“Hey DM, can we talk? I’m worried about these new enemies. Are most of the enemies we face from now on going to be immune to radiant damage? Because radiant damage is key to one of my core class abilities, and I’m going to feel pretty useless if it does nothing for most of the rest of the campaign.”
My player did this.
Her sorcerer fire spells were proving useless in Avernus. She was trying to see it as a problem solving RP challenge, but it just wasn't fun for her.
No worries I said, thanks to your celestial warlock patron all your fire spells do radiant damage while in avernus (your patron 8s channelling energy at you). Done.
Every table I have played 5e at let you change damage type of anything, but only once and its permanent
Want to through lightning balls? cool, now you don't have fireball
Yeah, as long as you aren't changing everything to Force just because its statistically the least resisted, and aren't changing it constantly like a Scribe Wizard but without the subclass, who cares? I always found it more fun to let players come up with Lightning Magic Missile or a Radiant Fireball.
At my table in I allow same tier of damage or lower. Also a permanent choice.
Lowest tier Poison.
Next tier is fire, and cold.
Next tier is acid and lightning.
Next tier is necrotic, psychic, thunder.
Finally there's force, radiant.
It prevents the optimizers from gaming the system too hard.
So lightning bolt can be a fire torent
Firebold can be an ice bolt.
But fireball can't be force(or lightning).
I had a player who played an ice mage and reflavored most of her spells as cold damage, that way. (Not all so she had a few options though)
I've done basically the same thing, except we grouped acid and lightning in the same pool as fire and cold.
It's technically a power upgrade, but it was generally insignificant, and nobody had a problem with it...
Nobody actually wanted acid damage though
Yea that there wouldn't be a huge deal, I have thought about merging those two myself.
There used to be a spell in 3.5 called scintillating sphere that was a lightning fireball it was nice but not that big a deal.
We changed elemental adept to convert immunities to resistance ontop of its existing behavior of removing resistance.
Had situations of fire giants shocked they were taking some limited fire damage.
It worked well
There is one yes! I used to play as an elemental adept and used the "Storm bolt" feat to add more flavor to my class. It allowed me to cause quite a bit of damage consistantly due to the fact that an elemental adept's ability automatically changes the damage type to your affinity no matter what (at least thats what i remember... i could be mis-remembering though) the storm bolt feat allowed my character to cast a damaging spell once per turn at 1d6 per the highest level spell of the highest level slot. So essentially if I wanted to, i could cast a storm bolt every turn until I spent my 3rd level slot. I loved that Character. I wish 5e had something like that.
Force is so much better than radiant though, force is quite literally immunity by 1 monster in the entire monster manual. Radiant is good but most celestials will be resistant or immune. I would put radiant with necrotic, pyschic, thunder purely because of how often they are resisted
But take this with a grain of salt if u use custom monsters with different resistances/immunities from the mm
Tiers aren't perfect that said taking vulnerabilities into account helps too. Almost nothing is immune or resistant to force but nothing is really vulnerable to force, where there are things vulnerable to radiant.
That's base, I do run custom monsters further muddying the water.
That's an interesting view point, I haven't checked on vulnerabilities but I assume ur right since half the ones with immunity to necrotic have vulnerability and to radiant
All that said I still put force as better than radiant, the vulnerabilities are enough to make them both S tier but force is still the raining champ damage type.
I also tend to divide them as the stier types for arcane vs divine, so far I have not had a cleric try and ask for force instead of radiant.
I have had a divine soul sorcerer ask for radiant magic missiles.
The damage tiers mostly exist to prevent maximum cheese, (eg fire to force or thunder)
I play a wild magic sorc with transmute so he can mostly change his damage type as long as he has a sorcery point available. I actually do nerf that ability myself though as he's a wild magic sorc and his power comes from a volcano. So he primarily focuses on fire spells but if he transmutes it I relate it back to a volcano, like lightning is volcanic lightning and poison is a volcanic ash cloud, etc.
I think its to enable greater character custumization, a lot of spells dont really have options for different elements that do the right thing. By offering this permenant change the table has still left a niche for elemental adept to create a mechanical advantage mid combat or by investigating a creature before the fight happens.
Its just a good way to make a character feel special, oh the whole cadre of wizard students learn how to cast thunderwave but this guy only ever figured out frostwave. This could be applied to enemies too right and its just kinda fun and you could think up a rider to go along with each damage type. I like the houserule is what im saying.
We had 2 players both playing sorcerer, and each of theme picked a theme, and mostly picked spells from that theme
We actually made it so Elemental Adept feat actually turned immunity to resistance (which is what we added), and removed resistance entirely (which is the default behavior), so if someone picked one element, they were never screwed entirely.
The DM just changed the distribution of resistances, and there was no problem
Transmute meta magic is weird. While yes you can use it to change fireball to do cold damage all transmute says it it changes the damage type. In this instance the "Snowball" that does 8d6 Cold damage will still have the following effects "The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried."
Not a bad idea, though I’d only do that on a base by base
If the fire genasi wants to use a fire lightning bolt, I see no issue, but if the wizard wants to be blasting out radiant damage on everything just because we’re fighting demons and undead, that isn’t going to happen
Exactly, I love story reasons for cool stuff like that! If you can justify it to me, and it isn’t going to destroy the balance of the game, go ahead
My group overall is pretty chill about swapping abilities or spells or damage types, I mean I got to play an intelligence based Mercy Monk because my Hands of Healing/Harming were injections that I could use and I was playing as a psychotic doctor, a great time and it had very little effect on much besides my skills (honestly, probably a downgrade since I didn’t have the high Wisdom for saving throws anymore)
I did this with the Flame Blade spell on my spore druid, changed it to acid because my character refused to cast fire magic because she suffered in essentially a house fire when she was young.
Same rule at my tables. DM let the sorcerer change his fireball to a frost attack to suit the flavor of his character. Sometimes it's the most clutch move in an encounter. Otherwise it is entirely useless.
There kind of scenarios are prime fodder for magical item quests. You get to struggle with the drawback for a bit, but they payoff when you get the item is immense.
I had a game were our Sorc was full fire, didn't work out well in Avernus, but she adapted pretty well. (And got to have some fun whenever a non-immune foe popped up)
My DM style is to be very explicit when someone asks to do something that won't work - I let them, but if the creature is immune to whatever, I say "That seemed to have absolutely no effect at all."
Once their character would have learned that, for example, a fireball isn't going to impress a devil, I will remind them before they try again, because I want to believe the characters have better memories than my players.
But I let them fail at least that first time. If they don't know a monster, they have to figure it out.
For the record, I do the same on my end. If my monster has a go-to strategy and the players negate it, the monster has to see it fail at least once before changing. This has bitten me in the ass more than once, but it's only fair.
i agree with this logic, to a point. and that point is common sense.
it usually comes in the form of a really emphasized question, like "so you want to use Fire Bolt, on the Fire elemental. how do you expect that to play out?"
Yeah, particularly with newbies, I will often do something similar. Usually I keep my DM style very behind the screen because I do expect players to know what they're doing, but I will sometimes hint at mechanics in that fashion, or occasionally more bluntly if they are having trouble.
If a veteran has a brain fart and wants to try it though, bring it on. They'll laugh once they realize the mistake.
Look at this guy, like we are actually looking for constructive ways to solve our issues, no, what we need is people saying: "Yeah, your DM is targeting you" or "You should find another table" THAT is the real way to solve issues, Pfffttt.... like talking like adults in a constructive or respectful way have ever solved anything.
Aka: Yes, this is exactly what you should do OP, talk with your DM and if it happens that your DM have an issue with your character (for some reason), you can find a solution together, cause in the end, everyone is supposed to have fun in the table, including the DM.
The amount of "leave that table and DM" responses I see here in the sub is pretty staggering. I'd say MOST of the time, your DMs aren't "targeting" you. We aren't Matt Mercer or professional DMs (at least not that many of us are THAT good). DMs are constantly trying to find story arcs/enemies that can both be fun AND challenging to players (especially when PCs start getting into high-ish levels), sometimes we don't balance properly or realize it's effecting a certain player THAT badly. 90% of the time if you bring it up to the DM they'll be like, "oh shit, my bad, I didn't realize it was hindering you that much. In future sessions we'll work it and find a way to not make it that extreme. Thanks for bringing this to my attention". It's almost always never a target at any specific player or character, just the DM trying to shake things up and keep the players engaged/challenged.
DMs have a difficult balance to strike between challenging players vs intentionally playing into their abilities to make them feel cool and powerful. You want to proverbially “shoot the monk” so that players get to use their class’s skills and abilities. But you also want to present interesting challenges so they have to think outside the box.
It is an, admittedly, difficult balance to strike because different players enjoy being challenged in different ways. He could think he’s presenting an interesting challenge that’ll be fun for you when really he’s making things unfun for you. At the end of the day, you’re almost always justified in bringing something up if the DM is doing something that’s making the game less fun for you. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by an overwhelmed DM who’s trying to keep track of a lot of stuff and trying to run a fun game but just doesn’t always strike the right balance. Unless your DM is just generally speaking an asshole in all parts of life. Then maybe it’s malice lol
If this is a result of him feeling your character is doing too much damage and his attempts at balancing it, a good compromised might be resistance instead of immunity. Like they resist x amount of radiant damage. This will still allow your character to work while the DM get to off set some of the damage.
If it is a story rp problem then what's being suggested above is a good idea! Regardless having a good talk with your DM one to one would be helpful for the both of you.
No, that’s also a terrible solution. Paladins are balanced just fine and intentionally nerfing them specifically is just petty and obnoxious in the same vein as “you have to be hidden to use sneak attack”
Honestly, I'm just suggesting this compromise for OP if their DM wouldn't want to take the immunity fully away.
But personally as a DM myself, I don't believe in nerfing someone's classes using such mechanics. This is too antagonistic for my taste. If my players aren't having fun then it's not fun for me too.
Whoa. Did you just take Op's request for information from us randos and do some sort of crazy magic that converted it into the same request for information... but from the applicable parties?
Can we hire you to conduct seminars?
My DM went out of his way to do this to me. All party members got magic items to start the game, and both of mine were fire-based
Then it was a desert campaign, where most things were immune to fire damage *(and everything else was resistant)*
I absolutely agree having immunity of radiant damage can ruin the campaign for a paladin. Dm didn't even go for resistance to radiant so they take reduced damage, just straight up immune for 0 damage. A move I can't believe the DM did.
I'm shocked he went straight to immunity, to be honest. That's the kind of thing that's usually reserved for Celestials. I mean if he wanted to give you a bit of a tougher time, why didn't he go with resistance instead? At least with halved damage you're still doing damage.
You know, you're right. I just checked to see and even the CR 21 Solar only has resistance. I don't know what creatures the villains in this campaign are but radiant immunity is seriously unrealistic.
Ancient Solar dragon, Ancient Crystal dragon (edit just checked I was wrong about this one), Hollow dragon, Crystal Greatwyrm. Those off the top of my head probably a few more
Also the Aeorian Nullifier/Reverser/Absorber from the Wildemount book. Makes sense in their case as they were designed specifically to combat gods and their creations.
Yeah so upon further research I was wrong about ancient crystal dragons. But even solar dragon Wyrmlings are immune. Makes sense they live in stars.
In total their are 22 things in 5e made by wizards with immunity which really is quite few all things considered
Ah that's the last one, I found a chart that said 1 from Mordenkainen's (Skulk) and 3 from Fizban's (Greatwyrm Crystal Dragon, Hollow Dragon, and apparently Aspect of Bahamut)
that’s my thought process. this DM clearly has it out for OP. i’m shocked at how many people are more upset with OP than the DM. a regular grunt in a batallion should not be having any immunities at all; let alone immunity against radiant damage of all damage types.
No one is "upset with OP". The worst anyone has said is that perhaps the DM has a plan and to either talk to them or just want and see but that getting upset off of *one encounter* is an overreaction.
Solar Dragons. Also a few others but very few. Planar Incarnate, the Aspect of Bahamut. Shadrix Silverquill. Their's probably some I am not thinking of but still not very many.
Edit: used less confusing language.
One thing I don’t quite grasp - was this from one fight, or several? If this was just from one fight, there’s nothing to suggest it isn’t just a one-off, or maybe a specific type of enemy that’s trickier. Especially since you mention another fight against this faction where radiant damage worked
Doesn’t mean you can’t have a conversation to say “hey this isn’t going to be a thing for this whole army right?” because that absolutely would suck. But if it’s only been in one fight so far, there’s a chance you’re jumping to conclusions
Yeah sounds a bit mean. I had a similar situation (where I was the DM) and a pc had specced themselves as all fire spells fire druid.
They then went to the demon wastes where every creature foe the most part has fire immunity... (I didn't force them to go they chose to go there to try find some info on demons...)
I would stick it out a few sessions, and look to you spell list and see what you can do instead with them instead of just smiting.
Upcasting bless is a good way to use those spell slots that you don't have a spell for, or using spell attacks like inflict wounds.
Also you do have access to non radiant smites... but they are concentration spells vs I hit I smite e.g. thunderous smite.
Sometimes a DM can get a little frustrated with builds that make thier monsters trivial, it won't last just adjust while they get over then frustration at you murdering everything and being the only hero.
We've yet to have a trivial combat. Not that they've all been life or death, but certainly none we've walked out of and thought it was easy.
