Divine favor or Smite at level 2?

[Aleister VII]

So, do the extra d4 Damage of divine favor also applies to the second attack of a dual wielding paladin or to the PAM bonus action attack?

If so, attacking after casting divine favor the previous round with a level 2 Variant human, paladin with 16 strength, wielding a glaive and having PAM would deal: 1d10+3+3d4+3 damage?

That looks like a lot for a level 2 PC but I may just go Nova and spend the spell slot that I would use to cast divine favor in smiting and also deal a lot of damage, can't I?

But then again divine favor last for one minute and I can still smite if I have spell slots to spare to pile on even more radiant damage.

Am I missing something? Or should I forget PAM and dual wielding in favor of taking a shield and make my AC as high as possible since I'll most likely take the defense fighting style and then rely on smiting to deal nova damage?

As a side note I'll take oath of the Ancients for thematic reasons.

Also remember that this is a LOW level build.

[Arkhios]

So, do the extra d4 Damage of divine favor also applies to the second attack of a dual wielding paladin or to the PAM bonus action attack?

If so, attacking after casting divine favor the previous round with a level 2 Variant human, paladin with 16 strength, wielding a glaive and having PAM would deal: 1d10+3+3d4+3 damage?

That looks like a lot for a level 2 PC but I may just go Nova and spend the spell slot that I would use to cast divine favor in smiting and also deal a lot of damage, can't I?

But then again divine favor last for one minute and I can still smite if I have spell slots to spare to pile on even more radiant damage.

Am I missing something? Or should I forget PAM and dual wielding in favor of taking a shield and make my AC as high as possible since I'll most likely take the defense fighting style and then rely on smiting to deal nova damage?

As a side note I'll take oath of the Ancients for thematic reasons.

Also remember that this is a LOW level build.

Divine Favor adds the extra radiant d4 to your every attack you make using a weapon for the duration. Including extra attack, bonus action attacks (regardless of the means), and your opportunity attacks. Personally, I'd rather cast Divine Favor for 1d4 extra damage every time I hit with an attack, than expend a spell slot for a one-time 2d8.

Also, even unarmed strike gets the extra damage.

[Bladesong]

Assuming you hit 60% of the time, then Divine Favor will do the same damage as the smite after 3 turns of attacking twice.

but you could have used the bonus action used to cast Divine favor to attack with PAM, that means your actualy looking at another turn before it does the same damage.

if you can see yourself attacking for 5 or more turns without loosing concentration, then Divine favor is better from a pure damage perspective. if your needing to do radiant damage every turn its obviously useful too.

[Foxhound438]

9 times out of 10 I would rather commit my concentration to wrathful smite, since frighten is such a huge debuff, especially using a reach polearm.

But in the scope of just smite or favor, it does depend on how many hits you expect to land. Someone upthread pointed out that you need about 3 turns of attacks to make the damage add up to a divine smite. Note also that with polearm master you will be getting way more reaction hits as well.