Paladins and their oaths have always been a staple of the fantasy genre, but it seems Baldur’s Gate 3 has turned the concept upside down. A massive Reddit thread has appeared where players are sharing their most bizarre experiences with oathbreaking—a deadly sin for the Paladins of Faerun.
Fair warning: the following may contain major spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3.
“I broke my Paladin’s Oath in the stupidest way possible,” reads the title of the Reddit thread posted on Nov. 12. The player goes on to detail how they’ve encountered Arabella, an early game NPC who has her own quest line (with several outcomes), and lied to her about the fate of her parents. They claim they did this out of mercy for the child, to protect her from the grave news of her parents’ deaths, but it seems the DnD gods ruling the BG3 world had other ideas.
Long story short, they broke their Oath of Devotion, as there is no excuse for lying in the world of Faerun.
The story attracted many Paladin players who had their own stories to share, all of which were more bizarre than the other, showing just how complex and varied Baldur’s Gate 3 can be. One player said that, while lying out of mercy is an interesting way to break your Oath, it’s by no means the stupidest. “Someone broke theirs by clocking a comrade with a healing potion, rather than busting the bottle nearby,” they said.
The Paladin codex, it seems, allows only for direct and complete approaches to devotion and being a genuine dude. Want to help someone in battle? Just make sure you don’t bump into them by accident. Otherwise, there goes your Oath.
Another player told the story of someone accidentally falling onto an NPC, killing them in the process. That’s a hell of a way to break a Paladin Oath.
But perhaps the most interesting way a player has broken their Paladin’s Oath was by… doing literally nothing. They claim that their Oath was broken for siding with Wulbren and massacring the Gondians, when in reality they did no such thing. It appears that, no matter what you may end up doing, the gods of Faerun and Larian Studios just seem to want to spite you sometimes.
Paladins in Baldur’s Gate 3 have the option of picking from a variety of Oaths, all of which have their unique spells, stats, and playstyles. Naturally, the most mischievous of players can go with the option of becoming an Oathbreaker, a Paladin who’s forsaken their vows and was led astray. Oathbreakers vary based on which Oath they broke, whether accidentally or on purpose.
The game offers so many ways to play it’s ridiculous sometimes, and stories like the ones above spawn from seemingly every corner of Faerun, which deservedly brought BG3 a Golden Joysticks Award for Best Storytelling. Talk about having a dynamic world.
