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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 9385113" data-attributes="member: 6801228">It is completely fair that some people enjoy playing the class in terms of just simple damage dealing. And I agree that a look at the adventuring day is likely a discussion worth having. But I will also say that limiting the paladin to a single smite per turn isn't just addressing the adventuring day. It also addresses the "bag of hitpoints" problem. Many times people analyzed the paladin's damage, and it was noted as being one of the highest single-target damage dealers in the game. The thing that often held it back simply being that they would run out of resources, but that doesn't address everything. Consider a mid level paladin, level 12 or so, who is dual-wielding longswords. That Paladin can deal 20d8+15 damage to a single target that is a Fiend or Undead. This is with regular longswords, no crits, and just swinging their weapons and smiting with 2 fourth and a third level slot. That is an average of 105 damage, and not impossible to hit 155 damage on a good series of rolls. Looking at the Fiends? Even CR 22 fiends are losing 50% of their health to that. Go down to the level these paladins are at, with CR 13 or 15 fiends, and you are dealing 85% or more of their hp in that single round of combat. Which I won't deny feels awesome.. but it means if I want to have a boss monster last more than a single round, then I need to double their HP if a paladin was on the team. I even had a game once where we were in a rather difficult fight with a Demilich, and afterwards I asked the paladin player why they didn't Divine Smite. The reason, they said, is that they wanted the fight to last more than a single round, and if they had used Divine Smite, it would have destroyed the boss almost instantly. And this was a uniquely paladin effect. Maybe a Battlemaster with Action Surge dumping everything into a single round of combat could get close to this, but the fighter or barbarian in general cannot spike this high. Which is a problem for climatic fights at the end of the day. So I think there were a lot of levels of consideration given to this change.</blockquote>

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