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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 6711407" data-attributes="member: 6701872">I think that stoneskin sticks out as being much less of a "go-to" spell as it was in prior editions because a fair number of the differences in overall approach that 5th edition takes happen to directly affect this spell.For starters, prior edition spell casters that had access to stoneskin typically had a very small number of hit points, so a spell that effectively increased those hit points appeared helpful. Now that the spell casters that would get stoneskin have a higher number of HP (because of larger hit dice, better hit point gains from high constitution, more encouragement to have a high constitution, and even an easier time of having an AC high enough to cause significant amounts of missed attacks) the bonus doesn't feel as needed or as large.Then there is the change regarding buff spells in general. Prior editions assumed they were layered on and could only be stripped away by specific sorts of characters - 5th edition assumes a much smaller number of spells active at once, and has given every character a way to potentially strip away the most meaningful of them. To put it simply, 5th edition is built so that the "really good" buff spells fail at some point.Because I feel I am about to get far too long-winded, I'm going to just abbreviate my remaining thoughts: Stoneskin is a decent spell with about as much use as any other spell, it's just different from what it used to be and thus needs the user to have different expectations for how to put it to good use, and that's not a bad thing.</blockquote>

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