D&D 5E Help with a homebrew Paladin sub-class

[Bitbrain]

EDIT: Thanks to everyone's helpful advice, I have finalized the Oath of the Dragon.
What do you think? Is it something you would allow at your games?

Oath of the Dragon (5e Paladin Sacred Oath)
This homebrew sub-class was primarily influenced by:

• the film How to Train Your Dragon
• internet research into Skyrim
• the anime/manga Yona of the Dawn
• the Dragonlance D&D setting
• The Ringwraiths from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy
• the Dragoon PC class from the Final Fantasy franchise

Paladins that follow the Oath of the Dragon--sometimes called dragoons or dragon riders--are those who have pledged their loyalty in service to a powerful chromatic or metallic dragon.

TENETS OF THE DRAGON
Bring me Treasure. A percentage of whatever treasure you obtain from each adventure is to be given back to your dragon master.
My Word is Law. Should your dragon master give you a command or decree, you must obey it.
My Teeth and Claws. You are to conquer and/or destroy the enemies of your dragon master.

OATH SPELLS AT PALADIN LEVEL
3rd ---- Feather Fall, Hunter's Mark
5th ---- Hold Person, Scorching Ray*
9th ---- Bestow Curse, Haste
13th ---- Freedom of Movement, Polymorph
17th ---- Dominate Person, Hold Monster
*when you cast this spell, the damage is of the type associated with your dragon master

DRAGON MASTER
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you can speak, read, and write Draconic.
Furthermore, you must choose the species of the dragon who will become your master.
The species of your dragon master is associated with a particular damage type:
Black ------ Acid
Blue ------- Lightning
Brass ----- Fire
Bronze --- Lightning
Copper --- Acid
Gold ------ Fire
Green ---- Poison
Red ------- Fire
Silver ----- Cold
White ----- Cold

CHANNEL DIVINITY
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following Channel Divinity options:
Draconic Presence. As a bonus action, you give vent to a primal roar that frightens your enemies.
Each hostile creature within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
Draconic Savagery. As a bonus action, you give vent to a primal roar that increases your fighting spirit.
For 1 minute, you deal extra damage equal to your Charisma modifier on a hit. The extra damage is of the type associated with your dragon master.

DRACONIC STEED
At 7th level, your dragon master bequeaths to you one of its own offspring to serve you as a fully trained mount both in and out of combat.
The following rules apply to your draconic steed:

• It is of Young age and is the same species as your dragon master.
• It has proficiency in the Athletics, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival skills
• It can make only one attack on your turn. It cannot use a multiattack feature if it normally has one.
• Whenever you gain a level in the paladin class, it gains one additional hit dice.
• It has a proficiency bonus of +3 (unless it is a Blue, Gold, Red, or Silver dragon, in which case it has a proficiency bonus of +4).
• If you advance to a 9th, 13th, and 17th level paladin, the proficiency bonus of your draconic steed increases by +1 each time.
• Whenever you gain the Ability Score Improvement class feature, your draconic steed can improve one of its ability scores of your choice by 2, or two of its ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, your draconic steed cannot increase an ability score above 20 using this method.
• Your draconic steed acts on your turn, and has an instinctual bond that allows the two of you to fight as a seamless unit.

While mounted on your draconic steed, you gain the following benefits:

• You can make any spell you cast that targets only yourself also target your steed.
• You have resistance to the damage type associated with your dragon master.
• Due to the bond between you and your draconic steed, you do not need to make any Handle Animal check to control it unless it is frightened.

Should your draconic steed be killed, you can perform an ancient ritual to resurrect it over the course of 24 hours. After the ritual is completed, your steed returns to life and reappears in an unoccupied space within 30 feet of yourself.

LEGENDARY RESISTANCE
At 15th level, when either you or your draconic steed fails a saving throw, you can choose to turn that failure into a success
You can use this feature once, and regain the ability to do so again after you finish a short or long rest.

