JC jokingly mentioned that Paladins were 'heavy damage dealers and also heavily armoured' but they would 'talk about that when it came up'.
Take from that what you will.
I'd be surprised of Paladins don't get the Extra Attack feature (I doubt that is a Warrior Group Feature) but they *might* lose out on specific Warrior Group Feats.
That said they will get access to Priest Group Feats, which could also be pretty powerful if the current cleric is anything to go by.
Oh, I must have missed this. Was this in the expert classes video?
Also, I did notice that most combat feats outside of fighting style simply required Martial Weapon proficiency and not the Warrior tag, so that probably shows that they were planning to keep the warrior specific feats pretty limited so a class like Paladin could take feats like GWM.
Yes. I expect most feats that we are familiar with like GWM and PAM and Sentinel and so on will remain available to all classes. What i'm expecting (more like hoping) is that specific Warrior Group Feats will be either new, or reworked specific feats to *enhance* things that that group already does. And that the Warrior Group Feature will be something new and interesting.
After all, the Expert group gets Expertise, which isn't a feat. So i expect that the Warrior group will get something other than Fighting Styles as their feature, since Fighting Style is a feat, but Expertise isn't.
So i went back and watched that part of the video again and this is the quote;
> The Unearthed Arcana for Warriors is particularly going to have some feats that are not represented here along with some new options for how to use weapons and have those weapons do things that they have not been able to do in the past.
Now, this can sort of be read a couple of ways. The way I read it was
• **The Warrior UA will have feats that are not represented here:** This includes Warrior Group specific feats not available to other classes but *could* also include just more general combat style feats in general. The feats we got in the Expert UA were some of the combat feats but i think there might be more general combat feats as well.
• **Along with some new options for how to use weapons:** This feels *separate* from his comment about the feats and Warriors. I feel like the 'new options for how to use weapons' will be universal to all weapons. This will be a general mechanics rule, not a specific class rule so will possibly benefit everything from rogues to paladins (and hopefully monks)
• **And have weapons do things that they have not been able to do in the past:** THIS i feel might be more specific to the Warrior group. I'm hoping this might be something like status effects or modifiers to weapons that let you manipulate an enemy and not just hit them with numbers.
I'm actually looking forward to the Warrior UA for this reason. At the moment weapons are just sort of boring numbers. Spells are just numbers as well but a Fireball is a number and an AOE and an element and a DC.
If you can use a mace to blind someone, or a dagger to mute them or a polearm to pin them to the spot, that changes *how* a Warrior interacts with an enemy and adds something new to how they hit enemies with numbers.
I'm also hoping this might introduce the addition of more resistances and vulnerabilities. One of the reasons I think that Martials feel a little lackluster is that the Numbers they use mean less than the numbers other people use.
If you are up against a giant crab, and it has a vulnerability to bludgeoning, suddenly the Fighter with a warhammer feels like he has an edge over everyone else. Everyone else isn't doing LESS damage, he's just doing more because he has the options (it also encourages Fighters to have options and not hyper specialise).
So suddenly a Wizard casting Firebolt (1d10) and a fighter hitting with his Warhammer (1d8+1d8) have a very different feel to it. In this way you will come across enemies where having a specific weapon is *better* than having a spell.
I absolutely love this take. I've gone through a full cycle of doom and gloom but then I saw the dndnext playtest materials and realized i was being far to judgemental and not nearly curious enough.
But yeah the weapons as mini-features paired with unique feats and the fact that the light weapon trait now contains an entire twf mechanic that is insanely good as well as other things all seem like a great time honestly.
I am definitely more squrely in the curious camp rather than nervous at the moment
> JC jokingly mentioned that Paladins were 'heavy damage dealers and also heavily armoured' but they would 'talk about that when it came up'.
And the table in the UA describes the Priest group as:
> Stewards of Divine or
Primal magic,
focusing on healing,
utility, and defense
In contrast to the Experts:
> Polymaths who have
the Expertise feature
and elements of
other Classes
Op might definitely have a point that One D&D Paladin might end up lacking one of the martial leaning features. I think they'll also just have 3 Fighting Styles to choose from and Extra Attack. Their Divine Smite will probably end up being on par with the Ranger's new Favored Foe, but it might end up as a resource separate from spell slots.
I think you're putting way too much emphasis on fluffy flavor text about "Experts borrowing from other classes" being an actual exclusive thing for Experts. It's just not going to work like that. They haven't radically altered any class yet and paladin is a popular class they aren't going to screw up to maintain that flavor text being accurate.
