why paladins (smite) are powerful: action economy efficiency

[Staffan]

But the riders on some of the smite spells are fantastic. If you're overwhelmed as tank and you fear someone off, grat. Or off dealing with someone by yourself and the damage difference between a Smite spell and a Divine Smite isn't going to drop them this round but a condition can sure make you a happier camper - those are when the Smite spells are worth it. I unfortunately see players get into the rut of just using Divine Smite and they don't use the Smite spells at times when there would be a big advantage from doing so.

Sure, but for my player this has pretty much never been worth it. As a vengeance paladin, he has hunter's mark so using one of the smite spells also costs him that damage.

I wonder if perhaps the Smite spells should have a casting time of 1 reaction instead, being castable when you hit someone. That would match better with the way Divine Smite works.

 

[S'mon]

My experience, with a party where a dwarf paladin is doing a lot of the heavy lifting, is that smite often lets the paladin deal a lot of damage quickly in early fights, which then means that by the later fights the casters still have a lot of juice left in their tanks while the paladin's is running low.

I've almost never seen the PC in question use the Smite spells, however. To me, that suggests that the Smite ability is overpowered compared to those spells. Then again, the paladin in question has the oath of Vengeance which gives him hunter's mark which he'd have to drop in order to use those, so the situation might be different with other paladin types.

The smite spells are good because they stack with regular smite and you can burn 2 slots on one hit.

Since I went to 1 week long rest and thus typically 6-8 fights per LR rather than the 2-3 typical of overnight LR I don't find Paladin overpowered vs Fighter. But it is still a powerful class.

I think the big limiter for Pallies is they are melee only, even more than Barbarians.

 

[Blue]

Sure, but for my player this has pretty much never been worth it. As a vengeance paladin, he has hunter's mark so using one of the smite spells also costs him that damage.

I wonder if perhaps the Smite spells should have a casting time of 1 reaction instead, being castable when you hit someone. That would match better with the way Divine Smite works.

Sure, if you're using an spell with concentration they get in the way. That doesn't describe every paladin, every encounter.

 

[Blue]

Except when they do 0. It's the "0" that's the problem for me. Not a bit less damage when you hit.

Ah, I thought the problem you had was that they had small effect, which was pretty easy to educate.

Onto the next comment. They never do zero when triggered. There is no save for their full damage. There is a save for the condition. This is the same as other casters with condition-imposing spells, where no condition is imposed if the save is made. And the solution is the same as with other casters - your DC will scale, but four of their six saves will not. Chose the right spell for the opponent and it's rather likely to take effect.

If you are talking about doing zero by losing concentration, if you move, cast, then attack you have a vanishing low chance of taking damage to potentially disrupt concentration between casting and your attack sequence. Sure, you could miss with all of your attacks and then take damage and then fail your concentration roll. If that's what you are worried about I would have to say it's not a common occurrence, especially once you get extra attack at 5th, and even less so once you get your aura at 6th to make Concentration checks easier.

 

[Maxperson]

If you are talking about doing zero by losing concentration, if you move, cast, then attack you have a vanishing low chance of taking damage to potentially disrupt concentration between casting and your attack sequence. Sure, you could miss with all of your attacks and then take damage and then fail your concentration roll. If that's what you are worried about I would have to say it's not a common occurrence, especially once you get extra attack at 5th, and even less so once you get your aura at 6th to make Concentration checks easier.

It was common enough for me to stop using it. It's just not worth it to me to risk losing the spell slot to do no damage. I have few spell slots, so the waste of one really hurts. What it boils down to is a preference thing. You don't care and I do, so you can play your way and I can play my way.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Unless you're playing at ridiculously high levels or your DM plays only a few encounters a day (a real gimme to all casters), you will always have more rounds of attacking then you will of spells, so being able run out earlier in the day with Divine Smite vs. Smite spells isn't really affecting your total damage, just smoothing out your nova damage some. it's not nearly as big a deal as presented when you're conserving it to last 6-8 challenging encounters.

If a DM can manage to ensure 6-8 encounters everyday, then that goes a long way toward keeping the paladin in check, on average. (Although, that's often easier said than done.) The real balance issue is that, of all your encounters in a day, only one (or possibly two) will be the most challenging, and the paladin's ability to nova when they need it is out of line with what other characters can do. It's rather like the Battle Master's ability to turn a miss into a hit, those few times when they really need to. Damage output at a critical juncture is more important than over-all damage output.

 

[Blue]

The real balance issue is that, of all your encounters in a day, only one (or possibly two) will be the most challenging, and the paladin's ability to nova when they need it is out of line with what other characters can do.

Once you've reached tiers 2-4, any caster can likely out-nova a paladin. (Note: I'm using out nova as putting out quickly whatever the caster is good at, not just damage.)

Which is good - a paladin does have at-will/always on that can carry them through when out of their half-caster spell slots. While a full caster can always apply more harder on any particular problem (higher level slots) - until they can't because they've spent their wad.

 

[Scott Graves]

I think the issue isn't that the Paladin is OP. I've watched a Paladin and a Ranger go up at the same rate. The Paladin withut using his limited Smites does damage like a fighter. The Ranger fires cruise missiles that do on average 26 points of damage. With a Crit, 50 isn't uncommon. Twice a turn. Hunters Mark plus their extra dice of damage if the target is already wounded is OP. I have to pad my encounters with a lot of 25 HP crunchies hoping he rolls low and only does 21 points so he has to waste a second cruise missile to take out the crunchie. Now is my ranger doing something wrong? Because this is a problem in all three games that are running at the game shop. 5th lv plus rangers becoming the USS Ranger unloading cruise missiles at 600 feet with lethal accuracy. Talk about min-max.

 

[Blue]

It was common enough for me to stop using it. It's just not worth it to me to risk losing the spell slot to do no damage. I have few spell slots, so the waste of one really hurts.

Chance to lose Concentration on a Smite spell if cast directly before attacking - 6th level paladin.

Chance to miss both attacks w/ standard 65% chance to hit: 12.25%

Chance to fail a Concentration save doing 20 or less damage (DC 10), assuming +2 CON and +3 CHR. No proficiency for CON saves so you need a 5 or higher. So 20% chance to fail.

So that works out to be a 2.45% chance to lose it if hit once. Even several hits will leave you with over a 90% chance to keep it.

I'm not sure how to respond that was "common enough" to stop using it. Perhaps you had a run of bad luck. Or maybe your risk tolerance is very sensitive.

What it boils down to is a preference thing. You don't care and I do, so you can play your way and I can play my way.

Sure, if you said it was your opinion that you didn't like them up front regardless of how effective they were I wouldn't have bothered to reply.

It was the misinformation about having a small effect and then the really small corner case for zero effect that I was clearing up. Hopefully to convince you, but also not to let the misinformation stand for other readers.

 

[lowkey13]

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