In SOU, during the interlude, I've found a strange machine down in the excavated ruins in the desert. I'm struggling to determine which magical stone to make there.

The stone I get from the dragonblood, gives me 110 Damage Reduction (very nice) and also does some unknown offensive spell. Which one?

The stone I get from the rubies creates an offensive spell looking like Fireball?, and also gives me Spell Level Absorbsion. What in the nine hells is Spell level absorbsion?

Since I've found some nice things elsewhere in the ruins, like a ring with 14 Spell resistance and a necklace of fireballs, I'm not really sure if I need the ruby created stone. That depends on what this Spell level absorbtion thingy is - does it do the same as the spell resistance ring, or is this something entirely different?

I havent played through that, but there just cant be an item with 110damage reduction. Perhaps you meant 10/+1 or something.

Spell Resistance offers you a chance to resist=ignore a spell cast on you.

Spell level absorbtion iirc sucks in and prevents so-and-so much spells, depending on their level. Like if you had it 40 you could ignore all spells cast at you for a while. Each of them would reduce it down for its level.(like a fireball is a lvl3 spell would reduce it to 37). Last spell gets canceled out even if it goes past 0.
I may be wrong about the whole thing, but i think this is the way it is.

110 damage reduction?! wow! :lol:
yeah, that can't be right. But yes, Gothmog, that is the way Spell lvl Absorbsion works. It is not normally very high.

@Blue, does the ruby cast that spell on your, or is it a one time effect? If it is a once-a-day cast, I would most definately get that because it is extremely useful. The first X number of spells cast at you are just negated. No saving throw, just *poof*, gone. It's so much fun!

Both the ruby option and the dragon blood option creates a magical stone in the machine. This stone has 20 charges, unlimited uses per day, so its a pretty useful thing.

If you put rubies in the machine, you get that spell level absorbtion thing, which I can imagine must be very nifty against the spell casters I assume I'll meet later on.

If you put dragon blood in the machine, you get the stone with the 110 points damage reduction. It cast a spell called Damage Reduction on my character, and when he ran into some nasties who tried to hit him, I got a message somewhat similar to this:

"Someone" damages "me" 3 points,
3 points are absorbed by damage reduction, 107 points left.

Obviously the damage reduction acts like a shield, and counts down to 0.

So the problem is to choose between spell level absorption or damage reduction, - or to put it another way, choose between help against spellcasters or against melee attacks. You can only make ONE of these stones before the machine breaks. :)

[ January 22, 2004, 18:54: Message edited by: Blue ]

I'd take Spell level absorption.
It's much more difficult to resist a spell than a common blow.

*shrugs* But i havent played the game, so i dont know how many and how tough enemy spellcasters are further on.

The only spell casters that are a problem for a melee character, IMHO, is a group a clerics near the end of the game. Nothing else stands out in my memory.

do you have anything else that does similar effects? If so, then just chose the other. What kind of character are you playing?

Well, I chose the spell level protection... but I'm not sure if it was the right thing, especially the way things are developing in chpter 2 - several of my choices seem to be wrong.

It turned out the spell lvl prot. only protects 10 points, so after 2-3 spells it needs to be cast again - and my character isn't good at casting when he is attacked...

I play an arcane archer, levelled up from a pure ranger with 1 wizard, so he isn't really supposed to engage in melee. I use his animal companion (bear) to tank for him and his familiar (panther) to sneak attack, but for assistant I foolishly chose Deekin because he was cool and fun and could id all my equipment.

In chptr 2 you're stuck with only the one henchman, and Deekin has suddenly lost the id-ability - the only useful thing about him. At least I don't get the option to ask him do it anymore, and he can't tank or disable traps or locks - all he does is dying everywhere. Besides, the archery equipment for both him and me totally sucks - no great magical items like with swords and such, and impossible to get special arrows - fire, acid, ice or such.

The only way to survive is to make my arcane archer a melee fighter, dual wielding a long and a short sword... the only way he gets to use magical weapons... and invest some costly points on traps and locks. *sigh*

Oh well, that became a rant.
May you make better choices than me.

Hmm, my roommate went through it with an arcance archer without a problem. I think he used the fireball arrows liberally. Once we are both back into the room after class I will ask him and edit this post.

The damage reduction is in fact a version of stoneskin. This means that it does absorb damage the way you describe but it won't stop all the damage from big hits. There is a limit on the maximum damage that can be absorb per hit.

Now a question to everyone: Does spell level absorption refresh your own spells like spell absorption in BGII or does it just cancel the spell?

I'm pretty sure it just absorbs.

I seem to remember it just absorbs, because I had used some spells like Protection against Evil, and those spells were still used/unavailable after I had used the spell absorbtion a few times.