Permanent Spells and Dispel Magic

Under the permanency spells, there are several spells listed that I'm sure everyone knows about. I was wondering this:

If someone casts Dispel Magic on your character, does it completely remove the permanent spell effect if it is sucessful or does it just deactivate the effect for 1d4 rounds, like casting on a permanent magic item? If it does, does the spell go away with the dispelling of the permanency spell, or do two checks need be made before the effect is completely dispelled?

In my game, I was inclined to treat it as a magic item. But one of my players mentioned that this doesn't seem right, because a slotless item for the spell Darkvision (the example spell in question) costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000gp (I don't remember the exact price off the top of my head) rather than the permanent spell, which costs around 5,700gp. I was thinking about this, and then I thought that part of an item's cost is its usefulness, and an item that can't be shared amongst the party or resold, ever is not quite as useful as a slotless item that can be passed around, so that would account for the lower price of the permanent spell. I didn't think the slotless nature of the item and the fact that it couldn't be taken away from the person it was cast on would balance out the price difference.

Any thoughts to help me make a decision?

Thistleknot said:

In my game, I was inclined to treat it as a magic item.

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You handled it correctly. If the permanent spell is on you, the caster (meaning you made the spell permanent upon yourself), and someone dispels it, they can only surpress it, unless they are higher level, in which case it's dispelled forever. Spells you make permanent on other creatures, objects, or areas are dispelled normally, gone forever if the check succeeds.

Unless gold is a scarce resource in your games, the cost for a magic item is actually lower than the cost for a permanent spell via permanency. Those XP costs are pretty high, really!

This is going into house rules now...

In our campaign, we have decided, that a spell made permanent can only be dispelled (rather than suppressed) by a targeted dispel, targeted on that particular spell (you also need a greater caster level to successfully dispel it).

Permanency is just so useless, if every area dispel can easily dispel all permanent spells.

Bye
Thanee

There are two different types of permanent spells:
1) Those spells on the caster (self)
2) Those spells on other creatures/objects/areas

1) These are much more difficult to dispell than other permanent spells, but that's the way it should be. There really isn't anything inappropriate about a spellcaster having a permanent protection from arrows on him, in fact, you might expect such a thing.

2) These are much easier to dispel, and I don't have a problem with it. Consider this, it's highly unusual for a fighter to be able to walk around with permanent stoneskin or protection from arrows, but a wizard, well, you kinda expect that kinda thing.

Then of course, there's the ability to make a spell permanent upon an object, say, a rock with Darkness. Such a rock would cost roughly 12,000gp on the open market, maybe less. However, to do the same thing with permanency, you would have to spend 1,500xp (equates to 7,500gp) and you would also have to research the application of permanency, which would cost you an additional 2,000gp (1,000gp per week, 1 week per spell level), for a grand total of 9,500gp. That's 2,500gp less than if you were to create the item.

So, permanent spells are not as powerful as items, thus they are easier to dispel. IMO, it should be harder to dispel a permanent spell if it's on a caster, and they made it themselves. But it shouldn't be as difficult to dispel a permanent spell that's on a fighter. If the fighter want's a truly permanent solution, he should by a magic item, and technically, the wizard should as well.

Yup, the difference should be noted.

But I definitely can't agree with the 1:5 ratio for XP to gold.

I would never trade one XP for five gold pieces, unless I was really desperate!

XP are much more valuable than gold!

I know that this is the way XP are related to gold for item creation and market price, but it doesn't work out to a fair relation between these two values.

I'm assuming standard treasure levels here, not campaigns, where gold is a scarce recource and thus XP would be worth less in relation to gold, compared to an average setting!

That said, I think that the spells made permanent on the caster (at least) should not be as easy to be dispelled as they are right now.

Bye
Thanee

Thanee said:

That said, I think that the spells made permanent on the caster (at least) should not be as easy to be dispelled as they are right now.

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But...the spells on a caster are not that easy to dispel, as you must be higher level than the caster level of said spell in order to permanently dispel it, otherwise, you'll simply suppress it for 1d4 rounds. You would like it to be harder than this? If so, then I might have a solution for you.

Well, the caster level of permanency does not improve, so it's not really hard to be of a greater level.

I have a solution, see above!

Bye
Thanee

But I definitely can't agree with the 1:5 ratio for XP to gold.

I would never trade one XP for five gold pieces, unless I was really desperate!

XP are much more valuable than gold!

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I worked it out, and one xp is actually worth 12.5 gold, if you simply count the profit as return on the xp, and don't count overhead costs. Let's take a 50 gp item:

Materials cost: 25.0 gp
Xp cost: 2 xp
selling price: 50.0 gp
profit: 25.0 gp

net gp per xp: 12.5 gp

therefore, to earn x amount of gold by creating magic items
x: 2000.0 gp
one must spend y amount of xp:
y: 160 xp

I'm not an accountant, though, so my equations may be overly simplified.

- Devon

Devon said:

I worked it out, and one xp is actually worth 12.5 gold, if you simply count the profit as return on the xp, and don't count overhead costs. Let's take a 50 gp item:

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You went through all that? Just look at the rules for a first level scroll, they'll tell you how much it's worth.

Thanee said:

I have a solution, see above!

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I saw it. I just didn't think it was balanced at all. If you want to make the rewards of permanency better, you should raise the spell level or design a cost system that balances it out.

Or, you could just rule0 and call it a day. Besides, now that I think about it, I don't think my solution would help you, as it is primarily for epic level games. Hey, what can I say. I started preparing material early.