Stoneskin

[WizWom]

Well, I finally went and looked up StoneSkin

http://www.coryj.net/CoreRule/corerule.php...PHB/DD01969.htm

 

ahem - every ATTACK - successful or not - takes off a skin. In other words, your armor class becomes 20 while the skins are up. Makes a bit of a difference, I'd say.

 

So, the spell as it is in the game is hugely overpowered (to the extent that the AC of the characters is typically -5 or less). How do you correct this?

 

Well, simplest, perhaps, would be making it Level 6. Monsters that have it in script would be recognizably more difficult (as, indeed, they actually are).

 

Ironskins - well, I can't even FIND it. I suspect it was put in as an "equal cheese for druids" thing. If so, since it does for physical attacks what shield of the Archons does for magical, I'd say it belongs at Lvl 7.

[Anomaly]

IIRC, every successful attack remove a skin. But you will still be vulnerable to elemental damage or level drain. If you are looking for a nerfed Stoneskin / Ironskin, look for Ashes of Ember. This mod has an optional component to reduce the spell to 4 rounds only. You don't have to install the universal weapons from AoE if you don't want to.

[WizWom]

heh, no "IIRC" needed. I gave the link to the spell description. Every attack - without regard to to-hit rolls - removes a skin. And you are supposed to take any magical damage - while it also removes a skin.

 

Actual behaviour is successful attacks remove a skin, and it absorbs magical damage, although elemental damge does come through. So, the magic missiles, which are quite specifically supposed to harm you and remove a skin, just remove a skin; same with fire bolt, acid arrow, etc.

[Anomaly]

heh, no "IIRC" needed. I gave the link to the spell description.

There is sometimes a difference between the description and the real spell effect. Furthermore, this is not the BG2 description of the spell. There is the real description : http://www.planetbaldursgate.com/bg2/chara...title=Stoneskin

 

Every attack - without regard to to-hit rolls - removes a skin.

I don't know if this true, but if this is really the case, this is just plain stupid. "I missed you (with my critical miss) but I have still destroyed one of your skin because I wanted to hit you and failed"

 

Actual behaviour is successful attacks remove a skin, and it absorbs magical damage, although elemental damge does come through. So, the magic missiles, which are quite specifically supposed to harm you and remove a skin, just remove a skin; same with fire bolt, acid arrow, etc.

I don't know if Magic Missile destroys skins, but it really does damage even with Stoneskin up. Same for Melf's Acid Arrow and Flame Arrow.

[WizWom]

Actual behaviour is successful attacks remove a skin, and it absorbs magical damage, although elemental damge does come through. So, the magic missiles, which are quite specifically supposed to harm you and remove a skin, just remove a skin; same with fire bolt, acid arrow, etc.

I don't know if Magic Missile destroys skins, but it really does damage even with Stoneskin up. Same for Melf's Acid Arrow and Flame Arrow.

 

 

Ehrm, OK, let me clue you in.

 

I LINKED TO A PAGE OF A SCANNED IN 2nd ED Player's handbook - with the entry for Stoneskin. YOU obviously DID NOT BOTHER to read that page.

 

Also, it seems, bothering to TEST in GAME is beyond you.

 

Magic Missile does not remove a skin, just does it's damage. Same with Fire Arrow and Melf's Acid Arrow., Chromatic orb, Lightning bolt... the list goes on. Only physical attacks that hit take off a skin.

 

No, you give a link to a page which merely parrots (with a typo) the in-game text. Which is wrong.

[dragonian]

There is no reason to yell or get angry. But i have a question for you if you are so LETS MAKE EVEYTHING TO THE RULES... Why does caster in BG get less stoneskins(1 for 2 levels) than in P&P where you get 1d4+1 skins per level? Why in BG can you only cast stoneskin on yourself(caster) where in P&P you can cast it on any creature? I think it is enought to equal this one thing you are talking about...

So please when you want somethig to be nerfed read full description and ask for doing anything by the rules and not only one thing from three...

[WizWom]

There is no reason to yell or get angry. But i have a question for you if you are so LETS MAKE EVEYTHING TO THE RULES... Why does caster in BG get less stoneskins(1 for 2 levels) than in P&P where you get 1d4+1 skins per level? Why in BG can you only cast stoneskin on yourself(caster) where in P&P you can cast it on any creature? I think it is enought to equal this one thing you are talking about...

So please when you want somethig to be nerfed read full description and ask for doing anything by the rules and not only one thing from three...

 

It appears you have difficulty reading English, too.

