Have a 41-55 Stone skin item or aug

[jelricle]

One of the longer lasting buffs I am missing is a decent greater stoneskin buff.  I am surprised that there are no items which give a level 41 or 50 Greater Stone skin.

Maybe have the reinforced augmenter could upgrade to greater stoneskin instead of just going from lvl 30 to lvl 45 barkskin.  After all, we already have the band of rotten leaves for barkskin.
(that being said, I do not know what the BUR aug in that progression does.  Is there a BUR aug above Reinforced?)

[simpetar]

1. Greater Stoneskin aug won't protect you as long as you wear anything heavier than pyjama or non-caster shield. It's the same as EV in that regard. Druids and pariahs get an exception if they cast it on themselves.
2. Even if you could get a CL55 (a.k.a. BUR) Stoneskin / Greater Stoneskin / Premonition aug (and had the latter 2 work), it wouldn't do anything in lvl 60+ areas. Those spells offer +14 soak. Every lemure and his granny has a +14 weapon or better. Spawns in Ely even get buffed by IoF.
3. +15 soak gear exists. +16 soak gear exists. Heck, XRs come with +17 soak.
4. If you want a soak BUFF, use cheap URs with Epic Warding.

[jelricle]

Yah, but I am rather sure that physical KB (meenlocks, those Rona things, and others) count as non-magical.

And guess who runs around, most of the time, wearing nothing heavier than pajamas . . . ;-)

Also, I spend a lot of my time shackled in 60- areas.

Epic warding does not last long enough.

(P.S.  What is EV?  I would be okay with a 40 or 50 level premonition aug/item, as well)

[simpetar]

EV = Ethereal Visage. That, Greater Stoneskin and Premonition will end if you equip light armor or heavier or a non-caster shield at any point, or they will cast a non scaling buff. Exceptions apply, but shifter is not one of those; the best you could hope for is to have a friendly pariah cast Shapechange: Iron Golem.
Your best bet is to keep an eye out for wearable gear with innate soak (the higher the better), or added in green. Legendary levels rarely require anything above +13 or +14. Or items with Epic Warding. The 50/+20 is bypassed only by very few enemies in the whole game, you could count them on 1 hand's fingers. And gear like Sash of Elysium are dirt cheap (quality doesn't matter), they will end up mass sold after split more often than not.

I'm not fundamentally opposed to soak augmenters, or trying to rebut your idea, rather cry about the state. The first step in assessing soak is to compare its power to enemies' weapons bonus; if they have better weapons than your spell, you got nothing, it's that binary. Sadly enough, those spells tend to lag behind level-appropriate LL areas, unless cast by a real caster with the relevant LSF (transmutation or divination). Then they somewhat catch up in hells and abyss (if you have +15 or +16) and then fail again in ely and limbo. Even the top notch 50/+16 Premonition can't stop IoF. Augs will be worse (in other words, useless) all the way: the absorption limit will be reached in no time. You can test it with, say Fey Potion of Stoneskin and see for yourself, how fast it runs out with a shackled toon in low 40s runs (myco, trag, toyshop, dachy...).

[jelricle]

Like I said, this is mainly for physical KB, which I am pretty sure does not count as +X.

Hmmm, does Premonition and greater stone skin stay nerfed if you take off the armor? Ie. Is it needed for good when you have heavy armor or only while you are wearing the armor?

(On an aside: What is IoF?)

[Yojimbo]

IoF = Insturments of Faith = Cleric Transmutation Epic spell granting all weapons in party a +16 enhancement

If you are wearing armor heavier than cloth, 0 base AC, or have a shield equipped, with specific exception, and cast Ethereal Visage, Greater Stoneskin, or Premonition it cast the vanilla NWN version of it. To prevent swapping out during buffs to game the system if you equip armor heavier than cloth or a shield it will cancel to spell entirely.

I would say if we got anything it would be Stoneskin as a augment not the greater variant which is significantly better but is probably the best can ask for as it doesn't have any of the limitations to the spell which also means it is easier to implement as an augment.

[simpetar]

Jun 24, 2024 12:23:06 GMT jelricle said:

Hmmm, does Premonition and greater stone skin stay nerfed if you take off the armor? Ie. Is it needed for good when you have heavy armor or only while you are wearing the armor?

If you have heavy gear equipped when you cast those spells, they will apply only the vanilla nerfed version. If you cast those spells with nothing on, but put on heavy gear afterwards, they will get outright canceled; they will not reapply if you go naked again.
I'll take a wild guess you are asking for a friend (shifter). When you are shifted, you are indeed considered to be naked, there is no gear. At the same time however, you cannot use any items, including any gear with augments, so that wouldn't save you. You are limited only to potions (and pearls, if you have humanoid form focus). As I wrote above, the "soak" potion, Fey Potion of Stoneskin is pretty bad, even in low 40s.

Jun 24, 2024 14:48:19 GMT Yojimbo said:

I would say if we got anything it would be Stoneskin as a augment not the greater variant which is significantly better but is probably the best can ask for as it doesn't have any of the limitations to the spell which also means it is easier to implement as an augment.

