Ranged Paladin?

[jaappleton]

You, as a DM, or player, or both, are tasked with making changes to the Paladin that allow it to work in ranged combat. So Smite needs to be changed to work with ranged attacks, etc.

I've seen many saying that just handwaving it to work has been fine for their table.

Also seen some say that'd be OP, need to tone it down a notch, remove heavy armor and maybe notch the Smite damage down from d8s to d6s, etc.

So....

What says the playground?

(And please, no 'just play a Ranger or a Warlock that uses Eldritch Smite')

[Nagog]

I played something like that a while back, and the DM houserule was I had to apply the smite before attacking. Normally not a bad change, but with the limited spell slots and such, I ended up only using them a handful of times, mostly for utility (Thunderous Smite for creating a sound flare, etc.). All in all, it didn't really help the class at all and it nerfed the Paladin class pretty heavily because of it, so I'd suggest just allowing the Smite to be applied normally to the ranged attacks.

[firelistener]

Just let them choose between melee or ranged smites when they take the class.

[clash]

I would reduce smite to d6's and leave all else as is.

[Bjarkmundur]

I think the class works just fine as ranged option with just the d6 change, but since you're changing things there are plenty of other things you could do to better achieve your players vision of the character. I can imagine worried DMs changing the armor proficiency or "Your choice of ranged or melee smites, but not both". but I don't think it's strictly necessary. Less is definitely more. Divine Smite is a feature that slowly ramps up in power, so there's plenty of time to react to playtesting before it ever affects the other players' experience of the game.