Divine Might: against the Paladin theme?

[FreeTheSlaves]

I've been thinking about Divine Might for both my Paladin character & Paladin npcs* and I am finding myself not liking the feat at a thematic level. First up I think the CW version of the feat is on the money power-wise & there is not really an issue of imbalance, the issues as I see it are:

1) It adds a fairly regular damage bonus to melee combat.
2) It taps an otherwise common commodity that paladins have in abundance.
3) There is a divine supernatural aspect of holiness about where it is sourced from.

Why are these an issue?

1) This competes with the fighters class ability to regularly deal better average damage than the other melee classes.
2) The Paladin is largely not losing any resources by tapping their turn attempts, a weakish class feature dedicated to combating undead is being converted into a commodity of some general value.
3) Where is the difference between the flavour of DM & smite evil? DM can become more important to the Paladin's combat prowess leaving the smite evil class feature behind, but smite is dedicated towards evil foes which should be the #1 priority for a Paladin.

Not really a hot topic as such, but maybe worth pondering.

(*I alternate as dm & player every couple of weeks.)

 

[Bront]

Well, one easy balancing factor is to only allow Divine might to damage evil only. Or, perhaps link it to smite evil in some way.

I'm not familiar with it in the current itteration (Or any other realy, I haven't used it yet nor has any other player I've played with).

 

[satori01]

I do not think that Fighters hold any special talent beyond weapon specialization to maximize damage. Divine Might certainly give the Paladin little boosts of extra damage per day, but probably not signifigantly more in terms of average.

Divine Might becomes in essense a little Smite Evil. Usuable more often then Smite Evil and almost always in conjuction with it, but less powerful over all then Smite Evil.

My only issue with Divine Might is that it is almost a must have feat for Paladin to acquire at around 6th level. Personally when something is a must have feat, it should in essense become a class feature.

 

[ZuulMoG]

Personally when something is a must have feat, it should in essense become a class feature.

...or carefully examined for possible munchkinness.

 

[Bront]

I don't see it that way, since you could equaly justify Spirited Charge at 6th if it was not aquired before hand (Not likely unless you're human). Or several other feats.

Realy does depend on the character.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I agree with the problems the poster has with it. Being able to add my charisma bonus to damage for 1 round in place of a turning attempt is very good. Paticuarly in a game where there aren't that many undead.

Actually at mid-high levels diving might is better or at least equal to smite evil IMO. A paladin at level 10 with a 20 charisma can either:
1) add +5 damage to both of his attacks for 1 round 8 times a day.
or
2) add +10 damage/+5 attack to one attack 3 times a day.

I would say this is a nearly must have feat for paladins.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I'm not familiar with it in the current itteration (Or any other realy, I haven't used it yet nor has any other player I've played with).

Essentially, after the character has aquired the feat (pre-req = power attack) they may as a free action expend one of their turn attempts to add their charisma bonus to melee damage for 1 full turn.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I would say this is a nearly must have feat for paladins.

That has some ring of truth to it; come level 6 (the earliest a Paladin can aquire it) I really measure all possible feats in comparison to it. It has almost become the benchmark but again, my issue with it is not of game balance but rather that it treads away from the Paladin theme.

 

[Bront]

Essentially, after the character has aquired the feat (pre-req = power attack) they may as a free action expend one of their turn attempts to add their charisma bonus to melee damage for 1 full turn.

full round I assume you mean. 1 turn is sick.

Yeah, that's not bad, but it does sort of call against the paladin's smite evil power. However, the smite evil power I think is considered a fairly minor one for the paladin compaired to most of his other feats, and still has it's place.

A tweek that might make more sense, is turn allow smite to turn all damage done that round into holy, so it bypasses DR, which makes it a bit more powerful, and makes it a bit more thematic. Smite is a true smite, divine might is calling on the god for strength divine.

 

[The Souljourner]

I think divine might is fine as is. Balance-wise, it's fine... certainly no competition with a fighter, who gets +2 or +4 to every attack, while the paladin gets it for 5-8 rounds per day. Many fights last 5+ rounds, so it's a non-trivial limitation.

Plus, it takes a feat. For a paladin, that's 1/7th or 1/8th of the feats he'll ever take. Along with its prerequisite, it's 25% or more of his feats. That's a lot.

As for theme, I think it's fine. Smite evil is pretty weak, in my opinion, which is the only reason it's threatened by the power of this feat. If smite evil were better balanced (2x level in damage), I think we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I think tweaking the power of this feat down would make it unusable. Turning your damage to holy damage? How often is that really going to be useful? Especially when you have bless weapon as a spell.

Of course, if you meant for it to increase damage *and* turn the damage holy, then I think that's definitely cool (though smite evil should probably have that too).

Anyway, I think paladin is the class most in need of a huge overhaul. 'Twere it up to me, they wouldn't get spells at all, but something more like psionics where they have a number of points per day, and have several different supernatural abilities that use their holy power. I don't think paladins should be spellcasters so much as direct channels of holy power. Let the clerics wave their hands and mumble their verbal components, paladins should just channel holy power directly into the form they want.

-The Souljourner