Line of Effect and Smite


Rules Questions


Had a weird situation the other day where an enemy was sitting behind a wall of force and the paladin declared him the target of her smite. A ruling didn't need to be made because it was the last encounter and the paladin had multiple smites left but I was just curious as to how this would play out. Three possibilities I can think of:

1) The paladin needs Line of Effect, the wall of force blocks line of effect and the smite is wasted.

2) The paladin only needs line of sight

smite wrote:
the paladin chooses one target within sight to smite

and the smite is successful.

3) The smite is not wasted because the paladin was unable to expend it in the first place.


Smite does not really target the opponent. The target of smite is the paladin because he gets the bonuses. He chooses who to apply them against. However if he chooses a nonvalid target then it just does not work, and is wasted. They need to change the wording of the ability.

FAQ wrote:

Paladin: Does smite evil bypass the defenses of the incorporeal special quality?

Smite is not an effect on the weapon, it is an effect on the paladin. The weapon still needs to be magic to harm the incorporeal creature, and even a magic weapon still only deals half damage against it.


wraithstrike wrote:

Smite does not really target the opponent. The target of smite is the paladin because he gets the bonuses. He chooses who to apply them against. However if he chooses a nonvalid target then it just does not work, and is wasted. They need to change the wording of the ability.

FAQ wrote:

Paladin: Does smite evil bypass the defenses of the incorporeal special quality?

Smite is not an effect on the weapon, it is an effect on the paladin. The weapon still needs to be magic to harm the incorporeal creature, and even a magic weapon still only deals half damage against it.

Wait but if that's true ... then that means ... Whaa?

Well that's one question answered at least, thank you.

Grand Lodge

It says "one target within sight" and then applies it's effect to the paladin. Paladin needs line of sight on the target, and line of effect on himself.


FLite wrote:
It says "one target within sight" and then applies it's effect to the paladin. Paladin needs line of sight on the target, and line of effect on himself.

Abilities follow one set of aiming rules, not two. Maybe this needs to be FAQ'd also in case smite is an exception to aiming abilities.


I don't know if a FAQ is necessary, wall of force is kind of a corner case that tends to have unusual rulings since it blocks LoE but not LoS. That ruling about smite being an effect on the paladin does seem to be conflicting with the way the ability is worded in its current form though.


Similar wording to Cavalier's challenge. Each needs to pick a target for the ability that they can see for the effect to work. I don't see why this needs to be reworded.

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