Smite Improvments

[metaquad4]

Some improvements for smiting, which appears to have a few issues.

(1) Smite could be changed to a free action with a 6 second cooldown, and 1 use/day per 3 levels of the class that grants it.

1 Uses/Day of Smite Evil per 3 Paladin Levels
1 Use/Day of Smite Infidel per 3 Cleric (Destruction Domain) Levels
1 Use/Day of Smite Infidel per 3 Divine Champion Levels
1 Use/Day of Smite Evil per 3 Blackguard Levels.

A little QoL improvement, for smite.

(2) It should be made so that all classes that give smite stack in for smite damage. Currently, for example, Divine Champ levels stack with Paladin for smite evil, but Paladin levels do not stack with divine champion for smite infidel. Blackguard does not stack with cleric (destruction domain), or divine champion at all. Nore does paladin stack with cleric (destruction domain).

All classes that give smite, should stack with each other for their respective smiting abilities. Either that, or paladin and divine champion should not stack at all (but, I believe going the route of full stacking opens up more options and is more productive).

(3) Great smiting could stand to be fixed. To my knowledge, this bug is still present:

"Although the description mentions character level, it is in fact the sum of Paladin and Divine Champion class levels for Smite Evil, Blackguard levels for Smite Good, and Divine Champion levels for Smite Infidel."

If not character level, then imo, classes that obtain smite (Divine Champion, Destruction Domain Cleric, Paladin, and Blackguard) should stack with each other to determine great smite's effect.

(4) Finally, the last idea is to make great smiting not take up all a character's feats.
Great Smiting I-III could be taken as one feat.
Great Smiting IV-V could be taken as one feat.
Great Smiting VI-VII could be taken as one feat.
Great Smiting VIII, IX, and X could all be kept as individual feats.

This change should be implemented, if for the above change (change #3) great smiting doesn't go off character level, but instead goes off the sum total of class levels that gain a "smite" feat.

/discuss

[Blackman D]

we had talked about buffing up smites, or at least giving others smite progression, before but i dont remember what happened with it without digging through and finding it again, i believe there were issues with coding

but either way on stacking, while stacking would help it also wouldnt make sense in most cases; different smites should obviously not stack... because they are different which basically means only paladin levels would gain smite evil, BG levels would only gain smite good, but clerics smite infidel and DCs smite infidel both only caring that they are not your alignment could stack - since even if they didnt stack they would stack because you would say have 3 uses for cleric levels and another feat that gives you 3 uses for DC levels anyway... but atm they wouldnt stack since there is only one feat for any smite and you wouldnt get the same feat twice

that said, it doesnt mean one couldnt have 3 uses of smite evil from paladin and then another 3 from DC for infidel

as far as damage/hit stacking, it would still be the same restrictions, levels that are for smiting good wouldnt help with smite infidel, even tho the infidel may be good

a bit of an issue there tho is it leaves smite good with only +10 max damage while evil and infidel get +30 (which is the issue now anyway), CHA bonus to hit obviously not making much difference since that is character based - if we are talking making things even then BG would need to have smite good do 3 damage per level of BG instead of 1

DC would not need to have a boost since it would otherwise stack with cleric and still hit +30, boosting DC to do the same would make infidel get a max +50 and infidel is already stronger than the other two as it goes after two alignments and not one, its just single use atm

could post more but starting to lose my train of thought

[thids]

What is the point of an evil smiter on bg anyway? It has literally NO uses in pve.

[Blackman D]

yea... would be nice to have good mobs... like a village of "innocent" bystanders that can be raided by drow for an epic UD area!

but yea, it has none other than rp atm...

[realayer]

how bad is smite? I do not have a smiter build so I have no idea how it is. I suggest elaborating the weakness of smite. This will put it in perspective and justify the improvement.

[RedLancer]

(3) Great smiting could stand to be fixed. To my knowledge, this bug is still present:

"Although the description mentions character level, it is in fact the sum of Paladin and Divine Champion class levels for Smite Evil, Blackguard levels for Smite Good, and Divine Champion levels for Smite Infidel."

This is an error in description, not in mechanics. Great Smiting works as intended.

i believe there were issues with coding

Yes, Smite is hardcoded.

[Blackman D]

how bad is smite? I do not have a smiter build so I have no idea how it is. I suggest elaborating the weakness of smite. This will put it in perspective and justify the improvement.

smite itself is not bad.... for a paladin because they are the only ones that actually have a smite progression, everyone else who has smite has no progression even tho there should be one

so pally gets x number of smites per whatever levels, but smite good and infidel only have one use regardless - thats really the main problem with smite but its not entirely as if you can fix the others and ignore paladins

and yea hardcoded things usually spin a discussion dead in its tracks, likely why the last one fell off, because since its hardcorded it would require some sort of work around to even fix

[realayer]

smite itself is not bad.... for a paladin because they are the only ones that actually have a smite progression, everyone else who has smite has no progression even tho there should be one

so pally gets x number of smites per whatever levels, but smite good and infidel only have one use regardless - thats really the main problem with smite but its not entirely as if you can fix the others and ignore paladins

Thanks for the explanation! So the problem is that smite level don't stack with each other.

I have idea but not sure if this is doable, that's to give the Smite feat based on the alignment of the character. So that each alignment has own line of smite: Good=Smite Evil, Neutral=Smite Infidel, Evil=Smite Good.

As a result:
Good aligned: Pally, Destruction Domain Cleric, Divine Champion will get Smite Evil instead of both Smite Evil and Smite Infidel
Neutral aligned: Destruction Domain Cleric, DC will get Smite Infidel
Evil aligned: Destruction Domain Cleric, DC, Blackguard will get Smite Good instead of both Smite Infidel and Smite Good

Good aligned DC will have progression on Smite Evil, Neutral DC will have on Smite Infidel, and Evil DC and BG will have on Smite Good. Evil DC and BG levels will stack on each other.

This will simplify things a little bit and if possible making the smite progression easier.

[Blackman D]

i suppose, tho the issue then becomes smite infidel which is actually not limited to one alignment and is actually better to take on a good or evil person because it is the only way to smite neutral, if infidel gets restricted to neutral only then they also become immune to being hit by smite

the current setup is not particularly bad, lack of progression aside

[realayer]

i suppose, tho the issue then becomes smite infidel which is actually not limited to one alignment and is actually better to take on a good or evil person because it is the only way to smite neutral, if infidel gets restricted to neutral only then they also become immune to being hit by smite

the current setup is not particularly bad, lack of progression aside

Maybe just giving all of them Smite Infidel and rename it to smite then? So no more alignment issue and each one can smite each other? This can streamline all the smite features.

I notice the Pious Templar (which is still under testing I presume?) has smite at will and it does not take alignment into consideration. Maybe it can be a good start for improving smite.

[Blackman D]

that actually wouldnt be bad, and it would remove the ability to metagame someones alignment by using smite, you would only know they are not the same alignment as you

[SoulKitchen]

I have seen at least one server, where smite was changed dramatically in a way to make it more PvE friendly and less of a PvP tool.

Smite progressed in uses per day every 4 paladin levels, and the damage scaled every 4 paladin levels. so your level 1 smite was a 1d6 damage boost for 5 rounds + charisma mod. Then at 20 it was something like 5 uses of smite at 5d6 damage boost for 5 rounds + charisma mod. Made smite very nice for fighting mobs, and it took away the threat of a 100 to 0 crit-death if someone caught a paladin's sword to the head (even though it was still scary).