Personally, I use smites to weaken enemies. That said, when I’m attacking with advantage (and plan to smite anyway) I will wait for the results of the second roll just in case that one is a crit.
That's just common sense.
I can see the argument for power gaming, but the ability is written to allow it. I do agree that not using any smites until you crit is kinda silly (unless you are really lucky with your crit chances). When I play a Paladin I do tend to hold onto at least 1 higher slot for an ace card or big crit smite.
Right, which is why I don't classify it as an exploit or even metagaming. You're not using your out-of-game knowledge to affect your in-game actions; as Niara said the smite ability can be understood in-game as your Paladin knowing the most opportune times to call down a smite. Of course they'd want to save a higher slot as an ace.
@mrfugi3
Ya I gotcha, interesting though that you would know if the enemy is low on hp.
If you've faced an enemy before then you should roughly know its health total. Also, if you're attacking a goblin then you know it always has low hp :P
Additionally, I usually play in games where you can make perception checks to tell roughly how wounded an enemy is, or the DM just flat out tells you when it reaches <half hp.
