Hey, I'm reading the Aura of Justice ability (it's very strong in our current campaign which has lots of undead and devils,) and I had a rules question; the ability seems to allow everyone to add the paladin's damage bonus for sure, but what about the CHA to AC and attacks against the target? Does everyone use the paladin's CHA bonus or do they use their own?
Yeah, you would add your Paladin's Cha Mod to everyone's Attack Bonus and AC. It's literally one of the best buffs in the game.
the Aura of Justice ability (it's very strong in our current campaign which has lots of undead and devils,)
Aura of Justice is probably the most powerful offensive buff in the game.
Also Belafon and Ryze Kuja are correct.
the Aura of Justice ability (it's very strong in our current campaign which has lots of undead and devils,)Aura of Justice is probably the most powerful offensive buff in the game.
Also Belafon and Ryze Kuja are correct.
It's powerful if you've got a high charisma as the paladin, but if you have characters built like Paizo makes pregens (Seelah has +3 charisma at level 11 in Council of Thieves), it's not *too* out there compared to something like blessing of fervor which is a single spell, not a double expenditure of your highly limited daily ability that everyone might not even use in an encounter, let alone you run the risk wasting on a scary-looking but otherwise non-threatening enemy (and you can just blitzkrieg into the next room with a blessing of fervor if you pop it too early).
Well yeah, if you have Shapoopy Cha then this buff ostensibly loses effectiveness. If you're using an archetype that doesn't trade out Aura of Justice, then plan on having a 4 to 7 Charisma Mod by level 11-12ish and wreck some faces. A headband of +4 Cha is only 16,000gp and well worth the investment.
This assumes you are afforded the chance to freely shop in a highly valuable settlement (16kgp is the starting base value of a metropolis), which not every story will accommodate. Otherwise, hope the game/loot generator put your flavor of bandana in someone's back pocket.
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Honestly, magic item availability is less important than the flavor of the campaign in question.
As of 2015, a little more than half of the published monsters were of some sort of neutral alignment. There were about 20-25 percent fewer evil creatures. If your GM focuses less on animals, constructs, elementals, etc., and more on evil outsiders, goblinoids, undead, etc., then a Paladin is much better off maxing off their Charisma score and relying on Bull’s Strength, Divine Favor, Righteous Vigor, etc., to make up for an absence of a Strength-enhancing belt when fighting non-evil things.
Honestly, it hurts my heart that I haven’t yet seen someone on these boards boast of running a Paladin rip-off of Prince Colwyn from Krull: take Noble Scion (War, to use your Charisma modifier for Initiative rolls), Divine Fighting Technique (Desna’s Shooting Star to use your Charisma modifier for attack and damage rolls), load as many magical qualities on your star knife with your divine bond, and cast Flame Steed every single day.
Being able to grant all allies within 10 feet the ability to smite evil is extremely good. Even with moderate CHA the paladin’s allies still get his level to damage and are able to ignore all DR. Too me that is still a very good buff. And it still does double his level per damage on the first strike vs an evil outsider, dragon or undead on the first strike. That is at minimum a +11 bonus to damage on every successful hit they make against the target for a minute.
This is assuming they *do* make hits against the smite target. Say we have an evil necromancer and his undead minions on team evil, Paladin, a fighter, rogue, and wizard on team good. The paladin can 100% dive bomb the necromancer with his own smite, but if the fighter abandons the wizard, the undead minions will tear him apart, so the fighter isn't getting that damage bonus. The rogue, even if he goes all in trying to flank with the paladin is still probably squishy enough that he can't just ignore any undead that go after him, so not every attack can be safely made at the smited necromancer. At best we've got the paladin just regular smiting and two "half-attention" attackers in the wizard and the rogue, for the cost of said 2 smites, netting us more or less even. Good, yes; great, no. And that's before we even sub in an inquisitor or warpriest for the rogue, which hate having anything else to spend their own swift actions on.
But that presupposes a lot of negatives, AD. It's just as easy to assume good teamwork and tactics, or picking the right weapons so as to mitigate enemy numbers, or picking the right spells so as to afford the wizard decent protection. Regardless, giving a Fighter about as much a damage bonus as they'd expect to get from Power Attack at that level AND a +4 (at a minimum) bonus to hit is only breaking even in the most technical sense. Practically speaking, it's a significant boost.
Where warpriests are concerned, they're only giving up one swift action for a minute, not one per round. Where rogues are concerned, they don't have that much to spend swift actions on, do they (genuine question, I'm not that well versed on rogues)?
It's something that can come up in any set of encounters, and I don't deny that there can be the opposite scenario such as a single dragon vs the party where everyone will be fighting the same obvious target. I'm just saying there's plenty of mitigating factors that don't make the ability useful to everyone in all circumstances.
