Paladin Divine Smite and Critical - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Batla76 Dec 04, 2014 6:17:49	Critical Damage PHB196 states that "if the attack involves other damage dice, such as from the rogue's Sneak Attack feature, you roll the dice twice as well". Does this include Divine Smite? I can understand adding a Rogue's Sneak Attack or a Fighter's Battle Maneuver dice, but it does not seem like Divine Smite would apply here. It is radiant divine magic, not part of the actual slashing damage. What about elemental damage from a sword enchantment? Fighter3/Cleric3 multiclass OP example: A single Critical with a D10 weapon that has a +1d6 elemental(fire) damage. After the character sees that he rolled a 20, he conveniently uses the Battle Maneuver Menacing Attack and His Paladin Divins Smite. 2D10(weapon)+2D6(elemental)+2D8(battle maneuver)+4d8(Divine Smite)+relevant modifiers. somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 (rolls averaged) damage on that one hit, not including Str or any other relevant modifiers.
#2 Noctaem Dec 04, 2014 6:28:57	Yes it does. That's why Paladins are so good at burst damage. As per the critical hit rules, you double the dice. so the 2d8 from divine smite becomes 4d8 just like you would double the rogue's sneak attack damage. The type of damage, source or how it is applied to the hit (crit in this example case) makes no difference when it comes to Divine Smite. EDIT: Furthermore, I don't think you're factoring in the resource cost in your above example. How many spell slots does the paladin have to blow on divine smite? What are the odds of landing a crit in the first place in order to do the above burst damage?, how much overkill is this going to be?, how many maneuvers can the low level fighter do?... All of that just makes me think that the character just blew half his resources on a single attack for max possible damage. Hope it was on a boss or something worthwhile! But there's nothing wrong with that, at all.
#3 Nachturnus Dec 04, 2014 7:03:42	I actually play a paladin, and this exact scenario came up, and required rules reference to make one of the players at my table calm down. Sneak Attack is the easiest conditional bonus damage you can acheive in the game. All it requires is an adjacent ally, and it routinely does enough damage to make up for the rogue's lack of the extra attack feature. It also has no resource cost, and be done at-will, all-day, and has a great deal of class-based improvement features. Maneuvers are one of the most potent melee-improvement powersets in the game. The ability to deliver 'The People's Elbow' (as my group termed it, as a reference to Dwayne Johnson,) in this case Precision Attack on a Greatweapon Fighter attack (+d8-5 to hit, +10 dmg) as a reliable damage improvement, as well as the mass of utility of specialized Maneuvers makes them a hugely powerful option for fighters that resets every short rest. By comparison, Divine Smite, which ammounts to a single sneak attack's worth of bonus damage, only a few times a day, seems rather lackluster. The only reason it's good at all is that it can be applied after a crit, which still isn't all that great as the best crit optimization in the game is only 20% 1/short rest. It's not OP, and it's what the rules say. There really shouldn't be much of a question about it.
#4 Sorxores Dec 04, 2014 7:25:33	Nachturnus wrote:
#5 Noctaem Dec 04, 2014 7:33:53	Sorxores wrote:
#6 Nachturnus Dec 04, 2014 8:06:14	Noctaem wrote:
#7 Noctaem Dec 04, 2014 8:35:32	Nachturnus wrote:
#8 Ashrym Dec 04, 2014 12:32:18	The answer to the OP is still yes, regardless, and can apply to other bonus damage dice as well, such examples include but are not limited to: combat inspiration, superiority dice, hex, hunter's mark, divine strike. We also apply cutting words damage penalty twice against critical hits on party members because it's negative damage applied to a critical damage roll but I am not sure if that is an intended benefit.
#9 guachi Dec 04, 2014 13:44:44	Champion attacking with advantage (easy to do if he has Shield Mastery as he can bash stuff prone himself) and crit on 18-20 would have a crit chance of 28%. Take one level of Rogue for expertise and take expertise in Athletics and your Shield Bash almost always works. Cast enlarge and you can Bash almost every monster in the game except Ancient Dragons, the Tarrasque, rocs, and purple worms. Or, team up with a wolf totem using Barbarian for advantage. It's easy to get some synergistic excesses for melee characters to get advantage that are very reliable to use. The Champion with advantage has about a 35% damage boost. It's really quite awesome.
#10 Psikerlord Dec 04, 2014 13:53:45	Batla76 wrote:
#11 Kalani Dec 04, 2014 15:28:13	I actually had a similar disagreement come up at my Encounters table last night, in which a Hobgoblin captain critted while having martial advantage, for 10d6+2 damage (4d6 greatsword, 6d6 Martial Advantage). The player wrongly believed the damage was not multiplied and I stated it worked like sneak attack and as such, the damage dice from martial advantage were likewise doubled (from 3d6 to 6d6).
(Reply to #5) Coredump00	Noctaem wrote:
#13 Johs Jul 09, 2015 18:02:12	First off, I agree that all dice from 'the attack' are doubled, because of criticals. This includes Sneak Attack, because Sneak Attack is conditional on the attack itself. Same thing with anything else you declare or conditionally trigger BEFORE THE ATTACK. However, I'm still not sold, RAW, that the Paladin's smite counts. The condition FOR the smite is that you've made a successful melee attack (in the past tense) and then you pay it's cost, and add divine damage 'in addition to the weapon damage'. I don't really see it as cut and dry that Divine Smite gets the benefits of GWF and Critical hits... GWF does day "damage dice" and Critical hits do say "double the damage dice" but then Divine Smite says "damage in addition to the weapon damage" aka, after you resolve your weapon's damage, and reroll your 1s and 2s and factor your criticals, deal ADDITIONAL damage. If would be really nice if the Critical description mentioned something more complex as it's examples, but it doesn't. And I don't think mentioning SA becomes a free 'catch all' for any type of damage for any reason.
#14 jaelis Jul 09, 2015 18:25:12	From twitter: To Mearls and Crawford: You both agree crit dbls Snk Att & Div Smite. What about dmg from Superiority Dice? &Do all 3 reroll with GFW? Crawford: Any dice that are part of an attack's damage are rolled again on a crit. Does the paladin's Great Weapon Fighting style apply to the radiant damage dice gained from Divine Smite? Mearls: No - I'd rule the benefit applies only to the weapon's damage dice.
(Reply to #13) Macv12	Johs wrote:

