D&D 5E What's Divine Smite Worth?

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

The Paladin gets 2 attacks, for 2 smites, and through feats or spells, can achieve more attacks in a round, for additional smites. Given this, while less efficient than AoE against say, lots of annoying enemies, it's not useless. Just somewhat wasteful. In a 1 - 2 battle a day game, a Pally still does very well.

What really burns a Paladin is having something tear through their slots, like a high health low AC enemy that also happens to be resistant to radiant damage, and can compel the Paladin to hit it and smite it or suffer some very serious consequences, like having their arms and legs torn off. Not HP damage. Having their arms and legs torn off.

You say that in a tone like you're disagreeing, but does that mean you're backing Psikerlord's assertion that it is indeed broken if you have a couple of large battles per day? Let's take one example, chosen arbitrarily:

The 8th level adventuring day has 6000 (adjusted) XP per PC. For a party of four, that's 24,000 XP. Let's say there's two fights with about 12,000 XP each, both of which occur in the wilderness as the party is travelling through the Death Lands searching for the Lost Temple of Beelzebor.

#1: squad of evil cavalry. 1 Flameskull leader with 8 Black Centaur underlings (Centaur stats, but evil). 11,750 XP. They're pursuing the PCs through outdoor terrain, not knowing much about them except that they've invaded the Death Lands and "the whispers" say they need to be destroyed. Will probably underestimate the PCs until a round or two after contact is made, but willing to back off at that point and regroup/rethink their tactics. Will retreat if Flameskull and at least half the centaurs are killed.

#2: 2 young white dragons (brothers) and 4 Perytons. The PCs look like an easy meal, and besides, with all that shiny they might have some nice treasure that the dragons can split.

Now, the assertion in this case is that because there aren't 6-8 encounters, "Divine Smite is broken." The 8th level Paladin will have 4/3 spell slots, and if he expends them all on smites, he can expect to do 4x2d8 + 3x3d8 = 17d8 (76) damage, or twice that much (153) if every single smite is expended on a crit. Let's compare that to what the PCs are facing:

In fight #1, there's 8x45 + 40 = 400 HP worth of enemies. On a charge, the centaurs can expect to do (hit %) * (31 * 8 = 248 HP) of damage to the PCs while the Flame Skull chucks Fireballs for 28 HP per Fireball, or else they can do 8 * 12 = 96 HP per round from long range with their longbows. Divine Smite is a fairly poor way to spend spell slots that could have gone to Wrathful Smite or Sanctuary instead (and Sanctuary might be the difference between life and death at least one of the PCs), and even if the PC chooses only to smite and just happens to crit on every smite, he's still only taking out half of the centaurs and probably taking a fifty to hundred or so HP of damage in the process. And then he has to go into fight #2 completely empty. Doesn't look broken to me!

In fight #2, there's 4*33 + 2*133 = 398 HP worth of enemies. The Perytons can dive-bomb for (hit %) * (24 * 4 = 96 HP) of damage to the PCs, although they probably can't dive-bomb every turn unless the PCs are completely stationary. Flyby makes it quite difficult for the Paladin to hit them at all though. Meanwhile, the dragons are doing another (hit %) * (2 * 41 = 82 HP) of damage per turn with their own claw/claw/bite routine, or else breathing for 90 HP of AoE cold damage. And while they don't get "free" flyby like the Perytons do, they absolutely do have the option of eating one opportunity attack to deny the Paladin a full attack sequence, or they can just stand off and blast away with their breath weapon without taking any melee attacks at all. You know what? The paladin might as well have shot himself dry in fight #1 because he's not going to have hardly any effect all on fight #2 anyway unless the sorcerer Webs a dragon and brings it to the ground for a round or more, or somebody casts Fly on the poor paladin. Even then, the same constraints apply as before: 76 HP of damage by blowing your entire spell slot load just isn't that big of a contribution to this fight. You'll probably wish you had spent those slots on Bless/Sanctuary/Shield of Faith/Wrathful Smite instead.