And for the record rogue doesn't have any swift actions baked into the class or even archetypes/specific rogue talents, they kinda were always meant to be super incidental actions and quicken spells, not "a special action category to limit how often you can self buff round over round" like it becomes in paladin (with litanies), inquisitors, warpriests, and so on. Of course there's still some rarer items and feats that just grant swift actions that anyone can take, but those typically fall into the former category.
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This is assuming they *do* make hits against the smite target. Say we have an evil necromancer and his undead minions on team evil, Paladin, a fighter, rogue, and wizard on team good. The paladin can 100% dive bomb the necromancer with his own smite, but if the fighter abandons the wizard, the undead minions will tear him apart, so the fighter isn't getting that damage bonus. The rogue, even if he goes all in trying to flank with the paladin is still probably squishy enough that he can't just ignore any undead that go after him, so not every attack can be safely made at the smited necromancer. At best we've got the paladin just regular smiting and two "half-attention" attackers in the wizard and the rogue, for the cost of said 2 smites, netting us more or less even. Good, yes; great, no. And that's before we even sub in an inquisitor or warpriest for the rogue, which hate having anything else to spend their own swift actions on.
Aura of justice grants the ability to smite evil, which means each character can choose a different target. So, the fighter and the rogue can choose to smite one of the undead minions instead of the necromancer. The Wizard can also smite evil as well. Smite evil applies to all attacks including spells, so the Wizard can cast a ranged spell and attack the necromancer. A high-level wizard casting magic missile adds the paladin’s level to each missile. So, at 11th level that is an extra 55 points of damage from a 1st level spell. That to me seems to be very good.
I'm just saying there's plenty of mitigating factors that don't make the ability useful to everyone in all circumstances.
Honestly, the biggest mitigating factor is that everyone needs to be within 10 feet of the Paladin when he activates his Smite Evil ability (20 feet, if the Paladin cast Widen Auras). That, in itself, demands that the party have an idea of group tactics and that spellcasters are proactive in protecting their fellows from area effects. At the same time, though, this also gets every participant a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear and charm effects.
The untyped AC bonus alone is always useful to anyone not able to outright ignore attacks. When you take into consideration ranged weapons, Aura of Justice goes from really good to potentially game-changing.
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The untyped AC bonus alone is always useful to anyone not able to outright ignore attacks. When you take into consideration ranged weapons, Aura of Justice goes from really good to potentially game-changing.
It's a deflection bonus, not an untyped bonus. As such it's not as useful as seems, it's probably only a +1 or +2 bonus over the Ring of Deflection already worn, but it's not nothing.
Having said that, I stand by what I said earlier. It's likely a very noticeable bonus to hit, a small bonus to AC, a huge bonus to damage and the ability to ignore DR. It's basically a way to delete any 1 enemy on the field for any martial. Smite Evil lasts as long as needed, and while Aura of Justice only lasts a minute, 1 minute is more than enough. It gives each PC the ability to choose their own target, effectively deleting 1 enemy each .
AwesomenessDog I hate to say it but that's a lot of very specific things to be worried about. You're right, a Warpriest does have other swift actions to use, but Divine Favour is unlikely to be a bigger bonus than Smite Evil, and it only delays them for a round before they get the bonuses from both. As for who can use it, you only need 2 PCs to be able to use Aura of Justice to make it worth using, any more than that is a bonus.
Good catch, MrCharisma. I have no idea what I was thinking there. *facepalm*
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A high-level wizard casting magic missile adds the paladin’s level to each missile.
This is incorrect. Because magic missile does not have an attack roll it does not benefit from smite evil on damage.
See this FAQ
Further, because I found the FAQ unclear about smite evil with magic missile, I specifically asked Mark Seifter about it and got this response.
Yeah, this is why I was saying wizards are vaguely benefitting, they get one ray of smite damage if they do something like scorching. They get the bonus to hit (but probably didn't need it), and some AC if they get jumped, but they don't get nearly as much damage as everyone expects unless you go running in with their quarterstaffs.
Even if they only get it on the first missile that is still a 63 percent increase on damage. On a scorching ray it drops down to a 26 percent increase. It actually boosts lower-level spells more than it does higher level spells. This means the caster can save those higher-level spells for when they are truly needed. If the paladin is higher than 11th level the bonuses are even better. At 20th level the magic missile does 114% more damage
Even if they only get it on the first missile that is still a 63 percent increase on damage. On a scorching ray it drops down to a 26 percent increase. It actually boosts lower-level spells more than it does higher level spells. This means the caster can save those higher-level spells for when they are truly needed. If the paladin is higher than 11th level the bonuses are even better. At 20th level the magic missile does 114% more damage
No, magic missile, not the first, or any, of the missiles get a damage bonus. Only spells that require an attack roll to hit get bonus damage. And of spells that require mulitple attack rolls for multiple rays (scorching ray), only one of those gets bonus damage.
