small tweak to pally deffaning clang spell

[Aarkon Draco]

the spell has be updated to have increased damage with SF feats however it does not stack with weapons with any sonic damage on them is there a way to allow it to stack as a good number of the higher end weapons have sonic damage on them ( lumi swords ect)

[Yonwe]

The elemental damage properties granted a weapon by spells are basically temporary applied versions of the same properties used by those in the creator; it's like casting a +5 Greater Magic Weapon on a sword which already has a +7 enhancement bonus. While it'd be nice to add a wee bit more damage to prevent spells from being useless, there's both this engine feature to contend with, and the overall desire to keep low-level spells from being necessary at high epics; if we increase the amount of damage put out by every swing of a weapon, we need to increase the HP of enemies a little bit to maintain the same difficulty, and that makes it harder on those who don't have the same spells all the time.

[Aarkon Draco]

while i agree with the spirit of your reply yonwe the fact that deff clang is one of the most useful pally spells and is made useless by weapons with sonic damage. however there is a simpler fix wich is to add more evil creatures in the higher levels so that spells like holy sword can be effective and smites for that matter. pre epic levels are no problem as nearly the whole mtn trail ect is evil however after that thers not much at all that a pally can smite (with a very fiew select exceptions frozen skellys being one however with their massive hp its almost pointless to bring a melee toon near them at all )

making roughly 1/3 rd of the mobs evil would fix alot IMO as i see it starting with FD its the frozen skellies , and halls of the dead and half of the neg energy plane i think and agian all 3 places are not exactly melee friendly places given that a pally will have at most 4 smites total and after that his damage is negligble to the massive hp that most of the above mobs have.

the whole point is that a pally has limited spells and half of them are rather useless

[kgb]

I agree with Aarkon on a couple of points.

The spell is useful but the sonic damage type is pretty common on a number of popular weapons.

Given the fact weapon enhancements do not stack the Paladin is left with four out of the five weapon enhancement spells becoming useless. Unless a paladin player can prove otherwise

Magic Weapon: +1 Enhancement
Bless Weapon: +1 enhance +2d6 divine damage vs undead
Deafening Clang: +1 AB +3 sonic damage
Greater Magic Wpn: +1/3 levels max +5.
Holy Avenger: +5 +1d6 divine damage per hit against evil aligned creatures, and grants the user 16 spell resistance.


Suggestion: I believe as was done with Cleric Buffs these weapon enhancements should "override" and stack so that investing in Paladin levels grants the character superior combat ability with their weapon.

So a paladin with enough levels who can cast Holy Avenger gets a weapon that has:

+5 Enhancement
+1 AB
Additional +1d6 divine damage vs evil
Additional +2d6 divine damage vs undead
+1 Sonic Damage per 5 paladin levels (a suggested change to deafening clang)
Dispel on Hit (as normal = paladin level)
Spell Resistance of 10 + Paladin level (a suggested change to standard 16 SR)


The number of evil creatures at the moment does not warrant the investment in smite which is one of the benefits of playing a paladin. if a player is not PvP focussed but rather PvM then it has limited utility. Even with PvP other players get around it by making neutral aligned characters if possible.

[Mythri Wolfwood]

I agree that Paladins need a boost and I think the Devs are/were on it with the Pure Class bonuses. The Bless Weapon spell seems like the most useful out of the bunch as there are many undead mobs around. It's also a lower level spell with good duration so you can cast it multiple times (maybe on allies or for rebuffs).

Still, I find that most of the damage my Paladins usually get come from Divine Might. 20 un-resistable damage per hit is very nice.

[Aarkon Draco]

bless weapon can only be cast once per rest even if it runs out the weapon is still counted as enchanted. thus one dispell and you have no way to re enchant your weapon.