D&D 5E I want a return to long duration spells in D&D Next.

[keterys]

I will say - one benefit of 4e's save model was that a successful save typically happened after being subject to an effect for a round.

For example, in many editions I'd simply avoid save based effects because the monsters were going to make their save and it would do very little. In 4e, at least it would affect them for a round. (Yes, I realize those spells rarely required hitting. I'm very okay with rolling to hit)

 

[WizarDru]

I will say - one benefit of 4e's save model was that a successful save typically happened after being subject to an effect for a round.

For example, in many editions I'd simply avoid save based effects because the monsters were going to make their save and it would do very little. In 4e, at least it would affect them for a round. (Yes, I realize those spells rarely required hitting. I'm very okay with rolling to hit)

That was the general operating paradigm for those spells: spells with no save usually required a successful attack roll as their balance for their relatively powerful effect. How well that actually worked at higher levels is debatable. IME, after a certain level in 3E, those kind of rolls fell into two categories: "can only fail on a natural '1'" or "can only succeed on a natural '20'". Sometimes that was fun, sometimes it was frustrating.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That was the general operating paradigm for those spells: spells with no save usually required a successful attack roll as their balance for their relatively powerful effect. How well that actually worked at higher levels is debatable. IME, after a certain level in 3E, those kind of rolls fell into two categories: "can only fail on a natural '1'" or "can only succeed on a natural '20'". Sometimes that was fun, sometimes it was frustrating.

Oh, how often my high level Fighter(s) failed their Fortitude Saves against death effects... *sigh*

Frack Bodaks, I say.

 

[billd91]

I think 4e has durations almost right. 1 minute/level, 1 hour, or whatever is just a real bookkeeping annoyance - it's a lot of out of combat estimation.

See, this just reinforces my impression that 4e is a glorified combat engine. If the game's mechanics just emphasize combat time durations rather than non-combat encounter variabilities, then I think it gives up too much ground on its scope of play. 3.5 was already moving in this direction to the point that I shouldn't have been surprised that 4e went even farther, but I wasn't in favor of it then and I'm not in favor of it now.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Spells with durations of "encounter" can lead to situations like:
"Bob, grapple that ogre for a while, don't kill him. I need to climb this wall, and my spider climb spell only lasts for an encounter."

 

[keterys]

For those who don't know, a spell that lasted "an encounter" lasts for 5 minutes. You could spider climb just fine out of combat. Or in combat.

 

[The Little Raven]

And god forbid someone cast greater dispel on you.

Or, heaven help you, if you take ability damage, ability drain, or energy drain, those wonderful "recalculate all your derived stats mid-game" conditions.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Duly noted. I wasn't picking on 4e, though, just durations of encounter in general.

 

[Hussar]

Spells with durations of "encounter" can lead to situations like:
"Bob, grapple that ogre for a while, don't kill him. I need to climb this wall, and my spider climb spell only lasts for an encounter."

Yes, because mechanics are always the solution to douchebag players.

If someone is going to game the system in this manner, and it bothers you, wouldn't it a whole lot simpler just to ask players not to be dicks than try to force everyone in the world to screw around tracking minutia of time?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

See, this just reinforces my impression that 4e is a glorified combat engine. If the game's mechanics just emphasize combat time durations rather than non-combat encounter variabilities, then I think it gives up too much ground on its scope of play. 3.5 was already moving in this direction to the point that I shouldn't have been surprised that 4e went even farther, but I wasn't in favor of it then and I'm not in favor of it now.

Rituals actually still had "regular" durations expressed in other time units than rounds. Rituals for out-of-combat, powers for in-combat. And an encounter duration was defined as 5 minutes, but the term "encounter" gave the implication that you should expect a single combat with aftermath healing and the like take about 5 minutes. That gives a DM a neat tool to calculate this time. But once we get into durations like 10 minutes per level - how much of the gameplay evens will this cover? How long should it really take to search a few rooms of variable height, pick a lock and identify a magic item? I don't know I don't really care, I really just want my players to know which spells are still up and which are not. "Encounter" long spells are not the only solution here. Other solutions would be that you specificy an activity by the players that ends a spell - like "cast another spell" ... "receive healing" ... "taken 50 damage" ... "hit an enemy" ... "went to sleep" ... "voluntarily end it (maybe because there is a penalty for maintaining a spell)".

The durations expressed in minutes, seconds and whatever also take out a lot of "magic" in the game. It makes it so incredible technical. Durations like 1 hour per level would mean that someone with a clock could actually measure your exact caster level!