Spirit Shield

[Forsooth]

Spirit Shield seems to work about the same way as Natural Armor and Shield Master - except that it's a spell. To see how exciting that is, see Felix's "Bleh" thread. (Or for the impatient, the title says it all.)

[Lurker]

from what I gathered. Carapace and Spirit Shield are two similar spells. The difference is that carapace absorbs any damage done by regular weapon (tooth and nail) and does so completely, till wearing out or taking its max damage. But is vulnurable to magic, iron claw, weapons.

Spirit Shield does the same as carapace, but absorbs magical damage.

Though it's only my theory...

[Felix]

Alright, I used to use carapace a LOT (got up to 260 ranks). Here's all that I know about it:

It's supposed to absorb all types of physical attacks, those being Slice, Krush, Stab, Boulder Throw, Missile Weapons, Teeth + Claws (Including Iron Claws), and Tail Whip.

However, among those, it only absorbs damage from clawing (again, including iron claws.) The reason it seems like iron claw damage is ignored is that there is a maximum that Carapace can absorb (based on rank) each round. Since iron claw does an insane amount of damage, you regularly exceed that maximum. I'm certain that IC damage *is* absorbed though, because I carapaced some scarabs who were attacking the Fallen (Sorry Lurekus! Please don't hurt me!:( ) and it was absorbing about 80 damage from the blows of a random mummy. I doubt that was all teeth and claws... especially since I was, at level 26, by far the highest level monster then, and that mummy wasn't even on the list. So, umm.... yeah.

Carapace is weird.

[Lurker]

i hit an ulgy with carapace and it absorbs 180 damage. I have no iron claws.
A felllow members hits same ugly with venom or crud, 80 damage is asorbed, but venom/crud deals it 10-15 damage together.
some usual ogre hits same ugly and deals it 60 damage, with none absorbed...he has iron claws.

Same ogre then attacks me, and deals 40-70 damage. I deal it 60-140.

[Felix]

Err... ah... alright... O.o

[Forsooth]

Sorry, Lurker. That's what I thought too. But Spirit Shield works just like the other armor-enhancing abilities. Enemies' success rates are reduced by 1 point for every 10 you have in Authority and Energy, plus 1 point for every favor you have in the skill.

Right now, Spirit Shield is still a spell. Although the help file indicates that won't be true much longer. As it is, it seems to have duration and favor similar to Endure Damage. (Although of course you can only cast it on yourself.)

Protect is the spell that guards against magic. I've only seen it second-hand, but it seems to reduce the damage taken rather than block it entirely. Seems like a decent choice, although I suspect it has the same favor problems as the other protection spells.

[And Spirit Shield is the last disappointment for me - at least for a while. I'm going to give TEC a try. Shamans need to find a new advocate/whiner. :D Thanks for the fun, everyone.]

[Forsooth]

OK, I've gotten over my fit of pique. And while I admire TEC's depth, playing it gives me a deep appreciation of how much fun GR is.

But it would be *really* nice if the help files gave more information about abilities. A short sentence like "Only gives moderate protection, but is based on Shaman abilities." would do a lot toward decreasing expectations.

Likewise, long-term broken abilities should be labelled as such. It's much easier to tolerate bugs than disappointments.

I noticed several anti-GR comments on the other forums - all based on how hard it is to understand character generation. If the designers would just give a little more information, I think they could get 'em hooked. :D

[Yeen]

That's one of the main reasons I like Grendel...character Generation. But, I have made so many combinations, I think I will just stay as my current character...*sighs*

[Rakanishu2K]

Gollamtwo the Wyvern smacks a dessert shaped magic user with he tail! A dessert shaped magic user's carapace absorbs 0 points of damage! 22 points of damage!

interesting no?

[Woodz]

Thanks for the feedback, we are working on improving the help files and giving more information to the player. We're working on making them clearer and more informative.