HEART OF A DRAGON
At 20th level, you can use your action to give vent to a primal roar that both revitalizes your allies and partially transforms you.
For 1 hour, you gain the following benefits:

• You and your allies within 30 feet of you regain 10 hit points at the start of each of your turns.
• You and your allies within 30 feet of you have immunity to the damage type associated with your dragon master.
• Your fingernails transform into the talons of a dragon, and you can use them as a natural weapon with a melee reach of 5 feet. You have proficiency and advantage on all attack rolls with these talons, and deal a base damage of 3d8 slashing + your Strength modifier on a hit.
• Your talons are considered magical weapons for the purposes of damage resistance.

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until after you finish a long rest.

 

[gyor]

I like it.

 

[manduck]

It looks like an interesting Oath. Though the level 3 abilities seem a bit overpowered. Essentially giving the entire group a +2 or higher magical weapon for an encounter at level 3 is pretty over the top. You're talking weapon power that is reserved for the rarest of magic items. So allow me to propose an alternative that ties into the dragon theme a bit more. Since you listed out the dragon type and breath weapon, how about your Channel Divinity allows you to add your charisma bonus to damage, the same type as your draconic master's breath weapon. So if you have a charisma bonus of +3 and follow a black dragon, you add 3 acid damage to your weapon attacks for a minute. That keeps it more in line with other Oath abilities at that level and lets the player mix it up with damage types. To compare, the paladin spell Elemental Weapon isn't available to paladins until level 5 (I think) and that grants a +1 to hit and damage with a d6 of elemental damage. So getting a bigger bonus at 3rd level doesn't make much sense.

I would also bump the duration of Frightful Presence down from a minute to something shorter, again because it's level 3. Perhaps a round or a number of rounds equal to your charisma modifier with a save each round.

Over all, I think it's a cool concept though. It would certainly work for a Dragonlance campaign.

 

[Bitbrain]

Since you listed out the dragon type and breath weapon, how about your Channel Divinity allows you to add your charisma bonus to damage, the same type as your draconic master's breath weapon. So if you have a charisma bonus of +3 and follow a black dragon, you add 3 acid damage to your weapon attacks for a minute. That keeps it more in line with other Oath abilities at that level and lets the player mix it up with damage types.

I would also bump the duration of Frightful Presence down from a minute to something shorter, again because it's level 3. Perhaps a round or a number of rounds equal to your charisma modifier . . .

Over all, I think it's a cool concept though. It would certainly work for a Dragonlance campaign.

These are both brilliant ideas. I will update it.

 

[RSIxidor]

Channel Divinities are both too strong. I'd change the Draconic Fury to only apply to damage or I'd set it only last until the end of your next round. I'd also make the extra damage of your dragon type. It's lame to pick your type but not have anything that uses it until level 7.

Frightful Presence shouldn't frighten. It's a really strong ability to have at level 3, even for a small area. I'd set it to cause those that fail to have disadvantage on their next turn or to grant advantage to your allies (but the latter overlaps with the other CD too much). Frightened for a turn is probably not terrible, either. You may be considering some other CDs that have similar effects, but they all specify a particulare type or types of creature, and only affect those. Affecting anything hostile is incredibly strong.

Another interesting idea at level 3 is to allow Divine Smite to use your chosen dragon's damage type.

Draconic Steed is pretty cool. 1-week seems like too long for a steed that's tied into all of your other class features from here out. I'd do something different, like being able to resurrect it during a long rest or maybe taking 24 hours.

Also, I'm not sure it's clear what type of creature you can have. At level 7, there seem to be only 2 options in the DMG which are both metallic dragon wyrmlings, and no options added in Volo's. So what exactly are you getting? What is it's physical and mental stats, HP, speed, movement types, senses? Does it have any skill proficiences? Is this meant to be like find steed where you pick a creature from the source books, but it has the dragon type regardless of it's other types? Maybe I missed something but looking over it again, I'm not seeing what tells me what the steed is.

 

[Bitbrain]

Frightful Presence shouldn't frighten. It's a really strong ability to have at level 3, even for a small area. I'd set it to cause those that fail to have disadvantage on their next turn or to grant advantage to your allies (but the latter overlaps with the other CD too much). Frightened for a turn is probably not terrible, either. You may be considering some other CDs that have similar effects, but they all specify a particulare type or types of creature, and only affect those. Affecting anything hostile is incredibly strong.

