And pretty much equally easy to tank with any other weapon as with the moonblade.
The moonblade is a d8+3 weapon and gives Xan higher AC and fire resistance. What weapon could possibly be better for him to melee with?
It is a fine melee weapon for a 7 Con mage. The fire resistance is almost entirely irrelevant to melee combat, the 1 point of AC is useful but unlikely to be a real difference maker, and as a weapon it is superior to non-staff of striking weapons but point is that all this edge doesn't amount anything significant.
I just picked up a level 6 Xan and he has 17 hit points, an AC equivalent to having a 17 Dex (16 Dex + moonblade), and no strength bonus giving him a 16 thac0. His ability to melee (and that of every other mage) is not about the moonblade - it is almost entirely about buffs and spells (mirror image, stoneskin, fireshield, potions, etc.). After the buffing, his ability to melee amounts to an average of 2 additional points of damage per round over a staff +1 wielded by a 17 strength mage.
So the moonblade is an advantage but it amounts to only a bit more than a nice cup holder in a racecar. You'd rather have the nice cup holder but the success of the car doesn't depend on that (in our analogy the tires, engine, etc. are the buffs and spells). Others are free to disagree. I am not trying to dump on Xan but I just don't buy him as materially more of a melee character over other mages by virtue of the moonblade.
In any event, I think this has taken up entirely too much of a digression for a meme thread filled by much funnier posts so I am happy to continue by PM or in another thread if anyone wants more discussion.
Modded to be a Figther-Mage his Moonblade gets more useful (beter Thac0, benefitting from more Att/round, but at the loss of having to wait longer for buffs like mirror image, blur and I'm not even sure he can reach stoneskin within the level-cap (and too lazy to check now, sorry).
*edit: however, discussion is blatantly off-topic here, sorry no. 2 ;-).
Bad luck guy for once rolled the perfect stats on the best fighter race, wasted it by chosing the notoriously weakest kit in BG, + dwarves can't dual to thief and Use Any Item to balance the disadvantages.
Comments
I just picked up a level 6 Xan and he has 17 hit points, an AC equivalent to having a 17 Dex (16 Dex + moonblade), and no strength bonus giving him a 16 thac0. His ability to melee (and that of every other mage) is not about the moonblade - it is almost entirely about buffs and spells (mirror image, stoneskin, fireshield, potions, etc.). After the buffing, his ability to melee amounts to an average of 2 additional points of damage per round over a staff +1 wielded by a 17 strength mage.
So the moonblade is an advantage but it amounts to only a bit more than a nice cup holder in a racecar. You'd rather have the nice cup holder but the success of the car doesn't depend on that (in our analogy the tires, engine, etc. are the buffs and spells). Others are free to disagree. I am not trying to dump on Xan but I just don't buy him as materially more of a melee character over other mages by virtue of the moonblade.
In any event, I think this has taken up entirely too much of a digression for a meme thread filled by much funnier posts so I am happy to continue by PM or in another thread if anyone wants more discussion.
*edit: however, discussion is blatantly off-topic here, sorry no. 2 ;-).
Anyway, back to memes
*shrug* Think of the Moonblade like a free touch spell. If I could equip Xzar with a permanent Chill Touch I totally would.