The Vowbound

Plays like: the Paladin — an oath-sworn knight whose vows are literal Binding magic.

The Vowbound are oath-knights who don’t so much cast magic as bind it into themselves — their body a locked vault, their word the key. Where other Order-casters spend Strain to bend the world, the Vowbound spends Strain to bind a promise into flesh and steel: an unbreakable vow that hums yellow behind their eyes and hardens every blow they land in its name. Play this if you want a durable frontline warrior whose power is a ledger of debts owed to their own conscience — and who becomes more dangerous, not less, the more they refuse to bend.

“I do not ask the world to hold still. I hold myself to something, and the world learns to move around it.” — Dame Ythel Cross, Warden of the First Seal

Quick Build & Core Stats

Quick build: High Strength or Dexterity, then Charisma, then Constitution. Choose the Heavy Armor and Martial Weapons proficiencies; pick the Warden’s Order or the Aegis Order at level 3 for a straightforward tank-and-punish playstyle.

• Hit Die: d10 (Hit Points: 10 + Con modifier at 1st level; 1d10 or 6 + Con modifier per level thereafter)
• Primary Ability: Strength or Dexterity (with Charisma as the Binding’s conduit)
• Saving Throw Proficiencies: Wisdom, Charisma
• Armor Proficiencies: All armor, shields
• Weapon Proficiencies: Simple and martial weapons
• Tool Proficiencies: One artisan’s tool of your choice (the trade of your sworn Order — smithing, calligrapher’s supplies, etc.)
• Skills: Choose 2 from Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Persuasion, Religion, Survival
• Starting Equipment: (a) chain mail or (b) 75 GP; a martial weapon and a shield, or two martial weapons; five javelins or a longbow and 20 arrows; a holy symbol of your Order and a vow-scroll (your first sworn Oath, written in your own hand); an explorer’s pack

The Level 1–20 Table

Level	Proficiency Bonus	Features	Oaths (sworn)	Sealing Charges	Max Working Tier
1	+2	Reaching: The Binding; First Vow; Sealing Strike; Binding of the Kept Blood	1	2	1
2	+2	Vowsense; Fighting Style	1	2	1
3	+2	Sworn Order (Path); Second Vow	2	3	2
4	+2	Ability Score Improvement	2	3	2
5	+3	Extra Attack; Binding Ward	2	4	3
6	+3	Sworn Order feature; Oathfield	2	4	3
7	+3	Third Vow; Unbending	3	5	3
8	+3	Ability Score Improvement	3	5	4
9	+4	Sealed Fate	3	6	4
10	+4	Sworn Order feature; Oathfield (fear immunity)	3	6	4
11	+4	Improved Sealing Strike (free rider)	3	7	5
12	+4	Ability Score Improvement	3	7	5
13	+5	Fourth Vow	4	8	5
14	+5	Sworn Order feature; Kept Blood (unbinding)	4	8	5
15	+5	Oathkeeper’s Grip	4	9	6
16	+5	Ability Score Improvement	4	9	6
17	+6	Fifth Vow	5	10	6
18	+6	Unbreakable Word; Oathfield (30 ft.)	5	10	6
19	+6	Ability Score Improvement / Feat	5	11	6
20	+6	Capstone: The Last Vow	5	12	6

On costs — read this before you play. Oaths and Sealing Charges are the Vowbound’s own engine, but they are not a way around the price of magic. Every Sealing Strike is a real Binding cast: it draws on your Strain track (cap 10 + twice your proficiency bonus), you roll your Faith Die and subtract it as with any Working, and it counts toward the 75%-cap exhaustion threshold and Overchannel just like casting a ward from your hand. A Sealing Charge only says you may seal a blow this turn — it never says the seal is free. The knight who forgets this is the knight who Breaks.

Class Features

Reaching: The Binding

You hold a Reaching into the Binding, the Order discipline of Yellow, and can attempt Bindings-discipline Workings up to your Max Working Tier. Your Workings draw from an oath-knight’s short list: manacle-light restraints, wards that anchor a space, compulsions of geas and command, and the Sealing effects below. When you cast, Strain accrues as normal for Order casting and clears on a short rest; at 75% of your Strain cap a cast costs 1 exhaustion, and at cap you may Overchannel or stop. Before adding a Working’s Tier to your Strain track, roll your Faith Die (set by Conviction) and subtract it — twice, taking the higher, if the cast is dead-center of your personal Tenet (the one sentence that is the seed of every Vow you swear; see below). Your eyes emit steady gold-yellow light on every cast.

