Making a better Smite Paladin

[Warrnan]

My bestfriend and I had played WoW for years. We enjoyed how Prot and Ret Paladin played in Wrath. We are now endevouring to build a 3.5 analog and make the stock 3.5 paladin cry in his Cheerios. So far we've isolated fist of Raziel, ordained champion, church inquisitor, holy liberator, and prestige paladin as promising prestiges for this build. We are using cleric as our base class.


We are mainly wanting to smite like a truck as many times a day as possible while maintaining cleric casting as much as possible. Anybody, have any ideas (excluding TOB, incarnium, psionics please)??

So far we're thinking clc2/ church inq.2/ Ord. Champ2/ fist of Raziel9/ X5.

[Kaje]

Warlock / Cleric / Eldritch Disciple with eldritch glaive, eldritch claws, or hideous blow. Refluff Eldritch Blast as "Smiting Blast."

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Be able to fly, probably this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20060105b), and use a (valorous) piercing weapon to execute a dive attack.

Take as many levels of regular Paladin as possible, with the Charging Smite ACF in PH2. I'd go either Cloistered Cleric 1/ Paladin 19 or Spellthief 1/ Paladin 19 for the build.

With Cleric you can get Knowledge Devotion, Travel Devotion, and the Inquisition domain, pick up Divine Defiance, and get the Divine Counterspell ACF in CM for Paladin. Congratulations, you're amazing at counterspelling in addition to everything else.

With Spellthief you can use Wands of any Wizard spells from the schools that class gets access to, namely Wraithstrike. You can also take Craven if you use Paladin of Freedom, and you can get Devoted Inquisitor, but both of those only work if you can make a sneak attack so I wouldn't even worry about them. With Wraithstrike you can include two-handed Power Attacking for your full BAB. If you instead use a Wand of Extended Wraithstrike, you can cast Rhino's Rush every other round.

In any case you should probably also take the feat Divine Might, and wear Armbands of Might and always Power Attack for at least -2 to hit for +6 damage two-handed. Take Extra Smiting plenty of times, or use one of the many online Paladin fixes (houserules) that changes Smite Evil uses to per-encounter rather than per-day.

Smite Evil adds +1 damage per Paladin level. Charging Smite adds another +2 damage per Paladin level. Dive Attack plus Rhino's Rush plus a Valorous weapon make you deal x4 damage, or +12 damage per Paladin level from smite alone. Use a Ritiik from Frostburn, and you'll automatically deal just as much damage as the initial hit when you pull your weapon out of your victim.

[Piggy Knowles]

Take Harmonious Knight sub levels, From Smite to Song, Song of the Heart and Words of Creation. Stay straight Paladin 20.

Now every smite attempt adds +10 to attack and damage, on every attack for the encounter, for you AND your party. Pick up a Badge of Valor and a Vest of Legends, and it's +14. Oh, and it works on everything, too, even if it's not evil. That's a heck of a lot more useful than the single attack boost you'd get from a traditional smite, even with Fist of Raziel, Awesome Smiting, et al.

[Menteith]

You've hit on the big ways of optimizing Smite via classes, but I'll offer a bit of advice with regard to feats;

- If you're looking at the Dragonborn template (linked in the post above), look at the feat Initiate of Bahamut (Dragon Magic page 20). "If you have the ability to smite evil from another class. your cleric levels and levels in that class stack for the purpose of determining the extra damage dealt by your smite evil ability", grants additional Smite Evil 1/day, or 2/day if you're a Dragonborn, and grants a few new spells for a cleric's list. The feat makes the Prestige Paladin an easy one level dip for Detect Evil at will and an additional Smite 1/day.

- From Complete Champion (p55), Awesome Smite is worth consideration. It allows you to ignore miss chance/reduce DR/make a trip attempt (pick one) on every Smite attempt you also Power Attack on, which is decent.

- Smiting Power (Champions of Valor p33) allows you to Smite Evil on a Bull Rush or Overrun attempt, giving improved tactical options.

[Warrnan]

Warlock / Cleric / Eldritch Disciple with eldritch glaive, eldritch claws, or hideous blow. Refluff Eldritch Blast as "Smiting Blast."

Thats fantastic. I was working on this idea recently. Do you go cleric heavy and buff up after eld. Disciple runs out of levels? I was turned off by the fact that Healing Blast was turning based. I just wish it had a essence that was at will. This alone would make all Lock/Clerics great with unlimited healing so all spells could be better utilized.



You've hit on the big ways of optimizing Smite via classes, but I'll offer a bit of advice with regard to feats;

- If you're looking at the Dragonborn template (linked in the post above), look at the feat Initiate of Bahamut (Dragon Magic page 20). "If you have the ability to smite evil from another class. your cleric levels and levels in that class stack for the purpose of determining the extra damage dealt by your smite evil ability", grants additional Smite Evil 1/day, or 2/day if you're a Dragonborn, and grants a few new spells for a cleric's list. The feat makes the Prestige Paladin an easy one level dip for Detect Evil at will and an additional Smite 1/day.

- From Complete Champion (p55), Awesome Smite is worth consideration. It allows you to ignore miss chance/reduce DR/make a trip attempt (pick one) on every Smite attempt you also Power Attack on, which is decent.

- Smiting Power (Champions of Valor p33) allows you to Smite Evil on a Bull Rush or Overrun attempt, giving improved tactical options.


That is fantastic info. I will use that in my build for sure! Thank you!!



Take Harmonious Knight sub levels, From Smite to Song, Song of the Heart and Words of Creation. Stay straight Paladin 20.

Now every smite attempt adds +10 to attack and damage, on every attack for the encounter, for you AND your party. Pick up a Badge of Valor and a Vest of Legends, and it's +14. Oh, and it works on everything, too, even if it's not evil. That's a heck of a lot more useful than the single attack boost you'd get from a traditional smite, even with Fist of Raziel, Awesome Smiting, et al.

"Bardadin" is stinking sweet. If I play PHB paladin ever, this has gotta be one of the most epic ways to do it. Slap on battle blessing and that's all you need. Perhaps song of the white raven and a crusader dip to make it swift. Good stuff.