Metal Skin at will

[togapika]

What sort of cost would you charge in LA or otherwise for a character to be able to use the Wu Jen spell Metal skin at will?
What if it meant he couldn't wear normal armor?
(P.S. Yes I just want to be Colossus)

[TroubleBrewing]

I remember reading something about a template that gave spell-like abilities like this... Might be PHBII, might be UA, I'm not 100% certain. The idea was that exposure and surviving harmful magic made it... I dunno, somehow a part of the survivor. I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT: Found it. UA, here's the SRD link: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm

Maybe "Bladeproof Skin" would work with some re-flavoring? Check with your DM for approval, obviously.

[DrizztFan24]

Psychoactive armor with a metal skin instead of stone skin spell in it?

[togapika]

Psychoactive armor with a metal skin instead of stone skin spell in it?

How much for it?

[Escheton]

Half-pixie i believe has a bunch of benefits. wings, statincrease and a bunch of spell-likes.

Most notably for this thread however, they have charm person at will.
Now I am not sure what lvl metal skin is, and I don't feel like looking it up to be honoust.

But if you strip the LA +4 down, the at will spell-like could be seen as a +1 mod.

[togapika]

Tis' a level 5 spell

[Z3ro]

My first thought was to rufluff warforged so that you have to "activate" all those immunities, otherwise walking around as a flesh-and-blood charecter.

[FMArthur]

I would just try to design it from scratch to scale with character level. You're not even looking for the ability to use it on others, so strike that out. Metal Skin not even very good for a 5th level spell.

I would let it be +3 at first level. Improve by +1 for every 2 character levels. It's that low because it stacks with armor, making a big difference at low levels (and it's like at-will Shield at 2nd). Later on it's only scaling as fast as a poor progression BAB and still costs an action.

Maybe give the race something else that's actually interesting and it's playable.

[Beelzebub1111]

If you want to play as Collosus from X-Men, I would recommend playing mutants and masterminds.

Good luck with these other options, though.

[Person_Man]

What exactly does Metal Skin do? I'm AFB right now.

Off the top of my head the Volodni race (Unapproachable East) gets the plant type (immunity to all mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, polymorph, stunning, and critical hits) plus 50% damage from piercing weapons and a few other minor perks for +2 LA. It'd be easy enough to refluff as metal skin instead.

Reading this thread also makes me think of the the 8th level Iron Body (http://srd.realmspire.com/spellsHtoL.html#iron-body) spell. DR 15/adamantine, a dozen or so useful immunities, half damage from fire and acid, +6 Str, -6 Dex, and 50% movement and arcane spell failure (not a problem for Clerics). Also lasts for minutes per level, which means that one casting will often get you through multiple combats. I think there's a PrC somewhere that gives it to you as a spell like ability or something, but I can't remember what it is. I'd be fine with just giving it as a continuous capstone ability to a melee oriented PrC, similar to how a variety of PrC grant the elemental/plant/construct/etc type.

[togapika]

Metal Skin gives Natural Armor at the cost of losing some dexterity. Don't know If I can post numbers?

[Daftendirekt]

What sort of cost would you charge in LA or otherwise for a character to be able to use the Wu Jen spell Metal skin at will?
What if it meant he couldn't wear normal armor?
(P.S. Yes I just want to be Colossus)

Technically you could just work it into backstory that it was cast with Permanency on you.

If this is an arcane caster, I don't think it'd be too broken. Metal Skin is a Natural Armor bonus, and you wouldn't be wearing armor for obvious reasons, so you wouldn't have ridiculous AC or anything. On a fighter with full plate, that'd be a different story. In the end, just discuss it with your DM.

I don't think it's really worth a LA though. It's really not too different from Adamantine Body (except for everyone) apart from it being natural armor, and therefore easy to stack with. But I already talked about that, so, yeah, that's my 2 cents.

EDIT: It's +8 natural armor, -2 dex. So, really, you only get 7 AC out of it. Nowhere near as powerful as Iron Body.

[mabriss lethe]

There's a construct graft in Faiths of Eberron that gives you Adamantine plating over your skin. I don't recall off the top of my head how much it costs (I'm AFB) But find that and it might give you an idea about where to start pricing things.

[Person_Man]

Metal Skin gives Natural Armor at the cost of losing some dexterity. Don't know If I can post numbers?

That's it? Then I would say +1 LA. It'd be very useful in low level games, but would essentially be a waste of a class level once you get to higher levels and the importance of AC is replaced by Saves, Touch AC, Miss Change, etc. Alternatively, you could just come up with a magic item or graft. For example a Wand of Barkskin with a 12th level caster level is fairly affordable, grants a +5 bonus to NA, and lasts for 2 hours.

[Daftendirekt]

That's it? Then I would say +1 LA. It'd be very useful in low level games, but would essentially be a waste of a class level once you get to higher levels and the importance of AC is replaced by Saves, Touch AC, Miss Change, etc.

AC and nothing else is not worth a LA to me. If this is +1 LA to you, what is a warforged?

[ScionoftheVoid]

AC and nothing else is not worth a LA to me. If this is +1 LA to you, what is a warforged?

+7 can take you into nigh-unhittable at low levels, but by the time you can buy off or ignore the LA as insignificant the spell is as well, which may have something to do with that figure.

[Daftendirekt]

+7 can take you into nigh-unhittable at low levels, but by the time you can buy off or ignore the LA as insignificant the spell is as well, which may have something to do with that figure.

Again, warforged with adamantine body = 18 AC. How is this any different? Especially since Metal Skin is a 5th level Wu Jen (And only Wu Jen) power. Significantly harder to get (unless in your backstory, obviously) than a feat.

[ScionoftheVoid]

Again, warforged with adamantine body = 18 AC. How is this any different? Especially since Metal Skin is a 5th level Wu Jen (And only Wu Jen) power. Significantly harder to get (unless in your backstory, obviously) than a feat.

I'm not entirely sure how they came to a +1LA, I just said that low level high AC tends to be rather powerful, and Warforged are on the high end of LA 0 anyway. In any case, with LA buyoff, 1 LA may well be an okay trade for a feat, depending on how much you need it. I probably wouldn't agree with +1 LA for this ability, but it is difficult to balance, maybe too strong for a standard feat, too weak for a level and the only way you could have it on top of a standard race without some drawback is if every PC has something similar.

[Runestar]

Dragon magic has an ACF which trades heavy armour prof for a dragonhusk armour (basically granting an AC bonus in place of your normal ability to wear armour). The bonus is +6 at 1st lv, +1AC every 3rd lv, with scaling elemental resistance.

If you opt not to wear armour, then it would be a situational LA+0, I suppose.

[Gorilla2038]

Ring of arming my good sir! Your +5 full plate folds into a ring, or in this case, metal skins you!

[togapika]

What if I took the price of the ring of arming, increased the price to make it slotless, and fluffed it as metal skin?