I am trying to recreate the Shadowbane inquisitor as a Paladin Archetype. What do you think having a Smite that affects any alignment is worth? Should I drop spells?
(The inquisitor is not in the campaign, please no suggestions to use that class. Thank you)
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It's worth a lot. The closest we have to it is the Cavalier's challenge, and you should look at all the differences between the two. No bonus to hit, no bonus to AC, and challenge gives a penalty to AC. It also doesn't double damage against some enemies on the first attack.
So it's worth quite a bit. Not something you can just bolt on, really. Or just give them Challenge.
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I am trying to recreate the Shadowbane inquisitor as a Paladin Archetype. What do you think having a Smite that affects any alignment is worth? Should I drop spells?
(The inquisitor is not in the campaign, please no suggestions to use that class. Thank you)
I'd recommend halving the damage bonus on the Paladin's smite. That brings it more in line with an X/day favored enemy bonus. IE - If you're a 1st level Paladin it's pretty much getting Cha to hit. A 4th level Paladin gets Cha to hit and +2 damage. And so on and so forth. Instead of capping out at +20 damage per hit at 20th, you'd get +10 (the same amount a Ranger will have with instant enemy.
Challenge Mechanics seem logical but remember that challenge also get better dependent upon your order so keeping the plus charisma to attack is balanced with the sword order as long as you lose the bonus to AC.
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Smite anything is really powerful. While limited, the alignment restriction also keeps you from exploding the non-evils sent against you. Just strikes me odd as being able to smite a dread necromancer to the same extent as a random bear in the woods.
What are you aiming for with this idea? Who would they largely be against? Hellknights get smite chaos since they're devoted to law utterly for example. Is there a specific foe you have in mind for them to be approaching? Looking at the class I would base it similarly off the old Judgement mechanics the 15 level hellknight prc had. This was the old version of smite from 3.5 but they could apply it to anyone they felt broke the law not just chaotic creatures. There were however repercussions at least in fluff. Abuse of the ability constituted a flagrantly evil act. Combine that with a reduced smite pool and it may work out but given the overhaul smite underwent I'm not really sure.
I'm trying to stay away from the judgements (The reason I don't use inquisitors). The Shadowbane Inquisitor is a class from 3.5. Campaign-wise they are basically a group of paladin like warriors that are extreme in their pursuit of corruption. In the campaign, there is a history of an evil faction manipulating good creatures to do thier work. These guys are a result of that. They tend to ask questions later. (The whole misguided good thing). Their smite works on anyone they consider Corrupt. I am willing to cut down the number of uses a lot, and can even go half damage, but I need to stay with the smite mechanic
Thought: would limiting it to intelligent beings make a difference?
If you're going to allow smite to work no any target, I would say cut its bonus damage in half. This puts it close to on par with the Guide Ranger's "Ranger's Focus", which adds up to 10 attack and damage to attacks against your selected target by level 20.
There was a greyguard PrC in 3.5 that let you smite anything IIRC.
Grayguard just let you get away with nasty tricks that paladin code normally forbade, not actually allowing you to "smite anything". Good find/remembering, though.
Currently, Smite Evil (and thus smite in general) is super-powerful. Smite anything, then would be incredibly intense.
Relegating it to only applying to sentient enemies helps... a bit.
That means that animals, vermin, and a number of undead creatures will be unaffected. Which is okay, at low levels, but much more difficult at higher ones.
However, you're talking about a powerful melee class that overcomes damage reduction and grants a hefty attack and damage bonus to a specified target until its dead or until the paladin rests.
Ashiel's suggestion is a pretty good one. If you decide to go with a prestige class instead of archetype, one other possible idea is to tie it to the prestige class' level instead of your over-all hit dice/class levels (this gives you a similar result to Ashiel's suggestion).
I'd suggest that the archetype would need to sacrifice the various beneficial auras, channel energy, lay on hands (and mercies). If a prestige class, it would effectively require that the prestige class somehow consumes such things (perhaps instantly upon entering the class or every time you use a smite it costs uses of those abilities at will with no effect) or something similar.
Looking at the original ability, lose the channel energy and lay on hands abilities for Pierce the Shadows (i.e. a daylight spell-like ability or something similar), make stealth a class skill (instead of the sacred stealth ability), eliminate the sneak attacks (as that's just damage upon damage), trade all the auras and healing for Absolute Conviction, Sunder and Improved Sunder, Merciless Purity (which applies to all saves, but perhaps doesn't benefit the inquisitor against his sworn superiors), and Burning Light (similar think about making it a progression of searing light-like effects at 9th and 18th levels). Since they could presume that everyone's evil, they should probably lose their detect evil ability. And, based on the power of their smites (and the fact that they get searing light-type effect), I'd nix the spellcasting as well.
What this means is that you've basically got a warrior NPC class with good will saves and more ability to destroy things with smite, sundering, and burning light bonuses who are absolutely brutal against sentient enemies. All-in-all, it's a pretty radical change.
It also might be wise to tie their "smite anything" to a specific weapon or set of weapons and require them to brandish their holy symbol. Perhaps their "smite anything" only works with a bonded weapon, similar to the Divine Bond ability, perhaps replacing that, too. Maybe that would be the point at which the archetype gets their "ultimate power" type idea: that instead of making a divine bond as normal paladins do, they have some sort of "revelation" that allows them to infuse a specific weapon with the power to channel destructive forces to find the "true evil at the heart of any creature" or somesuch. They would lose the ability to augment their weapons as normal paladins would, instead gaining the any-smite power. Further, the paladin would be tied to the weapon and thus losing it would cause them severe trouble (though it would be poor form for a GM to do this too often to a non-abusive player).
Although I don't know if you like this idea (and it's benefit as a balancing factor, especially in PF sensibilities, is questionable), based on what I'm reading it may be interesting for this archetype to be vulnerable to effects from whatever evil force is manipulating them. This may mean taking penalties to saves against them, or automatically failing their caster level checks for divination effects, if you go with the shadowbane stalker as a cleric thing (also notable for that: they'd likely get sneak attacks instead of channeling energy).
EDIT: just to be clear, I actually like the Judgement idea, too, but I'm giving an alternate to make it a bit closer to the original PrC and the current smite mechanics.
Smite anything is really powerful. While limited, the alignment restriction also keeps you from exploding the non-evils sent against you. Just strikes me odd as being able to smite a dread necromancer to the same extent as a random bear in the woods.In another game I play, you can worship a God of purity that disdains corruption, magical contamination, shapeshifters, and other things generally abominable or distasteful. He gave an ability that let you "preach" to nearby enemies and depending on what "tier" of hatred he had on them, it would have different effects. Simple evil beings such as heretics would get things like sleep, fright, confusion, etc. It goes up in levels (ie. mindless undead<sentient undead<demons/devils) and the punishments go up accordingly (bleeding/paralysis<major holy damage/petrified).
If the problem is with Smite affecting beings differently, a tiered effect could also be used. Smite Evil could have increasing effect the farther from Good you are. Neutral creatures may take no damage but are instead shaken/sickened. Evil mortals are damaged as normal. "Mindless" Undead take extra damage and maybe are stunned/dazzled/weakened. Higher-order Undead and Evil Outsiders would take the most severe effect; major damage, paralyzis, bleeding, blindness, etc.
That's actually a really cool idea (and one I'm personally fond of), but I'm hesitant to suggest it for this purpose for a few reasons:
1) It doesn't fit the current mechanics of smite, which is what he's stated he's looking for.
2) Related to the above, you'd need some really complex sets of interactions charted in order to "do it right" which, in turn, leads to a lot of rules to remember (unless everything is the same... in which case it's still more rules to remember, just not quite as many).
3) You're effectively describing a variant version of the holy word/blasphemy/order's wrath/chaos hammer spells. Which is fine! But that's a lot of mechanical minutiae to keep track of which, based on a potentially core-concept as an archetype might not function well (though it may very well work in his campaign setting, so, you know).
4) With a power that automatically scales according to alignment, and prefers good, this strays away from his core concept: that super-zealous "good guys" are being manipulated by evil to harm other (actual) good guys, and thus making it difficult to tell who is really the actual good guys.
ALL THAT SAID, I actually like this idea in principle. It could be a very neat basis for a gray-scale-but-with-alignments setting, as some lawful good gods give a "free pass" so to speak to lawful neutral, and maybe even lawful evil sometimes, but not so much neutral good. Meanwhile some chaotic good god could love them some neutral, chaotic neutral, and neutral good, but might loathe those stupid lawfuls (with various illogical exceptions, because, you know: chaotic). And then there's the neutral good god who loves lawful and chaotic good equally as much, but as soon as anything steps below the "good" line, BAM, they gets themselves some smitin'. Of course, that's only three of the gods. A different lawful good god sides with the neutral good above. Under a very different extreme, a chaotic good god might actually love the lawful guys, giving them a free pass, while chaotic people that don't fall under the aegis of the faith might be smiting; he's only chaotic because he has to be to make sure he's there to fill in the gaps when baddies stop playing by the rules (or rather, when the evils are playing by the rules, just a little too well) but the lawfuls' hands are tied.
Alternatively, just a sliding-scale kind of thing, where law prefers itself, good prefers itself, neutral prefers itself, evil prefers itself, and chaos prefers itself is also interesting.
ANYWAY I'M KIND OF OFF-TOPIC. Sorry guys... I just kind of liked the idea.
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Thanks Tact, and everyone else who responded. Soem great ideas here. I think I am going with most of yours you made some great suggestions.