Improved Extended Spell: please critique

[Herzog]

I know this has been done before, but the thread about an alternative lying somewhere between Extend Spell and Persistent Spell was rather old (2004) and didn't really get that much response, so I tried one myself.

The extemes to consider are the existing Extend Spell and Peristent Spell.
Extend Spell doubles normal duration, has few restrictions, and increases the spells lvl by one level.
Persistent Spell increases the duration to 24h regardless of original duration, has a lot of restrictions, and increases the spells lvl by 6:

You can cast spells that last longer than normal.
Benefit: An extended spell lasts twice as long as normal. A spell
with a duration of concentration, instantaneous, or permanent is not
affected by this feat. An extended spell uses up a spell slot one level
higher than the spell’s actual level.

You can make a spell last all day.
Prerequisite: Extend Spell.
Benefit: Spells with a fixed or personal range can have
their duration increased to 24 hours. Spells of instantaneous
duration cannot be affected by this feat, nor can spells whose
effects are discharged. You don’t need to maintain concentration
on persistent detect spells (such as detect magic or detect
thoughts) for you to be aware of the mere presence or absence
of the subject detected, but gaining additional information
requires concentration as normal.
A persistent spell uses up a spell slot six levels higher than
the spell’s actual level.

I used the restrictions for Persistent Spell as a guideline, added some more, and introduced a more relative duration increase.
Several of the added restrictions are based on comments on the earlier version:

You can cast spells that last longer than normal.
Prerequisite: Extend Spell.
Benefit: Spells with a fixed or personal range can have
their duration increased. Spells of instantaneous
duration cannot be affected by this feat, nor can spells whose
effects are discharged. You don’t need to maintain concentration
on improved extended detect spells (such as detect magic or detect
thoughts) for you to be aware of the mere presence or absence
of the subject detected, but gaining additional information
requires concentration as normal.
An improved extended spell uses up a spell slot 2 levels higher than the spell’s actual level.
A spell with a duration of 1 round has it's duration increased to 1 r/lvl
A spell with a duration of 1 r/lvl or 1 m has it's duration increased to 1 m/lvl
A spell with a duration of 10 m or 1 m/lvl has it's duration increased to 10 m/lvl
A spell with a duration of 1 h or 10 m/lvl has it's duration increased to 1 h/lvl
A spell with a duration of 1 h/lvl has it's duration increased to 24 h.
Although this feat could be combined with Extend Spell, a spell affected by this feat can never be increased beyond 24 h.
The casting time for an Improved Extended Spell is 1 standard action, or the spell's original casting time, whichever is longer. An Improved Extended Spell can not be Quickened.

Any comments and/or critique very welcome.


As a sidenote (for balance issues..): I plan to combine this feat with the Unseen Seer ability to obtain the ranger spell Hunters Eye.

This would allow a caster to get +1d6 sneak attack per three caster levels for 1 round/level using a 4th lvl spell slot.
This would come at the cost of 2 feats (Extend Spell and Improved Extend Spell) and would require 2 levels of Unseen Seer to get the Ranger spell on an arcane caster list. (for those who think that matters)

 

[Sylrae]

Cool Idea.

A few thoughts.

A spell that normally lasts 24 hours or longer should also be extended. I agree with not bumping the other ones up past 24h.
IE a spell that lasts 24h by default now lasts 24h/level.
If a spell would last a week make it 1 week/level.
Etc.
It wouldnt make it better than Persistant Spell IMO because Persistant spell is going to increase 1 round spells to be a full 24h, and yours wont do that. Yours will provide more benefit for the long duration spells. And combined together with Persistant Spell, it becomes quite a viable option.

Also, using it in tandem with persistent spell should yield a longer duration as though the spell's normal duration was 24h.

And it cannot be quickened. Which is fair.

just my 2cp

 

[Kerrick]

A spell that normally lasts 24 hours or longer should also be extended. I agree with not bumping the other ones up past 24h.

While I agree that no spell should be extended beyond 1/day level, I disagree with extending the duration of day/level spells.

It wouldnt make it better than Persistant Spell IMO because Persistant spell is going to increase 1 round spells to be a full 24h, and yours wont do that. Yours will provide more benefit for the long duration spells. And combined together with Persistant Spell, it becomes quite a viable option.

Oh no. No. If it's extended to a flat 24 hours, you shouldn't be able to stack another feat on that to make it level-dependent and thus make the duration ridiculously longer than it should be, even for a +8 increase. Imagine, for example, a divine power that lasted for 20 DAYS.

My comments: I like the idea, and I might yoink it. I use the same thing in my legendary spell system already - one of the factors is to increase the spell's duration by one increment for a +3 level increase. I just never thought to apply that as an actual metamagic feat.

 

[Herzog]

@Sylrae: the restriction of keeping it below 24h is to 'enforce' the character to renew it every day.
Another way of looking at it is that it would become semi-permanent at the cost of one spell slot, as long as you refresh/recast it every day (NB: a wizard without his spell book would be unable to refresh it....)

@Kerrich: great minds think alike
What's your opinion on the level adjustment (+2)?
Do you think it should be increased? (for instance, to the level adjustment you used for your legendary spells, +3?)

 

[Kerrick]

@Kerrich: great minds think alike
What's your opinion on the level adjustment (+2)?
Do you think it should be increased? (for instance, to the level adjustment you used for your legendary spells, +3?)

I'm not entirely sure. Most of the factors were picked out of a hat, what "felt right", and tweaked a bit as I built spells. Unfortunately, I didn't make any that increased the duration like that, so I can't say which one's better.