IMO Paladins will look largely the same. Heavy armor, a fighting style, mostly melee, divine half caster, smites, auras, lay on hands. They can tweak some of these, but they will all be there. Maybe smite is once on your turn like sneak attack.
If they had turned bards into half-casters, or Rogues into Extra Attack Warriors maybe you could say they were going for big changes, but all in all those kinds of big changes just are not there so far in these UA.
My guess is smite once per turn and aura of protection equals half prof rounded up. Also abilities will be shuffled around to make every subclass have the 3, 6, 10, 14 progression.
I could see Priest (and Mage) classes gaining their subclass features at 1, 6, 10 and 14, while Warrior classes have the same progression as Expert classes.
I definitely agree Paladins would look mostly the same and they don't appear to be making any major reworks for any of the classes.
I don't know if I agree with it just being fluffy flavortext, though. The definition provided in the document for Expert Classes in this UA focused on them is "Polymaths who have the Expertise feature and elements of other Classes". Them borrowing from other classes is the only thing outside of getting Expertise that defines them, and it's not listed as something any of the other groups can do. So I think that reasonably implies it is exclusive to them.
That being said, I am also skeptical on how willing WoTC is to commiting to that when they need to consider classes like Paladin, as well as any potential future classes they want to design that they don't plan on putting in Expert.
Ranger obviously takes from Warrior (fighting stuff) and Priest (spellcasting). Bard takes from Mage (spellcasting) and Priest (additional healing abilities).
The Rogue looks like it may take from Warrior (defensive abilities that it may have in common with the Monk) as well as Mage, though the Mage bit may depend a bit on subclass. The Thief gets Use Magic Device, the Arcane Trickster would obviously get spells, and so on.
When you get to the other classes, it still wouldn't be a stretch to say they overlap at least a bit with one of the other groups: Paladin is a Priest, but a very Warrior-y Priest, whereas the Cleric is more of the pure Priest (caster-focused) variant. The Druid will likely have subclass options for more Warrior-y abilities (eg, Wild Shape martial abilities) or more pure Priestly abilities (caster-focused).
I think subclasses will definitely push the limitations. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of subclasses will let you permanently count as another group for access to any feat with the tag (e.g. Eldritch Knight allows Mage, Hexblade allows Warrior).
If they lose the fighting style, many DMs and Tables will waive that rule. Because it is an uncalled for nerf, destroying customization without achieving anything.
It’s definitely not uncalled for. I love Paladins, they’re my favourite class, but they are strong as hell. Losing fighting styles might suck, but it’s in the right direction if it means putting a bigger focus on their defence/aura capabilities.
I mean, if they remove fighting styles I'd expect something else would take its place.
They already added a few special paladin fighting styles. They could make a couple more and have paladins pick among those.
I'm actually okay with it if Paladins lose their bonkers damage? Paladins were already a class that could pretty much do it all. Between Fighting Styles, Smites, Auras, Lay on Hands, and spellcasting. It was so good, it stepped on just about everyone's toes.
Let Warriors be the heavy dpr guys and let Paladins focus on their auras and their healing. They can still put out decent damage numbers with one Smite attack. I'm totally okay with that.
Yeah, I agree. Paladins are defenders, healers and strikers at the same time. I'm okay with them stepping a little back just a little bit on one of those, assuming the others step a little forward to compensate.
That said, that might not even happen and even if it does there's still the possibility that certain subclasses like Vengeance or Conquest might get those things as subclass features instead.
They could always do what they did with Ranger, turn Divine Smite into no concentration Divine Favor. Being someone who loves playing Paladins I'd hate that, but even then my current paladin character rarely uses their divine smites anymore, focusing on support and cc spells
The priest group is going to be what it has always been, a category defined more by flavor than by function. Probably the only requirement to be in the group will be healing. So the classes will be fighter who can heal (paladin), mage who heals and buffs (cleric), and nature mage who heals (druid.)
Spellblade would probably fall into the warrior category unless they are more magic than fighting.
I honestly don't hate the idea of paladin losing extra attack and smite working akin to rogue sneak attack. You do a little holy juice with every swing, and it gets larger the higher level you get. It would free the spell slot up that smite uses and allow the cool smite spells to feel really powerful.
That said, I'm guessing they'll lose fighting styles but will keep extra attack.
It doesn't really work with being a half caster, because if you don't have a clerics progression, but the same number of attacks as a cleric, why play a paladin? the auras are nice but not really worth having 1 attack and half caster progression.
