and if Divine smite stays a spell you don't even need to multiclass into Paladin or take it via Magical Secrets.
All you need to do, would be taking magicial initiate ( divine / or if you need to select class, Paladin ) via a lvl 1 background feat - voila you got it
Magic initiate likely will not pull from Paladin (and it has been confirmed that classes will have class spell lists as opposed to the divine/primal/arcane approach they were working through). They also might block paladin/ranger from the bard's magical secrets simply by limiting which spell lists secrets can come from (in particular since bard's thieving from the Paladin list was always a problem). I could imagine a world where Hunter's Mark, and divine smite are blocked from bards and other spell thieves.
Now one or two levels of paladin on a bard isn't a bad option anyway.
Bonus action *and* a spell - are they having a larf? Totally breaks the Paladin action economy and renders several Paladin builds and feats utterly useless. In fact it makes straight Paladins completely pointless.
The only upside is that it saves us buying the new rulebooks.
when they go that route with MI and i believe so too, you can still magic initiate ( Paladin ) and i personaly don't see why if divine smite is a spell, it should not be on the paladin spell list. But even if so, 1 lvl of Paladin mc is not much of an hinderance if they go that route for about any full caster class not Warlock ....
Smite is so BAD it's not even worth taking it as most classes let alone magical secrets. I have no idea who would spend 13 on STR ( and / or 13 Cha for non CHA casters), melee attack action, BA a spell slot to get 2d8 damage + 1d8 per level. Paladin was one of the few solid straight classes. Now it is a cleric with Auras, extra attack and LoH in exchange for not getting the full spell list.
If a DM insisted on the One DnD paladin smite system as a bonus action spell, I just wouldn't play the paladin. I'd play something different. I think a lot of paladins are going to be unhappy and go with a different class or perhaps just stay with 5e and never go to One DnD. It wouldn't be the first DnD edition to flop.
If a DM insisted on the One DnD paladin smite system as a bonus action spell, I just wouldn't play the paladin. I'd play something different. I think a lot of paladins are going to be unhappy and go with a different class or perhaps just stay with 5e and never go to One DnD. It wouldn't be the first DnD edition to flop.
Saves us buying new source books. WotC's loss, not ours.
After seeing the bard changes, it feels like rangers and paladins got shafted really hard. I'm really happy that I can play straight classed bard (warlock or eldritch knight to some extent) and be a better paladin save for the auras and holy weapon. Sadly it feels like paladins and rangers will have to be "patched" with the new version of Tasha's.
This thread is extremely old, but where is the document with all of these buffed smite spells? I can only find the extremely mid ones from the druid UA document
Simply put, they ruined the class. Paladins already had a tough time getting up and running with their action economy. Making everything compete for the bonus action doesn't help. The worst is making the smite use a bonus action and be a cast spell. They could have easily put a restraint similar to the rogue's sneak attack by just making it usable once per round. Problem fixed. Instead they completely broke the class. No more synergy with certain multi classes, no more holding the line with the threat of a beefy opportunity attack, no more synergy with other classes abilities that grant an attack during your off turn.
I thought their goal was to give players options. That's what they said when they presented the warlock. They said that was their new design theory, to let people really customize their class. So how is it they did the exact opposite for Pallys and Rangers? Two major iconic classes and they borked them both. How do you even put any trust in a design team when they have such huge glaring oversights. I bet half of us could have put together a better outline of how the classes should work than what they did.
This doesn't give me confidence in the core books or future products going forth. Highly doubt I will purchase new material.
I completely disagree. I am just as likely to play a paladin now as I was before, and perhaps more likely to play a paladin than I was before. The class is far from ruined.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I completely disagree. I am just as likely to play a paladin now as I was before, and perhaps more likely to play a paladin than I was before. The class is far from ruined.
and i completly disagree with you .... no offense meant but what is your reasoning for wanting to play a class, which is completly ruined, has one of its core abilitys rendered useless and needs binoculars to even be able to see the ground wizards, bards, sorcerers, warlocks, druids ( all of them only using melee ) are standing on .... Weapon Masteries can just be got with a feat or a one lvl dip, same as armor + shield prof. Aura will be a measly +3 up until tier 4 play, or you are going to be even worse in damage ......
even a 19 Sorcerer / 1 Hexblade / paladin is going to outdmg the Paladin ( even the sorcadin ) by at least 2-3x in sustained dmg ( even if the Sorcadin uses a lvl 9 spell slot while criting ) he can't even get within 60-70% of wiz, bards, sorc, druid melee. And to even get this "close" the Paladin has to figth with 2 weapons, if he uses anything else he falls behind even worse.