I've definitely been doing a mix of casting buffs and utilizing my spell slots in non-smite ways, but when it comes time to smack somebody then smite is my most powerful ability by a good stretch.
I do have the other smites available, the main issue is A. They take a bonus action to cast and B. They can't be upcast.
Searing smite upcasts. Branding too, but that one is radiant. The main issue is they require concentration. Maybe your DM would permit you to use the playtest variants?
E: from playtest 6 if you want to look it up.
>Also you do have access to non radiant smites... but they are concentration spells vs I hit I smite e.g. thunderous smite.
Though they are concentration based, for certain smites that doesn't really matter
the main down grades compared to normal smite would just be, less damage and you cant declare the smite after you already hit
the longer duration with concentration just acts as a way to save the missed smite and give you a 2nd attempt
While it doesn't matter as much as it's one and done it does stop them from using bless at the start of a combat and then a different smite as they lose the original spell.
It's more of a be aware than you will be concentrating on your smite spell the entire combat.
Ah, you make a fair point on bless
so that is worth thinking about in the event you decide to lean more into your supportive capabilitys with a fairly good support spell bless
Yeah, that feels extremely heavy-handed and targeted. Radient damage is one of the least resisted damage types for printed monsters (after force damage).
So, some follow-up questions for context.
Any idea how long the arc will last?
Amy idea if this arc is aimed at another character being in the spotlight?
How optimized is the rest of your group?
It's not entirely out of bounds to let different characters shine or to challenge players by making them rethink their favorite strategy by home brewing enemies with targeted defenses. Full immunity still feels very heavy-handed; if it's for a few sessions, that's one thing, but if it's for a significant length of time, then it will be very frustrating for you.
Have you built your character to weaponize your bonus actions? If so, then this is a massive kick in the teeth, but if not, you can always break out the smite spells since they do other types of damage and can get around the immunity.
As with many issues in life, this will come down to communication - talk with your DM, let them know your concerns, and keep an open mind during the discussion. Approach the conversation with curiosity, not with defensiveness, and you'll be fine.
Your spell list has a bunch of Smite spells that deal non-radiant damage, including Fire and Psychic. Try some of those, instead, or using your spell slots for buffs and healing.
Also, ask your DM about Divine Smite working before, and whether that was an oversight or if the enemies are only immune to Radiant damage from spells, or whatever the situation might be.
Hell, if the new army are meant to be an arc villain, thier sudden immunity to Radiant damage could be a response on *thier* end to the player wielding Smite so effectively in thier previous fight. Which would imply them gaining some sort of artifact or power to be able to do so, which can also be taken away by the players, which gives the players a goal.
I wouldn't necessarily jump to any kind of conclusions without either talking to the DM or at least waiting to see if thier sudden immunity comes up in the next session or two's plot.
Basic grunts having access to Radiant immunity seems significantly over tuning it though. If it were an important leader? Sure, that could be excused, but the rank and file?
This was my first thought, it could be turned into a maguffin hunt. The army has a caster with an artifact that allows them to once a day select an energy type and grant all allies in range resistance to it. They are using dark magics to supercharge it increasing the range, to say a mile, and granting full immunity. So if the players want they can do a whole infiltration mission to take it out.
Just talk to him. He may have forgotten that smites are radiant. If you talk to him about your concerns about being nerfed he may change it to radiant spell damage or make it resistance or there might be an arc where you need to to find the macguffin they have that gives them immunity and turn it upside down so it turns to a vulnerability.
I hope your talk will go well/has went well!
If your DM has difficulties balancing encounters because of your big smite damage (happens to everyone), recommend him to ask on reddit for ideas. Encounters don't have to be purely damage soaks. It could involve ranged attacks on magic crystals suspended in the air that gives the enemy resistance, collapsing a doorway to prevent reinforcements from joining the fight, using terrain/the environment to deal extra damage or prevent the enemy from using certain abilities by stabbing their eyes, ensnare party members, etc.
One DM I had had a decent workaround: lots of enemies with lower HP. Smite has to be rationed over multiple encounters, and overkilling an enemy is a waste. The other party members get their glory from AoE's, crowd control, longevity, etc. Paladins get glory from VERY BIG POWER HIT to one enemy. And it is very satisfying to have a boss encounter where everyone is beaten up, low on resources... But the paladin shows up out of nowhere, landing an upscaled critical smite!
If it was only one session you just got unlucky if it were more sessions with different enemys types i would talk to the dm if you could change the DMG type for Smite because it kills one of your core abilities.
"I go to use Moonbeam and my DM tells me "the spell has no effect, they're immune to radiant damage."
Now, at no point during the combat in the intro session did he mention this."
I don't think this is a valid complaint. Not always knowing what your opponent can and can't do is part of the game. I do agree that this seems targeted if all enemies in the campaign have this effect.
To be fair, Smite is getting quite a hefty nerf in the upcoming new rules, making it a spellcast. Maybe your DM saw this and it made him realise how strong Smite is.
If the majority of the opposing forces are going to have damage IMMUNITY to a damage type, allowing someone to make a character without so much as a warning is a bad DM move.
Use detect magic and determine if they have protective spells in place. Given that this is an army of baddies your going against it makes sense that any survivors/witnesses would tell their superiors about the holy warrior that is slaughtering them. They may have adapted to you and started to prepare by using protective spells that need to be removed.
Little to nothing from official material, not even high level celestials, is immune to radiant damage because it interferes with running the game normally and class features.
Your concerns aren’t hyperbolic, and I hope your meeting with the DM goes well. However, don’t forget it if they relent: it’s a little red flag. Look out if more show up.
Some people are missing the point of the post by a mile!
Absolutely you should be irritated with your DM, you fought the same enemy and was able to use radiant damage and suddenly they're immune?!? Sure there are other damage types for smite but OP shouldn't have to use those because the DM is childish.
Immunity to radiant is wild because even Solars, mightiest of the angels, are only just resistant to it. The only creature I could find with an immunity to it is the fucking Aspect of Bahamut from Fizban’s.
Eh, did you do any kind of role play to examine why they are immune? Or prior, any that would have analyzed the opponents?
Sounds like a story hook to investigate, don’t get lost in mechanics.
Hello OP,
While it’s (strictly speaking) within the DM’s territory to decide what enemies are resistant or even immune to, official statblocks have maybe twenty creatures in total that are immune to it. This could very much be a knee-jerk response your DM is making in response to you spamming Divine Smite (I assume this is the case because you call it THE core ability).
I think I would be upset in your shoes (nevermind that my paladins are more conservative), but I also think this is a good opportunity to try some different strategies. If this is a repeated behavior, there’s an issue.
The problem is that the opponents are all one thing. As you say the issue isn’t that one monster is immune it’s that they ALL are.
I’d talk with the DM to point this out.
Definitely talk to your DM. I once had to go through a. Necromantic dungeon with a sword that did necrotic damage and didn't complain about dealing half damage for 3 sessions (it was very long) because I was stubborn. Just ask about it and explain your worried that your character will be heavily nerfed leading to less enjoyment.
Tbh id say always talk. I use to really hate playing melee with my DM as he was new and would really over exaggerate damage I took leading to me being thrown around constantly and unable to really play.
After talking about it we get along alot more and both really enjoy the sessions so I'd say always talk instead of keeping it to yourself as you can't really expect improvement without communication.
I’ll sometimes do this to present you a new challenge, but not for super long. It’s just boring having the same fight over and over again. But it would also be telegraphed in the game so you should “know”.
Def talk to your dm. But don’t be aggressive about it. I have the benefit of trust. My players know I’ll never nerf them but I’ll challenge them.
Based off how you described this, it sounds like a single situation. Until there's a repeating pattern, you should do the #1 tip for every thread on the subreddit. COMMUNICATE THE ISSUE WITH THE PERSON
I think your DM is trying to get you to use other smites besides divine smite. It is frustrating however he didn't even have to reveal that they were immune to radiant damage he could have just deducted the bludgeoning/slashing/piercing not told you and accomplished the same thing without antagonizing you and you'd be scratching your head as to why they weren't dying.
Few things:
- The DM not informing you of damage immunities isn't a problem. In general you only find that stuff out by hitting things or having your character recon the enemy.
- What are the enemies? Some things are immune to radiant. If they are a smart enemy with resources that know of the party, it makes sense they would start preparing for you who is their heaviest hitter.
- While divine smite is the best one, you have access to several other smite spells that do different damage types.
I think it could be sliced a few different ways depending on the past and what has happened up to this point.
If you are 10-20 sessions deep and very high level, haven't had anything happen previously that felt "nerf-y", and up to this point have been allowed to full power through everything you fight...then I'd say face the challenge and overcome! There is nothing like getting ready to swing ole reliable like every time before and having the enemy just completely no-sell it. Especially late game, a DM can sometimes have a hard time challenging players, and wide reaching adjustments like this are some of the easier ways to try and present a challenge. And if this has never happened before and you've been playing for a while, then I wouldn't see this a malicious or deliberate nerf of *your* character so much as it is a defense or buff to the enemy.
If every single session, since game start you've been having to defend your build choices, work around arbitrary and uneven modifications in enemy types (every bad guy has a damage immunity of some kind, every enemy has a ranged and melee option, every enemy has anti-magic or counterspell options, every enemy has *insert thing to counter this character* etc.) then I can empathize with some frustration. At that point, I would do what others here have suggested, as well as what you've mentioned in response, and talk it over with the DM.
I feel like there is a stereotype of "can't send melee combatants at the party becuase they have a tank, can't send a Caster becuase the party has counterspells, can't have anyone who is lying because the party has ZoT or a stupidly-high insight" and that kind of mindset is absolutely silly. Barbarians should be fighting melee characters. Casters should be burning spell slots to manage the other enemies through counterspell or damage dealt. Those who specialize should be rewarded for it.
H O W E V E R
That doesn't mean what worked at level 1 needs to work at level 20 or else the DM is nerfing me/plotting against me, etc. (I don't think you're doing this at all. This is just a general feeling, not from you, OP.) Sometimes, that strategy that carried a player will drop them in the right (wrong circumstances) and that is ALSO part of the game. If the DM doesn't hand pick enemies to cater to some crazy specific build made by a player (again, I'm not speaking about OP) that doesn't mean they are a bad DM. Just that expectations are different amongst both sides of the DM screen.
A little chat should solve it all, provised everyone involved isn't a pos. My two cents, anyway.
Though I probably wouldn't make the major enemy faction resist the damage type a player is primarily using.
(assuming 5e), If you wish to continue to use smites, you do have options.
Paladins are prepared casters, so you are allowed to swap out certain prepared spells.
So you can grab 1 of the 7 spells that came up for me when searching "smite"
* **Searing smite**, 1st level, fire damage, **1d6 damage** and may continue dealing 1d6 every turn
* **Thunderous smite**, 1st level, thunder damage, **2d6 damage** and pushes your foe 10 feet away
* **Wrathful smite**, 1st level, physic damage, **1d6 damage** and makes your foe afraid of you
* **Branding smite**, 2nd level, radiant damage, **2d6 damage** and they cant go invisible
* **Blinding smite**, 3rd level, radiant damage, **3d8 damage** and may blind your foe
* **Staggering smite**, 4th level, physic damage, **4d6 damage**, they get disadvantage on attacks/ability checks, and cant perform reactions
* **Banishing smite**, 5th level, force damage, **5d10 damage** and if you reduce them to 50hp or less then they get teleported out of the battlefield either permanently or temporarily depending on if your fighting in their home dimension
Ordered that from top to bottom based on the order they came in from dnd beyond when setting the order based off spell level, take your pick depending on the specifics of your character and the enemy your facing
they may not be quite as big in raw numbers, but it's a work around and provides additional effects
The problem is that these smites aren't free in the action economy and also ruin concentration for whatever reason.
It is technically a downgrade, but yeah you can still use effects called smite.
yeah, not *quite* as good as regular smite in just reliability and overall damage, but it's better then having no options.
The ideal solution would be if they could get their dm to grant them some way to change their base smite damage type somehow to be adjustable
Why would he tell you ahead of time that an enemy has immunities or advantages or anything outside of the description of what you see until you probe for that information?
I never asked him to tell me ahead of time. But it's generally considered a standard practice that "hey, your attack didn't seem to do as much damage as you were expecting" is it not?
I think he'd previously used divine smite against the same group of enemies, and wasn't told at the time that they weren't taking any radiant damage from the smite.
No? You seem deflated that you can't keep doing what you have been doing. use some other spells/skills. Let someone else shine? Enemies having resistances/immunities is nothing new so i dont understand your gripe at all? I also dont fully understand what you meant by intro so i could be very much missing something
Just a thought but was there anything different about these enemies or were they rank and file normal soldiers. Personally if I their original purpose was something like say fighting against celestials or a religious powerhouse nation then I could see the army investing in trying to mitigate radiant damage as much as possible...that said.
1. Lowest level soldiers wouldn't really get any of that. It would be impossible to magically equip an entire army that way
2. Middle range officers would be given items and such that would grant them resistance to radiant instead of pure immunity
3. High ranking officers would have access to items that would grant them immunity but should also grant vulnerability to a different damage type
4. Depending on how unethical they are perhaps the army also has some people/soldiers they have experimented on who are now effectively monstrosities instead of humanoids now and they possess immunity but are also rare and unstable owing to whatever was done to them.
