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Concentration[]

Does the "Concentration" in the duration of this spell really refer to the skill? (It links to the skill.) I don't know, but it seems to mean something else, so maybe the link should be removed.--The Krit 14:52, 9 January 2006 (PST)

  • Good point. Yeah, it's different. -- Alec Usticke 15:09, 9 January 2006 (PST)

"Enhancer" bonus[]

What does the sword enhancer bonus refer to? Harleyquin 13:25, 10 January 2006 (PST)

  • There are two bonuses involved: the enhancement bonus and the base attack bonus. It's the latter that is determined by the primary caster stat. The strength is always 18 (+4), so the total chance to hit will be 10+CasterPrimaryStat+4+5. Resonance 22:28, 16 July 2006 (PDT)

Notes revision 2006[]

I've rewritten the Notes section to be a little clearer, but since my mages don't normally use summons... I don't have much first-hand knowledge of how correct the information is. --Countess Terra 15:57, 10 January 2006 (PST)

  • Its a bit unclearer now actually, you made it that BBoD can be hurt by physical damage which is not true :) What I wrote was that physical damage does NOT hurt it as the description says, but other types of damage do not either. Changing that back thus GhostNWN 06:52, 11 January 2006 (PST)
  • When I saw the page it had said "Sword is also unaffected by other types of damage other than physical" and I took this to mean that only physical damage could hurt it. If the sword is completely invincible, I may just start using summons after all. ^_^
    --Countess Terra 08:16, 11 January 2006 (PST)

Invincible?[]

So BBOD is invincible except for the MD dispel? Seems kind of powerful - also I assume that CHA/INT in the notes means 'either CHA or INT which ever is highest'. -- Chrominium 09:26, 11 January 2006 (PST)

  • It will use CHA if sorceror, INT if wizard, not the highest one.GhostNWN 13:44, 11 January 2006 (PST)
  • While the plot flag of the black blade does in fact protect against word of faith and banishment, it does not protect against dismissal. So dismissal is another way to get rid of it. --131.155.212.70 14 june 2006

Misc notes from Whizard[]

The fort save versus death is also dependent on an Spell Resistance check. It is the product of a level 9 conjuration spell with a caster level that seems to be the caster level of the caster of BBoD. WhiZard 02:34, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Dispel Magic and Greater Dispelling can be used on the caster to unsummon black blade of disaster(dependent on caster level) but have no effect when cast on the blade itself. WhiZard 00:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Discrepancy[]

The description doesn't seem to match the description of the summon. Also, there are several different numbers/descriptions for the blade: including +5Enhancement, +15AB, +28/+23AB, and +15 Weapon Bonus for damage reduction.Dremble 19:36, September 3, 2010 (UTC)

  • Not quite on those numbers. "AB" is an abbreviation for a creature's attack bonus, not usually for the attack bonus item property. But other than that, those appear to be the correct numbers. The weapon has both an enhancement bonus (+5) and an attack bonus (+15) item property. These do not stack, so it is the +15 that contributes to the attack roll (added to the strength modifier (+4), weapon focus bonus (+1), and base attack bonus (+8) to get the creature's attack bonus of +28 -- and since BAB 8 implies two attacks per round, that becomes +28/+23). It is also the +15 that counts when it comes to piercing damage reduction. So no problem with those numbers. That leaves the mismatching descriptions — what exactly does not seem to match? --The Krit 21:56, September 3, 2010 (UTC)

BBoD unresistable bug[]

I'm not sure where to write this, it's rather ResistSpell function bug, which happen with (greater) cleave. In case that there are two opponents and BBoD slain one and get cleave to the other, in that blow, immunity to spell by level property is ignored. With this, BBoD can slain even demilich (and demilich summons elementals so I really saw it happen) as demilich is missing Immunity: Death Magic, but rely on Immunity Spell by Level property. Anyway I'm not sure yet, if the cleave bug won't omit even Death Magic immunity though. ShaDoOoW 04:44, September 17, 2010 (UTC)

  • Today I made a big research for my Community Patch project and I find out, that it is not a cleave issue. However this bug exists, it is just triggered by something else. The ResistSpell function calculates with the last spell cast by the caster inputted into this function, for planar rift it is master of the summon, if the master cast as last spell any epic spell which has innatelevel 10, the Demilich's spell immunity to all spells level 9 and lower will fail as it consider planar rift to be lvl 10 too. The already suggested Death Magic immunity fixes this. ShaDoOoW 04:26, September 21, 2010 (UTC)
  • The foibles of jumping to conclusions. :) This sounds a lot more consistent with NWN's known mechanics than the first theory. Let's see if I can find a way to mention it in the immunity article. --The Krit 23:40, October 10, 2010 (UTC)

BBoD & Set Trap[]

I thought this was a fluke until I tried it on a few other servers which use the default script but it turns out setting traps never breaks concentration and the blade persists and attacks. This results in a terribly unbalancing condition because the trap setter can continue to set powerful traps using the Take20 without electing Skill Mastery, remaining out of the sphere of active combat and then commanding the blade to lead the enemy through a field of traps. The blade appears to be immune to all AoE trap effects as would be expected.

