Paladin smite evil

[Little Beast]

As written in the players handbook, a paladin can smite evil as a normal melee attack. Does this allow for the paladin to make multiple smites per round if they have more than one attack and more than one smite? As a dm, I've allowed this in the past. Just curious what you all think is RAW here. Thanks.

[Ashtagon]

Smite is not an attack. Rather, it's a standard action which follows most processes for an attack. That said, Smite is woefully underwhelming in 3.5.

[Calthropstu]

Smite is not an attack. Rather, it's a standard action which follows most processes for an attack. That said, Smite is woefully underwhelming in 3.5.

Smite is something pathfinder greatly enhanced. I like it much better than 3.5's version.

[Soranar]

-Smite is a free action that affects a melee attack. It is not a standard action though the melee attack can be a standard action. You just declare your next attack to be a smite, it can even be an AoO.

-you can stack different types of smite with the same attack (killoren smite+crusader smite+ paladin smite)

-a smite's damage is static thus multipliable so multiplier strategies work well with it (mounted combat charge with lance and spirited charge, an orc's headlong rush ability, a flying dragonborn or raptoran's diving charge ability, the valorous enchantment, the rhino's rush spell, a cavalier's deadly charge ability, a monk's decisive strike ability)

-unlike power attack a smite attack is more accurate than a regular attack

-once you reach 3x or more multiplication, you can expect your smite to one shot enemies even 1 CR above your level. at x4 you can expect to one shot enemies 2 CR above your level. If you consider massive damage rule ( which states that any attack that causes 50 damage or more can instant kill anything) any smite attempt can resolve an encounter

It's not a great ability (due to the restrictions) but I would hardly call it useless. It's not affected by crit immunity and the toughest encounters are usually evil. However I would almost always use it to power the "from smite to song" feat and get inspire courage instead because that works against anything and it lasts a while

[KillianHawkeye]

Yes, you can use more than one smite per round if you have the attacks and the smites to spare. Given the daily limitation, I've never seen anybody actually do it. It's always fun to joke about "smiting first and asking questions later", but in my experience most Paladin players tend to save their smites for emergencies or obvious Big Bads.

[barakaka]

I think the binder vestige Andras gives a smite per 5 rounds. Per 4 rounds if you're a Knight of the Sacred Seal. I don't know if you can use it to power From Smite to Song though.

[Thurbane]

Is there a citation for Smite being a free action?

[KillianHawkeye]

Is there a citation for Smite being a free action?

It's inferred from it being a normal melee attack.

Once per day, a paladin may attempt to smite evil with one normal melee attack.

[Soranar]

Is there a citation for Smite being a free action?

Unfortunately no, you basically have to deduce the logic of it from the way it was worded. If it can affect any normal (whatever that means) melee attack then it can't cost an action to use.

The paladin was part of the original Dnd 3.0 classes, before they bothered to come up with the whole shtick of immediate actions, swift actions and such. Since they didn't have a name for it they just said : you can do it whenever you want and called it a day.

[ZamielVanWeber]

If you want to make smite evil at all relevant look to Fist of Raziel. It gives you a bunch of sites and automatically upgrades them. Since it requires Power Attack that also opens up the Awesome Smite feat.

[Zordran]

If you want to make smite evil at all relevant look to Fist of Raziel. It gives you a bunch of sites and automatically upgrades them. Since it requires Power Attack that also opens up the Awesome Smite feat.

Plus, you enter as a cleric and it has 9/10 spellcasting.

I would assume that definition of a "normal melee attack" excludes combat maneuvers.

[Bakkan]

It's inferred from it being a normal melee attack.

Eh, I think it's just as reasonable to read "Once per day, a paladin may attempt to smite evil with one normal melee attack" as "Once per day, a paladin may attempt to smite evil using one normal melee attack". This would make Smite a standard action and not have a rule dysfunction, which a non-standard action activation without explicit say-so would be.

[KillianHawkeye]

Eh, I think it's just as reasonable to read "Once per day, a paladin may attempt to smite evil with one normal melee attack" as "Once per day, a paladin may attempt to smite evil using one normal melee attack". This would make Smite a standard action and not have a rule dysfunction, which a non-standard action activation without explicit say-so would be.

