Prestige class ability scaling another ability

[SedraxisXNG]

Hey there playground. I was contemplating a build with a weird mix of classes, and me and my DM ran into a wall that we're not sure how to power through. In particular , we're wondering if pathfinder's Battle Templar ability ordained knight ( A battle templar fulfills a role special to his religion, and as such, may act both as courageous warriors and as pious priest. He receives a circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks equal to his class level when dealing with members of his faith. If the character possessed a unique divine ability from a previous class (the class features channel energy, a cleric's domains, a paladin's lay on hands, an inquisitor's bane or inquisitions, or an oracle's curse), he may add his levels in battle templar to that class to determine their effectiveness. Additionally, should the battle templar possess the aegis class feature (see warder class), the battle templar may add his class level to his warder level to determine the bonus of his aegis class feature. ) would advance a paladin's smite damage and/or uses per day. By RAW, it does not mention smite. But the RAI of the ability seems to imply it should. What's your opinion playground ? Let us have it

[Gallowglass]

Hey there playground. I was contemplating a build with a weird mix of classes, and me and my DM ran into a wall that we're not sure how to power through. In particular , we're wondering if pathfinder's Battle Templar ability ordained knight ( A battle templar fulfills a role special to his religion, and as such, may act both as courageous warriors and as pious priest. He receives a circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks equal to his class level when dealing with members of his faith. If the character possessed a unique divine ability from a previous class (the class features channel energy, a cleric's domains, a paladin's lay on hands, an inquisitor's bane or inquisitions, or an oracle's curse), he may add his levels in battle templar to that class to determine their effectiveness. Additionally, should the battle templar possess the aegis class feature (see warder class), the battle templar may add his class level to his warder level to determine the bonus of his aegis class feature. ) would advance a paladin's smite damage and/or uses per day. By RAW, it does not mention smite. But the RAI of the ability seems to imply it should. What's your opinion playground ? Let us have it

Because this is a Path of War prestige class and Path of War is by Dreamscarred Press, you can actually go to one of their "ask us a question" threads here on the forum to get an answer straight from the devs. That's an advantage pathfinder and its 3rd party material have over d&d 3.5 which has no active dev support.

My opinion is that I probably wouldn't let it advance their smite damage. My reasoning is twofold.

1> prestige classes that advance your prior class spellcasting are already very powerful, having it advance all or most of your other prior class features leaves you with a prestige class that there is no reason not to take it. Its almost too good, so I would err on the side of not making it even better when making a judgement call on how it works. I mean, if this prestige class advanced your paladin spells, your paladin lay on hands AND your paladin smite damage, why would you ever NOT take it? Auras? Mercies? should those advance as well?

2> If you look at the abilities they call out except for channel energy(domains, lay on hands, bane, inquisitions, curse) and look at the level table for those prior classes, you will see that those abilities are listed just once, at the level they are taken. You have to read the description to find out how they advance and give new abilities as you go up in class levels. Smite evil is listed each time the damage goes up, almost like they are treating it like separate class features that you get at higher levels rather than one feature that gets progressively better. Now, channel energy is also listed this way, so there is an exception to this reasoning. so my reasoning is shaky.

If I had to guess, I'd say the intention IS to let the prestige class advance all those features, but my opinion is that that makes the prestige class too powerful.