Lightning Blade
At 6th level, a Maeg Dolen warrior gains the ability to generate a lightning blade of pure electrical energy once per long rest. The duration of the lightning blade is 10 rounds, and it requires concentration to maintain. This was developed as a weapon against Drow, who tend to always wear Drow chain; this electrical weapon has advantage against enemies wearing metal armor.
The base lightning blade does 2d8 electrical damage on a hit. Dexterity bonuses do add to damage and to attack rolls, but strength bonuses do not. (Precision with the blade is helpful but sheer force isn’t.) The lightning blade can take the form of any one-handed weapon, but due to its nature as electrical energy bound in blade form, it always has the light property. Weapon mastery abilities can be used but the weapon mastery for this blade must be a specific one. (e.g. If you want a longsword's weapon mastery property of sap, you have to take a mastery in lightning blade—longsword. Standard longsword mastery would not be enough. If you want the vex property, then you have to take a mastery in lightning blade—rapier ).
At 11th level, the Maeg Dolen can generate two lightning blades simultaneously, if they wish. They can do this twice per long rest. Since they always have the light property, one can choose a blade's form to be one with a nick weapon mastery (if the wielder has mastery with the appropriate weapon type) and so gain an extra attack. Doing so is particularly valuable, as the blades do the same damage whether they are ‘scimitars’ or ‘longswords.’ Also, note that at 11th level, the Maeg Dolen can throw one or both lightning blades (30’/90’ range) and regenerate them as a bonus action (so long as they maintain concentration), until the 10 rounds of a single use are complete. In addition, damage per hit scales up to 3d8 electrical damage per hit at 11th level.
At 15th level, the damage scales up to 4d8 per hit, and the Maeg Dolen get three uses per long rest. At 20th level, damage scales to 5d8 and they get four uses per long rest. (Note that an action surge combined with a lightning blade can become quite an offensive explosion at high levels.)
One drawback to the lightning blade mode of attack is that there is a chance that the blade's energies will rebound on the wielder. On a critical miss (a natural 1), the wielder takes damage as if he/she had been hit by the blade, if he/she is wearing metal armor. If he/she is not wearing metal armor, then the damage to oneself on a critical miss is merely 1d8.
As one might guess, Maeg Dolen typically use their war bond to summon a 'normal' physical weapon for ordinary uses and generate their lightning blades for major combats and sudden 'glass cannon' attacks.
It is rumored that a Drow equivalent of the Maeg Dolen (the 'Moonshadow’ cult) exists and that they generate shadow blades of necrotic energy instead of lightning blades, with all other properties being the same, except that these shadow blades confer advantage in dim light or darkness rather than against metal armor.
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