Deep diving into the the oaths of pestilence, slaughter and zeal.
The paladins of Grim Hollow are generally an unpleasant bunch. Far from the righteous bastions of truth and protectors from evil, these paladin subclasses bring with them death, disease and the fury of the gods. If you’re interested in a more destructive kind of paladin, you may be interested in checking out these subclasses.
The 2024 version of the Grim Hollow Player’s Handbook has 3 paladin subclasses. They are:
- Oath of pestilence – Bring pestilence and disease to harden those that survive.
- Oath of slaughter – Sow death and destruction wherever you go.
- Oath of zeal – Strive unceasingly towards the goals of your order.
In this article, I’ll dive into each subclass to provide advice as well as analyse how strong they are and which is the most powerful.
Oath of pestilence
What are they?
These paladins believe that suffering fosters strength. That by spreading plague and disease, the survivors emerge stronger. They infest their own bodies with this same corruption.
Oath of pestilence paladins adhere to these tenants:
- Spread plague to foster strength in the survivors
- There is nothing unnatural or immoral about the ending of life
- Might makes right
Key abilities
Debilitating fever (lv3)
Use a channel divinity to cause the poisoned and incapacitated conditions on a creature you’ve hit. This is actually really good as there’s no initial saving throw here and it’s an automatic infliction when you hit so no extra action economy required, it’s just part of your attack.
Even creatures with advantage against the poisoned condition only benefit from that after a turn incapacitated! And creatures with legendary resistance can’t resist this on the first turn meaning you can just incapacitate the BBEG almost automatically!
This is definitely a feature for tough enemies, and personally, I think it’s far too good. I’d either implement an initial saving throw, or have it in place of an attack or as the whole action. Even then, incapacitated at level 3 is strong.
Entropic infection (lv3)
This is kind of like a stronger hex or hunter’s mark though it’s double the damage and removes necrotic resistance and immunity, but it requires a whole action to initiate.
Its hard to justify spending the action unless you know this enemy will need a lot of hits. The problem is, they could just pass the saving throw and your setup action is wasted. It does work on every hit though, so maximising your number of hits will help. That makes this ideal for a dual wielding paladin.
The other issue with this is just how good debilitating fever is. They both use your channel divinity, making it hard to justify this over debilitating fever.
Oath of pestilence spells (lv3)
The spells are OK. You get a few long range spells to tackle ranged attacks. There’s confusion (which is like a worse hypnotic pattern but uses a higher level spell slot), ray of enfeeblement can be good against strength based creatures, but is an expensive use of your concentration.
Contagion is a problematic damage dealer and debilitator, forcing 3 successes before it’s ended. Insect plague also gives your paladin a rare AoE spell to inflict.
Aura of rampant sickness (lv7)
Use a reaction to impose disadvantage on d20 tests to those nearby. It makes sense to work with your allied spellcaster to get near the targets of their spells and make them a decent bit more likely to fail their saving throw. The fact that this doesn’t require resources means this is usually the best use of your reaction. That does mean your opportunity attacks will be much rarer, but this will usually be more worthwhile.
Disgusting resilience (Lv15)
Reducing deadly damage using hit dice is a great way to survive. You may be able to be a bit tactical about this. Smaller attacks means you can use less hit dice allowing you to do this repeatedly. Bigger attacks may need more hit dice.
Just be careful you don’t reduce the damage by so little that you still die anyway. The dice are random so tactics can become a problem with a bad roll.
You also explode in a shower of pus when you die! You don’t care because you’re dead, but I guess it could help your allies (or hurt them). The problem here is I think it nullifies most attempts to revive you. Raise dead doesn’t restore missing body parts for example (all your body parts will be missing). Reincarnated and resurrection should work for you though so maybe make sure your party prioritises reincarnate over raise dead in case you explode.
Plaguebringer (Lv20)
Use a bonus action to have immunity to poison damage and the poisoned condition, resistance to necrotic damage, prevent your hit point maximum from being reduced and cause damage to enemies that start their turn nearby.
It’s the damage that’s going to be really helpful, especially against hordes of enemies. You can easily be dealing 9-10 damage per enemy, per round in this way. You’ve got limited uses of this though, so I’d save it for the tricky encounters.
What are they good at?
Dealing damage, being a tough tank and nulifying enemies.
How effective are they?
