Buff spells are overpowered because of the nature of D&D combat, especially at high levels. I’ll start by saying the most limited resource in combat is actions, followed by statistics. The least limited resource is memorized spells and abilities used from magic items. Thus, anything that lets you trade the abundant resources for the scarce ones is incredibly valuable. This is the basic argument that almost everything else follows from. Long duration buff spells do not use up combat actions, but do grant statistics. Some short duration combat buffs grant more actions. Some short duration combat buffs are free actions (Barbarian rage is a non-magical example). A power that is short duration (or requires an action but does not give any more actions) can be abused by putting it into a magic item.
The action problem is the reason why an NPC with CR= the party’s level is going to get destroyed. Every action that the NPC takes must be geared to incapacitating one or more party members. The NPC cannot waste time Sundering weapons, tripping characters, dispelling enchantments or even casting buff spells, because as soon as the party concentrates their resources effectively on the NPC, the NPC is dead. Hence the mighty yet sometimes disposable dragons. The nature of combat actions gives extra strength to having an advantage in numbers and make fighting solo extremely difficult. The players have the ability to dispel the dragon’s buff spells, move to get into a better position to attack and can even cast buff spells during the combat if they really have to.
The second most limited resource in D&D is statistics. By this I mean strength and other ability scores, base attack bonus, hit points, armor class, bonuses to certain key skills, saves, base damage per attack… This is the reason why abilities that are unnamed bonuses are so powerful. Consider a melee fighter, who takes Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization with his sword (probably a two-handed one). A +4 unnamed bonus to Strength is more powerful in every situation than his “only for fighter” feats. The predominance of ability scores is a reason why truly effective melee characters need extraordinarily powerful abilities (like the WeaponMaster’s Ki Critical and Increased Multiplier) or simply high strength. Strength and Constitution are particularly troublesome scores at high levels. Enhancements to Con get stronger as you get higher in level and at the same time a +2 bonus to Con gives you an ever-increasing number of HP. A character who plans for higher levels needs to have a higher Con, because benefits from Con are the fastest at increasing. The power of statistics shows why a Wizard who casts Persistent Shield, Mage Armor, Polymorph Self, Stoneskin, Tenser’s Transformation, Haste, Improved Invisibility, Protection from Good/Evil, Greater Magic Weapon, Fly, and Endurance is far more powerful than any fighter in one on one combat using the core rules. Granted, this example is over the top, but Stoneskin, Fly, Protection from Good/Evil and Improved Invisibility are not needed to see the power of buff spells.
The most powerful part of the buff spell arsenal is usually to get statistics that would be otherwise unattainable. The Persistent Shield, Mage Armor, Endurance, Polymorph Self and Greater Magic Weapon spells all have exceedingly long durations and one extend spell metamagic cast by an 12th level wizard makes them all day spells. Casting Haste and Tenser’s Transformation on the first round of combat gives the 12th level wizard with Str 10, Dex 10 and Con 13 (in the form of an Annis Hag for this example) 120 HP, 39 AC (+11 Nat Armor, +4 Dex, +4 Armor, +7 Shield, +4 Haste, -1 Size) and attacks at +25/+25/+20/+15 (+10 Str, +12 BaB, +4 Magic Weapon, -1 Size) for 2d8+19 (huge greatsword). This example required very little creativity on my part- all that I had to do was look through the PH wizard spell list. So I think it is clear that buff spells are indeed worth it. A character who has buff spells with be far more powerful than a character without them. In the case of the above wizard, he could use Polymorph Self, Endurance, Persistent Shield and Mage Armor defensively to get an AC in the low 30s. The wizard who uses buff spells to turn himself into an offensive powerhouse is potent against creatures with CR and can massacre other characters who aren’t protected by ridiculous numbers of buff spells. With the exception of Tenser’s Transformation none of these spells preclude the ability to cast more spells, so a spellcaster can still fight a magical duel as well as a physical one.
The question will now turn to why buff spells are overpowered, besides the incredible statistics that they allow you to get. Haste is one of the most overpowered buff spells, because it changes the rules of the game. Being able to throw a second spell a round gives casters the option of using up a lot of long-term resources (spells memorized) to obliterate their opponents. It also really helps fighter-types by making mobility useless. The combination of a partial charge and a full attack action (especially with Boots of S&S) makes almost any point on the battlefield vulnerable to fighter’s attacks. Any resource needs to be accessed as fast as possible in a fight, and Haste is the best way to do it.
