Legal, reasonable way to make permanency, well, permanent

[Artoomis]

In the end, I don't think it's a bad tradeoff to have Permanancy take 3 rounds cost 0 Gp some XP and be dispellable, while items could cost significant Gp and XP - and take weeks (or more!) of game time.

I think you missed the boat on this one (edit: you focused only on the high-level spells, whereas I think eveyone else was looking at persaonal uses only).

I'd post the whole list with XP costs for (edit: Personal Only) Permanency and crafted items, but it's gone. Apparently inactive threads only stick around for so long. Too bad. Suffice it so say that the XP costs for the low level spells are higher for Permanency and lower for the 4th level spells, IIRC.

Bottom line: You pay basically just as much in XP costs for spells that are permanent until displelled - which will happen, sooner or later. Most of the spells take ralatively small amounts of gold and time to make into an item

 

[Artoomis]

If you are epic, take the Tenacious Magic feat (prereq Spellcraft 15) and choose the spell permanency. Then, for you, permanency is only suppressed for 1d4 rounds by a successful dispel effect.

I overlooked that. Very nice - that will do. In fact, you could pick "Miracle" (or Limited Wish) instead of Permanency, I think, for the same effect, plus more.

I like the idea of any spell duplicated with Miracle being undispellable. Very cool - very cinematic. It has just the right feel, I think.

 

[rushlight]

I think you missed the boat on this one - you use all kinds of examples of spells that cannot be made permanent.

Uh, I copied them directly from the SRD. I'm way to lazy to type that all in by hand. Copy, paste and Excel made the magic happen...

Bottom line: You pay basically just as much in XP costs for spells that are permanent until displelled - which will happen, sooner or later. Most of the spells take ralatively small amounts of gold and time to make into an item.

As I pointed out above, many of those spells if turned into items might take more XP. Even if they didn't the trade-off seems to be: The spells are dispellable since they take no Gp, and no (relevant) time in game. Seems fine to me.

It would appear that the only reason to change Permanacy to be un-dispellable is so people can get cheap magic items without any feat loss. If the problem is people don't like the XP loss for Permanacy, then just make an item - spend the Gp, get the feat and take the time. Then the XP spent might seem more "worthwhile".

 

[Artoomis]

Uh, I copied them directly from the SRD. I'm way to lazy to type that all in by hand. Copy, paste and Excel made the magic happen...


As I pointed out above, many of those spells if turned into items might take more XP. Even if they didn't the trade-off seems to be: The spells are dispellable since they take no Gp, and no (relevant) time in game. Seems fine to me.

It would appear that the only reason to change Permanacy to be un-dispellable is so people can get cheap magic items without any feat loss. If the problem is people don't like the XP loss for Permanacy, then just make an item - spend the Gp, get the feat and take the time. Then the XP spent might seem more "worthwhile".

Hmmm...

You have a point for the non-personal spells. I think everyone else, including me, focused on the following personal spells:

Arcane sight 1,500 XP
Comprehend languages 500 XP
Darkvision 1,000 XP
Detect magic 500 XP
Read magic 500 XP
See invisibility 1,000 XP
Tongues 1,500 XP

plus, perhaps

Enlarge person 500 XP
Magic fang 500 XP
Magic fang, greater 1,500 XP
Reduce person 500 XP
Resistance 500 XP
Telepathic bond* 2,500 XP
*Only bonds two creatures per casting of permanency.


When you expand the scope to include spells cast on others and spells cast on objects you have a point, especailly when looking at only the higher-level spells. When limited to only the above spells, Arcane Sight, Tongues, Greater Magic Fang and Telepathic Boind are at issue for being too low an XP cost.

My apologies for not making the scope clear. My "fixes" for this spell concentrate only on the personal uses.

The other uses being dispellable is not as big a deal as the personal ones - which look very much like temporaray magic items. They only last until dispelled, which most certainly will happen, sooner or later.

The epic Tenacious Magic feat makes the other uses (non-personal) a bit more powerful, certainly.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The epic Tenacious Magic feat makes the other uses (non-personal) a bit more powerful, certainly.

Not much.

You have a dispellable Wall of Fire with a suppressible Permanency on it.

First possibility - dispel the Wall.
Second possibility - suppress the Permanency. For 1d4 rounds, the duration of the Wall reverts to Concentration + 1 round per level... and since the Wall's been in place for 6 months, it's past the end of its duration and the spell expires. 1d4 rounds later, the Permanency is no longer suppressed... but the spell it makes Permanent is gone.

Tenancious Permanency would seem to have extremely limited application.

-Hyp.

 

[Artoomis]

Not much.

You have a dispellable Wall of Fire with a suppressible Permanency on it.

First possibility - dispel the Wall.
Second possibility - suppress the Permanency. For 1d4 rounds, the duration of the Wall reverts to Concentration + 1 round per level... and since the Wall's been in place for 6 months, it's past the end of its duration and the spell expires. 1d4 rounds later, the Permanency is no longer suppressed... but the spell it makes Permanent is gone.

Tenancious Permanency would seem to have extremely limited application.

-Hyp.

That's an odd interpretation, I think. I think you'd have a Permanent Wall of Fire that could only be supressed, not dispelled.

