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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6858254" data-attributes="member: 6787650">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.</blockquote>

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