The Oath of Purification (Paladin)
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“I give you the gift of fire. Will it warm you, cleanse you… or consume you?”
Art Credit: https://www.deviantart.com/rebecasaray/art/Dark-Souls-696431260
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Oath of Purification
There’s a reason the internet jokes about burning down buildings or “kill it with fire” to handle spiders or creepy things: fire is inescapably tied to conceptually eradicating something. When you want a document gone, you shred it. But if you want it utterly destroyed beyond recognition, there’s little to do but to burn it. And throughout human history, fire has been associated in religion and folklore with ritual cleansing, sacrifice, and even rebirth. Today’s paladin subclass, the Oath of Purification, draws on all of these themes and more, wrapping them in an flaming-sword-wielding aesthetic package that should feel familiar to fans of Dark Souls, A Song of Ice and Fire, and Warhammer Fantasy, among many other settings.
Flame paladins of the Oath of Purification can be remarkably varied. Some are obviously evil, but see the entire world as full of corruption and sin that they must unveil and burn. Others are neutral or good, wielding powers of holy fire granted to them from a divinity of light or fire, such as a god of the sun, the hearth, or the forge. Sadistic inquisitors wielding hot pokers can be paladins of this oath, but so can virtuous crusaders battling hordes of undead with divine flame.
The paladin oaths in the Player’s Handbook cover a lot of conceptual ground already. Much like the Oath of Conquest and Oath of Redemption (from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything) being distinct from the Oath of Vengeance and Oath of Devotion respectively, it was important when designing the Oath of Purification that it also felt distinct from both of them. Like the Oath of Vengeance, the Oath of Purification concerns itself with destroying its enemies, and purity of self and inspiration are important concepts for both the Oath of Devotion and also Purification as well, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to accidentally tread on the identity of those subclasses when designing a fire-based paladin. The tenets of Purification are core for establishing these distinctions, as Purification alone concerns itself with complete eradication, with the need to feel pain in order to be cleansed, and with the fervent desire to spread just as fire does — none of which are core tenets of those other oaths.
Unlike the Oath of Dynamism (a lightning-focused paladin subclass that will also appear in The Elements & Beyond alongside this one), the Oath of Purification doesn’t change the damage type of your divine smite feature. Fire emits light of course, and the oath spells already include some light-based spells like daylight and flame strike, so there should be hardly any trouble at all to find a conceptual way for most flame paladins to deal radiant damage with their smite as a paladin normally does, rather than having a smite that deals fire damage (and is weaker against many elementals and fiends).
When it comes to power and gameplay, the Purification paladin is somewhat split between gaining abilities that grant extra damage and gaining cleansing support abilities, and their oath spells reinforce this dichotomy as well. Combined with the purifying abilities paladins already have outside of subclasses (such as Lay on Hands or Cleansing Touch), a paladin of this oath will burn away all that they see as corruption, be they enemies or afflictions. Besides just working well with the new Pyromancer feat that will be appearing in the compendium, these paladins also benefit greatly from multiclassing into sorcerer or warlock for extra fire power. They specialize in area damage more than other paladin subclasses, but they also lack in control spells and abilities compared to those other subclasses, making the Oath of Purification a unique and fun playstyle for fans of the paladin class looking for something exciting and new!
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Oath of Purification