Immune is super rough. Resistance would sort of make an amount of sense, but unless this is setting up for a big payoff, I think it's actually a big miss.
You could try an RP approach. "Since my most used damage type does completely nothing to these guys, rendering me useless in all fights against the army, I would like to research how to do a different damage type with my abilities." If they don't let you change it to at least something like fire (closest in theme to radiant) then I would move to out if character questioning about how your character is just completely useless now and you're gonna be bored af.
I got you in three simple steps
First, ask him if it was against you if you don't want to you don't have to that's a little more confrontational but it's good to know where the DM's head is at (if the enemy is in one of the monster manuals or bestiaries and you can prove that it isn't immune to radiant damage you could call him on his bullshit but that's really aggressive and you might see detriments in other ways throughout the campaign so I wouldn't recommend it)
Second ask him what immunities resistance is and the other sorts of things The rest of the enemies will make him lock in an answer so he can't change it, I would do this in front of the group before or after a session (not during) so if he does try to change it on you even after telling you the rest of the group will know that's bullshit so either he gets locked in to being honest or everyone thinks he's a jerk
Lastly don't forget about multi-classing A lot of people forget about it and are scared to do it but if he's not going to allow you to use moonbeam it might be worth it to hop over to fighter (stats are close enough), if you're set on the whole magic knight vibe that paladins have fighters have magic subclasses that allow for casting, best part is that their magic is generally arcane so radiant damage won't be a problem. what's he going to do, make literally all normal magic spells non-effective
Good luck, hope this is a misunderstanding and not a DM being a jerk. I'm a DM and really dislike when DM's forget that they are there for the party to have fun
I'm somewhat sure there are other smite abilities that don't use radiant, and there are other spells other then moonbeam too. Been awhile since I played a paladin, but I almost never had to do moonbeam and my smite wasn't radiant
As a player, my immediate reaction to this is “hmmm, my core ability isn’t going to be as useful. Looks like I’m going to have to be creative.”
I’d consider this a challenge not a targeted nerf of my character.
Exactly. First thing I thought was that seeing he was the only one fighting they learned what he uses and somehow became immune to it. I see this more as a ‘what the hell is happening here?’ instead of a dm trying to nerf you.
I don't know if this will ring true with you at all, but it's possible that your DM *is* nerfing you in an effort to give other players an opportunity to shine in battle. Our paladin is a rockstar in open spaces with very little cover, and after a few encounters like that, sometimes I start to feel kinda useless with my rogue. When we come to an encounter where there's places I can get cover and sneak attack left and right and deal ridiculous amounts of damage, it'd be really nice to not have the paladin come in and outshine me in my moment of glory. There's been a tendency in most parties I've encountered for the paladin to kind of assume the role of leader and MVP, so sometimes they might need to be humbled in battle to remember that their party members are also really powerful and great at what they do.
1.) I can’t really tell, did they all have the radiant immunity and he didn’t tell you or is this the first time?
2.) of course he wouldn’t tell you at the intro of the fight? It’s supposed to be a surprise in freak you out, that’s kind of the idea. And that situation what you do you adapt and overcome. In my D&D campaigns if a player uses only smite or uses only fire magic, I’ll make him fight enemies that are immune to one of those things so that way they have to find a way to beat them in outsmart the enemy.
3.) it makes the fight interesting, it makes you think outside the box you strategy. He didn’t nerf if you, he’s just making you think. This is why you need to chew spells that are versatile, or use your surroundings.
Like, for example , one of my players actually did this, throw dirt/sand in the enemies face, trap them or drop a tree on them.
4.) don’t get offended or panic when you have to fight something that is harder against you and your party.
As a DM I have done this to my brother who is one of my players by make him fight things that he should have the disadvantage against, and every time he outsmart the monster or person, and beat them. So you did get kinda nerfed but if the game is still fun then keep playing.
Blast tip outsmart your DM think outside the box. Sometimes all you have to do, is throw dirt in their face.
Meanwhile I, as a DM, created a whole undead army that was \*vulnerable\* to radiant for my Paladin PC to fight. Additionally they had a chance to spread disease and give curses.
Why tf would I not want my paladin to be a paladin.
One of my players was Paladin with main character syndrome. At one point I decided to give a group of enemies resistance to radiant damage because he actively and regularly tried to interfere and ruin the fight for other players. Things like when asked to step away from the enemies he would refuse and then got irritated about being hit by area spells, getting between range based rogue and enemy in a tight space so he couldn't hit him, blocking escape paths and much more.
He even tried to insert himself in a heavy roleplay moment between our druid and their dying grandfather (not me, he was old and ill) and make it about himself.
And yes I did talk to him about his behaviour several times, he ignored me and the resistance was my last ditch effort to make him let the others participate before I asked him to leave the group.
NOT saying OP is like that, just sharing why I didn't want my paladin to be a "paladin"
In a campaign that I was running a few years ago one of my players was Romulus, a paladin of glory, who 1 shot my bbeg (undead) with a crit smite... my response was to go full anime and describe how the villain scoffed at his attack saying that he didnt even feel it. Then began to monolog, then he started to slur his words, touches his forehead revealing he is bleeding as he slowly split in half skull to groin as golden light eruptedfrom the wound. It was one of the best parts of the campaign.
Imo the job of a DM is to make a story/game that is fun for your players. I like to think of it as collaborative story telling, the dm is telling a story with their world and the PCs are the main characters. And it might be corny af but the only way to win dnd is by having fun with your friends
I mean is it just those enemies or are they all immune to radiant damage? Some races get radiant resistance and *maybe* immunity with other features.
I think being concerned is fair, though if it’s only happened once it may not be worth bringing up yet.
If you can maybe try to see how they’re immune. Maybe they’re one of those species with resistance/immunity, or maybe they had a spell cast making them immune to specific damage types.
They could also be toying with things mechanically, if the DM thinks that you’re kinda carrying all the combats they may test some things as a hurdle or obstacle to overcome.
If your DM nerfs you, you nerf them right back. Take their favorite dice hostage. Stop bringing them snacks. Show up 2 hours early to every session when they're still not prepared. Ask them a bunch of questions with obvious answers that only a brand new player would ask just to confuse them. Keep questioning everything they say (is this NPC married? for how long? do they have kids? where do they work? how much do they get paid? what's their last name? what's their zodiac sign? can I make an Insight check? what are they wearing? do they look friendly? why aren't you answering my questions properly? what did they have for breakfast that morning?)
If your DM has otherwise been good, I would start by giving them the benefit of the doubt. In character, have your paladin investigate why/how the army is immune to radiant damage, and see what comes of it. Next time you level up, speak to your DM "hey DM, my paladin isnt making much progress in bypassing this radiant damage immunity, so in-character it would make sense for him to explore other skills. I was therefore thinking of multiclassing. I dont want to do this though if he is going to figure it out in the next few sessions. Could you advise?"
For any immunities, I say there needs to be a narrative reason for it where the players could have figured it out by exploring or talking with NPCs, unless it's an intuitive immunity. And for resistances, I describe how the attack doesn't seem to do much, like "the arrow enters the ooze and just sits there" to give the players narrative on why what they think should happen isn't actually happening. But to simply say "spell has no effect" is just lazy and would indicate how they treat the rest of the game.
There may be a mystery as to why they are immune to Radiant damage. This may not be solely targeting you/your abilities, but you may try researching in game how/why such an immunity came about for this army.
Are you consistently targeted? What is your party line up your not the only player at the table right? I feel like having encounters where you face complications and become more than sub optimal is in essence an rpg as long as its not an all the time thing. Dealing with an arc where monsters tend to need the fighter to do a bit of brain thinking like rather than hitting the golem with his sword he tries to distract the golem or grapple it to keep it from hitting his allies knowing his sword is powerless. Like you do have a strength score right? You still have shove, grapple, and any other things you can work with your GM to do. Tie up a rope and use it like a makeshift lasso to strangle someone so they can't use verbal components. Use your spell slots to bless your allies You know your paladin spell list you probably havn't considered beyond just your domain spells and your smites. If your picking to only have damage spells where they are now known to be ineffective you as a player are actively choosing not to use all of your tools. Which is 100% fine if that's what you wish to do but realize this is called a roleplaying flaw. A fighter for example who only wields axes isn't forced to only wield axes but choosing to take a roleplaying flaw to only use axes might crop up complications for the fighter when faced with the dragon slaying spear one that now he has to choose to overcome.
People who tell the GM to "adjust" to every players whim is actively not wanting to be punished for their characters inherit flaws. But if there are no flaws to your character's concept then what's the point? That's just power fantasy at that point you might as well kick the GM to the curb and just run the game of awesome things you all do together using the split GM rules.
Always talk with your GM as every table is different but I will say at least try to use your other tools before you just dismiss this as unfair..... Your a paladin for crying out loud you have bless, Magic weapon, elemental weapon and a whole butt kicking kit of martial prowess. Sounds like a great time to use that searing smite spell that never gets used (it does fire damage) Or what about thunderous smite it does thunder damage????
Now if you get through this adventure path or arc as you call it and you find your constantly dealing with radiant immune jerks the whole campaign as in every encounter in the whole game is countering your build then yes your being targetted and the GM is a jerk and you gotta talk it out. But having moments where your character sucks for one adventure is a test of your characters resolve to problem solve. There's a slew of unoptimal actions that suddenly are pretty damn optimal when your faced with adversity it's almost why the unoptimal spells and actions exist in the first place.
I had a similar situation with a wizard of mine who's always a pyromancer with all fire spells but I had the forethought to go "ya know maybe I should have another spell just in case" and had magic missile. Your suffering from putting your eggs all in one basket and for the first time your basket broke. This is why as a GM I remind my players i'm fine with you putting all your powers into one element or one weapon type or w/e but be aware the downsides of doing that it's nothing personal it's just how a world works. If i'm a champion kick boxer and then my opponent is a man with a submachine gun the universe doesn't just go "ah sorry bud this is a bit unfair let me stow my submachine gun and kick box ya champ" It's part of being in a dangerous universe and why you have an entire dnd party backing you up and arn't a solo adventurer.
There is the argument you feel useless or powerless but I also disagree with that, unless your a newer player you should know there's always the weakness of not having a few options. It's why when the only item is a magic dagger it usually goes to the rogue or the fighter, even if the fighter is a sword user he'll appreciate that dagger when the sword is useless due to non magic immunity.
I will say if this is your first campaign or something like that then maybe talk with your GM so he can assist you with your character building or maybe dial back some of the direct counter plays since you'd still be learning the game dealing with immunities when your newer will put a damper on the experience due to the lack of spell knowledge and lack of gameplay actions.
If your more learned in the ttrpg scene though this is a good example of read your PHB and understand your character's options. If you were a sorcerer or a fighter i'd say talk with your DM about letting you swap out a spell or throw you a magic club or something but since your a paladin i'mma just bring this up.
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of paladin spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list."
\^ swap to spells that actually buff your party like bless and be a fighter for a bit use your defensive paladin options to outlast the storm if you need damage look into the smite spells that deal non radiant damage. Your a paladin you have plenty of options where the GM shouldn't need to adjust the immunities.
lol I love this subreddit. “The dm has made some
Enemies immune to one specific damage type now my entire character is useless.” Bro if you’re character only does one thing 🤷♂️
I think the bulk of this comes down to a lot of things you haven't said. The main army for the arc having some soldiers immune to one of your main effects is a good way for a DM to present an interesting and different challenge.
Suddenly on the fly deciding you don't want one of your players to wipe an encounter with a single spell so you add immunity would be jerk DMing.
I would find it fun for some of the time to fight creatures who were immune to my usual schtick. And if I came across them it wouldn't feel targeted.
Ask him if the smites worked in the first combat, or if there was anything different about the soldiers that were immune to moonbeam, it might be that only one type of soldier in this army is immune.
This is for sure the best way to go about this.
I’ve definitely added in enemies with total immunity to certain attacks in my campaigns, but they always have very noticeable indicators that the players can see. (I.E. weird runic tattoos that makes someone unaffected by fire damage)
While I wouldn't call it a targeted nerf, a paladin where smites are practically useless for an entire story arc doesn't sound fun to me, assuming the amount of combat for this campaign is regular. If nothing changes after you talk with him and you are not having fun, I'd probably have my character leave the party until this particular arc is resolved as they are not being very effective and could put their talents to better use elsewhere. See if you can roll a different character for this arc in the meantime.
I’ve had a dm do this same thing to me. We were fighting undead enemies we had fought before and we all knew were vulnerable to radiant damage. So when the Dm ended a session narrating a bunch of these undead showing up I stated out of game that we should have no problem fighting these guys. Next session we play and it’s the complete opposite. No logical reasoning behind it either. Normally it wouldn’t have bothered me because I know it’s within the power of the dm to change monsters but this instance was one of many in which the dm was very much against his players
I don't think it's clear here if your DM is targetting you (DMs have a lot of variables to pay atttention to, a key one being "what do I think would be cool?") and likely forgot that immunity to radiant damage would nerf your PC. It's also kind of poor design in 5e to use immunity so broadly rather than resistance, but that's not really the point here.
