In addition to more balance oriented concerns here, I also find the clunkiness of core class features being implemented as "you get this super special spell" to be strange. It makes it harder for a newer player to understand the powers of a class, and means you immediately have to understand nuances of spellcasting from the jump. It feels like in the long run it will make such class features harder, not easier, to balance, as well.

Smites are now garbage sneak attacks ...

Quote from AnaseSkyrider >>

EDIT: I'm not familiar with how this forum works. It seems replying doesn't actually tag the user or link to their post; only when you quote them, which I have to figure out how to tag properly. Until I fix that: these are all in reply to CharlieDrush.
EDIT2: I've linked my quotes directly.

Quote from CharlieDrush >>

I complain about the nerf because it makes the class less fun.

Paladin has been getting away with murder for a very long time.

1. Smiting on every single hit adds a ton of UNBALANCABLE nova potential. Smite scales like it's a 1/turn big damage sink without a save or concentration, and yet with specific feats and more spell slots, it functioned more like a concentration-less Mark spell.

2. Monks have to use their bonus actions for extra damage. Barbarians need it for their Rage (the extra damage of which is paltry). Even Rogues, the example you use later in your post (and so many people are using), often have to spend their bonus action to generate the advantage they need for Sneak Attack. Without Nick, you need a BA for TWF.

Quote from CharlieDrush >>

Paladins are now punished for taking options that give them a consistent bonus action, like a few levels in Rogue or the Polearm Master feat.

No, they aren't, it's called being balanced. PAM adds a more consistent way to trigger reaction attacks, which is still more damage. If you miss your Extra Attacks, PAM provides a backup attack to still contribute. PAM also gives you a way to weaponize your bonus action when you DON'T want to spend spell slots. If the feat investment feels too heavy, you can take a Nick weapon and do TWF, and even take the TWF style, offering you comparable damage to PAM without even having to spend the bonus action. (Reminder: Paladins got access to all Fighting Style feats, so they can take TWF now.)

Quote from CharlieDrush >>

Subclasses like [oath examples] now also have spells they'll rarely use, like Hunter's Mark, Misty Step, and Spiritual Weapon because those require a bonus action, and why would you cast a bonus action spell if you have to give up your chance to smite?

Because when you're in a shitty situation, I'd rather be able to make a couple attacks and teleport out of danger than do nothing at all. Hunter's Mark and Spiritual Weapon also provide reduced damage at smaller spell slot cost, making them great options for conserving resources at the cost of lower burst potential.

Quote from CharlieDrush >>

If tactically engaging games require you to have interesting and compelling options every turn, why is it a good change to take away those options?

[EDIT3: I didn't need to be this condescending, I changed my opener]
Let me try explaining how the bonus action is required to become interesting and compelling with a pseudo-example.

My ally who isn't adjacent to me is low on HP, and there's a couple enemies surrounding us who've taken some damage this fight. Most of the time, I'm probably going to use my action to attack twice, and I have some choices for my bonus action. Here are some strategies:

1. I attack the one closest to me, in the hopes of killing it so that I don't provoke opportunity attacks when I then move to my ally to save him with Lay on Hands.
2. I attack the one closest to my ally, in the hope that it dies, thereby protecting my ally. I might want to smite to ensure it dies, since I don't know its exact HP, or if I'm low on spell slots, I might use PAM's bonus attack. I might attack once, kill it, and then decide I might be able to end this fight now (just in case the one adjacent to me tries to coup de grace my ally) by attacking the 2nd one with my remaining attack and then smiting or using PAM.
3. Depending on other conditions and what spells I have prepared, I might have a significantly more impactful option to cast with my action instead, such as Command: Betray (friendly fire on their own ally).
4. In a particularly deadly combat where I probably can't take either one down, I could provoke the attack (if I have enough HP), and simply hold my action to cast Revivify before the Rogue's turn (depends on the circumstances of enemy initiatives, and what my allies can do), then we can run away.

A tactical decision matrix like this can only exist so long as my decisions on my turn depend on both the uncertainty of the outcomes of my options (especially because of dice rolls) and the inability to do basically everything on my character sheet all at once on my turn. Going down might not even be particularly deadly because your DM avoids coup de grace behaviors and the enemies don't have significant multi-attacks (or their multi-attacks don't always target the same creature, it depends on how the DM runs the creature's intelligence and strategic ability).