Imho there's absolute 0 incentive to play this paladin in his current form, there might be a small incentive to play it, if they Errata away the Bonus Action need for a divine smite .....
- smite is just fine. In fact, it's very similar to how the paladins I have seen at both tables I play on, actually used it anyways.
I dont think the word useless means what you think it means.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
The smite spells work the same, but unless you played with paladins who didn't use Divine Smite, this will be a change. Also, since it's a bonus action, it conflicts with anything else that takes a bonus action (obviously), hurting paladin action economy. Polearm Master uses a bonus action for the 1d4 reverse blunt end attack. Great Weapon Master bonus action attack when you crit or kill a foe is a bonus action. So if paladins want to "smite" they won't take those feats, since they can't fully utilize them. And no smiting on opportunity attacks, either, since bonus actions only occur on your turn. Gone is smiting when you see you have a crit.
This is very disheartening to anyone who loved playing a paladin. Extra channel divinities is nice. Being able to activate them with the weapon attack is good. But they clearly want us all to just be sword and board paladins. Polearm Master/GWM was a great way for paladins to add to their dpr in 5e. They wanted to make paladins OTHER smites more relevant, I get it. But I disagree on HOW they went about doing it.
I will play something other than a paladin, in the future. Go read fighter, they got buffed by a good bit and will make crucial saving throws with the new indomitable feature. Who knows? I might even get lucky and find some sucker paladin to stand near me and get their +5 aura bonus also! ;)
The smite spells work the same, but unless you played with paladins who didn't use Divine Smite, this will be a change. Also, since it's a bonus action, it conflicts with anything else that takes a bonus action (obviously), hurting paladin action economy. Polearm Master uses a bonus action for the 1d4 reverse blunt end attack. Great Weapon Master bonus action attack when you crit or kill a foe is a bonus action. So if paladins want to "smite" they won't take those feats, since they can't fully utilize them. And no smiting on opportunity attacks, either, since bonus actions only occur on your turn. Gone is smiting when you see you have a crit.
This is very disheartening to anyone who loved playing a paladin. Extra channel divinities is nice. Being able to activate them with the weapon attack is good. But they clearly want us all to just be sword and board paladins. Polearm Master/GWM was a great way for paladins to add to their dpr in 5e. They wanted to make paladins OTHER smites more relevant, I get it. But I disagree on HOW they went about doing it.
I will play something other than a paladin, in the future. Go read fighter, they got buffed by a good bit and will make crucial saving throws with the new indomitable feature. Who knows? I might even get lucky and find some sucker paladin to stand near me and get their +5 aura bonus also! ;)
agree on pretty much of that, but they don't want to force Paladins into s&b but into twf and nerf their damage into tomorrow ( which they succeeded in ). If you now want to play a melee you gonna go Warlock ( Celestial ) for a Paladin like or if you really want to do the damage your choice of : - Bladesinger ( around 200 sustained dmg / round at 11 wiz / 1 mnk w/o magic items ) - Valor Bard - Druid ( Moon ) - to some minor extend ( Sorcerers )
Paladin of the same lvl will do 83 ( smithing ) with 2wf or 62 ( smithing non twf ) 65 sustained with either 2wf / PAM
if you really want to up the damage grab a scimitar of speed or go for 1 lvl Monk split for the Bladesinger / Bard variant and a lvl 1 split of Warlock ( Hexblade )
The smite spells work the same, but unless you played with paladins who didn't use Divine Smite, this will be a change. Also, since it's a bonus action, it conflicts with anything else that takes a bonus action (obviously), hurting paladin action economy. Polearm Master uses a bonus action for the 1d4 reverse blunt end attack. Great Weapon Master bonus action attack when you crit or kill a foe is a bonus action. So if paladins want to "smite" they won't take those feats, since they can't fully utilize them. And no smiting on opportunity attacks, either, since bonus actions only occur on your turn. Gone is smiting when you see you have a crit.
