[Cosmos] Subclass - Paladin - Oath of Privacy (Patreon)

Safeguard Secrets from All-Seeing Tyranny

Paladins who swear the Oath of Privacy believe in the sovereign right to exist unobserved, unrecorded, and free. They stand firm against oppressors who threaten these gifts—surveillance regimes, omnipresent corporations, or megalomaniacal villains—and teach others to resist their influence.

These paladins share the following tenets:

Preserve Confidentiality. Protect the secrets of others.

Defy Oppressors. Stand against those who abuse knowledge and surveillance.

Know Your Boundaries. Do not seek or exploit information for personal gain.

Another subclass from the world of the Cosmos! This time a Paladin diametrically opposed to the Bard. Spent much longer on this than I thought I would fine-tuning the effects, but I'm quite happy with the unique niche/playstyle it's landed on. Hope you like it.

I may or may not draw characters for these as well. I would like to if I can, but it's time-consuming.

Download PDF here.

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Design Commentary

A modern world creates modern evils, and a justice arises to face it. This Paladin is formed from the seeds of a dystopian future where the major powers can see, hear, and control everything you do. Interestingly, it’s the opposite of the Bard of Mass Media, which opens up some fun character bonds. This subclass is a buff character: stealth-focused, built around disappearing, deception, hiding you and your allies from enemies, and preventing debilitating conditions.

Let’s take a walk through the Oath of Privacy Paladin and see how it compares to the others.

Ghost in the Wind

This Paladin is like the Oath of Glory Paladin, gaining a Channel Divinity option for non-combat encounters. The Advantage to Stealth buffs the Paladin’s typically low Dexterity score and will be often useful. The traceless feature is mainly a ribbon since it shouldn’t come up often.

Oath of Privacy Spells

The selection of spells are primarily utility-based, with one disguise or stealth spell per level and one technology-based one sprinkled in.

Pass Without Trace further buffs the CD option for Stealth because it stacks.

Commune with Technology, though somewhat antithetical to a paladin about privacy, is a great way to learn if someone is watching you, so it feels appropriate.

Magic Aura and Nondetection were considered, but did not pass the utility and technology focus of the other spells in their level.

Vanishing Smite

Paladin CD options triggering on Attacks or Divine Smites are typical. This one effectively bestows the Invisibility spell.

The best measure of power scale is the new Genie Paladin’s options: 10 Fire damage, Restrained, Teleport, and an AoE push & Prone. The Teleport option is essentially the same thing here: both functionally allow you to move away without taking Opportunity Attacks. Where the Teleport option grants you additional buffs for the duration, your Invisibility grants you a similar buff (Disadvantage on attacks against you), which you can also trade out for Advantage on your follow-up attack instead. Quite versatile.

Overall, I think they are roughly equal

Aura of Secrecy

This feature’s aura grants two permanent bonuses,

Prevents creatures from reading your mind. This rarely comes up in meaningful ways.

Bonus to you and your allies’ Deception. This is a roleplay feature for hiding your secrets, and is partially one of the ways to counter the Mass Media Bard’s Opposition Research.

The feature’s other benefit is to Vanishing Smite, empowering it manyfold. Paladins, whose average “optimal” Charisma score is 13-16 throughout the course of their career (because they normally focus on their attacking stat and Constitution first), should get 2 or 3 extra allies with this feature. There’s a possibility for 4 to 5, but not expected until higher levels of play anyway where that would be quite good. The primary limiter is AoP’s range as it’s unlikely ALL of your allies happen to be melee characters. The extra Reaction for movement is added to help the goal of this feature — getting your allies out of danger — more viable.

Compared to the other subclasses like Vengeance, Glory, Devotion, this feels balanced. Where those features are permanent benefits for combat, the Privacy Paladin has two roleplay pseudo-ribbons and there’s fun play opportunities revolving around keeping your allies close to you at all times. The other feature is gated by the limited number of Channel Divinities you have.

Compared to Ancients and the Genie Paladin, whose benefits are essentially 3-5 permanent Resistances (the Genie feature I believe is possibly over-powered), I’d say it’s roughly balanced.

Defiant Rebuke

This feature evokes the themes of resisting oppressive powers. Very straightforward and simple, punishing enemies that would impose one of the listed conditions. This should more than guarantee a creature’s safety when combined with Auras, and the damage you deal is a nice bonus. The limited uses prevent this from being too wild.

Inscrutable Myth

A final capstone like all other Paladins. It’s always a 10-minute transformation that recharges with a level 5 spell slot.

This transformation grants three benefits:

Immunity to Grappled, Restrained, and Prone, as well as escape from Restraints. This equates to one-third of Freedom of Movement.

Immunity to Divination spells. This is thematically appropriate for if a villain were to Scry on you or spy on you, but also applies to other one of few Divination combat spells like Hunter’s Mark and True Strike. This benefit I consider a ribbon since it’s primarily going to be useful outside of combat and will rarely come up during.

Unseeable is the meat of this feature. You’ll effectively be Blinding creatures every turn, which relieves some of the Invisibility uses of your CD and grants you Advantage on your attacks. Compare this to the Vengeance Paladin’s Frighten feature, doing roughly the same thing (Disadvantage on their attacks; Advantage on attacks against them). It does impose Blinded, which is slightly better than Fear.

Overall, considering Unholdable is sort of mobility-based like Vengeance Paladin but a little worse since it’s more niche, how Unknowable is basically a ribbon, and how Unseeable is a little better than one of the features of the Vengeance Paladin; I’d say it’s balanced to that feature.