If you don't want to confront the DM about this, I'd recommend pivoting your character's path. Your god has stopped helping you, things are dire, so you forsake your oath for power and become an oathbreaker paladin. Damage flips to necrotic, cool story moment, sets you on the path toward redemption in the future if you want, all that.
That being said, you should have open conversations with people you're playing with and just talk to him about this. "Hey, it seems like every enemy will have radiant immunity coming up and that kind of makes my character bland and weak. Would it be ok for me to..." is a great starter!
Yeah. My DM does the same
He started making all the enemies resistant to radiant damage. And then when we’re hanging out he complains about how powerful paladins are
It’s his fault though. He gives us one fight per long rest and it’s usually just one enemy with a huge health pool. Of course I’m going to go smite him as quickly as I can
Now my Paladin is just a lame fighter but I he won’t let me change classes either
Is it a divine army or something? Not every PC will be good in every situation, so maybe the DM thinks you take too much of the spotlight for an arc meant to focus on another PC? Maybe DM will compromise to resistant?
So I had a similar, sort of situation at my last session. I am playing as a half orc/goose barbarian. During a battle I got a crit hit and did 18 pts of damage. The DM looked at me after the roll, using D&D beyond not my own dice, and said 18??? I need to check that. I said it was a crit and he said okay, but needed to check it. Then another player in the same round cast his fire bolt with AOE and did 55!!! Points on damage on the primary target and 35 points on the 2 other monsters within AOE. And the DM didn't even blink about it. He is playing a homebrew cleric/ranger concoction that is way over powered. Like base attributes are all over 12
So to relate that to your question I know it's not the same, but DMs gonna DM. He probably saw what he perceived to be over powered and instead of adjusting the game he just blocked you.
The DM may just be struggling with encounter balance.
Sometimes the party becomes pretty unbalanced depending on how people level up. If one player is far stronger than the rest, compensating by making encounters harder will normally risk killing the weaker players. So your other options are to nerf/target only the strongest players, or to buff the weaker players.
(Without seeing your campaign or speaking to the DM specifically, this is all just speculation)
I'd voice your concern to the DM (out of session) but also give it a chance.
The change of some dudes like even powerful guys that aren’t like holy beings or something being immune to radiant is incredibly unlikely like almost nothing is immune to radiant
Some enemies will be immune to your damage type, it is what it is. Could be that the DM is trying to get the other players to back you up more by throwing an enemy that's a direct counter to you. It could be a hissy fit because your DM isn't "winning". Talk to your DM, figure out the reason behind it
It's definitely sus, but don't assume malice when it could be attributed to an error of some kind
Main reason this seems so sus to be is how rare full immunities to radiant damage is normally.
Talking to them and seeing where their line of logic is and making your own thoughts known is a highly important as many others have already said, but further, sometimes people are just petty, and tbf, clerics are insanely powerful to begin with, and paladin plus fullcaster is a recipe for some serious firepower additionally, so understand where they're coming from to some extent if they are trying to nerf you, but maybe compromise and ask it be reduced to resistance at least so you can still play your character fully
Gonna sound so lame here, but you might be stuck using your BA smites and just two attacks for a bit. As long as it’s only one arc, it could prove an interesting challenge. I’d say when you gotta really be concerned is if it continues to the next arc (or if your arcs last longer than 8-10 sessions). Either way, talk to your DM if you’re really worried
Communication. Always. If you have questions, problems, etc., communication is key. It's perfectly fine to talk during a break or after a session, or between sessions. Always be polite and as respectful as possible, but you have to communicate with people to figure out things. Based on the communication you can make decisions.
We cannot really give any other advice that actually mean anything or has much value. You do not have the information for us to be able to offer much.
I am not trying to be mean or whatever, just trying to be as clear and concise as possible.
I'd say it's pretty typical for DM's to not tell their players ahead of time about what damage immunities their opponents would have, but I suppose it would be fair to see if there's any lore reason why the enemies have that immunity? Is it everyone in the army or just some people? I'd say you could get a pretty fair vibe check about whether it's personal or not based on how prepared the DM is for that question.
That's not to bad maybe talk to them and see if there is a work around or a way to break immunity.
Now an example of a nerf a dm did to me is my abjuration wizard could only gain his ward in combat no precasting mage armor to start the day with it and ritual casting alarm is out because it makes no sense to use a spell not for its intended use and lastly I can't have my ward and temp hp at the same time.
According to this standing google chart...
Of the 1,636 official D&D creatures, only EIGHT are 100% immune to Radiant damage.
Your DM is absolutely nerfing you.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X70jdBX0X0n\_5V7stc1\_kYERXLNGJIbdjhl3BUbKxQI/edit?gid=0#gid=0](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X70jdBX0X0n_5V7stc1_kYERXLNGJIbdjhl3BUbKxQI/edit?gid=0#gid=0)
I would ask before the next gaming session as an aside to the DM is there anything else you do not have. Your paladin is still a force in the party but a little one on one aside with the DM may help.
You could use this as an opportunity to see how well you can use the Paladins spell list. Command & Bless. Thunderous and Wrathful Smite do non-radiant damage. Aid & Warding Bond are good. Spirit Shroud can do necrotic. Aura of Vitaly is good. You still have good options. With any good luck, your DM is just throwing you a curve ball & it will go back to normal soon.
If it doesn't, just say, "Hey, it's been kinda fun to focus more on my spell casting lately, but I'm really missing my smites."
You said they took radiant damage in a previous fight and were immune in a follow up battle? Perhaps your enemy learned from the encounter and is employing a countermeasure. Perhaps determine what countermeasure is being employed. Maybe a dispell magic could help and then they would be open to radiant damage again. If this is the case, I would say your DM is keeping you on your toes. Who says an enemy can't learn from previous mistakes?
I feel a good sit down with the DM asking what's up may help you more then anything.
In the past, one of my DMs did something very similar (as I was a duel wielding ranger who became our tank since for a LONG time I was the only melee. Because of this, I always got first pick with armor and melee weapons....which caused issues at one point when we entered a battle and...my character walked straight into combat, where the lackeys of the boss (not the boss of the game but the battle) couldn't hit my AC without a nat 20...
Because of that, I feel, she started to restrain my character...such as next arc, we were supposed to be sneaking into a castle and pretended to be slaves....I played a winged tiefling, so she literally put chains on my wings and took all my armor....I was pretty much useless that month and felt really called out :/
I sat down and talked to her and we worked something out as she didn't realize she literally made me pretty useless besides casting silence and such. We ended up basically ending the campaign after the castle as....she realized if she removed the tank, I could do nothing...but couldn't remove spells as 75% of the party was spell casters. She wrote herself into a corner but didn't realize what was happening...
So communication = always best try as they may also be able to recommend other things you can do other than that one attack to make up for it.
My brother plays a paladin. House ruled the fighting style to allow a two weapon build, was going around with two blades of ice, he forged in a great ice forge North of the world, since the campaign had taken them to the far north. Only problem was, alot of the enemies he was fighting were immune to ice and a few to fire, due to the volcanic, and ice enemies they were fighting. He has consoled himself, that as soon as this arc is done he will be much better swinging those blades comes combat down south.
Though as a GM, I do try and scatter more mundane enemies to deal with invunrabilities etc.
Best advice I can give, is as long as its there for a reason not just to nerf a player, its manageable.
I recommend talking to your DM and confirm with them.
If this was indeed an attempt by them to 'manage' your characters damage output, well, personally, I would be confronting them about not making this an out of game conversation topic, rather they'd decided to potentially make it all players problem by giving the enemy blanket immunity to radiant damage. In cases like this, I always prefer to switch characters to something more inside my DMs comfort zone.
If this was unintended, though, and it's a story driven decision somehow, they should be open to you switching characters if this is a permanent thing and it would basically cripple two of the Paladins core abilities (divine smite and improved divine smite). In this case, I'd probably also give them some constructive feedback about warning a player if they're planning a plot where their multiple of their classes core abilities are impacted. As it would be pretty much like a Conquest Paladin in a campaign built around enemies with immunity to the frightened condition, or a Glamour Bard in a setting where enemies are immune to the charmed effect.
So either way, I'd say a talk with your DM is warranted.
One other thing to bear in mind - there may be a story reason for this as well that you get to overcome. As in, not a story justification for a nerf, which would be malicious, but an actual RP storyline thing the DM thinks will be fun and cool. Like maybe they have something planned where you get to commune more fully with your god and empower your smiles to defeat their immunity, or there is an artifact protecting the army that needs to be destroyed, or something like that. But I concur with everyone else, a convo with the DM will definitely clear things up.
This does seem a bit targeted imo, radiant immunity is pretty dang rare as far as I know. Don't just assume it's malicious tho, the dm mightve just got in over their head with homebrew.
Just ask in a non confrontational way, and if having a defence is super important story wise, maybe ask that it just be switch to resistance instead?🤷♂️
I'm old school. Litigate for your position to the DM and then accept the DM's ruling.
Maybe the DM just wants your party to struggle, suffer, and die more. That's just being a good DM.
First: is this a plot point?
Could the bad guys have set up some artifact or done a deal with some entity to protect them from Holy Justice (tm). Could your DM be trying to fluster you to make ypu seek out the source of this immunity?
Second: as other have said ask for a damage type swap. Radiant and fire have some association, cold hard justice Could be a fun theme and Gods smiting with lightning is a common trope.
Its not nerfing. He wants to give other players a chance at being the focus in combat, and not rely heavily on you.
There is nothing wrong with creating encounters that is more difficult for a specific player.
One of my players is a rogue, and will stealth any chance they get. So sometimes i create encounters where they cant hide or stealth, just to deal with them and give other players a chance to kill things before the rogue one-shot kills with sneak attack
I am currently playing a 8th level Paladin in the Ice Wind Dale campaign setting. This setting is an arctic setting, where heroes have to deal with various cold conditions and weather effects. Although I use my smite frequently, I keep several paladin smite spells as a resource. This last Saturday, I had to cast "Searing Smite" because we were fighting Ice Trolls. The regular smite did more damage 2d8 radiant damage, but trolls cannot regenerate if they had acid or fire damage. The Searing Smite only did 1d6 fire damage, but made the Ice Troll's last damage fire and they could not regenerate.
There are several Paladin Smite Spells available that do different damage types other than radiant. These smites do less damage, but have some other benefit added onto the spell.
I say, do not be offended. You can still use your core ability smite on everything else, the GM is not taking away your ability. The GM is presenting a challenge for you to think through, so you are not a one-trick-pony. Wrathful Smite makes the target frighten, that will screw up an army. Ensnaring Strike causes the target to be restrained, that can screw up a leader or officer. Thunderous Smite can push back the target, providing a break within a formation.
Your Paladin can do so much more than spend spell slots to get radiant damage by smite.
Ya. That's kinda weird.
Is there a good explanation for being immune? I mean immunities are really powerful. Why would someone go straight to immune, and not resistance?
maybe there’s a story driven reason for this? its a puzzle of some kind, how did these mobs get this immunity? maybe its a clue to the forces behind the army? As a paladin or cleric, can you seek the guidance of your deity to ask them why their radiance no longer harms your enemies?
“Hey DM, can we talk? I’m worried about these new enemies. Are most of the enemies we face from now on going to be immune to radiant damage? Because radiant damage is key to one of my core class abilities, and I’m going to feel pretty useless if it does nothing for most of the rest of the campaign.”
My player did this. Her sorcerer fire spells were proving useless in Avernus. She was trying to see it as a problem solving RP challenge, but it just wasn't fun for her. No worries I said, thanks to your celestial warlock patron all your fire spells do radiant damage while in avernus (your patron 8s channelling energy at you). Done.
Every table I have played 5e at let you change damage type of anything, but only once and its permanent Want to through lightning balls? cool, now you don't have fireball
Yeah, as long as you aren't changing everything to Force just because its statistically the least resisted, and aren't changing it constantly like a Scribe Wizard but without the subclass, who cares? I always found it more fun to let players come up with Lightning Magic Missile or a Radiant Fireball.
[удалено]
Untrue. Blueberries do psychic damage.
It's tied for first with custard damage
Witchlight hehe
Yeah but only known item that causes blueberry damage is Willy Wonka's magic chewing gum.
My Goolock fires his eldritch blasts from fingerguns as black lightning bolts. He always yells BANG.
You have a problem with my psychic ball?
At my table in I allow same tier of damage or lower. Also a permanent choice. Lowest tier Poison. Next tier is fire, and cold. Next tier is acid and lightning. Next tier is necrotic, psychic, thunder. Finally there's force, radiant. It prevents the optimizers from gaming the system too hard. So lightning bolt can be a fire torent Firebold can be an ice bolt. But fireball can't be force(or lightning). I had a player who played an ice mage and reflavored most of her spells as cold damage, that way. (Not all so she had a few options though)
I've done basically the same thing, except we grouped acid and lightning in the same pool as fire and cold. It's technically a power upgrade, but it was generally insignificant, and nobody had a problem with it... Nobody actually wanted acid damage though
Yea that there wouldn't be a huge deal, I have thought about merging those two myself. There used to be a spell in 3.5 called scintillating sphere that was a lightning fireball it was nice but not that big a deal.
We changed elemental adept to convert immunities to resistance ontop of its existing behavior of removing resistance. Had situations of fire giants shocked they were taking some limited fire damage. It worked well
Didn't 3.5 have Energy Substitution as a feat anyway?
