What are the actual consequences of using this item? Item description states 'beware fickle use of this item'.
Effects of using black separation crystal
dark-souls-2
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While nobody seems to have an authoritative answer yet, here's my current understanding, based on what others in the Souls community have managed to suss out:
- Agility seems to increase the speed of your roll slightly. It's also hypothesized to lengthen your roll's invincibility frames, but this can proven extremely difficult to confirm/disprove (even EpicNameBro, the author of the official strategy guide, was apparently unable to get a straight answer out of From Software on that topic). It theoretically also increases the speed of other actions such as how long it takes to drink from your Estus Flask. We know that it most likely doesn't affect spell casting speed or weapon attack speed. Additionally, this side-by-side comparison video (85 Agility vs. 95 Agility) seems to show essentially no noticeable effect on shield-readying speed.
- You get maximum Agility returns from Adaptability up until ~38 ADP. This breakpoint may change slightly depending on your Attunement stat, which also has a very minor effect on your Agility stat.
My personal (educated) conjecture is that Agility is no doubt useful on paper, at least based on what we think it currently does. Even in that case, if you're really good about timing your rolls perfectly, it's possible that you may not particularly need the lengthened invincibility window. The various other effects may or may not be useful to your character, depending on your build and playstyle. For example, a character that focuses on staying at maximum range may not always need the quicker Estus Flasks or roll speed, but heavy melee characters might want all the help they can get in those regards.
In any case, if you're planning on doing a lot of PvP or you just want to be a little bit quicker overall, I'd personally suggest spending a few points into bumping up your Agility a bit (most typically through Adaptability). However, if you're getting along in the game just fine as it is, then you may not need to worry about it.
Some of this information will overlap with the previous answer, but as that one doesn't address your question in full and relies mostly on speculation, I'll try to fill those gaps.
Confirmation on the respawn limit: There are lots of people out there currently debating the relative merits and demerits of the system, so I think the existence of the limit is pretty well established. So far, the consensus seems to be that the limit is approximately 15 deaths/spawns, but this won't be known for certain until the PC version comes out and can be hacked, or until someone actually sits down, does a playthrough, and records all of the data.
Name of the item which can reset the respawn limit: As @kiilla mentions, this is the Bonfire Ascetic.
Which enemies the item will cause to respawn: It will respawn all enemies in the bonfire's area, including bosses. (More accurately, it resets the respawn limit on all enemies in the area -- meaning that if you've killed one enemy seven out of fifteen times, it will once again have fifteen lives as well).
Additional effects the item has outside of just respawning enemies: This thread explains it much better and more succinctly than I could. The most important thing to understand is that it is actually making the area one difficulty level higher than it's currently set to (e.g., if you're playing on NG, the area will be set to NG+). Relevant portion of the thread quoted below.
Loot on dead bodies is respawned (but not loot in chests, those stay opened and empty)
Doors stay open, and any keys you've collected remain effective
If there are any NG+ enemy types in the area, they will spawn
NG+ BP enemies and NG+ BP NPCs will spawn in the area (the BP NPCs will not respawn if killed unless another ascetic is burned)
Enemies have more hp, deal more damage, and drop more souls on death
If there is a boss within the bonfire's area, it will respawn
If the boss drops any additional loot in NG+ or higher, it will drop that loot when killed in addition to the loot it normally drops (boss souls, etc)
Bosses have more hp, deal more damage, and drop more souls on death
Note that the effects of the Bonfire Ascetic are permanent and will continue into future difficulties as well. This means that if you use one in NG (thus making an area into NG+ difficulty), the area will be in NG++ difficulty when you move to NG+.
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Best Answer
These are the uses of the stone (Informative to those who doesn't know):
Sends back phantoms in your world (not invaders) to their world.
You being the phantom, this stone sends you back to your world (Also works if you're an invader).
Vanishes NPC phantom allies (beware as their summon sign won't appear again even after resting at the bonfire. A friend of mine mentioned that it shows up again if you reload the game.
If you're the host and use it, you can see your victories as a phantom.
Actual Answer
The reason for the "beware fickle use of this item" warning is because if you use it either as a phantom or as a host to send back people, you are committing a sin. I've only tested it as the host sending someone back and it did add me sin.