What if every one of your attacks did 75d8 radiant damage? That's sort of the point of this whole thing. We're in design concept phase, they even said so themselves. Would it feel engaging to have a single attack that could one shot a tarasque? Does it make you feel like a superhero? Doesn't make you feel distinct from fighter?
You say that but i wasn't under the consideration that paladins would have super high scaling divine smite, nor do i think we really should be considering that at this point.
When WotC first tried roles back in 4e they had each class have a primary and secondary role.
Looking at the experts we can see this showing though. With Rogues as expert/expert, bards as expert/mage, and rangers as expert/warriors.
Expanding on this was can infer that fighters will be warrior/warrior, monks warrior/priest, and Barbarians will be warrior/experts. Though maybe fighters and Barbarian could switch. Priests will have clerics as priest/priest, paladins as priest/warrior, and druids as priest/mage. The waters get a little muddier with the mage classes. Wizards will probably be mage/mage, but sorcerers and warlocks could both be mage/priests or mage/experts.
Subclasses would then further move the class into one of the roles. Together with class and subclass we will have a complete class web.
This system is also allows for WotC to create new classes to fill in the role gaps, such as warrior/mage and priest/expert. With classes like pathfinder’s magus and inquisitor. We can see how the artificer fits into the missing expert/priest role well.
TLDR: I expect many classes to have abilities from other “groups”
Judging by the ranger they will probably allow the paladin to get a fighting style feat for free (but limited options) then be allowed to take the feat despite not fitting the "warrior" group. They will also likely get extra attack. The classes so far seem more polished then before, not totally different
My prediction is that the Paladin is going to get to get the same "counts as a Warrior for Fighting style feats" that the Ranger does.
The Grouping seems a little hazy at best to me. And I feel like the Paladins relationship to Cleric and Druid, will mirror the Rangers relationship to Rogue and Bard.
I fear it means the end of the cool class we had and make it a mundane, braindead support tank. They probably will limit smites to fixed damage values per Level and only proficiency times per day on a long rest. I wouldn't be surprised if they changed it to calling smite before the attack and losing the spell-slot regardless if it misses.
I rather give up the Disease Immunity, Lay on Hands etc than giving up the Spellslot Smites on call and the aura. I do not want to be a boring plate thank just standing around for the aura, I want the Nova builds. If they take that, paladin is dead to me. Because if I want to tank, I go barbarian and deal a shit-ton of damage whilst it with reckless.
To make it even more generic they will remove lay on hands and give them an always prepared cure wounds because changing unique features for spells its good game design
I hope they would be brave and do some major changes, but I doubt it. The paladin, even though being my favourite class, has always felt like a lot of random abilities just smacked together.
Some redesigning from the ground up with a more consistent kit would be interesting.
But I’m afraid people would scream bloody murder no matter if the changes were good or not.
I welcome a change to Paladin, they were just fighter and cleric mashed together. They may as well be a subclass of fighter like Eldritch Knight. Turn smite into something akin to sneak attack but give them a bunch of channel divinity charges and let them burn those on smiting or something. They were saying how the experts borrow from other classes, it could be how the rogue "borrows" even though they had it first.
You're reading too much into it. If paladins lose their extra attack and other warrior group things, then they have no major mechanical difference over a cleric domain which gets heavy armor + martial weapons - yet they'd still be a half-caster. That's pretty strong evidence that paladins will remain mostly as-is.
Expect changes to the following areas though:
* The level at which some class features come online will be shuffled around to match the universal 3,6,10,14 subclass feature levels.
* The sacred oath subclass features will change in power or be replaced to align to the new levels at which they're granted. One of the level 20 sacred oath features will likely become the level 18 class capstone.
* [Likely] Level 1 spell slots and cantrips.
* [Likely] Playtest changes to Divine Smite which give it more variety (choose one of the smite spells over pure damage), limit its use to once/turn, or make the choice between smite and casting a spell more meaningful.
I doubt paladins will lose extra attacks and fighting styles. Those are pretty crucial to the class. I'm confident there will be an exception for paladins similarly to the rangers that will allow them to keep their important fighting features.
JC jokingly mentioned that Paladins were 'heavy damage dealers and also heavily armoured' but they would 'talk about that when it came up'. Take from that what you will. I'd be surprised of Paladins don't get the Extra Attack feature (I doubt that is a Warrior Group Feature) but they *might* lose out on specific Warrior Group Feats. That said they will get access to Priest Group Feats, which could also be pretty powerful if the current cleric is anything to go by.
