New Spell: Skeletal Armor

[Shaggy]

Skeletal Armor

Necromancy
Level: Clr 1, Wiz/Sor 1
Components: V,S,M
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: Close (25ft+5ft/2levels)
Target: Creature Touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Special
Spell Resistance: Yes

When cast, once per round the caster may points at skeleton within range while touching the recipient. The skeleton must be the same size as the recipient or the spell fails. The skeleton makes a Will save to ignore the spells effect. If the skeleton fails it breaks apart and reforms on the recipient as a protective bone armor. This Armor grants the wearer its Natural AC bonus (+2 for Medium) and absorbs half of all piercing and slashing damage until it runs out of hit points. When that happens the Necromancer may use another skeleton as above until the spell duration expires. Undead controlled by the caster automatically fail the save. This spell does will not work with creatures greater than large size.



What do you think about this one? Its been like 7 years since I made up a custom spell...ever since Aradrain's Instant Ice Cube way back for 2nd edition.

Okay I put those fixes in.
The reason I put it as Natrual Armor is because I wanted it to stack with just about everything else.

 

[Xarlen]

Reminds me of the Undead Armor from R&RI, although it had other effects (like Arcane Failure).

I like it.

 

[Destil]

Humm... it's a bit tricky to judge. Nice flavor, clean mechanichs but balance is a bit... well..

A: You could potentialy get a LOT of HP from this, if you're... say, a dragon (Colossal Skeleton: 32d12 or 208HP). I'd cap it to meidum creatures or smaller (1d12 HP + 2AC) until around 3rd caster level when you could expand to large creatures (2d12 + 3 AC), and finaly finsh off with Huge at 5th (4d12 + 4 AC) or so. Gargantuan would be 16d12, far to much of a HP bonus for a 1st level spell, in my opinion. Also while it's balanced okay against Mage Armor for Meidum creatures (And large, though not quite at 1st caster level, IMHO), once you reach Huge there's a bit of a problem, since it's granting an equal AC bonus AND absorbs slashing & blunt damage for a bit... but the AC bonus ends once that HP is gone, and you need a skeleton to cast it and that skeleton gets a Will Save (Though you can try again next round). So all in all it looks fair, though if thoes bonus HP cause it to outstrip Mage Armor on huge creatures then you may want to reduce the duration to 10 minuits / level or simply not allow anything above large. This is an almost academic issue, though, unless you have Huge PCs.

B: Natural Armor bonus dosn't make sense here, unless I'm mis-reading this... as I read it you gain a Natural AC bonus equal to the Skeleton's Natural AC bonus. But since it's skeletal 'armor', and not fused into the target'd body they would be getting an armor bonus... which could also be an interpertation of the AC bonus. As written it dosn't specify what type of bonus you get. I'd either change the flavor a bit, and say it makes the target's body become boney and hard, but brittle, or change this to a Armor Bonus. I'd also specify that it is a Natural Armor bonus to your AC, just for clarity (I'm still guessing that's the intention).

C: I'd say that a cleric commanding a skeleton can force it to fail it's will save. Juste because that would be a cool perk.

All in all I like it. I just have some issues with big creaturs using it.