This is very disheartening to anyone who loved playing a paladin. Extra channel divinities is nice. Being able to activate them with the weapon attack is good. But they clearly want us all to just be sword and board paladins. Polearm Master/GWM was a great way for paladins to add to their dpr in 5e. They wanted to make paladins OTHER smites more relevant, I get it. But I disagree on HOW they went about doing it.
I will play something other than a paladin, in the future. Go read fighter, they got buffed by a good bit and will make crucial saving throws with the new indomitable feature. Who knows? I might even get lucky and find some sucker paladin to stand near me and get their +5 aura bonus also! ;)
The paladins I played used divine smite, but they only used it once per round. I don't recall a single instance when they went nova and dropped everything in both attacks. None of the DMs I played with provoked many opportunity attacks, so, meh, non issue for the tables I play at.
Really, mountains being made out of molehills imo. Paladin will be fine. It's still a great divine hybrid, and was always so much more than a smite bot. And as you say, there's always fighter if you don't like it.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I completely disagree. I am just as likely to play a paladin now as I was before, and perhaps more likely to play a paladin than I was before. The class is far from ruined.
I'll agree that Paladin isn't completely ruined, Divine Smite is, and it is. It's an action economy issue, Rogues do not use a BA to sneak attack, battlemaster fighters do not use a BA to use a manoeuvrers. The only comparison to something where BA is consumed are things like Hunter's Mark and Hex, but these do not use a spell slot per use, they get significantly more use from a single cast.
But further too this, the Divine Smite change ignores the effects of other changes like feats, picking up Warcaster or Resilient (constitution) at level 4 are now significantly easier options too take which makes concentration spells like Divine Favor or Spirit Shroud much easier too use, which are likely too do more damage and only use a single bonus action and single spell slot.
Also there is other smite spells, these have utility and it's usually utility that BA can be considered reasonable for, which is just not the case for Divine Smite. The only real use for divine Smite now is maximizing damage on a critical hit, or you're fighting an undead or fiend for the extra 1d8, outside of that Divine Smite is now very subpar against other smites. Overall we will need to see where other smites end out in the PHB but in UA6, they were definitely significantly better, Shining Smite for example almost near guarantees advantage in UA6 and didn't even have a save against the effect, albeit using concentration.
Smites needed limiting too once per turn, but BA for Divine Smite was not the way to go about it, now from what I am seeing, they are likely removing things like BA from some Channel Divinity options for 2024, which partially fixes the issue if true, but not really, Divine Smite could have remained an outlier in not using BA but simply stopped you being able to cast a spell on the same turn and limited too once per turn itself. This would leave Divine Smite usable with PAM, with GWM and a few other options for using BA, instead we are seeing a reduction in Paladin's action economy and that is a nerf.
I completely disagree. I am just as likely to play a paladin now as I was before, and perhaps more likely to play a paladin than I was before. The class is far from ruined.
I'll agree that Paladin isn't completely ruined, Divine Smite is, and it is. It's an action economy issue, Rogues do not use a BA to sneak attack, battlemaster fighters do not use a BA to use a manoeuvrers. The only comparison to something where BA is consumed are things like Hunter's Mark and Hex, but these do not use a spell slot per use, they get significantly more use from a single cast.
But further too this, the Divine Smite change ignores the effects of other changes like feats, picking up Warcaster or Resilient (constitution) at level 4 are now significantly easier options too take which makes concentration spells like Divine Favor or Spirit Shroud much easier too use, which are likely too do more damage and only use a single bonus action and single spell slot.
Also there is other smite spells, these have utility and it's usually utility that BA can be considered reasonable for, which is just not the case for Divine Smite. The only real use for divine Smite now is maximizing damage on a critical hit, or you're fighting an undead or fiend for the extra 1d8, outside of that Divine Smite is now very subpar against other smites. Overall we will need to see where other smites end out in the PHB but in UA6, they were definitely significantly better, Shining Smite for example almost near guarantees advantage in UA6 and didn't even have a save against the effect, albeit using concentration.
Smites needed limiting too once per turn, but BA for Divine Smite was not the way to go about it, now from what I am seeing, they are likely removing things like BA from some Channel Divinity options for 2024, which partially fixes the issue if true, but not really, Divine Smite could have remained an outlier in not using BA but simply stopped you being able to cast a spell on the same turn and limited too once per turn itself. This would leave Divine Smite usable with PAM, with GWM and a few other options for using BA, instead we are seeing a reduction in Paladin's action economy and that is a nerf.
