4e: Thou Art Smitten!

[kpenguin]

So, they dedicated a whole article to paladin smites. I like the idea of adding a bunch of effects to smites. It feels like the warlock blast essences, but with smites.

[Attilargh]

The word you're looking for is "smitten".

[Kurald Galain]

Oh yes, of course. I hit this orc really hard, and therefore my friend is suddenly healed???

Yeah, from a mechanical point of view it is probably balanced and useful and all that, but from a world point of view, you don't heal people by hitting their enemies.

[AslanCross]

Oh yes, of course. I hit this orc really hard, and therefore my friend is suddenly healed???

Yeah, from a mechanical point of view it is probably balanced and useful and all that, but from a world point of view, you don't heal people by hitting their enemies.

The 3.5 Crusader from ToB already does that.

[kpenguin]

Oh yes, of course. I hit this orc really hard, and therefore my friend is suddenly healed???

Yeah, from a mechanical point of view it is probably balanced and useful and all that, but from a world point of view, you don't heal people by hitting their enemies.

Just say a wizard paladin did it and leave it at that.

[Azerian Kelimon]

And YOU aren't healing your friend. You're actually pleasing your god, who corresponds the favor and heals your friend.


Yeah, it sucks even more when you get gods in the picture.

[Tengu]

Oh yes, of course. I hit this orc really hard, and therefore my friend is suddenly healed???

Yeah, from a mechanical point of view it is probably balanced and useful and all that, but from a world point of view, you don't heal people by hitting their enemies.

You do when you're a divinely-inspired knight. It feels a bit like WoW but I like it. Or maybe I like it because it feels a bit like WoW.

Argh, triple-ninjaed!

[Azerian Kelimon]

Wow, you must have failed your spot check BIG time.

[The_Snark]

It does seem a little silly, but I always liked to think of it as a fervent battle prayer: "Heironeous, you take care of healing my buddy while I take care of smiting the heathens, okay? Please?"

On another note, it looks like paladins may come with in-built alignment variation:

Selfish paladins (typically those who serve more self-centered gods or just the occasional egoist who venerates Pelor) can even heal themselves with the strike etc

[Lord Iames Osari]

Oh yes, of course. I hit this orc really hard, and therefore my friend is suddenly healed???

Yeah, from a mechanical point of view it is probably balanced and useful and all that, but from a world point of view, you don't heal people by hitting their enemies.

Paladin of Generic God of Goodliness: *smites evil into tiny pieces*
GGG: Ah, since you have smitten the evil into tiny pieces in my service, I shall grant a boon to you and your companions, healing one of them.
Paladin of GGG: Thanks, Generic God of Goodliness. I pick Bob over there, he's hurting pretty bad.
GGG: *heals Bob*

[Tengu]

Wow, you must have failed your spot check BIG time.

Not really. Just a slow typer in the morning.

[OneWinged4ngel]

The 3.5 Crusader from ToB already does that.

That doesn't mean it's a particularly good idea.

[AslanCross]

That doesn't mean it's a particularly good idea.

Didn't say it was, but I meant to say it's nothing new.

[Swooper]

What worries me is that paladins seem to still suffer from horrible MAD, since both Wis and Cha affect their class abilities (and I'm guessing they'll need Str, Con and possibly Dex too, being melee fighters). I'd have preferred removing the charisma connection, personally. Or the wisdom connection, although that seems like a worse idea.

[Roderick_BR]

I like it. It gets more uses over of just adding damage. It's easy to see the splash of ToB-ishes crusader abilities in it, and some knight's too. In Complete Champion there's the Fist of Raziel, that gives special effects when smiting, I think it got ideas from there too.

[Khanderas]

Hitipoints is among other things, the will to carry on fighting.
That smite was so darn smiteful (hehehe) your friends spirit is lifted, abstracted into alittle health heal.
... Or you know, a wizard did it.

[Mr. Friendly]

Would someone be kind enough to copy/paste and spoiler the article? I can't go to WotC while at work.

