just reading through and noticed that you said Tiamat would be immune to 6th level or lower spells. Super cool but divine smite is not a spell. It just consumes the spell slot to do extra radiant damage on the attack. But you are not actually casting a spell. So technically you can still get the damage off.
I never said divine smite was a spell. I said banishing smite and holy weapon were spells. And I am correct that they are both spells.
But, I was incorrect— back several years ago when I wrote this — as those spells would target the paladin, not Tiamat, so they actually would work. So, thank you for drawing my attention to it.
If you want to break the game even more try dipping three levels into fighter and take Echo Knight. Have like a Longsword and a Shield. Set up using your one 5th level smite for Holy Weapon. Then attack as normal without any smite. Next round: two attacks with Longsword and use a forth level smite, use Unleash Incarnation to attack attack again using forth level smite, then bonus action attack with your shield treating it like a improvised weapon. Your out of forth level spells so move on to third. Action surge and repeat again using highest smite. This gets you an average of 265 damage without them needing to be a Fiend or Undead. If it is is applicable then 301. Oh, I need to mention that to power build this that you need to take Gift of Chromatic Dragon for an extra 1d4 each attack. I'm 95% sure I did everything right. That's average without Crits. This is the highest damage I could create or find without people adding homebrew rules, misinterpreting things (especially Grave Cleric), or using magic items.
If you use divine smite at the beginning of a round and you have 4 attacks that round, does that one use apply to each of the 4 attacks or just the first one?
If you use divine smite at the beginning of a round and you have 4 attacks that round, does that one use apply to each of the 4 attacks or just the first one?
Under the ‘14 rules, you would need to use a smite on each of the four attacks. Under the ‘24 rules, a smite takes a bonus action, so you could only do it once, and it only applies to that one attack. And you don’t use it at the beginning of a round, you use both the spell and the BA after you hit.
I never said divine smite was a spell. I said banishing smite and holy weapon were spells. And I am correct that they are both spells.
But, I was incorrect— back several years ago when I wrote this — as those spells would target the paladin, not Tiamat, so they actually would work. So, thank you for drawing my attention to it.
If you want to break the game even more try dipping three levels into fighter and take Echo Knight. Have like a Longsword and a Shield. Set up using your one 5th level smite for Holy Weapon. Then attack as normal without any smite. Next round: two attacks with Longsword and use a forth level smite, use Unleash Incarnation to attack attack again using forth level smite, then bonus action attack with your shield treating it like a improvised weapon. Your out of forth level spells so move on to third. Action surge and repeat again using highest smite. This gets you an average of 265 damage without them needing to be a Fiend or Undead. If it is is applicable then 301. Oh, I need to mention that to power build this that you need to take Gift of Chromatic Dragon for an extra 1d4 each attack. I'm 95% sure I did everything right. That's average without Crits. This is the highest damage I could create or find without people adding homebrew rules, misinterpreting things (especially Grave Cleric), or using magic items.
What about a bite attack?
If you use divine smite at the beginning of a round and you have 4 attacks that round, does that one use apply to each of the 4 attacks or just the first one?
Under the ‘14 rules, you would need to use a smite on each of the four attacks.
Under the ‘24 rules, a smite takes a bonus action, so you could only do it once, and it only applies to that one attack. And you don’t use it at the beginning of a round, you use both the spell and the BA after you hit.
Thank you