D&D (2024) Playtest 6: Paladin ... Divine Smite is a Spell now

[Charlaquin]

Personally, even if we grant for the sake of argument that the various smite spells are better than divine smite… I’m kinda fine with that? Divine “just more damage” smite is easily the least interesting smite spell, so I’m 100% cool with it just being the backup when none of the riders on your other smites are especially useful. It’s also the most versatile smite - the other smites’ riders are all situational, whereas the extra die of damage from divine smite is always valuable. Having the more situational spells be a bit stronger than the more versatile option is balanced.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Here you are trying to dig a well with a pitchfork again. The right tool for the job, man. The right tool for the job.

So, a second ago you said "a trivial amount of damage doesn't balance banish" and now it is "the right tool for the right job" indicating that if you were fighting the 50% of high level monsters with magic resistance... you wouldn't use banishing smite... so... half the time Divine Smite is the right tool for the job? But that isn't balance, because Banishing Smite is better, even if you don't use it half the time?

are you talking about the hit points that you've watched the group dish out in damage? It's pretty easy to guess when 50 hit points or less happens. In WotC's limited wisdom, they've balanced 5e around hit points and it's easy to get a feel for around how many hit points something has.

If you wait til it has 50 hp... what is the point the spell? Banishing Smite when combined with a sword and board and NO extra sources of damage is likely going to deal around 42.5 average damage. That means if they are ALREADY at 50 or less... it is kind of pointless to cast the spell, because you don't care about the banishing effect if the enemy is going to have less than 10 hp.

That means you need to hit them when they have less than 100 hp, and hope you deal enough damage on a random roll to drop them to 50 or less.

And then they need to fail the saving throw.

Again, this isn't like the banishment spell which is save vs banishment. This has multiple gates to pass through.

I don't see where the banishment spell is not affected by spell resistance.

Of course you don't, because I'm refering to the fact that Banishment doesn't care about your opponents hit point total. There are MULTIPLE steps you have to successfully complete for Banishing smite to actually banish someone.

 

[Maxperson]

So, a second ago you said "a trivial amount of damage doesn't balance banish" and now it is "the right tool for the right job" indicating that if you were fighting the 50% of high level monsters with magic resistance... you wouldn't use banishing smite... so... half the time Divine Smite is the right tool for the job? But that isn't balance, because Banishing Smite is better, even if you don't use it half the time?

Where do you get that 50% number? And what is "high level?"

If you wait til it has 50 hp... what is the point the spell? Banishing Smite when combined with a sword and board and NO extra sources of damage is likely going to deal around 42.5 average damage. That means if they are ALREADY at 50 or less... it is kind of pointless to cast the spell, because you don't care about the banishing effect if the enemy is going to have less than 10 hp.

You don't see a point to banishing the strongest monster at 50 hit points and doing clean-up before it returns?

 

[billd91]

You don't see a point to banishing the strongest monster at 50 hit points and doing clean-up before it returns?

If the strongest monster is down to 50 hit points, it is already on the ropes and should be running like hell to survive. This is probably something better handled by resurrecting the Bloodied status and having the banishing smite be enabled by being bloodied. Then the target has been substantially worn down but may still have a lot more fight left in him. THEN banishing them might be worth it.

 

[Maxperson]

If the strongest monster is down to 50 hit points, it is already on the ropes and should be running like hell to survive. This is probably something better handled by resurrecting the Bloodied status and having the banishing smite be enabled by being bloodied. Then the target has been substantially worn down but may still have a lot more fight left in him. THEN banishing them might be worth it.

I don't agree that banishing isn't worth it at 50 hit points, but 50% would be better.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Where do you get that 50% number? And what is "high level?"

CR 8 and higher, and I went to an app that had the monsters, typed in the restrictions and compared the numbers. All monsters CR 8 to 30 compared to all monsters CR 8 to 30 with Magic Resistance.

You don't see a point to banishing the strongest monster at 50 hit points and doing clean-up before it returns?

As @billd91 points out, once you have the strongest monster on the field down to 50 or less, it is a hard sell to say you need to banish it, especially since you can do nearly 40 damage in a single strike.

And again, you don't WANT to use Banishing Smite when the monster is 50 or less hp, because then the damage from the smite nearly kills it, or potentially kills it, anyways. What you WANT is to hit a monster with more than 50 hp, and drop it to 50 to 40 hp (any lower and really, you might be better off finishing it off instead of smiting). So, without knowing the monsters precise hp, and without knowing your precise damage, you need to take a gamble.

Hit a monster with Banishing Smite and drop it to 51 hp? No banishment. And that can be as simple as just rolling below average on the d10's. So, AGAIN, Banishing Smite has more hoops to get through than just casting banishment. Saying "it is a banishment" ignores these extra hoops. Because then, even if you drop them into the range, you STILL need them to fail the save. This is not an easy ability to proc.

 

[Var]

Sidenote - I do like the utility that Smite working on Melee weapons opens up.
Thunderous Smite on throwing weapons to ground a flier in particular.

Yes opening DS up to Counterspell changes the dynamic. But also streamlines it. Having only one Smite per Turn isn't really all that problematic, you'll still be able to dish out significant burst damage over 2-3 turns, frontloading your damage potential.
The significantly more annoying part is not being able to Smite with a Sentinel Attack or combining it with anything else that requires a bonus action. PAM, Channel Divinity, casting Shield of Faith etc become significantly clunkier if they lock you out of capitalizing on your Burst Damage for that turn completely.
This can be worked around and your optimal feat selection will just change to address this, turning more towards defensive options that don't compete for your BA or Spell useage.

Personally I do often find myself with a ramp up turn, where you're unable to reach anything on the first turn of combat and can cast a Concentration Spell that benefits the party or can utilize the new ranged Smite options. Paladin as a chassis still seems strong with most of the problems solved if Divine Smite could also get used as a Reaction (keeping the 1 Smite per Turn limitation).

 

[kilpatds]

I've been DMing for 40 years and I think my villains have used counterspell twice.

I recently played an AL adventure where the BBEG had a room full of counterspelling wards. Two adventures later in the same path, BBEGs have counterspell and a large willingness to use it, and counterspell chains are a regular occurance. (That one's likely technicall DMEmpowerment, not the adventure. But the room of counterspell wards is likely the adventure)

I'm fine with Smite being a spell, even though it would have killed us in that specific case.

 

[Pauln6]

I recently played an AL adventure where the BBEG had a room full of counterspelling wards. Two adventures later in the same path, BBEGs have counterspell and a large willingness to use it, and counterspell chains are a regular occurance. (That one's likely technicall DMEmpowerment, not the adventure. But the room of counterspell wards is likely the adventure)

I'm fine with Smite being a spell, even though it would have killed us in that specific case.

Maybe it's a sign that modern groups consist predominantly of spell-casters. Our characters were mostly rolled up in 1e and 2e and converted to 5e along the way so they are at least partially martial. It does depend on the foe you are facing for me. Not every BBEG needs to be a spell caster but in a group full of higher level casters, I can see how some DMs might feel the need to build in protections from save or die. I think I would prefer to mix it up.

 

[Shardstone]

In a game with literally over 500 spells, other magical effects are turned into spells to streamline everything.

After all, what is a spell? A magical effect. What is divine smite? A magical effect...specifically one that required spell slots to function.

I think at this point, WotC should go all the way and just turn every actual magical effect into a spell, lay out every mundane effect as if it were a spell, call everything "Powers" and make classes collections of guaranteed powers, optional powers, and powers you can choose from.