D&D 5E I want a return to long duration spells in D&D Next.

[JRRNeiklot]

Seriously? You get to be entirely unseen for five solid minutes? And you consider that useless? What the hell do you want to do? Make the rogue entirely obselete, and dance your way down the hallway in plain sight rather than use the spell to augment a plan, making the challenging parts doable.

Suppose I want to eavesdrop on someone and find out just exactly when the One Ring is leaving for Mordor? 5 minutes won't cut it unless I'm EXTREMELY lucky. And why is the rogue obsolete? As others have said, it's more than likely the rogue who's gonna be the recipient of the spell.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Suppose I want to eavesdrop on someone and find out just exactly when the One Ring is leaving for Mordor? 5 minutes won't cut it unless I'm EXTREMELY lucky. And why is the rogue obsolete? As others have said, it's more than likely the rogue who's gonna be the recipient of the spell.

Well, maybe magic just doesn't have the solution for this problem? Maybe you need to come up with a Disguise and be a bit more stealthy? And in this scenario, being able to cast Invisibility may still help - in a single, crucial moment it may be the safest way to escape notice. But you cannot use it every round.

Isn't that one of the fundamental problems why magic is often so overpowered. "I want to do X. That sounds hard. Is there a spell for that?"

Metagaming speaking, the Invisilbity spell could be used perfectly fine in a skill challenge, for example. Maybe after you failed a stealth check, the DM narrates "you realize that you have moved yourself in a bad position - guards coming around the corner will likely spot you were you are hiding right now, and your disguise as servant does not give you right to be here. What do you do?" "Hmm. Oh, I know -I cast Invisibility - it only lasts about a round, but maybe I can use this to evade the guards notice". "That could work, I give you a success for that - they could still hear you, though, which may make it more difficult for you later. Roll a Stealth Check." "Damn this die - a lowly 12 total" "One of the guards notices something as you pass them, protected by your invisibility spell. He is a bit more suspicious, so you suffer a -2 penalty on your next check."

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I have a mind that Invisibility, and spells of similar potency, should be of a relatively short duration in order to lend weight to the skill of stealth (hide/move silent in 3rd Ed), rather than another means for casters to trump non-casters. Having a powerful spell effect last for a very limited amount of time renders it, to my impression of how magic should work, as more of a unique display of the arcane (or divine as may be), rather than a bland overarching utilitarian crux.

If you want a long term magic, apply rituals, as has been argued above, that way there is a more reasonable cost and casting time invested to, gasp, balance its power, rather than a reflexive action that overshadows skill, both in and out of combat.

The problem with this is comment is the fact that Invisibility doesn't trump Hide/Move Silent/Stealth.

For one thing Invisibility doesn't make you quiet, Detect Magic and See Invisibility doesn't detect you, and you can use your Stealth skill over and over and over again.

Invisibility is nice but you can't beat a rogue who doesn't have to poor resources into hiding and moving silent.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

So the spellcaster climbs around. Is that a big deal?
And yes, invisibility is really good, but without other stealth, it's still vulnerable. Invisibility + stealth even better.

One important question: why assume that long duration magic benefits only the wizard/other spellcaster?

I wanted to XP you again but I have to share the wealth first.

Most of the time it's the other classes that benefit more from having spells cast on them.

An Invisible Rogue is a lot better than an Invisible Wizard, in my opinion.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Suppose I want to eavesdrop on someone and find out just exactly when the One Ring is leaving for Mordor? 5 minutes won't cut it unless I'm EXTREMELY lucky. And why is the rogue obsolete? As others have said, it's more than likely the rogue who's gonna be the recipient of the spell.

That depends what you use your invisibility to do. If you want invisibility to be an "I win" button and to make all the sneaking ever into a trivial thing then no it won't cut it. But 5 minutes is more than enough time to get into a position from which you can hear the discussion while being somewhere out of sight. Which you have a better chance of doing than the rogue.

And why it wouldn't be cast on the rogue? Because there isn't one there. Because everyone that way inclined has decided to go for the better sneak - i.e. the wizard.

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

I wanted to XP you again but I have to share the wealth first.

Most of the time it's the other classes that benefit more from having spells cast on them.

An Invisible Rogue is a lot better than an Invisible Wizard, in my opinion.

See my statement above regarding targets of spells. As for an invisible Wizard being inferior to an invisible Rogue; apparently you have not experienced the insanity that is "The flying mage with improved invisibility what can shoot magic from no-where." Now Improved Invisibility is of much shorter duration, but my point regarding the effectiveness of an invisible Wizard still stands.

If you truly believe that Invisibility is on par or even of limited use for evasion in comparison to stealth/move silent, then we will have to agree to disagree, because having the capacity to simply remain unseen all day, silent or not, is far superior, IMO, to simple skill.

I feel the counter point crew here seems to be hung up on Invisibility; again, how about Spider Climb, Detect Traps? Whether the Rogue, Ranger, or Wizard, the later two spells render their mundane equivalents obsolete. This is not something I feel magic should do, especially when the duration makes the choice all but automatic.

