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The specific example I'm looking at here is: you are a Paladin 2/Warlock 5 and snagged Eldritch Smite from XGTE as your 5th level Warlock Invocation.

This gives you access to both...

Divine Smite

Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon’s damage. The extra damage is 2d8 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d8 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an undead or a fiend.

and

Eldritch Smite

Prerequisite: 5th level, Pact of the Blade feature

Once per turn when you hit a creature with your pact weapon, you can expend a warlock spell slot to deal an extra 1d8 force damage to the target, plus another 1d8 per level of the spell slot, and you can knock the target prone if it is Huge or smaller.

When I hit a target with an attack, can I set them both off at the same time, letting me burn two spell slots to use both features to boost my damage?

As was specified here, Divine Smite is not treated as a spellcasting, so it doesn't count towards the 'One Spell Per Round' rule. Presumably, neither would Eldritch Smite.

As far as I can tell, this appears to be a legal way to burn a ton of resources at once to generate a massive burst of damage. Am I correct? Can these two like-features be used simultaneously?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Btw, there is no "One Spell Per Round Rule". Rather, there is a very specific rule that is only triggered if a spell is cast as a bonus action. Otherwise, that rule has no bearing. For what it's worth, that rule leads to a lot of nonsense due to how it was written. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nick Brown
    Commented Mar 25, 2018 at 18:11

2 Answers 2

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Yes, they stack perfectly well.

Neither ability requires an action to use, so as long as you hit with a melee weapon attack that happens to use your pact weapon you can use both. The only exception is that Eldritch Smite can only be used once per turn, while Divine Smite can be used as many times as you have melee weapon attacks.

If the intent was to use only one at a time it would be called out in the text or require a bonus action or something else that is clearly not the case here.

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It hasn't been clarified yet, but based on tweets about smite and things like sneak attack and Hunters Mark, and the fact the text doesn't forbid it, then I'd assume it legal.

Jeremy Crawford on Smite + Hunter's Mark

Yes, that's possible.

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/636293802752217088

Stacking Smites:

A paladin can use Divine Smite on the same weapon attack that benefits from a smite spell like wrathful smite.

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/709532732548734977

So this should stack as well.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Divine Smite (+5d8 using 5th level spell, +1d8 if undead/demon), Eldritch Smite (warlock slots only, up to +6d8), Hunter's Mark (+1d6) for +12d8+1d6 on an undead/demon (avg +57.5). Eldrich can only be done 1/turn, others can repeat even in the same attack action; with 2 attacks +18d8+2d6 = +88 average (plus raw damage from blows) \$\endgroup\$
    – Yakk
    Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 21:32
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    \$\begingroup\$ Yes, it is a ton of damage that can be done in a single attack if you make the right character, but they spend very limited and valuable resources to do it. The game designers don't mind large spikes in damage, but are more careful over things that can be repeated every attacked. I think Mearls tweeted about that some time ago. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Nov 19, 2017 at 1:48

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