Stoning Immunity is one of the many Unit Abilities available in Master of Magic.
A unit with Stoning Immunity is completely unaffected by any attack or spell that inflicts Stoning Damage. When such an attack strikes the unit, it does absolutely nothing to that unit.
Stoning Immunity is a fairly-common immunity, found on a wide variety of Fantastic Units from different realms. It is not possible to add Stoning Immunity to a unit that does not already have it.
Description[]
Several creatures and spells are capable of turning a living creature into a stone statue. This is a terrible fate, and the intensity of magic involved often makes it very difficult to avert. Fortunately for some creatures, their physical nature prevents any such effect from occurring.
In particular, creatures already made of stone are obviously immune. Elementals, comprised entirely of one material, are not actually alive to begin with. Some creatures possess such affinity with earth and rock that they simply shrug off the attack. Finally, some have no physical presence to begin with, and thus there is nothing there to be turned into stone.
Effect[]
Stoning Immunity is a passive ability that protects a unit specifically from Stoning Damage.
Normally, attacks that deliver Stoning Damage force the target to make Resistance rolls, and outright killing any figure that fails that roll. Harsh penalties are often applied to the target's Resistance score to further reduce its chance of surviving.
The Stoning-Immune unit, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing to fear from such effects. It will never have to make any Resistance rolls against them, and will not suffer any harm.
There are currently only 4 known sources of Stoning Damage:
- The Stoning Touch ability, possessed by Cockatrices.
- The Stoning Gaze ability, possessed by Basilisks, Gorgons and Chaos Spawns.
- Petrify, a Combat Instant from the Nature Realm.
- A Hero carrying a Magical Weapon that's been enchanted with "Stoning".
While this does not make Stoning Damage as common as some other types of damage, the Stoning effect is dangerous enough to make Stoning Immunity a very desirable quality, especially when at war with a Nature-wielding wizard.
Note that Stoning Immunity protects only against Stoning Damage. If an attack delivers several types of damage simultaneously, the Stoning Immunity ability will only shrug off the Stoning Damage component of that attack.
Units with Default Stoning Immunity[]
Stoning Immunity is a rather common type of immunity, possessed by no less than 9 different kinds of units by default. All of these are Fantastic Creatures from various realms:
Air Elemental
Colossus
Earth Elemental
Fire Elemental
Floating Island
Gargoyles
Phantom Beast
Phantom Warriors
Stone Giant
Acquiring Stoning Immunity[]
There is currently no known method of adding Stoning Immunity to any unit that does not possess it by default, whether through the use of spells or Magical Items.