D&D's 2024 Paladin: NERFED Into The Ground, Or Perfectly BALANCED?
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2024
- The Character Sheet is back with more Fantasy and TTRPG news as we are diving into the Dungeons & Dragons fan outrage over changes to the Paladin class in the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook. So what changed with the Paladin in D&D 2024...and has Wizards of the Coast really ruined this beloved class with their changes...or is this an overreaction by D&D fans?
We're diving into the change mechanics to show you just what these D&D 2024 Paladin changes will mean for the class going forward...and if it truly was nerfed into oblivion, or simply has a new role in your party, as we dive into the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook Paladin!
#dnd #paladins #dungeonsanddragons
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So DID D&D just ruin the Paladin, or are you a fan of the huge change to divine smite? Let us know in the comments!
They want Paladins to use their Spell list more and provide more support to the team rather than using Smite as a Faux-Choice.
Then might as well go Full Cleric with just 2 level dips into Paladin, and you already made a superior Paladin than the new version of the Paladin.
>More Spell Slots
>Clerics have more spell options than Paladin
>Provide good healing.
>IMPORTANT: DIVINE SMITE IS NO LONGER CAPPED AT 4TH LEVEL SPELL! YOU CAN DIVINE SMITE USING 5TH LEVEL SPELL ADDING AN ADDITION DICE!
They unironically made the Paladin Class feel more like a Cleric Subclass
How much do you wanna bet that they still cap out the smite spell
I don’t like how we are giving other characters the ability to smite better than a paladin.
Every full caster is now better at smiting then a paladin
Honestly, it should be an ability kind of like the rogue’s sneak attack so that it gets the best of both worlds. Then it becomes a once per turn spell ability that can be used in combination with a concentration smite still and can also be used on a reaction opportunity attack. This way would literally just take away the ability to use it multiple times per turn.
I hate the idea of a Smite being counterspelled or thwarted by a Silence spell.
I also would have preferred a “once per turn” due to the bonus action clog. As bonus
Damage this is much more in line with other classes. Considering their spellcasting, its definitely better balanced but I prefer character identity to balance, within reason.
Excellent videos on the issues. Fully agree with everything your said a one turn limit was the better options as it allowed for the players to find fun ways around it. I also agree that as a PC and GM, the paladin was never a big issues.
We agree that limiting it to once a turn was the better option
When I DM, I'm going to be house ruling that Divine Smite isn't a spell and works the same way it did in 5.0, except possibly limited to once per round.
I need to see the Paladin in play with the new rules before deciding. It could be that the new Paladin feels really great in play.
That said, if I do find a houserule necessary, then this is similar to the way I had decided to go. I have "once per turn" in mind, so that Paladins can still smite on OAs.
The biggest problem by far is that Smite is what defined how the class operated. It was a tensions between a lot of power now and longevity in a day. It meant weighing options and getting a big reward for playing smart. It also forced them into being a melee martial, which most classes were not encouraged to do. Even fighter and such were more encouraged to be snipers most of the time. Their raw power also helped them keep pace with absurd power and versatility of casters. Now their martial power is pretty gutted. With better spellcasting and more side utility like being able to cast and use lay on hands, they are better at support...which is exactly what Cleric can do at double the rate and potency. They now have no clear class mechanical identity now, and instead function largely has half a cleric with Aura and Horse. That's atrocious game design and toilets probably the only actually well designed martial from 5e.
A far better way they could have done this is make Divine smite a once per turn thing so 1 of the paladin's 2-3 attack gets the damage buff, leaving the bonus action free for something, and letting them smite on a reaction.
If the smite spells on top of the Divine smite is the issue then remove the spells and merge them into the Divine smite feature. Like at 5th level you can choose to deal fire damage instead of radiant with your Divine smite. Or something like that but I know nobody in my groups are going to play paladins the 2024 way.
I have almost always played paladins. These new rules are making me seriously reconsider playing paladins. Or perhaps exploring DC20 paladins.
