why paladins (smite) are powerful: action economy efficiency

[Ancalagon]

For those seeking similar benefits without the Smite, Armor of Agathys for a melee spellcaster is very efficient and also costs no slots in combat as you usually cast it before combat. It also grants some temporary hps, but the beauty is the damage dealt. My Hexblade with 5th level slots dealt a lot of damage with that spell. A 5th level slot often deals 50 or 75 damage (although a spell, breath weapon, etc... can reduce that to 0 damage dealt by killing the temp hps before a melee attack). Obviously, it is less targeted, but it is another efficient way to deal action efficient damage, especially at higher levels.

It is a good spell, but it does suffer from the fact that the average warlock only has two slots. So if you cast armor of Agathys, you only have one more slot in the tank. Is armor of Agathys the best use of that slot, even for a melee hexblade?

 

[Kurotowa]

It is a good spell, but it does suffer from the fact that the average warlock only has two slots. So if you cast armor of Agathys, you only have one more slot in the tank. Is armor of Agathys the best use of that slot, even for a melee hexblade?

Honestly? Yes, it's by far one of the most efficient spells you can cast, especially at higher levels and against the right foes. One spell slot to prevent 25 damage AND deal 75 damage? You can beat that with a good AoE into a crowd, but if you're a Hexblade you probably don't have a good AoE spell. Hexblades don't really have a lot of good options. For a pre-combat buff before a boss fight it simply can't be beat.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

I tried using those spells early on in my Paladin's career, but the concentration aspect of it caused me to lose some of them before I hit, wasting the damage/slot entirely. It became better to just wait until I hit and use smite, then risk the loss of the spell before I could deal damage with the slot. Remove concentration and I think you'll see more use from those spells.

 

[TallIan]

The binary nature of hit/miss means that you often waste the benefit of bless. If you needed to roll and 8 to hit something and you roll a 10 the +1d4 does nothing. Its an average of 12.5% increase in your to hit probability so 2 or 3 extra hits from all three beneficiaries of the spell across 10 rounds.

IMX most fights are less than 5 rounds, so you lose at least half the spell most of the time. So realistically that's only 1 or 2 extra hits that could happen at any time during the combat. So all that all that extra damage from the assassin or half orc barbarian could happen when they attack a mook with 1 HP left.

This gets a little better when the blessed PC's have multiple attacks, but that still only just makes it four hits.

Compare that to 2d8 damage added only after you hit something you know will take all the extra damage. Or even better when you crit and deal 4d8 damage.

Burning spell slots in early rounds in early combats to end them quickly and preserve other resources is VERY efficient use of action and spell resources.

 

[jgsugden]

It is a good spell, but it does suffer from the fact that the average warlock only has two slots. So if you cast armor of Agathys, you only have one more slot in the tank. Is armor of Agathys the best use of that slot, even for a melee hexblade?

Warlock having two slots is a huge limitation, but I find that it is worth the cast for the two Hexblades I've run for a bit.

I also find that warlocks tend to end up with more than just 2 slots at some point - often fairly early, either due to multiclassing or magic items. My most recent warlock is fifth level. He found a pearl of power and built a rod of the pact keeper. His common trend right now is to cast AoA, recover the slot, use a spell in the combat (hex, hypnotic pattern, suggestion) and to reserve a misty step or invisibility if necessary for escape / utility. In a recent battle, he held a choke point and a lage number of weaker damage melee opponents were stopped in their tracks when they each realized that hitting him killed themselves.

Regardless, my comment was not specific to pure warlocks. Taking alevel of warlock for access to this spell can often be very useful for a pure spellcaster like a bard, a cleric, or (especially) a druid, offering a significant portion of the benefits that you get from 2 levels of palsdin to get smite.

 

[Ancalagon]

Honestly? Yes, it's by far one of the most efficient spells you can cast, especially at higher levels and against the right foes. One spell slot to prevent 25 damage AND deal 75 damage? You can beat that with a good AoE into a crowd, but if you're a Hexblade you probably don't have a good AoE spell. Hexblades don't really have a lot of good options. For a pre-combat buff before a boss fight it simply can't be beat.

In my experience, you often get 2 hits (ie 50 damage for your example), not 3.

A hexblade can have good area spells though - Hypnotic patern is boss (yes it's not damage, but hot damn). However, if you are using that, why are you playing a hexblade? Armor of Agathys fits a hexblade a lot better, "style wise", and well, that matters too.

 

[Ancalagon]

Warlock having two slots is a huge limitation, but I find that it is worth the cast for the two Hexblades I've run for a bit.

I also find that warlocks tend to end up with more than just 2 slots at some point - often fairly early, either due to multiclassing or magic items. My most recent warlock is fifth level. He found a pearl of power and built a rod of the pact keeper. His common trend right now is to cast AoA, recover the slot, use a spell in the combat (hex, hypnotic pattern, suggestion) and to reserve a misty step or invisibility if necessary for escape / utility. In a recent battle, he held a choke point and a lage number of weaker damage melee opponents were stopped in their tracks when they each realized that hitting him killed themselves.

My warlock is EK 3/hexblade 5, so he has 2 extra slots per day - but those are reserved for "don't die!" spells (shield, absorb element). So I only have 2 slots. And these items that boost slots aren't always available, or are sometimes snagged by other casters.

So anyway, I cast Armor of Agathy in advance and then in the fight I have the choice of a combat spell *or* an escape spell (I've been using booming step a lot, that's a *great* one). So I fell I really would need 3 slots, not 2...

Thankfully I have cantrips a plenty and a few invocations to help but, but it does seem limiting (as an aside, you should never make a hexblade 100% combat, always have a few utility spells in your belt).

 

[Ancalagon]

To bring it back to the topic *and* keep talking about the hexblade, the hexblade *does* have a smite like ability. I'm a lot less sure about it though because of the lack of slots, but also because you don't get it for free, you need to spend an invocation to get it, so I feel that the calculations are not as good.

edit: was walking the dog and thought of this too - the warlock, when giving up a slot to smite, is giving up more than the paladin - not only does she have less slots, it's almost always a bigger, more powerful slot - a sloth that could have been used to cast Fear or Shadow of Moil.

 

[FrogReaver]

Battlemaster fighters can do just as much damage in a single round of combat as a paladin.

Paladins though can do it again if their foe is dangerous and not dead. Fighters get to do the damage again in a subsequent encounter provided a short rest.

All in all smite and superiority dice + action surge are similar for most of the game. The issue is that’s all the fighter can do whereas the paladin gets a ton of other perks.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Is this actually news to anyone? This has been true since the edition first launched. I thought everyone on these boards was already aware of it.

Should we be discussing methods for managing paladins in a campaign, from the DM perspective? Or house rules, to bring them back in line?