Cleric / oracle "Holy Smite" spell -- affects enemies only, or allies too?


Rules Questions


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

My players are running a small mutiny on me right now, and I'd like help. For reference, here is the Holy Smite spell. In the text it says it affects your enemies. However, I was always under the impression that a burst would affect everyone in the burst unless the caster had that selective spell metamagic.

The players are arguing that it isn't flavor text when it talks about enemies only, because usually flavor text is italics text before the meat of the spell text. Also, they are arguing that even if bursts in general affect everyone, that specific trumps general, and so the specific text of the spell trumps burst effect rules, and causes it to only affect enemies.

For now I've relented and agreed with their conclusion, only because I couldn't find rule text, nor other spells with similar effect/text to counter their argument. However, it made me uncomfortable enough that I'm here with just an itchy brain, thinking I shouldn't have relented.

The fight was put on pause until next game day, so I'm looking for any text, any rule, any examples that I could put in front of my players. How do I counter their well-argued assertion? I don't want to house rule. I want to find the correct handling, and follow that.

Thanks for your advice.


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I'm pretty sure that the enemy part is fluff, meant to state that evil, and to a lesser extent neutral, creatures are your enemies, or at least your deity's enemies.

If party members are neutral or evil, those party members are taking damage.


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I've always treated it like a fireball. Except that it only affects neutral and evil beings.


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It hits everyone in the area.
Nothing in the spell allows for you to exclude folks.


EvilMinion wrote:
Nothing in the spell allows for you to exclude folks.

...except for the part where it states in the opening sentence that it affects enemies? Aside from that?


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aboyd wrote:
EvilMinion wrote:
Nothing in the spell allows for you to exclude folks.
...except for the part where it states in the opening sentence that it affects enemies? Aside from that?

In the same paragraph, it says that only evil and neutral creatures are affected. So it is defining who your enemies are for you.

Yes, it's unfair to your less than good aligned party members, but Selective Spell is an option. (If it becomes a problem, your party may chip in to get you a metamagic rod for it.)


Thank you guys so much for the help, but this isn't what I hoped for. I apologize; I guess I didn't state things clearly in my opening text. I'm aware that I can just GM house rule this to be whatever I want, and I'm aware I can just declare that "it does hit allies because I interpret it to hit allies" (or: "because the people on the forum decided that way"). I know those are resources I can fall back upon. However I am going to give my players a fair shake, and I'm going to concede that their argument is well-reasoned: the flavor text is in no way denoted, so I am not willing to write the first sentence off as flavor text, AND they have cited the "specific trumps general" rule, which I am also willing to concede may be a valid point.

So with the inability to just tell them "no, my interpretation is the best one," I am only going to be able to shut down their argument if I can cite some rule text or counter-examples.

Also, in case there is confusion, I am not a player trying to creatively mis-interpret a rule in my favor. I am the GM, and I'm entertaining their argument because they made a compelling argument. So I'm not going to go back to them and say "nope, you interpreted wrong." They didn't, at least not on the surface. Right now, they're more correct than I am. My argument fails compared to theirs, because my argument is merely "my gut tells me that's wrong." Their argument is "dude, there are words on the page, we can all see it, we have eyes. Those words mean something, and we're holding you to it."

That's a good argument. Even you don't buy it, I did, and I do. So please, help me from that angle, or maybe tell me I can't be helped. I'm willing to just concede this to them and run my game with their interpretation.

You may ask why I am here, if I've bought their argument. I'm here because I believe there may actually be rule text somewhere that says, "all bursts always effect everyone, no exceptions." If I have that, I will counter my players.

I believe it's also possible that a commonly used spell might have similar text about "enemies" but be known to deal damage to allies. In other words, maybe the Fireball spell opens with "this burns your enemies," and yet we all know that it burns allies if they're in the effect. So if I can cite a few spells like that, then I will use that as a counter argument.

Barring those things, I'm willing to concede that I'm screwed. I will let myself be screwed if I cannot find that level of a solution. Maybe that level of a solution is too much to ask of the rules forum, anyway.

Saethori wrote:
aboyd wrote:
...except for the part where it states in the opening sentence that it affects enemies? Aside from that?
In the same paragraph, it says that only evil and neutral creatures are affected. So it is defining who your enemies are for you.

Unfortunately, partly because it is the same paragraph, it may be that sentence #2 is simply modifying sentence #1, rather than replacing it. In other words, "only enemies who are evil or neutral." At least, that's what they argued, and again, I conceded it, because it's actually pretty reasonable, and it falls in line with common rules of grammar.

