With all this talk about Permanency, or lack thereof does anyone...

[welby]

Does anyone think it's fine the way it's written, factoring the large xp costs and the ease of which it can be dispelled? Does the community as a whole feel that it needs to be house ruled, or are there actually people out there that think it'd be overpowered to just make it permanent?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Does anyone think it's fine the way it's written, factoring the large xp costs and the ease of which it can be dispelled? Does the community as a whole feel that it needs to be house ruled, or are there actually people out there that think it'd be overpowered to just make it permanent?

I think it'd be overpowered just to make it permanent. Such a spell would in all ways be better than an equivalent item. It'd be unstealable, virtually undetectable, and indestructible.

 

[Scion]

For the sheer cost of it, I think making it unable to be dispelled (save as an item is, for d4 rounds) at all would be a pretty decent solution.

 

[welby]

I think it'd be overpowered just to make it permanent. Such a spell would in all ways be better than an equivalent item. It'd be unstealable, virtually undetectable, and indestructible.

Said item would cost significantly less xp for those minor hinderences. Where I play, I don't often worry about an item breaking or being stolen, especially one I spend the time and money to craft.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

As I mentioned in the other thread on permanency, one of our GMs had an interesting interpretation. (The first used Scion's suggestion of making it like an item, able to be suppressed for 1d4 rounds.)

She ruled that, sure, you can use dispel magic to take away a permanent spell. And at that point, the xp spent to power that permanent spell reverts immediately and instantly to its caster. She was going with the rationale that the xp spent to maintain a spell perpetually upon you is like a little packet of personal power earmarked for that task, and if the spell isn't being maintained any longer, that power you'd set aside for the spell goes right back to you.

In play, this meant that it made sense to dispel magic on people with permanent magical effects, because it got rid of the spell, period. But at the same time, people were actually willing to have permanent magical effects on them, because if they were dispelled, they just needed a day of downtime to put the spells back on and they weren't kicking themselves for wasting thousands of xp.

--
and lo, everyone was happy
ryan

 

[Eraslin]

As I mentioned in the other thread on permanency, one of our GMs had an interesting interpretation. (The first used Scion's suggestion of making it like an item, able to be suppressed for 1d4 rounds.)

She ruled that, sure, you can use dispel magic to take away a permanent spell. And at that point, the xp spent to power that permanent spell reverts immediately and instantly to its caster. She was going with the rationale that the xp spent to maintain a spell perpetually upon you is like a little packet of personal power earmarked for that task, and if the spell isn't being maintained any longer, that power you'd set aside for the spell goes right back to you.

In play, this meant that it made sense to dispel magic on people with permanent magical effects, because it got rid of the spell, period. But at the same time, people were actually willing to have permanent magical effects on them, because if they were dispelled, they just needed a day of downtime to put the spells back on and they weren't kicking themselves for wasting thousands of xp.

I really like that houserule. It actually sounds pretty darned good to me.

-Eraslin

 

[Artoomis]

My personal preference is to require a feat, "Permanent Permanancy," which makes those spells the equivalent of items in basically every way. It's an advantage in that they take up no slots and cannot be taken away short of M's Disjunction, but most folks rarely lose magic items anyway. On the other hand, you'd require the equivalent of an item creation feat but could only ever "create" items on the Permanancy list.

This seems pretty well-balanced to me.

The XP costs are wonky, though. They really should be re-aligned to match up with item creation costs.

Finally, I suggest a much lower XP cost for dispellable Permanacy - maybe even as low as 25% - 50% of the existing cost.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I really like that houserule. It actually sounds pretty darned good to me.

-Eraslin

Not really suitable for general consumption though, because it's extremely abuseable.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

Not really suitable for general consumption though, because it's extremely abuseable.

It wasn't in our game, but then, we're weird.

I'm also not entirely sure what makes it all that abuseable; the xp spent on a permanent spell isn't extra or free xp, it's xp that you earned the same way everyone else earned theirs. The only difference is that instead of using it to gain a level or spending a relatively tiny fraction of it to build a magic item (which others might be able to use), you're taking a ridiculously large portion of it and saying "as long as this spell is up, I don't have this xp."

If someone dispels it, yeah, you get the xp back, and that's not as bad as the rules-as-written where it's gone forever. I guess you could say "Oh well, I guess I'll just gain a level with these experience points I got back" instead of saying "I'm going to wait until tomorrow and re-permanency that spell." But in practice, we didn't see that happen. Everyone who wanted a permanent spell wanted a permanent spell. They were already willing to set themselves back, xp-wise, from the rest of the party in order to have that spell. Suddenly getting the dispel-magic rebate just made them angry because it deprived them of their permanent spell for the rest of the day, and forced them to recast it all in the morning.

And I'm not even sure why it would be abusive if they did decide to gain a level from the xp rebate, actually.

I guess in comparison to investing those experience points in an item (which might be destroyed or stolen and would not be giving you any xp back if that happened), it's a better deal. But then, the balance there seems to be that you have to build something like ten to fifteen separate items before you've spent the same amount of xp that one permanent spell effect might cost you, and you can pass those items around or sell them to anyone else at your discretion. Lord knows our wizard with the permanent see invisible complained enough times about being the only person who could see the invisible opponent when it would've been far more useful if the fighter or the rogue could've seen 'em, and our rogue was constantly wishing that he could get some permanent spells of his own.

--
and it was 3.0, so any difference in earned xp was minimal and divided among the group

 

[andargor]

My feeling is that it's, like many things, campaign-specific. Both the casters in our group have had Permanency on spells like Arcane Sight for a while now (ever since the minimum level required, 11th?), and the group is currently at 18th level.

A LOT of mileage has already been gained through the use of Arcane Sight alone, and we feel that if it gets dispelled, it was XP well spent anyway.

The one thing I would like to see is a longer list of spells to be made Permanent. The XP cost is acceptable to us as is.

Andargor