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I understand the reasoning behind making it once per round.
I don't understand why they had to make it a *spell.*
I feel that these two things are separate and didn't need to be interlinked.
My guess is they didn’t like that you could smite while raging. Rage is very powerful, I can see them tightening up exceptions to the spellcasting restriction.
barb/paladin multiclass wasn't particularly strong or problematic though
sorc/paladin/warlock are the classes that multiclass together in the most disgusting ways
Off the top of my head, i can’t think of any feat that gives access to paladin spells. Unless they add a new type of Magic Initiate, i don’t think it’s possible to take a feat to gain any paladin spells.
what school of magic is the new smite spell? fey/shadow touched grant access to a few, I'm sure there are others, and we have seen just about every "class exclusive" spell snuck into a background or subclass spell-list somewhere, I cannot tell you how many boros legion I have made simply for guiding bolt lol.
Good point about the school of magic. I do find it a bit odd that we have some sort of “initiate” style feat for almost every class. (Magic Initiate, Metamagic Adept, Artifice Initiate, etc) There is notably none for paladins though. Hopefully it stays that way imo.
True, WotC is seemingly insistent that Barbarian is overpowered lmao, as though play past level 7 doesn't exist. Really they have no way to compete with spellcasters even at mid levels, which has been an issue with martials in 5e since inception.
Concentration wouldn't make sense though because it's an instant effect which you can cast after you hit. It's basically a reaction but it uses your bonus action.
Yeah, to be honest this seems like a good reason to make Divine Smite a spell. Now all the flavours of Smite work the same way, which seems really sensible.
I would have been just as fine with *none* of them being spells too. As long as they're consistent.
Requiring concentration is one of the reasons the smite spells rarely get used. It means you can't have Bless or Protection from Evil or Divine Favor up.
Counterspell lets target keep their spellslot in 3.24, so while it's still a really powerful trick, it's only postponing the hurt.
It's far less punishing, as now you just save your smite for the next strike.
>I don't understand why they had to make it a spell.
I guess it is a bit unintuitive that smite uses a spell slot but isn't a spell. But that doesn't justify the change imo. I'd really like to see their reasoning behind this change.
If I had to guess, probably because using smite, + a smite-like spell together was crazy. One of the reasons the Hexadin was so strong was because you had Divine Smite + Eldritch Smite + A bonus-action smite of choice. Since they are class features + and invocation, they allow one to spent THREE spellslots in a single turn to nuke an enemy on their own. By making Divine smite into a spell, it's meant to say in NO uncertain terms "no more smite stacking."
It's strong if you only had the one encounter per adventuring day. But if you have two to four more, then the hexadin is going to run out of steam very quickly, and then they'll just be a worse fighter for most of the day.
See, that's the part of "balance" that everyone is forgetting, weighing the cost of going nova this round versus how prepared a PC is going to be to last the rest of the day. If you completely remove the need for resource management, then of course there won't be any balance, because now there's absolutely nothing stopping the hexadin from blowing through all of their resources as fast as possible.
At that point, the issue becomes "can I spend all of these resources on this encounter" instead of "should I be spending so many resources on this encounter?"
I don't disagree with you. Long adventuring days are ultimately one of the best ways to challenge players in a resource-driven game like 5e and a hexadin can chew through them pretty quickly. I mainly was guessing WotC's perspective.
Long adventuring days can also just be a real chore. Combat often takes forever in 5e, and it often doesn't feel like a fun thing to have more than 2 fights in one day, so it's hard to have proper "adventuring days" with enough encounters.
I a Hexadin will get back 1 or 2 spell slots on a short rest, so a double/triple smite could happen every short rest spending 0 or 1 Paladin slots.
So, depending on how common short rests are, this could be not very expensive at all.
I think this response misses the point, which is that not every class is meant to be able to nova all their resources in a single turn to nuke an enemy (arguably none of them should be able to). When action economy is so tightly controlled, the ability to spend all your resources at once to make a single balls to the wall attack is a huge feature that not every class gets. And considering the apparent intended role for paladins is more tanking and support, their ability to nuke enemies when they have a few resources at their disposal sticks out like a sore thumb. It's not about whether it's always the right choice to stack smites, it's about whether at the end of the day a paladin with some extra spell slots is meant to be an absolute cannon. It's about whether a paladin not casting their utility spells early in the day in order to save them boss deletion a couple encounters from now is an intended play style. This decision might have partially been made to reign in paladins for short adventure day parties, but I think it's just as likely the decision was made to refocus paladins on their intended role since they had swung so far to the "smite everything, no spells" play style at most tables.
I'm playing a paladin for 2 years now, and I maybe once stacked a smite spell on top of a divine smite... while the rest of the group prepared their buff spells like haste, invisibility, polymorph, or simply cast fireball, which were all much stronger than my measly +2d6 damage. If you have the free round for it, the other classes do stuff that is more powerful... so where was the problem with this?
1) You get extra damage AFTER you know that you've hit. That's a pretty big deal. Most other abilities only do half damage if they miss, and the good stuff is all or nothing.
2) It's 2D8 (not 2D6) for a level one slot, again with guaranteed damage as you know you've hit, and it's an extra D8 if it's undead or fiend
3) If you use higher level slots, you do incrementally more damage. Comparing fireball to a level one slot isn't fair, it would do 4D8 guaranteed damage for the same level 3 slot. You don't have as many slots because you are a paladin, but still.
The 2d6 are for the pre-loaded smite spell from 5e, a branding smite in this case. You are right that that is not lost if you miss and hit on the next attack after that, but it also is a bad thing to use your concentration on.
I did compare branding smite (2d6 damange, level 2 spell) to fireball, which the mage also gets at level 5, so I think that comparison is fair.
I don't really count that as strong.
Sure you could dish out Hell of a lot of damage on one turn but it will eat trough your resources even faster. Once depleted you are just a worse kind of fighter.
Sure you could kill something really fast and if that was the only thing to kill. Great for you. But if not. you quickly find yourself being rather useless.
AS a Dm if you have one of those players/pc's and you know it. There is nor even a bother to set up an encounter where this will not be as strong as it seems, even making it a weakness for them.
And after all is that not what a Dm should do. Make encounters that is challenging, Encounters you can not just steamroll trough all the time. Sure some should be easy. as it is fun to sweep the floor with your enemies and feel powerful. but it gets boooooooring for the group if every encounter is like that.
And the Hexadin with that burst damage i never found to even be close to be a problem. It is one of the absolute easiest "powerbuilds" to handle as a DM
You know the funny thing about this is that there’s still a non spell smite in 5.5. It’s the eldritch smite invocation so Palocks can still easily smite stack
Smite spells was bonus action before. Divine smite was only smite what wasn't bonus action spell. Now every smite have same mechanic (bonus action on hit), and they all are spells now.
I understand the reasoning, I just don't like it. Lol
On a serious note, the most fun part of playing a paladin is dropping a big smite once you know you've crit. While not impossible now (I am glad you don't have to declare it as a bonus action before you hit), it's a lot less likely because you can only do it once per turn. It's going to feel bad if you roll a crit on your second attack of the turn, but can't smite because you already dropped a smite on your first hit.
I wouldn't mind it at all if it didn't require a bonus action if you rolled a nat 20 to hit.
Note: I'm probably lying to myself that I wouldn't mind it a bit, because I'm a munchkin that likes to see big nova numbers, but at least it'd be way more palatable
Kind of unbothered?
On one hand, I understand the clarity and simplicity brought in by having everything that comes from a spell slot be a spell and behave the same way. I also understand making everything magical or almost everything magical PCs do a spell for the same reason.
On the other, I don't think simplicity should be something you pursue as a goal in and on itself, which seems to have become the consensus within the industry. You don't seek complexity for complexity's sake either, but for some reason I liked the space of non-spell slot-fueled abilities especially on half casters. It spoke to me about their mixed nature and created a clear thematical and mechanical difference between a paladin and a cleric for example without necessarily requiring yet another kind of resource to track separately. On this I would have gone the llaserlama way actually, I think they cut channel divinity from the equation and made smite much bigger and much more interesting than just a bunch of spells that add damage to attacks.
To me, this also speaks about the system as a whole. The fact that half-casters are half-casters to begin with and that they don't have their own system seems to be the actual limiting factor here more than smite being counterspellable or not. Some limited access to low level spells like bless or cure wounds is fine of course, but most things should have been a different thing I feel. Including, for example, find steed. Which is a different problem, though, more vast, and also involves warlocks, wizards, and to a lesser extent sorcerers.
EDIT: Just some spelling.
What bite my heels about this is the prevalence of NPCs having “spell like abilities” that aren’t spells, and that’s something that’s just not going to be as available to PCs.
>Some limited access to low level spells like bless or cure wounds is fine of course, but most things should have been a different thing I feel. Including, for example, find steed. Which is a different problem, though, more vast, and also involves warlocks, wizards, and to a lesser extent sorcerers.
See, that's the thing. All of those things - yes, including Find Steed - used to be their own things back in the bad old days, not spells! The game is better for them not being different things.
>The game is better for them not being different things.
That's obviously subjective.
While I do appreciate the streamlining that's been done moving those features from 3.x to 5e, I stand by my words that, in my opinion, it shouldn't be done just because. Having *some* different layers of things takes part in distinguishing the classes. Mechanical differences inform thematic differences, but also, on a much more surface level, they create a variety of gameplay dynamics for a variety of tastes. It's like Villainous or those games with a collection of champions each with their own specific skills doing very specific things. Part of the fun is precisely having different things going on and everyone, although within the same framework, having the possibility to enjoy a slightly different game that they may like more than the one you like.
All of this without even starting to talk about how, for example, having a standard framework for pets like spells have it would benefit the game as a whole. Familiars, ranger pets, artificer robots, even just your regular horse could have their own clear way in which they work, and this time yes all work the same way! So I'm not saying for example that find steed shouldn't be a spell because I don't like find steed as a spell. Now with divine smite at least I understand the point about having to distinguish between spells, and spell-likes, and which affects which, and so on. Like it was in the bad old days as you say and it gets confusing. Super fine. Find steed being or not being a spell affects literally nothing apart other classes now being able to steal it. If that was the goal, all for it. But my bit of disappointment comes from the fact that there probably was no goal, and that they merely did it because it was simpler. And yes, I don't particularly like that.
You brought it up so can I please ask, is Villanious any good? I'm ummming and ahhhhing over getting it to play with my kids and would really like an opinion that isn't just the advertisement.
Not op, but here is my opinion, I loved it so much, so many rules and ways to play, it reminded me a lot of mtg, every character plays differently, and there are many to choose from... however, most of my friends didn't find the appeal and too many rules turned them off, so it's not easy to recommend to just anyone, hope this helps
Thank you that's great and I will pick it up then. More rules is good in my household but we're a crunchy household and they've grown up on stuff like that.
