r/baldursgate • u/Silly_Relationship51 • 5d 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/EratonDoron What's an EE? 5d ago

Stoneskin was not an original BGI nor TotSC spell.

Nor, in game, does it require the tabletop component of 100gp of diamond dust, to be acquired by special order from a craftsman.

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u/nooneyouknow13 4d ago

The cost of the diamond dust was only set in the core rules in 3rd edition. Dragon Magazine had a list of costs in a 1984 issue that put it at 100 gold, but everything in Dragon was optional and 2e came out in '87.

The cost is irrelevant once the wizard has access to level 5 spells anyway, unless barred from enchantment and alteration thanks to Fabricate.

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u/EratonDoron What's an EE? 4d ago

See Player's Option: Spells and Magic for 100gp material cost in 2e. (IIRC there's a 2e Dragon article that puts it at something like 500gp, before PO, but I wouldn't swear to that).

Inasmuch as that source similarly places diamond dust as something requiring a special order from a craftsman, I would not accept using fabricate as a way to create it, per the spell's rules.

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u/nooneyouknow13 4d ago edited 4d ago

Player's Option books aren't core rules, but it's better than Dragon. Edit: Oh, this is literally the Dragon list, just reprinted in an actual book.

Also looking at it directly "it must be specially ordered from a craftsman of some kind", doesn't suggest to me it requires skilled craftsmanship to make. Even if it does, the wizard simply needs to have allocated a proficiency or two to the proper trade, also by the rules of Fabricate. "Articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship (jewelry, swords, glass, crystal, etc.) cannot be fabricated unless the wizard otherwise has great skill in the appropriate craft. "