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

Batla76

Dec 04, 2014 6:17:49

Critical Damage PHB196 states that "if the attack involves other damage dice, such as from the rogue's Sneak Attack feature, you roll the dice twice as well". Does this include Divine Smite? I can understand adding a Rogue's Sneak Attack or a Fighter's Battle Maneuver dice, but it does not seem like Divine Smite would apply here. It is radiant divine magic, not part of the actual slashing damage. What about elemental damage from a sword enchantment?

Fighter3/Cleric3 multiclass OP example:

A single Critical with a D10 weapon that has a +1d6 elemental(fire) damage. After the character sees that he rolled a 20, he conveniently uses the Battle Maneuver Menacing Attack and His Paladin Divins Smite. 2D10(weapon)+2D6(elemental)+2D8(battle maneuver)+4d8(Divine Smite)+relevant modifiers. somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 (rolls averaged) damage on that one hit, not including Str or any other relevant modifiers.

Noctaem

Dec 04, 2014 6:28:57

Yes it does. That's why Paladins are so good at burst damage. As per the critical hit rules, you double the dice. so the 2d8 from divine smite becomes 4d8 just like you would double the rogue's sneak attack damage. The type of damage, source or how it is applied to the hit (crit in this example case) makes no difference when it comes to Divine Smite.

EDIT: Furthermore, I don't think you're factoring in the resource cost in your above example. How many spell slots does the paladin have to blow on divine smite? What are the odds of landing a crit in the first place in order to do the above burst damage?, how much overkill is this going to be?, how many maneuvers can the low level fighter do?... All of that just makes me think that the character just blew half his resources on a single attack for max possible damage. Hope it was on a boss or something worthwhile! But there's nothing wrong with that, at all.

Nachturnus

Dec 04, 2014 7:03:42

I actually play a paladin, and this exact scenario came up, and required rules reference to make one of the players at my table calm down.

Sneak Attack is the easiest conditional bonus damage you can acheive in the game. All it requires is an adjacent ally, and it routinely does enough damage to make up for the rogue's lack of the extra attack feature. It also has no resource cost, and be done at-will, all-day, and has a great deal of class-based improvement features.

