Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
So
I *think* most people will agree that the Paladin is a very powerful class in 5e - perhaps one of the few that are probably a little bit OP (esp in a game with few combats per long rests).
A big part of that is the power to smite - to "burn" spell slots to do more damage when hitting a foe with a weapon. At first glance, this seems like an inefficient use of spell slots. For example, a paladin could cast bless and give +1d4 to hit to 3 people (including herself). If *two* more attacks land in a fight that would have missed without the bless spell (a reasonable number), those 2 attacks will probably do more damage than the 2d8 that spell slots would have done if, instead of being cast as bless, was used to power a smite.
Yet, despite this, both from personal experience as a GM running a game with a paladin, or from reading the boards here, a paladin smiting away is a thing to behold. WHY?
Because while it's not very "efficient" to use your spell slots as smite, it's very efficient *action wise*. Casting a spell takes an action usually. An action you could use to attack instead. Smiting allows you to use your spell slots and attack at the same time.
It's one of the reasons I'm becoming a bit hesitant about the hexblade after using it for a while in a pbp game - every round you cast is a round you are not attacking (or vice versa)*. That is what the "gish" in pathfinder was (the magus) - a class that could cast and attack in the same round, and why it was very powerful indeed.
So that's why the Paladin is good
* the hexblade *can* take an invocation that allows him to smite like a paladin, but he only has 2 spell slots for 90% of most campaigns, so it's not so great - and it's an invocation he can't use on something else.
I *think* most people will agree that the Paladin is a very powerful class in 5e - perhaps one of the few that are probably a little bit OP (esp in a game with few combats per long rests).
A big part of that is the power to smite - to "burn" spell slots to do more damage when hitting a foe with a weapon. At first glance, this seems like an inefficient use of spell slots. For example, a paladin could cast bless and give +1d4 to hit to 3 people (including herself). If *two* more attacks land in a fight that would have missed without the bless spell (a reasonable number), those 2 attacks will probably do more damage than the 2d8 that spell slots would have done if, instead of being cast as bless, was used to power a smite.
Yet, despite this, both from personal experience as a GM running a game with a paladin, or from reading the boards here, a paladin smiting away is a thing to behold. WHY?
Because while it's not very "efficient" to use your spell slots as smite, it's very efficient *action wise*. Casting a spell takes an action usually. An action you could use to attack instead. Smiting allows you to use your spell slots and attack at the same time.
It's one of the reasons I'm becoming a bit hesitant about the hexblade after using it for a while in a pbp game - every round you cast is a round you are not attacking (or vice versa)*. That is what the "gish" in pathfinder was (the magus) - a class that could cast and attack in the same round, and why it was very powerful indeed.
So that's why the Paladin is good
* the hexblade *can* take an invocation that allows him to smite like a paladin, but he only has 2 spell slots for 90% of most campaigns, so it's not so great - and it's an invocation he can't use on something else.