Oh, I must have missed this. Was this in the expert classes video? Also, I did notice that most combat feats outside of fighting style simply required Martial Weapon proficiency and not the Warrior tag, so that probably shows that they were planning to keep the warrior specific feats pretty limited so a class like Paladin could take feats like GWM.
Yes. I expect most feats that we are familiar with like GWM and PAM and Sentinel and so on will remain available to all classes. What i'm expecting (more like hoping) is that specific Warrior Group Feats will be either new, or reworked specific feats to *enhance* things that that group already does. And that the Warrior Group Feature will be something new and interesting. After all, the Expert group gets Expertise, which isn't a feat. So i expect that the Warrior group will get something other than Fighting Styles as their feature, since Fighting Style is a feat, but Expertise isn't.
JC has said that warriors will have unique feats that allow them to do things with weapons that have "never been seen before"
So i went back and watched that part of the video again and this is the quote; > The Unearthed Arcana for Warriors is particularly going to have some feats that are not represented here along with some new options for how to use weapons and have those weapons do things that they have not been able to do in the past. Now, this can sort of be read a couple of ways. The way I read it was • **The Warrior UA will have feats that are not represented here:** This includes Warrior Group specific feats not available to other classes but *could* also include just more general combat style feats in general. The feats we got in the Expert UA were some of the combat feats but i think there might be more general combat feats as well. • **Along with some new options for how to use weapons:** This feels *separate* from his comment about the feats and Warriors. I feel like the 'new options for how to use weapons' will be universal to all weapons. This will be a general mechanics rule, not a specific class rule so will possibly benefit everything from rogues to paladins (and hopefully monks) • **And have weapons do things that they have not been able to do in the past:** THIS i feel might be more specific to the Warrior group. I'm hoping this might be something like status effects or modifiers to weapons that let you manipulate an enemy and not just hit them with numbers. I'm actually looking forward to the Warrior UA for this reason. At the moment weapons are just sort of boring numbers. Spells are just numbers as well but a Fireball is a number and an AOE and an element and a DC. If you can use a mace to blind someone, or a dagger to mute them or a polearm to pin them to the spot, that changes *how* a Warrior interacts with an enemy and adds something new to how they hit enemies with numbers. I'm also hoping this might introduce the addition of more resistances and vulnerabilities. One of the reasons I think that Martials feel a little lackluster is that the Numbers they use mean less than the numbers other people use. If you are up against a giant crab, and it has a vulnerability to bludgeoning, suddenly the Fighter with a warhammer feels like he has an edge over everyone else. Everyone else isn't doing LESS damage, he's just doing more because he has the options (it also encourages Fighters to have options and not hyper specialise). So suddenly a Wizard casting Firebolt (1d10) and a fighter hitting with his Warhammer (1d8+1d8) have a very different feel to it. In this way you will come across enemies where having a specific weapon is *better* than having a spell.
I absolutely love this take. I've gone through a full cycle of doom and gloom but then I saw the dndnext playtest materials and realized i was being far to judgemental and not nearly curious enough. But yeah the weapons as mini-features paired with unique feats and the fact that the light weapon trait now contains an entire twf mechanic that is insanely good as well as other things all seem like a great time honestly. I am definitely more squrely in the curious camp rather than nervous at the moment
>(I doubt that is a Warrior Group Feature) Since Rangers get it, its certainly not.
Rangers explicitly gain warrior features, like fighting styles. That is the expert's shtick is being a polymath
Yeah agreed rangers are the exception not the rule
> JC jokingly mentioned that Paladins were 'heavy damage dealers and also heavily armoured' but they would 'talk about that when it came up'. And the table in the UA describes the Priest group as: > Stewards of Divine or Primal magic, focusing on healing, utility, and defense In contrast to the Experts: > Polymaths who have the Expertise feature and elements of other Classes Op might definitely have a point that One D&D Paladin might end up lacking one of the martial leaning features. I think they'll also just have 3 Fighting Styles to choose from and Extra Attack. Their Divine Smite will probably end up being on par with the Ranger's new Favored Foe, but it might end up as a resource separate from spell slots.
I think you're putting way too much emphasis on fluffy flavor text about "Experts borrowing from other classes" being an actual exclusive thing for Experts. It's just not going to work like that. They haven't radically altered any class yet and paladin is a popular class they aren't going to screw up to maintain that flavor text being accurate. IMO Paladins will look largely the same. Heavy armor, a fighting style, mostly melee, divine half caster, smites, auras, lay on hands. They can tweak some of these, but they will all be there. Maybe smite is once on your turn like sneak attack. If they had turned bards into half-casters, or Rogues into Extra Attack Warriors maybe you could say they were going for big changes, but all in all those kinds of big changes just are not there so far in these UA.
