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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 986699" data-attributes="member: 5834">Re: Re: ReI am going to ask kindly that you do not use the *roll's eyes* BS when addressing me. You do not have any idea how I and my gaming group play the game. If you did, you would understand why this is a concern.No I don't expect to fly through a dungeon. I do expect to use my magic to increase my survivability. Fly is the spell that I use to do that along with a variety of others, mostly with short durations. I do believe that certain spells that an arcane caster uses should allow them to avoid combat for more than one combat. If all combat avoidance spells  set up for the duration of one combat, then it makes the arcane caster who is part of a group that goes through multiple dungeon rooms during the course of an adventure useless for a great many combats. Who wants to draw attention to themselves if they have no way of countering melee?I don't know how your DM runs combat, but my DM starts focusing attacks on arcane and divine casters as soon as it is determined who they are. He even has his scouts report back to the BBEG of the composition of the group, so that the BBEG can  prepare to deal with the casters first.Once the casters are gone, the combat element of the group can more easily be dealt with. Does your DM send advance scouts for the BBEG to determine who the casters in the group are and set out to destroy them? It makes life a little harder for casters in our group than for your group, perhaps.And Fly was the only long duration spell that allowed me to avoid immediate attack from melee while preparing for battle, when it lasted more than one battle. Now, I am forced (I do mean literally forced as in if I stay, I am dead.) to Dimension Door to a safe location and start buffing up for combat at one spell per round while the melee rush headlong into battle and start whooping ass.Now I could see this change if the entire party was flying through the dungeon, but since that is not how I and my gaming group play the game given the precious few spells a caster has during the day that any caster can afford to give the entire party Fly. We don't carry a Wand of Fly all the time.If you do not play the game the way we do, then you cannot possibly understand why these changes are so unncessary, Psi. Just as I don't understand why others consider them necessary because I don't play the way they play. Myself and the others who DM don't screw around. Many of the problems that I hear some of the people discussing on this board and others that discuss RPG's doesn't occur in our games. Which is why my opinions and those of my players differ, and we even allow a generous stat rolling method and the use of templates.We still get our butts kicked heartily at major encounters because of how ruthlessly efficient myself and others who share DMing duties are at organizing encounters. Spells like Fly and Invisibility having a 10 minute duration doesn't ruin our ability to challenge the players. We have incorporated the change to stat-enhancement spells because they effectively lasted for the duration of our time spent adventuring. That didn't seem right to us. We are only reducing them to 10 minutes per level as well.We use the new Haste for our own sake as well as reducing PC power. That is what happens when an evil hasted cleric drops two Destructions and two empowered Flame Strike's on your party or an invisible wizard opens up with an empowered Cone of Cold and and empowered Lightning Bolt at your back. You start to realize that Haste is overpowered, and it hurts badly.Not everyone plays this game the same way. That is why some changes just don't need to be applied to certain campaigns. In our case, Fly and Invisibility have not been a problem in our games.If we don't encounter the monster, then we really accomplish nothing. Our gaming group does not avoid encounters. We face encounters. Invisibility is a scout and ambush spell for our gaming group, not encounter avoidance.We don't count ourselves as clever for having avoided an encounter. If we are going into a dungeon, we feel that we are there to destroy the evil of the place, not wander past it invisibly.Improved Invisibility is a combat avoidance spell. In our campaigns it is good for one combat possibly two combats if they are very closely spaced in time.. Why? Because by the time we are done killing, looting and investigating, 1 minute per level spells are gone. We do not rush through a dungeon because our spells our active.Like I said previously, the way people play a campaign will affect their view on certain changes. We aren't powergamers. We are pretty hardcore roleplayers. We keep fairly accurate track on spell durations. 10 minute duration did not negatively affect our campaign.How did it get better? Is the duration longer? That would be nice.Though at higher level, Stone skin doesn't do much but give you a little more time to run when powerful creatures are pounding on your for insane damage with applicaple elemental damage and improved grab.In fact, Stoneskin is mostly useful at lower levels or when fighting multiple humanoid type monsters swinging weapons. I use it when it would be useful.</blockquote>

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