Divine Smite isn't "broken" if you have one or two big fights per day. Depending on how your DM runs things, it can be barely even worthwhile.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Slow forum, double post.

 

[Flamestrike]

The 8th level adventuring day has 6000 (adjusted) XP per PC.

Its not that clear that the table you refer to is actually 'adjusted' XP per day. The text preceeding the table mentions that the XP in the table is 'earnt' XP, and then the table itself lists it as 'adjusted'

Going by the general rule of 'text trumps table' and the fact that the adjusted XP values dont line up with the 6-8 recomendation (in fact it barely lines up with 3 encounters) there is an argument that the XP in the table is supposed to mean earnt XP.

Someone should really seek a clarification on this.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

You say that in a tone like you're disagreeing, but does that mean you're backing Psikerlord's assertion that it is indeed broken if you have a couple of large battles per day? Let's take one example, chosen arbitrarily:

It's possible to disagree with somebody without taking somebody elses side.

Divine Smite isn't AoE. It's a burst capability. As such, it isn't particularly useful in the "one or two large battles per (combat) day" either.

There are some abilities like Rage and Bladesong which really do get a boost if you have one or two big battles per day, but Divine Smite isn't like that.

The Paladin gets 2 attacks, for 2 smites, and through feats or spells, can achieve more attacks in a round, for additional smites. Given this, while less efficient than AoE against say, lots of annoying enemies, it's not useless. Just somewhat wasteful. In a 1 - 2 battle a day game, a Pally still does very well.

Actually comparing what we both originally said, this is in disagreement to what you said about it in comparison to Rage and Bladesong. While it's certainly more effective against a single enemy, it's far better than say, Sneak Attack for groups. As a pure damage boost, DS works reasonably well in almost any situation, which is part of it's attractiveness to optimizing players.

In fight #1, there's 8x45 + 40 = 400 HP worth of enemies. On a charge, the centaurs can expect to do (hit %) * (31 * 8 = 248 HP) of damage to the PCs while the Flame Skull chucks Fireballs for 28 HP per Fireball, or else they can do 8 * 12 = 96 HP per round from long range with their longbows. Divine Smite is a fairly poor way to spend spell slots that could have gone to Wrathful Smite or Sanctuary instead (and Sanctuary might be the difference between life and death at least one of the PCs), and even if the PC chooses only to smite and just happens to crit on every smite, he's still only taking out half of the centaurs and probably taking a fifty to hundred or so HP of damage in the process. And then he has to go into fight #2 completely empty.

DS damage would be including the attack damage from the attacks, because there is no way to deliver a DS without an attack. The actual damage a Paladin can do is more like 156.5 (76 Radiant from smites, 2*7 from dueling flat, 35 from a maxed Dexterity/Strength and 4.5*7 from a 1d8 weapon-assuming no crits and that GWF doesn't reroll DS dice). That's about at least 3.5 centaurs, which is nontrivial in a situation where they would retreat.

Given that Action Economy is at a premium in a shorter day, casting spells may simply be entirely unfeasible with their Action costs. Furthermore, it's unlikely a Paladin would actually need or even be capable of using all their Slots. There's a party with them, after all, who are also contributing to the damage count.

In fight #2, there's 4*33 + 2*133 = 398 HP worth of enemies. The Perytons can dive-bomb for (hit %) * (24 * 4 = 96 HP) of damage to the PCs, although they probably can't dive-bomb every turn unless the PCs are completely stationary. Flyby makes it quite difficult for the Paladin to hit them at all though. Meanwhile, the dragons are doing another (hit %) * (2 * 41 = 82 HP) of damage per turn with their own claw/claw/bite routine, or else breathing for 90 HP of AoE cold damage. And while they don't get "free" flyby like the Perytons do, they absolutely do have the option of eating one opportunity attack to deny the Paladin a full attack sequence, or they can just stand off and blast away with their breath weapon without taking any melee attacks at all. You know what? The paladin might as well have shot himself dry in fight #1 because he's not going to have hardly any effect all on fight #2 anyway unless the sorcerer Webs a dragon and brings it to the ground for a round or more, or somebody casts Fly on the poor paladin. Even then, the same constraints apply as before: 76 HP of damage by blowing your entire spell slot load just isn't that big of a contribution to this fight. You'll probably wish you had spent those slots on Bless/Sanctuary/Shield of Faith/Wrathful Smite instead.