I always thought that the multiple smites in the round was very non-thematic. It was far more thematic, for me, to have just one smite per round. For me, it was just weird. Now, I didn't have a deep problem with it - for the reasons the video stated above. But I agree with many of the other sentiments - having it be a spell makes me sad. It would have been far better to have it be a unique Paladin thing. I am not sure why it needs to be a spell. Can I stop a Paladin from smiting if he can't talk? Also, I dislike it being a bonus action since they seem to be really mining the bonus action for a lot of stuff in the new edition.
Honestly, we need to see the smite description. If it’s anything like most things on the rangers spell list, you can hold the smite for your best use after you cast it including AO.
From the perspective of balance, makes total sense. From the perspective of the 1st round smite nova dopamine rush, bad move. I still wish it can be just once a turn and not use BA though. not being able to sentinel smite affects tanking abilities and strategic positioning
We think that is the simple fix, as this actually crushes the paladin's action economy in addition to hurting smite vs just toning down smite and giving them more options
for the balance argument
a 5th level wizard hitting 3 enemies with 1 fireball does more damage.
I'm sticking with the 2014 paladin
The counterspell point isnt as big of an issue as it would be in 2014 rules ar least, isnt it going to be a con save now or something like that? Plus at least they srill have their best feature imo (aura of protection)
Problem, to me, as a player, was that the Paladin was just so much more powerful. Oh, look, I did 20 damage! Nevermind, the Paladin did 75 damage... yeah, doesn't feel great when you just seem so much weaker than someone else.
I do agree though, that the bonus action requirement is crap. If it had a limit of once per turn and did not cost a bonus action, that would have been fine.
Another good limits could be that they can only use smite only x times per long rest to prevent them exploding all the time and prevent the abuse of having two level in paladin but 18 in sorcerer to be a smite demon.
For example, you can only smite X time per long rest equal to half your paladin level round up. You can still smite multiple time in a round but that would negatively impacts your ability to smite later.
Fair argument, but the paladin had to be in the front just to do that damage putting themselves more at risk.
5th level wizard did even more than a maxed pally
I find it interesting the comments on this nerf being needed because paladins are either broken or the strongest class in the game. I find a wizard or sorcerer can throw out more damage and to more enemies in a round then a paladin or have spells that can just end and encounter like banishment, polymorpth, hypnotic pattern etc.
I don't feel they are the best damage dealers in DnD, maybe single target damage sure still. I agree with people saying they are tanky to, the being best at saving throws well as long as other party members are in their aura then everyone is good at saving throws.
Nice breakdown by the producer.
from being a player and GM, im fine with it being a bonus action, im just not a fan of it being a spell because you can then counterspell divine smite. i would rather them saying that divine smite was a bonus action feature.
Honestly totally forgot you could just get your divine smite counterspelled, lol
Counterspelling divine smite is certainly something a smart vilain would do, like the one who have spells, if there is no other big spellcaster in the group.
If an enemy wants to spend their reaction and a 3rd level spell slot counterspelling just *part* of my damage, I'm good with that. That's a good drain on their resources.
You’re assuming that all the other smites are going to work the way they do now, but I’m pretty sure they’ve said they won’t. They are more likely to have made all the different smites (divine included) work the same way.
I fine with the nerf but making divine smite available at level 1 has consequences. Every full caster in the game is better at divine smite than paladin because their spell slots scale higher and it only cost them a single level dip
That's a fair point
Yeah, but also Divine Smite is also a bonus action for them and a Spell. You can still only cast one leveled spell per turn. How many full Casters are willing to give up Fireball or lightning bolt to hit with a weapon and do some extra damage? Very few. It'll be an option for them sure, but they still have to work for it to make it viable and it distracts from their other full castery stuff. Not saying it's not a Boon to other Casters (God knows I'm looking forward to playing with the idea of an Eldritch Knight/Paladin combo, or pairing this up with new Warlock), but I don't think it's ultimately that bad.
@@Chaosm03 That's a good point, it's way easier to just cast fireball
That’s always been the case tho.