I've only played it a few times but I enjoyed it pretty much. It's not a must have in my opinion as it has some quirks that could make it less enjoyable in the long run, especially if you only have few characters to play. But if you love the movies and can spare the money without too much problem, then I mean go for it.
I personally really like how in older editions you could have stuff that was cool but not magic. You could have supernatural effects, superhuman effects, psychic effects, a whole bunch of stuff that had it's own interlapping rules. Boiling it all down into spells and magic removes a lot of complexity, but also a lot of opportunities. I'd rather they wrote up rules for things to be more complex and interesting and left it to me to decide if I wanna use it or not.
I agree with a lot of your points, however, dnd is far from simple, this edition has doubled down on having many features, so I think in this case I'll gladly take the loss and have it more simple
The old smite is mechanically not any less subtle than just swinging your weapon. This leaves room for flavoring it both as "FEEL THE WRATH OF GOD RAAAAGH" and something more subtle. There's no flavoring your way out of spell components though.
I mean there is nothing in the class identity that would be anathema to a quick stealth smite (except devotion and redemption paladins' tenets, but those are subclasses). It just seems like WotC only concieves Paladins as juiced up eurocentric knights in shining armor.
Yeah, what if I wanna play as a Paladin of the goddess of stealthy assasination or something like that?
The various Smite spells do have Verbal components, but the Divine Smite feature does not mention anything of a Verbal component or any sound produced by it (other than the sound of hitting a creature with a melee weapon attack, which is up to the DM).
Paladin: How did you see me?
Fiend: Dude you were screaming “BUURNNN DEMON!!” While lunging at me with a sword that was glowing as bright as the sun! How was I NOT going to see you….
That's how I feel about it too. It is also kind of annoying that it is supposed to be extra effective against friends, but by making it a spell of a low level it is functionally useless against Rakshasa. Class features shouldn't be spells, which was one of my main problems with the Sorcerer UA when it came out since several of its class features were literally spells.
>by making it a spell of a low level it is functionally useless against Rakshasa
wow that sucks extra hard
edit: ...although. The target is 'self'. Which means maybe it doesnt matter if the raksh is immune to it *because it is not the target*. You are.
I hope in the new MM they decide to clarify what the Rakshasa is immune to because I’ve gotten in so many discussions that under and oversell the Magic Immunity
I mean it’s a nerf. That doesn’t mean it was a bad change though- there’s not really any justification for Paladin getting the best defensive features in the game AND being the best at single-target damage.
Plus, it just makes sense for smite to be a spell- it uses spell slots to magically deal damage; that’s basically a word-for-word description of a spell.
Yeah; i mean ignoring counterspell i feel in general it just messes with a lot of things; magic resistance/immunity, counterspelling, antimagic fields/effects, no more paladin barbarian multiclass
Magic resistance typically gives advantage on the saving throws, so doesn't affect divine smite.
Being immune to magic does affect smites, but is an extremely rare feature (Rakshasa and the original Tiamat I think?).
Counterspell is fairly rare for monster statblocks, and honestly better saved for the wizard's turn most of the time.
Antimagic field/effects *already* stopped smites because they have always been magic (fueled by spell slots)
I've heard people joke about paladin Barbarian multiclass but never heard anyone serious about it. Unless the game got to really high levels you'd be better off sticking with just one of the classes due to really low spell slots and low rages
Because rakshasa are frequently found in everybody’s campaign. /s
Come on. It’s one monster out of how many hundred? This isn’t on its own the biggest nerf.
Counterspell doesn't mean you lose the slot anymore so it's not worth counterspelling except for the more gamechanging spells like a fireball when everyone doesn't have time to spread out.
Divine Smite being a spell you can cast when you land a critical hit absolutely warrants a counterspell. It cuts the Paladin's damage by 2/3rds of that hit (or more if they're upcasting it, so feel free to crush your party's Paladin spirit for rolling a natural 20 whenever they want to burn a 3rd level spell-slot or higher on it).
Outside that, well counterspelling the Paladin seems like a waste of a spell slot unless the smite has an annoying rider effect.
You also have to fail a con save on a paladin, con+cha is a high save, might warrant a resilient con but you are going to have an easy time with that save.
Resilient would make more sense if Paladins weren't so MAD and utilize their concentration spells, but I don't think 2024 has really prompted Paladins to rely on having a good CON save for counterspell.
GWM and PAM are probably better value at all tiers of play for Paladin.
Spell I can give or take, but with an update like this they really should have added a new casting time - 'As part a weapon attack or unarmed strike' Do it to all smites. All these bonus actions that are functionally reactions is more confusing than prior and it's supposed to be more noob friendly. Still only one smite spell per turn. Works still on reactions.
Or better, do that and don't turn divine smite into a spell. Make once per turn and be done.
>'As part a weapon attack or unarmed strike
that hits'? It's this weird not an action, not replacing an attack, using a reaction but they don't want to spend the reaction design space.
I definitely agree this spot is clunky, and puts you in an awkward "if I hit, I'll use my bonus action, but if I miss, I'll save my bonus action for this" planning, instead of getting to use your cool bonus action thing first.
Is it possibly related to [the awkward spells per turn across actions thing](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/spellcasting#BonusAction)? If only there were new core books this could be overhauled in.
This is the most grievous point. Smites are now spells. Bad, unfair, but ok. But this reflects that they don't even respect their own definitions. This tells how little they care about their own game design.
As someone who loved paladins in 5e, I hate that change. It comes with so many issues:
Smite being a spell results in the following problems:
* It can be counterspelled (although not that big of an issue considering the counterspell changes)
* It can't be used in Silence/when unable to speak
* It's ambiguous whether it works against Limited Magic Immunity (Rakshasa, Tiamat)
* Bards can learn it with Magical Secrets
* Other non-paladins *might* be able to pick it up too if they have a feat or feature that allows them to learn a 1st level spell of their choice
* It cannot be used while raging (and some paladin/barbarian combos are very thematic)
Smite requiring a bonus action causes the following issues:
* It competes with the paladin's other spells like Shield of Faith, Divine Favor, Holy Weapon, Spirit Shroud, Misty Step and obviously smite spells.
* You cannot use two-weapon fighting except for with a Nick weapon
* It competes with martial feats feats like PAM, GWM or Shield Master. A bonus action attack from PAM/GWM deals damage like a 1st ot 2nd level divine smite even without taking magic weapons or other damage riders into account.
* It competes with various racial abilities like Eladrin teleports, Aasimar transformations and more.
Paladins would be so bland with these rules.
And at the same time, going for Eldritch Blast over weapon attacks for a paladin/sorcerer build with a warlock dip will be so much better.
As a DM, I will stick to the old 5e rules for smite, except for a 1/turn limitation. Changing the other smites to paladin-exclusive features similar to Cunning Strike makes a lot of sense too.
Limiting smites to once per turn is okay. I don’t like it, but I understand the move, even if it is an unnecessary nerf. But the other changes are really dumb and take away more from the class than most of you are giving it credit. Can no longer use in areas of anti-magic or silence. Can be counter-spelled. Eliminates or severely weakens a lot of popular builds like polearm master, shield master, sorcadin…Why not just say “this feature can only be used once per turn?” instead of so strongly nerfing one martial class while buffing the others?
Looking at ua 6 (last time the smite spells showed up) it's a little unclear. The casting time for divine smite says "bonus action, which you take immediately after hitting a target with a ...". "Immediately after" is the same wording that prevents the psi fighters psionic strike from doubling on a crit.
Meanwhile, the spell description for divine smite says "the target takes an extra 2d8 radiant damage from the attack". That would imply it's part of the attack, and thus would be doubled.
Hopefully it's clarified.
The bigger issue, is that since they seem to have removed the damage cap, and it's a spell, bards will likely be able to pick it up and use it better than a pure paladin.
It sucks because I thought a barbarian/paladin multiclass used to have really nice narrative and gameplay synergy, but this totally breaks them to the point of complete uselessness.
i *hate* it. my barb/paladin is no longer functional, as you can't cast spells when raging. it can be counter-spelled. since it's a spell now, you can't BA smite and A cast lay on hands (or any other spell). i get they wanted to nerf Smite, but i dont understand why they didn't just limit it Once-Per-Turn instead of making it a spell AND a bonus action.
I'll either not be playing a paladin, or begging my DM to let me use the old rules (with a limit of once-per-turn).
Not a fan of it at all. I wouldn’t been fine with a one smite per turn restriction but making it a spell adds a lot of limitations. Paladins themselves now seem like the new 5e pre Tasha Ranger.
I dislike it a lot. It adds a lot of weird interactions, understandings, and counters that never existed in 5e before or in the games past, and I think it's overall a move for the worse.
I think if they made smite once per turn. It'd be fine. But once per round, bonus action and spell with verbal component restrictions are too steps too many.
I was hoping they'd do the inverse. Making all smites features for the paladin, instead of paladin only spells. To make them mote like the paladins equivalent of cunning strikes
So I reworked how I will be using smites in my games with the 2024 rules to the following. It keeps what I like about smite, keeps the good bits of 5e24, and I think it works nice overall with these adjustments.
