Can now take at level 1. No need to give non-warrior group members Weapon mastery class feature when you can now take it as your level 1 feat.
Why have the feat if you are giving it away as a class feature?
This suggestion is bad for a few reasons, first off it's an out-right tax on Rogue who we know a few of these new properties were designed specifically for that class, not Warrior Group. Rogue now has to waste a 1st level feat that should just be a class feature to begin with.
2nd, Paladin and Ranger are still martial characters, they're half-casters yes, but they primarily do their damage from melee, making Paladin and Ranger worse martial than warrior group makes them unplayable, that's literally the issue Ranger and Monk have in 5E, they are worse then other options. Your idea just breaks them since they now have to pay a tax for something that is NOT a group feature.
I've said it before and will say it again, the biggest issue with the warrior group classes is how they interact with resources, the resources they have are generally limited and underpowered. Monk should be getting more from expanding Ki and a d10 hit die, Barbarian does lackluster damage from rage, reckless attack and brutal critical, Fighter has a few good subclasses, Battlemaster, Arcane Archer & Eldritch Knight, all are resource based. Rogue gets most of their power from sneak attack, which is highly party dependent but we can see in the latest UA how damage die are being turned into a resource for Rogue.
A big part of this is that many classes are meant to be resource based but warrior group was meant to be justified from their passive damage output, however the way 5E planned out an adventuring day is very out of sync from how players actually wanted to play an adventuring day.
Did they forget there is a feat and is just giving the features to different classes and subclasses.
How about baking Weapon masteries right into the weapons and ignore it as a class feature and have it as a Weapon feature? You are proficient and using a dagger. You can use nick with it without having a class feature because it is now a weapon feature.
This makes sense, they are making the weapon masteries a class feature when its actually something the weapon per se is missing and shoving it as filler on the Classes instead of making something more exclusive for each class.
Rogues do not need weapon masteries now that they have Cunning strikes. They do similar things.
My personal opinion is that only the warrior group should have masteries and others can get it via a feat.
Paladins don’t really need it, their damage is good. Rangers, well, it’s the class design not the mastery that they need help with.
Vex and Nick were designed with Rogues in mind specifically, fighter, barbarian and monk do not need any access to either of those. In fact, Monk doesn't really need access to any weapon mastery at all if they go entirely unarmed... which is another reason weapon mastery is not the group feature, Monks get very little from it.
Paladin's damage got nerfed in the UA and what damage they get is resource based, without using that resource, they are doing less damage than Fighter, Barbarian and Monk already, no need to nerf Paladin more for reserving resources for tougher fights, it does nothing to address the Martial/Caster imbalance, Martial classes need buffing, not Paladin needing further nerfing. Paladin's nerfs already likely go too far, Paladin could NOVA but NOVA is NOVA, it's not sustained damage over combat, people were complaining a lot because a Paladin could occasionally do a lot of damage but sustaining that damage in a 5-round fight against a BBEG after having 2/3 fights against minions on the way without a long rest, that damage is not being sustained.
Did they forget there is a feat and is just giving the features to different classes and subclasses.
How about baking Weapon masteries right into the weapons and ignore it as a class feature and have it as a Weapon feature? You are proficient and using a dagger. You can use nick with it without having a class feature because it is now a weapon feature.
Honestly this would be a better solution, just remove weapon mastery features entirely and bake into the weapon property.
Rogues do not need weapon masteries now that they have Cunning strikes. They do similar things.
My personal opinion is that only the warrior group should have masteries and others can get it via a feat.
Paladins don’t really need it, their damage is good. Rangers, well, it’s the class design not the mastery that they need help with.
Vex and Nick were designed with Rogues in mind specifically, fighter, barbarian and monk do not need any access to either of those. In fact, Monk doesn't really need access to any weapon mastery at all if they go entirely unarmed... which is another reason weapon mastery is not the group feature, Monks get very little from it.
Paladin's damage got nerfed in the UA and what damage they get is resource based, without using that resource, they are doing less damage than Fighter, Barbarian and Monk already, no need to nerf Paladin more for reserving resources for tougher fights, it does nothing to address the Martial/Caster imbalance, Martial classes need buffing, not Paladin needing further nerfing. Paladin's nerfs already likely go too far, Paladin could NOVA but NOVA is NOVA, it's not sustained damage over combat, people were complaining a lot because a Paladin could occasionally do a lot of damage but sustaining that damage in a 5-round fight against a BBEG after having 2/3 fights against minions on the way without a long rest, that damage is not being sustained.