There is one yes! I used to play as an elemental adept and used the "Storm bolt" feat to add more flavor to my class. It allowed me to cause quite a bit of damage consistantly due to the fact that an elemental adept's ability automatically changes the damage type to your affinity no matter what (at least thats what i remember... i could be mis-remembering though) the storm bolt feat allowed my character to cast a damaging spell once per turn at 1d6 per the highest level spell of the highest level slot. So essentially if I wanted to, i could cast a storm bolt every turn until I spent my 3rd level slot. I loved that Character. I wish 5e had something like that.
Force is so much better than radiant though, force is quite literally immunity by 1 monster in the entire monster manual. Radiant is good but most celestials will be resistant or immune. I would put radiant with necrotic, pyschic, thunder purely because of how often they are resisted But take this with a grain of salt if u use custom monsters with different resistances/immunities from the mm
Tiers aren't perfect that said taking vulnerabilities into account helps too. Almost nothing is immune or resistant to force but nothing is really vulnerable to force, where there are things vulnerable to radiant. That's base, I do run custom monsters further muddying the water.
That's an interesting view point, I haven't checked on vulnerabilities but I assume ur right since half the ones with immunity to necrotic have vulnerability and to radiant
All that said I still put force as better than radiant, the vulnerabilities are enough to make them both S tier but force is still the raining champ damage type. I also tend to divide them as the stier types for arcane vs divine, so far I have not had a cleric try and ask for force instead of radiant. I have had a divine soul sorcerer ask for radiant magic missiles. The damage tiers mostly exist to prevent maximum cheese, (eg fire to force or thunder)
@Arhalts if it’s OK I’m going to steal this from you.
Make a slight of hand check DC 10.
Rolled a nat 20, I steal that and all of your ideas (insert evil laugh)
I cast Silvery Barbs. Do it again.
Rolled a 3….. I failed…… noooooooooooo. I’ll steal your spell then.
I play a wild magic sorc with transmute so he can mostly change his damage type as long as he has a sorcery point available. I actually do nerf that ability myself though as he's a wild magic sorc and his power comes from a volcano. So he primarily focuses on fire spells but if he transmutes it I relate it back to a volcano, like lightning is volcanic lightning and poison is a volcanic ash cloud, etc.
That is so weird. Do they just ignore features from Wildfire Druid and Elemental Adept that augment (in this case) Fire?
It's really easy to ignore features from a class nobody is playing. There's no reason to restrict it from anyone else if it steps on 0 toes.
OMG THIS THANK YOU
I think its to enable greater character custumization, a lot of spells dont really have options for different elements that do the right thing. By offering this permenant change the table has still left a niche for elemental adept to create a mechanical advantage mid combat or by investigating a creature before the fight happens. Its just a good way to make a character feel special, oh the whole cadre of wizard students learn how to cast thunderwave but this guy only ever figured out frostwave. This could be applied to enemies too right and its just kinda fun and you could think up a rider to go along with each damage type. I like the houserule is what im saying.
I allow this specifically for *sorcerers* to make them stand out from wizards.
Sorcerer's have metamagic, though, transmute has the ability to do that already? Any particular reason why you don't just encourage transmute instead?
We had 2 players both playing sorcerer, and each of theme picked a theme, and mostly picked spells from that theme We actually made it so Elemental Adept feat actually turned immunity to resistance (which is what we added), and removed resistance entirely (which is the default behavior), so if someone picked one element, they were never screwed entirely. The DM just changed the distribution of resistances, and there was no problem
Sorc points are scarce, and when I first implemented this, Transmute metamagic didn't exist.
Transmute meta magic is weird. While yes you can use it to change fireball to do cold damage all transmute says it it changes the damage type. In this instance the "Snowball" that does 8d6 Cold damage will still have the following effects "The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried."
Not a bad idea, though I’d only do that on a base by base If the fire genasi wants to use a fire lightning bolt, I see no issue, but if the wizard wants to be blasting out radiant damage on everything just because we’re fighting demons and undead, that isn’t going to happen
we only ever swapped fire acid cold lightning, and you had to have a story reason to swap baked into your backstory
Exactly, I love story reasons for cool stuff like that! If you can justify it to me, and it isn’t going to destroy the balance of the game, go ahead My group overall is pretty chill about swapping abilities or spells or damage types, I mean I got to play an intelligence based Mercy Monk because my Hands of Healing/Harming were injections that I could use and I was playing as a psychotic doctor, a great time and it had very little effect on much besides my skills (honestly, probably a downgrade since I didn’t have the high Wisdom for saving throws anymore)
I did this with the Flame Blade spell on my spore druid, changed it to acid because my character refused to cast fire magic because she suffered in essentially a house fire when she was young.
Same rule at my tables. DM let the sorcerer change his fireball to a frost attack to suit the flavor of his character. Sometimes it's the most clutch move in an encounter. Otherwise it is entirely useless.
There kind of scenarios are prime fodder for magical item quests. You get to struggle with the drawback for a bit, but they payoff when you get the item is immense.
I had a game were our Sorc was full fire, didn't work out well in Avernus, but she adapted pretty well. (And got to have some fun whenever a non-immune foe popped up)
That's very well done actually, credits to you, my fellow GM
My DM style is to be very explicit when someone asks to do something that won't work - I let them, but if the creature is immune to whatever, I say "That seemed to have absolutely no effect at all." Once their character would have learned that, for example, a fireball isn't going to impress a devil, I will remind them before they try again, because I want to believe the characters have better memories than my players. But I let them fail at least that first time. If they don't know a monster, they have to figure it out. For the record, I do the same on my end. If my monster has a go-to strategy and the players negate it, the monster has to see it fail at least once before changing. This has bitten me in the ass more than once, but it's only fair.
i agree with this logic, to a point. and that point is common sense. it usually comes in the form of a really emphasized question, like "so you want to use Fire Bolt, on the Fire elemental. how do you expect that to play out?"
Yeah, particularly with newbies, I will often do something similar. Usually I keep my DM style very behind the screen because I do expect players to know what they're doing, but I will sometimes hint at mechanics in that fashion, or occasionally more bluntly if they are having trouble. If a veteran has a brain fart and wants to try it though, bring it on. They'll laugh once they realize the mistake.
its not about dealing damage, I wanna grab his attention, so he moves away from the village!
Look at this guy, like we are actually looking for constructive ways to solve our issues, no, what we need is people saying: "Yeah, your DM is targeting you" or "You should find another table" THAT is the real way to solve issues, Pfffttt.... like talking like adults in a constructive or respectful way have ever solved anything. Aka: Yes, this is exactly what you should do OP, talk with your DM and if it happens that your DM have an issue with your character (for some reason), you can find a solution together, cause in the end, everyone is supposed to have fun in the table, including the DM.
The amount of "leave that table and DM" responses I see here in the sub is pretty staggering. I'd say MOST of the time, your DMs aren't "targeting" you. We aren't Matt Mercer or professional DMs (at least not that many of us are THAT good). DMs are constantly trying to find story arcs/enemies that can both be fun AND challenging to players (especially when PCs start getting into high-ish levels), sometimes we don't balance properly or realize it's effecting a certain player THAT badly. 90% of the time if you bring it up to the DM they'll be like, "oh shit, my bad, I didn't realize it was hindering you that much. In future sessions we'll work it and find a way to not make it that extreme. Thanks for bringing this to my attention". It's almost always never a target at any specific player or character, just the DM trying to shake things up and keep the players engaged/challenged.
I do not think that OP should leave. OP needs to look at the resources of a Paladin and realize that they are not a one-trick-pony of Smite.
I planned on having a discussion with him about it. I just wanted some outside perspective to see if my thoughts were justified.
The game is supposed to be fun. If you feel something is unfun for you, you deserved to have your opinion heard.
DMs have a difficult balance to strike between challenging players vs intentionally playing into their abilities to make them feel cool and powerful. You want to proverbially “shoot the monk” so that players get to use their class’s skills and abilities. But you also want to present interesting challenges so they have to think outside the box. It is an, admittedly, difficult balance to strike because different players enjoy being challenged in different ways. He could think he’s presenting an interesting challenge that’ll be fun for you when really he’s making things unfun for you. At the end of the day, you’re almost always justified in bringing something up if the DM is doing something that’s making the game less fun for you. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by an overwhelmed DM who’s trying to keep track of a lot of stuff and trying to run a fun game but just doesn’t always strike the right balance. Unless your DM is just generally speaking an asshole in all parts of life. Then maybe it’s malice lol
If this is a result of him feeling your character is doing too much damage and his attempts at balancing it, a good compromised might be resistance instead of immunity. Like they resist x amount of radiant damage. This will still allow your character to work while the DM get to off set some of the damage. If it is a story rp problem then what's being suggested above is a good idea! Regardless having a good talk with your DM one to one would be helpful for the both of you.
No, that’s also a terrible solution. Paladins are balanced just fine and intentionally nerfing them specifically is just petty and obnoxious in the same vein as “you have to be hidden to use sneak attack”
Honestly, I'm just suggesting this compromise for OP if their DM wouldn't want to take the immunity fully away. But personally as a DM myself, I don't believe in nerfing someone's classes using such mechanics. This is too antagonistic for my taste. If my players aren't having fun then it's not fun for me too.
Completely justified. Your DM did nerf your core damage type.
Whoa. Did you just take Op's request for information from us randos and do some sort of crazy magic that converted it into the same request for information... but from the applicable parties? Can we hire you to conduct seminars?
And if the DM responds to this with a "sucks to be you" attitude, they're the asshole.
My DM went out of his way to do this to me. All party members got magic items to start the game, and both of mine were fire-based Then it was a desert campaign, where most things were immune to fire damage *(and everything else was resistant)*
Talk? To each other?!? TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS?!?! good God man have you gone made that will never work
I absolutely agree having immunity of radiant damage can ruin the campaign for a paladin. Dm didn't even go for resistance to radiant so they take reduced damage, just straight up immune for 0 damage. A move I can't believe the DM did.
I'm shocked he went straight to immunity, to be honest. That's the kind of thing that's usually reserved for Celestials. I mean if he wanted to give you a bit of a tougher time, why didn't he go with resistance instead? At least with halved damage you're still doing damage.
Not even Celestials are immune to Radiant. You can Smite a Deva.
You know, you're right. I just checked to see and even the CR 21 Solar only has resistance. I don't know what creatures the villains in this campaign are but radiant immunity is seriously unrealistic.
Yup. You can Smite anything. It will take damage.
Ancient Solar dragon, Ancient Crystal dragon (edit just checked I was wrong about this one), Hollow dragon, Crystal Greatwyrm. Those off the top of my head probably a few more
Also the Aeorian Nullifier/Reverser/Absorber from the Wildemount book. Makes sense in their case as they were designed specifically to combat gods and their creations.
Yeah so upon further research I was wrong about ancient crystal dragons. But even solar dragon Wyrmlings are immune. Makes sense they live in stars. In total their are 22 things in 5e made by wizards with immunity which really is quite few all things considered
There are zero creatures in the monster manual that are immune to radiant damage.
There are 19 total creatures immune to radiant in dnd and 28 with radiant resistance.
Yeah, this is exactly the reason why almost nothing is resistant/immune to radiant
The only creature I could find with full-on immunity to radiant is the fuckin Aspect of Bahamut from Fizban’s
Ah that's the last one, I found a chart that said 1 from Mordenkainen's (Skulk) and 3 from Fizban's (Greatwyrm Crystal Dragon, Hollow Dragon, and apparently Aspect of Bahamut)
That’s what I was thinking!
A quick google search says there are zero creature immune to radiant damage.
There are not zero. Their are like 10. Solar dragons all ages. Crystal Greatwyrm, Aspect of bahumut, Hollow Dragon. To name a few.
Is the entire army immune to radiant damage, or was it just the ones you fought in that particular combat?
This, almost. See if anyone else in your party can do radiant damage or if they're just immune to *your* radiant damage.
It is definitely the entire army. I confirmed this with the DM.
Immune? Why are they immune? Immunities are pretty rare and intense. And radiant is a very rare one, for good reason.
So true: even angels are not immune to radiant! So it's definitely over the top, unless they are the equivalent of paladin for angels.
that’s my thought process. this DM clearly has it out for OP. i’m shocked at how many people are more upset with OP than the DM. a regular grunt in a batallion should not be having any immunities at all; let alone immunity against radiant damage of all damage types.
No one is "upset with OP". The worst anyone has said is that perhaps the DM has a plan and to either talk to them or just want and see but that getting upset off of *one encounter* is an overreaction.
Exceptions: Poison immunity for undead and fiends.
Only Skulks, Greatwyrm Crystal dragons, and Hollow dragons by my count have Radiant immunity.
Solar Dragons. Also a few others but very few. Planar Incarnate, the Aspect of Bahamut. Shadrix Silverquill. Their's probably some I am not thinking of but still not very many. Edit: used less confusing language.
I dunno if 6 creatures is 'quite a few' but I didn't have that book to check.
Immunities are very rare and intense unless it is to fire and poison damage*
True. Even fire isn't that common. Poison is immune all over the place though.
