I saw it coming and couldn’t do anything about it. There is a Paladin PC in the party I GM for and they reached an undead skeleton ‘boss’. The Paladin downed a potion of eagle’s splendor to start which put her 18 Charisma to 22 and she used smite evil on the skeleton after that.
As a 2nd level Paladin, this put her AC to 23 and wielding a greatsword, she had a +11 to hit and 2d6+7 to damage. Since the target was smited, it bypassed the skeleton’s 5/bludgeoning damage reduction and with a single hit, she dealt 18 hit points of damage. Ouch.
During the battle, she was untouchable and chopped the skeleton into bits without even breaking a sweat. The Paladin had a great supporting cast but she stole the show. The skeleton boss needed to roll a 15 or better to land a hit and she needed a 9 or better to hit him. The boss was down in 4 rounds and didn’t manage a hit on her. I should note there was a very well placed use of a Scroll of Scorching Ray by the sorcerer in the party to help out. Despite that, I think the Paladin could have easily defeated the boss by herself.
Of course she had help with a potion but without it she is an incredible force when using smite evil. Without the potion, at 2nd level, smite evil grants her an AC of 21, +9 to hit and 2d6+5 damage (+7 against outsiders, evil dragons and undead). Add her Lay on Hands ability, she can heal herself at a rate of 1d6 per round for 5 rounds as a swift action which can keep her standing for a VERY long time.
I think I need to plan an encounter with neutral aligned characters to add a bit of a scare to the equation.
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About greentiger
You could always go the route that Eberron took — creatures (in the case of Eberron, elves) that hold undeath in very high regard and thus disguise themselves as undead creatures. Your paladin will get quite a shock when her smite evil has absolutely no effect.
Another thing to do would be to give something the other characters could help with and/or do. Having priest who keep the skeleton completely invulnerable will give the party something to do while the paladin soaks damage from the skeleton.
…remember that the Paladin only gets the AC bonus against the target of the smite. If there are other enemies, they will still be attacking the paladin’s old AC.
It’s also totally fine that a character “is the star” / “steals the show”. If it happens occasionally and is roughly distributed so each player has a moment to shine.
When I plan “story path” adventures I purposefully try to build this in. It’s a lot of fun to be “The Dude” once in a while.
This is also perfect for setting up the Paladin. Get her overconfident with a series of undead encounters. Then throw something for which the smite/other abilities doesn’t work out. Now other player(s) have to step up and be “The Dude” to save her.
.-= Norman Harman´s last blog ..Lamp of Recent Sight =-.
We’ve noticed the same thing with the paladin in our party. But we’ve grown to appreciate it. Whenever facing something evil our battle cry is “Go get him, Ray!” OK, that not the characters name but you get the idea.
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I didn’t mention this in the initial post but there was more to the fight than just the skeleton boss. He had 4 normal skeletal cronies with him and the party monk ran interference on them while the paladin took care of the big guy. Much to the monk’s chagrin, he proceeded to die as a result of his efforts. One of the skeletons landed a critical on him with nearly max damage. Fortunately the druid was able to stabilize him quickly.
@Norman Harmon, I like the bait-and-switch idea. I’ll have to see what I can do there. The party does think quickly on their feet so I think they can handle it. It will still be fun though.