But Divine Smite has a maximum of 5d8 total extra damage. That's only a level 3 spell slot. The only thing I can see being better is that other classes would get more slots. Personally I worked around that by only taking Paladin to 6 and then dual classing into bard for my remaining levels.
i forsee power gamer types already figuring out multi class pally builds with rogues figuring out how to do it multiple times a turn again with cunning action or something
As written, there's no way to do this. 5e isn't Baldur's Gate 3. There's no way to accrue extra bonus actions.
Depending on the overall power level of where the Paladin ends up with the smite changes, i might consider a bonus action smite spell affecting all attacks made until the end of the current turn but kaybe change it to d6's
Ive always liked the divine favor spell, so it would be a buffed version of that
Losing the nova damage hurts a lot. I'm slightly less inclined to play paladin now
One thing you're overlooking is, if they stick with the playtest, the concentration smites will no longer require concentration. They will work like the normal Smite, in that when you hit, you can decide which one to use. I don't really like that they made Smite cost both a spell slot and a bonus action. That seems too steep a cost. People will still play Paladins for the Aura of Protection. That, rather than Smite, is its most powerful feature.
More than good or bad, it was to be expected. Paladins were OP, they were tanky, strong, very fast in dealing damage and could heal too, I expected a nerf and most people probably expected one too, also most people expected smite to be a once per turn ability.
The bad part is more that it's a spell, that it can be counter spelled or that it won't work on a rakshasa or even any weird interactions coming from it being a spell.
Paladins definitely need to be toned town a bit for damage, this was just maybe the most punishing way to do that since it hurts the entire mechanics of the class.
Yeah, I'm good with this. I've always thought that paladins being able to wait for a crit and *then* choose to add on a smite was a step too far. Plus, even though they're lessening smite, they're adding other improvements, so we can't just look at this one change in a vacuum.
Overall, I'm interested in playing it and seeing how the new paladin stacks up against other classes.
yeah, I agree. Every paladin I played with stole the show from everyone else. They didn't do it on purpose, it just happens when playing the most OP class.
its very bad. first though it was great getting a divine smite for free but I can't do any other smite on top of the divine smite u did sucks.
Player: I’M GONNA SMITE!!!
DM: Um…actually…I counterspell your smite
Player: …
Basically how I would limit smites is once per turn and you can only use paladin slots for smites. It gets rid of the warlock and scorcer multiclassing and makes players who want to play paladins play paladins.
The nerf was to much honestly either gonna make it once per turn but not count as a spell or a bonus action or if you use divine smite you can only use a divine smite of lower spell slot tier the next time you want to cast it on your turn but counterspellable maybe
Rogues would be PISSED if Sneak Attack suddenly cost a BA and could be countered as a spell in the new edition for the next 10 years
for the longest time People memed on Paladin for being a Smite only machine. Sure they pulled back on Smite, but they gave you so much else to do that it's a much more versatile and rounded class. All in all I think we're pretty much in the same place. Paladin is a good class.
Also a fair take. We need to really see a bit more, as right now it simply seems like he got seriously nerfed in action economy.
I disagree. What they did was give a lot of fluff and mostly enhanced their ability to be half a Cleric with Aura. With middling fighting power and now less reason to actually melee or burn slots, they are going to be heavily encouraged to sit back and use powerful spells. Which is exactly what the Cleric does at twice the power and progression. They played like a unique class before. They play like a massive subclass of Cleric now. Terrible change overall for having classes that actually feel and function differently. Cleric will even be paladin better for the most part. Their biggest only smite a turn can now be done by the Cleric at higher slot levels, which means more power.
But they didn't because now your overall damage potential is tanked even when utilizing your damage, all so that sometimes you can not utilize that damage and do other things..... But that's exactly what you were doing anyways.
It's a net negative.
Says the guy that probably never plays a paladin
I hate this change for a number of reasons:
It's now vulnerable to Counterspell.
