Rapid Spell Feat (Complete Divine)

[Herzog]

Only spells with a casting time greater than 1
standard action can be made rapid. A rapid spell with a casting
time of 1 full round can be cast as a standard action. A
rapid spell with a casting time measured in rounds can be
cast in 1 full round. Rapid spells with casting times measured
in minutes can be cast in 1 minute, and rapid spells
with casting times measured in hours can be cast in 1 hour.

Am I correct in assuming this spell is useless for spells with a casting time of (exactly) 1 minute and/or 1 hour?
Or should 1 minute be considered 10 rounds?

 

[Thanee]

Yep, it seems to have no effect on those.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Achan hiArusa]

The actual wording is "casting times measured in minutes" and "casting times measured in hours" ergo these are both plural meaning more than one minute and more than one hour. So its not useless for those, so unless you have a pain in the neck DM who rules lawyers against the players (had one of those) then a spell with a casting time of 1 minute should be cast in 1 round and a spell with a casting time of 1 hour should be cast in one minute.

 

[Thanee]

The actual wording is "casting times measured in minutes" and "casting times measured in hours" ergo these are both plural meaning more than one minute and more than one hour. So its not useless for those, so unless you have a pain in the neck DM who rules lawyers against the players (had one of those) then a spell with a casting time of 1 minute should be cast in 1 round and a spell with a casting time of 1 hour should be cast in one minute.

And why is that?

The feat description says nothing about turning 1 minute into 1 round and so on!?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Flatus Maximus]

The actual wording is "casting times measured in minutes" and "casting times measured in hours" ergo these are both plural meaning more than one minute and more than one hour. So its not useless for those, so unless you have a pain in the neck DM who rules lawyers against the players (had one of those) then a spell with a casting time of 1 minute should be cast in 1 round and a spell with a casting time of 1 hour should be cast in one minute.

With that logic, why not take it all the way and convert minutes/hours into rounds and cast everything in at most a full round?

 

[Herzog]

@Achan hiArusa:

The Feat mentions plural forms. It does NOT mention any singular form except for single full round (which becomes a standard action).

So, either the plural form incudes the singular form or the singular form is not mentioned at all.

In either case, casting time of 1 minute is not reduced, casting time of 1 hour is not reduced.
casting time of 1 day or several days is also not reduced.
casting time of less than 1 full round is also not reduced (you need quicken spell for that)

I was just hoping for an errata or FAQ entry someone might have encountered before....

 

[Thanee]

Did you have any specific application you were looking at? Identify?

Just asking, since those casting times aren't exactly common.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Herzog]

Yes, actually. Artificer Infusions. They have long casting times, and several of them have a casting time of one minute.

The Eberron system allows the Artificer to spend action points to decrease that time, but I was looking for an alternative. (since action points are limited per level, and higher level spell slots only per day.....)

 

[moritheil]

With that logic, why not take it all the way and convert minutes/hours into rounds and cast everything in at most a full round?

For the reason that there is a larger reduction that has yet to take place, and the feat specifies that multiple hours must turn into one hour. Everyone agrees that multiple hours to one hour is legal - where people disagree is on whether 1 hour can be broken into 60 minutes, one minute can be broken into 10 rounds, and so forth. RAW, Rapid spell does not allow it, but I am sympathetic to the point that it seems unnecessarily obnoxious to disallow use of the feat in this fashion - particularly if playing a class that depends on Action Points to shorten casting times, in a campaign that has removed Action Points.

FWIW, if a campaign has action points, I'd tell the players to suck it up: the mechanic to shorten casting exists and is prebalanced thus. If, however, a campaign did not have action points, I'd want to allow the artificer some way of achieving that effect so as to not disrupt play. (This actually happened, in my Invasion campaign, and that was how I ruled.)

 

[Herzog]

As a generic comment I'd like to add this:

The artificer's infusion are best used when the party has time to prepare for an encounter, since then casting time isn't important.

However, if the campaign has the PC's running into encounters without any possibility of preperation time and again, an Artificer is going to run out of action points very soon. If you, as a DM, allowed the artificer but didn't include action points, and have the kind of campaign where the PC's almost never know what to expect, you are screwing your artificer PC over bigtime.
Of course, in my experience it's as much a problem with the other PC's as it can be with the DM (always running after plothooks without preparation.....).

In any case, an artificer can become pretty frustrated when all his applicable infusions can't be used because the fight will be over before he can finish it. In those cases, reading '10 rounds' instead of '1 minute' is the only fair option I would see as a DM. (now only to convince my DM....)

Having said that, reducing the casting time of a 1 hour spell to 1 minute was never my intention. I already feel 24 hour casting time being reduced to 1 hour is a very big advantage for only 1 level.