Sure, +2 damage over 1 damage is a 200% increase, but the matter is more important to break point of the enemy's health. 11 damage against CR 11 threats is basically nothing; 22 or 33 damage across three hits, is however noticeable, hence why I said Wizard doesn't fully benefit like say a ranger might. The ability is good, very situationally great. (If the wizard still misses his first ray, the later rays don't get the damage, and he can't use magic missile for the guaranteed damage.)
Even if they only get it on the first missile that is still a 63 percent increase on damage. On a scorching ray it drops down to a 26 percent increase. It actually boosts lower-level spells more than it does higher level spells. This means the caster can save those higher-level spells for when they are truly needed. If the paladin is higher than 11th level the bonuses are even better. At 20th level the magic missile does 114% more damageNo, magic missile, not the first, or any, of the missiles get a damage bonus. Only spells that require an attack roll to hit get bonus damage. And of spells that require mulitple attack rolls for multiple rays (scorching ray), only one of those gets bonus damage.
The question was does Smite Evil apply to all missiles. He answered with a simple no. I take that to mean that it only applies to the first missile.
The question was does Smite Evil apply to all missiles. He answered with a simple no. I take that to mean that it only applies to the first missile.Even if they only get it on the first missile that is still a 63 percent increase on damage. On a scorching ray it drops down to a 26 percent increase. It actually boosts lower-level spells more than it does higher level spells. This means the caster can save those higher-level spells for when they are truly needed. If the paladin is higher than 11th level the bonuses are even better. At 20th level the magic missile does 114% more damageNo, magic missile, not the first, or any, of the missiles get a damage bonus. Only spells that require an attack roll to hit get bonus damage. And of spells that require mulitple attack rolls for multiple rays (scorching ray), only one of those gets bonus damage.
Would you give a fireball dropped on the smite target bonus damage? If not, then it wouldn't work on a magic missile. Same with destruction (which is targeted) over disintegrate (which is a ray) and would work.
The question was does Smite Evil apply to all missiles. He answered with a simple no. I take that to mean that it only applies to the first missile.
Read my question and his response again.
Does smite evil apply at all to magic missile?...
Not does it apply to all magic missiles, but does it (smite evil) apply at all - meaning does smite evil have any affect on magic missile. See the rest of my context my question that I provided to Mark
...if it works for magic missile, smite evil should also work (against one target) for fireball, lightning bolt, or any other form of AoE hit point damage spell.
Then Marks response
The FAQ lists it as an example when restricting to special abilities that have attack rolls, so the FAQ answers that question (with a "no" answer).
It here is smite evil. Mark says it is a special ability that requires an attack roll.
To which he says "no", it doesn't apply (because there is no attack roll with magic missile). Not a no, it only applies to the first missile. Also given the language in the FAQ regarding multi-ray spells, if the answer was yes, it would not be that it applies to the first magic missile. A yes it applies answer would be that it applies to ONE of the magic missiles.
I’m rather myopic on topics like this, and I tend to think less of how Aura of Justice can benefit damage-dealing spells and more about how it can change how a spellcaster fights in a crunch.
What I envision is something like a Shapechanger Sorcerer who was already rocking Beast Shape III (in the form of, say, an Aurumvorax) for an hour per level getting the Aura of Justice treatment right as she casts Transformation. Again, a lot of this comes down to hypotheticals and the scenarios they entail, but in the right time and place it sure feels like Smite Evil applied to five to nine attacks per round, at full (martial) BAB, bypassing DR, with buffed Strength, would be significant.
I’m rather myopic on topics like this, and I tend to think less of how Aura of Justice can benefit damage-dealing spells and more about how it can change how a spellcaster fights in a crunch.
What I envision is something like a Shapechanger Sorcerer who was already rocking Beast Shape III (in the form of, say, an Aurumvorax) for an hour per level getting the Aura of Justice treatment right as she casts Transformation. Again, a lot of this comes down to hypotheticals and the scenarios they entail, but in the right time and place it sure feels like Smite Evil applied to five to nine attacks per round, at full (martial) BAB, bypassing DR, with buffed Strength, would be significant.
Party composition is situational as well, it's maybe not likely to change much over the course of a specific game like enemy composition, but across "all paladins with aura of justice", it definitely changes. A party consisting of an arcane archer magus, battle cleric, TWF rogue plus paladin will benefit far more than a blaster druid, utility wizard, and life oracle plus paladin.
No doubt, but party synergy sometimes develops as a consequence of party composition and character development. A utility Wizard, as a quasi-archetype in itself, ordinarily probably wouldn’t consider memorizing Beast Shape for the day. Aura of Justice might make that a more desirable proposition than, say, if the same Wizard was heading into a dungeon alongside an 11th level Cavalier or Fighter.