(In addition, if I'm arguing that the 1st sentence is fluff text, they will argue back that the whole paragraph is fluff text, and then I'm stuck ignoring the extra sentence you're citing.)

So, I need external text that I can cite. Something that's not from the spell itself. Again, that's probably too much to ask, so perhaps I should merely thank you all and set aside a few hours for my own review of the rules text on this.


Unfortunately, the writers of the spell, back from even before Pathfinder existed, felt the wording of the spell was sufficient to indicate the intent. Paizo has offered no FAQ on the topic, and my difficulty in finding other posts of people encountering this issue leads me to believe that confusion over its wording is particularly rare, whether they eventually decide on whether it has friendly fire or not.

I have very little I can do to convince you, especially since there was never any official clarification and I am, otherwise, just "some person on the forums".

However, I would like to bring up the somewhat related spell Holy Word, and its cousins. This spell indiscriminately hits non-good creatures, and does at least establish some level of pattern regarding these kinds of spells being a Cleric thing, if you wanted to use it as an argument point.

In the end, though, the rule that matters most is Rule Zero. You, as the GM, can establish what does and does not work, after considering all the viewpoints; whether your players', the spell text's, or the opinions of random people on the Internet.

Grand Lodge

if you compare to spell Bane ( a burst, centered on you)
"Bane fills your enemies with fear and doubt. Each affected creature takes ..."

compare to spell Holy word:
"Any nongood creature within the area of a holy word spell suffers ..."

Holy Smite :
"smite your enemies. Only evil and neutral creatures are harmed by the spell; good creatures are unaffected."

I consider that Bane only affects enemies so I also consider that Holy smite affects only ennemies (just evil/neutral ones)

Liberty's Edge

You see, even taking the first paragraph as a rule, the second supersede it.

PRD wrote:

You draw down holy power to smite your enemies. Only evil and neutral creatures are harmed by the spell; good creatures are unaffected.

The spell deals 1d8 points of damage per two caster levels (maximum 5d8) to each evil creature in the area (or 1d6 points of damage per caster level, maximum 10d6, to an evil outsider) and causes it to become blinded for 1 round. A successful Will saving throw reduces damage to half and negates the blinded effect.

The spell damage each evil creature in the area. No exception.

"You draw down holy power to smite your enemies." is a generic statement, undefined as rules go (or you would be damaging even good enemies with this spell).

"evil creature in the area" define exactly what is damaged: each evil creature in the area.

The third paragraph go on saying that non evil non good creatures take half damage.

All included the spell isn't written so well, it should say "non good creature in the area" instead od "evil" as it damage even creatures that are neutral on the good-evil axis, but the intent and mechanics are clear.


The neutral party members trying to argue against the side of good. Ha

Obviously "your enemies" is true because the entire party is good aligned, right?

RIGHT?!?

*Paladin intensifies*


The spell is assuming that the people on your team will have the same or a close alignment. The spell affects everyone in the area by my reading of it, but it is worth an FAQ.


I'm not sure we can fix this for you. The closest thing I have to a rule is from PFSRD...

PFSRD wrote:
A burst spell affects whatever it catches in its area, including creatures that you can't see. It can't affect creatures with total cover from its point of origin (in other words, its effects don't extend around corners). The default shape for a burst effect is a sphere, but some burst spells are specifically described as cone-shaped. a burst's area defines how far from the point of origin the spell's effect extends.
bless is also a burst spell but in its effect area it states specifically that it's caster and allies only.
pfsrd bless wrote:
Area The caster and all allies within a 50-ft. burst, centered on the caster

holy smite doesn't have that language.

I can see your players argument even if I disagree with them. I prefer to play the game with a set of agreed on rules, not by GM fiat, so I applaud your efforts to reach a middle ground. You may be better off to let them win this one. Just let them know that the enemy spell casters will have the same advantage. You many have to create an unholy smite spell though :-)

Dark Archive

Consider it a HOLY FIREBALL. Now, can you exclude your friends from a normal fireball? Nope. Therefore you cannot exclude your friends from this. Not without it saying so (is the spell shaping metamagic feat in Pathfinder) or a feat that allows you to exclude people.


If a spell does not have specific rules about the exclusion of targets by providing the rules for it, it does not do so.
And that is why Selective Spell is a thing.

The alignment blasts, from holy smite to holy word, don't exclude your party, only those of the right alignment.

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