Smite Evil on a Multi-Stage Boss Fight


Rules Questions


So the party, which contains a paladin, is moving on to the next book of the adventure path. At the end of the book is a boss fight with two stages. After the boss falls for the first time, whether unconscious or dead, it is reborn in another form. Now on to my question.
Smite evil lasts until the target is dead. If the boss dies the first time in the encounter, would the smite evil still affect the second reincarnation of the boss or would the paladin have to smite it again?


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Well, first of all, what's your gut feeling? It's your campaign, so do whatever you think feels right.

If you want to get really nitpicky, Smite sticks until it is dead. If it falls unconscious and is reborn, it's obviously not dead. If it actually dies, I might need to see the exact example to understand the context. Could you put the exact boss (and book) in a spoiler tag? That way I can take a look myself. If you're a stickler for the rules, I'd say you have to Smite again. But, keeping in the spirit of the game, the threat is obviously not vanquished, so the Smite would linger. I once GMed a game where a creature popped out of the boss, chestburster-style. That's obviously a different creature, and would be able to be Smite'd again (if the boss was controlled by it, that might be a different question), for example.

What's your real motive for asking this? Are you worried about the Paladin running out of Smites, or are you afraid that re-Smiting will deal extra damage? As a GM, you're not supposed to be "against" the players. You can challenge them, but it's not your job to kill them (unless you have certain rules in place). You're supposed to facilitate the players, not throw obstacles at them. In the first example, running out of Smites will cause a bad feeling for the player. In the second example, not allowing him to Smite again (if it's an evil outsider, dragon, or undead) takes away part of his damage output. Either way, you're causing a feel-bad for the player. Sometimes that's okay, but you're supposed to provide entertainment. I'd say don't make a decision yet and see which of the two becomes relevant. If you want to be a hardass GM, take the least favourable result. If you want to provide a cool story, the most favourable result.


The exact wording is as follows:

SMITE EVIL wrote:
The smite evil effect remains until the target of the smite is dead or the next time the paladin rests and regains her uses of this ability.

So if the creature actually died, then the smite ends and the paladin must use smite again to gain the benefit. If the creature was merely unconcious/etc then the smite is still active, and the paladin retains all the benefits.

However - I agree with Quentin Coldwater, do what feels right for your campaign. I tend to ere on the side of "don't waste your paladin's smite" but without the details it's impossible for us to know.

Sczarni

I'd agree that "dead" = end smite, "unconscious and reborn" = still smiting.

That said, I don't think there'd be any reason to deny smite even if it died, if it rose up one round later... because, in all honesty, the Paladin didn't "really" kill it. Now did they? You're the GM. Decide what kind of GM you want to be. The evil prick who "gets around" the smiting Paladin by raising everything he kills and making him waste 2x as many smites... hell raise it a second time! Let's really put the screws to that Paladin! Or the kind that says "yeh, it is not unreasonable for your god to see you still need help killing this thing." Just to let you know, you're setting yourself up for a "us versus the GM" in the first instance. And that never goes well for long. Either your players will come with more firepower (ie. start being murder hobos) or will wait to use stuff that would (because after a while you will stop being a jerk GM and raising everything) be needed later making combats tedious and unnecessarily long long long long...

(Read the preface / into to the AP, this will often allude to the reason for the creature's reincarnation. If it is just to mess with the party, then treat it like the author was the #1 type of GM (and you can decide not to be like this while running your game). If it adds to the story line, then let it. Maybe they have to overcome a hardship (to get that extra FAME or whatever).)

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