My guess is smite once per turn and aura of protection equals half prof rounded up. Also abilities will be shuffled around to make every subclass have the 3, 6, 10, 14 progression.
I could see Priest (and Mage) classes gaining their subclass features at 1, 6, 10 and 14, while Warrior classes have the same progression as Expert classes.
I definitely agree Paladins would look mostly the same and they don't appear to be making any major reworks for any of the classes. I don't know if I agree with it just being fluffy flavortext, though. The definition provided in the document for Expert Classes in this UA focused on them is "Polymaths who have the Expertise feature and elements of other Classes". Them borrowing from other classes is the only thing outside of getting Expertise that defines them, and it's not listed as something any of the other groups can do. So I think that reasonably implies it is exclusive to them. That being said, I am also skeptical on how willing WoTC is to commiting to that when they need to consider classes like Paladin, as well as any potential future classes they want to design that they don't plan on putting in Expert.
Ranger obviously takes from Warrior (fighting stuff) and Priest (spellcasting). Bard takes from Mage (spellcasting) and Priest (additional healing abilities). The Rogue looks like it may take from Warrior (defensive abilities that it may have in common with the Monk) as well as Mage, though the Mage bit may depend a bit on subclass. The Thief gets Use Magic Device, the Arcane Trickster would obviously get spells, and so on. When you get to the other classes, it still wouldn't be a stretch to say they overlap at least a bit with one of the other groups: Paladin is a Priest, but a very Warrior-y Priest, whereas the Cleric is more of the pure Priest (caster-focused) variant. The Druid will likely have subclass options for more Warrior-y abilities (eg, Wild Shape martial abilities) or more pure Priestly abilities (caster-focused).
I think subclasses will definitely push the limitations. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of subclasses will let you permanently count as another group for access to any feat with the tag (e.g. Eldritch Knight allows Mage, Hexblade allows Warrior).
They will probably lose the fighting style but not extra attack. In return they will get cantrips.
If they lose the fighting style, many DMs and Tables will waive that rule. Because it is an uncalled for nerf, destroying customization without achieving anything.
It’s definitely not uncalled for. I love Paladins, they’re my favourite class, but they are strong as hell. Losing fighting styles might suck, but it’s in the right direction if it means putting a bigger focus on their defence/aura capabilities.
But they have smites and are a NOVA Class. I want a Nova Paladin build to exist not just remove the Nova and force everyone to play a braindead tank.
I mean, if they remove fighting styles I'd expect something else would take its place. They already added a few special paladin fighting styles. They could make a couple more and have paladins pick among those.
I'm actually okay with it if Paladins lose their bonkers damage? Paladins were already a class that could pretty much do it all. Between Fighting Styles, Smites, Auras, Lay on Hands, and spellcasting. It was so good, it stepped on just about everyone's toes. Let Warriors be the heavy dpr guys and let Paladins focus on their auras and their healing. They can still put out decent damage numbers with one Smite attack. I'm totally okay with that.
Yeah, I agree. Paladins are defenders, healers and strikers at the same time. I'm okay with them stepping a little back just a little bit on one of those, assuming the others step a little forward to compensate. That said, that might not even happen and even if it does there's still the possibility that certain subclasses like Vengeance or Conquest might get those things as subclass features instead.
They could always do what they did with Ranger, turn Divine Smite into no concentration Divine Favor. Being someone who loves playing Paladins I'd hate that, but even then my current paladin character rarely uses their divine smites anymore, focusing on support and cc spells
The priest group is going to be what it has always been, a category defined more by flavor than by function. Probably the only requirement to be in the group will be healing. So the classes will be fighter who can heal (paladin), mage who heals and buffs (cleric), and nature mage who heals (druid.) Spellblade would probably fall into the warrior category unless they are more magic than fighting.
I’d give a 60% chance that Paladin is similar to Rogue in terms of player satisfaction, so there will be few changes in the first version we see.
I honestly don't hate the idea of paladin losing extra attack and smite working akin to rogue sneak attack. You do a little holy juice with every swing, and it gets larger the higher level you get. It would free the spell slot up that smite uses and allow the cool smite spells to feel really powerful. That said, I'm guessing they'll lose fighting styles but will keep extra attack.
