Flame Blade and Moon Blade

[metaquad4]

Flame Blade, a while ago, was nerfed. It used to deal your full round in attacks, and was changed to 1 attack/round. I understand why this change was carried out, but it really did move the spell from "can be used" to "should never be used".

I suggest that Flame Blade, instead of getting its full round of attacks or 1 attack per round, should get up to 3 attacks in a round. I think that could be a happy medium that'll make the spell useful without being TOO powerful.

Moon Blade, I think is in a similar state. However, since it does do magic damage, I suggest that Moon Blade get 2 attacks per round instead of 1 attack per round.

[Sun Wukong]

Or just, you know, 2/3 of your attacks rounded down like it is with Northlander Hewing.

[metaquad4]

That'd work for Flame Blade, yeah. 1/3 for Moonblade, then. Rounded down.

[LuvHandles]

Moon blade was recently overhauled and is pretty good. I updated the moon blade page on the wiki with the details.

I know flame blade works a bit differently than moon blade with regards to its bonuses, but I've never played a charater that could create one so all I know is third hand. But maybe changing it to be something similar to what moon blade is now might be good?

[metaquad4]

It doesn't appear to be changed any? It is positive energy damage apparently though! Making it even stronger.

[LuvHandles]

It creates a real blade so now you get your full round of attacks instead of 1 per round.

[metaquad4]

For real? Awesome! I mean, if Moon Blade gets that, Flame Blade should -defiantly- get that for sure. I'm in.

[Sun Wukong]

Are the attacks made as regular attacks or melee touch attacks?

[metaquad4]

Should still be touch attacks. So sayeth the wiki/description, aye?

[LuvHandles]

So I think the devs wanted to tweak moon blade a bit more before deciding if they want to make the change to flame blade. I think moon blade is perfect now but there are probably different considerations that need to be taken into account for flame blade.

The attacks are weird. You make a melee attack animation and roll which cannot hit. Then a split second later you perform a melee touch attack for each of the normal attacks. When it's laggy the touch attacks start to lag and i think they sometimes get dropped (hard to say for sure).

[metaquad4]

Well, flameblade is essentially a weaker version of the same spell. It does 1d8+10 (less damage) fire damage (easier to resist) and has no secondary effect. On the other hand, it doesn't require a specific domain/deity to pick it up too. Though, it does require druid/spirit shaman.

[dedude]

Moon Blade is probably as good as it gets with regards to the attack de-sync issue. I don't see any other way of implementing that incorporeal blade in NWN while maintaining the feel of melee combat.

When Moon Blade has had some time to settle with players, and there are no outstanding issues with it, I will probably move Flame Blade to the same system.

[metaquad4]

That sounds really good! It'll be nice to have a reason to use flame blade again.

[Nemni]

I think it's great that these blades get a do-over, as currently flame blade is useless. But I wonder if the new moonblade isn't too powerful. 39 unresistable positive energy damage against undead on easy to hit touch attacks, several times a round, for the cost of a single spell. Plus spell failure. Am I missing something here, because it looks really strong for almost no cost.

Flame blade is far weaker even if it did allow more attacks / round than the single attack it gives now.

[metaquad4]

That is true.

Flame Blade is 1d8+10 (Cap) fire damage.

Moon blade is 1d8+15 (Cap) and 2d8+30 (Cap vs Undead) positive energy (can't be resisted) damage. Plus, moonblade inflicts 20% Spell failure+Damage Dealt. Does that spell failure stack, I wonder? Most forms of spell failure in the game do seem to stack.

However, if we are keen on keeping moon blade the way it is (personally, I am. I do detest nerfs, and there ARE ways for a deft player to counter moonblade and for NPCs to do so ofc). . .

Flame Blade could get a damage boost, and could deal 1d8+25 (1d8+CL to a max of 25) damage instead. It is fire damage, so it is easily resisted (unlike moonblade's positive energy damage). Not to mention, a few mobs have natural fire DR that'll cut that damage quite a bit. And it has no secondary effect as well.

OR

Flame Blade could go to 1d8+15 damage (1d8+CL to a max of 15) and gain a secondary effect where it deals 10 (CL, to a max of 10) fire damage every round for 3 rounds. This'll be kinda a lateral move to the above, because even fire DR 5 would be enough to cut the damage up (due to more of it being present in the DOT), but against none fire DR individuals it could be more devastating (assuming no spells are involved).


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Out of curiosity, is the old bug still present with the new moonblade/soon to be flameblade where any amount of SR will instantly cause the blade to fail? That was a bug I found to be problematic with the old forms.