The Oath of Winter is a concord between a paladin and an ancient being of ice, Father Winter. With this treatise, the paladin swears to stand vanguard against the cold, but neither to unseat Father Winter from his throne of ice. So long as the paladin upholds this concord, he is made one with the winter's ice, and protected from its ravages.
Tenets of Winter
Your concord with Father Winter is based on the following principles:
Winter's Snow. Though the winter is long and harsh, it is not altogether evil. Your concord with Father Winter himself is proof of that.
Winter's Wind. With the coming of winter frosts are harsh dangers and frigid creatures not found in the summer. It is your duty to protect the innocent from this peril.
Winter's Throne. To seek to unseat Father Winter from his throne of ice is to break your vow. No matter the evils of his reign, you must not break your concord.
hit dice:
1d10
hit points at 1st level:
10 + your Constitution modifier
hit points at higher levels:
1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per paladin level after 1st
armor proficiencies:
All armor, shields
weapon proficiencies:
Simple weapons, martial weapons
tools:
None
saving throws:
Wisdom, Charisma
skills:
Choose two from Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Persuasion, and Religion
starting equipment:
(a) a martial weapon and a shield or (b) two martial weapons
(a) five javelins or (b) any simple melee weapon
(a) a priest’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
Chain mail and a holy symbol
spellcasting:
class features:
Divine Sense
The presence of strong evil registers on your senses like a noxious odor, and powerful good rings like heavenly music in your ears. As an action, you can open your awareness to detect such forces. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any celestial, fiend, or undead within 60 feet of you that is not behind total cover. You know the type (celestial, fiend, or undead) of any being whose presence you sense, but not its identity (the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, for instance). Within the same radius, you also detect the presence of any place or object that has been consecrated or desecrated, as with the hallow spell.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier. When you finish a long rest, you regain all expended uses.
Lay on Hands
Your blessed touch can heal wounds. You have a pool of healing power that replenishes when you take a long rest. With that pool, you can restore a total number of hit points equal to your paladin level × 5.
As an action, you can touch a creature and draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points to that creature, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool.
Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit points from your pool of healing to cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use of Lay on Hands, expending hit points separately for each one.
This feature has no effect on undead and constructs.
Fighting Style
At 2nd level, you adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.
Defense
While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.
Dueling
When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Great Weapon Fighting
When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.
Protection
When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield.
Spellcasting
By 2nd level, you have learned to draw on divine magic through meditation and prayer to cast spells as a cleric does. See Spells Rules for the general rules of spellcasting and the Spells Listing for the paladin spell list.
Preparing and Casting Spells
The Paladin table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your paladin spells. To cast one of your paladin spells of 1st level or higher, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.
You prepare the list of paladin spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the paladin spell list. When you do so, choose a number of paladin spells equal to your Charisma modifier + half your paladin level, rounded down (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.
For example, if you are a 5th-level paladin, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With a Charisma of 14, your list of prepared spells can include four spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or a 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells.
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of paladin spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
Spellcasting Ability
Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your paladin spells, since their power derives from the strength of your convictions. You use your Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a paladin spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier
Spellcasting Focus
You can use a holy symbol (see the Adventuring Gear section) as a spellcasting focus for your paladin spells.
Divine Smite
Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon’s damage. The extra damage is 2d8 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d8 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an undead or a fiend, to a maximum of 6d8.
Divine Health
By 3rd level, the divine magic flowing through you makes you immune to disease.
Sacred Oath
When you reach 3rd level, you swear the oath that binds you as a paladin forever. Up to this time you have been in a preparatory stage, committed to the path but not yet sworn to it. Now you choose the Oath of Devotion detailed at the end of the class description or one from another source.
Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 15th, and 20th level. Those features include oath spells and the Channel Divinity feature.
Oath Spells
Paladin Level Spell
3rd armor of agathys, ice knife
5th shatter, Snilloc's snowball swarm
9th protection from energy, sleet storm
13th blight, ice storm
17th cone of cold, wall of ice
Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Ice Armor. As a bonus action expending your Channel Divinity, you can wreath your armor in a thick layer of protective ice, which must be chipped away before you are harmed. You gain temporary hit points equal to twice your paladin level + your Charisma modifier. You subtract fire damage from your temporary hit points as if you were vulnerable to it, but if this fire damage reduces your temporary hit points to zero, you take no additional damage from it, as your melting ice neutralizes the excess heat.
North Wind. You can use your action to breathe a hoary wind, expending your Channel Divinity. Each creature within a 30-foot cone must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 2d8 cold damage for each point of your proficiency bonus, and its speed is reduced by half until the beginning of your next turn. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much cold damage.
A creature killed by this ability becomes a frozen statue until it thaws.
Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.
Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.
Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Aura of Protection
Starting at 6th level, whenever you or a friendly creature within 10 feet of you must make a saving throw, the creature gains a bonus to the saving throw equal to your Charisma modifier (with a minimum bonus of +1). You must be conscious to grant this bonus.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Frigid Aura
Beginning at 7th level, you emanate bitter cold and draw heat from the room. You and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you have resistance to cold and fire damage.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Aura of Courage
Starting at 10th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can’t be frightened while you are conscious.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Improved Divine Smite
By 11th level, you are so suffused with righteous might that all your melee weapon strikes carry divine power with them. Whenever you hit a creature with a melee weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d8 radiant damage.
Cleansing Touch
Beginning at 14th level, you can use your action to end one spell on yourself or on one willing creature that you touch.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of once). You regain expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Iceflesh
By 15th level, your blood freezes in your veins. When you take damage, you can use your reaction to halve the damage you take.
Aura Improvements
At 18th level, the range of your auras increase to 30 feet.
Father Winter
Starting at 20th level, you can invite upon yourself the purest cold, becoming an effigy of Father Winter himself. For the next hour, you gain the following benefits:
- You are immune to cold damage.
- On your turn, you can draw the heat from the room, extinguishing any nonmagical fires you can see within 30 feet (no action required.)
- Creatures within 5 feet which deal damage to you with a melee weapon attack immediately take 2d10 cold damage.
- The ground surrounding you rapidly ices over. Spaces adjacent to you are considered difficult terrain for creatures that you choose.
- Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.
subclass options: