I personally think it's a very refreshing change that the Paladin's smite evil ability is actually good for something. In 3.5, it did virtually nothing (as did the Paladin itself). Now, I'm actually excited to play one :)
Since Smite is only against one target, have a bunch of evil baddies creep up the Paladin's party. This should make him use it a couple times. Rinse and repeat. And, when he doesn't have anymore uses, give them the BBEG.
Since Smite is only against one target, have a bunch of evil baddies creep up the Paladin's party. This should make him use it a couple times. Rinse and repeat. And, when he doesn't have anymore uses, give them the BBEG.
I agree. People keep making this mistake, and it's irksome :\
Action economy is important. If you have one person against four others, of course that's a one sided fight. Imagine if you saw a movie where, instead of letting the heroes attack the baddie one by one, they just all rush him at once, knock him to the ground, and then start kicking him. That's what a D&D fight against one enemy becomes. For every one action they have, the group has four, maybe even more.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've had some success with the 'mook screen'. My party went up against around 14 enemies last session. They were pretty worried. What they didn't know is the twelve guys standing in front were the same '1 hit wonders' they'd been fighting all night. Their only real danger was the two bad guys in the back. So they wasted their time at a choke point fighting one on one instead of leaping in and mulching them all in a round or so.
I've had some success with the 'mook screen'. My party went up against around 14 enemies last session. They were pretty worried. What they didn't know is the twelve guys standing in front were the same '1 hit wonders' they'd been fighting all night. Their only real danger was the two bad guys in the back. So they wasted their time at a choke point fighting one on one instead of leaping in and mulching them all in a round or so.
And if you don't put those 2 guys in the back, or make a couple of the 1 hit wonders 2 hit, then they really get confused.
Without doubt I will add absolutely nothing of value to this thread, but I agree the paladin smite evil is too powerful up to the point of idiocy.
Until I can be bothered to tinker with the paladin's abilities I just ban the paladin from being a playable class.
|
|
And if you don't put those 2 guys in the back, or make a couple of the 1 hit wonders 2 hit, then they really get confused.
Yeah, I like throwing mook hordes at them that aren't really a threat. Makes the fighters feel good to be cutting bloody swathes through the field.
Until I can be bothered to tinker with the paladin's abilities I just ban the paladin from being a playable class.
I highly recommend the earlier discussions linked in my first response for suggestions on altering the Paladin for your game.
Without doubt I will add absolutely nothing of value to this thread, but I agree the paladin smite evil is too powerful up to the point of idiocy.
Until I can be bothered to tinker with the paladin's abilities I just ban the paladin from being a playable class.
Ya know I had given up hope on hearing the words. Paladin. Too powerful. Banned as a playable class. All in the same sentence not to long ago.
It makes my heart all warm and fuzzy
Ya know I had given up hope on hearing the words.Why didn't you just say them?
Oh, and it's actually banned in Kirth's game as well. He uses the Prestige Paladin.
Yeah I saw that, he has an odd game going, but one y'all seem to enjoy. I dislike PRC's as a whole and it's nice to see the paladin back as a powerful class to be honest.
Yeah I have looked over his rules, some I like some I do not, interesting though even If I don't always agree with it.
We are aware of some imbalance issues with this class ability. They are being reviewed.
Stay tuned.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Interesting...
If you would run the numbers, you would see that an optimized Paladin making a smiting full attack against a member of Team Evil (undead, dragon, outsider) has rather high chances of dropping said target in 2 rounds max, without any saves, SRs and immunities involved. It's not really something a caster can achieve.
While I don't consider that a Bad Thing, mostly because 3.5 Paladins were useless douchebags, and now they have something to bring to the table apart from their uppity moral codes and "no, we can't steal/kill/raper/burn this" attitude, there are many posters around here who consider the new Paladin to be zomgwtfbbq broken.