If Haste is the singular most powerful in combat buff, it is only because a line must be drawn when limited actions are involved, and Haste is one of the few spells that gives more actions (Divine Power and Tenser’s Transformation can simulate this effect by giving an extra attack). The most powerful out of combat buff spell is hard to assess, because players can use any number of them. Greater Magic Weapon, Barkskin, Greater Magic Fang, the stat enhancers, Magic Vestment, the polymorph spells (and Wild Shape, especially if players get to take the animal’s full number of iterative attacks), Mage Armor and Persistent Divine Favor/Shield are probably the most popular. The advantage to using these spells before combat is obvious from my above example. These spells should be used all the time. You cannot use long-lasting buff spells too much (with one exception, noted below). Once combat starts, you can only afford to cast the most powerful short term buff spells. To give an example, my high level Druid needed the Fast Wildshape feat and a pre-cast Greater Magic Fang to be an effective combatant. The Iron Law of shorter fights at higher levels meant that in the time it took him to get hasted, go Dire Bear and buff himself, the fight was more or less over. In fact, two rounds of prepping is too much at high levels- Haste and one more spell is about the maximum that you can do once fully engaged.
Someone might complain that using all of these spells limits your number of cast-able spells too much. For starters, spellcasters need to get magic items and feats (Spellcasting Prodigy) to enhance their number of spells known per day. This is the one area where buff spells cannot help you. The advantage to avoiding damage, being able to do more damage and having various other benefits is easily worth the spells used as buff spells. In a tough fight, your character needs to be at maximum power as soon as possible. In an easier fight, the buff spells will just shorten it. Your number of memorized spells could be severely taxed by a tough fight, but if you do not use buff spells before the fight, that fight would have most likely killed you. A Cleric’s domains are a clear advantage in allowing Clerics to cast large numbers of their very effective buff spells.
A targeted dispel at high levels would often otherwise be a Feeblemind, Power Word Stun, or Destruction. I should also mention that Ring of Counterspells set to Dispel Magic (or Greater Dispel at levels 14+) is a very good way to ensure that your buff spells do not get dispelled. If the dispel removes on average half of your spells, it is well worth the insurance. Your opponent trades a limited resource (combat actions) for your much less limited resource (spells memorized) when they could have tried trading their combat actions for your life. Note that there are a relatively limited number of core spells that offer effective long duration protection against enemy spells, so a Cloak of Resistance is another essential item to have. The type of encounters that most frustrate players with buff spells is an encounter with minions whose sole purpose is to dispel the buff spells. Since a weak encounter that takes out buff spells is the goal, low level spellcasters with powerful dispel magic scrolls can be very frustrating. A low level spellcaster without the scroll will be unable to win enough dispel checks to make much of a difference.
The nature of buff spells is that buff spells that can add a new type of bonus are the best. An item that grants +10 (competence) to Hide or +3 (luck) to attack and damage is much more valuable than mere skill ranks. New spells come out in supplements (like Rage or Brilliant Aura), there are new ways to increase the number or duration of buff spells appear (Persistent Spell, Chain Spell), and spellcasters get more flexible (Mage of the Arcane Order) buff spells get more powerful and easier to use. New ways to add to armor class, like Shield or Natural Armor (mainly from Polymorph unless you are a Druid) is the primary method to make high Str fighter types miss. Divine Power and Tenser’s Transformation are good examples of spells that both add to Base Attack Bonus and grant hit points without using a Con boost (Divine Power also has the potential to grant a boost to Str greater than that of any other spell its level except Polymorph)
The item creation system makes the buff spell problem more apparent. A spellcaster does not need to buy magical armor or weapons- if they do, they can buy +1 Medium Fortified Mithril Chain Shirts and then Magic Vestment them to be +4. Items that break the normal spellcasting rules (Pearls of Power, spell-storing items and Int/Wis/Cha enhancing items) are very powerful. The ability to put an ability which should be a short term activated ability into an item as a constant power is far too powerful. Boots of Striding and Springing are an item that every single character will have as soon as they can afford it. Persistent Spell is also overpowered for this reason. Quicken Spell is less powerful than Persistent Spell- compare a Persistent Shield and a Quickened Shield. Quicken Spell can be used to cast more damaging spells than would otherwise be possible, but Shield is more valuable than 15-20 points of magic missile damage if you only have the resources to do one.
