The more generic you make anything the more bland and boring and the more fluff and junk will be created for the class. Wizard ? anyone. Then we'll see entire splat books full of "oaths" and abilities that will eventually become a list of the 5 abilities all "paladins" have to have to be optimized.
I think Oaths as a pact mechanism would be a great add-on feature for any class but I think you'll see the paladin played less and less if you keep trying to turn it into a generic "cool kid's" class. I never really called it a pact or an Oath but I used to make all characters that made deals with powerful outerplanar's abide by certain rules as applied by the outerplanar. My favorite being the evil rogue who was told by hell to keep the paladin alive because he was fighting the goals of a demon lord they didn't know about. Oh the fun of that shocked face as the rogue got his power and had his murder of the paladin jerked out from underneath him. "if the paladin dies you die" and oh yeah here's your devilish abilities.....LOL . Fun times.
I personally like the idea that Paladins are something special tied in a special way to the domain of lawful Good who simply work better together, and that other powers are always trying to come up with an answer to them.
I think Oaths as a pact mechanism would be a great add-on feature for any class but I think you'll see the paladin played less and less if you keep trying to turn it into a generic "cool kid's" class. I never really called it a pact or an Oath but I used to make all characters that made deals with powerful outerplanar's abide by certain rules as applied by the outerplanar. My favorite being the evil rogue who was told by hell to keep the paladin alive because he was fighting the goals of a demon lord they didn't know about. Oh the fun of that shocked face as the rogue got his power and had his murder of the paladin jerked out from underneath him. "if the paladin dies you die" and oh yeah here's your devilish abilities.....LOL . Fun times.
I personally like the idea that Paladins are something special tied in a special way to the domain of lawful Good who simply work better together, and that other powers are always trying to come up with an answer to them.