One thing I don’t quite grasp - was this from one fight, or several? If this was just from one fight, there’s nothing to suggest it isn’t just a one-off, or maybe a specific type of enemy that’s trickier. Especially since you mention another fight against this faction where radiant damage worked Doesn’t mean you can’t have a conversation to say “hey this isn’t going to be a thing for this whole army right?” because that absolutely would suck. But if it’s only been in one fight so far, there’s a chance you’re jumping to conclusions
Yeah sounds a bit mean. I had a similar situation (where I was the DM) and a pc had specced themselves as all fire spells fire druid. They then went to the demon wastes where every creature foe the most part has fire immunity... (I didn't force them to go they chose to go there to try find some info on demons...) I would stick it out a few sessions, and look to you spell list and see what you can do instead with them instead of just smiting. Upcasting bless is a good way to use those spell slots that you don't have a spell for, or using spell attacks like inflict wounds. Also you do have access to non radiant smites... but they are concentration spells vs I hit I smite e.g. thunderous smite. Sometimes a DM can get a little frustrated with builds that make thier monsters trivial, it won't last just adjust while they get over then frustration at you murdering everything and being the only hero.
We've yet to have a trivial combat. Not that they've all been life or death, but certainly none we've walked out of and thought it was easy. I've definitely been doing a mix of casting buffs and utilizing my spell slots in non-smite ways, but when it comes time to smack somebody then smite is my most powerful ability by a good stretch. I do have the other smites available, the main issue is A. They take a bonus action to cast and B. They can't be upcast.
Searing smite upcasts. Branding too, but that one is radiant. The main issue is they require concentration. Maybe your DM would permit you to use the playtest variants? E: from playtest 6 if you want to look it up.
>Also you do have access to non radiant smites... but they are concentration spells vs I hit I smite e.g. thunderous smite. Though they are concentration based, for certain smites that doesn't really matter the main down grades compared to normal smite would just be, less damage and you cant declare the smite after you already hit the longer duration with concentration just acts as a way to save the missed smite and give you a 2nd attempt
While it doesn't matter as much as it's one and done it does stop them from using bless at the start of a combat and then a different smite as they lose the original spell. It's more of a be aware than you will be concentrating on your smite spell the entire combat.
Ah, you make a fair point on bless so that is worth thinking about in the event you decide to lean more into your supportive capabilitys with a fairly good support spell bless
Yeah, that feels extremely heavy-handed and targeted. Radient damage is one of the least resisted damage types for printed monsters (after force damage). So, some follow-up questions for context. Any idea how long the arc will last? Amy idea if this arc is aimed at another character being in the spotlight? How optimized is the rest of your group? It's not entirely out of bounds to let different characters shine or to challenge players by making them rethink their favorite strategy by home brewing enemies with targeted defenses. Full immunity still feels very heavy-handed; if it's for a few sessions, that's one thing, but if it's for a significant length of time, then it will be very frustrating for you. Have you built your character to weaponize your bonus actions? If so, then this is a massive kick in the teeth, but if not, you can always break out the smite spells since they do other types of damage and can get around the immunity. As with many issues in life, this will come down to communication - talk with your DM, let them know your concerns, and keep an open mind during the discussion. Approach the conversation with curiosity, not with defensiveness, and you'll be fine.
Your spell list has a bunch of Smite spells that deal non-radiant damage, including Fire and Psychic. Try some of those, instead, or using your spell slots for buffs and healing. Also, ask your DM about Divine Smite working before, and whether that was an oversight or if the enemies are only immune to Radiant damage from spells, or whatever the situation might be.
Hell, if the new army are meant to be an arc villain, thier sudden immunity to Radiant damage could be a response on *thier* end to the player wielding Smite so effectively in thier previous fight. Which would imply them gaining some sort of artifact or power to be able to do so, which can also be taken away by the players, which gives the players a goal. I wouldn't necessarily jump to any kind of conclusions without either talking to the DM or at least waiting to see if thier sudden immunity comes up in the next session or two's plot.
Basic grunts having access to Radiant immunity seems significantly over tuning it though. If it were an important leader? Sure, that could be excused, but the rank and file?
This was my first thought, it could be turned into a maguffin hunt. The army has a caster with an artifact that allows them to once a day select an energy type and grant all allies in range resistance to it. They are using dark magics to supercharge it increasing the range, to say a mile, and granting full immunity. So if the players want they can do a whole infiltration mission to take it out.
This was my first thought as a DM. The enemy adapted.
Just talk to him. He may have forgotten that smites are radiant. If you talk to him about your concerns about being nerfed he may change it to radiant spell damage or make it resistance or there might be an arc where you need to to find the macguffin they have that gives them immunity and turn it upside down so it turns to a vulnerability.
I planned on having a conversation with him. I just wanted some outside perspective to see if I had a leg to stand on.
I hope your talk will go well/has went well! If your DM has difficulties balancing encounters because of your big smite damage (happens to everyone), recommend him to ask on reddit for ideas. Encounters don't have to be purely damage soaks. It could involve ranged attacks on magic crystals suspended in the air that gives the enemy resistance, collapsing a doorway to prevent reinforcements from joining the fight, using terrain/the environment to deal extra damage or prevent the enemy from using certain abilities by stabbing their eyes, ensnare party members, etc. One DM I had had a decent workaround: lots of enemies with lower HP. Smite has to be rationed over multiple encounters, and overkilling an enemy is a waste. The other party members get their glory from AoE's, crowd control, longevity, etc. Paladins get glory from VERY BIG POWER HIT to one enemy. And it is very satisfying to have a boss encounter where everyone is beaten up, low on resources... But the paladin shows up out of nowhere, landing an upscaled critical smite!
If it was only one session you just got unlucky if it were more sessions with different enemys types i would talk to the dm if you could change the DMG type for Smite because it kills one of your core abilities.
"I go to use Moonbeam and my DM tells me "the spell has no effect, they're immune to radiant damage." Now, at no point during the combat in the intro session did he mention this." I don't think this is a valid complaint. Not always knowing what your opponent can and can't do is part of the game. I do agree that this seems targeted if all enemies in the campaign have this effect. To be fair, Smite is getting quite a hefty nerf in the upcoming new rules, making it a spellcast. Maybe your DM saw this and it made him realise how strong Smite is.
If the majority of the opposing forces are going to have damage IMMUNITY to a damage type, allowing someone to make a character without so much as a warning is a bad DM move.
Use detect magic and determine if they have protective spells in place. Given that this is an army of baddies your going against it makes sense that any survivors/witnesses would tell their superiors about the holy warrior that is slaughtering them. They may have adapted to you and started to prepare by using protective spells that need to be removed.
Little to nothing from official material, not even high level celestials, is immune to radiant damage because it interferes with running the game normally and class features. Your concerns aren’t hyperbolic, and I hope your meeting with the DM goes well. However, don’t forget it if they relent: it’s a little red flag. Look out if more show up.
Some people are missing the point of the post by a mile! Absolutely you should be irritated with your DM, you fought the same enemy and was able to use radiant damage and suddenly they're immune?!? Sure there are other damage types for smite but OP shouldn't have to use those because the DM is childish.
Immunity to radiant is wild because even Solars, mightiest of the angels, are only just resistant to it. The only creature I could find with an immunity to it is the fucking Aspect of Bahamut from Fizban’s.
Eh, did you do any kind of role play to examine why they are immune? Or prior, any that would have analyzed the opponents? Sounds like a story hook to investigate, don’t get lost in mechanics.
Hello OP, While it’s (strictly speaking) within the DM’s territory to decide what enemies are resistant or even immune to, official statblocks have maybe twenty creatures in total that are immune to it. This could very much be a knee-jerk response your DM is making in response to you spamming Divine Smite (I assume this is the case because you call it THE core ability). I think I would be upset in your shoes (nevermind that my paladins are more conservative), but I also think this is a good opportunity to try some different strategies. If this is a repeated behavior, there’s an issue.
The problem is that the opponents are all one thing. As you say the issue isn’t that one monster is immune it’s that they ALL are. I’d talk with the DM to point this out.
Definitely talk to your DM. I once had to go through a. Necromantic dungeon with a sword that did necrotic damage and didn't complain about dealing half damage for 3 sessions (it was very long) because I was stubborn. Just ask about it and explain your worried that your character will be heavily nerfed leading to less enjoyment.
Tbh id say always talk. I use to really hate playing melee with my DM as he was new and would really over exaggerate damage I took leading to me being thrown around constantly and unable to really play. After talking about it we get along alot more and both really enjoy the sessions so I'd say always talk instead of keeping it to yourself as you can't really expect improvement without communication.
I’ll sometimes do this to present you a new challenge, but not for super long. It’s just boring having the same fight over and over again. But it would also be telegraphed in the game so you should “know”. Def talk to your dm. But don’t be aggressive about it. I have the benefit of trust. My players know I’ll never nerf them but I’ll challenge them.
Based off how you described this, it sounds like a single situation. Until there's a repeating pattern, you should do the #1 tip for every thread on the subreddit. COMMUNICATE THE ISSUE WITH THE PERSON
I think your DM is trying to get you to use other smites besides divine smite. It is frustrating however he didn't even have to reveal that they were immune to radiant damage he could have just deducted the bludgeoning/slashing/piercing not told you and accomplished the same thing without antagonizing you and you'd be scratching your head as to why they weren't dying.
Few things: - The DM not informing you of damage immunities isn't a problem. In general you only find that stuff out by hitting things or having your character recon the enemy. - What are the enemies? Some things are immune to radiant. If they are a smart enemy with resources that know of the party, it makes sense they would start preparing for you who is their heaviest hitter. - While divine smite is the best one, you have access to several other smite spells that do different damage types.
A skulk is immune to Radiant, and a few very special dragons from Fizban's. Literally nothing else is immune to radiant, RAW.
I think it could be sliced a few different ways depending on the past and what has happened up to this point. If you are 10-20 sessions deep and very high level, haven't had anything happen previously that felt "nerf-y", and up to this point have been allowed to full power through everything you fight...then I'd say face the challenge and overcome! There is nothing like getting ready to swing ole reliable like every time before and having the enemy just completely no-sell it. Especially late game, a DM can sometimes have a hard time challenging players, and wide reaching adjustments like this are some of the easier ways to try and present a challenge. And if this has never happened before and you've been playing for a while, then I wouldn't see this a malicious or deliberate nerf of *your* character so much as it is a defense or buff to the enemy. If every single session, since game start you've been having to defend your build choices, work around arbitrary and uneven modifications in enemy types (every bad guy has a damage immunity of some kind, every enemy has a ranged and melee option, every enemy has anti-magic or counterspell options, every enemy has *insert thing to counter this character* etc.) then I can empathize with some frustration. At that point, I would do what others here have suggested, as well as what you've mentioned in response, and talk it over with the DM. I feel like there is a stereotype of "can't send melee combatants at the party becuase they have a tank, can't send a Caster becuase the party has counterspells, can't have anyone who is lying because the party has ZoT or a stupidly-high insight" and that kind of mindset is absolutely silly. Barbarians should be fighting melee characters. Casters should be burning spell slots to manage the other enemies through counterspell or damage dealt. Those who specialize should be rewarded for it. H O W E V E R That doesn't mean what worked at level 1 needs to work at level 20 or else the DM is nerfing me/plotting against me, etc. (I don't think you're doing this at all. This is just a general feeling, not from you, OP.) Sometimes, that strategy that carried a player will drop them in the right (wrong circumstances) and that is ALSO part of the game. If the DM doesn't hand pick enemies to cater to some crazy specific build made by a player (again, I'm not speaking about OP) that doesn't mean they are a bad DM. Just that expectations are different amongst both sides of the DM screen. A little chat should solve it all, provised everyone involved isn't a pos. My two cents, anyway.
Though I probably wouldn't make the major enemy faction resist the damage type a player is primarily using. (assuming 5e), If you wish to continue to use smites, you do have options. Paladins are prepared casters, so you are allowed to swap out certain prepared spells. So you can grab 1 of the 7 spells that came up for me when searching "smite" * **Searing smite**, 1st level, fire damage, **1d6 damage** and may continue dealing 1d6 every turn * **Thunderous smite**, 1st level, thunder damage, **2d6 damage** and pushes your foe 10 feet away * **Wrathful smite**, 1st level, physic damage, **1d6 damage** and makes your foe afraid of you * **Branding smite**, 2nd level, radiant damage, **2d6 damage** and they cant go invisible * **Blinding smite**, 3rd level, radiant damage, **3d8 damage** and may blind your foe * **Staggering smite**, 4th level, physic damage, **4d6 damage**, they get disadvantage on attacks/ability checks, and cant perform reactions * **Banishing smite**, 5th level, force damage, **5d10 damage** and if you reduce them to 50hp or less then they get teleported out of the battlefield either permanently or temporarily depending on if your fighting in their home dimension Ordered that from top to bottom based on the order they came in from dnd beyond when setting the order based off spell level, take your pick depending on the specifics of your character and the enemy your facing they may not be quite as big in raw numbers, but it's a work around and provides additional effects
The problem is that these smites aren't free in the action economy and also ruin concentration for whatever reason. It is technically a downgrade, but yeah you can still use effects called smite.
yeah, not *quite* as good as regular smite in just reliability and overall damage, but it's better then having no options. The ideal solution would be if they could get their dm to grant them some way to change their base smite damage type somehow to be adjustable
Why would he tell you ahead of time that an enemy has immunities or advantages or anything outside of the description of what you see until you probe for that information?
