| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
At 20th level, a paladin becomes a conduit for the power of her god. Her DR increases to 10/evil. Whenever she uses smite evil and successfully strikes an evil outsider, the outsider is also subject to a banishment, using her paladin level as the caster level (her weapon and holy symbol automatically count as objects that the subject hates). After the banishment effect and the damage from the attack is resolved, the smite immediately ends. In addition, whenever she channels positive energy or uses lay on hands to heal a creature, she heals the maximum possible amount.
I've searched through the threads and it seems as if people aren't sure if the smite ends after you hit an evil outsider, regardless of the effect of the banishment, or if your smite ends only when the banishment is successful.
If it's the former, that's going to be pretty lame in the latter phases of the Wrath of the Righteous campaign for a paladin.
Has there been a consensus or am I just full of wishful thinking hoping that the paladin's capstone ability won't revert my character into a 3.5 paladin when fighting the Big Bads of this campaign?
That would make it look more like a capstone ability rather than something that makes it significantly weaker against higher CR evil outsiders. When it goes off, sure that's great, but the DC won't really be all that high compared to the saving throws of higher powered monsters like that.