On a thematic level, while this subclass feels very reminiscent of ideologies you might find in Eldin Ring, I struggle to comprehend what we make me want to play a character like this. An NPC, sure, but not a PC. These paladins are just foul! Even for an evil party.
But this analysis is more about the quality of features and on this front, I’d say this subclass is very overpowered. They’re tough, deal lots of damage and extremely good at just incapacitating enemies. It’s too much in my opinion, and I think that debilitating fever is so good it’s broken and easily abused.
I’d remove debilitating fever and rebalance entropic infection so it can be used as a bonus action and I think you’ve got a strong, but not an insane subclass. As it stands, I think this subclass is a bit broken and wouldn’t allow it at my table without some rebalancing.
Score: 6/5
Oath of slaughter
What are they?
Those of the oath of slaughter follow a path of incredible bloodshed. They believe in subduing their enemies in the most violent and terrifying means possible. They are warmongers and revel in the slaying of friend and foe alike.
These paladins adhere to the following tenets:
- Violence is the end, not the means
- Break the body to break the spirit
- Revel in bloodshed, whether friend or foe
Key abilities
Frenzied slaughter (lv3)
Use a bonus action and a use of your channel divinity to enter a frenzied state. This allows you to make a reaction attack if you miss and have advantage against the charmed, frightened and stunned conditions.
Oath of slaughter spells (lv3)
Crimson lash and blood letter are both interesting enhancements to your weapon attacks. They can be used together too if you duel wield. Crimson lash is quite good on a paladin meaning a 1d10 one handed light weapon with reach meaning sword and shield and dual wielding builds are options.
Shatter and destructive wave give you decent AoE damage dealers. You’ve also got fear for AoE crowd control.
I’m not convinced suffocate is better than other options at this level. You restrain one creature and must suffocate them for 6+ rounds before it does more than just restrain them. At this same level is hypnotic pattern which temporarily nullifies multiple enemies rather than just the 1 so is much better. Personally, I think you’re usually better off using fear.
Consume mind let’s you access a dead creature’s memory in the most disgusting way possible (by eating their brain). Supernal smite is a great smite option against spellcasters, automatically breaking their concentration and ending other spells affecting them.
Incite riot is a great way to whip up some chaos and have enemies attack each other as long as you’re not in combat yet.
Overall, it’s a good bunch of spells with attacks enhancements, AoE spells that a paladin usually lacks and a bit of information gathering too.
Bloodthirst aura (lv7)
Give bloodied allies a boost to damage when in your aura of protection and bloodied enemies can be given disadvantage against sangromancy spells. You have a few sangromancy spell options in crimson lash, wilting smite and splattering smite. However, none of these will be affected by this feature so unless you multiclass, this is really to benefit allies rather than yourself so it’s only useful in the right party configuration.
This affects every attack made by allies so when bloodied, it’s good to get close to a slaughter paladin. Of course, the issue here is that to do more damage, you’ll need to be more vulnerable. On the front lines and in melee combat, not being healed beyond half hit points is a high risk, high reward tactic.
If you are going to do this, then I’d suggest making as many attacks as possible. Dual wielding allies and fighters and monks will benefit most here.
Follow through (Lv15)
When a creature in your aura of protection becomes bloodied, you can take a reaction to move and attack with advantage.
As with most paladins, making the most of this will just mean staying close to allies to give more chances to use attack reactions.
Blood knight (Lv20)
Use a bonus action to become enhanced. You now gain temporary hit points when a nearby ally is bloodied, a reaction attack when hit and deal some damage to nearby enemies when you make hits.
Using this should mean lots of opportunities to make reaction attacks. The 30 temporary hit points is a lot too and can happen multiple times in a combat. Your best targets are going to be those with enemies surrounding them.
What are they good at?
Damage dealing and enhancing the effectiveness of allies. Oath of slaughter paladins work best with allies (despite their general disregard for friends).
How effective are they?
How good slaughter paladins are is mainly determined by who their allies are. If you’ve got a couple of martial allies and at least one ally casting sangromancy spells, then they can be quite good. But without this composition, the effectiveness of their features are going to be a bit limited.
They do have some quite good spells and a lot of your build should work around attack enhancements like crimson lash and blood letter. You’ve also got some AoE spells too giving you some crowd control capabilities.
This makes the oath of slaughter a decent subclass that can be elevated with a very specific party composition.
Score: 4/5
Oath of zeal
What are they?
Paladins of the oath of zeal (or zealots) are called upon a mission that demands they abandon all other goals and desires to unflinchingly exact the desires of their god.