[squishycube]

TYG

Spoiler

Show

Smite -- since before 900 CE this word or some very similar Old or Middle English ancestor has meant, "That's going to leave a mark." In the first two editions of Dungeons & Dragons, smite was merely an interesting word used by folks laying down the smack. In my formative gaming years, a player of mine named Erol used to call his halfling paladin's reversed cure light wounds, smites. (Actually he was just a post-Unearthed Arcana fighter/cleric, but he called the character a paladin -- I was not farsighted enough just to let him play a paladin.) I think he just liked yelling "I smite the foul beast!" in that annoying high-pitched kid voice he used to play Sir Lore. (Yes, that's Erol's own name spelled backward in true high-Gygaxian fashion).

With the release of 3rd Edition, Erol's wildest dreams came true. Not only were halflings allowed to be true paladins, smite officially entered the paladin's toolbox. Sure, it was once a day. Sure, it wasn't nearly as good as you wanted it to be sometimes, but smites were promoted from verb to mechanic.

In 4th Edition, D&D smites really come into their own. Now a subset of the paladin's renewable (read, encounter-recharge) powers, smites allow a paladin to deliver a powerful blow with the character's weapon of choice, while layering on some divine effect (and I mean that in both meanings of the word) on allies or enemies. A divine defender, much of the paladin's smites are all about kicking the crap out of those they find anathema while ensuring that foes who want to hurt enemies have a harder time at it. Take, as exhibit one, safeguard smite:

Safeguard Smite
Paladin 1
Encounter • Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 2x[W] + Cha.
Hit or Miss: An ally within 5 squares gains a bonus to AC equal to your Wisdom modifier until the end of your next turn.

This basic, entry-level smite has all the things a growing paladin needs to fulfill its role and lay down some hurt. A Charisma attack against the target's Armor Class, safeguard smite deals double her base weapon's damage plus her Charisma modifier in damage (paladins are a force of personality, after all), and grants a quick boost to an ally in trouble (including, in a pinch, the paladin herself). And there you have it. Your first smite -- simple, serviceable, and fun.

As your paladin progresses as a defender of the faith, smites, like all of your abilities, grow in power and utility. But unlike its defender cousin, the fighter, a paladin is more than just the guy who kicks butt and makes sure enemies focus (or want to focus) on him. Paladins have always been able to heal in some way and the 4th Edition variety is no different. Though this splash of leader flavor into the paladin's defender role comes in many forms, one of the more active and interesting ways that your paladin can come to the aid of a companion while fighting is our second example of a smite:

Renewing Smite
Paladin 13
Encounter • Healing, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 2x[W] + Cha damage and ally within 5 heals 10 + your Wisdom modifier damage.

You'll no doubt see the pattern between these two smites. They mix a fair portion of damage (scaled up by level, but not necessarily the amount of dice) while giving an ally a much needed boost of hit points at the most opportune moments. Selfish paladins (typically those who serve more self-centered gods or just the occasional egoist who venerates Pelor) can even heal themselves with the strike, as you're considered your own ally unless the effect of a power states otherwise.

Let's move on to smites that inhabit the levels over 20. Binding smite is another flavor of defender smite -- and as its high level demands, does the defender job more effectively, and thus more powerfully than the simple safeguard smite does.

Binding Smite
Paladin 27
Encounter • Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: 2x[W] + Wis damage and target cannot gain line of effect to anyone but you until the end of your next turn.

In binding smite you can see an example of how the effect of a smite goes up with level, while the numbers in their base form seem similar when not taking into account the accuracy and damage boosts that merely gaining levels (and having better weapons) affords. It just gets … well, better. Heck, it's epic, after all, so it has to be good, and you don't have to have 4th Edition books in front of you to realize line of effect denial is good. When you're fighting balor, ancient blue dragons, and sorrowsworn, it had better be good -- those critters don't fool around!

There you have it; just a small taste of what your paladin smites will look like in 4th Edition. While I have lost touch with Erol over the years, I hope that come this summer, somewhere out there, Sir Lore will return – a halfling with a high-pitched voice, yelling, "I smite thee, foul miscreant." I imagine his DM will just wince and sigh, just like I did all those years ago.

And mine's even mark-upped!

[martyboy74]

Here's the article:

Spoiler

Show

Smite -- since before 900 CE this word or some very similar Old or Middle English ancestor has meant, "That's going to leave a mark." In the first two editions of Dungeons & Dragons, smite was merely an interesting word used by folks laying down the smack. In my formative gaming years, a player of mine named Erol used to call his halfling paladin's reversed cure light wounds, smites. (Actually he was just a post-Unearthed Arcana fighter/cleric, but he called the character a paladin -- I was not farsighted enough just to let him play a paladin.) I think he just liked yelling "I smite the foul beast!" in that annoying high-pitched kid voice he used to play Sir Lore. (Yes, that's Erol's own name spelled backward in true high-Gygaxian fashion).

With the release of 3rd Edition, Erol's wildest dreams came true. Not only were halflings allowed to be true paladins, smite officially entered the paladin's toolbox. Sure, it was once a day. Sure, it wasn't nearly as good as you wanted it to be sometimes, but smites were promoted from verb to mechanic.

In 4th Edition, D&D smites really come into their own. Now a subset of the paladin's renewable (read, encounter-recharge) powers, smites allow a paladin to deliver a powerful blow with the character's weapon of choice, while layering on some divine effect (and I mean that in both meanings of the word) on allies or enemies. A divine defender, much of the paladin's smites are all about kicking the crap out of those they find anathema while ensuring that foes who want to hurt enemies have a harder time at it. Take, as exhibit one, safeguard smite:

Safeguard Smite
Paladin 1
Encounter • Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 2x[W] + Cha.
Hit or Miss: An ally within 5 squares gains a bonus to AC equal to your Wisdom modifier until the end of your next turn.

This basic, entry-level smite has all the things a growing paladin needs to fulfill its role and lay down some hurt. A Charisma attack against the target's Armor Class, safeguard smite deals double her base weapon's damage plus her Charisma modifier in damage (paladins are a force of personality, after all), and grants a quick boost to an ally in trouble (including, in a pinch, the paladin herself). And there you have it. Your first smite -- simple, serviceable, and fun.

As your paladin progresses as a defender of the faith, smites, like all of your abilities, grow in power and utility. But unlike its defender cousin, the fighter, a paladin is more than just the guy who kicks butt and makes sure enemies focus (or want to focus) on him. Paladins have always been able to heal in some way and the 4th Edition variety is no different. Though this splash of leader flavor into the paladin's defender role comes in many forms, one of the more active and interesting ways that your paladin can come to the aid of a companion while fighting is our second example of a smite:

Renewing Smite
Paladin 13
Encounter • Healing, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 2x[W] + Cha damage and ally within 5 heals 10 + your Wisdom modifier damage.

You'll no doubt see the pattern between these two smites. They mix a fair portion of damage (scaled up by level, but not necessarily the amount of dice) while giving an ally a much needed boost of hit points at the most opportune moments. Selfish paladins (typically those who serve more self-centered gods or just the occasional egoist who venerates Pelor) can even heal themselves with the strike, as you're considered your own ally unless the effect of a power states otherwise.

Let's move on to smites that inhabit the levels over 20. Binding smite is another flavor of defender smite -- and as its high level demands, does the defender job more effectively, and thus more powerfully than the simple safeguard smite does.

Binding Smite
Paladin 27
Encounter • Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: 2x[W] + Wis damage and target cannot gain line of effect to anyone but you until the end of your next turn.

In binding smite you can see an example of how the effect of a smite goes up with level, while the numbers in their base form seem similar when not taking into account the accuracy and damage boosts that merely gaining levels (and having better weapons) affords. It just gets … well, better. Heck, it's epic, after all, so it has to be good, and you don't have to have 4th Edition books in front of you to realize line of effect denial is good. When you're fighting balor, ancient blue dragons, and sorrowsworn, it had better be good -- those critters don't fool around!

There you have it; just a small taste of what your paladin smites will look like in 4th Edition. While I have lost touch with Erol over the years, I hope that come this summer, somewhere out there, Sir Lore will return – a halfling with a high-pitched voice, yelling, "I smite thee, foul miscreant." I imagine his DM will just wince and sigh, just like I did all those years ago.

