D&D 5E No spell Paladin Feat

[JacktheRabbit]

Everyone

Want some opinions. Considering creating a feat that when taken removes all spells from a Paladin. So a Paladin will then be limited to using spell slots for divine smites.

Trying to decide what the bonus of the feat would be. These are some thoughts. Trying to decide which one to use.

Smite damage increased from D8 to D10 or D12.
Smites add one extra D8 to dice when rolling.
Smites blind or deafen upon impact if a Con save is failed.

These are just some ideas. Other suggestions are welcome.

 

[Nevvur]

I think any one of your suggestions would be comparable to some feats even before you apply the loss of spellcasting. Also, there's no precedent (that I'm aware of) for a feat taking away other abilities. It would feel more in line if you made a spell-less paladin archetype in the spirit as the various attempts at a spell-less ranger, but a feat is admittedly a lot less fuss.

Anyway, assuming you want to move forward with the idea as stated... A pushback or knock down effect could be an option. Self-heal is another, though I'm not sure where I'd start for the amount healed. If I were inclined to include a feat like this in my game, I would have it grant multiple options for any smite attack, but only one at a time. For instance, you could do a damage bump, a crowd control effect, or a heal as part of the smite.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Paladins never casting spells, and instead only using their slots to power smites isn't that unusual. Are you sure that you need a feat to represent it?

They get spell slots before level 4 as well, so it would be rather unusual for a Paladin to lose their spellcasting ability after a couple of levels.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Paladins never casting spells, and instead only using their slots to power smites isn't that unusual. Are you sure that you need a feat to represent it?

They get spell slots before level 4 as well, so it would be rather unusual for a Paladin to lose their spellcasting ability after a couple of levels.

Could be done if you take variant human at 1st level. Otherwise the explanation could be learning a new way to connect with whatever powers the Paladin at a more primal level.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I think any one of your suggestions would be comparable to some feats even before you apply the loss of spellcasting. Also, there's no precedent (that I'm aware of) for a feat taking away other abilities. It would feel more in line if you made a spell-less paladin archetype in the spirit as the various attempts at a spell-less ranger, but a feat is admittedly a lot less fuss.

Anyway, assuming you want to move forward with the idea as stated... A pushback or knock down effect could be an option. Self-heal is another, though I'm not sure where I'd start for the amount healed. If I were inclined to include a feat like this in my game, I would have it grant multiple options for any smite attack, but only one at a time. For instance, you could do a damage bump, a crowd control effect, or a heal as part of the smite.

You are right there is no precedent for a feat like this, but I look at with the logic that as long as it is not unbalanced who cares about precedent.

What do you think of smite damage increasing to 1D10 and any attack not done with smite adds 1D4 radiant damage described as the extra raw energy seeping into the Paladins weapons.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'd be exceedingly leery of adding any extra damage to smite. The paladin is already able to dish out more damage per hit than any other melee type, so long as they have smites available.

Honestly, I wouldn't create this feat at all. I'd just say "If you want to play a paladin who only uses spell slots to smite, do that, and describe it as though that's all he can do with his magic." Given how often paladins smite anyway, and how many of the paladin spells are smites, you aren't losing any real power that way, so adding power for doing that is inherently unbalanced.

 

[Satyrn]

What do you think of smite damage increasing to 1D10 and any attack not done with smite adds 1D4 radiant damage described as the extra raw energy seeping into the Paladins weapons.

For the cost of a feat, that looks fine to me - and I agree with the poster above who said that's it's probably fine without droppijg spell use.

But I also think that every feat that just offers More Damage (or even just Higher Number) is an inherently poor feat. I think you'd do well to give the feat some other additional benefit that gives the paladin something new to do.

For example, perhaps a glowing halo he can feed with spell slots to some basic effect.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Could be done if you take variant human at 1st level. Otherwise the explanation could be learning a new way to connect with whatever powers the Paladin at a more primal level.

OK. Are you intent on limiting this increased connection to boosting damage only? (The current smiting-only paladin is already pushing the limits of balance on that score.)

How about the option to spend spell slots to increase Lay on Hands pool for example? Each level of slot = 5 more points perhaps?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

OK. Are you intent on limiting this increased connection to boosting damage only? (The current smiting-only paladin is already pushing the limits of balance on that score.)

How about the option to spend spell slots to increase Lay on Hands pool for example? Each level of slot = 5 more points perhaps?

Interesting idea, doing that a 10th level Paladin would gain 80hp for a total amount of healing of 130hp. Is that an absurd amount of healing or not? If he can dump it all at once at any level the Paladin would own the spot as the largest single target heal in the game, at that level and probably more than clerics several levels higher could not do with a single spell. OF course this would be dropping his load in one while the cleric can throw out multiple heals.

 

[thethain]

I would look more towards interesting uses rather than pure dps boost. Something along the lines of:

Vow of Silence: You have taken a vow of silence in addition to your oath, although you may no longer cast spells, you gain telepathy to a range of 60 feet and you may use spell slots in other ways:
After rolling a skill check (but before success or failure is announced), you add 1d4 per spell level to the result.
When laying on hands a creature at 0 HP, add 1d8+your charisma modifier per spell level of the slot expended.
When you channel divinity, each ally within 30 ft of you gains 5 temporary hp per spell level of the slot expended.
When you are reduced to 0 hp, you may use your reaction and instead be reduced to 1d8 per spell level hit points.

Obviously the silence thing was just a quick way to lore-wise explain away the sudden loss of spell casting. And the balance of various abilities will need tweaking. But I don't like the idea of just "Smite does even more damage"