Divine Smite crit discussion
Last week we were gaming, I was playing my paladin (2)/ warlock (5) and we were in combat with Strahd. I landed a critical hit on him with my greatsword and got really excited. However, my excitement deflated a little when the DM said, I couldn’t roll again on the divine smite or the thunderous smite damage I used in tandem with the hit. He did however let me roll again for the divine favor and weapon damage. (Which looking back on it, the divine favor should have dropped once I cast thunderous smite due to both spells being concentration spells, an oversight by both myself and the DM.) I should also mention he has a house rule for crits; If you crit you max the damage dice and THEN you get to roll again on your damage. Which is very generous, except he wouldn’t allow it for divine or thunderous smite. A few players at the table side eyed him on this ruling and felt like I got cheated. Seeing as how he only applies this rule for smites. AFAIK he doesn’t institute this ruling for other classes that also do burst damage. While I did agree with my table mates, it felt unfair and a little anticlimactic, I accepted the ruling and went on. I did ask why, and his response was kind of dismissive. Something along the lines of, it’s not fair to Crit and then add on a smite to make it beefier. I’m paraphrasing of course, but that’s pretty close to what I remember him saying.
Mind you this is not a complaint post, I am ok with the ruling it just got me thinking. I’m interested in seeing what the rest of the community thinks and what house rules you all have to reel in insane damage modifiers that can break over double digits? Do you have house rules for that? Do you just beef up the enemies? I personally think a better reasoning for scaling back burst damage would be less about fairness, and more about making success still attainable, but just enough out of player reach, making the end result more satisfying and challenging. Or just stick to RAW at that point.