I have run the numbers, and the smiting paladin (normal smite) is still outdamaged by the fighter who doesnt have a per day mechanic to his abilities, nor a limitation on who he can use them on. Its only against team badguy that the paladin exceeds the fighter. And in that case, they SHOULD be badass. That is their thing they do. Put some minions between the big bad and the paladin and move on.
I'm curious about that--let's do archery (we can switch to any other style of damaging if you prefer, though obvious Two-Weapon Fighting vastly favours the Paladin.
Assuming 20 PB (so around the average of rolling 4d6 drop lowest), all else being equal, but the Fighter buys a 7 Charisma and the Paladin a 16 (the extreme advantage for the Fighter). So the Fighter has enough points left from that to bump Dex twice and Strength four times compared to the Paladin (since you only mention damage, we'll ignore the possibility of other stats, since the Paladin obviously has the edge on survivability with Lay on Hands, Cha to saves, and Cha to AC while smiting).
This gives an 11th level Fighter a +5 to hit (one from Dex, two from GWF, two from training) and +6 to damage (two from Str, two from Weapon Spec, two from training) over the Paladin not smiting. A huge advantage, certainly. And even if the Fighter doesn't majorly min-max with Charisma and we adjust it down a bit, still a huge advantage.
But when smiting, the 11th-level Paladin will have at least a +6 to hit from Charisma (beating out the +5) and +11 to damage (beating out the +6), so I don't see the Paladin doing worse while smiting, even ignoring the x2 for certain creatures.
Granted, Smite is limited, but by then (if the Paladin isnt doing something even scarier using Aura of Justice) there are more than enough Smites for anything that matters in the day (even if you make more things matter).
From personal experience, in my Rise of the Runelords game (where I routinely throw Xanesha and Lucrecia into later boss encounters since they keep escaping), the 8th-level Paladin has never run out of Smites and needed another, though the Paladin/Sorcerer/ArcaneArcher has. The group has a negative-energy Cleric and a Wizard to take care of mooks with AoE, so if the Paladin needs to care about non-bosses, they've done something wrong (though granted, this has happened on occasion).
One thing to consider about using smite evil against someone whose alignment is masked:
What kind of paladin would try to smite someone with her god's righteous wrath without detecting evil in them first?
"Hmmm... that fellow doesn't SEEM evil, but I think I'll call down the god-strike on him just to be certain."
Sounds like a good way to wake up the next morning as an ex-paladin to me.
One thing to consider about using smite evil against someone whose alignment is masked:
What kind of paladin would try to smite someone with her god's righteous wrath without detecting evil in them first?
"Hmmm... that fellow doesn't SEEM evil, but I think I'll call down the god-strike on him just to be certain."
Sounds like a good way to wake up the next morning as an ex-paladin to me.
Well gee if their alignment is masked how do you know that? Oh right you detected evil and got nothing... that means they must not be evil even when they are a balor and they just proceeded to slaughter an orphanage.
Some situations clear the need to actually detect.
I agree. People keep making this mistake, and it's irksome :\
Normally, I agree, but single BBEG's CAN be done. It involves 3 elements:
1) Ensuring some barrier exists to prevent too many PC's from ganging up on them. Ex. Reach+grapple or trip+many AoO's, or difficult terrain, or traps, etc.
2) Protecting the BBEG from the "SoD". A wind wall to negate the uber archer. A readied action to counterspell vs the god wizard. Dispeling screen vs the buffer. Whatever the default party tactic tends to be, have a plan to negate it.
3) Make them fear the TPK. For this, massive damage + cleave or big evocation spells work well. Hit their hp's so their combat effectiveness is not impacted, but hit them hard enough to fear death. Don't just move in for the kill, either. Spread the hurt, hitting with everything possible, but at different targets.
I have made good use of single BBEG's that were only APL+2 or so, usually by doing exactly this. Party's tend to play "rocket tag" or "alpha strike" or "go nova". Get the BBEG to survive the initial barrage, and the party will sweat. Have IT "go ape" against THEM, and they will feel the fear. Even if the battle really IS over in 3 rounds, they will have felt as if the fight was much harder than it really was.
I once ran a single level 13 cleric against seven 7th level characters.
The cleric still lost. I used harm and blade barrier.
Action economy is much, much more powerful than level or CR.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Honestly, the "paladin smite is too powerful" I think really does come down to those "I'll send one enemy against the entire party, that's a good idea!" issues.
Yes, against one enemy, smite is really awesome. But you shouldn't be fighting just one enemy! I'm fine with paladins being the champions at taking down a single enemy, because it's a situation that shouldn't come up too often.
If you would run the numbers, you would see that an optimized Paladin making a smiting full attack against a member of Team Evil (undead, dragon, outsider) has rather high chances of dropping said target in 2 rounds max, without any saves, SRs and immunities involved. It's not really something a caster can achieve.
While I don't consider that a Bad Thing, mostly because 3.5 Paladins were useless douchebags, and now they have something to bring to the table apart from their uppity moral codes and "no, we can't steal/kill/raper/burn this" attitude, there are many posters around here who consider the new Paladin to be zomgwtfbbq broken.
I have run the numbers, and the smiting paladin (normal smite) is still outdamaged by the fighter who doesnt have a per day mechanic to his abilities, nor a limitation on who he can use them on. Its only against team badguy that the paladin exceeds the fighter. And in that case, they SHOULD be badass. That is their thing they do. Put some minions between the big bad and the paladin and move on.
I'm curious about that--let's do archery (we can switch to any other style of damaging if you prefer, though obvious Two-Weapon Fighting vastly favours the Paladin.
Assuming 20 PB (so around the average of rolling 4d6 drop lowest), all else being equal, but the Fighter buys a 7 Charisma and the Paladin a 16 (the extreme advantage for the Fighter). So the Fighter has enough points left from that to bump Dex twice and Strength four times compared to the Paladin (since you only mention damage, we'll ignore the possibility of other stats, since the Paladin obviously has the edge on survivability with Lay on Hands, Cha to saves, and Cha to AC while smiting).
This gives an 11th level Fighter a +5 to hit (one from Dex, two from GWF, two from training) and +6 to damage (two from Str, two from Weapon Spec, two from training) over the Paladin not smiting. A huge advantage, certainly. And even if the Fighter doesn't...
+14/+14/+9/+4, for 1d8+14+1d6 times four, and an extra 1d8+14
or +16/+16/+11/+6 for 1d8+10+1d6 times four and an extra 1d8+10
On top of that, full mobility in full plate (including now the ability to tumble) and max dex of 3 in his normal full plate, bringing his AC to one less than the paladin's all of the time-- or higher, assuming both that the paladin is wearing full plate and that neither wear deflection bonus items, and therefore the paladin doesn't gain the full +3 of his smite.
11th level paladin with +1 fiery composite (+4) bow while smiting: +11+3+1+3 =
+14/+14/+9/+4, for 1d8+19+1d6 times four, and an extra 1d8+15.
or +16/+16/+11/+6 for 1d8+15+1d6 times four and an extra 1d8+15...
Without smite: +11+3+1 =
+11/+11/+6/+1 for 1d8+9+1d6 times four and an extra 1d8+9...
or +13/+13/+8/+3 for 1d8+5+1d6 times four and an extra 1d8+5...
So, on four enemies per day, the paladin does five more damage than the fighter. On the rest of them, the fighter does six more damage than the paladin, assuming the paladin doesn't drop deadly aim or manyshot or rapidshot for losses to attacks and damages.
Both are equally deadly.
One doesn't require a move action before he can start wailing into you.
The other vaporizes demons, undead and dragons.
Honestly, the "paladin smite is too powerful" I think really does come down to those "I'll send one enemy against the entire party, that's a good idea!" issues.