Special care also needs to be taken with items that give abilities from one class to another. Potions of Shield are obvious examples of this, but Boots of Speed can also be problematic (although limiting Haste to Wizards by making Boots of Speed prohibitively expensive until very high levels would be a problem of its own). As a final note, even though I have said that Quickened Spell is less powerful than Persistent Spell, that doesn’t mean that an item that grants Divine Power as a free action is ok.
The limited number of combat actions combined with shortened fights makes surprise and other evasive tactics more powerful (and more necessary) at high levels. Haste and increasing character power makes the element of surprise invaluable. Items that give bonuses to Move Silently and Hide, combined with Invisibility ensure that spell/items that let you See Invisible, in the dark and increase your spot/listen skills are required.
The best solutions to these problems are hard to figure out. I make no claim to having an especially good or comprehensive set of solutions. One possible solution is to remove Persistent Spell and to decrease the duration of many of the powerful buff spells (change the 1 hour/level spell to 30 min/level). Some buff spells need to be toned down, raised in level, or both (Polymorph, Tenser’s Transformation, Divine Power, Divine Favor…). Allowing Blinding Speed (you can take an extra partial action 5 times/day) as a “semi-epic” (say, level 10 requirement) feat and removing the AC bonus from Haste might work well, although I have not tried it.
Skill enhancing items (especially for the most valuable skills) need to be more expensive (part of this is just for flavor’s sake) so that characters with these skills have some advantage that cannot be emulated for 2000 gp. Boots of Striding and Springing are unworkable at their current price- they need to be more expensive and have less of a benefit. Things like a Necklace of Beads of Karma which make buff spells even stronger need to be removed. Combat needs to be slower- everything should be less deadly at high levels from save or die spells to attack damage.
Sorry if this is hard to follow, repeats itself too much, or leaves anything that you think is important out. It also is mostly confined to the core rules, because those are the only books that I own. I find it hard to write (and would find it hard to read) posts this long, but this issue deserved a lot of thought. Please tell me what you think! Thanks!
The action problem is the reason why an NPC with CR= the party’s level is going to get destroyed. Every action that the NPC takes must be geared to incapacitating one or more party members. The NPC cannot waste time Sundering weapons, tripping characters, dispelling enchantments or even casting buff spells, because as soon as the party concentrates their resources effectively on the NPC, the NPC is dead. Hence the mighty yet sometimes disposable dragons. The nature of combat actions gives extra strength to having an advantage in numbers and make fighting solo extremely difficult. The players have the ability to dispel the dragon’s buff spells, move to get into a better position to attack and can even cast buff spells during the combat if they really have to.
The second most limited resource in D&D is statistics. By this I mean strength and other ability scores, base attack bonus, hit points, armor class, bonuses to certain key skills, saves, base damage per attack… This is the reason why abilities that are unnamed bonuses are so powerful. Consider a melee fighter, who takes Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization with his sword (probably a two-handed one). A +4 unnamed bonus to Strength is more powerful in every situation than his “only for fighter” feats. The predominance of ability scores is a reason why truly effective melee characters need extraordinarily powerful abilities (like the WeaponMaster’s Ki Critical and Increased Multiplier) or simply high strength. Strength and Constitution are particularly troublesome scores at high levels. Enhancements to Con get stronger as you get higher in level and at the same time a +2 bonus to Con gives you an ever-increasing number of HP. A character who plans for higher levels needs to have a higher Con, because benefits from Con are the fastest at increasing. The power of statistics shows why a Wizard who casts Persistent Shield, Mage Armor, Polymorph Self, Stoneskin, Tenser’s Transformation, Haste, Improved Invisibility, Protection from Good/Evil, Greater Magic Weapon, Fly, and Endurance is far more powerful than any fighter in one on one combat using the core rules. Granted, this example is over the top, but Stoneskin, Fly, Protection from Good/Evil and Improved Invisibility are not needed to see the power of buff spells.
