How Often Does Your Group Cast Stoneskin?

[KarinsDad]

For other games, some might replace "my party" with "my individual PC". I eschew those kinds of games, but YMMV.

It depends. How many Fighters give up XP with the exception of an occasional Negative Energy Level?

Spell casters must decide to give up XP both when casting certain spells, and when crafting items (and when hit with the occasional Negative Energy Level).

Hence, in a "party" situation like you describe, the Fighters should be giving up GP every time the Spell Casters are giving up XP. To be fair.

Since this does not happen often (i.e. for most games), I can understand and even support the rational of "my individual PC" with regard to XP. Not so much with regard to GP, but even there, a specific PC (greedy) concept would be good roleplaying.

 

[XO]

Bell Curve

Wow, at the time of this post, there's a beautiful symmetry of 2, 7, 18, 7, 2 for the five options. Looks like most people use Stoneskin sparingly, but they keep it in their arsenal for when it counts.

Statistically normalized Stoneskin...

 

[Nail]

Spell casters must decide to give up XP both when casting certain spells, and when crafting items (and when hit with the occasional Negative Energy Level).

FWIW:

I've found time and again that giving up XP to cast a spell is not only worth it, but easily recoverable. You and I both know that lower level PCs get more XP, etc.

Again, this is the perception issue I talked about earlier in the thread; the XP cost is truely just a psychological barrier. A 300XP or 250gp look big, until you actually think through the ramifications and relative cost.

 

[KarinsDad]

FWIW:

I've found time and again that giving up XP to cast a spell is not only worth it, but easily recoverable. You and I both know that lower level PCs get more XP, etc.

Again, this is the perception issue I talked about earlier in the thread; the XP cost is truely just a psychological barrier. A 300XP or 250gp look big, until you actually think through the ramifications and relative cost.

Psychological?

Maybe.

I'd have to look at the actual numbers. I do know that in our 20th level game (which we just started at 20th level), my Cleric is 1500 XP below the other PCs because I had to save their butts from 7 levels of Energy Drain each. Since we are under half way to 21st level, that means that on average, my PC might be 3000+ XP below the other PCs when they reach 21st level.

So, for one to two gaming sessions, they will probably be 21st level (i.e. Epic) while my PC is still 20th level. That does not sound psychological. It sounds like something tangible and real.

And even though I might be gaining more XP for those one or two sessions than they are, I suspect I will never catch up the entire 3000 XP.

 

[Funkthis]

To me the greatest influence is the campaign itself for multiple reasons. In campaigns where money isn't as plentyful as the norm you are much more hesitant to cast it. In low magic settings you are more likely to cast it because you don't have a laundry list of magic items filling every slot so you need whatever protection you can get.

That being said in most games i've played it almost never was cast. Not sure why. I think as Nail said the gp cost was a psychological deterrent. Funny thing is when the BBEG would cast it or have it cast on himself everyone would always comment on how great the spell can be but then no one would ever think about casting themselves later. Most of the guys I would play with just never wanted to spend that money...heck come to think about it they hated spending the 100gp for identify which is a cost you just can't avoid.

 

[Patlin]

they hated spending the 100gp for identify which is a cost you just can't avoid.

Well, it can be avoided. If you're a really cheap $^%$& you can create a Cleric with the magic domain. It's M/DF after all...

 

[Nail]

And even though I might be gaining more XP for those one or two sessions than they are, I suspect I will never catch up the entire 3000 XP.

At that level I found it *very* beneficial to be slightly lower level than the others. I used the extra XP not to catch up, but to power Wishes so that I could get Inherent Bonuses to my stats.

The difference between 19th and 20th level - for example - is much, much smaller than the difference between 4th and 5th. Thousands of XP mean much less than you think.

If your PC is down 3000xp, think on this:

A CR 20 nets you (6000xp/4 party members) 1500XP. So, in essense, you spent 2 level-appropriate encounters worth of XP on your friends. Sucks, but not the end of the world. You might be behind your fellows for what, one meeting?

(Tangential question: might there have been anouther way to regain those negative levels, so that your PC didn't have to shoulder all of that burden? Just asking.)

 

[KarinsDad]

At that level I found it *very* beneficial to be slightly lower level than the others. I used the extra XP not to catch up, but to power Wishes so that I could get Inherent Bonuses to my stats.

Since we started up at 20th level, it was cheaper to spend the money on the Tomes than to be an entire level+ down for the number of inherent bonuses my PC started with.

(Tangential question: might there have been anouther way to regain those negative levels, so that your PC didn't have to shoulder all of that burden? Just asking.)

Not to my knowledge.

3 PCs times 7 Fort saves each to not lose one or more levels. With 21 rolls, the odds of not rolling one or more 1s is not good (34%, or each PC had a 70% chance of not rolling one or more 1s).

The problem was that we were on a different plane of existance, so the only solution that would definitely work was the two Restoration spells (0 XP) and one Greater Restoration spell (500 XP) that my PC had previously prepared. There wasn't even a guarantee that my PC (the only PC with strong divine spells) could repray for spells the next day.

It's all nice and well to say "Your Cleric should have had a Wand of Restoration to handle situations like this", but until the situation occurs, hindsight is more 20/20 than foresight. Running into a Dracolich that was also a 20th level Sorcerer with an Energy Drain breath weapon where the Fort save does not matter, only the Reflex save was quite unexpected (all of the PCs had good Fort saves, most did not have good Reflex saves).

And, I forget which spell required the 1000 XP. But, a single Wish (or some types of Miracle) spell at 20th level is still 5000 XP and still 25+% of a level. That is definitely substantial.

 

[Stalker0]

I like that stoneskin is kind of an "ultimate weapon" of the mid range levels, as far as a powerful spell that is cast very rarely.

I do think that people don't use it enough, they forget how powerful of an effect it is, and how cost effective. Take for example if your party use CLW wands a lot for after battle healing (mine do).

1 charge of the wand = 5.5 healing avg = 15 gp.

10 DR = 10 healing = 1.82 charges of a wand = 27.3 gp per hit. So if you take about 9 hits in a combat, you've paid fully for the use of stoneskin just in healing alone. And that's not taking into account the fact that you live longer

 

[phindar]

While I admire and sympathize with the mathematical arguments, ultimately the decision to cast Stoneskin is only worth it if you wouldn't survive the battle without it, and you can't know that until its done (or you are). That's part of the gamble. Its not the sort of thing you'd do in every battle, but its something you want to do if you think its going to be close.

On the one hand, the financial argument makes sense from a rules perspective, but its hard to argue our characters would see it that way. Imagine a cop or a soldier saying, "I'm not going to wear my armored vest today, because if I get shot, I have health care and they'll patch me up for free. But if my vest gets damaged, that comes out of my salary."