OOC spell graphical effects, should they be removed?

[Blackbrrd]

I voted #1, I hate it when a whole party is running around having clothing, armor and physical appearance of wood or stone.

It can be argued that stoneskin and barkskin actually changes the physical appearance of skin, but the nwn implementation with clothing/armor changeing as well is not good. It certainly isn't eyecandy.

Neither stoneskin or barkskin says anything about changing physical appearance. Barkskin mentions toughening of skin, nothing about appearance, and since neither of the spells have any dex penalties, armor check penalties or similiar, the effect probably isn't visual...

Stoneskin
Abjuration
Level: Drd 5, Earth 6, Sor/Wiz 4, Strength 6
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 10 min./level or until discharged
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)
The warded creature gains resistance to blows, cuts, stabs, and slashes. The subject gains damage reduction 10/adamantine. (It ignores the first 10 points of damage each time it takes damage from a weapon, though an adamantine weapon bypasses the reduction.) Once the spell has prevented a total of 10 points of damage per caster level (maximum 150 points), it is discharged.
Material Component: Granite and 250 gp worth of diamond dust sprinkled on the target’s skin.



Barkskin
Transmutation
Level: Drd 2, Rgr 2, Plant 2
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Living creature touched
Duration: 10 min./level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)
Barkskin toughens a creature’s skin. The effect grants a +2 enhancement bonus to the creature’s existing natural armor bonus. This enhancement bonus increases by 1 for every three caster levels above 3rd, to a maximum of +5 at caster level 12th.
The enhancement bonus provided by barkskin stacks with the target’s natural armor bonus, but not with other enhancement bonuses to natural armor. A creature without natural armor has an effective natural armor bonus of +0

[MShady]

Truthfully I never thought they had to mention it. Things like "stoneskin" and "barkskin" seem to fairly obviously have a visual effect. I half expect they never felt the need to mention it because it seems obvious. lol. Toughened skin and being covered in granite & diamond dust... seems to jump out to me.

Mike

[Swift]

Truthfully I never thought they had to mention it. Things like "stoneskin" and "barkskin" seem to fairly obviously have a visual effect. I half expect they never felt the need to mention it because it seems obvious. lol. Toughened skin and being covered in granite & diamond dust... seems to jump out to me.

Mike

Very first time i encountered stoneskin, first thing i thought was "So it makes yuor skin as hard as stone". Im sure im not the only person that never thought it actually made you look like a walking statue.

[Cynon]

I'm for the temporary visual effect that lasts a few seconds after the spell is cast and then fades off. Also i think all skin spells like barkskin stone skin or that shadowy skin, i think there is a iron skin too? They should all be left alone cos really they are important visual IC change in appearance to the PC they are cast on. If i drank a potion of bark skin and my PC didn't become covered in bark i'd feel i'd been cheated somehow. It doesn't look cool i admit but it's a skin of bark over your body, it should look that way.

+ that shadow skin shield type thing looks awsome. DM's use it all the time on NPCs purely for visual effect i've noticed

[AcadiusLost]

Man, that would be a lot of granite and diamond dust, to cover a whole PC and their armor- good thing we don't use components, huh?

I wouldn't say an increase in nat armor class should necessarily be visible, is everyone who is wearing a nat armor amulet a different color?

I voted "1", though to be honest I'm OK with leaving barkskin and/or stoneskin in if people are overwhelmingly in favor of them. I'd just like it resolved so we don't get into the usual:

"That is a fine skin of bark you wear"
"I don't know what you mean."
[tell] U Cant see it!
[tell] OMG yes I can is IC
[tell] Nuh uh!

etc.

[Ronan]

Once again, as per the title of the thread and the description of the poll, we are not voting to remove any IC spell visual effects. Only ones which should not be there per PnP rules or FR canon.

Barkskin and stoneskin, per the spell descripions and FR novels, do not have any visual cues. If you don't believe me, look it up. After walking into a room full of PCs who will likely try to kill my PC at some point and having them all meta the visual spells on my PC (which included stoneskin), I suddenly feel more strongly about this topic Its really a more important topic to adventuring mages, who need these buffs to survive.

The biggest argument against removing stoneskin is that DMs like to see it without examining each PC in the chooser. I'm not one to think DMs should up encounter difficulty because PCs were able to plan ahead and provide protections for the party, but some do not want the stoneskins VFX to go.

[Killthorne]

And get rid of the sound effects on them!

Everytime I come in range or see someone in stoneskin or barkskin or endure elements, it's like an alarm clock. You hear the barkskin make that splitting of wood noise, the stoneskin sound like rocks shifting against each other.. etc..

~Killthorne~

[paazin]

I recall a tale of Artemis and Drizzt fighting once.. with Artemis enhanced with stoneskin.. Drizzt couldn't figure out why he wasn't harming Artemis when he struck because Artemis didn't look any different.

Just to re-quote, if no one noticed.

[Ronan]

And get rid of the sound effects on them!

The sound effects are actually tied to the visual effects. So if I remove the visual effects, the sound effects will go. You could rid the visual effects of their ties to sound effects by changing a 2da, as well.

[ç i p h é r]

I like Cynon's idea as a compromise between always ON and always OFF. A very short duration visual effect just so you can notice/enjoy casting the spell, though this only addresses the IC/OOC issue if not being observed at the time of casting.

Regarding Barkskin and Stoneskin DR, you shouldn't need the visual cues or combat log to notice you're not doing as much damage as you should be. Unless it's a server setting, you can see the damage numbers float up over creatures as you hit them (I thought this was a client side setting actually). So, you should be able to tell if you're being very effective in combat or not right where you're looking already.

Regarding lag, I believe that's almost entirely a client side problem. Visual effects are processed and rendered by the player's machine, not the server as there's nothing for the server to compute in that respect (unless someone is using the server to actually play the game). It does suck for those with weaker machines though. I'm probably on the lower end myself now...but it still works well enough for me.

[Orcpaladin]

Truthfully I never thought they had to mention it. Things like "stoneskin" and "barkskin" seem to fairly obviously have a visual effect. I half expect they never felt the need to mention it because it seems obvious. lol. Toughened skin and being covered in granite & diamond dust... seems to jump out to me.

Mike

Take this for what you will, but the only thing I remember reading in the FR novels about the spell was one by Salvatore. A wizard/assassin goes after Artemis Entreri, and the first time Entreri lands a blow, he knows the mage is stoneskinned. Didn't know it UNTIL the blow lands, which indicates the spell isn't visible.

*shrugs* take that as you will.

[Overfilled Cup]

Darkvision is in black and white which may have played a role in Drizzt not being able to see the effect on Artemis. If the fight was in a lighted area then his sight would have been even more damaged. Perhaps we just take away the ability of Drow to see this effect.?

[Ronan]

Darkvision is in black and white which may have played a role in Drizzt not being able to see the effect on Artemis. If the fight was in a lighted area then his sight would have been even more damaged. Perhaps we just take away the ability of Drow to see this effect.?

Read the Last Mythal series (if you can bear to...) for more instances of stoneskin use without any mention of a visual aspect to the spell.

[fade]

Or like every FR book out there. Would have to be schizo to see stoneskin on someone

[Killthorne]

Darkvision is in black and white which may have played a role in Drizzt not being able to see the effect on Artemis. If the fight was in a lighted area then his sight would have been even more damaged. Perhaps we just take away the ability of Drow to see this effect.?

Uh no, cause it wasn't dark and drow can see colors just as well as any other.

~Killthorne~