The most powerful part of the buff spell arsenal is usually to get statistics that would be otherwise unattainable. The Persistent Shield, Mage Armor, Endurance, Polymorph Self and Greater Magic Weapon spells all have exceedingly long durations and one extend spell metamagic cast by an 12th level wizard makes them all day spells. Casting Haste and Tenser’s Transformation on the first round of combat gives the 12th level wizard with Str 10, Dex 10 and Con 13 (in the form of an Annis Hag for this example) 120 HP, 39 AC (+11 Nat Armor, +4 Dex, +4 Armor, +7 Shield, +4 Haste, -1 Size) and attacks at +25/+25/+20/+15 (+10 Str, +12 BaB, +4 Magic Weapon, -1 Size) for 2d8+19 (huge greatsword). This example required very little creativity on my part- all that I had to do was look through the PH wizard spell list. So I think it is clear that buff spells are indeed worth it. A character who has buff spells with be far more powerful than a character without them. In the case of the above wizard, he could use Polymorph Self, Endurance, Persistent Shield and Mage Armor defensively to get an AC in the low 30s. The wizard who uses buff spells to turn himself into an offensive powerhouse is potent against creatures with CR and can massacre other characters who aren’t protected by ridiculous numbers of buff spells. With the exception of Tenser’s Transformation none of these spells preclude the ability to cast more spells, so a spellcaster can still fight a magical duel as well as a physical one.
The question will now turn to why buff spells are overpowered, besides the incredible statistics that they allow you to get. Haste is one of the most overpowered buff spells, because it changes the rules of the game. Being able to throw a second spell a round gives casters the option of using up a lot of long-term resources (spells memorized) to obliterate their opponents. It also really helps fighter-types by making mobility useless. The combination of a partial charge and a full attack action (especially with Boots of S&S) makes almost any point on the battlefield vulnerable to fighter’s attacks. Any resource needs to be accessed as fast as possible in a fight, and Haste is the best way to do it.
If Haste is the singular most powerful in combat buff, it is only because a line must be drawn when limited actions are involved, and Haste is one of the few spells that gives more actions (Divine Power and Tenser’s Transformation can simulate this effect by giving an extra attack). The most powerful out of combat buff spell is hard to assess, because players can use any number of them. Greater Magic Weapon, Barkskin, Greater Magic Fang, the stat enhancers, Magic Vestment, the polymorph spells (and Wild Shape, especially if players get to take the animal’s full number of iterative attacks), Mage Armor and Persistent Divine Favor/Shield are probably the most popular. The advantage to using these spells before combat is obvious from my above example. These spells should be used all the time. You cannot use long-lasting buff spells too much (with one exception, noted below). Once combat starts, you can only afford to cast the most powerful short term buff spells. To give an example, my high level Druid needed the Fast Wildshape feat and a pre-cast Greater Magic Fang to be an effective combatant. The Iron Law of shorter fights at higher levels meant that in the time it took him to get hasted, go Dire Bear and buff himself, the fight was more or less over. In fact, two rounds of prepping is too much at high levels- Haste and one more spell is about the maximum that you can do once fully engaged.
Someone might complain that using all of these spells limits your number of cast-able spells too much. For starters, spellcasters need to get magic items and feats (Spellcasting Prodigy) to enhance their number of spells known per day. This is the one area where buff spells cannot help you. The advantage to avoiding damage, being able to do more damage and having various other benefits is easily worth the spells used as buff spells. In a tough fight, your character needs to be at maximum power as soon as possible. In an easier fight, the buff spells will just shorten it. Your number of memorized spells could be severely taxed by a tough fight, but if you do not use buff spells before the fight, that fight would have most likely killed you. A Cleric’s domains are a clear advantage in allowing Clerics to cast large numbers of their very effective buff spells.