Maneuvers are one of the most potent melee-improvement powersets in the game. The ability to deliver 'The People's Elbow' (as my group termed it, as a reference to Dwayne Johnson,) in this case Precision Attack on a Greatweapon Fighter attack (+d8-5 to hit, +10 dmg) as a reliable damage improvement, as well as the mass of utility of specialized Maneuvers makes them a hugely powerful option for fighters that resets every short rest.

By comparison, Divine Smite, which ammounts to a single sneak attack's worth of bonus damage, only a few times a day, seems rather lackluster. The only reason it's good at all is that it can be applied after a crit, which still isn't all that great as the best crit optimization in the game is only 20% 1/short rest.

It's not OP, and it's what the rules say. There really shouldn't be much of a question about it.

Sorxores

Dec 04, 2014 7:25:33

Nachturnus wrote:

Noctaem

Dec 04, 2014 7:33:53

Sorxores wrote:

Nachturnus

Dec 04, 2014 8:06:14

Noctaem wrote:

Noctaem

Dec 04, 2014 8:35:32

Nachturnus wrote:

Ashrym

Dec 04, 2014 12:32:18

The answer to the OP is still yes, regardless, and can apply to other bonus damage dice as well, such examples include but are not limited to: combat inspiration, superiority dice, hex, hunter's mark, divine strike. We also apply cutting words damage penalty twice against critical hits on party members because it's negative damage applied to a critical damage roll but I am not sure if that is an intended benefit.

guachi

Dec 04, 2014 13:44:44

Champion attacking with advantage (easy to do if he has Shield Mastery as he can bash stuff prone himself) and crit on 18-20 would have a crit chance of 28%. Take one level of Rogue for expertise and take expertise in Athletics and your Shield Bash almost always works. Cast enlarge and you can Bash almost every monster in the game except Ancient Dragons, the Tarrasque, rocs, and purple worms.

Or, team up with a wolf totem using Barbarian for advantage. It's easy to get some synergistic excesses for melee characters to get advantage that are very reliable to use. The Champion with advantage has about a 35% damage boost. It's really quite awesome.

#10

Psikerlord

Dec 04, 2014 13:53:45

Batla76 wrote:

#11

Kalani

Dec 04, 2014 15:28:13

I actually had a similar disagreement come up at my Encounters table last night, in which a Hobgoblin captain critted while having martial advantage, for 10d6+2 damage (4d6 greatsword, 6d6 Martial Advantage). The player wrongly believed the damage was not multiplied and I stated it worked like sneak attack and as such, the damage dice from martial advantage were likewise doubled (from 3d6 to 6d6).

(Reply to #5)

Coredump00

Noctaem wrote:

#13

Johs

Jul 09, 2015 18:02:12

First off, I agree that all dice from 'the attack' are doubled, because of criticals. This includes Sneak Attack, because Sneak Attack is conditional on the attack itself. Same thing with anything else you declare or conditionally trigger BEFORE THE ATTACK.

However, I'm still not sold, RAW, that the Paladin's smite counts. The condition FOR the smite is that you've made a successful melee attack (in the past tense) and then you pay it's cost, and add divine damage 'in addition to the weapon damage'.

I don't really see it as cut and dry that Divine Smite gets the benefits of GWF and Critical hits... GWF does day "damage dice" and Critical hits do say "double the damage dice" but then Divine Smite says "damage in addition to the weapon damage" aka, after you resolve your weapon's damage, and reroll your 1s and 2s and factor your criticals, deal ADDITIONAL damage.

If would be really nice if the Critical description mentioned something more complex as it's examples, but it doesn't. And I don't think mentioning SA becomes a free 'catch all' for any type of damage for any reason.

#14

jaelis

Jul 09, 2015 18:25:12

From twitter:

To Mearls and Crawford: You both agree crit dbls Snk Att & Div Smite. What about dmg from Superiority Dice? &Do all 3 reroll with GFW?
Crawford: Any dice that are part of an attack's damage are rolled again on a crit.

Does the paladin's Great Weapon Fighting style apply to the radiant damage dice gained from Divine Smite?

Mearls: No - I'd rule the benefit applies only to the weapon's damage dice.

(Reply to #13)

Macv12

Johs wrote: