Ravingdork
2010-07-08, 11:03 PM
DISCLAIMER: I know some of these are cheesy and may not be allowed by certain anal GMs. What of it? :tongue::biggrin:
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 "in yonder cavern," 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. :smallbiggrin:
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 "in yonder cavern," 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. :smallbiggrin: