Troll Lord Games

For having read a few threads here and there, I know I am not the only one to find the paladin's Smite Evil ability of very limited benefit. So, where the ranger adds his level to damage to marauding creatures whenever he hits them, a paladin will do this only once per day against evil creatures. I don't find this terribly interesting, but furthermore, not terribly flavorful either.

So my idea was to improve this ability:

-- First, this wouldn't be some "okay i use my Smite ability against this critter". This would have to be a dramatic action, where the paladin loudly invokes Law and Goodness (or his god or whatever), intent on punish / chastise the foe. Something would happen to him, he would look more imposing, awing, etc., in doing so.

-- In all cases attack would deal as normal : Cha modifier as a bonus to hit, and level as damage bonus. However, the Cha modifier would also be counted as a magical bonus for purpose of bypassing immunities to non-magical weapons. If the paldin had some magical weapon, the bonus would stack. Example : paladin with +2 Cha bonus and +1 sword, would hit creature requiring +3 magical weapons to hit.

-- Upon being hit, the creature would have to make a charisma saving throw. If the save is failed, there would be an additional effect. Depending on creatures it could be :

1) Evil outsiders would be banished out of the material plane (but MR applies), most probably to their home plane.

2) Undead would be affected as if by a mace of disruption.

3) other creatures would be affected by some sort of fear: for 1d6 round they would only be able to defend from incoming attacks (or suffer a -2 penalty to att/dmg), and if given the chance (and can understand), they would surrender.

Opinions? Do you like the idea? How would you implement it?

I think that sounds cool.

The pal is bathed in a glowing holy aura and BOOM!

I like counting the bonus as a magical plus.

Would this still be once a day?

The third bullet point makes this significantly more powerful, so are you just adding this power or adding a balance too, like it takes an entire round to invoke the power/pray/chant and the Pal makes his attack on the next round (just off the top of my head) or he has to invoke and must act dead last in a given round (and what if he's struck, does that disrupt the effect like a wizard casting a spell)?

But overall, I like it, I mean it's mostly flavor anyway, but it makes it cooler, I think, instead of just math.

Occasinially, i've thought of making Smite Evil a number of times equal to CHA bonus, instead of 1/day.

With this improvement, I would keep the power at once per day only. Also, it could be like casting a spell, and thus could be disrupted. Lastly, use of the power is obvious and cannot be done discreetly. In doing so the paladin indicates who he is to all witnesses around, which in some cases may cause problems.

I would not allow a paladin to "stack" modifiers together, especially pertaining to striking of creatures harmed by magic only, as it allows even a "not-so-great" Charisma with a minor magic item (+2, say) to hit anything, practically. If I were to do it, it would be either/or (that is, which is better) with, perhaps a +1 per X levels, which does stack... so experience is more important than what you wield, or how great you look doing it (hehe.)

The added power to smite is also a bit too much - it should change based on the level of the paladin, not what type of creature is affected. Paladins don't need a mace of disruption effect - they have turning.

My house rules:

Rangers:

Get to choose an enemy at 6th level and every other level thereafter. IT must be pretty specific, such as Ogres, Frost Giants, Vampires, Worshippers of the "Forest Burners", etc... This allows you to add your bonus to all SIEGE checks against them, including attack maneuvers, AND add your level to the Damage if they didn't qualify for your marauder before. CK approval, of course.

Druids:

They can go one of two paths, animal or elemental. Either path gains the ability to become a Treant at 9th level. At 6th level you choose which path you will follow. Animal can choose animal forms to change into. Elementalists choose one fo the 4 elementals, earth, air, fire, and water. One form at 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th you get the Treant form.

Your HD and HP will be the same in your animal and elemental form. In animal/elemental form your BtH will equal your HD, and you gain the movement and special defenses of the animal/elemental form you have. Your damage and attacks are the same as the Animal/Elemental form as well.

At 12th level you can assume each chosen form 2/day. It becomes 3/day at 18th.

Paladins:

When they gain the Smite Evil ability they can use it once per day per level. OR they can choose to have "religious enemy" under the same rules as the Ranger's "enemy". Then choose a new one every two levels, like the Ranger does. They can only do one or the other, not both Smite and Religious Enemy.

Thats how I do it. I left the Druid in there because it was a copy and paste.
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I like it. As-is. Think I'll run it past my Paladin-heads and see what they think. Making it like spellcasting - obvious and interruptible is a good limiting factor.

Man I love RPGs.
Don.
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It's been far too long since I chimed in here, but a subject like this - dealing with my all-time favorite character class - is a must-do.
Although I have not yet run a paladin in C&C - I wanted to give my usual predilections a break and try something different with my brother's campaign - after thinking about it, the once-per-day smite evil does seem a touch lacking. Yes, the paladin does get a walloping load of bonuses throughout his/her career that other classes will not dare dream of, but it's paid for with the increased xp cost. For myself, I would probably favor keeping smite pretty much as is in terms of the math, but would jack up the frequency to making it available level/2 per day, rounded down. This would certainly give the paladin a bit of a leg up in terms of taking on major league baddies, but would also restrict the bonus to a point where the paladin couldn't just run amuck, smiting every snivelling kobold that crossed his or her path.

Good subject, though; I'll keep my eye on future developments with this topic.

IMHO, I think everything is fine as-is (although I'm a bit biased as the Paladin is my favorite C&C/AD&D class ). While I completely understand the concern when comparing the Paladin's Smite ability with the Ranger's Marauder ability, I'm not so sure that is the best way to go about it. It might be better to consider the entire package when comparing class ability sets.

That being said, I would say that the Paladin is just right, the Ranger is slightly over-powered, and the Fighter is slightly under-powered. Rather than changing the abilities, I would suggest changing the experience progression: reduce the Fighter's XP requirements and raise the Ranger's XP requirements.

Just my 2 C.P.

-Fox

Foxroe wrote:
IMHO, I think everything is fine as-is (although I'm a bit biased as the Paladin is my favorite C&C/AD&D class ). While I completely understand the concern when comparing the Paladin's Smite ability with the Ranger's Marauder ability, I'm not so sure that is the best way to go about it. It might be better to consider the entire package when comparing class ability sets.

That being said, I would say that the Paladin is just right, the Ranger is slightly over-powered, and the Fighter is slightly under-powered. Rather than changing the abilities, I would suggest changing the experience progression: reduce the Fighter's XP requirements and raise the Ranger's XP requirements.

Just my 2 C.P.

-Fox

My concern also was one of flavor. What's the point of this once per day bland ability, gained at 9th level? I wanted to give it more panache.

A simple fix would be to change Smite Evil to this:

Any creature of known evil alignment (this is important as there are effects that can blind and/or confuse such things) is treated as having an AC of 1 point worse (effectively a +1 bonus to hit for the paladin) and any successful melee strike delivered by the paladin incurs additional damage equal to the paladin's level. At level 6, and at level 12, a paladin can designate a species of evil creatures (demons, devils, kobolds, etc... any particular singular monster type) to which the AC reduction increases to -4.

Doing this would make the ability much more useful, but also requires the paladin to use their other abilities, first (at least that of detect evil, anyway.) it also puts the paladin on par with the other "fighting classes" and allows the Castle Keeper an "out" for especially potent bad guys who might be using something like "undetectable alignment."

serleran wrote:
A simple fix would be to change Smite Evil to this:

I actually kind of like this. Basically replace the Paladin's "Smite Evil" with the Ranger's "Combat Marauder" ability, but it only applies to specific evil creatures (i.e. Devils, Demons, Dragons, etc.).

[furiously scribbles down idea]

-Fox