Stat-boosting spells too powerful?

I was just wondering if anyone else had implemented a similar house rule to the one our DM introduced last night.

He said that Bull's Strength and other stat-enhancing spells are too powerful (we are currently about 13th level). The duration (hours/level) makes them, essentially, permanent. So, he changed the duration to minutes/level. Anyone else done the same? We are free to research a more powerful version (4th or 5th level) which does hours/level. And we can always extend spell, etc.

On the other hand, he said we could swap out item creation feats (even ones we've already used), because we get almost no downtime in his campaign--and that will not change any time soon.
 

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It's only too powerful if it stacks. The only thing the spells stack with are, I believe, class specials like the Barbarian Rage.

In other words, if they have a Ring of Strength and someone casts Bull's Strength on it, only the strongest takes effect. Not the least unbalancing in my mind...
 

At that level, you should be fighting things which also have effectively permanent Bull's Strength up, and which have access to Dispel Magic (a mere 3rd level spell).

Having a 1d4+1 bonus to Str is nice, but compared to an actually permenent item (say, a Belt of Giant Strength +6 for 36,000 gp), the spells aren't that great.

-- Nifft
 

At that level, you should be fighting things which also have effectively permanent Bull's Strength up, and which have access to Dispel Magic (a mere 3rd level spell).

Having a 1d4+1 bonus to Str is nice, but compared to an actually permenent item (say, a Belt of Giant Strength +6 for 36,000 gp), the spells aren't that great.
Sometimes we get a Dispel Magic thrown at us, but it's rare.

One of our barbarians has a belt (though I think it's only +4), so we haven't cast Bull's Strength on her in months.



Based on reponses so far, it doesn't seem that (m)any DM's have such a house rule. It will be interesting to see if anyone posts that they do have such a ruling. I was just curious; I don't actually think it'll take much away from our campaign.
 

Buffing Spells are Powerful

I don't think anyone denies that buffing spells are much more powerful in 3e than they were in previous editions.

As to whether or not that makes sense, I'm not sure.

Our high level party (9th -10th level) routinely has at least half a dozen 1 hour/per level spells up. Sometimes as many as a dozen.

Although if I was going to modify the buffing spells, I would probably modify all of them, not just char enhancers like Bulls Strength.

Tom
 

Speaking as a GM, I'm not really concerned with it. Our group (in the story hour) has Bull's Strength and Mage Armor on everyone semi-perpetually. They also sleep with Alarm spells everywhere. They are only just now hitting 5th level... And the buff spells are the only reason they've survived to see 5th.

So I don't particularly see them as unbalancing :D.
 

stat boosts

IndyPendant said:
It's only too powerful if it stacks. The only thing the spells stack with are, I believe, class specials like the Barbarian Rage.

In other words, if they have a Ring of Strength and someone casts Bull's Strength on it, only the strongest takes effect. Not the least unbalancing in my mind...

As long as you realize that they are the same type of bonus and DON'T stack then there isn't a problem. the problem comes when you use ritual casting from the SL and with 3-4 spells of level 2 the ENTIRE party is buffed! (even so its not a really big issue anyway since the monsterous casters can use them too)
 

Bull's Str, etc. are not too powerful. They can be very effective. However, bull's strength and endurance on everyone on the party is not more effective than 8 Sound Burst, Hold Person, Glitterdusts, Flaming Spheres or Webs.

They're IMHO about right for second level spells. If your focus is buffing people they're excellent spells. If you'd rather focus on blasting your enemies, your party won't be less effective--as long as you work together. If buff spells are sometimes more effective in practice, it's because you can't use them on your party without working together. You can more easily avoid teamwork by using offensive or personal defense spells.

Nerfing them down to 10 min/level but making them always +5 like d20 modern has positive and negative effects. 10 min/level is just as good as hour/level if you're attacking an enemy fortress (I recently played a module where our characters killed every foe in a pirate base in one big battle; it lasted about 15 rounds--one and a half minutes for a bunch of insect men, gnoll rangers, gnoll werewolves, a flesh golem, ogre fighter, vampire, and half dragon cleric).

Nerfing them down to 1 min/level makes them cast in or immediately before combat spells. Which would make them worthless. Cat's Grace is better than Protection from evil (even though half the time, it grants a lower AC and save bonus) because it lasts sixty times as long. Reducing the duration to 1 min/level would put it on the same level as blur. And when was the last time you saw blur used? Effectively?
 

I have DM-ed a group up to 16th level, and what I saw was this:

When they wanted to attack an enemy fortress / dungeon, they would cast all 1 hour/level spells (such as double-empowered stat-boosters, magic vestment and greater magic weapon) before going to bed the day before and then memorize new spells in those slots for the day that they were attacking. To prevent this tactic, I have reduced the duration of all those spells to 30 min./level in my current campaign. Other than this change in duration, I do not feel that there is anything wrong with the stat-boosters.

Magic vestment and greater magic weapon are another issue. The presence of these spells makes it useless for PCs to create magic weapons and armor with more than a +1 enhancement bonus. Instead they will create magic weapons and armor with a +1 enhancement bonus and loads of special abilities (like Fortification for armor and Flaming for weapons) and then use magic vestment and greater magic weapon to increase the enhancement bonus to +5 whenever they need this. 16th level casters have more than enough 3rd level spells that they can burn for this purpose.

-- Retan
 

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