First Vow (and Oaths, generally)

At 1st level you swear your First Vow — a specific, falsifiable promise, written down, witnessed if possible (“I will not draw first blood against the unarmed,” “I will return what I borrow,” “I will not lie to a dying man”). You gain 1 Oath. Each Oath you hold while unbroken grants you a standing benefit chosen when you swear it (pick from the Vow Benefits list, or work with your GM to write a bespoke one of equal weight):

• Vow of Warding: +1 to AC.
• Vow of Bearing: advantage on saves against fear and compulsion.
• Vow of Mercy: when you drop a creature to 0 HP, you may instead leave it at 1.
• Vow of the Debt Paid: once per short rest, reroll a failed save.
• Vow of the Named Foe: advantage on attacks against a creature you’ve publicly sworn to oppose.

You gain additional Oaths at levels 3, 7, 13, and 17 (see table). You may hold no more Oaths than your Oaths score; swearing a new one when full requires releasing (fulfilling or formally renouncing) an old one first — renouncing is not breaking, and costs nothing but the Vow’s benefit.

Breaking a Vow — acting directly against its letter — is not a roleplay footnote, it is mechanical: you immediately lose that Oath’s benefit, take 1 level of exhaustion, and your eyes flash black-shot yellow for 1 minute (disadvantage on all Charisma checks; observers get advantage on Insight against you). A broken Vow cannot be re-sworn until you complete a milestone act of atonement set by the GM. A Vowbound who breaks three Vows across their career loses access to Sealing Strike until they undergo a formal Rebinding rite.

Sealing Strike

As part of a melee weapon attack that hits, you may spend 1 Sealing Charge to bind the Binding’s Working directly into the blow. You have a number of Sealing Charges equal to the table value, which refresh on a short rest. When you spend a charge:

• The attack deals an extra 1d8 force damage that glows Binding-yellow.
• You add half your Strain-track Tier-cost as normal (roll Faith Die, subtract, min 1) for the underlying Tier-1 Working this represents — this is a real cast and counts against your Strain cap.
• The target must succeed on a Strength save (DC 8 + proficiency bonus + Charisma modifier) or be Bound until the end of your next turn: speed 0, and it cannot take reactions.

Spending deep. You may spend up to 3 Sealing Charges on a single blow that hits. Each charge beyond the first adds a further 1d8 force damage — and a further cast: every extra charge is its own Tier-1 Working, adding its own Strain (roll your Faith Die and subtract per charge, minimum 1 each). The target still makes only one save against being Bound. A critical hit doubles all of those sealing dice, which is exactly when the yellow whispers now, all of it — spend the vault if you like, but the ledger, as ever, is yours to answer for.

Sealing Strike can only be used while you hold at least one unbroken Oath; if you hold none, the yellow simply doesn’t answer.

Binding of the Kept Blood

Your kept word pools in your hands as a reserve of mending — not healing, exactly, but binding: wounds sworn shut, blood ordered back where it belongs. You hold a pool of hit points equal to 5 × your Vowbound level, which refills when you finish a long rest. As an action, you may touch a willing creature and draw any number of remaining points from the pool, restoring that many hit points; yellow thread-light stitches visibly across the wound as it closes. This draws on the pool alone, not your Strain track — that price was paid already, in every promise you kept to fill it — but like Sealing Strike, it answers only while you hold at least one unbroken Oath.

Beginning at 14th level, when you use this feature you may spend 5 points from the pool to also unbind one condition afflicting the creature — poisoned, frightened, or paralyzed — the way one unknots a cord: the condition simply ends, cut loose from the flesh it held.

Vowsense (2nd level)

You always know, as a free action, whether a creature within 30 feet has broken a sworn oath of its own within the last 24 hours — a flat spiritual “tell” that the Binding surfaces to you unbidden. No save, no roll; the GM narrates the sensation.

Fighting Style (2nd level)

Choose Defense, Dueling, Great Weapon Fighting, or Protection.

Binding Ward (5th level)

As a reaction when you or an ally within 5 feet is hit by an attack, you may spend 1 Sealing Charge to grant them a +2 AC bonus retroactively against that attack (potentially turning a hit to a miss), sheathing them in a flare of yellow lattice-light.

Oathfield (6th level)

A promise kept long enough stops being yours alone; it becomes weather. While you hold at least one unbroken Vow, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you add your Charisma modifier (minimum +1) to saving throws — the air inside the field carries the faint yellow weight of a word being kept, and things simply hold better there. The Oathfield asks nothing of your Strain track; it is not a cast, it is a consequence.