It's unlikely that the Paladin could use their slots that quickly in the first combat. They can only spend so many slots on DS per round anyways, and their party members are quite likely to deal damage themselves. To put this in perspective, 4 pallies would have a combined DS only value of 626 points. Cutting the total HP value of the original fight down to account for fleeing enemies, the party needs to do 638 points of damage total in these scenarios combined. They can make up the 12 missing points with some inefficient healing or something, I'm sure.

It's far more likely that the 'melee only' aspect of DS would hurt them far more than spending slots DS would. Which a better argument than 'DS doesn't do enough for its' slot cost.' Simply put, I disagree with your entire analysis of what DS's strengths and weaknesses are, and what does or does not make it balanced or unbalanced. It's clearly a worthwhile-or even necessary-feature for Paladins in combats, based on the HP values you've presented here.

 

[Tshiow]

No idea why anyone would think DS is over powered? Paladins do not have many spell slots to begin with, and these slots can sometimes be better spent on actual spells to buff/heal/remove status effects on party members.

Paladins in my party usually contribute less damage compared to the fighters and rogue in my party unless they smite.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's possible to disagree with somebody without taking somebody elses side.

Actually comparing what we both originally said, this is in disagreement to what you said about it in comparison to Rage and Bladesong. While it's certainly more effective against a single enemy, it's far better than say, Sneak Attack for groups. As a pure damage boost, DS works reasonably well in almost any situation, which is part of it's attractiveness to optimizing players.

Forget about the "whom". The question I'm asking you is, "Are you asserting that Divine Smite is broken, or just that it's not useless?" If the latter then I'll shrug and say, "Yeah, sometimes it's useful to have in your arsenal." There's obviously a huge gap between "not useless" and "brokenly good."

Given that Action Economy is at a premium in a shorter day, casting spells may simply be entirely unfeasible with their Action costs. Furthermore, it's unlikely a Paladin would actually need or even be capable of using all their Slots. There's a party with them, after all, who are also contributing to the damage count.

Paladin spells tend to have terrific action economy costs--the designers are obviously very cognizant that Paladins will want to have their action free for attacking. Compelled Duel, Wrathful Smite, Sanctuary (Devotion), Hunter's Mark (Vengeance), Misty Step (Vengeance) are all bonus action casts. Bless is a regular action cost but could really help out the party in a long-range archery duel with the centaurs (especially because Bless is more valuable when everyone's at disadvantage--it increases the differential), and would also aid saving throws against the Fireballs. +1-4 to attacks and saving throws for three people for a minute looks a lot better than 9 points of radiant damage on one attack.

It's unlikely that the Paladin could use their slots that quickly in the first combat. They can only spend so many slots on DS per round anyways, and their party members are quite likely to deal damage themselves. To put this in perspective, 4 pallies would have a combined DS only value of 626 points. Cutting the total HP value of the original fight down to account for fleeing enemies, the party needs to do 638 points of damage total in these scenarios combined. They can make up the 12 missing points with some inefficient healing or something, I'm sure.

626 points if they all crit on every smite, yes.

Again, here is where it matters whether you are arguing that it's broken, or just not useless. I'm going to argue that smiting in these fights might not be tactically optimal but it probably won't cause you to get TPKed. It's a (barely?) viable tactic, which is great for 5E's design goals because it means you can have a party of four smiting Paladins (Four Jolly Paladins) who still theoretically beat the adventure completely within the Paladin idiom and have a lot of fun in the process.

It's far more likely that the 'melee only' aspect of DS would hurt them far more than spending slots DS would. Which a better argument than 'DS doesn't do enough for its' slot cost.' Simply put, I disagree with your entire analysis of what DS's strengths and weaknesses are, and what does or does not make it balanced or unbalanced. It's clearly a worthwhile-or even necessary-feature for Paladins in combats, based on the HP values you've presented here.

