The Valor bard can do respectable damage if you pick up Hunter's Mark, one of the spell smites, or Swift Quiver. However, those are all Concentration spells, and Bards typically have much more interesting things to do with Concentration. When I played one, we already had a Barbarian, Paladin, and Moon Druid, so more damage was really not a priority. I ended up using other spells a lot while plinking with my bow.
Requoted because you also referenced a 10th level+ non-melee character in a thread about paladins being the strongest class as opposed to front line being a requirement.
You also point to hunter's mark for the valor bard and still avoid acknowledging it for the vengeance paladin.
I didn't say it out-damages the Paladin. Just said it's respectable if you take the right options. I do wonder how much damage it would have done if I'd played it as a Paladin and just crapped out Lightning Arrow and Hail of Thorns with all my slots. As it was, though, I relied more on Animate Objects than anything else.
Requoted to keep us on track.
That's because damage isn't optimal. Controlling incoming damage is because DPR drops to 0 when attackers stop attacking. Bringing this into your campaign and build, I would point out your P2/B6 would likely have +2 CON save from CON because the classes don't offer the proficiency, the build lacks the ASI's to have added it, and the build gave up the CHA bonus paladins gain at 6th level. That makes the paladin more susceptible to the glabrezu power word stun when you bring up that particular monster.
You acknowledged spells being more prominent than blowing them on damage at that point and seem to have turned around to blow spells on damage via smite.
Recently had a PC in my campaign that went P2/Bd 6. College of Swords, so he attacks 3x per round and pretty much just uses his slots for smite. So he had 4/3/3/1 slots while the full Paladin had 4/3. MCing Bard with Warlock or Paladin is pretty popular.
The Paladin rescued Prince Thrommel and got a Sword of Answering as a reward, though.
Here you claimed to pretty much use slots for smites.
Smites are even less sustainable for a full paladin. Fact is the MC'd bard smites harder and more often. And since he rolls more attacks, he gets more critical hits. From watching them in play:
P2/B6: Smites more, smites harder, crits more often, better AC, has some good 3rd and 4th level spells if needed
P8: More hp, save bonus aura, much better LoH, can prepare paladin spells above 1st level (no cleric so this is important)
Here is where I think you went off course. The bard MC has higher slots to briefly add more smite damage but that never acknowledged contributors to damage other than smite. The bard doesn't have more attacks, as I pointed out. There are multiple ways for the paladin to add a bonus action attack as well.
What you are telling me here is the bard is trying to be a paladin by smiting and comparing it to a paladin who's using his spells to replace a cleric, then going "see bards do more damage".
You don't have a consistent argument, that's why. You're theorycrafting, which means you are necessarily overlooking the virtually unlimited contextual variations that happen in real campaigns, while I'm running a table with one of each, and it's pretty clear who puts out the most damage in an adventuring day. Well, before the Sword of Answering, anyway.
I'm not theory crafting. The issue as I see it is that you are using an anecdotal comparison in a campaign that doesn't favor spell casting with a paladin prepping spells in absence of a cleric instead of optimizing more for damage.
It was when you claimed a single Fireball was just as effective as three smites and three attacks. It's not.
That wasn't the actual claim. It was a tool mentioned. That should have been cleared up in subsequent posts. You are still clinging to fireball and ignoring other options mentioned, although magic resistance in your demon example impacts the spells I mentioned.
Because they're not a viable front-line melee option. The dude in the back with 15 AC lobbing fireballs and warping people's minds is a completely different role than the triple-attacking fella with 19-27 AC crit-fishing the baddies he hit with Faerie Fire. Telling people they shouldn't be in the role they want to play because you personally think it would be more interesting for them to be in some other party role is 100% not the DM's call to make. I'm not gonna tell this guy to move to the back line, throw away the plate mail and the swords,, and pick a 3rd-level wizard spell any more than I would tell an Archery Fighter/Rogue mashup that he should have been a straight Great Weapon Fighter instead.
This is why I reposted some quotes. The thread is about paladins being a strong class. That doesn't necessitate any particular role or playstyle. When you posted your own example of a ranged valor bard and then declined to accept a ranged lore bard it looked like you were running a double standard or backtracking.
Range is usually a drawback for paladins. Bringing ranged characters into consideration is certainly not off limits in a discussion about relative power. There's nothing in the topic of "paladins are the most powerful" that requires ignoring range. Just because the bard is using paladin smites as a damage source doesn't mean range became irrelevant to the discussion.
Faerie fire is a good spell too, btw, and one you would not be using based on your comment about using slots for smites. It's also less effective against the magic resistance you brought up.
It's really not. The CR9 monster list has a fair bit of resistance to fire and advantage on saves. Maybe you'll get lucky and fight treants. Or you might be really screwed and end up going up against fire giants.
Do you only ever fight CR 9 monsters? Bone devils, clay golems, and glabrezu have magic resistance. Cloud giants, fire giants, treants, young blue dragons, and young silver dragons do not. By my count (it's a quick check from the SRD) magic resistance is less common than no magic resistance in CR 9 monsters.
Bard and the Wizard used Dispel Magic.
Which gets to an issue. You claimed to be mostly using slots for smites and then mostly fighting demons (glabrezu apparently) when all of them can fly. You also mentioned facing a lot of them as the campaign is closing by 9th level. How are you using those slots both for dispel magic against a lot of glabrezu and also using those same slots to fight the glabrezu after you dispel magic?
Right now it looks like your P2/B6 is relying on the other paladin in the party for save benefits and the wizard for support.
As for magic resistance in general, the wizard should be swapping in spells that don't have saving throws. Usually that means switching to attack rolls instead or using party buffs. Buffs are susceptible to dispel magic with the glabrezu but attack roll spells are not impacted by magic resistance. Based on your description of the campaign the wizard probably would have been better off with a warlock build.
