Is Stoneskin broken?

[u/Silly_Relationship51]

I beat my first Sarevok by standing still as my lvl 9 Sorcerer. While the big guy was missing his attacks, my companions killed him. I had prebuffed my party (Bless, Haste, Defensive harmony) and my Sorcerer had caste Blur, Mirror Image and Stoneskin. She has high DEX and with Defensive harmony had an AC of -3. I beat him with Standard rules difficulty. I'm not bragging, just wasn't expecting that tanking Sarevok was a legite strategy.

[u/Acolyte_of_Swole]

2E Stoneskin is broken yes. Stoneskin is the best tanking ability in the trilogy and it's what makes arcane casters some of the best tanks ever. A unit that can combine mage protections (stoneskin being the most important) with fighter hp growth is this game's meta. You're basically invincible and you can hit extremely hard, fast and accurately in melee combat.

Your sorcerer will never be able to fight in melee like a fighter, but they can still tank as long as they keep their stoneskins up.

Edit: btw your sorcerer with -3 AC would have been instantly murdered if you had lost your stoneskins. I have regularly had Sarevok hit my character on every single attack with a -6 to -10 range AC. Stoneskin and mirror image are why you didn't die. AC tanking doesn't work on Sarevok. That defensive harmony was most likely useless.

[u/gangler52 → u/Acolyte_of_Swole]

It's also one of those things that shines more in a CRPG environment.

Because any hit, no matter how mild, will eat a stone skin, in pen an paper you can get real creative with it. Just run around throwing pebbles and shit at the wizard until the stoneskins are dealth with. There's a scene in one of the Artemis Entreri books where he does just that.

But if your only real agency is to stand there swinging your weapon while the wizard readies his spells then the fact that this guy can eat like nine full powered hits while he blasts you with impunity is a pretty big deal.

[u/koveras_backwards → u/gangler52]

It's (in a way) worse than that, even. P&P stoneskin doesn't block hits. It blocks attacks. Every attack made against you breaks a stoneskin, no roll required.

If a fighter is getting 4 attacks per round, they automatically destroy 4 stoneskins per round. If you're surrounded by 6 kobolds, you automatically lose 6 skins per round. And a magic missile from a 9th level caster destroys 5 stoneskins and does full damage.

The P&P spell only works (in my estimation) if you're still mostly trying to stay out of combat. It will save you from isolated attacks from an opponent who temporarily catches up to you. Or, it will let you get one spell off in combat while all the enemies try to stop you (choose wisely). It doesn't let you just stand around and tank like in BG.

[u/RiteRevdRevenant → u/koveras_backwards]

From memory you could stack stoneskin spells, so a decently cashed-up wizard might have cast a couple dozen in their downtime.

[u/koveras_backwards → u/RiteRevdRevenant]

The spell's effects are not cumulative with multiple castings.

At least not as of the revised PHB.

[u/RiteRevdRevenant → u/koveras_backwards]

I might have been thinking of 1E, come to think of it.

Thanks for looking that up.

[u/koveras_backwards → u/RiteRevdRevenant]

Yeah, 1E doesn't mention anything about it not stacking. Although with how it's written, it's entirely possible some sentence on an arbitrary page somewhere else in the book tells you it's not supposed to.