[EDIT3: Further illustration] If you've ever played PF2e, you might see where I'm coming from (and if you haven't, I encourage you to do so). The 3-action economy and abilities which cost 0 to 3 actions alongside their Multiple Attack Penalty leads to highly dynamic, highly tactical turns where you feel like you have more options than you do actions. You might still be a striker, but you'll often still spend at least 1 of your actions trying to gain more damage, sometimes still debuffing in the process,  similar to giving up an attack in 5e to knock prone and give your whole party melee attack advantage. It's this basis that's why I say if any of the options feel lackluster in the wake of Bonus-Action-Smites, you should buff those options (or buff smite's damage) so that your turn feels competitive, and you feel like taking that class has given you the benefit of not needing to take any particular feat.

Quote from CharlieDrush >>

[...] Sneak Attack and Divine Smite are very similar in a lot of ways. Sneak Attack is great because you can potentially deal a boatload of damage every turn, but you have to meet certain conditions, and sometimes you have to spend resources to get there. On the flipside, Divine Smite can be used on demand to deal similar amounts of damage, but you always have to spend resources to use it.

Divine Smite does a lot more damage, is a better damage type, needs fewer conditions to use it, and only needs to be consumed when you need it. All of this flexibility and versatility should be accounted for in its power budget, just as how Rage provides a much smaller damage bonus and so only needs to be activated once as a setup ability (usually), while Flurry of Blows makes entire attacks (which has all kinds of other scalings) with its resource cost.

Quote from CharlieDrush >>

Also, it's not a good argument to say "WotC sucks at game balance, suck it up."

For the record, that's not what I said (this post sounds like it's a reply to my arguments despite not tagging me, but even if it's not, the clarity is still important).

This post is full of comments saying they will house rule and homebrew away these changes in one form or another, mostly so as to entirely revert it. My point was never "suck it up", it was to see the purpose of this design, to embrace it, and to fix it where it actually fails (for example, scaling too weakly on Paladin's half-caster chassis, or the other competitive options being too weak).

When I said "WOTC sucks at game balance", it was to point out that they will probably not achieve the desired balance under the pros of this schema, so you should fix it the way a more competent company would have made it in the first place, rather than discarding it; the point was NEVER to simply ACCEPT that WOTC sucks at their jobs.

Quote from CharlieDrush >>

(Also, I think a lot of the changes WotC has made with the new Core Rulebooks are heading towards a more balanced game, so I also reject the idea that WotC sucks at game balance, but that's a matter of opinion I suppose).

My position that WOTC sucks at game balance is based on how most of their releases are exceptionally imbalanced compared to the content of said release as well as relative to past publications -- and because they update and balance the game at an exceptionally slow rate. Consider that this update is literally 10 years after the game came out, when free balance erratas are entirely feasible; but Hasbro is a greedy company, and so we don't get that.

 Okay, so first off, want to thank you for replying to me in a civil manner. Sorry if my initial response to you was hostile; as you can probably tell, this change makes me upset, so I probably was more mean-spirited than I should have been.

I definitely tend to make a couple of assumptions about people who are in favor of the exact way the change was implemented, and they are as follows:
A. They haven't played a paladin or played alongside a paladin at a healthy table, 
B. They haven't DMed for a paladin at a healthy table, and
C. They haven't done much homebrew.
(Now, what constitutes a "healthy table" may vary from person to person, but in short, what I'm referring to is a table where Player and DM fun are both encouraged and conversations can happen when one player is overshadowing others.)

I make these assumptions because people tend to argue from the position of "divine smite was too strong, it needed to be nerfed." As somebody who has seen the builds that smite 10 times in one turn, I tend to agree, and I think making it once per turn was a huge leap in the right direction. I also think the ability for a DM to shut down a paladin's ability to smite temporarily through things like Silence and Counterspell was a good change that can make for more tactical decisions on the part of the party: A wizard may want to not cast Shield in case the enemy spellcaster Counterspells the paladin's smite next turn, or the cleric may choose to cast Dispel Magic on a Silence aura so the paladin is able to smite in the first place. These are changes that encourage player cooperation, making the game healthier overall. And even if you don't want to rely on other party members for that, you can still multiclass with sorcerer and pick up Subtle Spell metamagic. Plus, the ability to sacrifice smite damage for utility is an excellent addition (as was done with the updated smite spells).

So those are the positives; now it's time for the negatives. I think I've done a pretty good job of articulating certain instances where Divine Smite is now less fun, but it could be argued that those are edge cases, so I'll put it in more general terms. There is no other class feature in the game that monopolizes your turn as much as the new smite does. Full stop.