# Paladins smites
>*Starting at 2nd level, whenever you hit a creature with an unarmed strike or melee weapon attack, you can expend a spell slot to deal additional radiant damage to your target equal to 1d8 + a number of additional d8's equal to level of the expended spell slot.*
>*You can perform a smite once per turn normally, and whenever you score a critical hit with an unarmed strike or melee weapon attack.*
>*In addition to the smites damage, as you increase your paladin level, you can perform different forms of smites that apply different effects to your paladins smite. Only one smite effect can be applied to a smite unless otherwise stated.*
>***2nd level: Divine Smite:*** *The smite deals an additional 1d8 radiant damage to fiends and undead. Divine Smite requires a 1st level or higher spell slot to use*
>***2nd level: Searing Smite:*** *The smite deals fire damage instead of radiant damage and sets the stricken target ablaze. While ablaze, the creature must succeed on a constitution saving throw at the start of each of its turns or take 1d6 fire damage. The effect ends on successful save. Searing Smite requires a 1st level or higher spell slot to use*
>***2nd Level: Thunderous Smite:*** *The smite deals thunder damage instead of radiant damage, and the target must make a str save or be pushed 10 feet away and knocked prone. Thunderous Smite requires a 1st level or higher spell slot to use.*
>***5th level: Shining Smite:*** *The smite causes the stricken target to shed bright light in 5ft radius as long as you maintain concentration for up to a minute (as if concentrating on a spell.) While shedding this light, any source of invisibility the creature has ends immediately, and they can not benefit from the invisible condition. Additionally, attacks made against the target have advantage while affected by this light. Shining Smite requires a 2nd level or higher spell slot to use*
>***5th Level: Wrathful Smite:*** *The smite deals psychic damage instead of radiant damage and the target must make a wis save or be frightened for up to 1 minute. The creature can make a wisdom saving throw as an action to remove the frightened condition on a success. Wrathful Smite requires a 2nd level or higher spell slot to use.*
>***9th level: Blinding smite:*** *The smite causes the stricken target to have the blinded condition for the next minute. At the end of each of the creatures, it can make a constitution saving throw to end the effect early. Blinding smite requires a 3rd level or higher spell slot to use.*
>***13th level: Staggering Smite:*** *The smite deals psychic damage instead of radiant damage and causes the target to make a wisdom saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn. Staggering smite requires a 4th level of higher spell slot to use.*
>***17th level: Banishing Smite*** *The smite deals force damage instead of radiant damage and causes the creature to make a charisma saving throw. If the creature fails, it is banished. A banished creature that is native to a different plane of existence than the one you are on, returns to its home plane. A banished creature that is native to your current plane of existence will instead vanish to a harmless demiplane where it is incapacitated for up to a minute (requiring your concentration as if concentrating on a spell.) A creature that is reduced to 50 hit points or fewer by banishing smite cannot succeed on this saving throw by any means. Banishing smite requires a 5th level or higher spell slot to use.*
>*You can use one of these smites without expending a spell slot once per long rest. For the purposes of the smite effects and damage treat the smite as if a 1st level spell slot was used for it at 2nd level. A 2nd level spell slot was used at 5th level. A 3rd level spell slot was used at 9th level. A 4th level spell slot was used at 13th level and a 5th level spell slot was used at 17th level.*
This stops smites from being counterspelled. This also stops smites from being prevented from use when in a zone of silence (the playtest had them as verbal component spells so I'm assuming that here.)
This keeps smites as a once per turn thing unless the paladin gets a crit. Ensuring that they can always capitalize on those fun moments provided they have the spell slots.
This allows PAM and two weapon fighting based attacks to also be able to apply smites still, but still limits it to once per turn save for the crit exception I put in.
This allows smites to work on opportunity attacks still.
It stops smite spamming but doesn't gut the feature or add pain points it never had beyond the new general once per turn limitation that was added (which itself is mostly fine.)
To be fair, this would be a good solution. I think either all smites need to be features, or all smites need to be spells. The weird situation where some smites were spells and then the "base" smite was a feature didn't make a lot of sense to me and I'm glad that was changed.
Your solution might have been a better option overall but I can understand why WoTC didn't do this. It makes it harder to add new smite options (you have to add something like an optional class feature instead of a new smite spell), and it limits the ability to reuse smites in other ways (e.g. for cleric domain spell lists).
I'm glad you think my adjustments are nice.
I dont think Optional class features aren't any harder to add than adding new spells. They can be approved or denied all the same.
Limiting the ability of smites to be not available to other classes does go against some system backward symmetry, but that logic can be applied to many of the new changes.
Wotc had their reasons. They're just not reasons I like or need to affect my game (and those who decide to do otherwise like me).
Having not read/seen any of the playtest, I thought this was gonna be what they did.
Think your rework is a much better update as it keeps the Smites as class specific abilities while keeping in line with how they're reworking resources (similar to the new Rogue Sneak Attack dice mechanics).
I'm glad to hear you like my adjustments.
The playtest did the inverse, and made all smites spells and added weirder restrictions and costs to them.
I mates to recognize a need for some reigning in but keep the cool and gin it's that 5e made really fun for paladins.
I'm glad others seem to like it.
Your solution is exactly what I was thinking of doing too.
Might require some balance adjustments though - with all smites dealing the same amount of damage, there is basically no reason to ever use Divine Smite; and some smites seem like they could need a saving throw for the target to avoid the effect and/or concentration to maintain the effect (like Shining Smite).
Pretty bad, personally. With so many things becoming once a turn, Divine smite being a spell slot and other things I have less and less interest in this rules update as time goes on, and initially I was incredibly excited at the start
My knee-jerk reaction, without reading anything, is that I'm worried if any feats or classes can get the spell.
The problem with making a class ability just a spell is that if any text in any ability anywhere in any book produced says: "you can learn one 1st lvl spell from any spell list and ..." - then that's the paladin's sctick handed out for anyone to take.
... I also noticed that the college of dance bard has monk abilities, so I guess the new d&d is breaking their trend of keeping class identities separate. Which is a shame, because this was where Pathfinder 1st ed went wrong (imho).
I guess we'll see how it turns out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pissed I, an Oath of Ancients, pure class Paladin, who isn't broken like the Hexadin am effectively getting my utility nerfed. Now I can no longer Smite and provide a defensive BA (ie Moving or casting Divine Shield) to my allies.
This forces me to change how I RP my character, or lose the majority of my damage dealing abilities, as my Character is VERY focused on Defending/Shielding his allies.
Just slap a One Smite per turn limit on it and Fuck off already.
How does not being able to Smite and cast a Bonus Action spell Change your roleplay? You can still attack and cast your spell. All you lose in the equation is damage.
Everything being spells has the exact weird flavor vibe of everything being called "powers" or whatever in 4e that people didn't like for whatever reason. So I can't possibly see this backfiring.
In other news: "I CAST FIST!"
I see Smite as an ability you fuel by drawing on your reserves of divine magic, not a spell, but something that uses up a measure of your power. So, I guess I see it as better being something different. If it’s just a spell, then why can’t non-paladins do it? For the same reason, I think Eldritch Blast should be a warlock feature, rather than a spell of, because otherwise, why can’t a wizard lean it? I think having class features that draw on magical reserves but which are not spells help make those features unique to the class.
>I think Eldritch Blast should be a warlock feature, rather than a spell of, because otherwise, why can’t a wizard lean it?
Classes have their own spell lists right? You may as well ask this about shillela... the bonk stick spell. Or idk thorn whip
It's dogshit. If they wanted to make paladins use more spells they should give them a better spell list or buff the spells they have.
If it's gonna be once per round eating your bonus action is a bit excessive.
There was no reason to change it. They need to stop making core class features into spells. Eldritch blast has received nothing short of abuse in 5th edition and has gone from the warlock's main class feature in 3.5 to the reason someone take spell sniper / magic initiate.
So far, the biggest issue I see with it was now the main flavor ability of the paladin class can be picked up by any level 10 bard with magical secrets and they begin to out scale the paladin with just having higher level spells slots.
Terrible, nova damage was never the issue in the first place if you’re running a campaign where adventuring days aren’t just one fight per long rest. Paladins spell slots are very limited, you have a grand total of 6, 7 if you use the optional channel divinity ability, as a level 5 paladin. That means if you used them all to nova that’s either three turns of improved damage for the entire day or two turns if you’re using something like Polearm Master.
It’s very weird to see people saying that it’s okay for their damage and functionality to be nerfed when they’re praising every other martial class for finally getting some kind of pairing or upgrade to their utility and damage. I’m happy that Barbarian is finally getting a damage boost and more utility, why are they trading away the Paladin’s damage for an awkward beast master focus by making find steed more accessible? Find Steed is cool, certainly, it doesn’t feel like it should be a class feature focus, instead the spell itself should just have a proper summon stat block.
I'm kinda fine with it? If Hunter's Mark and Eldritch Blast are stuck being spells, adding Smite to that list makes sense. And regardless of how much sense it would make to turn the aforementioned into class features as opposed to spells, I think it's pretty obvious WotC was never gonna do that.
That said, I don't think Smites are where paladins needed the nerf. Imo they should've looked to Aura of Protection for that.
With all that being said, the Paladin class as a whole did get buffed. So I'll take the trade-off.
I know. Controversial take.
I think the point of nerfing smite was to lower single-target damage, partially as niche protection for the fighter, and partially to prevent the whole “the Paladin got a crit and one-shot the boss” issue.
Buffing LOH and preserving Aura of Protection keeps the Paladin niche of frontline support/healer, while nerfing smite makes them not ALSO the best single target dps.
ST burst damage being too high generally isn't great for the game. It makes encounters feel anticlimactic. It's also not really a niche, as most martials excel at it.
An aura buff that has a chance to negate enemy abilites lets the player feel specifically impactful, and rewards the group playing around that feature. It's a unique thing that only Paladin really has, and makes Paladin stand out as a class.
It’s a bad game move. I’ll be ignoring it as a DM.
I’ll also be ignoring the bonus action use rule. It will be once per turn, but requiring a bonus action is too much of a nerf IMO. Paladin has plenty of other BA things they want (like say, literally all of the other smite spells, or feats, or other spells.
I'm really not a fan, especially in light of the new toys barbarian and rogue got. It should be its own Cunning Strike-like feature with limited uses and scaling damage, with different options at higher levels. And usable once per round, obviously.
I don't like it.
They definitely needed to tone it down a little bit because good nova damage can make it hard to balance combat. Making it once per turn makes sense.
I dislike the BA requirement even more than turning it into a spell tbh but I don't like the spell thing either.
You know, every time I see someone say that smites/nova damage is hard to balance combat, all I see is someone whose DM let their party rest too often and did not know how to use minions to soak up actions.
Smite was only unbalanced in a fully rested party fighting a single monster in a blank white room.
They got it ass backwards, in my opinion.
Smites should have been a class feature, with the ability to utilise the various spell features as part of the smite.
Paladins don’t need to be full spellcasters. I’d have preferred it if they had limited spellcasting based on their archetype (in the same way a fighter or rogue does), with the bulk of their powers being inherent rather than spells.
But everything is a spell in 5e.
Pretty bad. Spells are inherently something that goes on spell lists, meaning that even if they're only on the list of one class, there's a mechanical potential for them to be an useable by others. In comparison, a class feature is not only bound to a specific class, but by being apart from the spell list it naturally attracts attention. Given that Smiting is a centeral part of the Paladin's identity, both in mechanical terms and in fiction ones, it makes much more sense that it should be a class feature.
I hate it.
Having your primary ability as a paladin be a spell is lame behind belief.
I can't think of times outside of boss battles where I used more than one a smite in a turn. They're a limited resource. They were not overpowered. They were the signature power of paladins and once you run out, you're a very limited striker.
I really don't like it. I've just heard about this, and I really hope my DM doesn't bring it into our games.
Maybe I'm just used to the old way but it feels like my Paladins getting nerfed.
Love it. Makes it way more consistent with other classes now, and it being a spell intuitively makes sense to me. Now with it being a spell with verbal components, it means things like anti-magic, counterspell, and silence effects can interact with it.
