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I know some of these are cheesy and may not be allowed by certain anal GMs. What of it? :P
Since I am playing an earth-themed spellcaster (aka an earth bender), I'm looking for advice on rules-legal ways to weaponize the stone shape spell, or to at least make it really awesome outside of combat.
I did some mathematical calculations and, as a 5th-level cleric or druid, I can manipulate 15 cubic feet of stone.
Some ideas that I had were as follows:
- Create spikes...big spikes...under enemies...impaling them. With 15 cubic feet I could create 45 right cones, each 5 feet long with a 3 inch radius at their base (if I did my math correctly). By reducing the radius, I can create well over a hundred spikes (albeit more fragile ones). At later levels, I could potentially impale small armies numbering in the hundreds.
- Prepare an action to create the above spikes (facing at an angle from the ground) when the enemy charges you and your friends so that they impale themselves.
- Touch a stone tower or similar structure and reshape a diagonal sliver out of it (moving it somewhere else in the tower) effectively cleaving the tower in half causing the top half to slide off the bottom half. I haven't done the math, but considering towers are rarely solid and I would only need to move a 1/2" x W' x D' or so, I should be able to pull this off even at low levels.
- Similar to the spike trick above, but the objective is to trap the victim(s) rather than to harm them. Simply have the cones spring up all around them thereby restricting their movement and making them helpless.
- Reshape a wall or ceiling into small spheres causing it to collapse on people standing nearby. Since I am not so much "turning the stone into spheres" as much as I am "reshaping/moving the stone from all the spaces BETWEEN the spheres," I can affect a surprisingly large amount of ceiling/wall this way.
- A combination of the above tricks: Instead of shaping a section of ceiling, shape them into cone spikes, then move a sliver of stone from their base causing them to fall on people below. I have no idea how much volume it would take to do that though...
- Cause a door in a stone frame to become blocked by stone cross bars in order to stop an enemy pursuit dead in its tracks.
- Seal a stone sarcophagi so that the horrible undead can't escape.
- Open a narrow passage (such as a door or series of murder holes) through a stone wall.
- Create a series of crude HOLLOW humanoid statues (I estimate about 1 per 5 cubic feet) to trick far off enemies or something.
- Create a mundane object such as thin slabs in the shape of a tent or shelter, or create a narrow bridge over a small chasm, or make a goblet or bowl for holding liquids or food.
What ideas do YOU have?
EDIT: After talking to MY GM about it, he has laid down some rules. Since it is a touch range spell, he said I can only effect stone that I can touch, that is, anything within my square or within my reach. Therefore I could not create hundreds of spikes to impale an army "over there," however, I could put an adjacent guy on a spic in a heartbeat. Furthermore, I would be able to hit a guy 10, 15, or 20 feet away (starting the spike in an adjacent square) but the extra volume this would eat up would seriously limit its range. It also means certain tricks like the tower slice might not work. (He's still working out how much damage a spike or spikes might deal--got any advice on that?)
Don't let that stop you and whatever awesome ideas you might come up with, however. :D
I know some of these are cheesy and may not be allowed by certain anal GMs. What of it? :P
I'm looking for advice on rules-legal ways to weaponize the stone shape spell, or to at least make it really awesome outside of combat.
I did some mathematical calculations and, as a 5th-level cleric or druid, I can manipulate 15 cubic feet of stone.
Some ideas that I had were as follows:
- Create spikes...big spikes...under enemies...impaling them. With 15 cubic feet I could create 45 right cones, each 5 feet long with a 3 inch radius at their base (if I did my math correctly). By reducing the radius, I can create well over a hundred spikes (albeit more fragile ones). At later levels, I could potentially impale small armies numbering in the hundreds.
- Touch a stone tower or similar structure and reshape a diagonal sliver out of it (moving it somewhere else in the tower) effectively cleaving the tower in half causing the top half to slide off the bottom half. I haven't done the math, but considering towers are rarely solid and I would only need to move a 1/2" x W' x D' or so, I should be able to pull this off even at low levels.
- Similar to the spike trick above, but the objective is to trap the victim(s) rather than to harm them. Simply have the cones spring up all around them thereby restricting their movement and making them helpless.
- Reshape a wall or ceiling into small spheres causing it to collapse on people standing nearby. Since I am not so much "turning the stone into spheres" as much as I am "reshaping/moving the stone from all the spaces BETWEEN the spheres," I can affect a surprisingly large amount of ceiling/wall this way.
- A combination of the above tricks: Instead of shaping a section of ceiling, shape them into cone spikes, then move a sliver of stone from their base causing them to fall on people below. I have no idea how much volume it would take to do that though...
- Cause a door in a stone frame to become blocked by stone cross bars.
...
Shape the stone into a big stick and hit them with it!
Shape the stone into a big stick and hit them with it!
Hah! Simple and effective! I like it!
Is your characters name Toph by chance? I sure hope it is!Shape the stone into a big stick and hit them with it!Hah! Simple and effective! I like it!
Nope. It's Tali Ovsten.
Playing Toph would be lame as being blind totally screws over player characters. I suppose I could make an oracle with the blind curse, but do they get stone shape?
In any case, playing Toph is not my goal. Emulating SOME of what she can do, however, is.
Touche about the whole blindness thing. However, an Oracle of Stone with the Clouded Vision curse would be freaking sweet. Oracles learn spells from the Cleric spell list, and Stone Shape is actually a lvl 3 cleric spell and a lvl 4 sorc/wiz spell. You could actually get it sooner, wear armor, and cast it without spell failure. I'm pretty sure I've decided what class I'm rolling next adventure I play!!!
If you will be using any of my tricks, be sure to discuss them with your GM first. As I said before, the spell's description is vague and that leaves it open to abuse--as such, you should find out what your GM's interpretation is.
Perhaps this might be a good place for a familiar. Send the critter amongst the army and use its touch. Make it invisible first, of course.
Thought of a new one: Encasing your opponent in stone.
About an inch thick layer of stone formed snugly over a creature's body will absolutely keep them from moving.
A minor variation would be cement boots. It takes, what, 1 cubic foot of stone to totally encase a medium creature's foot and root it to the ground? So when I initially pick up this spell I can root as many as 15 medium creatures to the earth (one stuck foot each).
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Could you maybe take a slightly altered metamagic feat of Widen Spell? If GM rules you can affect stone 5 feet from you, you could then actually hit in a slightly larger area with Widen. Take it multiple times perhaps and go to town? Or perhaps the metamagic rod? Minor changes of course, but still, couldn't hurt to ask.
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Just in case it's needed, for the sake of playing devil's advocate (and in case any DM wants to avoid PCs using this stuff on them...), I'll go ahead and add the 'anal GM' bit:
Stone Shape is a touch spell with a maximum volume listed for the thing touched, it's not a spell with a listed area. It effects one stone thing touched, of up to 10 cubic ft + 1ft/level.
That means you can't Stone Shape a solid stone floor (as in a cave), 'cos the volume of the whole thing is too high.
Also means that if you try to Stone Shape a tower built out of stone blocks, you only get to Stone Shape the one block you touch (although, with a Knowledge (engineering) check you could do some serious sapper-style damage - especially of you shape that one key block into a wedge through other blocks or something).
For the above 'weaponized' tricks, your best battlefield is gonna' be something like a flagstone floor, where you can touch the flagstone your opponent is standing on (which is, by itself, within your volume limit) and shape that.
You can make 'crude shapes' but not 'detail', so you can probably make a flagstone spikey enough to be doing some nasty damage (depending on the volume of the flagstone in question), but 'decoy statues' and the like are gonna' be roughly humanoid-shaped rocks, not classical Greek sculpture (although still helpful at distance, or with poor lighting conditions).
Making Stone Shape an area spell would be a serious power-boost, and should probably increase the thing's spell level quite a bit.
Of course, none of these limits apply to the OP, 'cos that's a specific game with rules agreed with the DM, where the increased power matches the flavour they're going for - my comments are just about the more standard Stone Shape for a more default campaign. ;)
Just in case it's needed, for the sake of playing devil's advocate (and in case any DM wants to avoid PCs using this stuff on them...), I'll go ahead and add the 'anal GM' bit:
Stone Shape is a touch spell with a maximum volume listed for the thing touched, it's not a spell with a listed area. It effects one stone thing touched, of up to 10 cubic ft + 1ft/level.
That means you can't Stone Shape a solid stone floor (as in a cave), 'cos the volume of the whole thing is too high.
Also means that if you try to Stone Shape a tower built out of stone blocks, you only get to Stone Shape the one block you touch (although, with a Knowledge (engineering) check you could do some serious sapper-style damage - especially of you shape that one key block into a wedge through other blocks or something).
For the above 'weaponized' tricks, your best battlefield is gonna' be something like a flagstone floor, where you can touch the flagstone your opponent is standing on (which is, by itself, within your volume limit) and shape that.
You can make 'crude shapes' but not 'detail', so you can probably make a flagstone spikey enough to be doing some nasty damage (depending on the volume of the flagstone in question), but 'decoy statues' and the like are gonna' be roughly humanoid-shaped rocks, not classical Greek sculpture (although still helpful at distance, or with poor lighting conditions).
Making Stone Shape an area spell would be a serious power-boost, and should probably increase the thing's spell level quite a bit.
Of course, none of these limits apply to the OP, 'cos that's a specific game with rules agreed with the DM, where the increased power matches the flavour they're going for - my comments are just about the more standard Stone Shape for a more default campaign. ;)
The target line seems to disagree with you. Note that it says "stone OR stone OBJECT touched."
It clearly differentiates between stone (like the stone in a mountain or in a dungeon floor) and that of a stone object (such as a small sculpture). Thus, it allows you to touch stone (of any kind) and shape it to your liking (though it must remain crude or some such). In the case of a mass of stone, such as a mountain or a dungeon floor you can only shape up to your volume's worth. For example, I could make a spike come out of the floor, but I could not transmute an entire mountain.
Have to agree as a GM. Stone or Stone Object tends to indicate you can shape an object that's bigger than your volume, but only a portion of it up to your volume.
There's a point where you get nitpicky (no offense). The spirit of the spell is you make a bunch of stone move. I'd be ok with shaping a bunch of pebbles into a solid sheet of stone (that looks very wierd), or a stone tower from bricked to solid stone (thus making it somewhat stronger). Or shaping 2-3 large stone blocks into a 'doorway' through the wall of said tower.
Now, back on subject.
STONE CAGE!
Touch the ground in front of you (assuming it's stone), and then make a 'wave' of stone that flows up (leaving behind a 3 inch square stone lead if you need it to go 10 or 15 feet away) and then form a box around the target. Make it 6 inches thick (if you have 15 cubic feet to work with, this should be good out to about 15 feet). Leave holes in the sides to poke through at the person (who should be flat footed if you form it around them close enough).
Now, as a GM I'd give the target a reflex save to avoid being entrapped.
Have to agree as a GM. Stone or Stone Object tends to indicate you can shape an object that's bigger than your volume, but only a portion of it up to your volume.
There's a point where you get nitpicky (no offense). The spirit of the spell is you make a bunch of stone move. I'd be ok with shaping a bunch of pebbles into a solid sheet of stone (that looks very wierd), or a stone tower from bricked to solid stone (thus making it somewhat stronger). Or shaping 2-3 large stone blocks into a 'doorway' through the wall of said tower.
Now, back on subject.
STONE CAGE!
Touch the ground in front of you (assuming it's stone), and then make a 'wave' of stone that flows up (leaving behind a 3 inch square stone lead if you need it to go 10 or 15 feet away) and then form a box around the target. Make it 6 inches thick (if you have 15 cubic feet to work with, this should be good out to about 15 feet). Leave holes in the sides to poke through at the person (who should be flat footed if you form it around them close enough).
Now, as a GM I'd give the target a reflex save to avoid being entrapped.
Assuming you made a 3-inch thick hollow cube, 3 inches thick, with no bottom (since it will be rooted to the ground already) you will need...
*does calculations*
... 27.63 cubic feet of volume.
That means you would have to be 18th-level to pull of your trick (not accounting for the small air holes).
If you were to cut that number in half (roughly) by making it a crude "barred cage" by inserting 3-inch gaps every 3 inches, it becomes a little more reasonable and can be done at 5th or 6th level.
the real advantage of stone shape is not direct dammage but INdirect damage and manipulation of the battlefield, be it a cavern or a grassy nole.
spike pits, pits, ramparts, shelters from miccle wpns, ditches for flamable substences and other sutch allow the enemy to be put at a severe disadvantage as thies features are not apparent until the worst possible moment for them.
I did the 'tower slice' trick on a bridge once. My cleric was flying (due to a spell cast on him, or a potion, can't recall), and used Stone Shape twice. Once to create a gap in the bridge, with the volume from that gap creating a low wall that would slow down the badguys crossing. The second was the diagonal slice to drop the whole middle section into the chasm, along with many of the baddies. The whole point of the exercise was to disable/destroy the bridge for strategic reasons, so being able to send some ogres into freefall was just gravy.
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The target line seems to disagree with you. Note that it says "stone OR stone OBJECT touched."
Yes - you can use it on an actual stone or an object made of stone.
If it hit an area of stone floor (for example) surely it'd have an area line, something like:
Area up to 10 cu. ft + 1 cu. ft/level (S)
It doesn't - it's an object targeting spell. You can no more use it to hit a small part of an object over your volume max. than you could use Enlarge Person on a giant's left arm.
Plus, the way you're 'weaponizing' it, you're already simulating higher level spells (like Spike Stones or Wall of Stone) to a greater or lesser degree with a mere Stone Shape. I'm pretty sure it's not meant to be that powerful - that'd require an area effect.
Again, not saying don't do what you want for your game - whatever works for making it fun, right? Just doing the 'anal GM' thing... ;)
P.S.: There's a bunch of spells in the Spell Compendium if you want to do this sort of stuff (and don't mind using 3.x stuff): Sudden Stalagmite, Stoney Grasp, Stonehold, Sarcophagus of Stone, etc..
The target line seems to disagree with you. Note that it says "stone OR stone OBJECT touched."Yes - you can use it on an actual stone or an object made of stone.
It's not as clear-cut a read as you make it out to be.
[stohn] ,noun, plural stones for 1–5, 7–19, stone for 6, adjective, adverb, verb, stoned, ston·ing.
–noun
1. the hard substance, formed of mineral matter, of which rocks consist.
2. a rock or particular piece or kind of rock, as a boulder or piece of agate.
3. a piece of rock quarried and worked into a specific size and shape for a particular purpose: paving stone; building stone.
4. a small piece of rock, as a pebble.
5. precious stone.
6. one of various units of weight, esp. the British unit equivalent to 14 pounds (6.4 kg).
7. something resembling a small piece of rock in size, shape, or hardness.
8. any small, hard seed, as of a date; pit.
9. Botany . the hard endocarp of a drupe, as of a peach.
10. Pathology .
a. a calculous concretion in the body, as in the kidney, gallbladder, or urinary bladder.
b. a disease arising from such a concretion.
11. a gravestone or tombstone.
12. a grindstone.
13. a millstone.
14. a hailstone.
15. Building Trades . any of various artificial materials imitating cut stone or rubble.
16. Printing . a table with a smooth surface, formerly made of stone, on which page forms are composed.
17. (in lithography) any surface on which an artist draws or etches a picture or design from which a lithograph is made.
18. a playing piece in the game of dominoes, checkers, or backgammon.
19. Usually, stones. testes.
Definition #1 suits the purpose everyone else is talking about. Your definition is #2-4. And lets all hope the spell isn't referring to #19. <wince>
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It's not as clear-cut a read as you make it out to be.
Didn't mean to imply that the text on the spell's Target line wasn't ambiguous - clearly it is, or there'd be no discussion on the matter! But just looking at that one line is missing the overall context on several levels:
1. The descriptive text also says, 'You can form an existing piece of stone...'. Now, while you could argue symantics on this one too, ask yourself this: if someone said, 'look at that piece of stone behind you,' would you turn expecting to see a) a rock, or b) a cliff-face? Be honest. The generally accepted usage of the phrase 'a piece of stone' in English is a discrete 'bit' of stone, not a contiguous surface. Now, if the text read, 'You can form pieces of an existing stone...' it'd be a different kettle of fish, but it doesn't.
2. The spell is part of the same 'family' of spells as Wood Shape - the text is basically copied word for word, with 'wood' switched out for 'stone'. In that context, saying 'a piece of stone' can be a cave wall is the same as saying a giant redwood is 'a piece of wood' - sure, you could argue the symantics with this too, but I doubt most people think of a tree when they say 'piece of wood'.
3. RAW: The spell has a Target line, but no Area line. Humour me and re-read the magic section, say pages 213 to 216 or thereabouts. Compare what it says under 'Target or Targets' to what it says under 'Area... (S) Shapeable' in particular. Stone Shape is a target effecting spell - it hits one 'thing' (not 'a small bit of a large thing'). Even if it were actually an 'Area' spell mislabeled under a 'Target' tag, then you still couldn't do half the stuff talked about here, 'cos it's not got that vital '(S)' next to it... and even if it did have that, a shapeable area can have no dimensions under 10 ft... Stone Shape's listed volume (if it were an area and not a maximum target size) doesn't really give enough area to make it a viable shapeable spell.
4. RAI: Compare what you think you can do with this spell with other level 3 spells. Then compare it with other higher levels spells. Then ask yourself if it's really the intention of the rules to give Druids the ability to easily knock down castles (or even 'mere' towers) at level 5? Not to mention everything else this seemingly uber-spell can do. Again, be honest.
Once more, I'll add that I'm not out to tell anyone they're 'playing the game wrong' or any other such guff, just offering a friendly clarification of the RAW. After all, there's probably some millage in a world where druids are the ultimate bad-ass terrorists... Hmmm... [starts scribbling notes...].
And lets all hope the spell isn't referring to #19. <wince>
Think that's bad? The next time someone mis-spells 'Fireball' as 'Fire Ball' on their spell list and wants to cast it just reply,
'You want to fire what now? Well okay - but it does a lot less damage than a Fireball... and you only get two shots...' ;)
Depending on the wording, access to it, and your GM, you may want to get the fabricate spell so you can alter much more per round.
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Interesting stuff
I can tell you that this is exactly the sort of thing that falls into Ravingdorks "may not be allowed by certain anal GMs" comment because much of this has been pointed out to him previously under a different stoneskin thread (I happen to be one of the 'anal GMs' he is referring to).
There is one bit which I've always run differently from you though.
The descriptive text also says, 'You can form an existing piece of stone...'. Now, while you could argue symantics on this one too, ask yourself this: if someone said, 'look at that piece of stone behind you,' would you turn expecting to see a) a rock, or b) a cliff-face? Be honest. The generally accepted usage of the phrase 'a piece of stone' in English is a discrete 'bit' of stone, not a contiguous surface. Now, if the text read, 'You can form pieces of an existing stone...' it'd be a different kettle of fish, but it doesn't.
This is a pretty limiting reading of the spell and game make for some fairly bizarre adjudication as the GM has to figure out on the fly what the typical sized stone in a dungeon is and how many larger stones there are. I've also seen some indications from developers that this isn't how you read the spell. For example in Red Hand of Doom there is an encounter where they talk about how to adjudicate use of stone shape on a fairly large section of stone which directly contradicts your reading.
The big thing IMO is the fact that the shapes are 'crude' which precludes most of the ideas RD espouses. While wording on the cubic feet doesn't have the [S] it doesn't have any specific shape which makes it a bit unclear, are GMs expected to do cube roots on the fly to figure out what volume is covered? I just figure any fairly crude shape of stone is fair game provided it's smaller than the listed volume.
So with a 2' wide wall a 10th level wizard could make a 2'x5' wide hole to pass through (20 cubic feet) a stone wall. Or make a crude throne.
Most of my DM analness would revolve around the definition of crude.
- Cutting a 1mm diagonal slice with mirror smooth edges out of a tower is very precise. With stone shape,you would have to remove 2-3 inches. Since the cut would be crude, the missing section would have very rough edges, this would keep the tower from falling over immediately. The tower would be weakened, but it would not immediately collapse.
- Crude would limit the sharpness of a spike or edge. No razor sharp edges.
In general, your precision is probably limited to +/- 1 inch. So if I am trying to make a 3 inch wide gap in a stone wall, in some places it would be 2 inches wide, while in other places it would be 4 inches wide.
- Making a 3 foot wide passage would be easy. Making an inch wide gap would be very hard.
- You could make shapes that were vaguely humanoid, but there would be no facial features.
- A stone cage would probably be too fine for the spell. If you were trying to make anything that was less than an inch thick, it would have gaps in it.
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This is a pretty limiting reading of the spell and game make for some fairly bizarre adjudication as the GM has to figure out on the fly what the typical sized stone in a dungeon is and how many larger stones there are.
Yeah, it can be pretty limiting, and you're right - stopping the game to do volume calculations on every boulder you want to use this on would be... 'anal'... ;)
To be honest, in actual play I'd (as a DM) always take the size (and other) limits as rough indicators and combine that with what's best for the story: does it make a better game if the Druid Stone Shapes the party a way through that wall (and that is, after all, one of the more common uses you'll see in play for the spell), just before the evil plot monster gets them, or is it actually better that they stay - 'cos otherwise they miss stuff they'll really enjoy? Within the limits of the spell it's pretty easy to justify either way - 'Oh yeah - that wall last week had cracks in it, so that bit was technically seperate, you just failed your Perception roll to notice that - this wall is much better made...' It's all about what makes the game fun and keeps it moving, right?
I've also seen some indications from developers that this isn't how you read the spell. For example in Red Hand of Doom there is an encounter where they talk about how to adjudicate use of stone shape on a fairly large section of stone which directly contradicts your reading.
Okay, I'll answer this, but from past experience I'm expecting calls of 'blasphemy' or 'you're so arrogant, you think you know better than the people who wrote the game!', but here goes...
... Game writers, developers, whatever you want to call them aren't infallible. They're often not the person who wrote that specific rule, and with Pathfinder so much is inherited they've got an even harder time of it. They're also, like most of us who play, interested in telling dramatic and fun stories. That means they can put stuff in which contradicts the letterof certain rules. In fact, if you've been about RPGs for a while, you're sure to have already seen this happen a lot - be it mis-calculated maths on NPC character sheets, or specific examples of events which contradict the RAW. In certain cases they can even be perfectly aware of the RAW, and be picturing what they're writing about as within the RAW, but because creative and interesting prose seldom matches well with nitty-gritty detail, end up leaving out bits which to others make it seem as though what they've written suggests 'a' when it means 'b'. I have no idea is that's the case here, I'm just making a general observation based on my RPG experiences. Of course, it could also be the case that this spell was always meant to be 'b', but got written up as 'a' - who knows? We're stuck with what we're stuck with (and we all change that anyway!).
Personally, I think the best approach to cases like this spell is to know the written limits, but be perfectly willing to bend or break them as best fits your game - as long as you realise that's what you're doing. Allowing one 'power' to do something it was never meant to do (usually when you're caught up in a dramatic moment and not thinking through the future consequences) is a fast-track way to breaking your game. One example which happened with my group a long, long, time ago... (we're all ancient now...) was with a poorly worded low-level telekinesis power in a game: it listed that you could lift 'objects' up to a certain weight limit. Well, one guy used it one time to, in desperation, hurl about a hundred arrows at an attacking monster. In the moment it was dramatic and cool, and the monster got swiss-cheesed. Of course, it didn't take long for everyone else to cotton on to this 'tactic', get the TK power, and ride around with saddlebags full of darts (lighter than arrows for the damage potential, don'tcha'know...) - flinging a thousand or so at any enemy they saw. We hunted dragons, for sport and profit, at about level 3 (out of 20 for that game). It was briefly cool - selling valuable dragon bone by the ounce and using the cash to build uber-kingdoms, but it obviously broke the game. One moment of win, but long-term game fail. Not good - and just the sort of thing any DM should quickly learn to recognise when any PCs comes up with a 'tactic' or 'use of a power' which seems 'too good to be true'.
Just my 2cp worth. YMMV. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or RPG character is purely coincidence. Names changed to protect the guilty. ;)
Funny timing, the "what can stone shape do" question came up in last nights game.
The party of 10th level characters were marching through an area of tight twisting natural caverns, and became lost. While wondering through the same area for the tenth time, they were beset upon by vicious redcaps. Several of them were attacking from 5'x5' openings in the walls above the characters heads. The party druid used one casting of stone shape to seal up 4 of the openings with 3" think slabs.
I felt that it kind of pushed the boundaries of the spell, since the last opening was over 30' away from the druid, although he was capable of connecting them with little strips of shaped stone, and had line of effect. In the end it came down to fun, creativity, and the general power of a 3rd level spell in a near ideal situation. I probably wouldn't allow it to work the same way if things were a little different, but the mental image of these nasty little chaotic psychos pounding their iron boots against their new stony tombs was pretty funny. The druid also used a casting of gust of wind in an attempt to blow their red caps off, which I also thought to be very clever.
PS I probably wouldn't allow stone shape to do any damage (short of dropping rocks or stalactites from above). I see the transformation happening slow enough that anyone who isn't paralyzed would just step out of the way. I also agree that it probably isn't possible to create anything sharper then a fingertip.
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To be honest, in actual play I'd (as a DM) always take the size (and other) limits as rough indicators and combine that with what's best for the story: does it make a better game if the Druid Stone Shapes the party a way through that wall (and that is, after all, one of the more common uses you'll see in play for the spell), just before the evil plot monster gets them, or is it actually better that they stay - 'cos otherwise they miss stuff they'll really enjoy? Within the limits of the spell it's pretty easy to justify either way - 'Oh yeah - that wall last week had cracks in it, so that bit was technically seperate, you just failed your Perception roll to notice that - this wall is much better made...' It's all about what makes the game fun and keeps it moving, right?
Eh, I just eyeball it and if there is plenty of stone and it's roughly the right size and a 'crude' shape I let it fly. As you say just keep the game moving, it's about fun not measuring sticks.
Okay, I'll answer this, but from past experience I'm expecting calls of 'blasphemy' or 'you're so arrogant, you think you know better than the people who wrote the game!', but here goes...
... Game writers, developers, whatever you want to call them aren't infallible. They're often not the person who wrote that specific rule, and with Pathfinder so much is inherited they've got an even harder time of it. They're also, like most of us who play, interested in telling dramatic and fun stories. That means they can put...
I totally agree, but I think that their fallibility extends not just to adventures but the the game rules themselves. The game system is riddled with places where you can read things in multiple ways. Trying to parse the rules too closely like you were is not the way they expect the rules to be read.
The people who write the game don't slave themselves to the rules when they run their games. They have made this fairly clear on the forums and the few times I've been lucky enough to game with them as well. They don't expect the GM to do so either, and they definitely don't expect players or GMs to be doing complex volume calculations or guestimating how big the nearest boulder is.
When I mentioned RHoD I was not trying to refer to the infallibility of designers, but pointing out is that the way you are parsing the rule isn't the most common way it's read.
Somewhere between the spell of wonder that RD seems to think this is and the fairly worthless one boulder spell you are talking about is a cool utility spell which is sometimes useful in combat (maybe building a small foxhole in a stone floor?).
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Somewhere between the spell of wonder that RD seems to think this is and the fairly worthless one boulder spell you are talking about is a cool utility spell which is sometimes useful in combat (maybe building a small foxhole in a stone floor?).
Oh, I totally agree! Like I said in my initial post on this thread - I'm playing a bit of the devil's advocate here, I certainly wouldn't run it that way - as long as the players aren't trying to abuse the spell, then yeah - eyeballing it is exactly the way to go.
Ah - volume calculations... reminds me of the days when a Fireball was a spherical explosion with a listed volume which filled the available area, not a weird spreading disc: casting one in a dungeon was tantamount to suicide (and invoked images of PCs running like they were the Millenium Falcon trying to escape an exploding Death Star)... good times... ;) (nah - much better now, simple and neat).
As I am resuming play of my earth sorcerer, who will likely make heavy use of this spell, I've decided to renew this thread in hopes of getting some more cool ideas. :D
raise thread...maybe this spell could be touched upon in the upcoming Pathfinder Unchained?
Combine this spell with Spectral hand and affect any stone within 100ft +10ft/lvl. Then you can create those spiked walls, cover over arrow slits and murder holes, etc at range.
I would probably limit structures you could create to fairly large shapes (no smaller than a 3-4 inches in thickness/diameter, meaning only one spike per 5 or 10 cubic feet, depending on length), personally, per the "crude shapes" argument, but I see no reason you couldn't make terrain that was the equivalent of an immovable area of caltrops (5 ft square per 10 cubic feet) or trap an opponent with a cage of arm-thick columns (though I would allow them a reflex save to escape as the cage was forming).
A large spike I would allow to deal dmg as a spear that had been braced against a charge if you took the readied action to cast the spell, but it would still require an attack to hit them. However, you could reasonably make a stone ceiling or stalactite cave in with this method as well, dealing falling dmg (1/2 or none on a successful reflex, depending on size) and potentially burying them in the process.
Probably more useful if you were eon a battle field, though, would be if you could use this to make a trebuchet (essentially a counter-weighted lever system) in an instant and start hurling small boulders or scatter shot at your opponents on a battlefield. You can take out any siege engines they might have brought before they can ready them while attacking their squadrons at the same time. Form it in two parts, the base and the arm, so that one just sits on top of the other and the whole mechanism is so simple that most DMs would probably reduce, if not waive, the failure chance for moving parts. And who cares if they destroy one or two of these when it only takes a single spell to recreate them from scratch.
And note that some smaller historical trebuches actually functioned mechanically more like catapults, so why not ask your DM if you can switch between those two rule sets? Gives you a better range of attack options for mid and long range, and the worst thing your DM might say is "No".
P.S. Don't forget to summon small earth (or titanium) elementals for ammunition. Just remind them to earth glide into the ground when they hit so they can keep attacking from below. ;P
The target line seems to disagree with you. Note that it says "stone OR stone OBJECT touched."Yes - you can use it on an actual stone or an object made of stone.
If it hit an area of stone floor (for example) surely it'd have an area line, something like:
Area up to 10 cu. ft + 1 cu. ft/level (S)
It doesn't - it's an object targeting spell. You can no more use it to hit a small part of an object over your volume max. than you could use Enlarge Person on a giant's left arm.
Plus, the way you're 'weaponizing' it, you're already simulating higher level spells (like Spike Stones or Wall of Stone) to a greater or lesser degree with a mere Stone Shape. I'm pretty sure it's not meant to be that powerful - that'd require an area effect.
Again, not saying don't do what you want for your game - whatever works for making it fun, right? Just doing the 'anal GM' thing... ;)
P.S.: There's a bunch of spells in the Spell Compendium if you want to do this sort of stuff (and don't mind using 3.x stuff): Sudden Stalagmite, Stoney Grasp, Stonehold, Sarcophagus of Stone, etc..
I'm on side with ProffPotts. Allowing this spell to target a section of stone larger than the area/volume permitted by the spell is a serious power upgrade.
flesh to stone someone, stone shape them into hilariously lethal organ configurations, stone to flesh them. not for the faint of heart.