A targeted dispel at high levels would often otherwise be a Feeblemind, Power Word Stun, or Destruction. I should also mention that Ring of Counterspells set to Dispel Magic (or Greater Dispel at levels 14+) is a very good way to ensure that your buff spells do not get dispelled. If the dispel removes on average half of your spells, it is well worth the insurance. Your opponent trades a limited resource (combat actions) for your much less limited resource (spells memorized) when they could have tried trading their combat actions for your life. Note that there are a relatively limited number of core spells that offer effective long duration protection against enemy spells, so a Cloak of Resistance is another essential item to have. The type of encounters that most frustrate players with buff spells is an encounter with minions whose sole purpose is to dispel the buff spells. Since a weak encounter that takes out buff spells is the goal, low level spellcasters with powerful dispel magic scrolls can be very frustrating. A low level spellcaster without the scroll will be unable to win enough dispel checks to make much of a difference.
The nature of buff spells is that buff spells that can add a new type of bonus are the best. An item that grants +10 (competence) to Hide or +3 (luck) to attack and damage is much more valuable than mere skill ranks. New spells come out in supplements (like Rage or Brilliant Aura), there are new ways to increase the number or duration of buff spells appear (Persistent Spell, Chain Spell), and spellcasters get more flexible (Mage of the Arcane Order) buff spells get more powerful and easier to use. New ways to add to armor class, like Shield or Natural Armor (mainly from Polymorph unless you are a Druid) is the primary method to make high Str fighter types miss. Divine Power and Tenser’s Transformation are good examples of spells that both add to Base Attack Bonus and grant hit points without using a Con boost (Divine Power also has the potential to grant a boost to Str greater than that of any other spell its level except Polymorph)
The item creation system makes the buff spell problem more apparent. A spellcaster does not need to buy magical armor or weapons- if they do, they can buy +1 Medium Fortified Mithril Chain Shirts and then Magic Vestment them to be +4. Items that break the normal spellcasting rules (Pearls of Power, spell-storing items and Int/Wis/Cha enhancing items) are very powerful. The ability to put an ability which should be a short term activated ability into an item as a constant power is far too powerful. Boots of Striding and Springing are an item that every single character will have as soon as they can afford it. Persistent Spell is also overpowered for this reason. Quicken Spell is less powerful than Persistent Spell- compare a Persistent Shield and a Quickened Shield. Quicken Spell can be used to cast more damaging spells than would otherwise be possible, but Shield is more valuable than 15-20 points of magic missile damage if you only have the resources to do one.
Special care also needs to be taken with items that give abilities from one class to another. Potions of Shield are obvious examples of this, but Boots of Speed can also be problematic (although limiting Haste to Wizards by making Boots of Speed prohibitively expensive until very high levels would be a problem of its own). As a final note, even though I have said that Quickened Spell is less powerful than Persistent Spell, that doesn’t mean that an item that grants Divine Power as a free action is ok.
The limited number of combat actions combined with shortened fights makes surprise and other evasive tactics more powerful (and more necessary) at high levels. Haste and increasing character power makes the element of surprise invaluable. Items that give bonuses to Move Silently and Hide, combined with Invisibility ensure that spell/items that let you See Invisible, in the dark and increase your spot/listen skills are required.
The best solutions to these problems are hard to figure out. I make no claim to having an especially good or comprehensive set of solutions. One possible solution is to remove Persistent Spell and to decrease the duration of many of the powerful buff spells (change the 1 hour/level spell to 30 min/level). Some buff spells need to be toned down, raised in level, or both (Polymorph, Tenser’s Transformation, Divine Power, Divine Favor…). Allowing Blinding Speed (you can take an extra partial action 5 times/day) as a “semi-epic” (say, level 10 requirement) feat and removing the AC bonus from Haste might work well, although I have not tried it.
Skill enhancing items (especially for the most valuable skills) need to be more expensive (part of this is just for flavor’s sake) so that characters with these skills have some advantage that cannot be emulated for 2000 gp. Boots of Striding and Springing are unworkable at their current price- they need to be more expensive and have less of a benefit. Things like a Necklace of Beads of Karma which make buff spells even stronger need to be removed. Combat needs to be slower- everything should be less deadly at high levels from save or die spells to attack damage.
Sorry if this is hard to follow, repeats itself too much, or leaves anything that you think is important out. It also is mostly confined to the core rules, because those are the only books that I own. I find it hard to write (and would find it hard to read) posts this long, but this issue deserved a lot of thought. Please tell me what you think! Thanks!