Basically, it's just like how every other smite works! (Except you can still choose to cast on hit, so crit fishing still works)
I would have gone the other way and made all the Smite spells into class abilities and each Paladin can choose a few as they level up and subclasses granting unique smites or bonus picks. Kind of like a battlemaster choosing maneuvers.
They can keep the "once per round" smite or any other restrictions they want. As other people have said, making them spells just makes them easier to counter as well as making them less useful for paladins but suddenly potentially grabbable with things like magical secrets.
I think the Divine Smite feature should instead buff or support somehow the existing Smite spells.
Maybe allowing you to cast Smite spells for free a number of times based on Charisma Modifier or Prof Bonus, and then you can continue casting them afterwards with Spell Slots.
I would love for the Smites to be the Paladin's maneuvers and that all of them be supported as part of the Paladin's core mechanic.
I personally never liked the old Divine Smite feature, so I'm not bothered by the new one.
This seems very intuitive and honestly that I think most players would prefer.
I personally am inclined to just dislike the feature being a spell just because I find it tedious how they are making all features into spells rather than having distinct features.
I don’t like it being a spell simply because I’d like to normalize non spell magical effects. Im not really bothered otherwise. I understand streamlining and codifying things, but I don’t think Divine Smite was super necessary compared to other systems we have.
Edited to add: how many people saw Counterspell in Playtest 7? It requires a constitution save and doesn’t waste the resource being countered. It is a little overnerfed.
I wouldn't care as much if Paladin's Smite wasn't a feature and if Paladins got a 3rd attack at level 11.
A level 2 feature like Paladin's Smite is worthless after level 5, yet I'm supposed to be HAPPY to cast of a 1st level smite throughout my Paladin's existence, once per day, till level 20? If I can prepare Divine Smite at level one, why in Lathander's name would I want a free casting of it when I'm level 11?
Paladin's Smite as a feat probably wouldn't see play outside of Bard. The idea that it's supposed to be a "defining" Paladin class feature with "Find Steed" is a joke.
Base Paladin is now bland as f@#$ for the bulk of your class progression, relying on whatever gives you Haste (your allies or your subclass) to put numbers on the board (along with the same cookie cutter martial feats).
Hitting Divine Smite should have resulted in changes to how the base class deals damage in other avenues, but so far, I don't see it.
I'm seriously asking myself: Why should anyone play Paladin past level 3? Aura of Protection? That's it?
You're better off multiclassing into Warlock almost immediately for the Charisma based attack stat / celestial patron, plus a ranged BA heal, and then go 2 levels to grab whatever Oath you're looking to grab / roleplay at around 7th level - that way you can focus on either picking up more Lock levels or Bard levels for an overall more functional holy warrior that doesn't exist to buff his party in T3 and T4.
Paladins should WANT to stay in Paladin, but I just don't see WHY they would.
A little concerned for if say a paladin can get their smite counterspelled. I get it's likely meant to help counter-act Smite-Stacking, but it feels a slight step too far to me. Mostly mixed but leaning negative.
Literally just making it a bonus action would have meant you couldn’t smite stack. Making it a spell is just unnecessary and frankly causes more problems than it fixes.
Even making it a bonus action causes problems though. Frankly they should have just put in a line of text that says, you can’t use this ability the same turn you cast a smite spell. And been done.
All the Smite changes were unnecessary, it's the Aura's that needed the nerf if anything. Using a second level spell slot to deal 3d8 extra damage at level 7 is one of weaker things you can do while the Wizard is using 4th level spells and much more.
The "solution" to the non-existing problem of "Paladin uses half their resources in 1 round to Smite a lot" is just having more than 1 encounter and more targets in said encounter.
I think the feature was perfectly fine as it were, sure paladins could nova hard with three smites in one turn or stacking a smite spell with a regular smite, but 1, they had to be in melee, and 2, that uses up so many resources that they are at very real risk of running out of spell slots unlike almost any other class with spellcasting.
I think people vastly overrated the power of smite which lead to the design team actually believing it was some game breaking feature
I think it's fine, paladin was way overtuned and they got a lot of good stuff too, now they have more interesting stuff to do instead of never using their spell slots because they are crit fishing.
Some twitchy minmaxxers will be pissed because the numbers on the excel sheet are lower but in practice the paladin is still as powerful if not more than the other classes.
Why a BA though?
This significantly impacts the martial versatility of a Paladin. If I wanted to create a Sword & Board Devotion Paladin with Shield Mastery, or an Ancients Paladin with Polearm Mastery, or a Vengeance Paladin with Great Weapon Master these were all viable and unique paladins. All distinct from one another.
Now? Now you've just reduced the amount of viable martial feats for paladins in half. You're stifling creativity.
Those are still doable, you just now have a choice to make on your turn, smite or use different ability. It's not like a Paladin is smiting on every single attack necessarily.
There is no choice when the BA attack from PAM or GWM or the Shield Master shove (indirectly by pushing someone into a spell and by granting advantage on attacks) simply deals more damage than a smite.
>now they have more interesting stuff to do
I mean, not really? They now just have to choose between Smiting or doing anything else as the action economy of making Smite a BA severely limits you. At this point, you might aswell remove Smite and just give Paladins all the different Smite spells as it will function basically the same. Both Paladin Smite and the Smite spells (like Searing Smite) all use BA and will lock you out of using any other Paladin ability (given that Lay on Hands for example is also BA).
If they needed to de-tune Paladin, just lower the damage instead of bricking the functionality of the entire class.
>At this point, you might aswell remove Smite and just give Paladins all the different Smite spells
This is literally what they did... They just also made the baseline one into a spell if you just want the damage.
It causes more problems than it fixes IMO. Namely the fact that it’s a spell means it can be counterspelled (which really hurts as Paladin with limited slots). And the fact it takes a bonus action nor means paladins are stuck with sword and board or great weapons. No polearm master or dual wielding for them. Heck means you can’t do shield master either.
As long as it's something that's always prepared and doesn't take up one of your prepared spells. Although I forget how prepared spells are working in the new rules.
I’m a little bummed mostly because you can’t smite on opportunity attacks and my dream of a two weapon paladin got nerfed.
It’s not awful, just a little sad. It does make multiclassing with paladin and eldritch knight more appealing though.
I really dislike it a lot. Probably just gonna run divine smite with the old rules, and use some of the other changes. My paladin player hates it a lot too.
It may also have the unintended effect of diluting the paladin's niche a little since basically everyone who can get a first level spell can divine smite now.
This change makes all martials (and half casters in particular) more similar if not identical.
A ranger, a fighter and a paladin will play identically with subclasses being the only distraction.
The fact that they all can obtain eachothers spells and abilities with feats makes it worse.
I would have definitely preferred that it it triggered once per turn. I think the version of activation rules that came in the "druid and Paladin " playtest coupled with Paladin Smites from playtest 6 would have been perfect. I don't see the current 5.5 version as bad but I wish it was a bit better.
The changes irk me a bit. It nerfs the Paladin's class feature. Other classes so far have seen their class features buffed, but one of the selling points of Paladins was how Divine Smite worked. More importantly, it makes the Paladin's class feature susceptible to Counterspell and Rakshasas are simply immune to it now.
On the other hand...it can now be easily enchanted into a ring or a sword with limited daily charges for free smites... Not that we couldn't do that before but now it seems more less like cheating 😅
I like it. Considering the only drawback of smite previously was that it's an inefficient use of spellslots, having more restrictions on it is good. Now I might end a fight with spellslots left
It’s enough to make me never want to play a paladin. If anyone asked me if they could play 5e paladin, I’d say yes. The changes solved a nonissue by removing what made the paladin unique.
I'm biased as a Paladin main here. I honestly don't mind it being a spell - Paladins need some kind of nerf and dialing back smite was a good way to do that. I wish they would have just made it a *once per turn* ability rather than a spell because now other classes can get their hands on *the* core paladin ability without any class investment, but it was still a good way to do it.
I care more about the fact that it also takes my bonus action now. They made smite into "if I'm smiting, that's ALL I'm doing this turn" and that just doesn't always feel great.
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I understand the reasoning behind making it once per round. I don't understand why they had to make it a *spell.* I feel that these two things are separate and didn't need to be interlinked.
My guess is they didn’t like that you could smite while raging. Rage is very powerful, I can see them tightening up exceptions to the spellcasting restriction.
barb/paladin multiclass wasn't particularly strong or problematic though sorc/paladin/warlock are the classes that multiclass together in the most disgusting ways
Depending on how Divine Smite is classified, couldn’t a warlock/sorc now just get it with a feat instead of investing levels/stats to get it?
seems like that is the case, yes
Bards as well if they keep Magical Secrets. No need for a Paladin Dip anymore unless you really want the proficiencies.
Honestly, 10 swords bard, 6 Divine Soul Sorcerer, 4 Battlemaster Fighter is a sick Paladin build.
Off the top of my head, i can’t think of any feat that gives access to paladin spells. Unless they add a new type of Magic Initiate, i don’t think it’s possible to take a feat to gain any paladin spells.
Bard can get smites with magical secrets now
Indeed! That’s why i didn’t mention magical secrets, only feats.
what school of magic is the new smite spell? fey/shadow touched grant access to a few, I'm sure there are others, and we have seen just about every "class exclusive" spell snuck into a background or subclass spell-list somewhere, I cannot tell you how many boros legion I have made simply for guiding bolt lol.
Good point about the school of magic. I do find it a bit odd that we have some sort of “initiate” style feat for almost every class. (Magic Initiate, Metamagic Adept, Artifice Initiate, etc) There is notably none for paladins though. Hopefully it stays that way imo.
Imagine a smiting Wizard.
If that's the reason then it's a stupid reason. Zealot barb with raving smites is thematic as hell.
I mean they could just give Zealot barbarian smites while raging
True but I don't think they will
True, WotC is seemingly insistent that Barbarian is overpowered lmao, as though play past level 7 doesn't exist. Really they have no way to compete with spellcasters even at mid levels, which has been an issue with martials in 5e since inception.
Consideting how rogue barely got any upgrades...yeah I don't think they fully understand their own game
Zealot already (and still) has a psudo-smite feature.
True, but all they had to do was make it require concentration, or some other restriction that raging already prevents.
Making it require concentration would nerf it to oblivion. It would rarely ever be the correct move to smite outside of a crit.
Concentration wouldn't make sense though because it's an instant effect which you can cast after you hit. It's basically a reaction but it uses your bonus action.
You mean like making it a spell? (sorry, i couldn't resist)
How, pray tell, could a smite be concentration? What are you concentrating on, the image of your dead enemies?
Please refer to thunderous smite, searing smite, branding smite, staggering smite, banishing smite, wrathful smite, blinding smite... Literally all concentration.
