Dragons and Permanancy

[AnthonyRoberson]

I am trying to stat up a Very Old Red Dragon as an adversary for my players. She can cast spells as a 13th level Sorcerer. I paged through the Monster Manual and Draconomicon and noticed something weird though. Why haven't any of the Dragons there made any spells Permanent? Is there any reason that a Dragon can't make a spell permanent? If not, I see no reason why my dragon can't have Permanent See Invisibility, Arcane Sight and maybe a couple of Teleportation circles lying around....

 

[cmrscorpio]

Why not? The simple answer is that dragons cast as sorcerers, and if permanency doesn't appear on the spells known list then they can't cast it. I gave a cursory glance through the Draconomicon and didn't see any with Permanency on their spell list.

Could they? If Permanency and the spells that they want to make permanent are on their spells known, then most certainly.

[edit] Or maybe they can't use spells that have an experience component since they advance by age instead of by levels. Maybe they don't have the experience to spend on Permanency. I'm too lazy to see if there are other spells on their lists that have experience components to test out this theory.[/edit]

 

[Jack Simth]

Do note that any spell you can Permanency, you can Permanency by way of Limited Wish - and as the lowest XP cost of applying Permanency is 500 xp, it doesn't even cost you any extra XP to do it by way of Limited Wish - just a higher level spell slot.

 

[Goolpsy]

Well... with all its treasure it could pay someone else to use Permenency on it...

 

[cmrscorpio]

Do note that any spell you can Permanency, you can Permanency by way of Limited Wish - and as the lowest XP cost of applying Permanency is 500 xp, it doesn't even cost you any extra XP to do it by way of Limited Wish - just a higher level spell slot.

Limited Wish states that when duplicating a spell with an XP cost, "you must pay the cost or 300xp, whichever is more".

 

[Corsair]

You're not disagreeing with him. He meant it doesn't cost you extra XP to emulate a permanency with LW. Meaning it costs the same. Unlike say, emulating a cloudkill with a limited wish, which would cost you extra XP.

 

[Arkhandus]

Well... with all its treasure it could pay someone else to use Permenency on it...

What?!?!? A dragon parting with some of its precious, precious hoard just to pay some piddly meat-snack to cast some Permanency spells for it?!?! Preposterous!!

 

[Felnar]

What?!?!? A dragon parting with some of its precious, precious hoard just to pay some piddly meat-snack to cast some Permanency spells for it?!?! Preposterous!!

after that meat-snack has gone through your digestive system it probably wont complain when you take the treasure back

 

[Intrope]

The real reason: Caster Level. Permanency spells can be dispelled, and any attacking adventurers will either be laugably weak or automatically make the dispel check. Good-bye permanent spells!

 

[szilard]

The real reason: Caster Level. Permanency spells can be dispelled, and any attacking adventurers will either be laugably weak or automatically make the dispel check. Good-bye permanent spells!

Ummm... really... if I am fighting a dragon, I'm almost certainly not going to worry about dispelling its Arcane Sight. I expect I'll have better things to spend my limited number of actions and spells on...

-Stuart