Another interesting idea at level 3 is to allow Divine Smite to use your chosen dragon's damage type.

Draconic Steed is pretty cool. 1-week seems like too long for a steed that's tied into all of your other class features from here out. I'd do something different, like being able to resurrect it during a long rest or maybe taking 24 hours.

Also, I'm not sure it's clear what type of creature you can have. At level 7, there seem to be only 2 options in the DMG which are both metallic dragon wyrmlings, and no options added in Volo's. So what exactly are you getting? What is it's physical and mental stats, HP, speed, movement types, senses? Does it have any skill proficiences? Is this meant to be like find steed where you pick a creature from the source books, but it has the dragon type regardless of it's other types? Maybe I missed something but looking over it again, I'm not seeing what tells me what the steed is.

Got it. Intimidating Presence for one round it will be.

Divine smite deal elemental damage? I'll have to think about that.

I was wondering if I had set it for too long. I can change it easily enough.

As for what type of creature . . . I was honestly taking a page from the find steed paladin spell. The idea was that monster would use the statistics of a Challenge 1-5 monster found in the MM, but that your Dragon master had infused it with dragon blood.
Basically, imagine a Level 12 paladin astride a mutated owlbear with dragon scales.

 

[manduck]

Got it. Frighten for one round it will be.

Divine smite deal elemental damage? I'll have to think about that.

I was wondering if I had set it for too long. I can change it easily enough.

As for what type of creature . . . I was honestly taking a page from the find steed paladin spell. The idea was that monster would use the statistics of a Challenge 1-5 monster found in the MM, but that your Dragon master had infused it with dragon blood.
Basically, imagine a Level 16 Dragonrider astride an owlbear with dragon scales.

Interesting idea on the mount. Like taking a creature and adding a "dragon template" to it. If that's the case, I'd expand the features the mount gets over a few levels. Start off with perhaps a resistance at lower levels, then add flight or swimming or whatever movement the "master" prefers. Perhaps top it off with a scaled down breath weapon. So at level 7 it gets a resistance to the Master's element. At 15 it gets the movement ability. At 20 a breath weapon. Things like that.

Also, going back to the channel divinity, I meant that the damage bonus should be scaled back to be for the paladin only. I probably should have been more clear. The other Oaths only give the channel divinity bonus to the paladin, like adding charisma modifier to the paladin's attack or giving the paladin advantage versus a chosen enemy. The Aura is a bit more powerful. Paladin auras don't start cropping up until level 6 and they start at 10 feet. If you want to keep the aura idea, I'd do it more like the cleric's channel divinity where it can increase in power as you gain levels. So at level 3 it's paladin only, then at 7 it's 10 foot radius, then at 18 it becomes a 30 foot radius. It's a bit more powerful than some of the other Channel Divinity options for paladins, though still fairly balanced. Oath of Vengeance adds abilities to it's channel divinity at higher levels (extra attacks against the chose foe). Considering the Frightful Presence was toned down, using this progression actually keeps things on the same level as Oath of the Ancients and Oath of Vengeance, as far as channel divinity goes.

Another thing to consider is another option for Frightful Presence. When looking over Oath of the Ancients, they have a kind of Turn Fey aspect to their channel divinity. They cause Fey to become frightened for a minute and flee. So you could apply that to the dragon master's enemies. The dragon names an enemy type and you can turn them. So a green dragon that lives in the swamps may be bothered by lizardmen, so you can turn lizardmen for a minute. If you go this route, you tweak the other channel divinity damage option to be personal at level 3 and then 10 foot radius at level 15. Then you're exactly on par with Ancients and Vengeance paladins. So just some food for thought.

 

[Bitbrain]

Thanks to all the helpful criticisms and suggestions, I've made a number of changes to the sub-class.
Does it look any better now?

 

[RSIxidor]

Do you choose the form of your steed or does your DM?

 

[manduck]

I think this looks really good. It really fits the theme you were going for. It seems better balanced and provides an interesting niche for the paladin. Great work!