Because something I don't see a lot of people who defend this talking about is how weird making smite a bonus action is from a mechanical standpoint. In simple terms, your action is "what you do on your turn," your bonus action is "something else you do on your turn," and your reaction is "what you do in response to a trigger (generally either enhancing something that's already happened or attempting to prevent something from happening)." That's a fundamental principle of the game's combat system (and something you'll pick up on if you do a lot of homebrew or even if you're just naturally good at understanding game mechanics and the reasoning behind them). However, the new version of smite flies in the face of that paradigm, now taking the role of a reaction rather than a bonus action. Now when a paladin smites, their action economy is completely different from that of any other class, because they're doing something, then enhancing that thing, then maybe doing something for enhancement or protection purposes again later. They're no longer allowed to do something and then do something else if they want to smite.

That also makes it really hard to give a paladin magic items as a DM. Most magic items are designed with the standard action economy in mind: You do something, then you do something else, and then maybe you do something later. But now any magic item that lets you do "something else" conflicts with one of the paladin's key features. And giving a character something that makes their main features harder to use is a good way to make sure they never use it. And that isn't fun.

Should smite be a reaction then? Honestly, sure, why not? It makes sense from a narrative standpoint, it gives smite an additional action economy cost while keeping it in line with the game's core combat system. I'll probably homebrew a new divine smite (or a new set of smite spells, depending on if the restrictions on casting multiple spells a turn sticks around) that uses your reaction instead of your bonus action. 

Not all feedback was ignored. You can read through here, as well as on Reddit, and see a fair amount of people supporting the change.

I'm not here to defend it's "perfectness". I do have some concerns with smite not working on "Spell Immune" enemies, though a solution could be if the spell targets the paladin's weapon/attack and not the enemy itself? Its also possible such immunities will be gone in the new MM. We don't know everything yet, and I do urge caution when we talk about changes in a vacuum. 

That all being said, I also understand that people here are (hopefully) just really passionate about a game/class they love and they're worried. I'm not even saying for SURE that "it'll all be ok" when the dust settles. But I'm hopeful.

Not being able to Misty Step and Smite on the same turn might feel bad but I do see it as a "choice made" and am fine with things like that. Misty Step is a spell and as such, other casters wouldn't be able to do a big damage spell and misty step in the same turn anyway. 

As a DM, I'm encouraged by everything slowing down a little bit when it comes to big swings. Between this and the high likelihood of Great Weapon Master/Sharp Shooter being turned way down, means it might make it a bit easier to manage certain encounters, and even then everyone still gets to be surprised at the table with hidden "Bursts". The Paladin and Rogue can still crit big on their attacks and that'll still feel fantastic.

I don't know, I guess I'm probably talking to a wall to some people who have already written this off, but I do hope people sit and play with it to see for sure AFTER everything comes out for every class/monsters.

Paladins Smite is a poor attempt to balance Divine Smite. To balance it, the only change it needed was to be once per turn on a hit. It should not be a spell. It should not be a bonus action. 

So from what I've noticed looking at this comment section, the people who are mad at Divine Smite being treated like the other Smite spells, fun to them is just doing a bunch of damage in combat. The more damage, the more fun. You all realize this is a ROLEPLAYING GAME where combat is not the only thing you do. I can only imagine how boring your characters are personality wise outside of combat since it seems like you break out the calculator to make the most optimal build so you can do the most amount of damage each round while foregoing everything else about your character. If combat, strategy, and doing damage is what you're looking for and that's fun for you, maybe Warhammer is more your speed.

Quote from Sparky_92 >>

So from what I've noticed looking at this comment section, the people who are mad at Divine Smite being treated like the other Smite spells, fun to them is just doing a bunch of damage in combat. The more damage, the more fun. You all realize this is a ROLEPLAYING GAME where combat is not the only thing you do. I can only imagine how boring your characters are personality wise outside of combat since it seems like you break out the calculator to make the most optimal build so you can do the most amount of damage each round while foregoing everything else about your character. If combat, strategy, and doing damage is what you're looking for and that's fun for you, maybe Warhammer is more your speed.

On the contrary, plenty of people (myself included) object primarily because it limits roleplay options. When you move a core class feature onto the bonus action, you're less likely to pursue other options that rely on a bonus action. This is an incredibly limiting choice from both a roleplay and gameplay perspective. If you truly don't care about balance, then you should be more upset than anyone, because then it's a restriction for no good reason at all! You're going to see fewer types of paladins than you did before, and that's a real shame.

