New Design & Development: Paladin Smites!

[BryonD]

DID the article make it expressly clear that you could take the bonus yourself? I have a hunch the paladin will be a character with a lot of abilities he HAS to use on others rather than himself.

It said he could target himself

 

[D.Shaffer]

You know, I'm honestly just a little bit confused about all the problems people have with the kicker abilities for the smites. Let's look at some current Paladin spells and abilities.

Lay on Hands and Cure Wound spells: Heal allies
Protection from Evil: An ally gains a bonus to armor class (Vs evil creatures)

Dont those just look familiar? Why are people acting like these abilities are coming out of nowhere? They've ALWAYS had this ability, but now they can do it while smacking the heck out of something at the same time.

 

[DreamChaser]

Not sure I like that, though. If it must have multiple effects, I would prefer all the effects to be more strongly thematically linked. Otherwise, we are in "it is a dessert topping, and a floorwax!" territory. If the effects are disparate, it becomes much easier to forget or confuse them.

I agree with the danger of dessert and floorwax....I just don't feel that any of these fall into that category.

If it was smite for extra damage and grant your ally +4 bonus to open locks, then I'd be concerned. But as the rest of my post noted...

Note that the protection happens Hit or Miss. The paladin is a woman of action and she asks for the blessing of her god to strike at her foes; but she is also a guardian who wishes to help her comrades in their fight.

In each of the three examples, the paladin basically says "<god> help us by helping us overcome our foes." The first smite involves the god answering with extra damage and by protecting an ally, the second with damage and healing an ally, the third with damage and limiting an enemy.

The goal of all three is the same and the methods are firmly in keeping with the role of the paladin (divine defender OR (for those who are hating on the roles) a praying warrior with heavy armor and a sword (of course that is a longer way of saying the same thing)).

DC

 

[TerraDave]

How often did Roland use detect evil, turn undead, lay on hands or cure disease? I'm betting zero.

Exactly.

But a lawfull-not good-Roland smiting "saracens": it works well enough.

 

[GlassJaw]

Dont those just look familiar? Why are people acting like these abilities are coming out of nowhere? They've ALWAYS had this ability, but now they can do it while smacking the heck out of something at the same time.

Because tying these abilities to a smite attack is lame and doesn't make sense. Just keep them separate abilities or spells.

 

[Jinete]

I will say that conceptually, I find attacks that hurt enemies and help allies somewhat difficult to conceive. Most effects do one or the other. Attacks might have extra effects, but they usually penalize the enemy. Hamstring an opponent, he takes damage and loses two squares of movement. Heal an ally, they get 2d6+10 hp and a +2 to AC. That kind of thing.

I remember hen I first played a Swordsage and used a maneuver whose name I can't remember right now:

Me: "I roll 2d20, choose a result, and if it's the lower one but it hits I do normal damage +1d6 cold. If I choose the higher and it hits I just do normal damage. If I miss I miss."

DM: "how do you do that, that doesn't make sense, how do you get to roll twice?"

Me: "Well, you see, I create a shadowy replica of my blade and it either hits or just distracts my foe"

DM: "Oh, OK then"

A little magical explanation goes a long way

 

[frankthedm]

It said he could target himself

Thats why i asked.

grumble... even evil paladins should be encouraged to have allies. grumble...

 

[Smerg]

Several things here.

Roland - well if you need a justification for healing or AC then often seeing a knight fight well is accompanied by word like 'his companions took heart'. Heart being a reference to courage, recovery, regain of ability, better fighting as a result. It is a pretty standard literary approach to saying that the Champion fought well which meant that everyone else suddenly got better.

Lay on Hands, Cure Light Wounds with Reach Spell Feat, Holy Sword spell ( need I go on that magic is part of D&D and is part of the God's impact on warriors). I would further point that great Champions are lightning rods to the divine. Just their actions of standing up and doing the 'right' thing means that Gods tend to intervene in their lives and their surroundings (both good and bad on that part).


A person said that the heal 10+wisdom seemed a bit weak. I would point out that Kundum mentioned on Clerics that people get increased healing affects in their presence. The heal 10+wisdom may get an additional modifier as if the base amount was just weapon damage before someone wielded it. That might make this healing scale dramatically more then it appears now on paper.


There was a comment on using smites out of combat to attack things like rocks and trees to trigger the healing affect. Given that manuvers likely have a 'cool' down (2 min in Bo9S) this will only lead to a slow heal but there might also be some overall riding trigger to use a smite (Divine being might take offense to invoking their holy power to strike down flowers so that your paladin can top up their hit points to maximum).

 

[TerraDave]

If my NE paladin eviscerates someone, getting a little boost from my dark Lord isn't out of line. Comparisons to Roland are pretty much moot by now.

But what is N and why E? And why not Roland: he cut up lots of people.

 

[Sammael]

but now they can do it while smacking the heck out of something at the same time.

That's the crux of the problem.

"I smack the enemy. My allies are now healed."

"I roll a critical miss and hit a tree instead of my enemy. My allies now have a bonus to AC."

That makes exactly zero sense. I am sure the apologists can come up with a flavor explanation that makes sense (to them), but I don't like it. BTW, there is a very simple solution to this issue, and I am baffled that WotC designers did not go this way:

Divine Resilience
Paladin 1
Encounter
Swift Action
Target: One ally
Trigger: Smite attack (hit or miss)
Effect: An ally within 5 squares gains a bonus to AC equal to your Wisdom modifier until the end of your next turn. This effect comes from releasing excess divine energy channeled during the smite attack.

And so on...