Opinion piece, don't get mad plz.

I know paladins are super popular, but hear me out. They're my least favorite class in DnD by a long way and a large part of that is their bread and butter ability, smite. I've thought about this a lot and I think I finally landed on why it just doesn't feel right to me: it's nothing but guaranteed upside.

One of things I love about DnD is that no matter how powerful you are the dice can always say no to whatever you're attempting. Casting a spell on combat? You either roll to hot or the target(s) roll a save. Trying to hide as a rogue? Sure, you're likely to succeed but it's not guaranteed. Even if you do, your attack might not land and there goes your setup for your sneak attack. Flurry of blows? 2 attacks as a bonus action is nuts but you can still miss.

Smite has none of that. Sure, you can roll low damage but so can all the other things I mentioned. That fact that you just choose to expend a spell slot to smite on hit leads to very boring gameplay and almost no meaningful decision making. I dunno, I just feel like everything in DnD should have some kind of varience to it and be able to fail in some way.

Honestly, I think a small change to it would make me like it a lot more. Hell, even a saving throw for half would make it feel much better imo, and I'm saying that as a player who's played a paladin before and knows what those juicy smites feel like. I know I'm in the minority here, but yeah. The way smite works makes paladins pretty boring to play for me.