 

1d4 + 1 per 2 levels; 9th level = 9/2 (4) + 1d4, for 5 to 8.

Anyway, yes, the game gives 4 at 8, 5 at 10, 6 at 12, 7 at 14, 8 at 16, 9 at 18 and 10 at 20.

 

This is, I suppose, for making the damn spell so overpowered. Bioware made a number of odd "balancing" decisions.

 

The same, I suppose, would go for the decision to make the Target "self" rather than "1 creature/touch"

 

Both of those could easily be corrected; but the fact that it protects against any number of misses and Skin # of hits remains, and that's coded into the Stoneskin effect, which would be really tough to fix. And yes, correcting the ability to cast it on TargetPresetTarget would be part and parcel of the fix.

[Grim Squeaker]

WizWorm, calm down...

[Himself]

While I do agree the spell is more powerful than the book version, I don't think there is a way to fix it, other than that one of reducing the rounds the spell is in effect.

 

Wouldn't changing it to a different spell level cause problems with memorization slots, unless someone wants to go through every single mage repertory and make localized changes?

 

Also, stoneskin works in such a way that is practically basic to the game, if some mages were to have their stoneskins removed very fast (at every attack) it would probably break a lot of their spell sequences, making them much easier (sometimes even effortlessly) to beat.

 

I'm not 100% sure about these two.. but it seems like what would happen.

 

Alas, I'm not one to want everything by the rules, gosh, there are some rules that I beleive translate horrible into the game (like the dual classing proficiency stuff).

[WizWom]

As I understand it (and I have yet to test it) an NPC mage would just cast it from memory, and it's actual level is immaterial.

 

I agreee that much of the game counts on the spell being up and effective; that's why a party makes sure they have a few BREACH spells ready for any mage, to completely mess up their "oooh, I'm safe, I'll cast this slow but nasty spell now" scripting

[BigRob]

There may be issues with getting non-physical attacks to knock off a stoneskin and what would count as an "attack" (such as continuing damage from bleeding or poison). It would be very nice to see though, since I guess all those magic missile spells were a waste.

 

Detection of the actual number of incoming non-hit attacks per round could well be tricky as well. I'm not personally too concerned about that though. In PnP the interpretation we always used was that only atacks which would have actually hit count for loss of stoneskins.

[WizWom]

Detection of the actual number of incoming non-hit attacks per round could well be tricky as well. I'm not personally too concerned about that though. In PnP the interpretation we always used was that only atacks which would have actually hit count for loss of stoneskins.

Well, the spell description is VERY clear that all attacks take a skin.

 

I think if the AC got set to 20 then all attacks would need a 1 to hit, and thus automatically hit - except for critical misses.

 

I still think it makes more sense to leave it as the game has it, that is, only hits against the current AC; but move the spell level up.

[Himself]

Every spellcaster has a personal list of memorized spells, if you add a spell to that list, instead of replacing for another, the game will crash to desktop reading that .CRE

 

Also, I dont know for sure but it may be possible that if you replace it by a spell that the mage doesnt actually know as well, it will probably CTD too.

 

So you would have to first make a way so that every mage that knows lvl 6 spells automatically learns this new version of stoneskin, after that you would either have to grant one (or more) *additional* lvl 6 spell slots for every mage to store stoneskins, or either replace spells that the mage already has in memory list for stoneskin.

 

So, one way involves granting them more spell slots, which is even more wrong than the spell actually being overpowered, and the other way involves removing lvl 6 spell from their lists, which is not a viable option as well.. as it bears insanity, you would have to know every mages personal list of spell, so to not break his casting tactics.

 

So you see, its actually from hard to impossible to lunacy changing a spell so common as stoneskin in this fashion.

[WizWom]

heh, no, the spell is put into the spell book when you learn it; you can actually set a spell book up with any spell at any level - want to have 9th level priest spells? Go ahead - engine won't display 'em, but you'd have them.

 

Same with memorization; there is no requirement that memorization be a spell you have in your book; and the level is only there to sort them.

 

So, all non-joinable NPCs need no change at all. If they can cast stoneskin because they are level 7; well, then, they get a nice boost to cast a 6th level spell.

 

And, it should be noted, many NPCs spell casting script doesn't have a clue what to do with the spells they have been given. Bioware's scripting sucked.

[Avenger]

Theoretically it is possible to:

 

1. set the AC to 20 so only critical miss won't remove the stoneskin

2. adding magic resistances against single point spells

 

I'm not sure if it is possible to remove a skin when a spell hit.

Probably this last one could be hacked somehow too.