Did they forget there is a feat and is just giving the features to different classes and subclasses.
How about baking Weapon masteries right into the weapons and ignore it as a class feature and have it as a Weapon feature? You are proficient and using a dagger. You can use nick with it without having a class feature because it is now a weapon feature.
Honestly this would be a better solution, just remove weapon mastery features entirely and bake into the weapon property.
If they chose to make WM just part of the weapon and you can use it as long as you are proficient then I wouldn’t complain. I would say that fighters should get a little bit of a buff for their current features dealing with WM.
Paladin was probably the strongest martial in the game so they did take a hit on smites. But they also got buffed with smites by having the spells be a bonus action on a hit instead of having to cast and concentrate until use. They can concentrate on Bless or something else and still use the smite spells. And they can use their steed as some bonus damage if they wanted to. And the aura and Abjure Foes and healing. I’m really not that worried on the Paladin power level even after this UA.
The monk is another can of worms that will have to wait until we see a revision before worrying about WM.
Rogues do not need weapon masteries now that they have Cunning strikes. They do similar things.
My personal opinion is that only the warrior group should have masteries and others can get it via a feat.
Paladins don’t really need it, their damage is good. Rangers, well, it’s the class design not the mastery that they need help with.
Vex and Nick were designed with Rogues in mind specifically, fighter, barbarian and monk do not need any access to either of those. In fact, Monk doesn't really need access to any weapon mastery at all if they go entirely unarmed... which is another reason weapon mastery is not the group feature, Monks get very little from it.
Paladin's damage got nerfed in the UA and what damage they get is resource based, without using that resource, they are doing less damage than Fighter, Barbarian and Monk already, no need to nerf Paladin more for reserving resources for tougher fights, it does nothing to address the Martial/Caster imbalance, Martial classes need buffing, not Paladin needing further nerfing. Paladin's nerfs already likely go too far, Paladin could NOVA but NOVA is NOVA, it's not sustained damage over combat, people were complaining a lot because a Paladin could occasionally do a lot of damage but sustaining that damage in a 5-round fight against a BBEG after having 2/3 fights against minions on the way without a long rest, that damage is not being sustained.
Did they forget there is a feat and is just giving the features to different classes and subclasses.
How about baking Weapon masteries right into the weapons and ignore it as a class feature and have it as a Weapon feature? You are proficient and using a dagger. You can use nick with it without having a class feature because it is now a weapon feature.
Honestly this would be a better solution, just remove weapon mastery features entirely and bake into the weapon property.
In the case of monk getting a Fighting Style could reverse that. Two-weapon FS + Nick adds a free 1d4 attack (Dagger with Nick) adding its Dex making it worth, compensating the lack of damage improvement at long term (making it a glass cannon at low level). Thrown Weapon FS + darts (Vex) + dagger (Nick) allows to throw 3 weapons in a round without using the Bonus Action, that you could use in Step of the Wind.
Then FS are even more crucial for monk than for many others, so cannot understand their stubbornness that even prohibit its access to them. Meanwhile the Paladin with all the everything it gets, or the Ranger, both having so many features plus spells, can get it for free.
Rogues do not need weapon masteries now that they have Cunning strikes. They do similar things.
My personal opinion is that only the warrior group should have masteries and others can get it via a feat.
Paladins don’t really need it, their damage is good. Rangers, well, it’s the class design not the mastery that they need help with.
Vex and Nick were designed with Rogues in mind specifically, fighter, barbarian and monk do not need any access to either of those. In fact, Monk doesn't really need access to any weapon mastery at all if they go entirely unarmed... which is another reason weapon mastery is not the group feature, Monks get very little from it.
Paladin's damage got nerfed in the UA and what damage they get is resource based, without using that resource, they are doing less damage than Fighter, Barbarian and Monk already, no need to nerf Paladin more for reserving resources for tougher fights, it does nothing to address the Martial/Caster imbalance, Martial classes need buffing, not Paladin needing further nerfing. Paladin's nerfs already likely go too far, Paladin could NOVA but NOVA is NOVA, it's not sustained damage over combat, people were complaining a lot because a Paladin could occasionally do a lot of damage but sustaining that damage in a 5-round fight against a BBEG after having 2/3 fights against minions on the way without a long rest, that damage is not being sustained.
Did they forget there is a feat and is just giving the features to different classes and subclasses.
