1 min per level spells and why they suck

[Cloudgatherer]

Honestly, I don't like the fact the change is so drastic. The "out-of-combat" buff spells have become "maybe cast in battle" buff spells. It is possible, but unlikely, they will be cast before combat. (Honestly, who casts Shield before combat?)

My real issue here is: were we just playing it wrong before? I heard there were playtesters for 3.0 and if there big abuse issues during that time, the buff spells would have probably had a similar adjustment when 3.0 came out. What has changed over the past three years?

My best guess is this change is targetted at clerics, who can take all those buff spells and add them together to become "super-fighter." That's all well and good, but to me this seems like the "haste" change. Suddenly a spell has become a lot less useful, so now it won't get used.

 

[BryonD]

Better finish that climb, Wes... Dread Pirate Roberts. It's almost July!

"'Put ranks in Intuit Direction', he said. 'Don't worry about climb.", he said. 'I'll buff you.', he said. Stupid cleric. Now I'm useless."

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Might even be a decent compromise to errata them so they are lengthy until a combat is begun at which point the round, or minute, timer starts on them. Sort of like an up for a long time, until "discharged", then down after a shorter time.

Perhaps some sort of "delay spell" feat would allow you to cast certain spells which the target can activate as a free action within X hours?

Kahuna Burger

 

[Chimera]

Damn, but you people need more monsters and opponents who can detect, destroy, neutralize or steal magic.

If a group of people come strolling into the city wearing the monetary equivalent of the Crown Jewels, I don't care how well armed they are, everyone so inclined is going to take a crack at stealing from them. Heck, just lifting a potion would feed your average Joe for a long while.

Do they honestly wear and carry every bit of that stuff all day long? Even when visiting the local Lord? At the bath house? If not, where are they keeping it? (Take a number, the line forms behind me. I get first crack at breaking into their room, prying the horseshoes off their stabled horse, picking their pockets at the Inn, etc)

If everyone spends their first waking moments casting a whole pile of buffing spells on their party, don'tcha think that pre-dawn raids would become an SOP?

If you were facing a party of spellcasters in your territory, wouldn't you do everything possible to spoil their rest and ruin their spell recovery?

I think part of my problem with this all is my problem with standard D&D economics. I just can't get past seeing all these maximized, tricked out characters as anything but walking moneybags, drawing the attention of every greedy eye in the territory.

But then, NO, none of this is "fun" play, is it.

 

[Mark]

Perhaps some sort of "delay spell" feat would allow you to cast certain spells which the target can activate as a free action within X hours?

Kahuna Burger

The group could pitch in on a Staff of Contingency...

 

[Dreeble]

Baldur's Gate

Heya:

In the Baldur's Gate CRPG series it was often an effective strategy to initiate combat with casters and then (if at all possible and, yeah, it wasn't always possible) run away a bit and hide until the enemy casters' buffs wore off.

Sounds like this might be a good strategy again in PnP: initiate combat with the enemy group (including casters) that coincidentally had _just_ cast their own buff spells; run away for a few minutes, come back, cast buffs, and attack the buffless baddies.

My opinion on whether it's good or bad: Say a caster has 3 2nd lvl spells available. In 3.0, he casts 1 as a buff in the morning. During the rest of the day, he casts two other different 2nd lvl spells. Different number of 2nd lvl spells cast: 3. In 3.5, he casts 1 as a buff before a big combat, he casts the same buff at the beginning of a different combat an hour later, and he casts a different 2nd lvl spell at some point. Different number of 2nd lvl spells cast: 2. This sounds like fewer options to me.

Take care,
Dreeble

 

[Mark]

Re: Baldur's Gate

This sounds like fewer options to me.

You're right on the money with that assessment.

And on a related note, RPGs are a mix of roleplaying and dice factoring. The less utility a spell has...that is, the less ways one can use a spell because of the limits put on it by the nature of how it is treated by the rules...the less roleplaying that is inherent. In essense, this new restriction limits not only the uses of the spells that it affects, but more generally restricts the options for roleplaying in regard to those spells.

 

[mmu1]

You all have been spoiled by the super-long duration of the buff spells as they exist in the 3.0 rules. When I hear people saying, "I'm never going to cast Bull's Strength again because it sucks with duration 1 min/lvl," all I can think is, "Are you completely insane?"

Spoiled? Depends on the game. I've played in some that had characters in the 40 point range, where the various long-lasting buffs were a luxury, and probably a bit excessive - although at higher levels, they were hardly cast on everyone in the party, since they weren't that badly needed and the casters often preferred having some 2nd level utility spells left.

Now I'm playing in one with 28 point buy characters, and the party needs those buffs very badly. At 1 minute/level, they'll be next to useless - like I said, no way is it worth to loose that much healing in exchange for a minor benefit that lasts through one combat. I'd have to be an idiot to waste a 2nd level spell to give myself or the fighter +2 to hit for one combat when I can just Bless the whole party and use Divine Vigor. And the party rogue, who's probably only alive at this point thanks to Endurance is going to be really happy about this...

It's going to hurt characters badly at low levels, because someone got the idea that being able to use it for most of the day at higher levels, when they're nice but not that relevant in the greater scheme of things was a bad thing.

Putting a cap on the spells of 4-5 hours would have been a much better way of dealing with this then the ridiculous 1 minute/level duration... Which, as someone pointed out, also extremely reduces their utility when it comes to prolonged skill use, encumberance, endurance, and so on.

 

[F5]

So far, we've only "officially" seen the revised Bull's Strength. I wonder if the other ability score buffs will be changed in the same way?
Personally, I would rather all the ability buffs be kept consistent, but they DID argue that the half-orc's ability mods were balanced because strength is a more useful ability than the others for an archetypical half-orc. So maybe we'll be getting a 1 min/level Bull's Strength, and a 1 hr/lvl Cat's Grace, et al?
I hope not...

 

[Fenes 2]

(sarcasm)
Not that any DM would be able to tailor the opponents to the PCs' capabilities, oh no, perish the thought! The poor PCs will get slaughtered by uber-monsters unleashed by killer DMs in 3.5E since they absolutely have to have stat boosts!
(/sarcasm)

I don't know about your DM, but I don't use the same opponents on parties whose members have AC 25 and 100 hitpoints a piece at one level and on parties whose members have AC 17 and 60 hitpoints a piece...