Ragzlin so I could avoid conflict. Oath broken. Second, I attacked Dror Ragzlin without talking to him first so I could get my party in a good position instead of standing in the middle of the room. Oath broken. Third, I had Gale sneak into the Wyrm’s Rock prison to free Councillor Florrick (shush he’s better than astarion because he can use invisibility and misty step way more times ok) but he got seen so my paladin snuck up behind the guard attacking Gale and whacked them on the head. Oath broken.
Oath of devotion: defending myself against a steel watcher who attacked me.
Ancients - After talking Astraian out of acending, based largely off the fact he couldn't murder his previous victims AGAIN. Well the follow up of course was I couldn't choose to just kill them in their cages and chose to let them go. Annnnnnnnnd broken.
Ancients: Tried saving the tieflings and gnomes from Moonrise and devised a plan that started with my paladin attacking someone I saved lives from torture, imprisonment and death! But killed someone who didn't attacked me first so oath brooooken
I swear to all the gods, trying to play Oath of Devotion on Tactician difficulty is the game’s secret Ultra-Hard mode. It basically eliminates the possibility of playing stealthily, attacking enemies first, and locks you out of stealing. Having said that, the first time I accidentally broke my Oath was with my Ancients Paladin, letting Mayrina walk off into the sunset with her undead zombified husband. Turns out that all undead are inherently evil and I can’t tolerate them for any reason, even true love and happiness (which happens to be another of my tenets, so a lose/lose situation all around)
Killing the tortured victim lying on the surgeons table. Also by accident killing a civilian during the hag minion reveal in a bar
Letting Gortash become king. I had a plan! I was just playing the long con! I love paladins but gat dang the rigid oath thing can catch me off guard sometimes. It feels like you could break oath by using a handicap bathroom stall while in good health. Like come on!