Divine Favor and Persistent Spell

[LokiDR]

I have a character in a game nick named "captain cleric" who uses a "power up dance" of bull's strength, endurance, and eagle splendor. I do not use metamagic to accomplish this, but I have never been pushed pasted the duration of the spell. It lets me become the fighter. When the party has a fighter, I usually can't do as well, so I go more towards summoning. At 9th level, the pre-casts still makes the Captain nasty, and probably a bit less fun for the others.

I play a 16th level incantantrix though that used instant metamagic and the fiendform spell from FR to be an imp all day. I now know that this doesn't work, but it didn't really matter. The barbarian carved through most of the combats any way.

My point is that persistent wouldn't or didn't make too much of a difference in either case. There are other ways to stop running spells. Try look at the "spell engine" spell in magic of FR. Walk into lair, get all your precast downed, and trigger an alarm.

 

[Frum]

Clerics

Thanks again. Great ideas.

Ridley's Cohort: I really like some of your ideas. The players in my campaign never get to choose when their characters find themselves in the fray, unless they deliberately avoid fights (an unfortunately rare occurance). Most fights are the result of being ambushed by several different factions who want to use particular party members for their own separate goals. But I digress.

One problem, though, is that clerics, and divine casters in general, do not need to sleep; they prepare spells at the same time every day, so the interference with rest is meaningless. I could interfere with that preparation time, but that can only go on so long. It could be a good idea once or twice, though.

 

[Crothian]

Another thing you can do is have monsters/challenges that Divine Favor doesn't help defeat. Creatures that are incorpral or otherwise with a natural miss chance, flying creatures, hit and run tactics, etc.

Does the cleric do it everyday even days of travel? If not you can hit them up with a few random encounters.

 

[LokiDR]

One of the best option of all is give players a taste of their own medicine with a DM twist. If the players make too great of use of persistan pre-cast spells, create an NPC who uses followers to cast all the buffs that your PCs do. You could even try a mirror match. If you can't keep them down, rise to their tricks.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

To follow up with loki's post once you uber buff enemies, then the party will be dropping dispels left and right. And if they drop dispels in every fight then they can't complain when there enemies do as well. Honestly ever since D&D began once characters reached a certain level dipels were always a part of both sides opening volley. In 3rd though the only way your player should feel picked on is if he is the only target of targeted dispels. In my games every spellcaster frequently drops an area dispel or even two in the 1st round. The only exception is the wiz/sor who usually launches some blast spell and tries to get sor/wiz looking fools in the area of effect, cause d6 v d4 d6 usually wins. And you don't need to dispel corpses.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

As others have said, Area dispels are the way to go. When you get to around 7th and 8th level characters, dispel magic is pretty much a standard opener in any fight. And a standard middle of the fight option too after haste is cast. The number and quality of long duration buffs floating around make the elimination of that magical preparation a tide turning event in a battle.

In any typical fight that is even remotely expected, fighters can be expected to have bull's strength and possibly endurance up. The same is true for clerics. At 9th level and beyond, persistent Divine Favor can be expected too. You can also expect extended Magic Vestments and Greater Magic Weapons too. Who won't dispel that?

Wizards can be expected to have shields up in any combat they're prepared for and after 9th level any combat at all (persistent spell). They can also be expected to be hasted, mage armored, and energy buffered. What can be done about it? Dispel magic.

I would expect that both your PCs and villains should be using dispel magics with great regularity so you probably won't be singling anyone out. If it seems like you are, your players should probably spread the buffs out a bit so that a targetted dispel magic can't bring them all down at once.

 

[hong]

With him using so many spell slots, what do they do for healing if they have several fights in a row?

CLW wands, of course.

I wouldn't play the "you need healing spells" card. Nobody I know likes being the party medic, so the only effect this would have is to discourage people from being clerics in the first place. Which would indeed have the effect of getting rid of divine power, but it seems a high price to pay.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Re: Clerics

One problem, though, is that clerics, and divine casters in general, do not need to sleep; they prepare spells at the same time every day, so the interference with rest is meaningless. I could interfere with that preparation time, but that can only go on so long. It could be a good idea once or twice, though.

Oops. Good point.

The same general idea still works with minor changes.

Remember the 8 hour rule!

Recent Casting Limit: As with arcane spells, at the time of preparation any spells cast within the previous 8 hours count against the number of spells that can be prepared.

Midnight fighting that drains a few good spells means the cleric can't refresh those slots at dawn the next morning. If he uses he full standard array of buff spells, his spell list will start looking thin as the day wears on.

Keep in mind the point of these games is not to punish a PC for his tactics. The point is to add uncertainty into the strategic equation. If the players start anticpating what they are up against they will become doggedly efficient at defeating that type of challenge. Keep them guessing!


Back to your original question, should you allow Persistence. I am not sure, I do not have experience with it. The thing I would be careful about are spells with a duration in rounds. Look over those spells carefully.

 

[LokiDR]

Including Persistan spell will have a definite effect on your game, it will escalate it. Instead of using multiple low level encounters to challenge your PCs, you would have to move to more of a "one big baddie" idea. If that is a problem, or seems less fun, then do not allow the feat.

 

[tarsque]

I would like to point out a tactic that I use with Persistant spell to avoid tieing up slots each day. Cast the persistant spells 8.1 hours before you get new spells. Then when you get new spells leave the slots open. That way you have the option of filling them with other spells during the day but if you haven't used them in the first 16 hours you can use them on your persistant spells.