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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Puggins" data-source="post: 4129363" data-attributes="member: 12386">You're making the odd assumption that having an immediate action available is more important than having a standard action available.  While I'm sure there a plenty of cases where this is true, you should acknowledge that having the freedom to take whatever standard action is most helpful (maneuver, attack, use a skill) is a far more common situation.  Displacement gives you this flexibility.True enough.  In fact, after reviewing, I'm willing to say that this implies that it is indeed independent of the hit.  I'll remove this point.Well, the AC bonus is not a a guarntee of success, either.  An extremely good die roll will bypass the bonus altogether, just as a good second roll bypasses displacement.Let me add something else which I chose to leave out due to mathematical rigor- in a situation where the number needed to hit is somewhere between 5 and 20, displacement is far more effective.2+ needed to hit:shielding smite takes chance of hit from 95% to 80%Displacement takes chance of hit from 95% to 90%5+ needed to hit: shielding smite takes chance of hit from 80% to 65%Displacement takes chance of hit from 80% to 64%10+ needed to hit:Shielding Smite takes chance of hit from 55% to 40%Displacement takes the chance of hit from 55% to 30%15+ needed to hit:Shielding Smite takes chance of hit from 30% to 15%Displacement takes the chance of hit from 30% to 9%19+ needed to hit:Shielding Smite takes chance of hit from 10% to 5%Displacement takes chance of hit from 10% to 1%Only in the most lopsided case does shielding smite benefit you more, and at that point the increase in your protection is really not significant- the number of times you are hit out of 100 goes down by 16%.  In the case of a 10+ attack, the numebr of times you are hit every 100 attacks goes down by 45%, versus Shielding Smite's 27%.But altering an attack that is a critical would probably be extremely useful- something that displacement is almost designed to do.  Displacement seems to be best used to avert disastrous effects.  In a 30+ round combat with a dragon, trying to avert a single claw attack seems to be a suboptimal use of displacement, and is an option that won't be used often.Yeah, I agree, the deterrent is nice, but hinges on  #1 the wizard being close enough to be a target and #2 actually being the target.  if, instead, the dragon has to choose between the paladin and the fighter for his attacks, shielding smite becomes far less useful.  I'll say the deterrent more than offsets this, but not by much.Via the summary sheet, immobilization prevents you from moving, not from acting.  I imagine that there will be plenty of times where the paladin just won't be able to maneuver into position for a shielding smite.You skewed the benefits of shielding smite at least as much.  I didn't include the much-better performance in the scaling region and the ability to almost always negate critical hits.The issue I have here is the "definitely" that you're attaching to your judgment.  Seeing as how no one has played with displacement and very few have played with shielding smite, it's hard to stick that label there.  There are lots of abilities and effects that are drastically misjudged in advance- 3e haste actually made it past playtests.  Tarmogoyf was judged one of the worst cards in Future Sight (sorry, I can't help it- I'm a Magic Player).  The Soviet Union was going to be a pushover for the Wehrmacht.  Let's see it in practice.  I'm with you on level 16 PROBABLY being too high, but actual play will be the final judge.</blockquote>

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