Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Paladin Smite Mechanics are Horribly Done

Im Just going to lay it out for you all, Here it is:

Paladin Smite mechanics are the primary mechanic of the class and if they are done poorly then the Paladin is done poorly. (If they suck the Paladin sucks)

Divine smite in D&D 5e does not require an action of any sort (i.e. not an action, bonus action or reaction.) Additionally Divine Smite can only be used on a confirmed hit or crit (thus it cannot be used on an attack that misses). Also Smite spells are supposed to be bonus action casts that last up to 10 rounds (requiring concentration.) They do not initiate an attack when cast. Smite spells are also not consumed on missed hits and are only supposed to be consumed when an attack hits while the buff is active. This allows a paladin to cast a smite spell as a bonus action and then when an attack hits the paladin can then use divine smite on the same attack. This would cause the attack to deal: weapon damage + smite spell damage/effect + Divine Smite damage + ability modifier damage + additional damage based on items/class bonuses (if any.) This would use a total of one bonus action and one action. If the attack misses neither the smite spell or divine smite are consumed and the paladin is free to try again on his next attack without using additional resources.

Thus using an action, bonus action or reaction to use the divine smite ability is SEVERELY hurting the Paladins action economy in its currently implementation. The Smite spells being consumed even on missed attacks is also SEVERELY hurting the Paladins action economy in its currently implementation. This is hurting the paladins action economy even more when you consider that the smite spells initiate an attack when cast thus taking away a paladins ability to use what should be a bonus action after having used their action. Attacking a weakened enemy to slay them and then moving and then casting a bonus action smite spell to prepare for next turn is an extremely common tactic in 5th edition.

I sincerely urge you to correct this incorrect implementation of the smite mechanics. Failure to do so will leave the paladin far behind the other classes in terms of combat viability. When we look at a paladin it's easy to see that the class is basically a worse fighter + a worse cleric + multi-attribute dependent. Divine smite and smite spells and the entirety of smite mechanics is what allows the paladin to stay in step with other classes as levels progress, remember that smiting consumes spell slots so like the monk it is not infinitely sustainable so the fighters' multi attack outshines it in the long run and unlike clerics and other casters paladins do not get as many spell slots or higher spell levels nor does smite deal area of effect damage or effects and thus these casters will outshine the paladin as well with their increased number of spell slots and AOE damage/effects. Lets also not forget that 5th edition (like all other D&D editions) action economy is KEY and to hinder a class' action economy is by far the most devastating nerf possible.

The current implementation of paladin smite mechanics (the class' primary feature) has the paladin set on a path toward being the worst class in the game. My suggestions on how to correct this are as follows:

1.) Make Smite spells bonus action casts, with a duration of 10 rounds (requiring concentration), that do NOT initiate an attack on cast and that are consumed ONLY when an attack HITS an enemy while the buff is active.

2.) Make Divine Smite a toggle button (attached to the characters hot-bar/turn meter), requiring NO ACTION OF ANY KIND and create the code to ONLY consume a spell slot when an attack HITS or CRITS.

I have read it thrice ...
And i still dont see what is supposed to be a problem. O_o

Its true that i didnt check if Divine Smite costs us Reaction ... or if Larian just put it there for covenience.
Maybe thats what you are talking about?

As for other smites, as far as i know (and feel free to corect me) they do cost Bonus action and cause Concentration ... but since they are delivered by Attack, Larian decided to merge it to single strike that costs both Action and Bonus action ... wich seems reasonable to me. O_o

//Edit:
I see i was wrong ... its not delivered by attack.
As i read Searing smite for example ...
Its basically the same spell as Hex or Hunter's Mark ...
Wich makes Larian implementation even better since you cant forget to activate it.

I’ve not checked the combat logs thoroughly yet to see what is happening with smiting, but I’m pretty sure that when I tried to use searing smite and missed, it didn’t consume a spell slot or bonus action, just the action. That may have been my Zariel tiefling’s inherent searing smite rather than their paladin smite, but I’d think they’d be implemented the same way. Admittedly that’s just on the initial turn and I haven’t got round to working out what happens on subsequent ones for smite effects that persist for a number of turns.

For divine smite, I’ve been using the reaction prompt rather than active selection, and that only seems to fire when I hit and have at least one remaining spell slot, so I’m not sure what is wrong with that? Though I’ve not looked into whether activating smite consumes a reaction or what happens when choosing divine smite as an action, so is that where you see the problem?

