I just noticed a massive buff Paladins gets in the new ruleset. The new smite spells are not concentration, meaning there is no risk of losing them from taking damage if you fail to hit on the first turn after casting them and you can easily stack all of them at once using multiple bonus actions while attacking with your action for burst damage that would make old divine smite weep for joy, while also simultaneously blinding, proning stunning, frightening, igniting, illuminating and giving the target disadvantage on checks and no reactions for a minimum duration of one round, some of these last longer. This is honestly imo worth the once per turn divine smites.
You missed the cast time, smites are now cast on hit, you can not stack them since you can only cast them on hit and only apply too that hit. Since smite spells both use a bonus action and a spell slot, they are limited to once per round.
Oh true, however that also means you cannot waste a smite spell by failing to hit, which makes banishing smite that little bit more funny. It also makes every smite act like divine smite which I really like, I think a dm should instead just houserule it like that, every smite can now be used the way divine smite used to be, I think this way of making divine smite go from the one signature and all the other smite spells being worse to all the smite spells being roughly equal and divine smite being the high damage option and the others being utility options is really good for the paladin as a class, it makes smites as a whole and as a concept much more integral to the identity and makes previously fun but mechanically unappealing spells much more useful. Though I would still let may players cast a smite spell as part of the attack to cast 2 per turn.
The brilliant thing about the second rulebook is you can now mix and match legally to make things that are more unique and interesting and combine the best of both worlds. I think WOTC as a company is evil, and I hate that all the classes seem to be locked behind a paywall, but the actual changes I have seen in the new rulebook are mostly quite good. Except druid, I am sticking with the old one, new druid is too identical to the cleric for me.
Divine smite being a spell and requiring a BA is stil the stupidest thing they could come up with
Along with making Divine Sens use a Channel Divinity charge, like what da ***?, was Divine sens so freakin "OP" that you needed to limite it to Once per SR and competing with the other CD options?...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Oh true, however that also means you cannot waste a smite spell by failing to hit, which makes banishing smite that little bit more funny.
The only way to "waste" 2014 smite spells was to lose concentration on them, the spell itself always triggered on hit (which gave Paladins the ability to occasionally smite as a reaction, and so on). The main issue with 2014 smite spells was the equivalent of 2024 Hunter's Mark Ranger complaints: players want(ed) to concentrate on other things, making the Smite Spells with rather mediocre rider effects a lot more expensive to use.
Yeah but if you cast banishing smite as a bonus action and then the enemy casts shield when you attack you are unlikely to hit and then you have to hold that concentration for an entire round of potentially many attacks, especially as you are likely in the thick of combat. That is a level 5 spell slot gone and it was the only smite spell even worth casting. Also good point, losing your existing concentration for a 1 round cool hit just wasn't worth it.
why bother with shield ? just go ahead and put a silence ( lvl 2 spell ) on a paladin and he can't smite for the next 10 min and to top it off he doesn't even get a save against silence nor does the caster who casts silence has to hit the paladin .....
Yeah but if you cast banishing smite as a bonus action and then the enemy casts shield when you attack you are unlikely to hit and then you have to hold that concentration for an entire round of potentially many attacks, especially as you are likely in the thick of combat. That is a level 5 spell slot gone and it was the only smite spell even worth casting. Also good point, losing your existing concentration for a 1 round cool hit just wasn't worth it.
The enemy can not cast Shield after you cast banishing smite, Shield has to be cast when an attack roll hits, smites are cast after a hit is confirmed which means shield would need to be cast before the smite, not after.
why bother with shield ? just go ahead and put a silence ( lvl 2 spell ) on a paladin and he can't smite for the next 10 min and to top it off he doesn't even get a save against silence nor does the caster who casts silence has to hit the paladin .....
Silence doesn't move, a Paladin does, unless you have them really pinned down, they can move back, move forwards or worse yet, allies of the paladin might cause you damage and you lose concentration. The only way this protects you is if you stand within your own silence spell, but again, you could easily lose concentration in that case. Silence is only good in situations where the caster's party can control where the hostile creatures are. A paladin is often a bit too hard to pin down like that, their high AC enables them to risk more opportunity attacks and worst case they can disengage and back off with their party.