And the "Oh Shit! Aura of Justice means the entire Party AND their Mounts/ Summons are now Smiting an (Evil) opponent of their choice with the Paladin's full bonus, after I just built the perfect multi-opponent encounter to challenge the Paladin's single-target Smite-Bomb?" issues... Of course, AoJ is basically a 1/x day thing, but that just further emphasizes the few uses/ complete decimation aspect of Smite (and that ends up being more favorable to NPC Anti-Paladins than the PCs)
some Garbage
plus Aura of Justice... plus Weapon Bond...
I have to say I'm VERY curious what Jason is thinking on this... "Issues being reviewed"?
Would that mean a signifigant change in 3rd printing/ Errata update? That could be... signifigant.
If the 'top end' is drawn down much more, I'd expect other upgrades would need to be added for all the time NOT Smiting... Which wouldn't be too hard to think of or issue as 'Errata' (as simple as having some benefits of Smite apply to all Evil enemies)
We are aware of some imbalance issues with this class ability. They are being reviewed.
Stay tuned.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
if you fix this, redo the code too
Some garbage
Ah, when I said the Paladin Point Buys a 16, it should be at least 22 by level 11 thanks to racial bonus and stat items. That is incredibly crucial: If the Paladin ignores her Charisma, Smite is a lot less impressive (that +3 to hit that's missing is a big deal, at least when I calculate my numbers for average damage).
If we want to look at them without stat items, we'd better do it right out the gates. These lower levels can be when the Paladin gets some of their greatest comparative advantages over the Fighter, as well, due to the to-hit and AC boosts.
I'll fully stat out the relevant info here like IceTitan did. So we're assuming that the Paladin and Fighter bought the same in Int, Con, and Wis because the claim being made earlier was that Fighters outdamage smiting Paladins. Because the Paladin gets two +2 stat items for Dex and Cha, I will give the Fighter a slightly more expensive +6 Dex item. Assume they have an equivalent bow. It doesn't matter, so I'll say they each have a +1 Holy Longbow. So we have:
Darrenback Halfling Paladin 11
Str 8 (-2 racial)
Dex 24 (+2 racial, +4 stat item, two raises)
Con NA
Int NA
Wis NA
Cha 22 (+2 racial, +4 stat item)
Attacks (non-smite): +19/+19/+14/+9 (with one shot giving two arrows a la Manyshot) 1d6+2d6 holy
Attacks (regular smite): +25/+25/+20/+15 (with one shot giving two arrows) 1d6+11+2d6 holy
Robin of Loxley, Human Fighter 11
Str 14
Dex 28 (+2 racial, +6 stat item, two raises)
Con NA
Int NA
Wis NA
Cha 7
Attacks: +24/+24/+19/+14 (with one shot giving two arrows a la Manyshot) 1d8+4+2d6 holy
If you're considering a fix to the paladin, then I humbly suggest you nip the Inquisitor in the bud.
And the "Oh s&!*! Aura of Justice means the entire Party AND their Mounts/ Summons are now Smiting an (Evil) opponent of their choice with the Paladin's full bonus, after I just built the perfect multi-opponent encounter to challenge the Paladin's single-target Smite-Bomb?" issues...
...How exactly did you go from "all the party and their mounts/summons are now doing awesome damage on one enemy" to "This ruins the other 5 enemies!" there? There's a bit of a leap of logic there. More then a bit. Quite more of a bit. More of a high jump over a chasm. More of a spring boarded jump. You didn't jump, you flew. The two aren't even related in the slightest.
Seriously. Yes, paladins are righteous against single target horrible evil demons. They can Aura of Justice in case of Things Getting Real, against one monster.
And then a second monster walks in and welp there goes that!
And the "Oh s&!*! Aura of Justice means the entire Party AND their Mounts/ Summons are now Smiting an (Evil) opponent of their choice with the Paladin's full bonus, after I just built the perfect multi-opponent encounter to challenge the Paladin's single-target Smite-Bomb?" issues......How exactly did you go from "all the party and their mounts/summons are now doing awesome damage on one enemy" to "This ruins the other 5 enemies!" there? There's a bit of a leap of logic there. More then a bit. Quite more of a bit. More of a high jump over a chasm. More of a spring boarded jump. You didn't jump, you flew. The two aren't even related in the slightest.
Seriously. Yes, paladins are righteous against single target horrible evil demons. They can Aura of Justice in case of Things Getting Real, against one monster.
And then a second monster walks in and welp there goes that!
Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong(my group's paladin isn't 11 quite yet), but does Aura of Justice really only work against one enemy? It seems to me that all the allies can pick unique targets.
Aura of Justice (Su)
At 11th level, a paladin can expend two uses of her smite evil ability to grant the ability to smite evil to all allies within 10 feet, using her bonuses. Allies must use this smite evil ability by the start of the paladin's next turn and the bonuses last for 1 minute. Using this ability is a free action. Evil creatures gain no benefit from this ability.
We are aware of some imbalance issues with this class ability. They are being reviewed.
Stay tuned.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Cool.
A simple fix I like is:- Remove the double damage vs. evil outsiders subtype, evil-aligned dragons or undead creatures
- Nerf the "automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess."
DR Silver, Cold Iron, Good and Lawful is enough. Why should a smite by a Lawful Paladin bypass DR Chaotic? And not even a +5 weapon can bypass slashing, etc.
And perhaps:
- Let it last for only for 3, 4 or 5 rounds. 3 round is probably enough
- Nerf or remove the AC-bonus.
|
We are aware of some imbalance issues with this class ability. They are being reviewed.
Stay tuned.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
I sure hope there's no big changes. Yes, Paladins drop a fraking hammer on evil outsiders, dragons, and undead. Against plain evil targets it's good but not as deadly as some other classes. Against constructs, plants, animals and all other things neutral, the Paladin gets out-damaged by everyone else. Plus, they don't get many skills per level, which is a pain.
And even if that doesn't balance it for you, consider the moral limitations that the Paladin must live with. Yes, it is a powerful class but considering the high standards that they must be held to in and out of combat there is balance.
And even if that doesn't feel like balance to you, consider all the other ways you can screw with your friendly neighborhood Paladin. Paladins can't fly until they get some expensive items. Make 'em fight a flying or Air Walking bad guy. They tend to be slowish so how about a teleporting bad guy?
I've just gotten my first PF Paladin to level 10 in Crimson Throne and I'm pleased by the character but rarely feel overpowered. Yes, I killed in the Temple of Urgathoa and in the Vivified Labyrinth. But I almost get pillaged by the Emperor of Old Korvosa's thugs and I've had a few other bad spots.
YuenglingDragon....DON'T DROP SPOILERS!
I'm not the only one who will get mad.
One thing to consider about using smite evil against someone whose alignment is masked:
What kind of paladin would try to smite someone with her god's righteous wrath without detecting evil in them first?
"Hmmm... that fellow doesn't SEEM evil, but I think I'll call down the god-strike on him just to be certain."
Sounds like a good way to wake up the next morning as an ex-paladin to me.
If one role-played the paladin to the utmost of their faith, perhaps.
One thing to consider is special effects changing the "displayed" alignment. I recently read the Master of Mask PrC, and some of its abilities made the character's displayed alignment change.Supposing a Lawful Good character putting on a mask changing his "public" alignment to Chaotic Evil, what would happen?
There's no question that Detect Evil would show him as Evil, but would the Smite work?
I once ran a single level 13 cleric against seven 7th level characters.
The cleric still lost. I used harm and blade barrier.
Action economy is much, much more powerful than level or CR.
I think that's how 4e came into being, what with 1/2 level added to everything and all...
We are aware of some imbalance issues with this class ability. They are being reviewed.
Stay tuned.
Personally, I don't see anything wrong with an ability which use is situational and affects only one target. Paladins around the world, beware of GMs knowing your limits!
Smite evil is really fairly good, but i don't think it is truely broken.
In my oppinion, it is not only possible, but desirable to run games where the majority of challanges are neutral. Humans make the best bad guys, and the more shades of gray the motivations for conflict the better the drama and the more real and meaningful the moral choices are that the PCs are forced to make.
Forcing the players to choose between killing a father who wishs to use the cure to a plague now, to save his dieing child, so that they can have the cure analysed to potential save the city and letting him treat the child, and hope they can find another way to cure the city is more interesting than bashing goblin skulls.
Having to kill or incapacitate city watchmen, who believe you are a murderer, thanks to the assersions of the guard captain is more interesting that killing skeleton in a dungeon, especially when you later confront the PCs with their choices, in the form of one of the guards lovers with a poisoned dagger.
|
|
Honestly, its not too powerful or game-breaking. I have to agree with everyone else... Its silly to think you have to change one class feature because somebody abused a class feature.
Thats right. Abused, is probably the right word. I've read enough of the complaining on it to see it that way. A player abused it, boohoo. Anti-Paladins are the way. Just wait.
Then the players can feel the smite love.
|
|
I've done two things, both ideas that I read here:
1. Don't allow the Smite to automatically bypass DR.
2. Require that the paladin focus on the enemy he's declared a Smite on to the exclusion of all others. If he turns aside or does not strive to attack the target each round the Smite lapses.
Now the paladin is in line with the other players PCs except for one over-the-top bugbear PC with a Str of 32 when raging... :(
I have done point 2 and it works well.
I also added one thing. Smite Evil is a vow to destroy the evil guy. And a vow means you have to abide to it. it's "fight to the death" and you are being watched by your god.Therefore the Paladin cannot retreat from a fight where he smited an opponent. I know it's a bit tough but the paladin IS TOUGH.
My player is lvl 8 in RotRL and so far he isn't overpowered at all. He may shine sometimes.
Paladins... The Nerf Bat doth be swinging thy way.We are aware of some imbalance issues with this class ability. They are being reviewed.
Stay tuned.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Man that was fast, usually it takes at least half an edition before the nerf bat comes roaring through... sigh...poor paladin, at least you got to be awesome for a little while after suffering through 3.0 and 3.5 suck.
Man that was fast, usually it takes at least half an edition before the nerf bat comes roaring through... sigh...poor paladin, at least you got to be awesome for a little while after suffering through 3.0 and 3.5 suck.Paladins... The Nerf Bat doth be swinging thy way.We are aware of some imbalance issues with this class ability. They are being reviewed.
Stay tuned.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Agreed, I think I'll leave it as is what ever they decide
Maybe the Kill Team Evil part will be toned back - in all fairness, this was a bit of an overkill against many "solo" encounters.
So is a wizard,cleric or druid.
If you would run the numbers, you would see that an optimized Paladin making a smiting full attack against a member of Team Evil (undead, dragon, outsider) has rather high chances of dropping said target in 2 rounds max, without any saves, SRs and immunities involved. It's not really something a caster can achieve.
While I don't consider that a Bad Thing, mostly because 3.5 Paladins were useless douchebags, and now they have something to bring to the table apart from their uppity moral codes and "no, we can't steal/kill/raper/burn this" attitude, there are many posters around here who consider the new Paladin to be zomgwtfbbq broken.
I have run the numbers, and the smiting paladin (normal smite) is still outdamaged by the fighter who doesnt have a per day mechanic to his abilities, nor a limitation on who he can use them on. Its only against team badguy that the paladin exceeds the fighter. And in that case, they SHOULD be badass. That is their thing they do. Put some minions between the big bad and the paladin and move on.
I'm curious about that--let's do archery (we can switch to any other style of damaging if you prefer, though obvious Two-Weapon Fighting vastly favours the Paladin.
Assuming 20 PB (so around the average of rolling 4d6 drop lowest), all else being equal, but the Fighter buys a 7 Charisma and the Paladin a 16 (the extreme advantage for the Fighter). So the Fighter has enough points left from that to bump Dex twice and Strength four times compared to the Paladin (since you only mention damage, we'll ignore the possibility of other stats, since the Paladin obviously has the edge on survivability with Lay on Hands, Cha to saves, and Cha to AC while smiting).
This gives an 11th level Fighter a +5 to hit (one from Dex, two from GWF, two from training) and +6 to damage (two from Str, two from Weapon Spec, two from training) over the Paladin not smiting. A huge advantage, certainly. And even if the Fighter doesn't...
Lets look at the characters as a whole shall we? 11th level you say? 20pt by. I am assuming a CR 11 monster which should have an average AC of 24. I am assuming the availabilty of a +2 cha and a + 2 dex item for the paly and a +2 dex/str item for the fighter, as well as +3 longbows for both (with approriate strength ratings for each) which to me seems reasonable for an 11th level character
Paladin:
Str 10 Dex 17 Con 14 In 7 Wis 7 Cha 16
+2 racial dex +1 dex at 4 and +1 cha at 8
Str 10 Dex 22 Con 14 Int 7 Wiz 7 Cha 19
Feats - Point blank, precise shot rapid shot, deadly aim, manyshot, imrpoved critical and weapon focus (no room for additional feats so if you wanted extra channel or something one of these feats has to go.)
Fighter
Str 17 Dex 17 Con 14 Int 7 Wis 7 Cha 7
+2 racial to dex, + 1 to str at 4 +1 to dex at 8
Str 20 Dex 22 Con 14 Int 7 wis 7 cha 7
Feat: Point blank, precise shot, deadly aim manyshot, weapon focus, weapon spec, greater weaponfocus, imrpoved crit, critical focus, bleeding critical. (has 2 feats open for miscellaneous needs or can use 3.5/splat material to increase damage)
Plus Weapon training 2.
Paladin's normal attack routine is +17(11 bab 6 dex point blank, weapon focus, +3 magic weapon -2 for rapid shot -3 for deadly aim) 2d8+20 +17 1d8+10, and +12 1d8+10(3 from the magic weapon, 1 from point blank shot, and 6 from deadly aim x2 for manyshot on the first shot) with a 19-20 crit.
When smiting that is bumped to
+21 2d8+42 +21 1d8+21 +16 1d8 +21
For the fighter:
to hit
+11bab +6 dex + 2 greater weapon focus + 2 weapon training + 3 magic weapon point blank shot -2 rapid shot -3 deadly aim comes to +20
damage
5 from strength, 2 from weapon spec 2 from weapon training 3 from the weapon, 6 from deadly aim, 1 from point blank shot
It looks something like
+20 2d8+38 +20 1d8+19 +15 1d8 +19 with a 19-20 crit, and +4 to confirm crits with an addtional Stacking 2d6 damage on a crit.
Its fairly close given the crit damage boost for the fighter, between the fighter and a smiting paladin.
With 2handed weapons the advantage shifts more in the fighter's direction because of the better crit threat range of melee weapons.
So in terms of pure damage a 2handed fighter has a slight advantage over a normal smiting paladin, except the fighter can do this all day long against any manner or number of targets, the paladin cannot.
The archer fighter lags slightly behind the smiting paladin but again doesnt have the target number or variety issue.
There are some things I think do need to be adjusted with smite.
But top of the list... a smite should be a direct melee attack, I'm rather leery of the "Archery Paladin" as described above. If a Paladin is smiting a foe, she should be in his face, toe to toe, delivering justice up close.
Another possiblity would be perhaps a hit point sacrifice to activate the ability.. scaling as the smite improves, say 1d6 hit points per plus.
I would definately agree that i dislike the ranged smiter, at least not without a feat or something (ranged smite in 3.5) but i guess it's just a matter of avoiding bias. If you have a world where 1 race or region is highly disposed to bows or other ranged weapons (think elves in lord of the rings) then paladins of that region should have a way to fit that mold.
I would never play a ranged smiter, and have never seen one played but i dont see it as 'wrong'. I honestly dont think damage needs to be adjusted, if anything its all the other things smite does (like auto bypassing DR for instance). And the whole everyone smite that guy ability. The damage and ac boost i dont have a problem with, even against team evil.