Paladins and Smite Evil

[dcollins]

If the balor is foolishly standing in front of the said paladin without using any of it's special abilities (even it's fly speed and reach), and the said paladin is very lucky and makes success in all of his melee attacks, and he doesn't die before making those attacks, then maybe .... occasionally ...... perhaps.

Balor: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Then stop doing that.

 

[irdeggman]

Let me see if I have this right. You have a problem with a character excelling the situation it was designed to perform best in?

If it was not a single evil creature the paladin was up against he would be a whole lost less effective, whereas a fighter with the right set of feats would demolish the group.

If the foe was not Evil but was Chaotic Neutral and trying to cause destruction and wonton acts of violence (not necessarily evil, but they could be) the paladin is likewise a whole lot less effective.

If a rogue with TWF was flanking the creature he would be totally devasting. Yes the rogue would get his butt kicked if he was alone, but the class is designed to work in the flanking type of situation and hence in the situation the class is desinged to be best in it functions very effectively.

So in a very specific situation a class being extremely powerful is not out of the question in game balance.

 

[glass]

I was mostly thinking of the 3.0 Balor (its CR 18)

Fair enough, 3.5 Balors are tougher. OTOH you did say 10th to 12th, and I worked off 12th for my critique.

but oh well.. as 3.5 balor is CR 20 then lets take a level 12-14 Paladin (1-2 ekstra smiting feats) a good sword.. (boots granting haste 10 rounds a day) and maybe 2 rounds...

A 12th to 14th level paladin is not going to get two rounds of full attacks against the balor. Even if he somehow wins initiative and starts the encounter within 5ft of the Balor, blasphemy will still take him out as soon as the balor gets a turn (unless he has some significant spell resistance).


glass.

 

[Thanee]

Balor's are whimps!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Others have already answered the rules questions...

Imagine soem level 24 Paladin with his +5 Holy Keen GreatSword udner the Haste Effect...
5 attacks each dealing like 4d6 + 15(amusing a "high" strenght? + 48(2x level cause of greater smiting)

You're talking about an epic level paladin here. If you compare him to other epic level characters, I think you'll find that he's fairly par for the course. Though to be fair, you haven't even touched upon the real power of Smite Evil. It's a +# to damage, instead of +dice, meaning it gets multiplied on a crit or, more importantly, on a lance charge. Give your pally a griffon or dragon mount and Spirited Charge, and watch that +12 damage (at level 12) become +36.

["He wont hit every time"] Well thats the problem... he gets his charisma to Hit (i think)
think of a paladin starting with 16 cha, + 6(for level 4,8,12,16,20,24 ability increase) + 6 (item of Cha + 6) thats like a + 9 bonus to hit on all those 5 attacks... and the extra damage is Fixed.. its not liek the rogues 1 to 6 damage per die... no its one per level (x2 with greater smiting)

A paladin would actually be pretty dumb, IMO, to use a smite attack on his third or fourth iterative attack. Even with the cha bonus to his attack roll, he's taking a big chance of wasting a very limited resource (despite what you say, even at 20th-level, 5/day is hardly "more than enough.") Far smarter to spread out the smites over a couple of rounds and spend them on his first and second attacks, so he's relatively guaranteed to get that extra damage.

A level 10 or 12 paladin will be able to slay a Balor in like 1 turn...

I play a level 12 paladin right now. It's in a high-magic game, and he has the equivalent of an epic-level magic shield. Despite the shield as well as standard magical (not counting the shield) gear, my pally would get wasted by a balor.

 

[Shadeus]

Yeah, a balor has a variety of toys to rip apart a lone 20th-level paladin, must less a 12-14th level one. Blasephy is a good one to take him out, no save (as glass said). Unholy aura is a nice one as well forcing him to make the DC 26 save or go blind after every hit. Implosion is my favorite though; nothing like a save to become a pile of goo.

Smite is just fine. And even if said paladin does rip apart a balor, what if he's got a buddy? He just blew through all his valuable smites in one round and now has to rely on pure fighting ability. At high-levels, that's considerable. Compared to a fighter of the same level though, it's less than awe-inspiring.

 

[the Jester]

You know, I think you're discovering that high level characters are bad ass.

Paladin, fighter, barbarian, whatever- it don't matter. A 24th level anything, even if it's something very specialized with a high level adjustment, is really, really good at what they specialize in. For a paladin that's fighting evil.

 

[Hypersmurf]

First of all... is Smite Evil a standardaction? (probably Not)

I've seen it argued either way

-Hyp.

 

[Particle_Man]

I was mostly thinking of the 3.0 Balor (its CR 18)

Unfair comparison, to use a 3.5 paladin (multiple smite evils/day) vs. a 3.0 Balor.

Btw, a paladin that wasted his extra smites on the 2ndary/tertiary iterative attacks is really risking a lot of misses and wasted smites to get that chance for a quick kill. It would be much smarter to fight the Balor while mounted and use Smite Evil/Spirited Charge (if you are a gnome or halfling, your mount is easy to bring into dungeons, but Balors need a lot of breathing room anyhow so the point might be moot).