Stone skin, barkskin, and armor class

Hviti · Post by **Hviti** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:51 am

The stone skin spell hardens skin to be like stone. Barkskin hardens skin to be like bark. However, stone skin gives "damage absorption" while barkskin gives "natural armor" AC. Why don't they each do both?

Sairaven · Post by **Sairaven** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:55 am

Because of the way they were written in the books, if I am not mistaken. I don't understand it, but that's what I remember.

Dalvyn · Post by **Dalvyn** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 10:29 am

Barkskin makes your skin tougher, but does not make you immune to damage. Its duration is fixed: after a set number of seconds, it "stops working".

Stoneskin, on the other hand, makes you immune to damage (at least, the FK version does). Its duration though is not fixed, but depends on how much damage it "absorbs".

The main difference is in how long they last: you could see stoneskin as a spell increasing your AC to an infinite value, but for an amount of time depending on how tough/strong your opponent is.

Larethiel · Post by **Larethiel** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 10:43 am

Stone skin absorbes ten hitpoints per attack you take up to a maximum of 150 hitpoints, giving you the damage reduction adamantium has got.

Vibius · Post by **Vibius** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:08 pm

And the most important is that if you have a wizard and a druid/ranger in your group you can be affected by both them at same time!

You can call it over-buffing.

Lathander · Post by **Lathander** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 4:39 pm

Does the amount of damage absorbed with Stoneskin change at all if the spell is memorised in a higher level spell slot? Does the ECLof the spell change the amount absorbed (21 absorbs more than 12)?

Dalvyn · Post by **Dalvyn** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:26 pm

Yes, the number of hit points absorbed depends on the ECL.