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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6632932" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Yeah, I very much think that the bonus damage is from the spell slot plus 1d8. It's unclear, to be sure, but it seems extremely weird to me that a Paladin can "waste" a 5th level slot...to do the same damage that a 4th level slot would do. The intent of the rule, IMHO, is to keep multiclass Paladins from "overly" benefiting from slots beyond the standard Paladin's loadout, without preventing the possibility of using them for Smiting. Thus it is 1d8+Xd8, where X is a maximum of 5, based on the spell slot consumed.The other reading--saying that it is "1d8 + 1d8 per slot, to a total of 5d8"--can become really nonsensical if we take it to mean ALL bonus damage from the Smite. I mean, what do we do about the extra damage to undead? Does that just...evaporate if you happen to use (or, rather, "waste") a sufficiently-high level slot, or is the total damage not "the total extra damage," and just the total extra damage from spell slots? (The latter of which would seem to contradict the reason for capping it at 4 levels of spell...)And if you really want to compare damage stuff here, I'd think you'd want to look at a Fighter using Action Surge. They may be limited to only once/twice <s>an encounter</s> per short rest, but a Paladin only gets two 5th level spells per day (at level 19), and only three 4th level spells; it's not like a Paladin can do this all day every day no sweat. With only two short rests per day (generally the expected minimum), a Fighter can field six Action Surges a day compared to the Paladin's single 5th-level-spell Smite (at level 17), and since the Fighter rolls twice as many attacks, there's a far higher chance of getting (some) crits.</blockquote>

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