"The only real use for divine Smite now is maximizing damage on a critical hit, or you're fighting an undead or fiend for the extra 1d8, outside of that Divine Smite is now very subpar against other smites."
I believe Divine Smite will no longer crit. I don't have the PHB, but the wording of the spell I'm reading is:
"Casting Time: Bonus Action, which you take immediately after hitting a target with a melee weapon or an Unarmed Strike..." (emphasis mine)
Jeremy Crawford has previously stated that effects that occur after the attack, do not have their dice doubled. Psi Warrior Psionic Strike, for instance does not double and has similar wording.
I completely disagree. I am just as likely to play a paladin now as I was before, and perhaps more likely to play a paladin than I was before. The class is far from ruined.
I'll agree that Paladin isn't completely ruined, Divine Smite is, and it is. It's an action economy issue, Rogues do not use a BA to sneak attack, battlemaster fighters do not use a BA to use a manoeuvrers. The only comparison to something where BA is consumed are things like Hunter's Mark and Hex, but these do not use a spell slot per use, they get significantly more use from a single cast.
But further too this, the Divine Smite change ignores the effects of other changes like feats, picking up Warcaster or Resilient (constitution) at level 4 are now significantly easier options too take which makes concentration spells like Divine Favor or Spirit Shroud much easier too use, which are likely too do more damage and only use a single bonus action and single spell slot.
Also there is other smite spells, these have utility and it's usually utility that BA can be considered reasonable for, which is just not the case for Divine Smite. The only real use for divine Smite now is maximizing damage on a critical hit, or you're fighting an undead or fiend for the extra 1d8, outside of that Divine Smite is now very subpar against other smites. Overall we will need to see where other smites end out in the PHB but in UA6, they were definitely significantly better, Shining Smite for example almost near guarantees advantage in UA6 and didn't even have a save against the effect, albeit using concentration.
Smites needed limiting too once per turn, but BA for Divine Smite was not the way to go about it, now from what I am seeing, they are likely removing things like BA from some Channel Divinity options for 2024, which partially fixes the issue if true, but not really, Divine Smite could have remained an outlier in not using BA but simply stopped you being able to cast a spell on the same turn and limited too once per turn itself. This would leave Divine Smite usable with PAM, with GWM and a few other options for using BA, instead we are seeing a reduction in Paladin's action economy and that is a nerf.
"The only real use for divine Smite now is maximizing damage on a critical hit, or you're fighting an undead or fiend for the extra 1d8, outside of that Divine Smite is now very subpar against other smites."
I believe Divine Smite will no longer crit. I don't have the PHB, but the wording of the spell I'm reading is:
"Casting Time: Bonus Action, which you take immediately after hitting a target with a melee weapon or an Unarmed Strike..." (emphasis mine)
Jeremy Crawford has previously stated that effects that occur after the attack, do not have their dice doubled. Psi Warrior Psionic Strike, for instance does not double and has similar wording.
That would make it even worse and basically entirely forgettable, but I do not believe that is the way it works as Divine Smite explicitly says it's damage is added to the attack, not after the attack, such as the case of Psionic Strike.
As you hit the target, your strike glows with divine power. The target takes an extra 2d8 Radiant damage from the attack.
At least going by how it is written in UA6.
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and if Divine smite stays a spell you don't even need to multiclass into Paladin or take it via Magical Secrets.
All you need to do, would be taking magicial initiate ( divine / or if you need to select class, Paladin ) via a lvl 1 background feat - voila you got it
Magic initiate likely will not pull from Paladin (and it has been confirmed that classes will have class spell lists as opposed to the divine/primal/arcane approach they were working through). They also might block paladin/ranger from the bard's magical secrets simply by limiting which spell lists secrets can come from (in particular since bard's thieving from the Paladin list was always a problem). I could imagine a world where Hunter's Mark, and divine smite are blocked from bards and other spell thieves.
Now one or two levels of paladin on a bard isn't a bad option anyway.
It's a disaster.
Bonus action *and* a spell - are they having a larf? Totally breaks the Paladin action economy and renders several Paladin builds and feats utterly useless. In fact it makes straight Paladins completely pointless.
