The warrior unsheathed his blade from its scabbard, he endured the various traps and dark wards the necromancer had placed in his dark sanctuary. The felled mage unleashed a torrent of azure bolts at the armored warrior, his eyes were trained to be faster than the spells themselves, the blade hummed with energy as it swiftly deflected the bolts away. The mage recoiled in shock, the warrior smiled and instead of uttering a prayer, began to mutter words of power. An emerald flame wrapped over the blade as the warrior charged in his full stride towards the surprised mage.
In the Land of Magic, magic is only limited to the imagination of the caster. Magic has created marvelous wonders but through hubris has also brought ruin and destruction. There are factions that seek to educate and spread the wonder of the arcane traditions, and there are those who seek to destroy creations or imprison those gifted in the arcane arts. But often times these sides agree on a mutual foe, ignorance. To be ignorant is often to misuse the arcane arts, but those are bent on misusing magic for evil gains often times become the greater vendetta for such factions.
Knights of this particular fashion tend to ward or protect against magic but also seek to protect against its misuse as well. Their oaths bestow upon them techniques and ways to protect themselves from hostile spells, to even deflect them, and defeat the defenses of powerful evil spellcasters.
So today we go over a concept I hold very dear to me, a paladin who seeks to protect magic and the fight against evil spellcasters. In the Forgotten Realms, we had the Knights of the Mystic Fire, paladins of the goddess Mystra who sought to protect her temples and the Weave. I played a Knight of Mystic Fire once in an online game years ago, sadly that game died shortly after a month but I enjoyed writing the backstory for that character.
This option is intended for martial paladins who wish to safeguard magic and its use against evil spellcasters and those who seek to destroy the balance of magic. Most deities of magic will have such a paladins in their orders. There are those who simply are inspired to protect the very energy that sparks life within the cosmos from those that seek to abuse it and cause ruin to others.
Oath of the Mystic Flame
Tenants of the Mystic Flame
Safeguard. Magic is a wondrous tool, often times dangerous. Find and protect magic and magical items from the hands of those who would misuse them.
Knowledge is Power. Knowledge is sacred, it can bring marvel or ruin. Treat it with respect and out of the hands of those who would abuse it.
Magic is Potential. Magic is an energy suffused into the universe to bring about both creation and destruction. It has limitless possibilities.
Warden. Never let others misuse magic for foul purposes, magic is a tool to be used in service of all. Personal acts are acceptable but violate the wills and lives of others, give no quarter.
Oath Spells
3rd – detect magic, magic missile
5th – magic weapon, see invisibility
9th – dispel magic, protection from energy
13th – fire shield, banishment
17th – legend lore, dispel good and evil
Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Spellshatter. As an action, you can imbue one weapon you are holding with raw arcane energy using your Channel Divinity. For 1 minute, whenever you hit with the imbued weapon, the target is subjected to a dispel magic effect. If a weapon was not already magical, it becomes magical for the duration. You can end this effect on your turn as part of any other action. If you are no longer holding or carrying this weapon, or if you fall unconscious, this effect ends.
Aegis of Warding. You disperse harmful spell effects into the aether using your Channel Divinity. As a reaction, you gain advantage on saving throws against spells and spell effects.
Mystic Knowledge: Your oath not only bestows techniques to ward against spells and their casters, but through your own personal study you have gain insight to the arcane ways to better understand your foe. Starting at 7th level, you gain two cantrips and one 1st-level spell from the Wizard spell list, these spells count as Paladin spells for you. At 18th level, you gain one 2nd-level spell from the Wizard spell list.
In addition, you can ignore attunement requirements with magical items regarding classes or alignment.
Improved Spellshatter: Beginning at 15th level, when you imbue your weapon using your Spellshatter ability, you may end a spell up to 6th-level. You always have advantage to saving throws against spells and spell effects, your Aegis of Warding can now target an ally within 30 feet that you can see.
In addition, when you use your Divine Smite feature on a creature that can cast spells, it takes an additional 1d8 damage.
Scion of the Mystic Flames: You have the peak of arcane admixture, your training against hostile magics and spellcasters make you a force to reckon with. Blue flames wrap around your form, your eyes become white spots of light, your voice becomes a chorus of ancient scholars. You can use an action to gain the following benefits for 1 minute:
- Enemy creatures within 10 ft of you have disadvantage to Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration on spell effects.
- Enemy creatures have difficulty casting spells near you, they must make an ability check using their spellcasting ability against a DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier.
- Whenever you successfully make a saving throw against a spell, you may redirect the spell to an available target within 60 ft using your reaction. If there are no targets the spell fizzles and you do not take effects from the spell.
Thanks for reading and checking out this concept. It’s very green but something I sort of had in mind for a little while now. There’s going to be some need for tweaking here and there but this is more or less a draft of an idea. Let me know what you guys think, please like, comment, and share. If you want to stay up to date with my antics, follow our Facebook and Twitter. We have a donate butto and an Amazon store for al your D&D product needs, a little comes back our way. Stay tuned, I have some a brainstorming article since International Table Top Day (April 30th) is around the corner. Board games and D&D? How?! Come and see this week. See you all soon.
Death By Mage 
I like it. It’s an absolute bulwark defensively, and that perhaps goes too far.
I’ll go feature by feature…
Channel Divinity
-Spellshatter is great. It makes me think of the Inquisitor from the old Complete Book of Paladins. It’s flavorful, scales, and will come in immensely handy.
-Aegis of Warding is like an upgraded version of Resistance. It’s cool, honestly, but it feels a little ho-hum next to Spellshatter. That fits with the rest of the Channel Divinity features, though, so no worries.
Mystic Knowledge
It felt relatively weak when I first read through it. It’s got significant versatility to it, but it feels a lot like filler. I think I would rather see this than the additional Paladin spells. Maybe add a few Wizard spells rather than the normal Paladin bonus spells? Potentially restrict them to a single school to avoid quite such rampant abuse.
Improved Spellshatter
This is amazing. Magic resistance and the ability to save a companion from a spell. At first, I thought it was grossly overpowered. Then I just realized it was a different version of Protection from Evil and Good. I like it it, but I think I would prefer to see it scale a bit differently. As is, you go from difficult to touch with a spell sometimes to nearly immune. I’m not sure the best way to do it. Maybe split it up into sets of saves that get resistance at different levels or against specific schools of magic.
The extra smite probably turns into an extra 1d8 on almost everything at this level, especially if spell-like abilities are counted. It’s a cool sort of rocket-tag radar, though, to know if something you hit can cast or not.
Mystic Scion
This feels over the top. You’re already effectively immune to magic, now they can’t even cast in your presence. And if they do get one off, you can throw it back at them. They’re basically relegated to summoning minions or dropping heavy stuff on you from up high. It reminds me a lot of the old “Aura of Power” that Paladin’s got in 2e when they held a holy sword.
I like the suppression of other casters. Being able to turn a spell back on a caster is a bit much, though. I would change the rest. Make being able to redirect a spell a targeted Dispel Magic. If the spell is successfully dispelled, the caster takes damage = (spell level * your charisma modifier), minimum of your charisma modifier.
Disadvantage on concentration checks is alright. Basically an extended Mage Slayer. I’d prefer something that empowers the magic a bit. Either the ability to cast a spell as a bonus action or something like Spell Mastery for the Wizard.
All in all, though, I really like this. It fits really well with an idea I’d been kicking around. I’ll see if I can get a chance to play it and post back.
Thanks for all the input! I’ve been taking notes from several others since I’ve posted this version of this oath and fine tuning it when I have the spare time. Many of these class ideas are part of a larger on-going project of mine but I really do appreciate the feedback.