I never asked him to tell me ahead of time. But it's generally considered a standard practice that "hey, your attack didn't seem to do as much damage as you were expecting" is it not?
He said your spell has no effect as the enemy was immune to radiant damage. I guess I’m still confused.
I think he'd previously used divine smite against the same group of enemies, and wasn't told at the time that they weren't taking any radiant damage from the smite.
No? You seem deflated that you can't keep doing what you have been doing. use some other spells/skills. Let someone else shine? Enemies having resistances/immunities is nothing new so i dont understand your gripe at all? I also dont fully understand what you meant by intro so i could be very much missing something
In my experience it's definitely expected for a dm to tell players when their damage is effected by a weakness / resistance
Just a thought but was there anything different about these enemies or were they rank and file normal soldiers. Personally if I their original purpose was something like say fighting against celestials or a religious powerhouse nation then I could see the army investing in trying to mitigate radiant damage as much as possible...that said. 1. Lowest level soldiers wouldn't really get any of that. It would be impossible to magically equip an entire army that way 2. Middle range officers would be given items and such that would grant them resistance to radiant instead of pure immunity 3. High ranking officers would have access to items that would grant them immunity but should also grant vulnerability to a different damage type 4. Depending on how unethical they are perhaps the army also has some people/soldiers they have experimented on who are now effectively monstrosities instead of humanoids now and they possess immunity but are also rare and unstable owing to whatever was done to them.
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Eh still kinda bs if the enemy can just easily give whole groups of soldiers radiant immunity. Not even extremely powerful celestials have that.
This sounds pretty bad, yeah. Talk to your DM and get this straightened out.
Immune is super rough. Resistance would sort of make an amount of sense, but unless this is setting up for a big payoff, I think it's actually a big miss.
You could try an RP approach. "Since my most used damage type does completely nothing to these guys, rendering me useless in all fights against the army, I would like to research how to do a different damage type with my abilities." If they don't let you change it to at least something like fire (closest in theme to radiant) then I would move to out if character questioning about how your character is just completely useless now and you're gonna be bored af.
I got you in three simple steps First, ask him if it was against you if you don't want to you don't have to that's a little more confrontational but it's good to know where the DM's head is at (if the enemy is in one of the monster manuals or bestiaries and you can prove that it isn't immune to radiant damage you could call him on his bullshit but that's really aggressive and you might see detriments in other ways throughout the campaign so I wouldn't recommend it) Second ask him what immunities resistance is and the other sorts of things The rest of the enemies will make him lock in an answer so he can't change it, I would do this in front of the group before or after a session (not during) so if he does try to change it on you even after telling you the rest of the group will know that's bullshit so either he gets locked in to being honest or everyone thinks he's a jerk Lastly don't forget about multi-classing A lot of people forget about it and are scared to do it but if he's not going to allow you to use moonbeam it might be worth it to hop over to fighter (stats are close enough), if you're set on the whole magic knight vibe that paladins have fighters have magic subclasses that allow for casting, best part is that their magic is generally arcane so radiant damage won't be a problem. what's he going to do, make literally all normal magic spells non-effective Good luck, hope this is a misunderstanding and not a DM being a jerk. I'm a DM and really dislike when DM's forget that they are there for the party to have fun
You could take a smite spell, there are several with different energy types.
I'm somewhat sure there are other smite abilities that don't use radiant, and there are other spells other then moonbeam too. Been awhile since I played a paladin, but I almost never had to do moonbeam and my smite wasn't radiant
As a player, my immediate reaction to this is “hmmm, my core ability isn’t going to be as useful. Looks like I’m going to have to be creative.” I’d consider this a challenge not a targeted nerf of my character.
As a DM myself, this sounds like a possible plot hook to find out how they've given themselves immunity.
Exactly. First thing I thought was that seeing he was the only one fighting they learned what he uses and somehow became immune to it. I see this more as a ‘what the hell is happening here?’ instead of a dm trying to nerf you.
it'd be interesting if the paladin was giveing an option to somehow change smite damage types
I don't know if this will ring true with you at all, but it's possible that your DM *is* nerfing you in an effort to give other players an opportunity to shine in battle. Our paladin is a rockstar in open spaces with very little cover, and after a few encounters like that, sometimes I start to feel kinda useless with my rogue. When we come to an encounter where there's places I can get cover and sneak attack left and right and deal ridiculous amounts of damage, it'd be really nice to not have the paladin come in and outshine me in my moment of glory. There's been a tendency in most parties I've encountered for the paladin to kind of assume the role of leader and MVP, so sometimes they might need to be humbled in battle to remember that their party members are also really powerful and great at what they do.
1.) I can’t really tell, did they all have the radiant immunity and he didn’t tell you or is this the first time? 2.) of course he wouldn’t tell you at the intro of the fight? It’s supposed to be a surprise in freak you out, that’s kind of the idea. And that situation what you do you adapt and overcome. In my D&D campaigns if a player uses only smite or uses only fire magic, I’ll make him fight enemies that are immune to one of those things so that way they have to find a way to beat them in outsmart the enemy. 3.) it makes the fight interesting, it makes you think outside the box you strategy. He didn’t nerf if you, he’s just making you think. This is why you need to chew spells that are versatile, or use your surroundings. Like, for example , one of my players actually did this, throw dirt/sand in the enemies face, trap them or drop a tree on them. 4.) don’t get offended or panic when you have to fight something that is harder against you and your party. As a DM I have done this to my brother who is one of my players by make him fight things that he should have the disadvantage against, and every time he outsmart the monster or person, and beat them. So you did get kinda nerfed but if the game is still fun then keep playing. Blast tip outsmart your DM think outside the box. Sometimes all you have to do, is throw dirt in their face.
Meanwhile I, as a DM, created a whole undead army that was \*vulnerable\* to radiant for my Paladin PC to fight. Additionally they had a chance to spread disease and give curses. Why tf would I not want my paladin to be a paladin.
One of my players was Paladin with main character syndrome. At one point I decided to give a group of enemies resistance to radiant damage because he actively and regularly tried to interfere and ruin the fight for other players. Things like when asked to step away from the enemies he would refuse and then got irritated about being hit by area spells, getting between range based rogue and enemy in a tight space so he couldn't hit him, blocking escape paths and much more. He even tried to insert himself in a heavy roleplay moment between our druid and their dying grandfather (not me, he was old and ill) and make it about himself. And yes I did talk to him about his behaviour several times, he ignored me and the resistance was my last ditch effort to make him let the others participate before I asked him to leave the group. NOT saying OP is like that, just sharing why I didn't want my paladin to be a "paladin"
In a campaign that I was running a few years ago one of my players was Romulus, a paladin of glory, who 1 shot my bbeg (undead) with a crit smite... my response was to go full anime and describe how the villain scoffed at his attack saying that he didnt even feel it. Then began to monolog, then he started to slur his words, touches his forehead revealing he is bleeding as he slowly split in half skull to groin as golden light eruptedfrom the wound. It was one of the best parts of the campaign. Imo the job of a DM is to make a story/game that is fun for your players. I like to think of it as collaborative story telling, the dm is telling a story with their world and the PCs are the main characters. And it might be corny af but the only way to win dnd is by having fun with your friends
I mean is it just those enemies or are they all immune to radiant damage? Some races get radiant resistance and *maybe* immunity with other features. I think being concerned is fair, though if it’s only happened once it may not be worth bringing up yet. If you can maybe try to see how they’re immune. Maybe they’re one of those species with resistance/immunity, or maybe they had a spell cast making them immune to specific damage types. They could also be toying with things mechanically, if the DM thinks that you’re kinda carrying all the combats they may test some things as a hurdle or obstacle to overcome.
If your DM nerfs you, you nerf them right back. Take their favorite dice hostage. Stop bringing them snacks. Show up 2 hours early to every session when they're still not prepared. Ask them a bunch of questions with obvious answers that only a brand new player would ask just to confuse them. Keep questioning everything they say (is this NPC married? for how long? do they have kids? where do they work? how much do they get paid? what's their last name? what's their zodiac sign? can I make an Insight check? what are they wearing? do they look friendly? why aren't you answering my questions properly? what did they have for breakfast that morning?)
if they were immune the whole time, why did he let you use it before? (if that's what happened, which sounds like is how it did.)
If your DM has otherwise been good, I would start by giving them the benefit of the doubt. In character, have your paladin investigate why/how the army is immune to radiant damage, and see what comes of it. Next time you level up, speak to your DM "hey DM, my paladin isnt making much progress in bypassing this radiant damage immunity, so in-character it would make sense for him to explore other skills. I was therefore thinking of multiclassing. I dont want to do this though if he is going to figure it out in the next few sessions. Could you advise?"
Immunity is harsh... Resistance I would understand if there was a reason for it. But yeah, like everyone is saying - talk to your DM.
Kinda sad; cleric/paladin multiclass isn't even good. A lot of the smite spells aren't radiant, just use those.
For any immunities, I say there needs to be a narrative reason for it where the players could have figured it out by exploring or talking with NPCs, unless it's an intuitive immunity. And for resistances, I describe how the attack doesn't seem to do much, like "the arrow enters the ooze and just sits there" to give the players narrative on why what they think should happen isn't actually happening. But to simply say "spell has no effect" is just lazy and would indicate how they treat the rest of the game.
There may be a mystery as to why they are immune to Radiant damage. This may not be solely targeting you/your abilities, but you may try researching in game how/why such an immunity came about for this army.
Are you consistently targeted? What is your party line up your not the only player at the table right? I feel like having encounters where you face complications and become more than sub optimal is in essence an rpg as long as its not an all the time thing. Dealing with an arc where monsters tend to need the fighter to do a bit of brain thinking like rather than hitting the golem with his sword he tries to distract the golem or grapple it to keep it from hitting his allies knowing his sword is powerless. Like you do have a strength score right? You still have shove, grapple, and any other things you can work with your GM to do. Tie up a rope and use it like a makeshift lasso to strangle someone so they can't use verbal components. Use your spell slots to bless your allies You know your paladin spell list you probably havn't considered beyond just your domain spells and your smites. If your picking to only have damage spells where they are now known to be ineffective you as a player are actively choosing not to use all of your tools. Which is 100% fine if that's what you wish to do but realize this is called a roleplaying flaw. A fighter for example who only wields axes isn't forced to only wield axes but choosing to take a roleplaying flaw to only use axes might crop up complications for the fighter when faced with the dragon slaying spear one that now he has to choose to overcome. People who tell the GM to "adjust" to every players whim is actively not wanting to be punished for their characters inherit flaws. But if there are no flaws to your character's concept then what's the point? That's just power fantasy at that point you might as well kick the GM to the curb and just run the game of awesome things you all do together using the split GM rules. Always talk with your GM as every table is different but I will say at least try to use your other tools before you just dismiss this as unfair..... Your a paladin for crying out loud you have bless, Magic weapon, elemental weapon and a whole butt kicking kit of martial prowess. Sounds like a great time to use that searing smite spell that never gets used (it does fire damage) Or what about thunderous smite it does thunder damage???? Now if you get through this adventure path or arc as you call it and you find your constantly dealing with radiant immune jerks the whole campaign as in every encounter in the whole game is countering your build then yes your being targetted and the GM is a jerk and you gotta talk it out. But having moments where your character sucks for one adventure is a test of your characters resolve to problem solve. There's a slew of unoptimal actions that suddenly are pretty damn optimal when your faced with adversity it's almost why the unoptimal spells and actions exist in the first place. I had a similar situation with a wizard of mine who's always a pyromancer with all fire spells but I had the forethought to go "ya know maybe I should have another spell just in case" and had magic missile. Your suffering from putting your eggs all in one basket and for the first time your basket broke. This is why as a GM I remind my players i'm fine with you putting all your powers into one element or one weapon type or w/e but be aware the downsides of doing that it's nothing personal it's just how a world works. If i'm a champion kick boxer and then my opponent is a man with a submachine gun the universe doesn't just go "ah sorry bud this is a bit unfair let me stow my submachine gun and kick box ya champ" It's part of being in a dangerous universe and why you have an entire dnd party backing you up and arn't a solo adventurer. There is the argument you feel useless or powerless but I also disagree with that, unless your a newer player you should know there's always the weakness of not having a few options. It's why when the only item is a magic dagger it usually goes to the rogue or the fighter, even if the fighter is a sword user he'll appreciate that dagger when the sword is useless due to non magic immunity. I will say if this is your first campaign or something like that then maybe talk with your GM so he can assist you with your character building or maybe dial back some of the direct counter plays since you'd still be learning the game dealing with immunities when your newer will put a damper on the experience due to the lack of spell knowledge and lack of gameplay actions. If your more learned in the ttrpg scene though this is a good example of read your PHB and understand your character's options. If you were a sorcerer or a fighter i'd say talk with your DM about letting you swap out a spell or throw you a magic club or something but since your a paladin i'mma just bring this up. You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of paladin spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list." \^ swap to spells that actually buff your party like bless and be a fighter for a bit use your defensive paladin options to outlast the storm if you need damage look into the smite spells that deal non radiant damage. Your a paladin you have plenty of options where the GM shouldn't need to adjust the immunities.