Once on your turn, when you hit a target with a melee attack using the attack action <weapon/Unarmed> you can add 2D8 of radiant damage to your attacks by spending a 1st level spell slot and increase the damage by +1D8 per every spell slot of level 2 or higher (+1D8 if target is a fiend or undead)

Limit to one attack per turn (no matter how many attacks you have.

Uses a limited resource.

Prevents you from using it as a reaction

Quote from Silverblade1234 >>

Quote from Sparky_92 >>

So from what I've noticed looking at this comment section, the people who are mad at Divine Smite being treated like the other Smite spells, fun to them is just doing a bunch of damage in combat. The more damage, the more fun. You all realize this is a ROLEPLAYING GAME where combat is not the only thing you do. I can only imagine how boring your characters are personality wise outside of combat since it seems like you break out the calculator to make the most optimal build so you can do the most amount of damage each round while foregoing everything else about your character. If combat, strategy, and doing damage is what you're looking for and that's fun for you, maybe Warhammer is more your speed.

On the contrary, plenty of people (myself included) object primarily because it limits roleplay options. When you move a core class feature onto the bonus action, you're less likely to pursue other options that rely on a bonus action. This is an incredibly limiting choice from both a roleplay and gameplay perspective. If you truly don't care about balance, then you should be more upset than anyone, because then it's a restriction for no good reason at all! You're going to see fewer types of paladins than you did before, and that's a real shame.

 How exactly does this limit roleplay options? All I'm seeing people complain about is that the numbers got smaller basically. Also not sure why you're accusing me of not caring about balance when I made no mention of it.

Quote from CharlieDrush >>

There is no other class feature in the game that monopolizes your turn as much as the new smite does.

[...]

Now when a paladin smites, their action economy is completely different from that of any other class, because they're doing something, then enhancing that thing, then maybe doing something for enhancement or protection purposes again later. They're no longer allowed to do something and then do something else if they want to smite.

That also makes it really hard to give a paladin magic items as a DM. Most magic items are designed with the standard action economy in mind: You do something, then you do something else, and then maybe you do something later. But now any magic item that lets you do "something else" conflicts with one of the paladin's key features. And giving a character something that makes their main features harder to use is a good way to make sure they never use it. And that isn't fun.

This is probably the best argument I've seen against the changes to Divine Smite so far, doubly so since you not only admitted to being hostile earlier but also didn't undercut the intelligence of the person you were speaking to. As for me, I'll definitely need to play the revised Paladin to make any final judgments, but I can see now that these complaints aren't being spawned in a vacuum.

Quote from CharlieDrush >>

Should smite be a reaction then? Honestly, sure, why not? It makes sense from a narrative standpoint, it gives smite an additional action economy cost while keeping it in line with the game's core combat system. I'll probably homebrew a new divine smite (or a new set of smite spells, depending on if the restrictions on casting multiple spells a turn sticks around) that uses your reaction instead of your bonus action.  

I think this is a good approach using existing tech: you only get one reaction, so that takes care of the 1/turn issue, ensures that different smites can't stack, and the action type cost is much easier to swallow since generally a paladin finds its reaction less valuable than its bonus action. It's a meaningful cost without being punitive. And as you so effectively pointed out, it feels right, since you are literally reacting to a successful attack with an extra burst of divine power.

The other thing I'm thinking of that WotC could have done is invent a new type of casting time for things like smite spells, lightning arrow, hail of thorns, etc., things that trigger on a successful attack. Call it strike or something similar. You use a strike spell upon successfully making an attack (restrictions listed in the spell), the spell's additional effect takes place, and you can use at most one strike spell per turn (depending on taste, you can even specify only on your turn, if you want to disallow opportunity strikes). There's enough of these types of effects that I think it would be generally useful, and would open things up for new gishy spells to help out rangers, eldritch knights, bladesingers, etc. The advantages of this approach are many: they make it a 1/turn effect, it unifies all the smite effects/spells (and crucially, keeps the smite spells as spells for compatibility reasons), it still allows for counter-magical counterplay/tactics, it has broader potential positives for other classes, and I'm sure more. We just found out that WotC is inventing a new kind of area of effect, so why not a new type of casting time? 

you could allways use divine smite with unarmed strickes. since in the now old 5e rule bok unarmed is  classified a wepon thefore it works with the smite rules

Quote from Eurhetemec >>

This is bad design, frankly. Poor choices, poor reasoning. Not impressed with WotC.