On another note, it looks like paladins may come with in-built alignment variation:

That's not inbuilt variation; that's how the player thinks. They use selfish because he's healing himself, instead of healing his allies. Note that 'Selfish' is only captilized because it's the beginning of the sentence.

EDIT: Ninja'd!

[Mr. Friendly]

Thanks squishy and marty.

Really looks cool. Seems they have taken the best notions of Factotum and Tome of Battle and handed them out to all the classes. I am getting more and more jazzed about 4e all the time.

[Closet_Skeleton]

On another note, it looks like paladins may come with in-built alignment variation:

Selfish or egoist Paladins?

Man, what happened to standards around here.

This is why Paladin makes a better Prc, because then nobody complains that you can't be an evil one. Oh wait, Assassin, nevermind.

[Mr. Friendly]

Selfish or egoist Paladins?

Man, what happened to standards around here.

This is why Paladin makes a better Prc, because then nobody complains that you can't be an evil one. Oh wait, Assassin, nevermind.

Because they are just making the Paladin a generic "Divine Warrior" who crusades for a deity, be it for Tyr or Asmodeus. I like it. It's how it should be.. how it's always been really. How many times have there been "Anti-Paladin" or more recently, "Blackguard". It is patently ridiculous IMO that Lawful Good, and only Lawful Good, deities have military orders which recieve divine power to augment their martial ability.

[kjones]

Paladins of other alignments are nothing new. I believe PHBII has a bunch of variants.

[Closet_Skeleton]

It is patently ridiculous IMO that Lawful Good, and only Lawful Good, deities have military orders which recieve divine power to augment their martial ability.

But every diety has clerics who do exactly that all the time.

The Paladin is a pretty redundant class unless you turn clerics into pacifists.

Lawful Neutral and Neutral Good dieties are also allowed Paladins in 3rd edition.

Who says Paladins have to be diety related anyway? A Paladin never was a "divine warrior who crusades for a diety", it was the class you took if you wanted to play a Knight of Arthurian tradition. Making it anything else is betraying the concept to make people who don't really care about that concept happy. They may as well just scrap the Paladin or put it in as an option for Lawful Good fighters to take, that's all it really was in some earlier editions (as well as requiring godlike stats). The Paladin class was always unneccesary and not worth the arguements that took place over it.

Why does Asmodeus even want crusading warriors anyway?

[Green Bean]

But every diety has clerics who do exactly that all the time.

The Paladin is a pretty redundant class unless you turn clerics into pacifists.

Seeing as it's a new edition, I'd be very surprised if Wizards didn't try to curb CoDzilla. If 4e clerics aren't able to wear platemail and wade into melee, then paladins start to make sense.

[Mewtarthio]

A couple of interesting miscellaneous notes:

The smites are described as "renewable (read: encounter-recharge) abilities," further implying that there will still be a few per-day mechanics.

This seems to be confirmation that 4e will indeed measure everything in "squares" instead of "feet."

[Pokemaster]

Why does Asmodeus even want crusading warriors anyway?

Well, someone has to lay down the law Sheriff of Nottingham-style. Just imagine how horrible the world would be if someone stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

Overall, the smites look pretty sweet. You get to brutally assault people in the name of your god, but it's not the generic attack with a bonus that it was in 3E. I'd say this bodes well for the other classes, especially the Fighter.

[Thinker]

In DnD Clerics are war-priests and paladins are holy knights. There is a difference in that paladins should be better at fighting than clerics, who should gain more power from their deities.
The argument that having clerics and paladins at the same time is redundant is the same as saying that having rangers and rogues is redundant; why not just play a fighter who lives in the woods and leave the skills to the rogue?

[Closet_Skeleton]

In DnD Clerics are war-priests and paladins are holy knights. There is a difference in that paladins should be better at fighting than clerics, who should gain more power from their deities.

But Clerics are better at fighting than Paladins, so it doesn't work.

[Thinker]

But Clerics are better at fighting than Paladins, so it doesn't work.

I do not disagree with that. I am referring to DnD as a whole, not just 3.5e. That was why I used the word should. Hopefully in 4th ed they make the distinction more apparent.