How about baking Weapon masteries right into the weapons and ignore it as a class feature and have it as a Weapon feature? You are proficient and using a dagger. You can use nick with it without having a class feature because it is now a weapon feature.
Honestly this would be a better solution, just remove weapon mastery features entirely and bake into the weapon property.
If they chose to make WM just part of the weapon and you can use it as long as you are proficient then I wouldn’t complain. I would say that fighters should get a little bit of a buff for their current features dealing with WM.
Paladin was probably the strongest martial in the game so they did take a hit on smites. But they also got buffed with smites by having the spells be a bonus action on a hit instead of having to cast and concentrate until use. They can concentrate on Bless or something else and still use the smite spells. And they can use their steed as some bonus damage if they wanted to. And the aura and Abjure Foes and healing. I’m really not that worried on the Paladin power level even after this UA.
The monk is another can of worms that will have to wait until we see a revision before worrying about WM.
Making smite spells a bonus action on hit is also a nerf actually, since now it's impossible to smite on an opportunity attack. A polearm master paladin can potentially get 4 divine smites in a single round in 5E, so the damage/nova nerf is HUGE.
Now Paladin does terrible damage compared to before, unless you count the buff to searing smite but searing smite is divine rather than Paladin, meaning other classes like Cleric and Bard (going divine) get access to that and deal far FAR more damage than Paladin. Additionally Divine Smite, which should be the highest damage smite, now can be counter-spelled like any other smite spell, so yeah, it's nerfs all round actually.
level 9 Paladin 3rd level divine smite does: 4d8 or 18 average damage
level 9 Paladin 3rd level searing smite does 3d6 damage on hit, 3d6 damage at start of targets turn and then it gets to make a con save to end the effect. Before the first save it has already done 6d6 damage or 21 average damage, failed con saves do more
level 9 cleric 5th level searing smite does 5d6 damage on hit, then another 5d6 damage, cleric likely has a higher save DC but it's still con, it is 10d6 damage before first save or average 35 damage.
So yeah, the changes to smites have still left Paladin as a worse martial than cleric (like they did in the Paladin and Druid UA), the nerfs have gone too far still. Paladin right now is broken and definitely no longer the best martial.
They should remove the bonus action cost of smite spells, it can be kept as once per turn then all smites should be made paladin only, not 5 of 7 with the most powerful being left open to Cleric and Bard. This would mean Paladin could use polearm master or two weapons, which the current build of Paladin in the UA makes near impossible due to having to burn bonus actions where bonus actions didn't need to be used before, also leaves smites on reaction as a thing.
But that only shows the flaws of multi-class rules. I have to insist that class features should be associated to class level. In the case of Divine Smite you could use spell slots according to your Paladin level looking at its table.
They have a nice chance to end with that looking for how rules can be exploited and get something broken stuff. But probably they will pass and simply will limit the Monk and some other already limited classes, not worrying about some core flaws because hey it is funny (AKA broken) and if you remove them become unfunny.
Four smites in one round is the broken part and burns through the limited resources you pointed out earlier. Just like monks stunning strikes 4 times in a turn. I guess you should have that option but then you can’t complain you’re worse off later when you have no resources later.
I do agree that all the smite spells should be paladin exclusive, or on a cleric subclass spell list if it fits the theme.
I don’t know, I just disagree with you on the state of paladins in this UA. I think they made out just fine.
Any martial has to be compared to a Full Caster who, at level 17, can turn into a dragon, and have a massive toolbox in their spell options.
If they're not capable of spamming massive damage, why even bother bringing them?
Paladins, Fighters, Rangers, Monks, even Rogues to a lesser extent.
A Rogue at level 20 with two shortswords and maximum dexterity and sneak attack is rolling 1d6+5 + 1d6 + 10d6, which is an average of 47 damage. That should be considered the absolute minimum average damage that a martial is capable of putting out, because Rogues are not meant to be the best martial fighter.
If you use a rapier with Booming Blade it's 1d8+5 + 3d8 + 10d6 for an average of 58
If you use a 3rd or 4th level spell slot to cast Shadow Blade that's 3d8+5 +3d8 + 10d6 for 67 average damage. Obviously those are for Arcane Trickster Rogues rather than baseline though.
Just noticed that Searing Smite (I overlooked it). Is that serious? Not only Clerics/Bards anone can take it with Magic Initiate. That applied to any full-caster is…seriously?. You can combine with any other “Blade” cantrip or Shadow Blade and is insane.
Any martial has to be compared to a Full Caster who, at level 17, can turn into a dragon, and have a massive toolbox in their spell options.