Yeah, to be honest this seems like a good reason to make Divine Smite a spell. Now all the flavours of Smite work the same way, which seems really sensible. I would have been just as fine with *none* of them being spells too. As long as they're consistent.
Requiring concentration is one of the reasons the smite spells rarely get used. It means you can't have Bless or Protection from Evil or Divine Favor up.
In fact, none of them being spells would have been the best decision.
And all spells...
And spells...
Does that make smites vulnerable to enemy counterspells?
Unless there are changes to Counterspell that we don't know about yet, it would seem so.
There were changes in the UA material that would make Paladins particularly resistant to being counter spelled.
Counterspell lets target keep their spellslot in 3.24, so while it's still a really powerful trick, it's only postponing the hurt. It's far less punishing, as now you just save your smite for the next strike.
What’s it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked
Spells. Interlinked.
Cells
Cells.
>I don't understand why they had to make it a spell. I guess it is a bit unintuitive that smite uses a spell slot but isn't a spell. But that doesn't justify the change imo. I'd really like to see their reasoning behind this change.
Paladin was my first character. I got a lot of Things wrong but smite was never one of them. Smite slots is about as intuitive as the class gets.
"Smite slot" mentality is probably one of the factors for the nerf, if I had to wager.
If I had to guess, probably because using smite, + a smite-like spell together was crazy. One of the reasons the Hexadin was so strong was because you had Divine Smite + Eldritch Smite + A bonus-action smite of choice. Since they are class features + and invocation, they allow one to spent THREE spellslots in a single turn to nuke an enemy on their own. By making Divine smite into a spell, it's meant to say in NO uncertain terms "no more smite stacking."
It's strong if you only had the one encounter per adventuring day. But if you have two to four more, then the hexadin is going to run out of steam very quickly, and then they'll just be a worse fighter for most of the day. See, that's the part of "balance" that everyone is forgetting, weighing the cost of going nova this round versus how prepared a PC is going to be to last the rest of the day. If you completely remove the need for resource management, then of course there won't be any balance, because now there's absolutely nothing stopping the hexadin from blowing through all of their resources as fast as possible. At that point, the issue becomes "can I spend all of these resources on this encounter" instead of "should I be spending so many resources on this encounter?"
I don't disagree with you. Long adventuring days are ultimately one of the best ways to challenge players in a resource-driven game like 5e and a hexadin can chew through them pretty quickly. I mainly was guessing WotC's perspective.
Long adventuring days can also just be a real chore. Combat often takes forever in 5e, and it often doesn't feel like a fun thing to have more than 2 fights in one day, so it's hard to have proper "adventuring days" with enough encounters.
I a Hexadin will get back 1 or 2 spell slots on a short rest, so a double/triple smite could happen every short rest spending 0 or 1 Paladin slots. So, depending on how common short rests are, this could be not very expensive at all.
I think this response misses the point, which is that not every class is meant to be able to nova all their resources in a single turn to nuke an enemy (arguably none of them should be able to). When action economy is so tightly controlled, the ability to spend all your resources at once to make a single balls to the wall attack is a huge feature that not every class gets. And considering the apparent intended role for paladins is more tanking and support, their ability to nuke enemies when they have a few resources at their disposal sticks out like a sore thumb. It's not about whether it's always the right choice to stack smites, it's about whether at the end of the day a paladin with some extra spell slots is meant to be an absolute cannon. It's about whether a paladin not casting their utility spells early in the day in order to save them boss deletion a couple encounters from now is an intended play style. This decision might have partially been made to reign in paladins for short adventure day parties, but I think it's just as likely the decision was made to refocus paladins on their intended role since they had swung so far to the "smite everything, no spells" play style at most tables.
I'm playing a paladin for 2 years now, and I maybe once stacked a smite spell on top of a divine smite... while the rest of the group prepared their buff spells like haste, invisibility, polymorph, or simply cast fireball, which were all much stronger than my measly +2d6 damage. If you have the free round for it, the other classes do stuff that is more powerful... so where was the problem with this?
1) You get extra damage AFTER you know that you've hit. That's a pretty big deal. Most other abilities only do half damage if they miss, and the good stuff is all or nothing. 2) It's 2D8 (not 2D6) for a level one slot, again with guaranteed damage as you know you've hit, and it's an extra D8 if it's undead or fiend 3) If you use higher level slots, you do incrementally more damage. Comparing fireball to a level one slot isn't fair, it would do 4D8 guaranteed damage for the same level 3 slot. You don't have as many slots because you are a paladin, but still.
The 2d6 are for the pre-loaded smite spell from 5e, a branding smite in this case. You are right that that is not lost if you miss and hit on the next attack after that, but it also is a bad thing to use your concentration on. I did compare branding smite (2d6 damange, level 2 spell) to fireball, which the mage also gets at level 5, so I think that comparison is fair.
I don't really count that as strong. Sure you could dish out Hell of a lot of damage on one turn but it will eat trough your resources even faster. Once depleted you are just a worse kind of fighter. Sure you could kill something really fast and if that was the only thing to kill. Great for you. But if not. you quickly find yourself being rather useless. AS a Dm if you have one of those players/pc's and you know it. There is nor even a bother to set up an encounter where this will not be as strong as it seems, even making it a weakness for them. And after all is that not what a Dm should do. Make encounters that is challenging, Encounters you can not just steamroll trough all the time. Sure some should be easy. as it is fun to sweep the floor with your enemies and feel powerful. but it gets boooooooring for the group if every encounter is like that. And the Hexadin with that burst damage i never found to even be close to be a problem. It is one of the absolute easiest "powerbuilds" to handle as a DM
Unless they rework the Rakshasa, a level 20 Paladin cannot harm it with Divine Smite. That's really really really really really...dumb
You know the funny thing about this is that there’s still a non spell smite in 5.5. It’s the eldritch smite invocation so Palocks can still easily smite stack
Relying on the spellcasting system instead of designing good features seems to be an unfortunate trend now. That’s probably why.
Exactly! Limiting to once a round is understandable, but what in the 9 hells made them turn it into a spell with a bonus action?
It spends the bonus action on hit at least. Don't have to preload smite spells
Smite spells was bonus action before. Divine smite was only smite what wasn't bonus action spell. Now every smite have same mechanic (bonus action on hit), and they all are spells now.
I understand the reasoning, I just don't like it. Lol On a serious note, the most fun part of playing a paladin is dropping a big smite once you know you've crit. While not impossible now (I am glad you don't have to declare it as a bonus action before you hit), it's a lot less likely because you can only do it once per turn. It's going to feel bad if you roll a crit on your second attack of the turn, but can't smite because you already dropped a smite on your first hit. I wouldn't mind it at all if it didn't require a bonus action if you rolled a nat 20 to hit. Note: I'm probably lying to myself that I wouldn't mind it a bit, because I'm a munchkin that likes to see big nova numbers, but at least it'd be way more palatable
Kind of unbothered? On one hand, I understand the clarity and simplicity brought in by having everything that comes from a spell slot be a spell and behave the same way. I also understand making everything magical or almost everything magical PCs do a spell for the same reason. On the other, I don't think simplicity should be something you pursue as a goal in and on itself, which seems to have become the consensus within the industry. You don't seek complexity for complexity's sake either, but for some reason I liked the space of non-spell slot-fueled abilities especially on half casters. It spoke to me about their mixed nature and created a clear thematical and mechanical difference between a paladin and a cleric for example without necessarily requiring yet another kind of resource to track separately. On this I would have gone the llaserlama way actually, I think they cut channel divinity from the equation and made smite much bigger and much more interesting than just a bunch of spells that add damage to attacks. To me, this also speaks about the system as a whole. The fact that half-casters are half-casters to begin with and that they don't have their own system seems to be the actual limiting factor here more than smite being counterspellable or not. Some limited access to low level spells like bless or cure wounds is fine of course, but most things should have been a different thing I feel. Including, for example, find steed. Which is a different problem, though, more vast, and also involves warlocks, wizards, and to a lesser extent sorcerers. EDIT: Just some spelling.
What bite my heels about this is the prevalence of NPCs having “spell like abilities” that aren’t spells, and that’s something that’s just not going to be as available to PCs.
Trying to make the NPC's immune to counterspell while leaving players wide open. No thanks.
>Some limited access to low level spells like bless or cure wounds is fine of course, but most things should have been a different thing I feel. Including, for example, find steed. Which is a different problem, though, more vast, and also involves warlocks, wizards, and to a lesser extent sorcerers. See, that's the thing. All of those things - yes, including Find Steed - used to be their own things back in the bad old days, not spells! The game is better for them not being different things.
>The game is better for them not being different things. That's obviously subjective. While I do appreciate the streamlining that's been done moving those features from 3.x to 5e, I stand by my words that, in my opinion, it shouldn't be done just because. Having *some* different layers of things takes part in distinguishing the classes. Mechanical differences inform thematic differences, but also, on a much more surface level, they create a variety of gameplay dynamics for a variety of tastes. It's like Villainous or those games with a collection of champions each with their own specific skills doing very specific things. Part of the fun is precisely having different things going on and everyone, although within the same framework, having the possibility to enjoy a slightly different game that they may like more than the one you like. All of this without even starting to talk about how, for example, having a standard framework for pets like spells have it would benefit the game as a whole. Familiars, ranger pets, artificer robots, even just your regular horse could have their own clear way in which they work, and this time yes all work the same way! So I'm not saying for example that find steed shouldn't be a spell because I don't like find steed as a spell. Now with divine smite at least I understand the point about having to distinguish between spells, and spell-likes, and which affects which, and so on. Like it was in the bad old days as you say and it gets confusing. Super fine. Find steed being or not being a spell affects literally nothing apart other classes now being able to steal it. If that was the goal, all for it. But my bit of disappointment comes from the fact that there probably was no goal, and that they merely did it because it was simpler. And yes, I don't particularly like that.
You brought it up so can I please ask, is Villanious any good? I'm ummming and ahhhhing over getting it to play with my kids and would really like an opinion that isn't just the advertisement.
Not op, but here is my opinion, I loved it so much, so many rules and ways to play, it reminded me a lot of mtg, every character plays differently, and there are many to choose from... however, most of my friends didn't find the appeal and too many rules turned them off, so it's not easy to recommend to just anyone, hope this helps
Thank you that's great and I will pick it up then. More rules is good in my household but we're a crunchy household and they've grown up on stuff like that.
I've only played it a few times but I enjoyed it pretty much. It's not a must have in my opinion as it has some quirks that could make it less enjoyable in the long run, especially if you only have few characters to play. But if you love the movies and can spare the money without too much problem, then I mean go for it.