The only upside is that it saves us buying the new rulebooks.
when they go that route with MI and i believe so too, you can still magic initiate ( Paladin ) and i personaly don't see why if divine smite is a spell, it should not be on the paladin spell list. But even if so, 1 lvl of Paladin mc is not much of an hinderance if they go that route for about any full caster class not Warlock ....
since Warlocks are now the better "Paladin"
Smite is so BAD it's not even worth taking it as most classes let alone magical secrets. I have no idea who would spend 13 on STR ( and / or 13 Cha for non CHA casters), melee attack action, BA a spell slot to get 2d8 damage + 1d8 per level. Paladin was one of the few solid straight classes. Now it is a cleric with Auras, extra attack and LoH in exchange for not getting the full spell list.
Tbh its a simple fix just change back divine smite to how it use to be
If a DM insisted on the One DnD paladin smite system as a bonus action spell, I just wouldn't play the paladin. I'd play something different. I think a lot of paladins are going to be unhappy and go with a different class or perhaps just stay with 5e and never go to One DnD. It wouldn't be the first DnD edition to flop.
Saves us buying new source books. WotC's loss, not ours.
After seeing the bard changes, it feels like rangers and paladins got shafted really hard. I'm really happy that I can play straight classed bard (warlock or eldritch knight to some extent) and be a better paladin save for the auras and holy weapon. Sadly it feels like paladins and rangers will have to be "patched" with the new version of Tasha's.
This thread is extremely old, but where is the document with all of these buffed smite spells? I can only find the extremely mid ones from the druid UA document
Simply put, they ruined the class. Paladins already had a tough time getting up and running with their action economy. Making everything compete for the bonus action doesn't help. The worst is making the smite use a bonus action and be a cast spell. They could have easily put a restraint similar to the rogue's sneak attack by just making it usable once per round. Problem fixed. Instead they completely broke the class. No more synergy with certain multi classes, no more holding the line with the threat of a beefy opportunity attack, no more synergy with other classes abilities that grant an attack during your off turn.
I thought their goal was to give players options. That's what they said when they presented the warlock. They said that was their new design theory, to let people really customize their class. So how is it they did the exact opposite for Pallys and Rangers? Two major iconic classes and they borked them both. How do you even put any trust in a design team when they have such huge glaring oversights. I bet half of us could have put together a better outline of how the classes should work than what they did.
This doesn't give me confidence in the core books or future products going forth. Highly doubt I will purchase new material.
I completely disagree. I am just as likely to play a paladin now as I was before, and perhaps more likely to play a paladin than I was before. The class is far from ruined.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
and i completly disagree with you .... no offense meant but what is your reasoning for wanting to play a class, which is completly ruined, has one of its core abilitys rendered useless and needs binoculars to even be able to see the ground wizards, bards, sorcerers, warlocks, druids ( all of them only using melee ) are standing on ....
Weapon Masteries can just be got with a feat or a one lvl dip, same as armor + shield prof.
Aura will be a measly +3 up until tier 4 play, or you are going to be even worse in damage ......
even a 19 Sorcerer / 1 Hexblade / paladin is going to outdmg the Paladin ( even the sorcadin ) by at least 2-3x in sustained dmg ( even if the Sorcadin uses a lvl 9 spell slot while criting ) he can't even get within 60-70% of wiz, bards, sorc, druid melee. And to even get this "close" the Paladin has to figth with 2 weapons, if he uses anything else he falls behind even worse.
Imho there's absolute 0 incentive to play this paladin in his current form, there might be a small incentive to play it, if they Errata away the Bonus Action need for a divine smite .....
- It's not completely ruined
- smite is just fine. In fact, it's very similar to how the paladins I have seen at both tables I play on, actually used it anyways.
I dont think the word useless means what you think it means.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
The smite spells work the same, but unless you played with paladins who didn't use Divine Smite, this will be a change. Also, since it's a bonus action, it conflicts with anything else that takes a bonus action (obviously), hurting paladin action economy. Polearm Master uses a bonus action for the 1d4 reverse blunt end attack. Great Weapon Master bonus action attack when you crit or kill a foe is a bonus action. So if paladins want to "smite" they won't take those feats, since they can't fully utilize them. And no smiting on opportunity attacks, either, since bonus actions only occur on your turn. Gone is smiting when you see you have a crit.