Really? My entire argument about its strengths and weaknesses? And yet we both seem to agree that the melee limitation is the single biggest factor preventing it from being anywhere close to "brokenly good", and that in the dragon/Peryton scenario the Four Jolly Paladins are at a major disadvantage if they try to rely on Divine Smite--honestly they're all better off relying primarily on Find Steed (pre-cast) to hold the range open while they plink away with longbows, even if they're not Dex-specialized Paladins. Divine Smite may be a factor only inasmuch as, if one of the Paladins can grapple a dragon to the ground, the other Paladins can use their burst capability to bring it down quickly.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Its not that clear that the table you refer to is actually 'adjusted' XP per day. The text preceeding the table mentions that the XP in the table is 'earnt' XP, and then the table itself lists it as 'adjusted'

Going by the general rule of 'text trumps table' and the fact that the adjusted XP values dont line up with the 6-8 recomendation (in fact it barely lines up with 3 encounters) there is an argument that the XP in the table is supposed to mean earnt XP.

Someone should really seek a clarification on this.

Are you talking about this text? The text says the same thing as the table.

For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day. Add together the values of all party members to get a total for the party’s adventuring day. This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest.

Adventuring Day XP
Level
Adjusted XP per Day
per Character
1st 300
2nd 600
3rd 1,200
4th 1,700
5th 3,500
6th 4,000
7th 5,000
8th 6,000
9th 7,500
10th 9,000
Level
Adjusted XP per Day
per Character
11th 10,500
12th 11,500
13th 13,500
14th 15,000
15th 18,000
16th 20,000
17th 25,000
18th 27,000
19th 30,000
20th 40,000

You could argue that there is ambiguity there over whether you're supposed to award adjusted XP instead of raw XP, but there is no ambiguity over how to do the budgeting. It says three times that it's supposed to be adjusted XP.

Edit: It also gives the logic behind why you use adjusted XP. If it's supposed to measure when the PCs will "need" to take a long rest, then it's obviously going to key off of difficulty, which scales with adjusted XP more than raw XP because of Lanchester's Square Law/the artillery equation (i.e. combat threat scales as the square of quantity when the entire force can be brought to bear on both sides).

Somewhat stupidly, the adventuring day completely drops all the situational modifiers from the equation, because they only affect encounter difficulty and not adjusted XP. I'm not claiming the calculation is a sophisticated calculation, just that it's not ambiguous what the DMG/Basic Rules are telling you to do.

 

[Flamestrike]

Are you talking about this text? The text says the same thing as the table.

No, it doesnt. From your own quote:

For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day.

​

Im not saying it's supposed to be one way or the other. Im just saying there is a level of ambiguity.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

No, it doesnt. From your own quote:

For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day.

​

Im not saying it's supposed to be one way or the other. Im just saying there is a level of ambiguity.

Dude. You cannot credibly claim that "text trumps table" while ignoring the words in the text.

That fallacy is called Special Pleading.

Anyway, the adventuring day in question has 6000 adjusted XP in it per PC, thus the given two encounters. A DM who follows the methodology Flamestrike is suggesting (raw XP instead of adjusted) could just double the number of encounters, which makes raw XP fit the adventuring day guidelines while putting the adjusted XP at 200%. In that case you'll find that Divine Smite is even worse, and the Four Jolly Paladins will probably die.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

The fact that Divine Smite stacks with other Smite spells is the real issue, IMHO. This gives the Paladin a powerful way to effectively ignore the normal limitation of one spell per turn. Divine Smite may not be a spell, but that's the problem: it does damage equivalent to a spell with no action required, no attack roll, and no restriction on using it with another spell (such as another Smite) which scales with level. So a Paladin can simultaneously burn two spell slots in one action for twice the damage he'd otherwise get.

The fact that he can also wait until he sees the attack roll (look a critical hit!) to decide whether to use that extra spell slot allows a Paladin to break D&D's action economy over his well armored knee.