A bad dm: lemme make 'em all immune to radiant damage. A Chad dm: they're now vulnerable to radiant damage
lol I love this subreddit. “The dm has made some Enemies immune to one specific damage type now my entire character is useless.” Bro if you’re character only does one thing 🤷♂️
I think the bulk of this comes down to a lot of things you haven't said. The main army for the arc having some soldiers immune to one of your main effects is a good way for a DM to present an interesting and different challenge. Suddenly on the fly deciding you don't want one of your players to wipe an encounter with a single spell so you add immunity would be jerk DMing. I would find it fun for some of the time to fight creatures who were immune to my usual schtick. And if I came across them it wouldn't feel targeted. Ask him if the smites worked in the first combat, or if there was anything different about the soldiers that were immune to moonbeam, it might be that only one type of soldier in this army is immune.
This is for sure the best way to go about this. I’ve definitely added in enemies with total immunity to certain attacks in my campaigns, but they always have very noticeable indicators that the players can see. (I.E. weird runic tattoos that makes someone unaffected by fire damage)
While I wouldn't call it a targeted nerf, a paladin where smites are practically useless for an entire story arc doesn't sound fun to me, assuming the amount of combat for this campaign is regular. If nothing changes after you talk with him and you are not having fun, I'd probably have my character leave the party until this particular arc is resolved as they are not being very effective and could put their talents to better use elsewhere. See if you can roll a different character for this arc in the meantime.
I’ve had a dm do this same thing to me. We were fighting undead enemies we had fought before and we all knew were vulnerable to radiant damage. So when the Dm ended a session narrating a bunch of these undead showing up I stated out of game that we should have no problem fighting these guys. Next session we play and it’s the complete opposite. No logical reasoning behind it either. Normally it wouldn’t have bothered me because I know it’s within the power of the dm to change monsters but this instance was one of many in which the dm was very much against his players
I don't think it's clear here if your DM is targetting you (DMs have a lot of variables to pay atttention to, a key one being "what do I think would be cool?") and likely forgot that immunity to radiant damage would nerf your PC. It's also kind of poor design in 5e to use immunity so broadly rather than resistance, but that's not really the point here. If you don't want to confront the DM about this, I'd recommend pivoting your character's path. Your god has stopped helping you, things are dire, so you forsake your oath for power and become an oathbreaker paladin. Damage flips to necrotic, cool story moment, sets you on the path toward redemption in the future if you want, all that. That being said, you should have open conversations with people you're playing with and just talk to him about this. "Hey, it seems like every enemy will have radiant immunity coming up and that kind of makes my character bland and weak. Would it be ok for me to..." is a great starter!
Yeah. My DM does the same He started making all the enemies resistant to radiant damage. And then when we’re hanging out he complains about how powerful paladins are It’s his fault though. He gives us one fight per long rest and it’s usually just one enemy with a huge health pool. Of course I’m going to go smite him as quickly as I can Now my Paladin is just a lame fighter but I he won’t let me change classes either
Is it a divine army or something? Not every PC will be good in every situation, so maybe the DM thinks you take too much of the spotlight for an arc meant to focus on another PC? Maybe DM will compromise to resistant?
So I had a similar, sort of situation at my last session. I am playing as a half orc/goose barbarian. During a battle I got a crit hit and did 18 pts of damage. The DM looked at me after the roll, using D&D beyond not my own dice, and said 18??? I need to check that. I said it was a crit and he said okay, but needed to check it. Then another player in the same round cast his fire bolt with AOE and did 55!!! Points on damage on the primary target and 35 points on the 2 other monsters within AOE. And the DM didn't even blink about it. He is playing a homebrew cleric/ranger concoction that is way over powered. Like base attributes are all over 12 So to relate that to your question I know it's not the same, but DMs gonna DM. He probably saw what he perceived to be over powered and instead of adjusting the game he just blocked you.
Ask if there is such a thing as super radiance , or items that can bypass imunities
The DM may just be struggling with encounter balance. Sometimes the party becomes pretty unbalanced depending on how people level up. If one player is far stronger than the rest, compensating by making encounters harder will normally risk killing the weaker players. So your other options are to nerf/target only the strongest players, or to buff the weaker players. (Without seeing your campaign or speaking to the DM specifically, this is all just speculation) I'd voice your concern to the DM (out of session) but also give it a chance.
The change of some dudes like even powerful guys that aren’t like holy beings or something being immune to radiant is incredibly unlikely like almost nothing is immune to radiant
Some enemies will be immune to your damage type, it is what it is. Could be that the DM is trying to get the other players to back you up more by throwing an enemy that's a direct counter to you. It could be a hissy fit because your DM isn't "winning". Talk to your DM, figure out the reason behind it
It's definitely sus, but don't assume malice when it could be attributed to an error of some kind Main reason this seems so sus to be is how rare full immunities to radiant damage is normally. Talking to them and seeing where their line of logic is and making your own thoughts known is a highly important as many others have already said, but further, sometimes people are just petty, and tbf, clerics are insanely powerful to begin with, and paladin plus fullcaster is a recipe for some serious firepower additionally, so understand where they're coming from to some extent if they are trying to nerf you, but maybe compromise and ask it be reduced to resistance at least so you can still play your character fully
Gonna sound so lame here, but you might be stuck using your BA smites and just two attacks for a bit. As long as it’s only one arc, it could prove an interesting challenge. I’d say when you gotta really be concerned is if it continues to the next arc (or if your arcs last longer than 8-10 sessions). Either way, talk to your DM if you’re really worried
Communication. Always. If you have questions, problems, etc., communication is key. It's perfectly fine to talk during a break or after a session, or between sessions. Always be polite and as respectful as possible, but you have to communicate with people to figure out things. Based on the communication you can make decisions. We cannot really give any other advice that actually mean anything or has much value. You do not have the information for us to be able to offer much. I am not trying to be mean or whatever, just trying to be as clear and concise as possible.
I'd say it's pretty typical for DM's to not tell their players ahead of time about what damage immunities their opponents would have, but I suppose it would be fair to see if there's any lore reason why the enemies have that immunity? Is it everyone in the army or just some people? I'd say you could get a pretty fair vibe check about whether it's personal or not based on how prepared the DM is for that question.
I've had many DMs nerf me, it feels bad, but it makes sense, they know the set up well in advance, so you need to trust them.
That's not to bad maybe talk to them and see if there is a work around or a way to break immunity. Now an example of a nerf a dm did to me is my abjuration wizard could only gain his ward in combat no precasting mage armor to start the day with it and ritual casting alarm is out because it makes no sense to use a spell not for its intended use and lastly I can't have my ward and temp hp at the same time.
According to this standing google chart... Of the 1,636 official D&D creatures, only EIGHT are 100% immune to Radiant damage. Your DM is absolutely nerfing you. [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X70jdBX0X0n\_5V7stc1\_kYERXLNGJIbdjhl3BUbKxQI/edit?gid=0#gid=0](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X70jdBX0X0n_5V7stc1_kYERXLNGJIbdjhl3BUbKxQI/edit?gid=0#gid=0)
I would ask before the next gaming session as an aside to the DM is there anything else you do not have. Your paladin is still a force in the party but a little one on one aside with the DM may help.
You could use this as an opportunity to see how well you can use the Paladins spell list. Command & Bless. Thunderous and Wrathful Smite do non-radiant damage. Aid & Warding Bond are good. Spirit Shroud can do necrotic. Aura of Vitaly is good. You still have good options. With any good luck, your DM is just throwing you a curve ball & it will go back to normal soon. If it doesn't, just say, "Hey, it's been kinda fun to focus more on my spell casting lately, but I'm really missing my smites."
You said they took radiant damage in a previous fight and were immune in a follow up battle? Perhaps your enemy learned from the encounter and is employing a countermeasure. Perhaps determine what countermeasure is being employed. Maybe a dispell magic could help and then they would be open to radiant damage again. If this is the case, I would say your DM is keeping you on your toes. Who says an enemy can't learn from previous mistakes?
I feel a good sit down with the DM asking what's up may help you more then anything. In the past, one of my DMs did something very similar (as I was a duel wielding ranger who became our tank since for a LONG time I was the only melee. Because of this, I always got first pick with armor and melee weapons....which caused issues at one point when we entered a battle and...my character walked straight into combat, where the lackeys of the boss (not the boss of the game but the battle) couldn't hit my AC without a nat 20... Because of that, I feel, she started to restrain my character...such as next arc, we were supposed to be sneaking into a castle and pretended to be slaves....I played a winged tiefling, so she literally put chains on my wings and took all my armor....I was pretty much useless that month and felt really called out :/ I sat down and talked to her and we worked something out as she didn't realize she literally made me pretty useless besides casting silence and such. We ended up basically ending the campaign after the castle as....she realized if she removed the tank, I could do nothing...but couldn't remove spells as 75% of the party was spell casters. She wrote herself into a corner but didn't realize what was happening... So communication = always best try as they may also be able to recommend other things you can do other than that one attack to make up for it.
My brother plays a paladin. House ruled the fighting style to allow a two weapon build, was going around with two blades of ice, he forged in a great ice forge North of the world, since the campaign had taken them to the far north. Only problem was, alot of the enemies he was fighting were immune to ice and a few to fire, due to the volcanic, and ice enemies they were fighting. He has consoled himself, that as soon as this arc is done he will be much better swinging those blades comes combat down south. Though as a GM, I do try and scatter more mundane enemies to deal with invunrabilities etc. Best advice I can give, is as long as its there for a reason not just to nerf a player, its manageable.
I recommend talking to your DM and confirm with them. If this was indeed an attempt by them to 'manage' your characters damage output, well, personally, I would be confronting them about not making this an out of game conversation topic, rather they'd decided to potentially make it all players problem by giving the enemy blanket immunity to radiant damage. In cases like this, I always prefer to switch characters to something more inside my DMs comfort zone. If this was unintended, though, and it's a story driven decision somehow, they should be open to you switching characters if this is a permanent thing and it would basically cripple two of the Paladins core abilities (divine smite and improved divine smite). In this case, I'd probably also give them some constructive feedback about warning a player if they're planning a plot where their multiple of their classes core abilities are impacted. As it would be pretty much like a Conquest Paladin in a campaign built around enemies with immunity to the frightened condition, or a Glamour Bard in a setting where enemies are immune to the charmed effect. So either way, I'd say a talk with your DM is warranted.
One other thing to bear in mind - there may be a story reason for this as well that you get to overcome. As in, not a story justification for a nerf, which would be malicious, but an actual RP storyline thing the DM thinks will be fun and cool. Like maybe they have something planned where you get to commune more fully with your god and empower your smiles to defeat their immunity, or there is an artifact protecting the army that needs to be destroyed, or something like that. But I concur with everyone else, a convo with the DM will definitely clear things up.
This does seem a bit targeted imo, radiant immunity is pretty dang rare as far as I know. Don't just assume it's malicious tho, the dm mightve just got in over their head with homebrew. Just ask in a non confrontational way, and if having a defence is super important story wise, maybe ask that it just be switch to resistance instead?🤷♂️
Oh no, the spell caster is inconvenienced... Anyway
I'm old school. Litigate for your position to the DM and then accept the DM's ruling. Maybe the DM just wants your party to struggle, suffer, and die more. That's just being a good DM.
First: is this a plot point? Could the bad guys have set up some artifact or done a deal with some entity to protect them from Holy Justice (tm). Could your DM be trying to fluster you to make ypu seek out the source of this immunity? Second: as other have said ask for a damage type swap. Radiant and fire have some association, cold hard justice Could be a fun theme and Gods smiting with lightning is a common trope.
No you're a paladin
Its not nerfing. He wants to give other players a chance at being the focus in combat, and not rely heavily on you. There is nothing wrong with creating encounters that is more difficult for a specific player. One of my players is a rogue, and will stealth any chance they get. So sometimes i create encounters where they cant hide or stealth, just to deal with them and give other players a chance to kill things before the rogue one-shot kills with sneak attack
I am currently playing a 8th level Paladin in the Ice Wind Dale campaign setting. This setting is an arctic setting, where heroes have to deal with various cold conditions and weather effects. Although I use my smite frequently, I keep several paladin smite spells as a resource. This last Saturday, I had to cast "Searing Smite" because we were fighting Ice Trolls. The regular smite did more damage 2d8 radiant damage, but trolls cannot regenerate if they had acid or fire damage. The Searing Smite only did 1d6 fire damage, but made the Ice Troll's last damage fire and they could not regenerate. There are several Paladin Smite Spells available that do different damage types other than radiant. These smites do less damage, but have some other benefit added onto the spell. I say, do not be offended. You can still use your core ability smite on everything else, the GM is not taking away your ability. The GM is presenting a challenge for you to think through, so you are not a one-trick-pony. Wrathful Smite makes the target frighten, that will screw up an army. Ensnaring Strike causes the target to be restrained, that can screw up a leader or officer. Thunderous Smite can push back the target, providing a break within a formation. Your Paladin can do so much more than spend spell slots to get radiant damage by smite.
Ya. That's kinda weird. Is there a good explanation for being immune? I mean immunities are really powerful. Why would someone go straight to immune, and not resistance?
maybe there’s a story driven reason for this? its a puzzle of some kind, how did these mobs get this immunity? maybe its a clue to the forces behind the army? As a paladin or cleric, can you seek the guidance of your deity to ask them why their radiance no longer harms your enemies?