This is very disheartening to anyone who loved playing a paladin. Extra channel divinities is nice. Being able to activate them with the weapon attack is good. But they clearly want us all to just be sword and board paladins. Polearm Master/GWM was a great way for paladins to add to their dpr in 5e. They wanted to make paladins OTHER smites more relevant, I get it. But I disagree on HOW they went about doing it.
I will play something other than a paladin, in the future. Go read fighter, they got buffed by a good bit and will make crucial saving throws with the new indomitable feature. Who knows? I might even get lucky and find some sucker paladin to stand near me and get their +5 aura bonus also! ;)
agree on pretty much of that, but they don't want to force Paladins into s&b but into twf and nerf their damage into tomorrow ( which they succeeded in ). If you now want to play a melee you gonna go Warlock ( Celestial ) for a Paladin like or if you really want to do the damage your choice of :
- Bladesinger ( around 200 sustained dmg / round at 11 wiz / 1 mnk w/o magic items )
- Valor Bard
- Druid ( Moon )
- to some minor extend ( Sorcerers )
Paladin of the same lvl will do 83 ( smithing ) with 2wf or 62 ( smithing non twf )
65 sustained with either 2wf / PAM
if you really want to up the damage grab a scimitar of speed or go for 1 lvl Monk split for the Bladesinger / Bard variant and a lvl 1 split of Warlock ( Hexblade )
The paladins I played used divine smite, but they only used it once per round. I don't recall a single instance when they went nova and dropped everything in both attacks. None of the DMs I played with provoked many opportunity attacks, so, meh, non issue for the tables I play at.
Really, mountains being made out of molehills imo. Paladin will be fine. It's still a great divine hybrid, and was always so much more than a smite bot. And as you say, there's always fighter if you don't like it.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I'll agree that Paladin isn't completely ruined, Divine Smite is, and it is. It's an action economy issue, Rogues do not use a BA to sneak attack, battlemaster fighters do not use a BA to use a manoeuvrers. The only comparison to something where BA is consumed are things like Hunter's Mark and Hex, but these do not use a spell slot per use, they get significantly more use from a single cast.
But further too this, the Divine Smite change ignores the effects of other changes like feats, picking up Warcaster or Resilient (constitution) at level 4 are now significantly easier options too take which makes concentration spells like Divine Favor or Spirit Shroud much easier too use, which are likely too do more damage and only use a single bonus action and single spell slot.
Also there is other smite spells, these have utility and it's usually utility that BA can be considered reasonable for, which is just not the case for Divine Smite. The only real use for divine Smite now is maximizing damage on a critical hit, or you're fighting an undead or fiend for the extra 1d8, outside of that Divine Smite is now very subpar against other smites. Overall we will need to see where other smites end out in the PHB but in UA6, they were definitely significantly better, Shining Smite for example almost near guarantees advantage in UA6 and didn't even have a save against the effect, albeit using concentration.
Smites needed limiting too once per turn, but BA for Divine Smite was not the way to go about it, now from what I am seeing, they are likely removing things like BA from some Channel Divinity options for 2024, which partially fixes the issue if true, but not really, Divine Smite could have remained an outlier in not using BA but simply stopped you being able to cast a spell on the same turn and limited too once per turn itself. This would leave Divine Smite usable with PAM, with GWM and a few other options for using BA, instead we are seeing a reduction in Paladin's action economy and that is a nerf.
"The only real use for divine Smite now is maximizing damage on a critical hit, or you're fighting an undead or fiend for the extra 1d8, outside of that Divine Smite is now very subpar against other smites."
I believe Divine Smite will no longer crit. I don't have the PHB, but the wording of the spell I'm reading is:
"Casting Time: Bonus Action, which you take immediately after hitting a target with a melee weapon or an Unarmed Strike..." (emphasis mine)
Jeremy Crawford has previously stated that effects that occur after the attack, do not have their dice doubled. Psi Warrior Psionic Strike, for instance does not double and has similar wording.
That would make it even worse and basically entirely forgettable, but I do not believe that is the way it works as Divine Smite explicitly says it's damage is added to the attack, not after the attack, such as the case of Psionic Strike.
At least going by how it is written in UA6.