Lingering Lingering spell?

[Empirate]

Thread title is no accident, hear me out: I just noticed something about the Generation focused Evoker. The "Lingering Evocations (Su)" class feature keeps your evocation spells in place for 1/2 CL rounds, IF they already have a duration greater than instantaneous. While this is already pretty nifty, especially for low-duration spells such as Gust of Wind, I had another idea. How about combining this with the Lingering Spell metamagic?

All of a sudden, Evocation is all about battlefield control! A Lingering Lingering Fireball is 40' of burning death for the whole combat, as a 4th level spell - much, much better than Wall of Fire. Lingering Lingering Pyrotechnics is half a football field of blinding in a 3rd level slot. Lingering Lingering Prismatic Spray is pure, unadulterated fun for the chaos-loving mage (high level, to be sure, do something to keep them in place so it pays off). Lingering Lingering Stormbolts fills the battlefield with an allied-friendly zone of lightning damage plus stunlock possibility. Lingering Lingering Caustic Eruption is sure death for anything not immune to acid. And so on.

Does this really work that way? And if so, is it really as good as I'm coming to think it may be?

 

[paradox42]

Looks like a GM call to me- I don't recall any rule stating whether the metamagic should apply first, or not. If it does apply first, then your Evoker Lingering Spell sees a Fireball with duration 1 round, and extends it; if it doesn't, then the Evoker ability sees an Instantaneous spell and ignores it- giving you a (purely) 1-round Fireball.

Very interesting idea though, I must grant!

 

[Empirate]

And if we assume that the combination works? Normally, bonuses are applied in the order that is most favorable - or at the very least, there is usually no inherent logic in the order that bonuses or modifiers are applied, so that order is left up to the DM and his group to decide.

So let's just assume that it works - how good is it? Would you love to play this style of Evoker, or would you still favor the Conjurer by a mile? I know that I love to nuke stuff as a caster, even though it isn't the most effective tactic in 3.5/PF. But if your spells stay in place for the whole combat, you not only nuke some opponents, you also make a pretty much impassable barrier (or at least, make it so nobody wants to go there).
If combined with the usual battlefield control options (walls, solid fog, black tentacles etc.), this can also lead to some pretty deadly comboes, since all your damaging AoEs can become very high-damage DOT spells.
Add on more metamagic (like Dazing Spell...) to your liking.

What do you think - is this really good? Or is it more along the lines of "yeah, it's good, but so are other things"?

 

[Scott DeWar]

huh, a massive battle with advancing troops would be stopped rather abruptly and scattered with 1 firedall

 

[paradox42]

It's tough to say how good it is, because it's so unique an idea- I've never really seen anything like it before. Conjurer focused on Wall spells is probably the closest analogy, but this Generation Evoker could start doing it as early as level 3 by preparing a Lingering Burning Hands! And that's just one example. I'd love to see one in play, but I honestly don't have a good handle on how good it is in practice without seeing that playtest.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Thread title is no accident, hear me out: I just noticed something about the Generation focused Evoker. The "Lingering Evocations (Su)" class feature keeps your evocation spells in place for 1/2 CL rounds, IF they already have a duration greater than instantaneous. While this is already pretty nifty, especially for low-duration spells such as Gust of Wind, I had another idea. How about combining this with the Lingering Spell metamagic?

All of a sudden, Evocation is all about battlefield control! A Lingering Lingering Fireball is 40' of burning death for the whole combat, as a 4th level spell - much, much better than Wall of Fire. Lingering Lingering Pyrotechnics is half a football field of blinding in a 3rd level slot. Lingering Lingering Prismatic Spray is pure, unadulterated fun for the chaos-loving mage (high level, to be sure, do something to keep them in place so it pays off). Lingering Lingering Stormbolts fills the battlefield with an allied-friendly zone of lightning damage plus stunlock possibility. Lingering Lingering Caustic Eruption is sure death for anything not immune to acid. And so on.

Does this really work that way? And if so, is it really as good as I'm coming to think it may be?

Pyrotechnics is Transmutation. Caustic Eruption is Conj (creation).

Lingering Spell feat says, "...Those already in the area suffer no additional harm, but other creatures or objects entering the area are subject to its effects...."

Only things I see wrong with your idea, though the last is a doozy.

 

[Empirate]

Silly me about the spell schools... should really have looked them up again.

About the feat rules text: that's really too bad, hadn't realized the lingering spell stopped affecting enemies in the area for NO GOOD REASON AT ALL. What's that rule about, "balance", like so many other Pathfinder ("it's not a bug, it's a...") features?

Thanks for pointing it out, anyway. There goes my lovely idea...

 

[Eridanis]

What's that rule about, "balance"...

That would be my guess. However, there's nothing to stop you from working with your GM to design a feat that would do what you would imagine it would do, but have it increase level by four or more. A lingering fireball acting in that fashion sure sounds like at least a 7th level effect to me.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

+4 levels? No. Definitely not worth 4 levels. +4 levels is for stuff that breaks the action economy, like quickened or twinned spells. +2, maybe +3. The effect itself is strong, which would lean towards +3, but you're using it on instaneous damage spells, some of the worst spells in the game, so I'd go with +2. Maybe limit it to spells that (initially; before adding other feats like Dazing Spell, at least) do nothing but damage.

 

[Empirate]

Hmm. I'm not really getting even a +2 increase. The base version of Lingering Spell only makes an instantaneous spell last for 1 round, expiring just before you go again next round. It doesn't have any extra effect on enemies that remain inside the effect by definition, since damage-over-time effects and effects that work every round will have no time to be checked again.

So all basic Lingering does is deter movement into the spell's effect for 1 round. This is fine and dandy, but it is hardly a lot even for a +1 spell level adjustment. It doesn't even promote movement out of the spell's effect for the pitiful 1 round it remains in effect.

I could get the +1 spell level adjustment IF Lingering also made the affected spell eligible for other metamagic (Extend) or class features (Generation Evoker's lingering effect). However, since this is not the case, Lingering Spell has just reverted to my list of "only sounds interesting at first and is in fact entirely underwhelming" metamagics.

Sadly, that's true for almost every single metamagic feat in the game. The concept of metamagic used to excite me, but in practice it just doesn't do much for you except maybe at the highest character levels. In 3.5, metamagic could be abused through multiple cost reducers, which was bad, but at least most metamagic became a viable option if you built for it. In Pathfinder, there simply isn't much excitement to be found in metamagic feats, except for rare select ones (Dazing Spell, Quicken Spell, Persistent Spell), and then only at high levels. Sad.