 Where you ever impressed by them?

I havn't been impressed by them since 2016...

Quote from Olegigolf >>

 

since in the now old 5e rule bok unarmed is  classified a wepon thefore it works with the smite rules

incorrect.

in 2014 5e for an unarmed attack to be considered a melee weapon attack they needed to have some kind of natural weapon. so some options like Tabaxi, Feral Tiefling etc. could however it broadly could not be applied to unarmed strikes

Quote from CryogenOfTheIceCastle >>

Why would you already be houseruling things when the full book isn't even out? I feel like actually playing the new Paladin first would be a much better way of making an informed decision.. instead of just instantly overruling something you haven't even tried or playtested. I feel like making it a spell and a bonus action puts it in line with every other smite spell, and in general is just healthier for the game to not have insane nova builds be easy to pull off as a Paladin 

Its WotC, you know you'll have to fix their mistakes and tomfoolery

Just like you know when a Bethesda game comes out you'll have to mod the everliving day light out of it to make a half decent game out of it.

They might as well put in the margin at the end of thebook "thanks suckers for paying 40$ for this halfassed attempt at a book, ask your DM to fix it, not like we can be arsed to actually do our jobs, what do you take us for? Nerds? hahaha"

done some more calculations for ones who are at tables who's DM insist on running this destruction of the paladin.

there's one niche build that can still manage to make divine smite usable, but at the cost of looking just like another drizzt clone

figthing with either : 2 scimitars or better Longsword + scimitar

Fighting Style : 2 weapon fighting

Weapon Mastery : flex + nick

flex makes the longsword do 1d10 dmg, nick makes your offhand scimitar attacks not cost a bonus action

if you go the longsword way it comes at the cost of you needing the dual - wielder feat tough, so if the cost of 1 feat for 2 more damage per hit is worth it, everyone must decide for him / herself

with these base setup it is possible to reach within about 10% as a 6 Paladin / 14 sorcereer with a pure warlock

but and that's a big but you loose any kind of versatility if you smite, since there's nothing you can do with your bonus action anymore
as for some saying use the smite spells, they are still at the same as they are in 5e nice at first look, but not realy worth using but in very nice cases.

most sane tables will just houserule the divine smite back to the 2014 one, with smite only be usable once a turn ... thats all wotc would have to do, but what do you expect comes from people who have clearly never played the game ( looking at you wotc Dev's )

The changes to smite are probably what was needed to balance the game, but with Divine Smite now being a spell rather than a class feature it can surely be counterspelled? Reducing it to once per turn is a good balance option, but if counterspell is a genuine threat to it then it could realistically end up as never being able to hit with it. 

Quote from Sparky_92 >>

So from what I've noticed looking at this comment section, the people who are mad at Divine Smite being treated like the other Smite spells, fun to them is just doing a bunch of damage in combat. The more damage, the more fun. You all realize this is a ROLEPLAYING GAME where combat is not the only thing you do. I can only imagine how boring your characters are personality wise outside of combat since it seems like you break out the calculator to make the most optimal build so you can do the most amount of damage each round while foregoing everything else about your character. If combat, strategy, and doing damage is what you're looking for and that's fun for you, maybe Warhammer is more your speed.

Do you believe a Wizard's fireball should be changed to D4s.  Or remove the Upcast ability of spells.  Why the high damage.  This is a role-playing game.

Why would doing high damage in combat make give the character less personality?  

Maybe talk to the player and help them with the non-combat features of their character during creation or leveling up.  During combat they can strategize and maximize what to do while waiting for their turn.  In non-combat situations they need to be able to jump into the situation and interact with the NPC at that instant.  Maybe the player is not comfortable and 'spontaneous' enough to comfortably interact during 'social', or 'exploration' part of the adventure.

Just my opinion.

Quote from Htap >>

smite is so bad now :/

 RIP the stupid amounts of burst damage. Why did they have to ruin the best part about Paladin?

Quote from DM_Chapp >>

Really the biggest loss of this version of divine smite is Barbarian/Paladins, but overall this is probably better for the game. I will miss going absolutely ham on smites though. 

The rest of the changes look really good. steeds will be a fun part of class identity from now on, and i think the changes to subclasses are pretty good! especially Glory's aura

 Now I can’t do barbarian paladin multiclass builds where I smite while I’m raging. :(