I really don't see how changing the word "with" into the "using" changes its meaning in any way......... :smallconfused:

[Bakkan]

Sorry, I should have expanded more. The 'with' in the Smite ability description could either mean something like 'coming alongside', meaning that when you take a normal melee attack you can choose to smite, implying a free action activation, or it could mean something like 'by means of', implying that the choice to use the smite ability comes first, and the method used to perform the smite ability is a normal melee attack.

Compare the wording of the smite ability to the sentence "I cast power word pain with a single utterance". The first reading would suggest that casting power word pain is a free action, since speaking is a free action. The second reading interprets the sentence to mean that casting power word pain involves speaking a single utterance.

In the case of power word pain, the activation time for the ability is in the heading of the spell (1 standard action). The activation time for (Su) abilities is, unless specified otherwise, 1 standard action, and since there is no explicit change to the activation time for smite, and there is a perfectly valid reading of the description that has an activation time of 1 standard action, it's the most reasonable way of interpreting the rules.

[Crake]

Some actions can be taken as part of another, without having to take their own action, there are plenty of skills that do this, hide, balance, move silently, tumble, all of which are done as part of another action, smite is exactly the same. It's neither a free action nor a standard action, it's part of the same action you use to attack with.

Edit: Also, if smiting was a standard action, then you wouldn't be able to smite as part of a charge, which would mean that the phb2 ACF smiteful charge wouldn't be usable, so I think it's quite clear that smite is meant to be part of an attack, rather than the attack being part of the smite.

[Bakkan]

Edit: Also, if smiting was a standard action, then you wouldn't be able to smite as part of a charge, which would mean that the phb2 ACF smiteful charge wouldn't be usable, so I think it's quite clear that smite is meant to be part of an attack, rather than the attack being part of the smite.

The way I see it, either reading of Smite Evil creates a dysfunction. If it's a standard action, then the PHBII ACF grants a bonus in a situation that cannot occur, and if it's not a standard action, then it violates the rules for Supernatual abilities.

[Ashtagon]

The overall dysfunction can be resolved by defining smite as a rider that's attached to an attack action. But that requires first formally defining an attack action as one of the iterative attacks or the attack in a standard.

Even with that it's still underwhelming because of its limited uses.

[Calthropstu]

Is there any ability that grants "smite stupid?"

[KillianHawkeye]

if it's not a standard action, then it violates the rules for Supernatual abilities.

That's not a violation, it's called an exception. Get used to it, because this game is built on exceptions to the rules.

[GrayDeath]

Is there any ability that grants "smite stupid?"

No. And be thankful for that, or Paladins would be enticed to smite themselves rather often. :P




Now I cant stop thinking about optimizing Smite Stupid.
Combine paladin with debuffer effects that reduce Intelligence (for this I am assuming it multiplies the damage effect with the amount of int the target is below say 6) ^^ Ah well....

[gooddragon1]

Smite is not an attack. Rather, it's a standard action which follows most processes for an attack. That said, Smite is woefully underwhelming in 3.5.

True until you get to take this epic feat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#greatSmiting). You'll likely outpace the hitpoints of anything with just one smite with enough instances of that feat.

[Ashtagon]

True until you get to take this epic feat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#greatSmiting). You'll likely outpace the hitpoints of anything with just one smite with enough instances of that feat.

If your class feature has to wait till you're level 21+ and reach 25 points in a lower-priority ability score (because let's face it, paladins really should be prioritising the physical abilities first) and requires a feat, it probably isn't the best of class features.

[ottdmk]

A fair case can be made that Charisma is a Paladin's most important stat. It powers smiting (well, the "to hit" part anyways), Divine Grace and Lay on Hands. A Paladin at Level 21 with a 25 Charisma would be +7 to hit when smiting, add +7 to all saving throws and heal 147HP per day using Lay on Hands. I can think of worse ways to go.

[Thurbane]

On the flip side, for a single feat investment (Serenity), Charisma can become a dump stat.

[gooddragon1]

If your class feature has to wait till you're level 21+ and reach 25 points in a lower-priority ability score (because let's face it, paladins really should be prioritising the physical abilities first) and requires a feat, it probably isn't the best of class features.

Which is one of the reasons I made the clergy vigilant's (the homebrew in my sig) scale naturally. The other reason for making that class being due to my dislike of the paladin's code of conduct requirement.

[darkdragoon]

Rhino Rush and/or Smite of Sacred Fire can easily top that, and they're low level Paladin spells that don't even really get oohs and aahs.