If they're not capable of spamming massive damage, why even bother bringing them?
Paladins, Fighters, Rangers, Monks, even Rogues to a lesser extent.
A Rogue at level 20 with two shortswords and maximum dexterity and sneak attack is rolling 1d6+5 + 1d6 + 10d6, which is an average of 47 damage. That should be considered the absolute minimum average damage that a martial is capable of putting out, because Rogues are not meant to be the best martial fighter.
If you use a rapier with Booming Blade it's 1d8+5 + 3d8 + 10d6 for an average of 58
If you use a 3rd or 4th level spell slot to cast Shadow Blade that's 3d8+5 +3d8 + 10d6 for 67 average damage. Obviously those are for Arcane Trickster Rogues rather than baseline though.
At this point you can’t compare martials to casters. It’s obvious that WotC has no interest in the martial/caster divide. And I don’t see that changing. So martials need to be compared to martials.
And your shadow blade example how are you getting the second 3d8? You can’t have two shadow blades.
Magic is a different type of power than martial; they have two different systems of power:
Martial
focuses on the body
Resrouse dependant Low
humanly possible Physical power pushed to supernatural
More focused on single combat (one vs one)
Survivability without resources is high
starts quite strong and weakens later(compared against casters)
Casters
Focus on the mind
resource dependant High
More focused on Warfare ( one vs many)
Survivability without resources is low
start weak to OP
There are exceptions, but they are just mixtures of both, and I might be missing something else, but what I mean is that they are two different play styles.
Four smites in one round is the broken part and burns through the limited resources you pointed out earlier. Just like monks stunning strikes 4 times in a turn. I guess you should have that option but then you can’t complain you’re worse off later when you have no resources later.
I do agree that all the smite spells should be paladin exclusive, or on a cleric subclass spell list if it fits the theme.
I don’t know, I just disagree with you on the state of paladins in this UA. I think they made out just fine.
I don't disagree that 4 smites in a round is broken, however restricting it too once a turn AND costing the bonus action for it is a clear over-compensation. It's restricting a lot of potential paladin play styles since the class isn't even usable with polearm master any more.
If you compare a 5th level Paladin with a Longsword (with duelling fighting style) and Shield using searing smite to Monk right now using flurry of blows, with +4 STR vs +4 DEX, you get the following
Paladin: 2 * (1d8 * 0.7 + 6 * 0.65) + (2d6 * (0.7+(0.35*0.7))) + (2d6 * (0.65+(0.35*0.65))) = 26.8575 average DPR, Divine smite 26.8575 average DPR, 14.1 without smite
Monk: 4 * (1d8 * 0.7 + 4 * 0.65) = 23 average DPR, 17.25 without flurry of blows
Monk can do flurry of blows 5 times at this point, Paladin can doing 2 2nd level searing smites or divine smites. Odd that Divine Smite and Searing Smite do exactly the same damage at 2nd level, but the increase in damage over monk on Nova is not significant when remembering just how much Monk can Flurry of Blows, or sacrifice for another effect like Stunning Strike. Also this is before remembering that Paladin only recover spell slots on long rest, monk gets all discipline points back on a short rest.
a 5th level fighter using action surge (longsword and shield for sake of being a more equal comparison) and fighter with two-weapon fighting style with 2 short swords (no action surge), would do:
Fighter action surge: 4 * (1d8 * 0.7 + 6 * 0.65) = 28.2 average DPR, 14.1 without action surge
Fighter two weapon fighting: 5 * (1d6 * 0.7 + 4 * 0.65) = 25.25 average damage, 15.15 without smite
Obviously when you compare sub-classes, many fighter subclasses add even more damage, where paladin ones only maybe add a channel divinity option. Ok Paladin is obviously going to beat a barbarian with longsword and shield... a Barbarian with Polearm Master and a Halberd, not so much
Admittedly this Barbarian figure is using a feat and the others aren't using feats, but this gets Barbarian's passive damage to a point where over the course of a 4 turn combat, Barbarian does easily more damage. Now Paladin's Nova could be increased with say a weapon mastery, which increase their damage die from a 1d8 to a 1d10... it's not a great amount of damage increase but it keeps Paladin's damage in-line with fighter.
So yes, Paladin is broken and will be like Monk / Ranger in 5E if the UA sticks to how it currently is. About the best thing Paladin has going for it is to use buff spells like Bless but at that point it's just a weaker cleric and weaker fighter, so why not just be a fighter or a cleric? The thing about Paladin in 5E is that they had one particular area they shined in, which was NOVA. Now paladin is just a weaker version of multiple other classes/roles in the UA. It doesn't shine and is really weak.