 

[Shadeydm]

See my statement above regarding targets of spells. As for an invisible Wizard being inferior to an invisible Rogue; apparently you have not experienced the insanity that is "The flying mage with improved invisibility what can shoot magic from no-where." Now Improved Invisibility is of much shorter duration, but my point regarding the effectiveness of an invisible Wizard still stands.

If you truly believe that Invisibility is on par or even of limited use for evasion in comparison to stealth/move silent, then we will have to agree to disagree, because having the capacity to simply remain unseen all day, silent or not, is far superior, IMO, to simple skill.

I feel the counter point crew here seems to be hung up on Invisibility; again, how about Spider Climb, Detect Traps? Whether the Rogue, Ranger, or Wizard, the later two spells render their mundane equivalents obsolete. This is not something I feel magic should do, especially when the duration makes the choice all but automatic.

While I grant that some editions had bad spell combinations I don't really see this as a valid arguement for eliminating all of those spells. I think a better case can be made for limiting what if any spells can stack. What you consider mage superiority spells I think individually offer nice alternatives to requiring a party to have certain classes present to overcome certain situations. For example some people think that a knock spell is unfair to rogues. I think a knock spell is a great option for a rogueless party. I am of the belief that if my players don't want to play a rogue they should not be punished for it. Where you see spider climb as a mage spell win button I see it as a boon to the poor heavy armored cleric who would otherwise keep falling off the cliff the party has decided to scale. So in short i do see value to these spells and i don't think a party should be forced to pick a class from column A, B, C, D or be faced with class specific road blocks.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

See my statement above regarding targets of spells. As for an invisible Wizard being inferior to an invisible Rogue; apparently you have not experienced the insanity that is "The flying mage with improved invisibility what can shoot magic from no-where." Now Improved Invisibility is of much shorter duration, but my point regarding the effectiveness of an invisible Wizard still stands.

If you truly believe that Invisibility is on par or even of limited use for evasion in comparison to stealth/move silent, then we will have to agree to disagree, because having the capacity to simply remain unseen all day, silent or not, is far superior, IMO, to simple skill.

I feel the counter point crew here seems to be hung up on Invisibility; again, how about Spider Climb, Detect Traps? Whether the Rogue, Ranger, or Wizard, the later two spells render their mundane equivalents obsolete. This is not something I feel magic should do, especially when the duration makes the choice all but automatic.

Flying doesn't make you quiet so you are still detectable, as well from Detect Magic and See Invisibility. A bow wielder could just close their eyes and take the 50% miss chance to hit you while you are flying.

I've been playing D&D since the early 80's including all versions between then and now so I am familiar with this type of Wizard. It's not all that great to be be honest because there are lots of monsters who have no problem effecting you.

Why would you need to do this when there is a rogue already in the party? The argument of "well I could do this" doesn't hold a lot of water. You Wizard needs to pump spells into what the rogue does naturally, and still doesn't do it as well.

The of having those spells is to be able to do some rogue type things when the rogue isn't around. When there is a rogue it is better for your Wizard to focus on something else.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

While I grant that some editions had bad spell combinations I don't really see this as a valid arguement for eliminating all of those spells. I think a better case can be made for limiting what if any spells can stack. What you consider mage superiority spells I think individually offer nice alternatives to requiring a party to have certain classes present to overcome certain situations. For example some people think that a knock spell is unfair to rogues. I think a knock spell is a great option for a rogueless party. I am of the belief that if my players don't want to play a rogue they should not be punished for it. Where you see spider climb as a mage spell win button I see it as a boon to the poor heavy armored cleric who would otherwise keep falling off the cliff the party has decided to scale. So in short i do see value to these spells and i don't think a party should be forced to pick a class from column A, B, C, D or be faced with class specific road blocks.

Exactly!

Some people call that crazy notion teamwork.

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

You may feel that a Rogue's stealth will not be trumped by effects such as Invisibility or Silence. You stated that the Wizard would have to expend significant resources to best the Rogue in stealth. You also seem to keep clinging to the point of who the target is, rather than the effect of the magic compared with its mundane counterpart. To re-iterate, an Invisible Wizard or even Pig-farmer Joe, will have a significant advantage over even Mr. Sneaky Pete the Rogue. See Invisibility or any counter spell effect now forces the opponent to expend their resources; ask yourself if you want to waste a spell slot on See Invisibility, unless you know you will be facing invisible opponents. BTW, a 50% miss chance (assuming you could locate the correct area) is pretty significant versus, say, 0%.

Eliminating long term effects was not something I am opposed to, at least not entirely, it's the action economy I feel is ill conceived and lends itself to exploitation. If you feel that a 2nd level spell cast within a round that lasts all day is a fair effect, then you and I will have to drop this point of discussion. Examples of "you can still be heard", or "they can still hit you half the time", do not lend argument to how these potent spells, coupled with a long duration, with relatively little investment in action economy, do not out-compete their mundane counterparts, or at the very least provide a significant advantage.