Smites requiring Verbal components is not great but silence isn't the biggest issue with that.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I just noticed a massive buff Paladins gets in the new ruleset. The new smite spells are not concentration, meaning there is no risk of losing them from taking damage if you fail to hit on the first turn after casting them and you can easily stack all of them at once using multiple bonus actions while attacking with your action for burst damage that would make old divine smite weep for joy, while also simultaneously blinding, proning stunning, frightening, igniting, illuminating and giving the target disadvantage on checks and no reactions for a minimum duration of one round, some of these last longer. This is honestly imo worth the once per turn divine smites.
Mitth'raw'nuruodo
You missed the cast time, smites are now cast on hit, you can not stack them since you can only cast them on hit and only apply too that hit. Since smite spells both use a bonus action and a spell slot, they are limited to once per round.
Oh true, however that also means you cannot waste a smite spell by failing to hit, which makes banishing smite that little bit more funny. It also makes every smite act like divine smite which I really like, I think a dm should instead just houserule it like that, every smite can now be used the way divine smite used to be, I think this way of making divine smite go from the one signature and all the other smite spells being worse to all the smite spells being roughly equal and divine smite being the high damage option and the others being utility options is really good for the paladin as a class, it makes smites as a whole and as a concept much more integral to the identity and makes previously fun but mechanically unappealing spells much more useful. Though I would still let may players cast a smite spell as part of the attack to cast 2 per turn.
The brilliant thing about the second rulebook is you can now mix and match legally to make things that are more unique and interesting and combine the best of both worlds. I think WOTC as a company is evil, and I hate that all the classes seem to be locked behind a paywall, but the actual changes I have seen in the new rulebook are mostly quite good. Except druid, I am sticking with the old one, new druid is too identical to the cleric for me.
Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Divine smite being a spell and requiring a BA is stil the stupidest thing they could come up with
Along with making Divine Sens use a Channel Divinity charge, like what da ***?, was Divine sens so freakin "OP" that you needed to limite it to Once per SR and competing with the other CD options?...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
It is not stupid. They obviously wanted to remove DS, but were afraid of the backlash so they made it borderline unusable.
Searing smite upcasts better than DS, so the only time you will upcast DS is if the enemy has fire resistance AND no radiant resistance.
As for DS lvl1 it is only usable if you have Divine Favor going and you dont have a way to do BA attacks.
The only way to "waste" 2014 smite spells was to lose concentration on them, the spell itself always triggered on hit (which gave Paladins the ability to occasionally smite as a reaction, and so on). The main issue with 2014 smite spells was the equivalent of 2024 Hunter's Mark Ranger complaints: players want(ed) to concentrate on other things, making the Smite Spells with rather mediocre rider effects a lot more expensive to use.
Yeah but if you cast banishing smite as a bonus action and then the enemy casts shield when you attack you are unlikely to hit and then you have to hold that concentration for an entire round of potentially many attacks, especially as you are likely in the thick of combat. That is a level 5 spell slot gone and it was the only smite spell even worth casting. Also good point, losing your existing concentration for a 1 round cool hit just wasn't worth it.
Mitth'raw'nuruodo
why bother with shield ?
just go ahead and put a silence ( lvl 2 spell ) on a paladin and he can't smite for the next 10 min and to top it off he doesn't even get a save against silence nor does the caster who casts silence has to hit the paladin .....
You can also now go around the battlefield setting everyone on fire with Searing Smite and they will all burn at the same time.
How to add tooltips on dndbeyond
The enemy can not cast Shield after you cast banishing smite, Shield has to be cast when an attack roll hits, smites are cast after a hit is confirmed which means shield would need to be cast before the smite, not after.
Silence doesn't move, a Paladin does, unless you have them really pinned down, they can move back, move forwards or worse yet, allies of the paladin might cause you damage and you lose concentration. The only way this protects you is if you stand within your own silence spell, but again, you could easily lose concentration in that case. Silence is only good in situations where the caster's party can control where the hostile creatures are. A paladin is often a bit too hard to pin down like that, their high AC enables them to risk more opportunity attacks and worst case they can disengage and back off with their party.
Smites requiring Verbal components is not great but silence isn't the biggest issue with that.