Fire and Frost Brand

)   Fire/Frost Brand
Base item	long sword
Damage vs. small	1d8 x2
Damage vs. large	1d12 x2
To-hit bonus	+1d5
Bonus versus	not fire/cold resistant
Weapon skill	long sword
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	unaligned
When carried	(none)
When wielded	fire/cold resistance
When invoked	(none)
Cost	3000 zm
Weight	40
Material	iron

Fire Brand and Frost Brand are two very similar artifacts. They are both unaligned long swords that give double damage and +1d5 to-hit against monsters not resistant to fire and cold respectively. Frost Brand is vastly more popular than Fire Brand, because many monsters in Gehennom are fire-resistant. However, note that most of the Astral Plane's monsters are cold-resistant and not fire-resistant.

Both can destroy potions carried by their target; Fire Brand can also destroy scrolls and spellbooks.

Fire Brand confers fire resistance when wielded and Frost Brand confers cold resistance when wielded.

Damage

The following calculates the damage done by the blessed +7 Fire Brand in the best case scenario: being expert in long sword and attacking an undead large monster without fire resistance (same calculation applies for Frost Brand against a monster without cold resistance):

(
+d12 base damage
+7 enchantment damage
)
*2 double damage (against monsters without fire resistance)
+d4 blessed damage (against undead or demons)
+2 expert skill bonus
= 19 to 44 total damage (average 30)

The worst case scenario for a blessed +7 Fire Brand (with expert skill in long sword) is against a non-undead, non-demon, fire resistant small monster is:

(
+d8 base damage
+7 enchantment damage
)
+2 expert skill bonus
= 10 to 17 total damage (average 13)