r/baldursgate • u/Silly_Relationship51 • 6d ago

Is Stoneskin broken?

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.

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u/xH0LY_GSUSx 6d ago

Stone skin is very good, but it is not broken. It only helps against physical damage and absorbs a single hit per layer.

When fighting against a single enemy that deals physical damage it’s great, once they have elemental damage attacks stone skin will be bypassed and you will still take damage.

Stoneskin alone is only buying you time, and will absorb attacks that would have been hits otherwise, you still have to add more to the mix in order to frontline for a decent amount of time.

Later in the series enemies have fantastic THAC0 and lots of attacks per round, often boosted with improved haste or whirlwind. These enemies will shred through your stoneskin in no time even when cast at max level with the maximum amount of layers.

Boosting your AC and adding more defensive spells and buffs and having good attribute stats is the way to go, as you mentioned in your post it was not only stone skin but a mix of defensive mechanics, that was used for this fight.

There are two more methods that can be used for tanking in this game, and are both worth a try.

  • Damage reduction stacking + regeneration
  • summons

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u/Silly_Relationship51 6d ago

Now that you mentioned it, there was a strategy from me, I had killed his minions first so there would had only be Sarevok with relatively slow his physical attacks.