I know this is some what of a tangent, but saying that Paladin shouldn't get Weapon Masteries because their damage is already good, is ignoring the actual state of Paladin in this UA, it's not good, it is already behind the warrior group in terms of damage actually. On top of this, nobody saw Paladin as topping the casters, casters were still above Paladin, which is the real issue, what was needed wasn't a Paladin nerf, it was for the other martial classes to get buffed.
Just noticed that Searing Smite (I overlooked it). Is that serious? Not only Clerics/Bards anone can take it with Magic Initiate. That applied to any full-caster is…seriously?. You can combine with any other “Blade” cantrip or Shadow Blade and is insane.
yea, I only noticed when comparing to the state within 5E and missed just how buffed this spell got and that this was one of the two that WotC decided to leave open to Divine.
EDIT: fixed a few numbers I got wrong, corrected on re-reading.
Multi-smite is totally broken. Boring final boss fights lasting 1 or maybe 2 rounds. How epic!!
Paladin gets multi-attack, gets extra free damage die, it has everything like any other pure-martial, or even more (Monk has no Fighting Style). So adding Smite is a powerful extra. I don't care about "Paladin play style" (if killing anything in 1-2 rounds can be called style instead ruining the game) or if it was tolerated as normal previously, it is something that required a fix.
Smearing Smite must return to the original, Concentration spell. If not I see no reason any full-caster that wants to fight not getting it to add insane damage. Spell mechanics is supposed to be you spend it with the risk of dealing nothing, and the exception is the Paladin with Divine Smite, that is clearly a favored feature for a favored class but OK, and in any case is limited by half-caster progression (limiting how multi-class works of course). But granting this feature to any with full-caster progression is a big mistake. It is simply not fair with all the other spells which can be lost even spending the slot.
Multi-smite is totally broken. Boring final boss fights lasting 1 or maybe 2 rounds. How epic!!
Paladin gets multi-attack, gets extra free damage die, it has everything like any other pure-martial, or even more (Monk has no Fighting Style). So adding Smite is a powerful extra. I don't care about "Paladin play style" (if killing anything in 1-2 rounds can be called style instead ruining the game) or if it was tolerated as normal previously, it is something that required a fix.
Smearing Smite must return to the original, Concentration spell. If not I see no reason any full-caster that wants to fight not getting it to add insane damage. Spell mechanics is supposed to be you spend it with the risk of dealing nothing, and the exception is the Paladin with Divine Smite, that is clearly a favored feature for a favored class but OK, and in any case is limited by half-caster progression (limiting how multi-class works of course). But granting this feature to any with full-caster progression is a big mistake. It is simply not fair with all the other spells which can be lost even spending the slot.
two smites is fine, 4 is broken (overpowered), 1 is broken (underpowered), in my honest opinion, it could be fixed by only allowing smites for attacks made as part of an action and remove bonus action cost, job done. Ranger at level 5 now gets to do an extra 2d6 damage near every round and can do so with 2 weapons. The extra damage die that Paladin gets at level 11 is still weaker than fighter getting a 3rd attack, unless that extra damage applies to a 3rd attack, such as with polearm master or two-weapon fighting. Getting 3rd and 4th level slots is more meaningful to Paladin Nova than radiant strikes, because searing smite is broken too. Also with most campaigns still ending by level 12, that extra damage die is almost end-game and 4th level spell slots are never hit.
Alternatively smites could just be uncoupled from spell slots completely and have their own separate resource which increases with Paladin level, which actually makes a lot more sense and would have it in more inline with monk or battle master. How many paladins after all are actually using spell slots for any real number of divine spells, most are reserving most of their slots just for smiting. Personally, I think there are much better fixes to balancing smite than WotC has explored in these UAs.
options:
1) Remove +1 to stat option
2) Give 2 weapon masteries.
Can now take at level 1. No need to give non-warrior group members Weapon mastery class feature when you can now take it as your level 1 feat.
Why have the feat if you are giving it away as a class feature?
This suggestion is bad for a few reasons, first off it's an out-right tax on Rogue who we know a few of these new properties were designed specifically for that class, not Warrior Group. Rogue now has to waste a 1st level feat that should just be a class feature to begin with.