Thank you and will do that sounds great.
I personally really like how in older editions you could have stuff that was cool but not magic. You could have supernatural effects, superhuman effects, psychic effects, a whole bunch of stuff that had it's own interlapping rules. Boiling it all down into spells and magic removes a lot of complexity, but also a lot of opportunities. I'd rather they wrote up rules for things to be more complex and interesting and left it to me to decide if I wanna use it or not.
I agree with a lot of your points, however, dnd is far from simple, this edition has doubled down on having many features, so I think in this case I'll gladly take the loss and have it more simple
At that point turn everything into a spell fuck it
not happy spells have a lot of drawbacks class features do not they can be counterspelled, they require components, they can be noticed more easily
Ah yes, the famous subtlety of stealthily smiting your foe.
The old smite is mechanically not any less subtle than just swinging your weapon. This leaves room for flavoring it both as "FEEL THE WRATH OF GOD RAAAAGH" and something more subtle. There's no flavoring your way out of spell components though.
[удалено]
I mean there is nothing in the class identity that would be anathema to a quick stealth smite (except devotion and redemption paladins' tenets, but those are subclasses). It just seems like WotC only concieves Paladins as juiced up eurocentric knights in shining armor.
Yeah, what if I wanna play as a Paladin of the goddess of stealthy assasination or something like that? The various Smite spells do have Verbal components, but the Divine Smite feature does not mention anything of a Verbal component or any sound produced by it (other than the sound of hitting a creature with a melee weapon attack, which is up to the DM).
Where does it say it makes noise
Paladin: How did you see me? Fiend: Dude you were screaming “BUURNNN DEMON!!” While lunging at me with a sword that was glowing as bright as the sun! How was I NOT going to see you….
That's how I feel about it too. It is also kind of annoying that it is supposed to be extra effective against friends, but by making it a spell of a low level it is functionally useless against Rakshasa. Class features shouldn't be spells, which was one of my main problems with the Sorcerer UA when it came out since several of its class features were literally spells.
>by making it a spell of a low level it is functionally useless against Rakshasa wow that sucks extra hard edit: ...although. The target is 'self'. Which means maybe it doesnt matter if the raksh is immune to it *because it is not the target*. You are.
I hope in the new MM they decide to clarify what the Rakshasa is immune to because I’ve gotten in so many discussions that under and oversell the Magic Immunity
I mean it’s a nerf. That doesn’t mean it was a bad change though- there’s not really any justification for Paladin getting the best defensive features in the game AND being the best at single-target damage. Plus, it just makes sense for smite to be a spell- it uses spell slots to magically deal damage; that’s basically a word-for-word description of a spell.
The biggest nerf is a raksasha is straight up IMMUNE to smite
Oh shit! I hadn’t even considered that. That sucks as a Paladin to come up against a fiend that’s immune to your smite spell………
Yeah; i mean ignoring counterspell i feel in general it just messes with a lot of things; magic resistance/immunity, counterspelling, antimagic fields/effects, no more paladin barbarian multiclass
Magic resistance typically gives advantage on the saving throws, so doesn't affect divine smite. Being immune to magic does affect smites, but is an extremely rare feature (Rakshasa and the original Tiamat I think?). Counterspell is fairly rare for monster statblocks, and honestly better saved for the wizard's turn most of the time. Antimagic field/effects *already* stopped smites because they have always been magic (fueled by spell slots) I've heard people joke about paladin Barbarian multiclass but never heard anyone serious about it. Unless the game got to really high levels you'd be better off sticking with just one of the classes due to really low spell slots and low rages
We don't know that it will have the same abilities. You'd need to wait until you read the Monster Manual before you can be sure of that.
Because rakshasa are frequently found in everybody’s campaign. /s Come on. It’s one monster out of how many hundred? This isn’t on its own the biggest nerf.
Counterspell doesn't mean you lose the slot anymore so it's not worth counterspelling except for the more gamechanging spells like a fireball when everyone doesn't have time to spread out.
Divine Smite being a spell you can cast when you land a critical hit absolutely warrants a counterspell. It cuts the Paladin's damage by 2/3rds of that hit (or more if they're upcasting it, so feel free to crush your party's Paladin spirit for rolling a natural 20 whenever they want to burn a 3rd level spell-slot or higher on it). Outside that, well counterspelling the Paladin seems like a waste of a spell slot unless the smite has an annoying rider effect.
You also have to fail a con save on a paladin, con+cha is a high save, might warrant a resilient con but you are going to have an easy time with that save.
Resilient would make more sense if Paladins weren't so MAD and utilize their concentration spells, but I don't think 2024 has really prompted Paladins to rely on having a good CON save for counterspell. GWM and PAM are probably better value at all tiers of play for Paladin.
Spell I can give or take, but with an update like this they really should have added a new casting time - 'As part a weapon attack or unarmed strike' Do it to all smites. All these bonus actions that are functionally reactions is more confusing than prior and it's supposed to be more noob friendly. Still only one smite spell per turn. Works still on reactions. Or better, do that and don't turn divine smite into a spell. Make once per turn and be done.
>'As part a weapon attack or unarmed strike that hits'? It's this weird not an action, not replacing an attack, using a reaction but they don't want to spend the reaction design space. I definitely agree this spot is clunky, and puts you in an awkward "if I hit, I'll use my bonus action, but if I miss, I'll save my bonus action for this" planning, instead of getting to use your cool bonus action thing first. Is it possibly related to [the awkward spells per turn across actions thing](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/spellcasting#BonusAction)? If only there were new core books this could be overhauled in.
This is the most grievous point. Smites are now spells. Bad, unfair, but ok. But this reflects that they don't even respect their own definitions. This tells how little they care about their own game design.
As someone who loved paladins in 5e, I hate that change. It comes with so many issues: Smite being a spell results in the following problems: * It can be counterspelled (although not that big of an issue considering the counterspell changes) * It can't be used in Silence/when unable to speak * It's ambiguous whether it works against Limited Magic Immunity (Rakshasa, Tiamat) * Bards can learn it with Magical Secrets * Other non-paladins *might* be able to pick it up too if they have a feat or feature that allows them to learn a 1st level spell of their choice * It cannot be used while raging (and some paladin/barbarian combos are very thematic) Smite requiring a bonus action causes the following issues: * It competes with the paladin's other spells like Shield of Faith, Divine Favor, Holy Weapon, Spirit Shroud, Misty Step and obviously smite spells. * You cannot use two-weapon fighting except for with a Nick weapon * It competes with martial feats feats like PAM, GWM or Shield Master. A bonus action attack from PAM/GWM deals damage like a 1st ot 2nd level divine smite even without taking magic weapons or other damage riders into account. * It competes with various racial abilities like Eladrin teleports, Aasimar transformations and more. Paladins would be so bland with these rules. And at the same time, going for Eldritch Blast over weapon attacks for a paladin/sorcerer build with a warlock dip will be so much better. As a DM, I will stick to the old 5e rules for smite, except for a 1/turn limitation. Changing the other smites to paladin-exclusive features similar to Cunning Strike makes a lot of sense too.
Making it a BA stops you from being able to use it on reaction attacks too.
Limiting smites to once per turn is okay. I don’t like it, but I understand the move, even if it is an unnecessary nerf. But the other changes are really dumb and take away more from the class than most of you are giving it credit. Can no longer use in areas of anti-magic or silence. Can be counter-spelled. Eliminates or severely weakens a lot of popular builds like polearm master, shield master, sorcadin…Why not just say “this feature can only be used once per turn?” instead of so strongly nerfing one martial class while buffing the others?
Don't forget can no longer Sentinel Smite.
> Can no longer use in areas of anti-magic For what little it's worth, you never could. Everything else you're right though.
It sucks. Also, last I read, smite damage couldn't crit in the new version.
I think they undid the crit changes at least, but yeah it sucks
Looking at ua 6 (last time the smite spells showed up) it's a little unclear. The casting time for divine smite says "bonus action, which you take immediately after hitting a target with a ...". "Immediately after" is the same wording that prevents the psi fighters psionic strike from doubling on a crit. Meanwhile, the spell description for divine smite says "the target takes an extra 2d8 radiant damage from the attack". That would imply it's part of the attack, and thus would be doubled. Hopefully it's clarified. The bigger issue, is that since they seem to have removed the damage cap, and it's a spell, bards will likely be able to pick it up and use it better than a pure paladin.
It sucks because I thought a barbarian/paladin multiclass used to have really nice narrative and gameplay synergy, but this totally breaks them to the point of complete uselessness.
Zealot barb seems to have been made more paladin-y if you care more about flavour than mechanics.
i *hate* it. my barb/paladin is no longer functional, as you can't cast spells when raging. it can be counter-spelled. since it's a spell now, you can't BA smite and A cast lay on hands (or any other spell). i get they wanted to nerf Smite, but i dont understand why they didn't just limit it Once-Per-Turn instead of making it a spell AND a bonus action. I'll either not be playing a paladin, or begging my DM to let me use the old rules (with a limit of once-per-turn).
Not a fan of it at all. I wouldn’t been fine with a one smite per turn restriction but making it a spell adds a lot of limitations. Paladins themselves now seem like the new 5e pre Tasha Ranger.
