Do You Have An Ioun Stone?

[Sleeping Dragon]

Not at the moment, but the only D&D group I'm in is only at 5th level and there aren't many magic items yet.

There was one character in a group I was in back in 3.0 that couldn't think what to do with his last 1000 or so gp when he created the character, so he bought a huge number of dull gray ioun stones to rotate around his head. He then (unsuccessfully) tried to argue that this should give him permanent cover

 

[rgard]

Are ioun stones very ubiquitous? It sounds like they are, but when I read stat blocks... they don't look very ubiquitous.

Do you have an ioun stone? Your character, I mean.

What colour, how many, and how did you get them?

One current character has the dex one.

Back in 1E we played a couple of characters who were psionic. I think it was RAW (but may have been a house rule) that dead ioun stones boosted psionics...so we hunted down folks who had working ioun stones, then killed both the NPC and stone. Pretty sure this was a house rule, but we could also crush/compress mind flayer brains to make ioun stones too.

About the dead ioun stones, if they could by RAW boost psionics in 1E, does anybody know if that rule made it to 3.5E?

Thanks
Rich

 

[Land Outcast]

Honestly... the whole visual on ioun stones seems a tad dorky. Not to mention it's subtle like a brick to the head - just screams "I'm magical, steal me".

Pretty much the same feeling here.

 

[frankthedm]

About the dead ioun stones, if they could by RAW boost psionics in 1E, does anybody know if that rule made it to 3.5E?

Dead Ioun stones did not make it to 3.5 because of the tricks some folks tried with them.

 

[frankthedm]

Honestly... the whole visual on ioun stones seems a tad dorky. Not to mention it's subtle like a brick to the head - just screams "I'm magical, steal me".

Yeah. Not to mention a tempting target for birds who like shinies.

 

[SteelDraco]

I have a character with several, but they're all the dull grey ones that don't do anything. He's a psionic artificer, and he uses them as objects on which to hang other spells, with the Spell Storing Item artificer infusion. Always accessible, so he doesn't have to pull them out of his belt, and they're fairly difficult to target, especially since he has a half-dozen of them floating around.

I don't see them very often in games, since I've always thought of them as kinda goofy. If I have an NPC show up with one, it's usually a powerful mage, and they're intended as a "Don't screw with this guy" kind of warning.

Even though it's probably wrong, I always just pronounced it ion. Never read the source material they come from, and that's how I started pronouncing it when I was a kid.

 

[JoelF]

After the +1 RoP and +1 amulet of natural armor, and possibly +3 armor if your character wears it, the +1 insight bonus to AC is the cheapest way to increase AC - at only 5K. All players I know buy one in the low teens if not sooner.

 

[ivocaliban]

Ioun stones don't exist in my campaigns. I've always found them to be somewhat annoying, actually. Perhaps if I included Illumians (not bloody likely) they'd see more action. I mean, really, what's one more thing floating around your head? Perhaps, I'd have a really ancient Illumian astrologer who was essentially a living model of the world's solar system, with enough stones and sigils circling his noggin to represent all the planets and constellations!

 

[Illirion]

My character has 2: the 'regeneration' one and the 'sustains without food or water'.

I bought them because when it was time to buy my dwarven monk some magical gear, the Ioun Stones were the only items I could find that wouldn't accidentally break when he wanted to change into his wereboar form. Apart from that, they just look very monkish (or is that monkey? ).

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I've never used them in 3.x, but I have in 2e. I think they're cool. I believe in the Hobbit and LotR books Elrond had one (or at least, it seems like he had one in that old Hobbit animated movie ).

Ioun stones have a bad rep in my local 3.x gaming circles. Most people think they are too easy to hit and knock down.