TENACIOUS MAGIC [EPIC]
Prerequisites: Spellcraft 15 ranks.
Benefit: Choose one spell the character knows or spell-like ability the character possesses. Whenever the chosen form of magic would otherwise end due to a dispel effect, the magic is instead only suppressed for 1d4 rounds. The magic still ends when its duration expires, but the suppressed rounds do not count against its duration. The character can dismiss his or her own spell or spell-like ability (if dismissible) or dispel his or her own tenacious magic normally.
Special: A character can gain this feat multiple times. Each time he or she takes the feat, it applies to a different spell or spell-like ability.

and

Permanency
Universal
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, XP
Casting Time: 2 rounds
Range: See text
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: Permanent; see text
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
This spell makes certain other spells permanent... This application of permanency can be dispelled only by a caster of higher level than you were when you cast the spell.

Note that it's the application of permanency that's being dispelled, not the underlying spell that's been made permanent.

And, if using Miracle:

Miracle
Evocation
Level: Clr 9, Luck 9
Components: V, S, XP; see text
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: See text
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: See text
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: Yes
...
A miracle can do any of the following things.
• Duplicate any cleric spell of 8th level or lower (including spells to which you have access because of your domains).
• Duplicate any other spell of 7th level or lower...
A duplicated spell allows saving throws and spell resistance as normal, but the save DCs are as for a 9th-level spell...

I'm not sure that you could use TENACIOUS MAGIC to apply to all spells duplicated by Miracle. The spell itself is not really cast, it's duplicated by miracle, so maybe...

 

[rushlight]

That's an odd interpretation, I think. I think you'd have a Permanent Wall of Fire that could only be supressed, not dispelled.

I'm not sure that you could use TENACIOUS MAGIC to apply to all spells duplicated by Miracle. The spell itself is not really cast, it's duplicated by miracle, so maybe...

First, let me say that as a GM, I'd not allow someone to use contorted logic chains like this in an attempt to get Permenant Miracles. Rules or no rules... Not to mention that Miracle isn't on the list of spells that you can make Permenant.

But setting that aside, I do enjoy rules theory and application. Perhaps after careful study, I'd change my initial opinion. So let me ask you this:

1) Would you consider a Tenacious Permenant Miracle (if cast to duplicate another spell) to actually be a Tenacious Permenant [whatever the duplicated spell is]? Or would you consider it to be a Miracle that could be invoked to duplicate numerous spells at the caster's whim?

2) Permanency doesn't specify excatly the mechanic used to make the target spell permanent. It would be cleaner if the description of Permanency looked something more like this:

Permanency
Universal
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, XP
Casting Time: 2 rounds
Range: See text
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: Instantaneous; see text
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

When Permanency is cast and the XP is spent, the duration of another spell (specified on the lists below) is changed to permanent. The modified spell can be dispelled only by a caster of higher level than you were when you cast the spell. (then, continue with the rest of the spell description...)

In this case the use of Permanency would be more clear - you would not have a question of which of the two spells gets dispelled, and what happends to the other spell or whatever.

In fact, I think I'm going to houserule this change to Permanency right now...

 

[rushlight]

How sad am I - I'm responding to my own post... Anyway...

In this case the use of Permanency would be more clear - you would not have a question of which of the two spells gets dispelled, and what happends to the other spell or whatever.

With my proposed houserule to Permanency, that would make Permanency unavailable to Tenacious Magic - you can't dispel an Instantaneous spell (except to counterspell, and that's not actually "dispelling").

However, let's say you take Tenacious Magic and choose Arcane Eye. Ok - when you cast Arcane Eye it cannot be dispelled, but the spell expires when it is supposed to. Then you cast Permanency (my interepretation) and that changes the duration of Arcane Eye to permanent - thus it will never expire naturally. And because of the Tenacious Magic, it cannot be dispelled.

Of course, if you're willing to spend a feat and some XP for an application like this, then I'd really have no issues with that. Personally, I'd just get a creation feat and make an item - at least then, I could make other items.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Note that it's the application of permanency that's being dispelled, not the underlying spell that's been made permanent.

Exactly. So if you make Permanency Tenacious, it's only the application of permanency that is suppressed-instead-of-dispelled. The underlying spell is not tenacious; it's just permanent. And permanent, non-tenacious spells can be dispelled.

-Hyp.

 

[Falconnan]

Actually, my issue with the XP cost is simple: A wizard or sorcerer should not pay experience point costs that high for a spell to be made permanent, but that gives the dispeller two caster level checks to dispel the permanent spell.

Consider, an 18th level caster makes enlarge person permanent on himself. Then, a 14th level caster comes along and chooses to get rid of the effect. He casts, and by all rights has a 30% shot at dispelling either the permanency spell or the enlarge person spell. If he succeeds at either, the spell effect is gone forever. What this means is the chance to resist the dispel is 70% for each. 70% x 70% = 49%. The 18th level caster's spell is only 49% likely to resist being dispelled.
Or a caster 4 levels lower has a 51% chance of dispelling the spell effect that offends him.
Anyone else find this a bit unbalanced, at a price of 500 XP to the caster of permanency? One thought-Can only hit a permanency spell itself if you are willing to pay the same XP cost.