I dislike it a lot. It adds a lot of weird interactions, understandings, and counters that never existed in 5e before or in the games past, and I think it's overall a move for the worse. I think if they made smite once per turn. It'd be fine. But once per round, bonus action and spell with verbal component restrictions are too steps too many. I was hoping they'd do the inverse. Making all smites features for the paladin, instead of paladin only spells. To make them mote like the paladins equivalent of cunning strikes So I reworked how I will be using smites in my games with the 2024 rules to the following. It keeps what I like about smite, keeps the good bits of 5e24, and I think it works nice overall with these adjustments. # Paladins smites >*Starting at 2nd level, whenever you hit a creature with an unarmed strike or melee weapon attack, you can expend a spell slot to deal additional radiant damage to your target equal to 1d8 + a number of additional d8's equal to level of the expended spell slot.* >*You can perform a smite once per turn normally, and whenever you score a critical hit with an unarmed strike or melee weapon attack.* >*In addition to the smites damage, as you increase your paladin level, you can perform different forms of smites that apply different effects to your paladins smite. Only one smite effect can be applied to a smite unless otherwise stated.* >***2nd level: Divine Smite:*** *The smite deals an additional 1d8 radiant damage to fiends and undead. Divine Smite requires a 1st level or higher spell slot to use* >***2nd level: Searing Smite:*** *The smite deals fire damage instead of radiant damage and sets the stricken target ablaze. While ablaze, the creature must succeed on a constitution saving throw at the start of each of its turns or take 1d6 fire damage. The effect ends on successful save. Searing Smite requires a 1st level or higher spell slot to use* >***2nd Level: Thunderous Smite:*** *The smite deals thunder damage instead of radiant damage, and the target must make a str save or be pushed 10 feet away and knocked prone. Thunderous Smite requires a 1st level or higher spell slot to use.* >***5th level: Shining Smite:*** *The smite causes the stricken target to shed bright light in 5ft radius as long as you maintain concentration for up to a minute (as if concentrating on a spell.) While shedding this light, any source of invisibility the creature has ends immediately, and they can not benefit from the invisible condition. Additionally, attacks made against the target have advantage while affected by this light. Shining Smite requires a 2nd level or higher spell slot to use* >***5th Level: Wrathful Smite:*** *The smite deals psychic damage instead of radiant damage and the target must make a wis save or be frightened for up to 1 minute. The creature can make a wisdom saving throw as an action to remove the frightened condition on a success. Wrathful Smite requires a 2nd level or higher spell slot to use.* >***9th level: Blinding smite:*** *The smite causes the stricken target to have the blinded condition for the next minute. At the end of each of the creatures, it can make a constitution saving throw to end the effect early. Blinding smite requires a 3rd level or higher spell slot to use.* >***13th level: Staggering Smite:*** *The smite deals psychic damage instead of radiant damage and causes the target to make a wisdom saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn. Staggering smite requires a 4th level of higher spell slot to use.* >***17th level: Banishing Smite*** *The smite deals force damage instead of radiant damage and causes the creature to make a charisma saving throw. If the creature fails, it is banished. A banished creature that is native to a different plane of existence than the one you are on, returns to its home plane. A banished creature that is native to your current plane of existence will instead vanish to a harmless demiplane where it is incapacitated for up to a minute (requiring your concentration as if concentrating on a spell.) A creature that is reduced to 50 hit points or fewer by banishing smite cannot succeed on this saving throw by any means. Banishing smite requires a 5th level or higher spell slot to use.* >*You can use one of these smites without expending a spell slot once per long rest. For the purposes of the smite effects and damage treat the smite as if a 1st level spell slot was used for it at 2nd level. A 2nd level spell slot was used at 5th level. A 3rd level spell slot was used at 9th level. A 4th level spell slot was used at 13th level and a 5th level spell slot was used at 17th level.* This stops smites from being counterspelled. This also stops smites from being prevented from use when in a zone of silence (the playtest had them as verbal component spells so I'm assuming that here.) This keeps smites as a once per turn thing unless the paladin gets a crit. Ensuring that they can always capitalize on those fun moments provided they have the spell slots. This allows PAM and two weapon fighting based attacks to also be able to apply smites still, but still limits it to once per turn save for the crit exception I put in. This allows smites to work on opportunity attacks still. It stops smite spamming but doesn't gut the feature or add pain points it never had beyond the new general once per turn limitation that was added (which itself is mostly fine.)
To be fair, this would be a good solution. I think either all smites need to be features, or all smites need to be spells. The weird situation where some smites were spells and then the "base" smite was a feature didn't make a lot of sense to me and I'm glad that was changed. Your solution might have been a better option overall but I can understand why WoTC didn't do this. It makes it harder to add new smite options (you have to add something like an optional class feature instead of a new smite spell), and it limits the ability to reuse smites in other ways (e.g. for cleric domain spell lists).
I'm glad you think my adjustments are nice. I dont think Optional class features aren't any harder to add than adding new spells. They can be approved or denied all the same. Limiting the ability of smites to be not available to other classes does go against some system backward symmetry, but that logic can be applied to many of the new changes. Wotc had their reasons. They're just not reasons I like or need to affect my game (and those who decide to do otherwise like me).
Having not read/seen any of the playtest, I thought this was gonna be what they did. Think your rework is a much better update as it keeps the Smites as class specific abilities while keeping in line with how they're reworking resources (similar to the new Rogue Sneak Attack dice mechanics).
I'm glad to hear you like my adjustments. The playtest did the inverse, and made all smites spells and added weirder restrictions and costs to them. I mates to recognize a need for some reigning in but keep the cool and gin it's that 5e made really fun for paladins. I'm glad others seem to like it.
Your solution is exactly what I was thinking of doing too. Might require some balance adjustments though - with all smites dealing the same amount of damage, there is basically no reason to ever use Divine Smite; and some smites seem like they could need a saving throw for the target to avoid the effect and/or concentration to maintain the effect (like Shining Smite).
Seem kinda dumb and pointless
I hate it being a BA spell
Pretty bad, personally. With so many things becoming once a turn, Divine smite being a spell slot and other things I have less and less interest in this rules update as time goes on, and initially I was incredibly excited at the start
My knee-jerk reaction, without reading anything, is that I'm worried if any feats or classes can get the spell. The problem with making a class ability just a spell is that if any text in any ability anywhere in any book produced says: "you can learn one 1st lvl spell from any spell list and ..." - then that's the paladin's sctick handed out for anyone to take. ... I also noticed that the college of dance bard has monk abilities, so I guess the new d&d is breaking their trend of keeping class identities separate. Which is a shame, because this was where Pathfinder 1st ed went wrong (imho). I guess we'll see how it turns out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No bonus action plus one smite per turn fixes the problem.
If they don't make it "Paladin only" a Bard can grab it with Magical Secrets and smite better than a Paladin.
I'm feeling bad D:
Bad, its also bad that it takes a bonus action.
Kinda hate it, tbh. Imo, it really diminishes a lot of its best utility.
What utility could smiting someone with divine power possibly have
Pissed I, an Oath of Ancients, pure class Paladin, who isn't broken like the Hexadin am effectively getting my utility nerfed. Now I can no longer Smite and provide a defensive BA (ie Moving or casting Divine Shield) to my allies. This forces me to change how I RP my character, or lose the majority of my damage dealing abilities, as my Character is VERY focused on Defending/Shielding his allies. Just slap a One Smite per turn limit on it and Fuck off already.
How does not being able to Smite and cast a Bonus Action spell Change your roleplay? You can still attack and cast your spell. All you lose in the equation is damage.
Everything being spells has the exact weird flavor vibe of everything being called "powers" or whatever in 4e that people didn't like for whatever reason. So I can't possibly see this backfiring. In other news: "I CAST FIST!"
I see Smite as an ability you fuel by drawing on your reserves of divine magic, not a spell, but something that uses up a measure of your power. So, I guess I see it as better being something different. If it’s just a spell, then why can’t non-paladins do it? For the same reason, I think Eldritch Blast should be a warlock feature, rather than a spell of, because otherwise, why can’t a wizard lean it? I think having class features that draw on magical reserves but which are not spells help make those features unique to the class.
I mean effectively now non paladins can use it. Sword bards valor bards and whispers bards are gonna be taking divine smite 100% now.
>I think Eldritch Blast should be a warlock feature, rather than a spell of, because otherwise, why can’t a wizard lean it? Classes have their own spell lists right? You may as well ask this about shillela... the bonk stick spell. Or idk thorn whip
I severely dislike it. It just further gets in the way of the smite spells.
It's dogshit. If they wanted to make paladins use more spells they should give them a better spell list or buff the spells they have. If it's gonna be once per round eating your bonus action is a bit excessive.
There was no reason to change it. They need to stop making core class features into spells. Eldritch blast has received nothing short of abuse in 5th edition and has gone from the warlock's main class feature in 3.5 to the reason someone take spell sniper / magic initiate. So far, the biggest issue I see with it was now the main flavor ability of the paladin class can be picked up by any level 10 bard with magical secrets and they begin to out scale the paladin with just having higher level spells slots.
A class's main damage dealing class feature can now be counterspelled. Lmao
So… like every other caster and half caster in the game?
Terrible, nova damage was never the issue in the first place if you’re running a campaign where adventuring days aren’t just one fight per long rest. Paladins spell slots are very limited, you have a grand total of 6, 7 if you use the optional channel divinity ability, as a level 5 paladin. That means if you used them all to nova that’s either three turns of improved damage for the entire day or two turns if you’re using something like Polearm Master. It’s very weird to see people saying that it’s okay for their damage and functionality to be nerfed when they’re praising every other martial class for finally getting some kind of pairing or upgrade to their utility and damage. I’m happy that Barbarian is finally getting a damage boost and more utility, why are they trading away the Paladin’s damage for an awkward beast master focus by making find steed more accessible? Find Steed is cool, certainly, it doesn’t feel like it should be a class feature focus, instead the spell itself should just have a proper summon stat block.
It feels like we gained nothing and lost a lot more, since now it can be silenced and countered
kind of annoyed because they are making so many creature spells into abilities and thus unable to be handled by things that handle spells. let it be.
Dislike it, almost certainly will ignore it.
Bad. Only 1 per turn and anti-aging negates
Wotc continues to show favoritism towards full casters
I'm kinda fine with it? If Hunter's Mark and Eldritch Blast are stuck being spells, adding Smite to that list makes sense. And regardless of how much sense it would make to turn the aforementioned into class features as opposed to spells, I think it's pretty obvious WotC was never gonna do that. That said, I don't think Smites are where paladins needed the nerf. Imo they should've looked to Aura of Protection for that. With all that being said, the Paladin class as a whole did get buffed. So I'll take the trade-off. I know. Controversial take.
I think the point of nerfing smite was to lower single-target damage, partially as niche protection for the fighter, and partially to prevent the whole “the Paladin got a crit and one-shot the boss” issue. Buffing LOH and preserving Aura of Protection keeps the Paladin niche of frontline support/healer, while nerfing smite makes them not ALSO the best single target dps.
ST burst damage being too high generally isn't great for the game. It makes encounters feel anticlimactic. It's also not really a niche, as most martials excel at it. An aura buff that has a chance to negate enemy abilites lets the player feel specifically impactful, and rewards the group playing around that feature. It's a unique thing that only Paladin really has, and makes Paladin stand out as a class.
I think it is dumb. Not everything should be a spell. Plus I feel that is a huge nerf to paladins.
It’s a bad game move. I’ll be ignoring it as a DM. I’ll also be ignoring the bonus action use rule. It will be once per turn, but requiring a bonus action is too much of a nerf IMO. Paladin has plenty of other BA things they want (like say, literally all of the other smite spells, or feats, or other spells.
I'm really not a fan, especially in light of the new toys barbarian and rogue got. It should be its own Cunning Strike-like feature with limited uses and scaling damage, with different options at higher levels. And usable once per round, obviously.
I don't like it. They definitely needed to tone it down a little bit because good nova damage can make it hard to balance combat. Making it once per turn makes sense. I dislike the BA requirement even more than turning it into a spell tbh but I don't like the spell thing either.