2nd, Paladin and Ranger are still martial characters, they're half-casters yes, but they primarily do their damage from melee, making Paladin and Ranger worse martial than warrior group makes them unplayable, that's literally the issue Ranger and Monk have in 5E, they are worse then other options. Your idea just breaks them since they now have to pay a tax for something that is NOT a group feature.
I've said it before and will say it again, the biggest issue with the warrior group classes is how they interact with resources, the resources they have are generally limited and underpowered. Monk should be getting more from expanding Ki and a d10 hit die, Barbarian does lackluster damage from rage, reckless attack and brutal critical, Fighter has a few good subclasses, Battlemaster, Arcane Archer & Eldritch Knight, all are resource based. Rogue gets most of their power from sneak attack, which is highly party dependent but we can see in the latest UA how damage die are being turned into a resource for Rogue.
A big part of this is that many classes are meant to be resource based but warrior group was meant to be justified from their passive damage output, however the way 5E planned out an adventuring day is very out of sync from how players actually wanted to play an adventuring day.
Rogues do not need weapon masteries now that they have Cunning strikes. They do similar things.
My personal opinion is that only the warrior group should have masteries and others can get it via a feat.
Paladins don’t really need it, their damage is good. Rangers, well, it’s the class design not the mastery that they need help with.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Did they forget there is a feat and is just giving the features to different classes and subclasses.
How about baking Weapon masteries right into the weapons and ignore it as a class feature and have it as a Weapon feature? You are proficient and using a dagger. You can use nick with it without having a class feature because it is now a weapon feature.
This makes sense, they are making the weapon masteries a class feature when its actually something the weapon per se is missing and shoving it as filler on the Classes instead of making something more exclusive for each class.
Vex and Nick were designed with Rogues in mind specifically, fighter, barbarian and monk do not need any access to either of those. In fact, Monk doesn't really need access to any weapon mastery at all if they go entirely unarmed... which is another reason weapon mastery is not the group feature, Monks get very little from it.
Paladin's damage got nerfed in the UA and what damage they get is resource based, without using that resource, they are doing less damage than Fighter, Barbarian and Monk already, no need to nerf Paladin more for reserving resources for tougher fights, it does nothing to address the Martial/Caster imbalance, Martial classes need buffing, not Paladin needing further nerfing. Paladin's nerfs already likely go too far, Paladin could NOVA but NOVA is NOVA, it's not sustained damage over combat, people were complaining a lot because a Paladin could occasionally do a lot of damage but sustaining that damage in a 5-round fight against a BBEG after having 2/3 fights against minions on the way without a long rest, that damage is not being sustained.
Honestly this would be a better solution, just remove weapon mastery features entirely and bake into the weapon property.
If they chose to make WM just part of the weapon and you can use it as long as you are proficient then I wouldn’t complain. I would say that fighters should get a little bit of a buff for their current features dealing with WM.
Paladin was probably the strongest martial in the game so they did take a hit on smites. But they also got buffed with smites by having the spells be a bonus action on a hit instead of having to cast and concentrate until use. They can concentrate on Bless or something else and still use the smite spells. And they can use their steed as some bonus damage if they wanted to. And the aura and Abjure Foes and healing. I’m really not that worried on the Paladin power level even after this UA.
The monk is another can of worms that will have to wait until we see a revision before worrying about WM.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
In the case of monk getting a Fighting Style could reverse that. Two-weapon FS + Nick adds a free 1d4 attack (Dagger with Nick) adding its Dex making it worth, compensating the lack of damage improvement at long term (making it a glass cannon at low level). Thrown Weapon FS + darts (Vex) + dagger (Nick) allows to throw 3 weapons in a round without using the Bonus Action, that you could use in Step of the Wind.
Then FS are even more crucial for monk than for many others, so cannot understand their stubbornness that even prohibit its access to them. Meanwhile the Paladin with all the everything it gets, or the Ranger, both having so many features plus spells, can get it for free.
Making smite spells a bonus action on hit is also a nerf actually, since now it's impossible to smite on an opportunity attack. A polearm master paladin can potentially get 4 divine smites in a single round in 5E, so the damage/nova nerf is HUGE.
Now Paladin does terrible damage compared to before, unless you count the buff to searing smite but searing smite is divine rather than Paladin, meaning other classes like Cleric and Bard (going divine) get access to that and deal far FAR more damage than Paladin. Additionally Divine Smite, which should be the highest damage smite, now can be counter-spelled like any other smite spell, so yeah, it's nerfs all round actually.
level 9 Paladin 3rd level divine smite does: 4d8 or 18 average damage
level 9 Paladin 3rd level searing smite does 3d6 damage on hit, 3d6 damage at start of targets turn and then it gets to make a con save to end the effect. Before the first save it has already done 6d6 damage or 21 average damage, failed con saves do more
level 9 cleric 5th level searing smite does 5d6 damage on hit, then another 5d6 damage, cleric likely has a higher save DC but it's still con, it is 10d6 damage before first save or average 35 damage.