Normally, setting traps as an offensive weapon is a difficult (near impossible) venture among True Seers (like dragons), but since BBoD will attract the enemy away from the work area, it is very easy to manage constructing a killing field with complete autonomy. It is unclear whether Greater Sanctuary breaks while setting traps, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't... can't resolve the causative conditions that determine it... but this would further insulate the trap setter from retaliation while GS is in effect.

Seems to me that setting a trap would be considered a hostile action (it breaks invisibility and stealth), but not so far as BBoD is concerned, apparently. --Iconclast (talk) 05:07, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

  • Not a fluke. As the article states: "The actions a caster can take that are considered to break concentration are exactly the following: attacking, casting a spell (including spells from items), counterspelling, disabling a trap, flagging a trap, picking a pocket, and taunting." This list does not contain trap setting. So sure, set all the traps you want while you have a BBoD out. --The Krit (talk) 10:11, November 12, 2012 (UTC)
  • By the way, if you really feel this is too unbalancing, you could always switch out to any other summon you want and restrict your traps to the single-target variety. (If you throw in enough shadowdancer to summon a shadow fiend or lord, then you can add fire and electrical traps into the mix.) Same end result but without concentration issues, no? --The Krit (talk) 01:15, November 13, 2012 (UTC)
  • Good suggestion, TK. Default behavior seems bugged to me but if that's what they (Bio) intended, well then so be it. Somewhere along the line I got the impression that the so-called "concentration" had to do with making a hostile action but judging from the list of breakers, it is hard to decipher the intent. Seems like actions that require some somatic component to break it but then Set Trap would definitely fall into that category as well. Just another case of trying to find some PnP logic in the illogical, I suppose.
Not to get too far off the article topic... but will the single-target trap ALWAYS target hostiles? The reason I ask is that I've already killed neutral NPCs accidentally by unknowingly placing traps within their walk-route, traps that were avoided by hostiles during the combat rounds( in-game, that is) though I can't recall if they were AoE or single-target versions. --Iconclast (talk) 07:07, November 13, 2012 (UTC)
  • My impression is that someone at BioWare sat down one day and asked himself "so what actions should dismiss the BBoD?" instead of looking at the list of actions and picking all that matched BioWare's intent. But that's just conjecture. :)
    Traps will always target whatever creature triggered them, and they are triggered by non-friendlies (hostile or neutral). The traps that were avoided by hostiles were probably exactly that -- avoided by the hostile. The hostile creature might have stepped close to the trap, but managed to avoid stepping into it. (Was it a largish creature? A creature's location is a single point, usually at the center of what you see, not the area covered by its legs or whatever.) --The Krit (talk) 15:57, November 13, 2012 (UTC)
  • Interesting. Too bad I hadn't moved the related question to the trap article because the single point dynamic is informative to me (always assumed there was a creature radius used) and never knew they were actually designed to trigger with neutrals. Thought it was related to faction somehow but never experienced a wide-enough scope of instances to figure that out. IIRC those accidental NPC deaths were from traps set to kill human/medium race hostile creatures. What it (the killing of innocents) did was force me to be much quicker in the retrieval of any untriggered ones immediately after the combat had ended.
The suggestion to substitute a semi-impervious summon in place of a summon set as plot I've been testing and it is a viable rebalancing solution. The fire & water elementals work near as good as the shadow fiends (depending on the trap damage type) and will avoid most of the secondary effects like paralysis, yet can be attacked and injured by foes, like any other NPC. Thanks for your input, as usual, most educational. --Iconclast (talk) 21:10, November 13, 2012 (UTC)
  • Well the targeting of neutrals is possibly an uncommon occurrence. I happened to know it because one time when I was playing online another player apologized for setting off one of my traps. Going by the PvP setting of that area, we would have been neutral to each other. Come to think of it, let me make sure the trap article mentions who can trigger the traps. --The Krit (talk) 01:15, November 14, 2012 (UTC)
  • How this could come into the same result? The advantage of BBotD is that is indestructible so the creature might be even lvl 40 and will not be able to kill it. Especially usefull if the creature is magic immune, otherwise what would be point of setting traps at all, right? And intent, are you serious? How this could possibly be an intent? I don't know if you are playing this game, but I do and found not only set trap but even open lock totally imbalancing. Not to mention that fact that flagging trap breaks concentration and set trap doesn't make absolutely no sense. If you see intent there you should then move the BBotD in CPP spell changes from fixes to balance changes lol. 77.92.213.119 18:55, November 13, 2012 (UTC)
  • I feel you are incapable of understanding any reasonable answer, so you will get none from me. However, you are right that I had overlooked this spell in the CPP spell changes article. (Not too surprising given how haphazard and badly written it was initially. With so many things to correct, it's easy to miss a few.) --The Krit (talk) 01:45, November 14, 2012 (UTC)