A friend of mine, Steve Chambers, is the origin of this idea: a paladin who is a magical bouncer. I’m just running with that and turning it into as cool of a paladin oath as I can, then hoping Steve and his gaming group like it. I’m also surprised to realize how long it’s been since the last time I created a paladin oath!

Oath of Hospitality

The obligations that bind a host and a guest are the fundamental sign of civilization. Many uphold this duty without gaining paladinhood from it, of course. Some paladins of this oath serve a god of hearth and home. In other cases, a person shows such dedication to the safety and comfort of their guests that it lights a holy fire within them. Paladins of this oath are sometimes called lintel knights or doorwardens.

TENETS OF HOSPITALITY

Some details of the duty of hospitality vary from culture to culture.

Bond of Bread. Alternately known as the bond of salt, meat, or water, the universal idea is that once a food or drink has been offered and accepted, the recipient becomes a guest.

Guardianship. Defend your guests against harm of all kinds, from other guests and from outside forces.

Solace. Provide a place of comfort or celebration for your guests.

Generosity. Give what you have to your guests, and trust that it will be returned to you in your hour of need.

Oath Spells

3^rd-level Oath of Hospitality feature

You gain oath spells at the paladin levels listed in the Oath of Hospitality Spells table. See the Sacred Oath class feature for how oath spells work.

Paladin Level — Spells
3^rd: detect poison and disease, goodberry
5^th: arcane lock, warding bond
9^th: create food and water, glyph of warding
13^th: guardian of faith, private sanctum
17^th: hallow, wall of stone

Channel Divinity

3^rd-level Oath of Hospitality feature

Lintel-Ward. You can use your Channel Divinity as an action to place a ward upon a number of doorways or windows equal to your proficiency bonus. Each target must be within 30 feet of you, visible to you, and no more than to 15 feet wide. The lintel-ward lasts for 8 hours, until you end it as an action, or until you place a lintel-ward on a different building. A creature attempting to pass through a warded doorway or window must roll a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC; on a failure, it takes radiant damage equal to your paladin level + your Charisma modifier and is frightened. A creature that normally dwells there, or that you or the building’s owner have explicitly invited in, automatically succeeds this saving throw. You are aware when any creature succeeds or fails this saving throw as long as you are on the same plane of existence.

Abjure the Traitor. You can use your Channel Divinity as a reaction when a creature within 30 feet of you would deal damage with the Sneak Attack feature, deal poison damage, or cause the poisoned condition. The triggering creature rerolls their attack roll, and if the new roll succeeds, they halve the amount of damage that they deal. If the poison damage or poisoned condition is the result of a failed saving throw, the creature taking the damage or condition can reroll that saving throw with advantage.

You can also use this reaction when an object (such as a trap or a cup with a poisoned drink) would cause a creature to take poison damage. All target creatures take half the normal amount of poison damage on a failed saving throw, or no damage on a success.

Aura of Solace

7^th-level Oath of Hospitality feature

Your presence soothes many kinds of sorrow and pain for your guests. Creatures of your choice within 10 feet of you have resistance to psychic damage, effects that cause despair are suppressed, and they can’t be forced to leave your aura.

At 18^th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet, and creatures of your choice (not including you) can’t be forced to move at all.

Interposing Presence

15^th-level Oath of Hospitality feature

You are a forbidding presence for those who would harm your guests or friends. When a hostile creature would move to within 5 feet of a creature friendly to you that you can see, you can use your reaction to teleport a distance up to your speed to the triggering creature’s destination space. The triggering creature’s speed becomes 0 until the start of its next turn and it has disadvantage on attacks against creatures other than you.

After you use this reaction, creatures of your choice within 5 feet of you can use the Disengage action as a bonus action until the start of your next turn.

Impassable Warden

20^th-level Oath of Hospitality feature

You can empower yourself to become the perfect gate-warden. As a bonus action, you gain the following benefits for 1 minute:

• You have truesight to a distance of 60 feet.
• You can’t be moved or teleported against your will.
• As a reaction when a creature teleports to a space within 90 feet of you, you can redirect its teleportation to end in an unoccupied space within 10 feet of you.
• Creatures of Huge size or smaller can’t move through your space against your will. Creatures of your choice can move through your space without treating it as difficult terrain.
• When you hit a creature with an attack, you can also push it up to 15 feet away from you.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest, unless you expend a 5th-level spell slot to use it again.

Design Notes

I’m concerned that I’ve gone too narrow with some features, but the balance between “this is great for what it does but the use case is too narrow” and “this is useful in a lot of situations but the theme died in a fire” is a classic problem. As usual, it’s okay to tell me I’ve missed the mark. I’m also trying to get this concept across without stepping on the toes of the Oath of Redemption or the Oath of the Watcher.

I tweaked the Lintel-Ward feature a bit following conversation with one of my Patreon backers.

Aura of Solace is intended to both make guests (allies) feel better while they’re nearby, and to guarantee that no one else can make your guests leave. There’s no teleportation abductions on your watch, much less grapples or pushes. I hope that it doesn’t break scenes in an unfun way by being too absolute; the same goes for Impassable Warden, though as a 20^th-level feature I think there’s more room for absolutes.

Interposing Presence is a “bigger” version of the Interception fighting style, which you should also pick as this kind of paladin because it is so cool.

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