Regular Stoneskin caps at 20/+15. You can see that even in some hell sets, and it's not unusual even as green added property.

[jelricle]

Rats!

Ah well. Now I'm trying to understand why putting on heavy armor nerfs the spell. How would armoring up be gaming the system?

What physical immunes do most of you have? My physical immunity is usually in the 60's, so, if premonition's best 50/+15 was applicable with my armor, a mob would need to do . . . over 125 damage? . . . to start damaging me (assuming their attack is less than +15)

Seeing as I am regularly taking over 125 physical damage to begin with, I assume that most mobs in the end game can manage that!

[Yojimbo]

The spell is intended to only work for Robed, or Light Armor for Druids, and gaming the system I refer to more exploiting in that cast in qualifying armor and then swap to unqualified armor after and expecting to keep the improved version. The devs designed an anti exploit that dispels a spell when equipment is changed to unqualified equipment. There may have been intent to make it punishing by dispelling the effect but it also is likely much easier to implement than any attempt to change the effect of the spell based on armor equipped at any given time.

For reducing physical damage you have 3 sources you can get on gear.

#1 Damage Immunity: just a simple percentage based reduction in the given damage type(available for all damage types) I think we all know this easily enough
#2 Damage resistance: a flat damage resistance the nullifies the first X points of damage from a given damage type(available for all damage types) just to clarify this is often represented as -/XX on items
#3 Damage reduction: similar to above but applies to physical damage from weapons and has no type preference between the 3 physical types and only works up to a set enhancement level of weapons often referred to as soak

There are some other options but they are feat/class based and I am not aware of any the feats being found on gear and if so would be specific items and not a generally found damage protection like the 3 mentioned above. I expect most have a fair grasp of this but since this is a large part of where this conversation is circling I want to clarify these for the discussion.

I did find there appears to be a potion that cast L60 Stoneskin that can drop or be found in Rona it seems not certain if it is a secret search or potential set drop item. Which while not worth much as simpetar points out is available if you lack that level of soak on gear.

Keep in mind most enemies deal elementals, exoctics, and on rare occasions esoteric damages which to my understanding are not covered by soak which is what I understand Premonition, Greater Stoneskin, and Stoneskin are offering. for the elementals and other damages you want other buffs like Energy Buffer, Endure Elements, Energy Immunity, Resist Elements, & Protection from Elements. I don't know about exotics off hand from any buffs though I believe there may be for Div & Magic and we should all already be aware of the Neg immunity buffs. I think for esoterics it is very limited set of gear and/or potions to get any protection from them.

[chirality]

Jun 23, 2024 19:58:19 GMT jelricle said:

And guess who runs around, most of the time, wearing nothing heavier than pajamas . . . ;-)

why?

if your gear choices or tactics are making phys kb from L55 areas a threat, you might need to make some sacrifices in order to acquire better phys imms/resists/soak. @60 even a low-phys% robe wearer (which as a shifter is unheard of in the first place) should be able to handle phys kb outside of evards. this begs the question of how you are generating so much phys kb as a shifter that this is even a concern at all, regardless of gearing. i would assume either manticore spikes or a lot kobold traps. in either case, using these against kb mobs requires either a change in gear, a change in strategy, or both, to accommodate. that's the point of kb.

[jelricle]

:-D I meant I am running around wearing nothing heavier than pajamas when shifted. :-D

I was hoping that the soak could somehow be tweaked after the fact.

Heh, yeah, it is my tactic that cause to much physical KB. I have 30 soak gear, but I would love to free up my shield or boot slot, if I could get a decent stoneskin running. Alas, it seems not to be.

What kind of physical immunity to others have? mine is typically in the 60's

[simpetar]

58% on my shifter atm. If your tactics involves lots of physical kickback you find hard to deal with, perhaps a change of tactics is in order? Rona cows, meenlocks, and other physical kickback culprits (barbed devils, for instance) are all instakillable by shifters. Not to mention there is a lot of inflictions in PoM, including very rapidly stacking vulnerability to piercing damage. You need to restore often or you will get overwhelmed.

[Yojimbo]

It might be more inflicts and wasting time hurting insta killable mobs though if said mobs are not priority targets by any means and are getting caught in an AoE that is working to kill a priority that insta kills don't work on them yeah you might need to try and manage with a crowd control or tactical mob pulling, separating, or utilizing terrain to reduce some issues.

[jelricle]

Yeah, I have the PoM strategy and Rona strategy down.

Next up is learning to handle prismatic golems in Ely! The trouble is that I have to commit to getting through 3 maps before I can practice in them! Well, then the trouble is surviving their support mobs while death gazing them . . .

[simpetar]

If kickback is your biggest concern, consider wearing some gear with %Refraction. Silver Nimbus from cania, Mantelet of Repulsion from abo, for instance. Like other hells / abyss / ely / abo gear, they are usable at 55 including if you are shackled to 57 (not that you have any reason to shackle for ely, buuut...)