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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6858347" data-attributes="member: 6787650">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."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.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.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.</blockquote>

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