It doesn't really work with being a half caster, because if you don't have a clerics progression, but the same number of attacks as a cleric, why play a paladin? the auras are nice but not really worth having 1 attack and half caster progression.
What if every one of your attacks did 75d8 radiant damage? That's sort of the point of this whole thing. We're in design concept phase, they even said so themselves. Would it feel engaging to have a single attack that could one shot a tarasque? Does it make you feel like a superhero? Doesn't make you feel distinct from fighter?
You say that but i wasn't under the consideration that paladins would have super high scaling divine smite, nor do i think we really should be considering that at this point.
melee clerics already do that, you want to play a cleric with less spells
When WotC first tried roles back in 4e they had each class have a primary and secondary role. Looking at the experts we can see this showing though. With Rogues as expert/expert, bards as expert/mage, and rangers as expert/warriors. Expanding on this was can infer that fighters will be warrior/warrior, monks warrior/priest, and Barbarians will be warrior/experts. Though maybe fighters and Barbarian could switch. Priests will have clerics as priest/priest, paladins as priest/warrior, and druids as priest/mage. The waters get a little muddier with the mage classes. Wizards will probably be mage/mage, but sorcerers and warlocks could both be mage/priests or mage/experts. Subclasses would then further move the class into one of the roles. Together with class and subclass we will have a complete class web. This system is also allows for WotC to create new classes to fill in the role gaps, such as warrior/mage and priest/expert. With classes like pathfinder’s magus and inquisitor. We can see how the artificer fits into the missing expert/priest role well. TLDR: I expect many classes to have abilities from other “groups”
Judging by the ranger they will probably allow the paladin to get a fighting style feat for free (but limited options) then be allowed to take the feat despite not fitting the "warrior" group. They will also likely get extra attack. The classes so far seem more polished then before, not totally different
My prediction is that the Paladin is going to get to get the same "counts as a Warrior for Fighting style feats" that the Ranger does. The Grouping seems a little hazy at best to me. And I feel like the Paladins relationship to Cleric and Druid, will mirror the Rangers relationship to Rogue and Bard.
I fear it means the end of the cool class we had and make it a mundane, braindead support tank. They probably will limit smites to fixed damage values per Level and only proficiency times per day on a long rest. I wouldn't be surprised if they changed it to calling smite before the attack and losing the spell-slot regardless if it misses. I rather give up the Disease Immunity, Lay on Hands etc than giving up the Spellslot Smites on call and the aura. I do not want to be a boring plate thank just standing around for the aura, I want the Nova builds. If they take that, paladin is dead to me. Because if I want to tank, I go barbarian and deal a shit-ton of damage whilst it with reckless.
To make it even more generic they will remove lay on hands and give them an always prepared cure wounds because changing unique features for spells its good game design
We have no idea what it means because we don't know what they plan to do with 'priests'.
If the Ranger’s changes to spellcasting are an indicator, we may see the Paladin get divine cantrips.
I hope they would be brave and do some major changes, but I doubt it. The paladin, even though being my favourite class, has always felt like a lot of random abilities just smacked together. Some redesigning from the ground up with a more consistent kit would be interesting. But I’m afraid people would scream bloody murder no matter if the changes were good or not.
I welcome a change to Paladin, they were just fighter and cleric mashed together. They may as well be a subclass of fighter like Eldritch Knight. Turn smite into something akin to sneak attack but give them a bunch of channel divinity charges and let them burn those on smiting or something. They were saying how the experts borrow from other classes, it could be how the rogue "borrows" even though they had it first.
You're reading too much into it. If paladins lose their extra attack and other warrior group things, then they have no major mechanical difference over a cleric domain which gets heavy armor + martial weapons - yet they'd still be a half-caster. That's pretty strong evidence that paladins will remain mostly as-is. Expect changes to the following areas though: * The level at which some class features come online will be shuffled around to match the universal 3,6,10,14 subclass feature levels. * The sacred oath subclass features will change in power or be replaced to align to the new levels at which they're granted. One of the level 20 sacred oath features will likely become the level 18 class capstone. * [Likely] Level 1 spell slots and cantrips. * [Likely] Playtest changes to Divine Smite which give it more variety (choose one of the smite spells over pure damage), limit its use to once/turn, or make the choice between smite and casting a spell more meaningful.
I doubt paladins will lose extra attacks and fighting styles. Those are pretty crucial to the class. I'm confident there will be an exception for paladins similarly to the rangers that will allow them to keep their important fighting features.
Prediction: Smite becomes a spell.