Ioun stones - how do you want them?

Ioun stones are stones that floats around the NPC's head but they may be equiped together WITH an helm, so the best strategy is to have them to stack in the backpack.
Thieves tools should do the same, but it would have even more meaning if we would crate more interesting belts from the core rules, like the Blet of the Monk, Dwarven Belt, Belt of the Mighty Strength (+6 to CON & STR; Sword & fist manual, 3.0) or use that same slot for those few items that DO NOT stack and can't be grouped in the same category. If somebody else has the latest prestige-classes manuals, please, list a bit of interesting belts that may be crafted.
But, for no reason, they should use the same bardic instrument slot, because they are different, bard-rogue is a nice combo and switching them all the time is not funny at all. More, as I always told, a bard always needs his instrument, since his music is important during the fight, while rarely a rogue has to use those tools during a fight but will probably keep them inside the backpack so that they won't get damaged during the fight.
It would be great instead, if Ioun stones could be grouped and moved on and off from a helm, almost like the elemental gems and the orb of golden death, just to save space. But probably it is too complex.

 

Stack 'em in the headgear slot. Unless this complicates things too much, like having to change all the headgear or something. In that case, stack 'em in the backpack. One slot for all your stones isn't too much to sacrifice for the benefits.

 

How could they stack in the headgear slot? The game supports only 1 item per time in the same slot and the only way to have them to to stack is to put them in the backpack, I think. I'm not wrong, am I?
You know, honestly I miss the backpack system used, for example, in vampire the masquerade revenge or with Dungeon Siege, where every time occupies in the backpack a number of squares equal to its effective size. This would avoid ioun stones from taking too much space away.

 

Effectively, ToEE does not have too many magic helms.... but still it is not nice to see a fighter or barbarian with a cloacked mantle and no helm because that place is occuped by a ioun stone. And anyway, if the headgear slot is filled with them, a PC could use only 1 ioun stone at time, when, instead, he should be allowed to use many of them at once.
Anyway, changing their allocation is quite easy, so I don't think it is a too big problem for any player to change the stones allocation.

 

It sounds like the best fix is to stack them in an inventory slot. Sort of like having a pouch full of good luck charms or something. I for one wouldn't want to have 1 stone in place of a good piece of magical head gear. And the orbiting stones can't be modded anyway, so...

Hmmmm....I wonder...

...does anyone know how the magic missile animation works? Those things do a lot of flying about, and they don't follow a set pattern, so... can anyone out there get a MM to follow a circular flight path around a characters head? And maybe change the color a bit, and downsize it a little? They could still stack in the inventory, but the MM animation could fire up once their use is selected from the radial menu. Make the missile target a constantly changing location that is never farther away than a couple of feet from the user's head.

Just a few thoughts... :crazy:

 

After messing about with magic missile you would think that I learned how the animation works but no, I never did, and I'm stuck with the current animation but I might get there eventually so if I ever do I'll let you know.

 

I'm not sure it will work as easy as that. Yes, potions and ammunition stacks, however they only stack with others that are exactly the same. +1 arrows only stack with other +1 arrows, and won't stack with normal or silver arrows, for example.

It's quite possible that it would be easy to make Ion stones stack, but then only with ion stones that are exactly the same. This way you would'nt be able to have one of each Ion stone all stacked together.

This in itself *may* be possible to do, however it might (or might not) require a WHOLE lot more work that might not even be worth the trouble.

 

Kinda a side topic to this but if stacking is figuered out then could a thief tuck his tools into his belt (thief tools and belts in the same slot) and I noticed that in real life I can where more than one belt at a time, one to hold my pants up and one to make me strong enough to throw my stupid F*cking car onto the dump.