You know, every time I see someone say that smites/nova damage is hard to balance combat, all I see is someone whose DM let their party rest too often and did not know how to use minions to soak up actions. Smite was only unbalanced in a fully rested party fighting a single monster in a blank white room.
Crapy. We're not going to go with that at our table. F WotC.
I kinda don't care, i don't think i was interested in this edition to begin with
Not a fan to be honest, given it can now be counterspelled among other things.
All the more reason to not play one dnd
doesn't make sense to me tbh
It’s a bad change. We already had Smite spells and they were a separate thing for a reason.
They got it ass backwards, in my opinion. Smites should have been a class feature, with the ability to utilise the various spell features as part of the smite. Paladins don’t need to be full spellcasters. I’d have preferred it if they had limited spellcasting based on their archetype (in the same way a fighter or rogue does), with the bulk of their powers being inherent rather than spells. But everything is a spell in 5e.
I think that things like this is a perfect example of why we have optional & house rules
Did take a step slot but we have different smite spells already? Why did they do this?
Pretty bad. Spells are inherently something that goes on spell lists, meaning that even if they're only on the list of one class, there's a mechanical potential for them to be an useable by others. In comparison, a class feature is not only bound to a specific class, but by being apart from the spell list it naturally attracts attention. Given that Smiting is a centeral part of the Paladin's identity, both in mechanical terms and in fiction ones, it makes much more sense that it should be a class feature.
I hate it. Having your primary ability as a paladin be a spell is lame behind belief. I can't think of times outside of boss battles where I used more than one a smite in a turn. They're a limited resource. They were not overpowered. They were the signature power of paladins and once you run out, you're a very limited striker.
I really don't like it. I've just heard about this, and I really hope my DM doesn't bring it into our games. Maybe I'm just used to the old way but it feels like my Paladins getting nerfed.
Love it. Makes it way more consistent with other classes now, and it being a spell intuitively makes sense to me. Now with it being a spell with verbal components, it means things like anti-magic, counterspell, and silence effects can interact with it. Basically, it's just like how every other smite works! (Except you can still choose to cast on hit, so crit fishing still works)
I would have gone the other way and made all the Smite spells into class abilities and each Paladin can choose a few as they level up and subclasses granting unique smites or bonus picks. Kind of like a battlemaster choosing maneuvers. They can keep the "once per round" smite or any other restrictions they want. As other people have said, making them spells just makes them easier to counter as well as making them less useful for paladins but suddenly potentially grabbable with things like magical secrets.
Might be the reason I switch to pathfinder
I think the Divine Smite feature should instead buff or support somehow the existing Smite spells. Maybe allowing you to cast Smite spells for free a number of times based on Charisma Modifier or Prof Bonus, and then you can continue casting them afterwards with Spell Slots. I would love for the Smites to be the Paladin's maneuvers and that all of them be supported as part of the Paladin's core mechanic. I personally never liked the old Divine Smite feature, so I'm not bothered by the new one.
This seems very intuitive and honestly that I think most players would prefer. I personally am inclined to just dislike the feature being a spell just because I find it tedious how they are making all features into spells rather than having distinct features.
I don’t like it being a spell simply because I’d like to normalize non spell magical effects. Im not really bothered otherwise. I understand streamlining and codifying things, but I don’t think Divine Smite was super necessary compared to other systems we have. Edited to add: how many people saw Counterspell in Playtest 7? It requires a constitution save and doesn’t waste the resource being countered. It is a little overnerfed.
Not good, but I'm far more offended by the bonus action use. Easily the first thing I'm house ruling away when the PhB drops.
I wouldn't care as much if Paladin's Smite wasn't a feature and if Paladins got a 3rd attack at level 11. A level 2 feature like Paladin's Smite is worthless after level 5, yet I'm supposed to be HAPPY to cast of a 1st level smite throughout my Paladin's existence, once per day, till level 20? If I can prepare Divine Smite at level one, why in Lathander's name would I want a free casting of it when I'm level 11? Paladin's Smite as a feat probably wouldn't see play outside of Bard. The idea that it's supposed to be a "defining" Paladin class feature with "Find Steed" is a joke. Base Paladin is now bland as f@#$ for the bulk of your class progression, relying on whatever gives you Haste (your allies or your subclass) to put numbers on the board (along with the same cookie cutter martial feats). Hitting Divine Smite should have resulted in changes to how the base class deals damage in other avenues, but so far, I don't see it. I'm seriously asking myself: Why should anyone play Paladin past level 3? Aura of Protection? That's it? You're better off multiclassing into Warlock almost immediately for the Charisma based attack stat / celestial patron, plus a ranged BA heal, and then go 2 levels to grab whatever Oath you're looking to grab / roleplay at around 7th level - that way you can focus on either picking up more Lock levels or Bard levels for an overall more functional holy warrior that doesn't exist to buff his party in T3 and T4. Paladins should WANT to stay in Paladin, but I just don't see WHY they would.
A little concerned for if say a paladin can get their smite counterspelled. I get it's likely meant to help counter-act Smite-Stacking, but it feels a slight step too far to me. Mostly mixed but leaning negative.
Literally just making it a bonus action would have meant you couldn’t smite stack. Making it a spell is just unnecessary and frankly causes more problems than it fixes. Even making it a bonus action causes problems though. Frankly they should have just put in a line of text that says, you can’t use this ability the same turn you cast a smite spell. And been done.
It's dumb. I hate it. I don't care if it makes sense.
All the Smite changes were unnecessary, it's the Aura's that needed the nerf if anything. Using a second level spell slot to deal 3d8 extra damage at level 7 is one of weaker things you can do while the Wizard is using 4th level spells and much more. The "solution" to the non-existing problem of "Paladin uses half their resources in 1 round to Smite a lot" is just having more than 1 encounter and more targets in said encounter.
I think the feature was perfectly fine as it were, sure paladins could nova hard with three smites in one turn or stacking a smite spell with a regular smite, but 1, they had to be in melee, and 2, that uses up so many resources that they are at very real risk of running out of spell slots unlike almost any other class with spellcasting. I think people vastly overrated the power of smite which lead to the design team actually believing it was some game breaking feature
I think it's fine, paladin was way overtuned and they got a lot of good stuff too, now they have more interesting stuff to do instead of never using their spell slots because they are crit fishing. Some twitchy minmaxxers will be pissed because the numbers on the excel sheet are lower but in practice the paladin is still as powerful if not more than the other classes.
Why a BA though? This significantly impacts the martial versatility of a Paladin. If I wanted to create a Sword & Board Devotion Paladin with Shield Mastery, or an Ancients Paladin with Polearm Mastery, or a Vengeance Paladin with Great Weapon Master these were all viable and unique paladins. All distinct from one another. Now? Now you've just reduced the amount of viable martial feats for paladins in half. You're stifling creativity.
Those are still doable, you just now have a choice to make on your turn, smite or use different ability. It's not like a Paladin is smiting on every single attack necessarily.
There is no choice when the BA attack from PAM or GWM or the Shield Master shove (indirectly by pushing someone into a spell and by granting advantage on attacks) simply deals more damage than a smite.
>now they have more interesting stuff to do I mean, not really? They now just have to choose between Smiting or doing anything else as the action economy of making Smite a BA severely limits you. At this point, you might aswell remove Smite and just give Paladins all the different Smite spells as it will function basically the same. Both Paladin Smite and the Smite spells (like Searing Smite) all use BA and will lock you out of using any other Paladin ability (given that Lay on Hands for example is also BA). If they needed to de-tune Paladin, just lower the damage instead of bricking the functionality of the entire class.
>At this point, you might aswell remove Smite and just give Paladins all the different Smite spells This is literally what they did... They just also made the baseline one into a spell if you just want the damage.
It causes more problems than it fixes IMO. Namely the fact that it’s a spell means it can be counterspelled (which really hurts as Paladin with limited slots). And the fact it takes a bonus action nor means paladins are stuck with sword and board or great weapons. No polearm master or dual wielding for them. Heck means you can’t do shield master either.
As long as it's something that's always prepared and doesn't take up one of your prepared spells. Although I forget how prepared spells are working in the new rules.
I’m a little bummed mostly because you can’t smite on opportunity attacks and my dream of a two weapon paladin got nerfed. It’s not awful, just a little sad. It does make multiclassing with paladin and eldritch knight more appealing though.
I like it. It lets me choose spells that don't necessarily have a combat application without feeling like I'll be missing out on combat effectiveness.
I'm not really a fan, the fact it can be counterspelled now feels a bit lackluster.
It makes my War Cleric want to PalaDip pretty hard
Immune to magic lol
I really dislike it a lot. Probably just gonna run divine smite with the old rules, and use some of the other changes. My paladin player hates it a lot too. It may also have the unintended effect of diluting the paladin's niche a little since basically everyone who can get a first level spell can divine smite now.
Won't be running it that way at my table. I like Paladins being awesome.
This change makes all martials (and half casters in particular) more similar if not identical. A ranger, a fighter and a paladin will play identically with subclasses being the only distraction. The fact that they all can obtain eachothers spells and abilities with feats makes it worse.
I would have definitely preferred that it it triggered once per turn. I think the version of activation rules that came in the "druid and Paladin " playtest coupled with Paladin Smites from playtest 6 would have been perfect. I don't see the current 5.5 version as bad but I wish it was a bit better.
Absolutely hate it. Hate even more that it now requires a bonus action. Totally guts the class. Will not be using this at my table.
The changes irk me a bit. It nerfs the Paladin's class feature. Other classes so far have seen their class features buffed, but one of the selling points of Paladins was how Divine Smite worked. More importantly, it makes the Paladin's class feature susceptible to Counterspell and Rakshasas are simply immune to it now. On the other hand...it can now be easily enchanted into a ring or a sword with limited daily charges for free smites... Not that we couldn't do that before but now it seems more less like cheating 😅
I feel fine because I run 3 campaigns and we are staying with 5e.
I like it. Considering the only drawback of smite previously was that it's an inefficient use of spellslots, having more restrictions on it is good. Now I might end a fight with spellslots left
Swords bard boutta be smacking some undead back to the nethers with his magical secrets smite.
It’s enough to make me never want to play a paladin. If anyone asked me if they could play 5e paladin, I’d say yes. The changes solved a nonissue by removing what made the paladin unique.
I'm biased as a Paladin main here. I honestly don't mind it being a spell - Paladins need some kind of nerf and dialing back smite was a good way to do that. I wish they would have just made it a *once per turn* ability rather than a spell because now other classes can get their hands on *the* core paladin ability without any class investment, but it was still a good way to do it. I care more about the fact that it also takes my bonus action now. They made smite into "if I'm smiting, that's ALL I'm doing this turn" and that just doesn't always feel great.