So yeah, the changes to smites have still left Paladin as a worse martial than cleric (like they did in the Paladin and Druid UA), the nerfs have gone too far still. Paladin right now is broken and definitely no longer the best martial.
They should remove the bonus action cost of smite spells, it can be kept as once per turn then all smites should be made paladin only, not 5 of 7 with the most powerful being left open to Cleric and Bard. This would mean Paladin could use polearm master or two weapons, which the current build of Paladin in the UA makes near impossible due to having to burn bonus actions where bonus actions didn't need to be used before, also leaves smites on reaction as a thing.
But that only shows the flaws of multi-class rules. I have to insist that class features should be associated to class level. In the case of Divine Smite you could use spell slots according to your Paladin level looking at its table.
They have a nice chance to end with that looking for how rules can be exploited and get something broken stuff. But probably they will pass and simply will limit the Monk and some other already limited classes, not worrying about some core flaws because hey it is funny (AKA broken) and if you remove them become unfunny.
Four smites in one round is the broken part and burns through the limited resources you pointed out earlier. Just like monks stunning strikes 4 times in a turn. I guess you should have that option but then you can’t complain you’re worse off later when you have no resources later.
I do agree that all the smite spells should be paladin exclusive, or on a cleric subclass spell list if it fits the theme.
I don’t know, I just disagree with you on the state of paladins in this UA. I think they made out just fine.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Any martial has to be compared to a Full Caster who, at level 17, can turn into a dragon, and have a massive toolbox in their spell options.
If they're not capable of spamming massive damage, why even bother bringing them?
Paladins, Fighters, Rangers, Monks, even Rogues to a lesser extent.
A Rogue at level 20 with two shortswords and maximum dexterity and sneak attack is rolling 1d6+5 + 1d6 + 10d6, which is an average of 47 damage. That should be considered the absolute minimum average damage that a martial is capable of putting out, because Rogues are not meant to be the best martial fighter.
If you use a rapier with Booming Blade it's 1d8+5 + 3d8 + 10d6 for an average of 58
If you use a 3rd or 4th level spell slot to cast Shadow Blade that's 3d8+5 +3d8 + 10d6 for 67 average damage. Obviously those are for Arcane Trickster Rogues rather than baseline though.
Just noticed that Searing Smite (I overlooked it). Is that serious? Not only Clerics/Bards anone can take it with Magic Initiate. That applied to any full-caster is…seriously?. You can combine with any other “Blade” cantrip or Shadow Blade and is insane.
At this point you can’t compare martials to casters. It’s obvious that WotC has no interest in the martial/caster divide. And I don’t see that changing. So martials need to be compared to martials.
And your shadow blade example how are you getting the second 3d8? You can’t have two shadow blades.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Magic is a different type of power than martial; they have two different systems of power:
Martial
Casters
There are exceptions, but they are just mixtures of both, and I might be missing something else, but what I mean is that they are two different play styles.
I don't disagree that 4 smites in a round is broken, however restricting it too once a turn AND costing the bonus action for it is a clear over-compensation. It's restricting a lot of potential paladin play styles since the class isn't even usable with polearm master any more.
If you compare a 5th level Paladin with a Longsword (with duelling fighting style) and Shield using searing smite to Monk right now using flurry of blows, with +4 STR vs +4 DEX, you get the following
Paladin: 2 * (1d8 * 0.7 + 6 * 0.65) + (2d6 * (0.7+(0.35*0.7))) + (2d6 * (0.65+(0.35*0.65))) = 26.8575 average DPR, Divine smite 26.8575 average DPR, 14.1 without smite
Monk: 4 * (1d8 * 0.7 + 4 * 0.65) = 23 average DPR, 17.25 without flurry of blows
Monk can do flurry of blows 5 times at this point, Paladin can doing 2 2nd level searing smites or divine smites. Odd that Divine Smite and Searing Smite do exactly the same damage at 2nd level, but the increase in damage over monk on Nova is not significant when remembering just how much Monk can Flurry of Blows, or sacrifice for another effect like Stunning Strike. Also this is before remembering that Paladin only recover spell slots on long rest, monk gets all discipline points back on a short rest.
