How do you alter a spell's school? I ask this because if I remember old school rules right, stoneskin is an alteration spell (and if it wasn't, it should be). I just think this is a minor update do just like changing burning hands from alteration to evocation was done in past Co8 patches. Also, has anyone solved the problems with animal companions. I posted about this some time ago and to my knowledge, nobody had yet addressed the problem. Companions are supposed to gain hp, attack, and save bonuses as the druid or ranger goes up in level to keep them viable later in the game. They are also supposed to heal at the same rate as their master (1 hp/level) when resting. I can confirm this is all true because I once played the game sans Co8 patch (with just patch 1 & 2). It's something with moebius temple.dll or Co8 3.0.4 patch that undid this because that's all I've added to the mix (no, I haven't tried 4.0 yet, one thing at a time). Third, is their any problem with fire shield, it's extremely short and no visual effect is shown, jsut curious? That's all for now
In 3.0 (haven't checked the 3,5 SRD yet) stoneskin is an Abjuration spell, the school of each spell is difined in the spell .txt files found in the data/rules/spells folder. I believe Cerulean is working on a script that may help with animal companions, i'm a little hazy on the details though. Not sure about that one. Fire shield is a personal affect that protects against Fire (chill shield) or cold (warm shield) and deals fire damage to attackers in melee range.
Stoneskin definitely belongs in Abjuration. For the Cadilac of protective spells to be in any other school would be nuts, whatever bizarre errors may have been committed in previous editions of D&D. Stoneskin is the very essence of the sort of spell that Abjuration is supposed to be about.
Have to disagree Jeffh, I always look at the nature of the spell as opposed to the end result of the spell. The nature/essence of abjuration spells generally derives power from other sources, i.e., protection from evil calls on extra-planar powers of good to ward off evil, same for protection from chaos, protection from good, etc. These spells derive there power from outside. Stoneskin "alters" the skin of the spell recipient, changing things, transmuting them is the nature/essence of an alteration spell. The fact that it ends up protecting the recipient from damage is a fortunate side effect. This is why Burning hands was an alteration (rather than Evocation) spell in 1e and 2e rules and if I'm not mistaken, Stoneskin was an alteration spell in those editions. Evocation did not simply mean a discharge of energy, the burning hands spells "altered" the wizards hands. In my PnP days, I spent a lot of time reorganizing clerical spheres and some wizard spells as well because 2e rules tended to lose sight of this point.
If you're not "ghoulish", choose another moniker for yourself. These things get assigned automatically based on your number of posts.
The thing is, for 3.5 they changed a bunch of schools around to balance them out. Now a specialist chooses two opposed schools (but can't choose Divination and if a Diviner only has to choose one opposed school) and that's it instead of the oddly random-seeming charts of old. So changing schools for spells can upset that balance. In what way? The spell causes a fan of flames to burst from the hands, the hands themselves don't change into anything.
I'd have to dig into my 1e archives, but if I remember correctly it created flames around your hands and you could choose when to discharge it. Come to think of it, that sounds more like a conjuration. Still, I think it said something about your hands becoming a flaming hand or something like that.
Maybe in 1st Ed, I don't know, I only played 1e once. But in 2nd Ed on it's been a fan of flames that burst from the caster's palms.
That defeats the purpose of differentiating between the schools in the first place, even if you can get wide agreement on something as subjective as the "nature" of the spell. As far as I can tell, you're making this up. It certainly doesn't say that in my books. Here is the complete, current description: ============ 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. ============ It doesn't say anything about how it gives the protection, it just does. Flavour text is left up to the player and/or GM, as is pretty much standard practice in 3.x. It's possible that you were correct about its flavour text in earlier editions, but there is nothing in the current text of the spell to support your interpretation. Note also the word "warded", which just screams Abjuration. You've been beaten on enough for this, no point saying anything beyond reminding you that you were mistaken about this. What's that you say? Even in the earlier editions you're citing, it didn't actually work the way you're claiming it did? Your honour, the prosecution rests.
