D&D (2024) Smite Changes

[James Gasik]

You mean the same damage as a fighter? It’s not like paladins such as just swinging the old metal stick around pretty good

A Fighter, however, can get back useful abilities on a short rest, including damage abilities in the case of a Battlemaster. The Paladin doesn't get their spell slots back, just their Channel, which might not even be that useful (take for example Devotion, which is generally only useful if you have a chance to activate it before combat begins).

 

[James Gasik]

There are so many things in D&D that drop immersion that I stopped playing for 15 years, but I discovered that the other games I tried had their own issues and that any tractable game is likely to have some.
I came back to D&D because it is D&D and I leaned to live with my issues and largely enjoy the game.
Now you are taking me to task about my "failure" to comprehend that @tetrasodium has an issue. Now I freely admit that I can have trouble parsing what @tetrasodium writes but it is clear to me that he objects to the fact the paladin does not have to commit to the smite until the paladin has already established that the attack made has connected. In that way the spell slot spent on a smite is always effective.
Now, I agree with this mechanic and pretty much for the reasons outlined by @Chaosmancer in post 102 above.
I do not want a change, there is no argument. Nothing he says is going to sway me on this matter. He is not proposing a position I would ever favour.
Now, I believe you also favour the current rules with regard to Divine Smite so this post confuses me somewhat.

I am not at all sure why this is addressed to me.
On the topic of the paladin as spell caster, I believe the current UA greatly improves that since the smite spells (mostly) have concentration removed from them and now deliver a clear effect on delivery. by making concentration less needed then the issues with loosing the spell due to concentration, or just whiffing the attacks in the round cast and then loosing the spell to concentration in the enemy turn, are gone.


What exactly do you think is my bag?

Again who are you arguing with here? I pretty much totally agree with you.

I wasn't arguing with you at all, I don't see why you thought I was.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I wasn't arguing with you at all, I don't see why you thought I was.

You quoted my post and you opening paragraph seemed to refer to it.

 

[James Gasik]

You quoted my post and you opening paragraph seemed to refer to it.

I apologize for the confusion; I intended to reply to the specific point of the debate itself, not your individual post.

 

[Bill Zebub]

You quoted my post and you opening paragraph seemed to refer to it.

I do this all the time. I agree with a post, and quote it in order to build on the ideas in it, and the poster thinks that because I'm quoting them I must be arguing.

I mean, it is teh Interwebz.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I do this all the time. I agree with a post, and quote it in order to build on the ideas in it, and the poster thinks that because I'm quoting them I must be arguing.

I mean, it is teh Interwebz.

Then I think an intro along the lines of "I generally agree with the above but consider..... " would be of help. In the above situation the fact that the opening paragraph seemed to be a disagreement with a position of mine left me completely uncertain as the intended direction of the arguments.
An yeah, posting late, when tired and so on often leads to some confusion.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not simply a matter of preference or "opinion". it's poorly designed because it creates a perversion of the gameplay loop where a player changes or waits to declare their action with a retcon after seeing the result & I've explained that previously. The fact that you are ignoring that in order to dismissively reframe it as a mere matter of preference & opinion speaks volumes about the indefensibility of that design.

D&D is an exceptions based game. You can't fly as a human, except if you cast fly or gain it through another exception. You can't come back from the dead, unless some form of resurrection happens as an exception. You can't break the play loop unless you are a member of a class that has exceptions.

Smite is not poorly designed because it's an exception to the play loop. It's exactly designed like the rest of the game.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

If the argument is that Paladins do too much damage because they never "waste" a spell slot on a Smite that misses, whereas other casters do waste slots when they miss, or their targets save, then that's an objective argument worth considering. One solution would be to make them declare it before the attack. Other solutions would be to reduce spell slots, reduce damage done, etc.

But the argument that "it's a perversion of gameplay" to allow after-the-fact declarations is, although valid, a subjective aesthetic preference.

The actual reason that 5e paladins do so much damage is that they can smite on every attack, so potentially 2-3 smites per round, and burn through all their daily resources in just a few rounds of combat. 1D&D fixes this nicely by making divine smite only usable once-per-turn.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm still confused how this is, in any way shape or form, a problem. The reason it isn't like sneak attack is because it is supposed to consume a resource, you aren't supposed to be able to smite on every single hit you ever make. It also consumes a spell slot because that allows for scaling, you can smite powerful enemies harder than weaker enemies, while sneak attack hits everyone for the same amount every time.

Your problem solely seems to be that the ability was designed not to waste the resource. Which is a good thing, because otherwise, the Divine Smite ability would rarely get used, be a terrible ability and not an iconic one, and all around just be a worse design for what I can only assume is the questionable benefit of easing your personal incredulity towards the order of events.

It's not that "the ability was not designed to waste resources" as you put it. The ability was designed to pretend that was a real risk of doing so in order to leverage that illusion elsewhere.

I'd argue Smite actually does follow this pattern. In stating that an attack hits, the DM is describing an aspect the environment. At that instant, when the character has landed a blow but is still in the process of following through with it, the player describes their intent to empower that blow with magical/divine power. The DM then narrates the result, based on damage rolls, the target's hit points, and any other relevant factors.

As for the benefits of this mechanic, I think it's clear that many players enjoy using it in its current state. More specifically, though, I think it facilitates variety in character building. Because a Paladin player knows that their damage boosing ability will work a set number of times, regardless of their attack stat, they have a bit more flexibility to de-prioritize that attack stat and instead invest in something like constitution or charisma.

No it goes more like this because we are humans playing this game while existing in linear time & a retcon made by us like that is very different from what you describe. It's not the character engaging in a retcon at the last second

Spoiler: It's the player

​

A successful attack turning out to be a smite at the last second isn't a product of random chance that could be attributed to the PC's choices. The player straight up decides after looking at the d20.

Spoiler

Alice: "xxx, we know that hits & I'm going to make that a smite that's yyy radiant"
DM: "ok Alice you bring that [+N] sword down & at the last instant decide to channel power through the blade, the feathered celestial snake defending this tomb is looking really hurt"
Bob: "I'm going to swing my sword at the couatl... crap... I really need to find a +n sword like the one bob got for his smites, I think ### is going to miss?..."
DM: "Yea you were off by a bit. Bob you swing your sword but the serpent flaps it's wings & flails a bit unpredictably to just miss your blade"
DaveTheNewbie: "I'm going to cast a spell, does xxx hit?"
DM: "That depends what are you doing?"
DaveTheNewbie: "casting a spell, Siias d'cannith is a disciple of Aureun & a master of the arcane"
DM: "what spell? You gotta declare the spell then roll."
DaveTheNewbie: "ok fine I'm going to cast chaos bolt at [Dave's max slot level]?"
DM: "now you need to roll"
DaveTheNewbie: "oh... 1 plus.. hmm... can't I just use my old roll like Alice does all the time?"
DM: "no dave you can't ... what does [Dave's max slot level] chaos bolt do on a miss? Paladin's get to check if they hit before smiting in order to make up for the fact that it does nothing if they miss so they don't waste the charge or slot"
DaveTheNewbie: "um... flip flip flip I'm reading this & it looks like chaos bolt cast at [Dave's max slot level] does the same thing as when I miss with firebolt ray of frost or when Alice misses with her +N sword"
DM: "thinks a second & sighs ok Silias channels arcane forces to bring down chaos upon the guardian snake but just misses & the bolt of chaos crashes into a wall... Alice you're up"
Alice: "" I'm going to swing my sword and... xxx looks like I hit, I'm going to make that a smite"
DM: "Ok you bring that charge of divne energy through your blade but at the last instant the couatl casts shield causing the charge to be redirected into the floor"
Alice: "WTF?!... I wouldn't have used my smite if I knew you were going to retcon a shield spell in after I already hit. Smite is a reaction to getting hit so he would have needed to shield before I reacted to hitting."
DaveTheNewbie: "is paladin of xxx like a homebrew subclass? it seems a bit over the top, do I get my spell slot back too? What about when I cast web earlier & everything saved, do I get that back at least?"

Yes there are spells that save for half & spells that just work like simple weapons martial weapons, light armor medium armor heavy armor & shields "just work" but my sheer coincidence the first spell attack spell I clicked was one of the many that do nothing on a miss or failed save. Out of the spells with a ranged spell attack or a melee spell attack the vast majority do nothing mechanically other than consume a spell slot on a failed attack roll. Even with save spells there are quite a number like slow blindness/deafness bane & so on that do nothing to the target on a successful save

 

[Gladius Legis]

With Clerics casting Smite spells and Find Steed better than Paladins do, Paladins are literally just bad Clerics now.