Shortened buff spell durations: Good or bad?

[Grog]

I say BAD. Shortening the duration of Bull's Strength and other spells from 1 hour/level to 1 minute/level is a bad idea IMO. The reason being, now these spells will become mainly NPC spells.

Here's why. If a spell's only going to last a few minutes, it's pretty much only good for one combat. The problem is, PCs usually have multiple combats to worry about, while NPCs only have to worry about one fight - the one with the PCs. So they can afford to dump all their resources into that one fight, while the PCs have to be more careful. Also, the NPCs are more likely to know the PCs are coming (since the PCs are usually in enemy territory), so they can cast the spells as needed, while the PCs are rarely sure when a combat is around the corner.

I liked the long-duration buffs because it gave the PCs a chance to use buff spells more often than they otherwise would have been able to. Getting rid of them seems to screw the PCs over more than NPCs and/or monsters.

 

[kreynolds]

I'm not crazy about it either. For what it's worth, there's a thread on this over in general already.

 

[Metalsmith]

I think it's STUPID. It promotes the "Run and Gun" method of DnD. At one minute per level it encourages you to quickly run looking for the next encounter before your buffs wear off. 10 Minutes per level would have stopped the Extended All Day Buffs and still kept the flexibility of a slower pace.

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Metalsmith

 

[Kraedin]

Considering that the big uses of both Empower Spell and Extend Spell (at least in my experience) was Empowering and Extending the 1 hour/leve stat boots, it doesn't just nerf the spells, it nerfs two popular feats in to obsolecence as well.

 

[Enkhidu]

I think it's STUPID. It promotes the "Run and Gun" method of DnD. At one minute per level it encourages you to quickly run looking for the next encounter before your buffs wear off. 10 Minutes per level would have stopped the Extended All Day Buffs and still kept the flexibility of a slower pace.

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Metalsmith

Which is why my group has already decided that if all else stays constant, 10 minutes per level is what we're using.

 

[hong]

I think it's STUPID. It promotes the "Run and Gun" method of DnD. At one minute per level it encourages you to quickly run looking for the next encounter before your buffs wear off.

Darwinism should fix that problem soon enough.

I know of precisely one player who thinks along the lines of "quick, let's do the rest of the dungeon before the spell runs out". He's also the one who loses more PCs than anyone else in the group.

 

[coyote6]

It could promote the opposite of "run & gun" -- "Hey, we've had our fight, the buffs are running out, no use continuing. Time to go home and rest. We'll come back tomorrow."

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Someone really needs to make a poll...

 

[Darklone]

One change I really liked

 

[Skaros]

Makes persistent spell quite a bit more attractive doesn't it? Along with the magic items that provide constant bonuses to the stats the players like to boost.

Skaros