It's now more beneficial to take a Hexblade warlock or sorcerer and take a single level or two level dip into paladin for far more powerful smites than a regular paladin could ever do, because warlocks and sorcerers can cast up to 9th level spells, while paladin only has up to 5th level, meaning they can do an 10d8 Radiant damage smite compared to a paladin's 6d8 at most. That's an extra 18 damage on average.
Not a lot of things resist Radiant damage in general, and quite a number of things are actually vulnerable to it, making the potential damage of a cleric or warlock smiting even greater than a full or primary paladin's. Making it a once a turn ability, while not being as much of a dopamine rush as the 2014 version of Divine Smite, would be a much better change than making it a bonus action spell.
What are you talking about, Smite have always capped at 4th level with 5d8
@@anthonyramirez8348 Yes. But the NEW Divine Smite doesn't have that cap. It doesn't cap at 5d8 (6d8 if undead or fiend, not including IDS at level 11). The new smite is 2d8 damage, with an additional d8 for every level above 1, no damage cap. Paladins in 2024 PHB rules will now have 6d8 at most while (7d8 if undead or fiend, not including Radiant Strikes), again, a Hexblade warlock or sorcerer with a paladin dip will have a 10d8 smite at most (11d8 if undead or fiend).
Go to 2:33 to see the new Smite.
Honestly the nerf should have bee a Once Per Turn smite. That way it doesn't eat up a Bonus Action, nor can be Counter Spelled.
Simple, and clean. You could even make the Smite-Like Spells (Searing Smite as an example) as a feature and would still be balanced under the Once per Turn clause.
I feel like the nerf was needed, but they overdid it.
I would say it got balanced it needed a but of a nerf on the nuke damage capable but it was brought up on all support smd defensive capabilities which is what half the paladin is about
Actually we don’t know if the bonus action rule is still in place. It seems that they might be fixing abilities like Meta Magic and Action surge instead. No one liked that rule anyway.
Also they have many other features that removed bonus actions or actions from other Paladin features and instead use them as part of the attack action.
Okay so a paladin that thinks he is a wizard (mashle).
He throws a stick (A melee weapon) or a javelin shaped like a quarterstaff (still melee weapons).
Then upon hitting he casts smite, calling it divinde orb or something.
Can prob go with sharpshooter since it will be a ranged attack, but since its a melee weapon u can still cast smite.
The paladin was already balanced when a game is ran as designed, in that they cant throw all smites on their first enemy, they have to always keep track of their spell slots and smites left.
If the game is only ran 1 encounter per long rest then yea paladins are broken, but so are wizards that can teleport and fireball everything.
All this "nerf" does is force a player to ration their smites like they should already be doing, and removes their ability for a last ditch dump everything to defeat the bad guy awesome move.
The DM's will love it but it sounds like it will make Paladins do far less dmg then fighters, barbarians or rogues.
Sigh... counter spell.
Personally, I am not a fan of the nerf because of the bonus action aspect. Like your conclusion, I think limiting it to once per turn would've been perfectly fine. Would've solved the nova issue while still giving players more options and letting a pure paladin be a solid choice (more on that later). But now it means polearm master, great weapon master, and two-weapon fighting (without nick), basically are non-options for the Paladin; as you're bonus actions are already in short supply. And this Bonus action issue is only made worse by other things competing with the bonus action economy. Overall, I think it is bad design, as it just makes for less options which is less fun.
Finally, something I don't get (hopefully I just missed something), but changing smites to spells, really makes multiclassing out of Paladin MUCH better. To start, RIP the smiting with Barbarians or Moon druids. But, with smite being a spell, from what I saw, there is no limit to smite damage now. That means, at highest level, a Paladin can only use 5th level spell slots to smite, but a multiclass will have 8th or even 9th level spell slots to spend them on. In fact, it really means that a pure College of Swords Bard is just a flat out better Paladin than Paladins. As they can use magical secrets to take Divine Smite and other Paladin spells (yes, they will get smite later, but for some of the higher level spells, they'll even get them before the Paladin) while having access to high level spells.
Thank you, i agree with your take sooooo much
Almost every other class has to use their bonus action for their features even before the change, barbarians , fighters, ect. It only feels like a downgrade because its beem brought down to everyone elses level. Its a kid on Halloween who never had to share their big bag of candy. Now they have to when you should never have been eating that much in the first place. Also, if you have to modular your emcounters to deal with one player, your other players probably dont like them. "We have to deal with Ted before we can play too." That's ridiculous.
I haven't liked the paladin design since 3e. It gets progressively worse with each edition. I'm not talking about "power level" either.
It used to be a rare privilege to be able to play one. You needed to roll INSANELY well on ability scores to be able to play one.
They were just like the fighters but got a litany of buffs/bonuses. But you had to uphold a lawful good alignment AND the code of chivalry or you'd lose all your bonuses. Plus if you died after losing paladin status you'd reanimate as a death knight that tries to kill the party. That's way cooler than "I made an oath to vaguely follow a code to whatever alignment I want so I can blow stuff up with my sword"
If the problem was the nova damage just make it so you can smite only once for turn, but no, let's make the paladin a glorified aura bot...
Personally I gotta say the way they made the spell is hella clunky. A bonus action using a reaction style trigger to modify an attack? Surely there’s a better way…
I think that it was broken before and is really nerfed. This is when other classes are getting buffed. IMHO
I’m happy with the change, though I don’t disagree that making Smite a once a round ability would be good.
I think a lot of 6e is about bringing the crazy combos more into line with a non munchkin build. And I support that in general.
Finally.
I love how Jeremy Crawford's first words were "we wanted to make it easier for paladin players to go multi class into something else as early as possible," which pretty much sums up where WotC's head must have been at. They're deliberately trying to force a mass exodus of paladin mains to abandon ship so they can forget paladin even exists and stop making content for the class.
So they fucked up how the entire class operates? Good job WOTC
I am glad the 5e groups I play in are not switching to WOTC 6e.
If a class is ruined and loses identity because of a change, it probably wasn’t balanced to begin with.
Some of the comments see the paladin as a nuke. Whether by main class or multiclassing. This isn’t good design if the class boiled down to doing just ONE thing well.
The peoblem is that it didn't only do 1 thing well, it di many things well and had a niche munchkin build that could drop bosses too quickly if the DM was dumb enough to let it. Paladin was always good because it had auras, good survivability, some healing, and versatile spells. It's greatest weakness was that it actually fell behind in damage if you weren't spending all your spell slots on smiths, so you could only either be a versatile team player OR kill one mob really really hard. The later level features generally didn't improve this so it often multiclassed into warlock or cleric to help alleviate one of these deficiencies. Base paladin was actually pretty meh.
Now it's borderline unplayable unplayable. Smites being countered by any normal spell counter hurts a lot, but the bonus action means that it's probably a worse choice than a normal bonus action melee attack, so there goes the Tactical decision about smiting or support casting. That means what paladin is practically left with is being an aura-bot and a worse cleric. Less spells, less spell options, and a jumble of competing bonus action options, of which smite is absolutely the worst because, again, a normal bonus attack will do as well for no spell slot cost...
It can't even multiclass functionally with barbarian for rage smites, even if that was a bit of a need-to-houserule thing already. Now it's outright not s thing. All in all, they traded all of paladins real damage potential to make them an aura-bot with a free mount, or otherwise an automatic pass in favor of cleric to be a better support cldivine caster. Real shame...
Paladin just sucks for me now, it feels more like a weird version of the cleric. They practically butchered my favourite class for me because I never really thought of paladin as full support especially with half classting. As a paladin he could give a lot of damage, but then he had nothing left to long rest, unlike other classes.
It was too much! They should have made it a 1x turn mechanic. Now as a bonus action spell it grinds so much with the action economy and can be counterspelled. Big dissapointment. I do notvwant to play my current paladin with these rules
There are some really good changes for the Paladin, but many are just absolutely undermined by some really poor looking changes to the point that I hope we will get to keep our ability to play the 2014 versions of classes on DNDBeyond if these are the changes being made.
- Divine Sense not having a separate pool of usage and instead is a Channel Divinity is a waste. I don't want to use my combat resource pool for this. I'd much rather throw it out willy-nilly when I enter taverns, market places, or various dungeon rooms than not at all because I have more useful channel divinity options than something that only targets creature types that appear only in certain campaign. This one sucks the most for me since I was looking forward to using this feature for my upcoming Paladin.
- Lay on Hands not being able to remove diseases make no sense and give players no way of fighting back against the mechanic. And being able to use it on my Artillerist Artificer's turret is just plain weird, and aren't Paladins supposed to be against Undead?
- Spellcasting at level 1 makes little sense as a Half-Caster/Half-Martial when Third casters wait until 3rd level. Surely boosting multiclassing is not what we want to do?
- Divine Smite was already situational as most of the time your spell options give you more value from the Spell Slot than Divine Smite does, but also due to the inherent risk of going into melee at all. With it now limited to once per Round as it eats your Bonus Action, counterspellable, as well as blocked by Silence spell, the only viable way to play Paladin is by going ranged to maximize your Aura. This did not need to be nerfed, let alone this severely.
- Having two Channel Divinities when you still only get one back on a Short Rest is just a band aid fix when it has more features that build of it like Divine Sense, Abjure Foe, and as well as the enhanced Oath features.
- Oath of the Ancients Aura was done dirty. Changing its 7th level Aura from resistance to Spell damage to resistances to Necrotic, Radiant, and Psychic damage makes an the subclass nicher than it already was. These are literally the most uncommon damage types to receive as Players that is not Force damage, and the Aura was still only worthwhile in settings with plenty of spellcasters, and even then the more dangerous spells at higher levels do not deal damage at all.
As a DM and player and speaking with my group, the smite changes are not liked and those particular new rules will not be used at our table.
They still get a free divine smite per long rest along with their other features like Summon steed. They dont want Paladins or any class to be one trick ponies
They already had a free smite with Tasha’s book
They nerfed it badly, simple as that. The community here knows the proper solution should've felt similar to Sneak Attack from Rogues via the once per turn via Action thing. I'm homebrewing this into my play of Paladin (since it's just 2014 rule and making it better)
I not interese in this book and they changes if i find something that took my interes i will us it as homebrew but i as my personaly opinon that think this book is not wort the cooper that it cost.
I fully agree, there is only a few things I want to take from that and some of the changes I already use.
For example, I didn't wait for WotC to change the inspiration rules, we have been playing it like that for a while and it great.
I play Paladin and I’d happily adopt this version. There’s more to it than just spamming Smite
As someone who doesn't play paladin it still seems sucky now smite is nerfed now limited to bonus action and only on turn and one attack hit and sorry if its just me if thy use all the slots was sent to smite so be it but hey now I'm just more incentivized to never play paladin or try it now even more
thankful I have a GM who agrees paladin's got nerfed too much and is sticking with the 2014 one. It feels like the Find Steed was basically WOTC going "hey, we nerfed you into the ground and demons are now somehow able to counterspell your smites but hey, you get a free horse. Thats cool, right?"
Another problem with the new paladin. Smite can now be counterspelled or nullified in other ways. And certain enemies, INCLUDING SOME FIENDS are now immune to it. And don’t tell me counterspelling smite is a waste, it’s not a waste for a fiend or undead who’s gonna take nasty damage from that smite and die a lot sooner than they would’ve if the smite didn’t happen.
Divine Smite should ALWAYS have been a spell, it's honestly terrible design that it wasn't originally.
Also, nobody talks about how all the other smites received huge buffs and are actually viable now.
Paladin is WAY more fun to play now that smite has finally been FIXED.
I admit that "once per turn" is a bit restrictive, but that's not limited to paladin, that's just the new philosophy of this edition.
There are actually some very good reasons why this makes the game more balanced, even if it feels a bit less fun in the moment.
That said, personally i'd rather they didn't cost a bonus action, but were limited to "one smite per attack" instead.
OneDnD buffed the paladin in many many ways, however it did nerf ONLY their burst damage potential. Smites are WORTH a bonus action cost (especially for their improved rider effects). The class has a great cadance for bonus actions - heal (via lay on hands) or deal damage (smite) or use an alternative thing (class abilities, or misty step) - seems like a variety of fun options you can use.
It's awful, honestly. The bonus action requirement is inexcusably bad. Using an extra attack with your bonus action with an off hand +1 shortsword after Improved divine smite and +5 str mod would net you an average hit of 14. A level 3 smite would average 13.5. You'd need to be blowing a level 4 or higher spell slot just to exceed the average damage of a regular bonus action attack. Not even remotely worth the resource usage, and when you factor in the new crap you get from weapon masteries the regular attack stands out even more. Only time I'd ever actually use divine smite is if I was a full caster with a paladin dip, and even then there are just much better spells.
And making it a spell does nothing but add weaknesses. It can be blocked by silence, antimagic zones, or counterspelled. none of which are HUGE problems, but they're strictly negative on top of the action economy absolutely nerfing it into the ground.
I can not fathom what they were thinking here, before the paladin blew past other classes at the beginning of a fight and then fell behind, now they'll start behind and stay behind. At this point I'd rather just play a fighter and flavor it as a paladin.
Yeah the hate for Nova paladins came from people with a profound lack of understanding for HOW Nova paladin worked. It has always been weeker in extended play than every other class in the game and only was cracked in niche situations, usually with a DM dumb or inexperienced enough to let the paladin in their group Nova dump their BBG in the first round and ruin the campaign.
Now paladin is just bad... it's officially a glorified aura-bot and just worse than cleric...
It is really weird to nerf something(especially something that is supposed to be a core class feature) this bad/much
Edit: I don’t want to play 2024 dnd
Same I’m sticking with 5e
Im surprised this new book doesn’t have a dlc given how bad it is so far
In my honest to God opinion, if they wanted to simplify/rein in smite, they could have just added language that limited smite to once per turn and made the smite spells options for a smite in some way.
Instead they butchered it horrifically, and then made most of the paladins other features clash with it in the action economy, limiting the practical versatility of the class during a Combat, and then gave paladin weirdly specific and niche abilities that shove it into a box most paladin players I know never wanted to even open, like the obligatory mount... basically the new paladin is "more versatile" on paper and just significantly worse in practice IMO.
The fact that smite is now a spell means it can be silenced and counterspelled, it outright doesn't work with some features for multiclassing like barbarian rage, and some creatures outright are immune to it. Compared to cleric, you're giving up all the ACTUAL versatility of a full caster for what? A single type of spell (smites) and a free mount... that's terrible.
Paladins can do so much more than just damage, this is a good change since it will make people think more about how to use their other features/spells and also the paladins needed to be nerfed. Like most people said the worst part is that it can be counterspelled since there are a good bunch of undead spellcasters BBEGs, this also applies to any monster with radiant damage vulnerability, but most monsters wont even care to countespell a divine smite unless there are no full spellcasters in the party.
From GM perspective: I have this paladin player that doesn't really uses any spell, he expends every single spell slot in find steed and smite, there are situations in which I really desire to watch him be creative with his spells, so I'm really happy with this change.
From player perspective: I like when boss fights don't last 1 turn, even if GM makes something up. Killing a boss in 1 turn feels really disappointing, so thanks.
Don't like it. It messes up their action evonomy. With this rule, paladin cant really take Polearm master or dual weild.
There have been so many other problems that this is a who cares kind of thing. D&D lost me like a year back.
There's a lot that goes into creating fun and engaging encounters. You brought up some well versed points, but I can't help but think it's ignoring the main issue. That any ability that ALWAYS has to be taken in consideration when balancing encounters is not healthy for the game. It's like an actor hogging the spotlight for themselves. Why should anyone care about Maneuvers, Masteries, Sneak Attacks, and Brutal Criticals, when the smites outclass them in everyway. This nerf, buffs everything else in comparison.