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Yeah, so my players want to collapse a those with the inch-thick-diagonal-slice idea. I'm against it, it seems overpowered for 5th level for a start. Still, if I can't find a reason I can get behind 100% I'll let it go in some way or other. ("Yes, and...")
We've always played stone shape to shape lumps/hollow out stone floors out ceilings in caverns - so the area: one object argument is pottery much house-ruled out. The crudeness argument is good though - a thick, wobbly slice that drops then holds could be an option.
What else though? Our what sneaky consequences? Bound earth elemental springs to mind :-)
Easy way to limit the spell:
It has no strength score listed, so it has no ability to bind something while forming, nor can it lift something up. You can reshape the pedestal under something, but you can't lift something up on a pedestal. While it is being made, someone can totally push through it, as it has no strength score to resist.
The AoE is in 1 cubic foot blocks. So, the area affected is in 1 cubic foot blocks, not 'redrawing the volume whatever way is most advantageous to me'. This is the exact same rule applied to making walls. You can't make a 1' wide, 250 foot long wall of force to trip incoming cavalry. You have to assign the wall in 5x5 increments.
Note that saving throw/None applies to the target of the spell, i.e. the stone. If you are using it ON someone, you are now attacking with a spell that is not meant to attack with. Accordingly, attack rolls and saving throws, the first probably at a penalty and the latter at a bonus, are both applicable. IT is not a spell designed for attacking.
You can only make crude shapes. Those 'spikes' aren't going to look like the Spike Stones Spell. First, you'll probably be only able to make one, and secondly, it'll look like a stalagmite, not a razor-pointed thorn. Dmg will be based on size, likely d4 or d6, and you'd have to make an attack roll to hit with it.
The range is touch. That doesn't mean you can make a 1 inch wide, 144' foot long connection to a distant point and reshape the stone way over there. Nope. You can reshape the stone starting in 1 foot blocks starting at where you are touching the stone.
It says stone or stone object, meaning it all has to be contiguous. Thus, you could only affect one block of a tower at the same time. You could conceivably affect multiple blocks if you could touch them all, but you'd be in violation of the 'stone object', not 'stone objectS' portion of the spell. So it would only affect ONE block.
By the wording of the spell, you could only affect a single pebble at a time, since multiple pebbles are multiple objects. A brick wall is basically going to be impervious to you, and so are most non-natural constructed walls.
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Key thing about the spell, it makes things that are crude and simple, not super finessed 1 mm or 1 inch hyper controlled architectural masteries. You don't work the spell like the stone is liquid and under your absolute control. Technically speaking, you're taking a lump of clay in your hand, and the stone is emulating what you're shaping that clay into. In one standard action, you're not going to get a lot of detail or control.
IMC, Heightening the spell allows a lot more fluidity and control when using Stone Shape. There's a higher level variant that has a duration, too, so you can keep working at a volume of stone you are touching and reshape it for the duration. So, you could use it to slowly part the stone in front of you for making a narrow tunnel.
Widening the spell works awesomely, since you multiply the area by 8. 160 cubic feet + 8 ft/level adds up to a substantial area very quickly.
==Aelryinth
The individual components of an object are generally not considered objects themselves for the purposes of spell targeting (I like to think it's caster's choice, personally). You can shrink a necklace with shrink item, for example, not just a single link in its chain. There's plenty of examples and support for this all throughout Pathfinder published material.
And yes, you can't do fine details with stone shape, such as create razor edges or fine points, but something that is 1-inch in its smallest dimension should totally be possible (that's hardly fine detail--in fact, it's pretty broad).
Stone shape does not qualify for the Widen Spell metamagic feat. That feat only applies towards burst, emanation, or spread-shaped spells.
Maybe I'm math-anal, but like some others, I'm not able to wrap my head around this equation:
One 5th level (wall of stone)
+ 4th level (spike stones)
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= 3rd level spell.
And, yeah, "creating stone" is really not a big deal when we typically adventure in dungeons.
I agree the stone shape spell is poorly-worded and needs to be fixed. Then again, PF still has totally rules-legal sno-cone wish machines, too.
I remember the way Stone Shape was back in AD&D v1. It took a whole turn (10 minutes) to cast. Mechanically, the caster took a lump of clay, touched it to the target stone and then molded the clay into the desired shape over the course of the 10-minute casting time. That mechanic removed much of the cheese that is possible with the current 1-standard-action casting time.
Casting Time: 1 round.
Maybe if you had time make a stone floor paper thin so when a person steps on it it shatters a slices up their leg like a bear trap or pungi pit.
I would like to use it to make caltrops across a very large floor. It is making pokey bits which is against consensus, but it is replicating a cheap mundane item hear instead of a different spell or higher lvl spell.