EDIT: I’m looking now and realise that that the inherent tiefling searing smite doesn’t actually use a spell slot unlike the paladin one, which I guess makes sense as not every Zariel tiefling is going to be of a class that has spell slots. My point still holds for the bonus action, but I’ll keep an eye on spell slots from now on.

Yeah, I've noticed that too. The wrathful smite effectively didn't cast on the miss, which is a nice power-up. But I'll double-check next time I play.

So what I am trying to say here is the action economy of the paladin is adversely affected by the current implementation of smite spells. Smite spells cost a bonus action to cast and are a self buff lasting up to 10 rounds (requiring concentration). The Smite spell buff is only consumed on a hit but should the attack miss the buff remains and does not require further actions to use on subsequent attacks. This means that the paladin should be able to use just a single bonus action to cast the smite spell buff and be free to use his bonus action for other things in subsequent rounds. As it stands the paladin must spend both an action and bonus action EVERY round in order to keep attempting to hit with the smite spell. Now I will check again to confirm whether or not divine smite is actually consuming a reaction on hit when set to do so, but as it looked to me so far divine smite seemed to consume a reaction when set to take effect on a hit. If this is the case then it would mean the paladin would be required to use an action and bonus action to attempt to hit with the smite spell EVERY ROUND and if the paladin does hit the enemy and wanted to use divine smite on that same hit they would have to use their reaction as well. What this boils down to is paladins spending extra bonus actions every round they miss their attack and being cost a reaction to use divine smite that should cost no action at all. It is not an insignificant drawback, rather it has huge implications, for example it prevents paladins from using items or bonus action spells on any round they want to attempt to hit with their smite spell. Whereas normally they should be able to cast their smite spell swing (miss) then next round swing again (miss) still use a potion or cast a bonus action spell (that doesn't require concentration) while keeping their smite spell buff active (concentration, up to 10 rounds). Once they do hit they normally would be able to use divine smite simultaneously with no action cost whatsoever.

Now I will say that I thought about it some more and what they could do instead is refund the bonus action spent when missing with smite spells to simulate the fact that there is not supposed to be more than one bonus action spent when using the smite spells (unless recasting is necessary due to lost concentration or the like) However this too has significant impact on the paladins action economy by effectively making smite spells cost no action at all unless the attack hits (which seems OP) and so I think the changes I mentioned in my earlier post are the way to go. To address your comparison to hex and hunters mark I will just say that smite spells are a self buff not a debuff and do not provide additional damage on hits after the first however smite buffs do not care who you attack so unlike hex and hunters mark which cannot be retargeted until the original target dies the smite spell buffs can be used for attack attempts on any target.

I will do some further testing to make doubly sure that I have interpreted the current smite mechanics correctly but from what I've seen so far I think I have a pretty good grasp on it. We are all human however and humans make mistakes, so to make sure that I am not the one making the mistake I shall check again.

Very interesting, What I can add to this conversation is a bug? /wierd interaction with divine smite (maybe other smites to but havent tested those yet) has with GWM feat, normally if you kill outrite or crit a creature you can then use bonus action to strike again etc... Now with the new reaction system in place this scenario plays out 2 different ways. 1. if you set divine smite to automatically occur with out asking you to then you attack and smite the target, if the normal attack doesnt kill the creature and extra dmg from divine smite does then in this scenario you get your bonus weapon attack (as I would expect it to) now for scenario 2. if you set divine smite to ask you before actioning it ( basicly game pauses and asks if you wanna use it) and you choose to activate it and the creature is killed by the divine smite dmg then in this scenario you arnt awarded the extra bonus attack. Both these scenarios are executing the same attack sequences but just getting to the end result slightly different ways via the ask reaction mechanic, they should produce identiacal results in which i believe scenario 1 should be correct ( i could be wrong) but scenario 2 trips some were in the programming were it thinks its not part of the same weapon strike or something? maybe thinks is a different spell type? not sure, but hopefully larion gets it fixed as I like being asked to use resources before possibly wasting them, how ever not at the cost of an exta attack from the GWM feat as it currently stands. How I am playing it atm is if you think there is a reasonable chance to kill a creature using weapon attack plus divine smite then set it to automatically execute before attacking but if the odds are not in favour of killing then set it to ask, I shouldnt have to think this hard but the wierd 2 scenario things makes me do so when optimising dmg/resources understandably, let me know if you guys have experienced the same thing or if I'm some how missing something.

Looks like the D&D Paladin is like a World of Warcraft Paladin.
The simple solution is like a 100% Weapon Procc activated by a toggle mechanic which uses concentration.
Means Smite aka Bonus DMG is tailored around Wepeon Hit and as Procc Effect its outside the normal Action Economy.

I'll be honest, I found it really tricky to follow the OP's explanations, which I don't think is anyone's fault as the smite logic is complicated. I think I might not agree with their description of how it is working, but it's equally likely that I've just misunderstood.

I'm not sure it's any clearer, but the following gives my understanding of what I think is happening based on level 4 (ie one attack) paladin using Searing Smite with the game set to ask for Divine Smite on crit and non-crit attacks.

If I'm right about how it's working, then I don't see anything obviously problematic. It would be great if someone could point out what is wrong, or not consistent with 5e RAW. Or indeed help fill in the details that I didn't manage to capture.

---
Paladin uses Searing Smite (SS) full attack (requires them to have an available action, bonus action and spell slot)
Then
- If attack misses
---- No weapon damage is applied
---- Action is consumed, bonus action and spell slot are NOT consumed
---- Paladin can do something else with bonus action if they wish
---- THE END
- Else if attack hits
---- Paladin's action, bonus action and spell slot are all consumed
---- Weapon damage is applied
---- SS fire damage is calculated and applied
------- If the enemy dies THE END
------- Else SS condition is applied to the enemy* and to the paladin
------- If there are any spell slots left, user gets asked whether they want to use Divine Smite
----------- If user says yes
--------------- Divine Smite damage is calculated and applied, and spell slot consumed
--------------- If the enemy dies, SS condition removed from paladin THE END
---- Paladin's turn ends
---- Then the following REPEATS repeats for 10 rounds including the current one **
------- Each time the paladin gets a potentially concentration-ending effect then they need to make a save
----------- If they fail, SS condition is removed from paladin and the enemy THE END
------- On turn of an enemy affected by SS condition
----------- SS damage is calculated and applied (doesn't consume any paladin resources)
----------- Enemy gets opportunity to save against SS condition ***
-------------- If they succeed, SS condition is removed from the enemy and paladin THE END ****
------- If an enemy affected by SS is killed, SS condition removed from paladin THE END
------- On the paladin's next turn
----------- They can use their action, bonus action and remaining spell slots however they wish
----------- If they use any new concentration-using spells/effects, SS condition removed from them and enemy THE END
----------- Else go on REPEATING until the 10 rounds are up

* I didn't write down whether the enemy gets an opportunity to save on first application of SS condition, I think they might.
** I'm not sure how the duration is being calculated exactly as I've never been able to get anywhere close to exhausting it. I guess SS might remain active until the start of the paladin's 10th turn after their initial use of Searing Smite, or until the end of their 9th subsequent turn, or until the end of the enemy's turn where they get SS fire damage for the 10th time (including the first hit).
***I didn't write down whether the save was before or after the damage was applied on the enemy's turn.
**** I'm not 100% sure about whether the SS condition was removed from the paladin straight away as I found it really hard to maintain concentration long enough to check, and a couple of occasions it looked like they still had SS but with duration reduced to 1 turn. I guess it's possible that the paladin could retain the condition and have the opportunity to reapply next turn, but I didn't see this and I think all that was happening was that the paladin was losing the condition at the end of the enemy's turn if they made a save.

---

EDIT: Btw, though I don’t find anything obviously bad about the mechanics of SS it does seem conceptually a bit weird. It’s an attack that can set your enemy on fire and potentially keep burning them as long as the paladin keeps focusing. It would make more sense to me if it were an attack that set your weapon alight and gave it a chance to do fire damage for 10 turns or unless concentration was lost, though I suppose then it would make less sense for it to be tied to whether or not the first attack hits.

I was under the impression that divine smite uses the reaction prompt, but does not spend a reaction. I've seen people divine smite and use hellish rebuke in the same round. Did I interpret it wrong?

I believe that is correct, but haven’t validated it. I had thought that the game didn’t make clear when you had “spent’ your reaction but then someone mentioned it’s shown on a coloured icon if you hover over a portrait in battle, but I’ve not got round to using this info.