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Divine smite paladin, infinite times pr round? And divine smite on ranged attacks?
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6906255" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>That's half right. When thrown, these weapons are melee weapons making a ranged attack. In fact, that's what the "thrown" property means.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Improved Divine Smite works on attacks with melee weapons (sometimes called "melee-weapon attacks"), so it works when you throw your javelin. However, Divine Smite itself specifies a melee weapon attack, which means "not a spell attack and not a ranged attack", so it doesn't work with thrown javelins. Why not? Who knows? That's just how the rules work. As I said in post #8, one of the great deficiencies of 5E is that it creates these jargony distinctions but never explains the underlying fantasy physics creating the distinction.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Paladin spells are pretty cool IMO. Take Wrathful Smite, for example. Not only do you get a bit of extra psychic damage (1d6) out of it, you also have a chance of taking one enemy completely out of the fight. Frightened enemies can't move towards you and get disadvantage on all attack rolls and ability checks while you're in line of sight, <em>including</em> the ability check to overcome Wrathful Smite. And enemies with Wisdom save proficiency obviously don't get that bonus against the Wrathful Smite wisdom check, because it isn't a save. What this means in real life is that if the target fails the initial saving throw, the spell basically lasts for as long as your concentration does. All you have to do is step back a pace or two and now that enemy is completely unable to approach you until you lose concentration--if it doesn't have spells or missile weapons it has no real option but to flee.</p><p></p><p>Or compare Thunderous Smite to Divine Smite. You can either do 9 points of damage with Divine Smite, or do 7 points of damage with Thunderous Smite <em>and</em> knock the enemy away and prone (Strength save to avoid). Unless you were doing something else with your bonus action already, or you're fighting something so horrendously strong that it will never fail the save, or you're in a ranged-heavy party and want enemies <em>not </em>to go prone to make them easier to hit, you'd pretty much always rather Thunderous Smite than Divine Smite.</p><p></p><p>Don't even get me started on how Smiting 3rd level spell slots (18 points of damage) is vastly inferior to healing 70 points of damage with Aura of Vitality. (140 points of healing if you're a Paladorc w/ Extended Spell.) 70 points of damage is probably more damage than the monster does in two full rounds, which means it's like buying two rounds of at-will attacks from <em>everyone in the party</em>. That ought to be 100 points of damage or more, which is way better than 18 points of damage.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6906255, member: 6787650"] That's half right. When thrown, these weapons are melee weapons making a ranged attack. In fact, that's what the "thrown" property means. Improved Divine Smite works on attacks with melee weapons (sometimes called "melee-weapon attacks"), so it works when you throw your javelin. However, Divine Smite itself specifies a melee weapon attack, which means "not a spell attack and not a ranged attack", so it doesn't work with thrown javelins. Why not? Who knows? That's just how the rules work. As I said in post #8, one of the great deficiencies of 5E is that it creates these jargony distinctions but never explains the underlying fantasy physics creating the distinction. Paladin spells are pretty cool IMO. Take Wrathful Smite, for example. Not only do you get a bit of extra psychic damage (1d6) out of it, you also have a chance of taking one enemy completely out of the fight. Frightened enemies can't move towards you and get disadvantage on all attack rolls and ability checks while you're in line of sight, [I]including[/I] the ability check to overcome Wrathful Smite. And enemies with Wisdom save proficiency obviously don't get that bonus against the Wrathful Smite wisdom check, because it isn't a save. What this means in real life is that if the target fails the initial saving throw, the spell basically lasts for as long as your concentration does. All you have to do is step back a pace or two and now that enemy is completely unable to approach you until you lose concentration--if it doesn't have spells or missile weapons it has no real option but to flee. Or compare Thunderous Smite to Divine Smite. You can either do 9 points of damage with Divine Smite, or do 7 points of damage with Thunderous Smite [I]and[/I] knock the enemy away and prone (Strength save to avoid). Unless you were doing something else with your bonus action already, or you're fighting something so horrendously strong that it will never fail the save, or you're in a ranged-heavy party and want enemies [I]not [/I]to go prone to make them easier to hit, you'd pretty much always rather Thunderous Smite than Divine Smite. Don't even get me started on how Smiting 3rd level spell slots (18 points of damage) is vastly inferior to healing 70 points of damage with Aura of Vitality. (140 points of healing if you're a Paladorc w/ Extended Spell.) 70 points of damage is probably more damage than the monster does in two full rounds, which means it's like buying two rounds of at-will attacks from [I]everyone in the party[/I]. That ought to be 100 points of damage or more, which is way better than 18 points of damage. [/QUOTE]
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Divine smite paladin, infinite times pr round? And divine smite on ranged attacks?
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