Harden (Druid Skill)

Helpfile

Guild Level:  5
SP Cost:      15 spell points
Skill:        Earthshaping
Syntax:       harden [stone]

Using harden, a druid gathers forth strength from the earth and imbues himself or herself with a period of increased defensive capability.

Any of the common small stones found throughout the Realm can optionally be employed by the lore to achieve varied, improved results. By shattering one such stone, a druid is able to imbue himself or herself with that stone's natural tendencies.

Due to the cumbersome nature of all earthshaping lores, this ability will temporarily lower your dexterity when cast and may not be cast more frequently than once every two minutes.

Commentary

Harden may be used every two minutes however the effect, with high earthshaping skill, lasts far longer than two minutes. At high level a druid's harden lasts long enough for the effects of multiple hardens to overlap.

At the maximum player level of 36 a druid who has chosen the shapechange form of the mole and is therefore allowed to train earthshaping to a skill level of 90 can achieve a defense bonus which increases their normal defense skill of 72 to between 115 and 125. Each harden adds plus 15 to the druid's defense skill. That same druid when actually changed into the mole form itself, with its additional bonus to the earthshaping skill can achieve an overlapped hardened defense of over 135. An adventurer with a high defense skill will be significantly harder to hit with physical attacks (many will miss) and will receive less damage from all attacks which hit them.

When harden is used with a reagent (a stone) the druid gains resistance to a particular damage or effect type. For example a druid may use a sharpstone stone to gain resistance to cutting damage or a wonderstone stone to gain resistance to magic. As with the defense skill bonuses, the resistance bonuses will overlap; a high level druid could have 3 or 4 hardens overlapped and could achieve a significant resistance to a particular damage type. A druid could also use harden with different stone types and have lesser resistances to more than one damage type. With an earthshaping skill of 72-104 each harden will add approximately 12% resistance therefor a high level druid could achieve a maximum harden resistance of ~48%+ to one particular damage type.

A list of the various stones and what resistances they provide is below:

• Acid (Fluorspar)
• Asphyxiation (Bluestone)
• Blunt (Azurite, Malachite)
• Chaos (Rhodochrosite)
• Charm (Turquoise, Woodtine)
• Cold (Frost Agate)
• Cutting (Sharpstone)
• Disease (Epidote)
• Disruption (Silkstone)
• Electricity (Chrysocolla)
• Fire (Fire Agate, Greenstone, Obsidian, Violane, Zarbrina)
• Gas (Corstal, Hyaline)
• Holy (Augelite, Rosaline)
• Internal (Kyanite)
• Magic (Webstone, Wonderstone)
• Missile (Hematite)
• Poison (Lapis Lazuli)
• Psionic (Blue Quartz, Nune, Tiger Eye)
• Sleep (Banded Agate, Eye Agate, Moss Agate)
• Thrusting (Sagenite)
• Vampiric (Oolite)

Races with high rates of spell point regeneration such as the elf naturally restore magical energy at a rate sufficient to continue casting harden every two minutes while maintaining full spell points.

Harden takes one round to cast and each harden lasts for a number of seconds equal to fifty plus four times the druid's earthshaping skill.