It was only fun for the paladin and sucks for the rest of the party. When a single class is the best at damage, the best at defense and the best at saving throws, that's a problem. I've seen a paladin end a boss encounter in the opening round while the rest of the party did nothing. This is not balance.
It's not that hard to get around the nova damage of a paladin smite and more often has my encounter been destroyed by a full caster's that destroy combat or trap bosses while having more utility and team support. Paladins now lost a core part of there identity and function. Casters still seem to be insane while a hybrid gets gutted. Easy fix if you have paladins us more HP on big bads, reduce the radiant damage the monster takes, add minions that slow the paladins movement as the monster kites the paladin, make him burn smites on different monsters that must be killed to make the bbeg less powerful. All better then destroying paladin
From a player but mostly DM. I think this was a very good change. It is clearly a huge nerf but this was a broken ability from day-one of 2014, and as a DM, I found that speed of the smite dumps that would happen would often mean the players weren’t closely tracking the slot expenditure. For most It was a honest mistake, but some would do it on purpose. It was just another thing I had to track.. and it was a bit of a headache.
I still think D&D has long suffered from a poor action economy ever since 3rd edition, and I am not a fan of the bonus action mechanic in general, so increasing the number of abilities that rely on a bonus action is not the best way to address the issues with some classes, but neither is giving any class the means to essentially circumvent that limitation entirely. Sucks for Paladin players for sure, but better for the game overall.
If a player is not tracking their smite on purpose, you shouldn't be playing with them as they have some behavioral issue.
@@philippemarcil2004 I would agree.. and I don't. But it requires observation over time to determine if there is intent to cheat. And just how does one determine if there is a pattern? I have to track.
Paladins already suck
I love paladins but the nerf was well deserved and we all knew it was coming. Anyone raging has the imagination and emotional development of a 15 year old boy suffering from compensation issues
They did this so Fighters would look better by comparison. Why play a fighter…? For the Weapon Mastery (Pallys get that), for the Extra Attack (pallys get that), for the heavy armour (Pallys get that).
Smite was too powerful for the Fighter to compete with. Limiting the “super Nova” makes fighters look better
"NERFED Into The Ground"...good bait for your views brother, 8/10 bait
The ability to nova is just bad for the game, It really screws with encounter balancing, and paladins and monks were basically the 5E kings of novaing. Limiting smite to once per turn makes a lot of sense. They're still a very powerful class with the aura alone, giving a constant +5 to all saves to everyone in the party is real powerful.
I dont see a problem. Being able to one hit certain enemies of equal level especially once you can smite more than once per turn and having access to 5th or higher level spell slots through multiclassing is just wrong on both sides.
I'm so over wotc
It's fine.
1. Paladins smiting 3+ times a round was ridiculous anyway.
2. WhoTF is gonna waste a counter spell on a minor damage bump.
3. It's DnD. If you don't like a rule then don't use it.
Fanboys getting butthurt over nothing.
na dude shutup, paldins needed a nerf. If you have to completely buff everything just because a paladin shows up then they end up not doing anything because were just moving the goal post. Also I shouldn't just be weaker because I'm a fighter. cry it out, the game is in a better place.
We are just saying you could actually nerf smite without ALSO taking away a bunch of options from a Paladin by simply making smite once per round and not a bonus action/spell, which is what the devs said they were trying to do. Smite needs a nerf, just not THIS nerf, in our opinion.
@@TheCharacterSheet As a GM, the paladin smite was not on my top list of nerf really. I have more challenges with polymorph and circle of the moon druid.
Extra damage from the PC can be easily dealt with on the spot by boosting your villain HP or by bringing extra monsters from around the corner. Very defensive characters are harder to manage because if you bring a threat that can tackle them, that same monster will be able to annihilate any of the other player character.
@@TheCharacterSheet What's to stop someone from divine smite and then just casting other smite spells? You have to create this entire other wonky system where smites are these things that for all intents and purposes are spells but are not considered spells and can only be used once per turn. Paladins are the best class in the game after wizard, this nerf is fine and warranted. It also forces paladin players to make more nuanced decisions about what spells they use.