At 10th level, creatures inside your Oathfield (including you) are immune to being frightened while the field stands. At 18th level, the field’s radius extends to 30 feet.

Unbending (7th level)

You gain resistance to being frightened, charmed, or magically restrained while you hold at least one unbroken Oath — your promise is a keel the storm can’t tip.

Sealed Fate (9th level)

Once per long rest, when you hit a creature with Sealing Strike, you may declare that creature Fatebound to your active Vow: for the next hour, if it acts in direct opposition to that Vow’s subject (attacks the one you swore to protect, lies as you swore truth, etc.), it takes 2d8 force damage with no attack roll or save.

Improved Sealing Strike (11th level)

The seal no longer waits to be asked. Every melee weapon attack that hits deals an extra 1d8 force damage — no charge spent, no Strain accrued, no save granted; the Binding rides your blade now as a standing fact of who you are (you must still hold at least one unbroken Oath, as ever). Sealing Charges buy what they always bought: spend them (up to 3, as above) to stack their sealing dice on top of the free rider, at their full Strain cost per charge, and to force the save against being Bound.

Oathkeeper’s Grip (15th level)

Your restraints hold true names as well as bodies. A creature you’ve Bound with Sealing Strike must also succeed on a Charisma save or be unable to lie to you until the binding ends.

Unbreakable Word (18th level)

Once per long rest, when a Vow of yours would be broken by circumstances entirely outside your control (a forced action, an unavoidable choice), you may spend your reaction to instead treat it as fulfilled and immediately swear a new Oath in its place — the Binding forgives what it recognizes was never truly your hand.

Capstone: The Last Vow (20th level)

You may swear a sixth, unlisted Oath: the Last Vow, sworn once per campaign, of an act so costly it caps your normal Oath limit permanently at 5 (you lose the slot) in exchange for this — while the Last Vow stands unbroken, once per long rest you may Overchannel a Sealing Strike with no Strain cost and no exhaustion, the yellow in your eyes going pure white-gold for the duration of the fight.

The Three Sworn Orders (Paths)

The Order of the First Seal (Wardens of Law)

Concept: the knight as magistrate — you bind not just people but truth, judgment, and precedent.

• 3rd — Writ of Standing: As an action, mark a 20-foot cube for 10 minutes; creatures inside who attempt to lie aloud take 1d6 force damage and must repeat the truth or fall silent.
• 6th — Magistrate’s Sentence: When you Bind a creature with Sealing Strike, you may pronounce a specific restriction on it (“you will not raise a weapon,” “you will not cross this threshold”) — it must save (Wisdom) or that restriction becomes a genuine compulsion for 1 minute.
• 10th — Precedent Binding: Once per long rest, a Bound creature that breaks free of your restraint immediately re-triggers the save at disadvantage, as the law reasserts itself.
• 14th — The Seal Absolute: Your Sealing Strike’s save DC increases by 2, and creatures Bound by you cannot be freed by any effect below Tier 5.

The Order of the Standing Shield (Wardens of Protection)

Concept: your Vows are always someone else’s safety; you bind the world’s harm to yourself.

• 3rd — Shieldmate’s Vow: You may swear a Vow naming a specific person or place you protect; while unbroken, you can take an ally’s damage as a reaction within 5 feet, once per turn, no action cost.
• 6th — Bulwark Binding: Spending a Sealing Charge to trigger Binding Ward now also grants the target resistance to the damage type of that attack.
• 10th — Nothing Passes: Creatures you’ve Bound cannot target anyone but you with attacks until the binding ends.
• 14th — Unyielding Ground: While standing over a downed ally or protected charge, you have advantage on all saves and cannot be moved against your will.

The Order of the Broken Chain (Wardens of Retribution / Hunters)

Concept: your Vows are hunts — sworn against a specific evil, and your Binding grows teeth the longer the hunt runs.

• 3rd — Hunter’s Oath: You may swear a Vow naming a category of foe (oathbreakers, slavers, a specific named villain); against them, your Sealing Strike extra damage die increases by one size and Bound targets from Sealing Strike are also Restrained, not just Bound.
• 6th — The Chain Remembers: Once per short rest, when a creature matching your Hunter’s Oath drops to 0 HP within 30 feet of you, regain 1 Sealing Charge.
• 10th — No Refuge: Creatures matching your Hunter’s Oath cannot benefit from being unseen or unheard by you (blindsight 30 ft. against them only).
• 14th — The Last Link Breaks: Once per long rest, against a creature matching your Hunter’s Oath, treat any Sealing Strike as an automatic Overchannel with no exhaustion cost — the chain finally closes.