a 5th level fighter using action surge (longsword and shield for sake of being a more equal comparison) and fighter with two-weapon fighting style with 2 short swords (no action surge), would do:
Fighter action surge: 4 * (1d8 * 0.7 + 6 * 0.65) = 28.2 average DPR, 14.1 without action surge
Fighter two weapon fighting: 5 * (1d6 * 0.7 + 4 * 0.65) = 25.25 average damage, 15.15 without smite
Obviously when you compare sub-classes, many fighter subclasses add even more damage, where paladin ones only maybe add a channel divinity option. Ok Paladin is obviously going to beat a barbarian with longsword and shield... a Barbarian with Polearm Master and a Halberd, not so much
Barbarian: 2 * (1d10 * 0.7) + 3 * (6 * 0.65) + 1d4 * 0.7 = 21.15 average DPR
Admittedly this Barbarian figure is using a feat and the others aren't using feats, but this gets Barbarian's passive damage to a point where over the course of a 4 turn combat, Barbarian does easily more damage. Now Paladin's Nova could be increased with say a weapon mastery, which increase their damage die from a 1d8 to a 1d10... it's not a great amount of damage increase but it keeps Paladin's damage in-line with fighter.
So yes, Paladin is broken and will be like Monk / Ranger in 5E if the UA sticks to how it currently is. About the best thing Paladin has going for it is to use buff spells like Bless but at that point it's just a weaker cleric and weaker fighter, so why not just be a fighter or a cleric? The thing about Paladin in 5E is that they had one particular area they shined in, which was NOVA. Now paladin is just a weaker version of multiple other classes/roles in the UA. It doesn't shine and is really weak.
I know this is some what of a tangent, but saying that Paladin shouldn't get Weapon Masteries because their damage is already good, is ignoring the actual state of Paladin in this UA, it's not good, it is already behind the warrior group in terms of damage actually. On top of this, nobody saw Paladin as topping the casters, casters were still above Paladin, which is the real issue, what was needed wasn't a Paladin nerf, it was for the other martial classes to get buffed.
yea, I only noticed when comparing to the state within 5E and missed just how buffed this spell got and that this was one of the two that WotC decided to leave open to Divine.
EDIT: fixed a few numbers I got wrong, corrected on re-reading.
Multi-smite is totally broken. Boring final boss fights lasting 1 or maybe 2 rounds. How epic!!
Paladin gets multi-attack, gets extra free damage die, it has everything like any other pure-martial, or even more (Monk has no Fighting Style). So adding Smite is a powerful extra. I don't care about "Paladin play style" (if killing anything in 1-2 rounds can be called style instead ruining the game) or if it was tolerated as normal previously, it is something that required a fix.
Smearing Smite must return to the original, Concentration spell. If not I see no reason any full-caster that wants to fight not getting it to add insane damage. Spell mechanics is supposed to be you spend it with the risk of dealing nothing, and the exception is the Paladin with Divine Smite, that is clearly a favored feature for a favored class but OK, and in any case is limited by half-caster progression (limiting how multi-class works of course). But granting this feature to any with full-caster progression is a big mistake. It is simply not fair with all the other spells which can be lost even spending the slot.
two smites is fine, 4 is broken (overpowered), 1 is broken (underpowered), in my honest opinion, it could be fixed by only allowing smites for attacks made as part of an action and remove bonus action cost, job done. Ranger at level 5 now gets to do an extra 2d6 damage near every round and can do so with 2 weapons. The extra damage die that Paladin gets at level 11 is still weaker than fighter getting a 3rd attack, unless that extra damage applies to a 3rd attack, such as with polearm master or two-weapon fighting. Getting 3rd and 4th level slots is more meaningful to Paladin Nova than radiant strikes, because searing smite is broken too. Also with most campaigns still ending by level 12, that extra damage die is almost end-game and 4th level spell slots are never hit.
Alternatively smites could just be uncoupled from spell slots completely and have their own separate resource which increases with Paladin level, which actually makes a lot more sense and would have it in more inline with monk or battle master. How many paladins after all are actually using spell slots for any real number of divine spells, most are reserving most of their slots just for smiting. Personally, I think there are much better fixes to balancing smite than WotC has explored in these UAs.
Booming Blade.
In fairness, a noble knight slaying a vicious dragon in a couple of rounds is epic.
Of course they've just blown through most of their spell slots... and here comes another dragon.