They adhere to the following tenets:
- Reveal heresy and destroy those who practice it
- Show unwavering conviction and unflinching resolve
- Perform any sacrifice necessary to stop wickedness
Key abilities
Mark of the heretic (Lv3)
Use a bonus action and a channel divinity use to mark a creature and land criticals on a 19 or 20 and make melee reaction attacks at the start of the target’s turn.
This makes zeal paladins best against a single target. The greater chances of a critical mean you’ve got a 10% chance of landing a critical each attack instead of 5%. It’s a decent buff but not that reliable. You’ve got more control over being in melee reach of your target at the start of their turn (which also gives you an extra chance to land a critical).
The tactics here are to doggedly focus on a single enemy, preferably a tough one where you’ll get plenty of use out of this feature.
Oath of zeal spells (lv3)
Hunter’s mark gives you another layer to your focus fire. You can technically apply it to the same creature targeted by mark of the heretic, but you’ll need to do this on separate turns. It tends to do more damage over time than something like divine smite, but lacks the instant amount of damage that smites cause and will occupy your concentration.
Fear and insect plague are your other 2 combat spells and they’re decent AoE options. One for crowd control and the other for damage. All your other spells are about information gathering giving the zeal paladin a very inquisitorial feel.
Aura of clarity (lv7)
Immunity to the blinded condition for those in your aura of protection and you can see nearby invisible creatures.
Technically, this is situational, but when the situation arises, you’ll be glad to have something that can tackle both of these visual issues.
Compel confession (Lv15)
You can cast zone of truth for free and those that pass their saving throw will keep taking 1d6 psychic damage each turn until they choose to fail.
I’m not sure this does anything more than beating someone into submission as an unwilling recipient of this spell can just walk away unless they’re bound, in which case they can be punched. It does add a nice element of flavour to the effects of your inquisition though.
Zone of truth can be worked around though by clever PCs so be aware, it’s not a catch all for confessions and information.
Apocalyptic revelation (lv20)
Use a bonus action and for a minute, you cause blinded to nearby creatures, have true sight and can use a bonus action to give you and allies advantage against a creature. It seems you can do this on subsequent turns too so the party have advantage against multiple creatures simultaneously.
As with other features of the zeal paladin, you’ll want to get in close to enemies and focus fire on those you have advantage against. Keep in mind that you already have advantage against a blinded creature so you may want to preserve your bonus action for either helping others get advantage against their enemies or for other things like smites.
What are they good at?
Focusing damage on a single enemy, handling invisible creatures and gathering information.
How effective are they?
Oath of zeal paladins do a pretty good job of hunting a single target and attacking them until they’ve been destroyed. This works well in some encounters where there’s maybe a few high resilience enemies. When there are lots of minions to deal with, they almost become a bog standard paladin with little else going for them.
This doesn’t mean they’re bad. There are plenty of BBEGs around, lots of information to be gathered and a decent number of invisible enemies to see, but for combat, you’re not always going to be able to use any of your features to their maximum potential. Despite this, in the big fights, perhaps when you need them most, zealot paladins can shine making them a decent enough option.
Score: 3/5
Which Grim Hollow paladin subclass is best?
None of the paladin options are bad in the Grim Hollow Player’s Handbook. But the oath of zeal only really shines against really tough enemies (or when information needs to be extracted). The oath of slaughter on the other hand, is really good in a large party, especially one with plenty of martials and or sangromancy casters. They are generally a good subclass even without a party like this, but they’re overshadowed by the oath of pestilence.
The oath of pestilence though, is brokenly strong in my opinion. They’re tough, hit hard and phenomenal at nullifying even the toughest of enemies (including those with legendary resistance). I gave them a 6 because of this, and for this reason, in their current state, I wouldn’t allow them at my table. There features are capable of completely unbalancing encounters. So while they are the best in terms of raw power, I do not think they are the best designed.
As a broader note, While a lot of Grim Hollow’s subclasses are dark, most of these paladins feel just pure evil. I find it hard to imagine playing a nuanced character interested in bringing pestilence or slaughter to the land. The oath of zeal has more potential and could be a bit more varied, but even then, a subclass so resolute in a certain direction can be difficult to negotiate with in a game that relies so heavily on party interaction. For that reason, I do struggle with these subclasses from a roleplay perspective a bit.
What do you think of Grim Hollow’s paladin subclasses? Let me know in the comments below.
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