Duration of Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, etc.

[beaver1024]

I don't know what games you guys are playing but "objectively" speaking, I wouldn't even use the pages used for printing the new buff spells for toilet paper. What is a use of a short duration Int, Wis or Cha booster? The major use of those spells were to boost your non combat situation rolls. With the reduced duration they are now useless. They are useless for casters because they can't grant bonus spells and they don't stack with stat boosting items, which casters have to have anyway. They are useless for other classes because they don't last long enough for non combat uses. This nerfing of stat booster is one of the compounding factors that made the sorcerers so weak. So instead of being able to use Cat's Grace for Move Silently boosts, the sorcerer now has to get some other spell that does the same thing.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

I don't know what games you guys are playing but "objectively" speaking, I wouldn't even use the pages used for printing the new buff spells for toilet paper. What is a use of a short duration Int, Wis or Cha booster? The major use of those spells were to boost your non combat situation rolls. With the reduced duration they are now useless. They are useless for casters because they can't grant bonus spells and they don't stack with stat boosting items, which casters have to have anyway. They are useless for other classes because they don't last long enough for non combat uses. This nerfing of stat booster is one of the compounding factors that made the sorcerers so weak. So instead of being able to use Cat's Grace for Move Silently boosts, the sorcerer now has to get some other spell that does the same thing.

Just where is the sorcerer sneaking that he needs to do so for 1 hour per level? And a sorcerer's Move Silently sucks anyways, it's not like a +2 is going to help that much.

 

[Wormwood]

They are useless for casters because they can't grant bonus spells and they don't stack with stat boosting items, which casters have to have anyway.

1. A second level spell that freely grants bonus spells is broken.

2. They never stacked.

 

[beaver1024]

1. A second level spell that freely grants bonus spells is broken.

2. They never stacked.

The old duration allowed them to be used for something other than combat. Therefore it didn't matter that the status bonus didn't grant extra spells. What use are they with the new durations?

 

[beaver1024]

Just where is the sorcerer sneaking that he needs to do so for 1 hour per level? And a sorcerer's Move Silently sucks anyways, it's not like a +2 is going to help that much.

When the sorcerer doesn't have invisibility, when the whole party is trying to bypass an obstacle stealthily. +2 for PC may not be much but +2 for most members of the party? +2 stacking with the sorcerer's familiar bonus, or an elven sorcerer's cloak of elven kind?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The way I plan on handling these spells, is to ban all but bull's strength. there were no such spells in 1e and we all got along without them. So, I'm banning the rest and leaving bull's strength at one hour per level.

 

[Sagiro]

I'm of two minds about these spells.

Mind #1 thinks that the 3.0 method was broken and worth fixing. I can only speak of experience in two games -- one as a DM and one as a player -- but in those two games the "animal buff" spells are used for a vast majority of all 2nd-level spell slots. At 1/hour per level, they're too good compared the alternatives. As a high level cleric, being able to give myself and my partymates between 17 and 38 extra hp per day (bear's endurance) is a no-brainer. Granted, in that game a) we aren't festooned with stat-boosting items, and b) there are 9 characters in the party, so there's always someone who can benefit from an animal buff. In a game with only four characters, all of whom already sport multiple stat-boosting items, the hour-per-level versions wouldn't be as unbalancing. Anyway, Mind #1 grows weary of the 10+ d4's rolled at the start of every adventuring day. Mind #1 also agrees with the poster who points out that once animal buffs become the all-day-every-day status quo, DM's will adjust combat difficulties across the board to compensate. Lastly, Mind #1 thinks that a spell that causes 20 other spells never to be used isn't good for the game.

Mind #2 concedes that at one minute per level, the pendulum may have swung too far in the other direction. The two failure cases for spell design are a) everyone takes it all the time, and b) no one ever takes it.

So, Mind #2 can't help but wonder: what bonus would these spells have to give in order for them to be taken about as often as other useful spells? What if they gave a flat +6 bonus for 1/minute per level? Does that make them more attractive than hold person or resist paralysis or silence or levitate or mirror image? If not +6, what about +8? Surely there is some bonus that strikes the right balance with a shortened duration.

-Sagiro

 

[James McMurray]

First off, Congratulations on the marriage

My group still casts these. Nowhere near as often as they used to back when they lasted all day and could be double empowered, but they still see use. Just light night the cleric in the epic campaign cast a quickened bear's endurance. I figure if something sees use at epic levels it probably isn't underpowered.