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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 975346" data-attributes="member: 307">I doubt it. At 3rd level, a cleric is probably better off with a cure spell, hold person, or shield other over the shortened animal buff spells. It is likely that he is better off with spiritual weapon or summon manster II rather than giving his melee types a +2 to hit and damage. Summoning a celesital wolf for three rounds is going to be almost always a better option over a handful of rounds of a tiny increase in damage output from the party fighter.A low level arcane caster is better off casting a wide array of spells, including glitterdust, hypnotic pattern or blindness over bull's strength.The problem is that at high level the problem with using the buff spells in combat is the opportunity cost of taking an action not consuming the spell slot. Casting an animal buff spell over any number of mid level offensive spells is silly for a mid level caster and beyond simply because you are wasting combat time doing that rather than using that spell slot to do something that scales better with your level.Plus, the simple fact of the matter is that many spells scale with level. A 9th level caster is simply better at using magic missile, fireball, or acid arrow than a 5th level caster. The fact that the spells get better is not unusual, in fact, it is de riguer for D&D spells. The 3rd level spell lightning bolt is not useless when you are 10th level, because it deals more damage than it did when you were 5th level, but the 2nd level spell bull's strength now is, because the now 10 minute duration doesn't give you any real benefit over the value fo the spell when you were 5th level.I find them to have been roughtly the same power as most of the other 2nd level spells when they were 1 hour per level. They were useful when they were low level, and they scaled well with level, like many other spells. Now, compared to the array of other spells out there at 2nd level, they are junk. Not useful at low levels, and completely worthless at mid to high level. Should magic missile not scale with level? How about negative energy ray? How about burning hands? Each of those 1st level spells is more valuable than the revised bull's strength. Now that is a nonsensical result, but that is what the change has effectively done. It has made an array of 2nd level spells less useful than many 1st level spells.</blockquote>

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