Why Paladins Are The Biggest Difference Between D&D & Pathfinder

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Paladins are the quintessential knights in shining armor in both and. They are typically seen wearing heavy armor and wielding a sword and shield, but they are ideal on the frontlines. However, since 2009, Paizo has been nudging Paladins to be more than just shining defenders. The divergence came from reworking Smite Evil — the previous iteration of ’s Divine Smite — to trigger at any range. Compared to, many Paladins rely on archery, hyper-focus on spell casting, or stop a fight from even breaking out.

Wizards of The Cost has made some recent changes to give more options, including updating the 2024 rules to let Paladins take the archery fighting style. However, this is a small step over the course of nearly 50 years of identical Paladin tropes. It is also far too late for D&D content that was previously released, including the Paladin class in and the character Xenk Yender from .

Thanks to ’ open gaming license, Paizo made the first addition of using 3e rules as a basis. Many features were the same, like class and spell names, but many features were greatly altered in. The classic melee Smite Evil was one of the most drastic:

Once per day, a Paladin can call out to the powers of good to aid her in her struggle against evil. As a swift action, the Paladin chooses one target within sight to smite. If this target is evil, the Paladin adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack rolls and adds her Paladin level to all damage rolls made against the target of her smite. The smite evil effect remains until the target of the smite is dead or the next time the Paladin rests and regains her uses of this ability.

Several big departures took place with this description. First, the Smite remains in effect until the target is defeated, making it last much longer. But more importantly, the restriction on melee was removed. This meant Smite Evil now worked with bows, crossbows, slings, guns, and anything else a Paladin could shoot.

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