Shouldn't a spell like Holy Sword be doing good damage?

[Slominator]

Instead of the current +1 holy bonus to enhancement and +1 threat range and critical weapon multiplier what if Holy Sword did good damage instead? Say 2d6 per hit with an additional 1d6 per character level on critical with the critical damage scaling with positive spell power (does not work with Maximize, ect.).

Seems like it would bring the damage down to more balanced levels and would also make the Paladin feel a bit more like the holy warrior combating evil like they are traditionally. The damage could also be easily fine tuned if it's too much or not enough, much easier to adjust than it is now.

This idea has been running through my head for a couple days now and I finally figured I'd share it.

[RobbinB]

Instead of the current +1 holy bonus to enhancement and +1 threat range and critical weapon multiplier what if Holy Sword did good damage instead? Say 2d6 per hit with an additional 1d6 per character level on critical with the critical damage scaling with positive spell power (does not work with Maximize, ect.).

Seems like it would bring the damage down to more balanced levels and would also make the Paladin feel a bit more like the holy warrior combating evil like they are traditionally. The damage could also be easily fine tuned if it's too much or not enough, much easier to adjust than it is now.

This idea has been running through my head for a couple days now and I finally figured I'd share it.

How would you equalize the greater # hits with twf or swf vs thf?

[SirValentine]

Instead of the current +1 holy bonus to enhancement and +1 threat range and critical weapon multiplier what if Holy Sword did good damage instead? Say 2d6 per hit with an additional 1d6 per character level on critical with the critical damage scaling with positive spell power

It is weird how a "Holy" weapon via the spell doesn't even break Good DR.

Note that if it is Good damage, it the appropriate spell power would be Alignment, not Positive.

[unbongwah]

The one downside to the HS changes is we lost easy access to DR breakers, esp. for newbies. Considering the huge DPS bonus you get from HS now, though, I consider it more than a fair tradeoff; particularly since you can gain good DR from KotC capstone or LG from Blessed Blades (DC).

Plus one of the big complaints pre-U23 was that pallies were too focused on fighting evil targets; so it's a little ironic to see someone complaining they lost their focus on fighting evil targets. Can't please all the players all the time, I guess...

[Slominator]

It is weird how a "Holy" weapon via the spell doesn't even break Good DR.

Note that if it is Good damage, it the appropriate spell power would be Alignment, not Positive.

It could use whatever the devs want for spell power. Consecration in the Divine Crusader tree has good damage that scales with fire spell power. I picked positive because I think newer players would have easier access to positive spell power than alignment with less investment needed.

I think it would be great if the spell enabled good DR breaking. The numbers could easily be adjusted down with that change. Probably 1d6 per hit and 1d3 on critical would be more than enough damage with being able to bypass good DR.

@RobbinB - I don't really think it'd be too much of an issue. Sure TWF and SWF do more quite a bit more single target dps but against multiple targets they would still fall behind in damage with THF.

[Grailhawk]

IMO Holy Sword needs to be swapped with KotC cores.
Holy Sword: +7d6 light damage and the weapon is good aligned
KoTC Core 18: +1 Crit Multiplier
KoTC Core 20: +1 Crit Threat

Fixes the one big issue left with holy sword and that's all the 15/5 builds

[Enoach]

Instead of the current +1 holy bonus to enhancement and +1 threat range and critical weapon multiplier what if Holy Sword did good damage instead? Say 2d6 per hit with an additional 1d6 per character level on critical with the critical damage scaling with positive spell power (does not work with Maximize, ect.).

Seems like it would bring the damage down to more balanced levels and would also make the Paladin feel a bit more like the holy warrior combating evil like they are traditionally. The damage could also be easily fine tuned if it's too much or not enough, much easier to adjust than it is now.

This idea has been running through my head for a couple days now and I finally figured I'd share it.

Before the Holy Sword spell was modified to what we have today this spell it worked differently.

First it was limited to a list of Blessed Cold Iron Weapon spell components (so did not cover all weapons but also was not limited to swords)
What this spell did was made a weapon of the type of the spell component used
+5 Enhancement
Cold Iron/Silver
Holy Burst
Protection from Evil Buff

Initially weapon dropped upon exiting quest, this was changed to being removed when a player logged out. This was a great ability until a paladin had a better weapon.


This allowed the weapon to bypass silver/cold iron/good DR

I'm not 100% sure why they simply did not change the spell to not create its own weapon but to buff the weapon in the paladin's hand. I speculate that doing so would have invalidated the KoTC Capstone of Weapons of Good as adding Good to a weapon would already be covered.

Now while I like the changes they have made to the spell I would have been happy with the change if it simply was a weapon buff version of what it was originally. It would have needed to have the +5 to Enhancement adjusted, maybe something along the lines of +1 stacking per 3 Levels above 14 (maxing at +3)

[SirValentine]

It could use whatever the devs want for spell power.

Yes, the devs are free do all sorts of things that make no sense if they really want to.

Consecration in the Divine Crusader tree has good damage that scales with fire spell power.

That's not quite a lie, but it's deliberately misleading. Consecration uses Fire spell power...and does both Fire and Good damage.

If something does Alignment damage, and only Alignment damage, which is what you proposed, having it randomly use some unrelated spell power, instead of Alignment spell power, makes no sense.

[FranOhmsford]

IMO Holy Sword needs to be swapped with KotC cores.
Holy Sword: +7d6 light damage and the weapon is good aligned
KoTC Core 18: +1 Crit Multiplier
KoTC Core 20: +1 Crit Threat

Fixes the one big issue left with holy sword and that's all the 15/5 builds

It also hurts Sacred Defenders and Vanguards unnecessarily.