Holy Avenger is an item property that, when used by paladin, acts like a +5 enhancement holy weapon that dispels magic on hit, delivers an additional +1d6 divine damage against evil aligned creatures, and grants the caster a spell resistance of 16.
Only a paladin can gain the benefit of this property on a weapon. If the character has no paladin levels, this counts as a +2 enhancement with the dispel ability.
Notes[]
- A use magic device (UMD) score that is high enough to allow emulation of a specific alignment for a given weapon will allow a character to gain the full benefits of a holy avenger property on that item (as if she were a paladin). This requirement stands regardless of the actual alignment of the character (even those of a paladin's alignment, lawful good). The score required for the standard holy avenger item (a longsword with the holy avenger property and a +2 enhancement bonus) is 25, while the score required for a weapon with no properties other than holy avenger is 15.
- Dispelling:
- The dispel effect, whose caster level is 10, has a 50% chance of triggering.
- Most of the spells of a level 20 caster are immune to the dispel effect, as the dispeller's best possible roll is 30 (20+10), while the DC is 31 (11+20). The exceptions involve vagaries in determining the effective caster level; see dispel for details.
- The dispel used by this weapon is powerful in that it can dispel petrified creatures which cannot be dispelled by spells. It does not, however, dispel extraordinary effects or supernatural effects.
- The dispel effect will not trigger if no physical damage is inflicted by a hit. For example, if someone had epic warding up and was hit by a holy avenger for 50 points of damage or less (before damage reduction), the dispel effect will not trigger.
- The fourth level paladin spell holy sword temporarily grants a weapon the holy avenger property.
Previous versions[]
- Prior to version 1.69, the wielder's character level was used in the dispel check. Since this is uncapped, this was the most powerful form of dispelling in the game, on par with Mordenkainen's disjunction.
- Prior to patch 80.8193.13,[1] the holy avenger item property could dispel extraordinary effects in addition to magical effects.