Sorry, I sorta lost track of this thread. Hoping this isn't thread necromancy, here's my basic reply to the last few posts:
The Sudden Persist feat may need a little tweaking, but is fundamentally less broken than DMM-Persist since it's harder to "pump" that # of turnings per day. DMM-Persist, used without seriously broken things like nightsticks (which also cause trouble for other turn-attempt burning feats), has not caused problems for me yet. I'm not the OP, and would tweak the requirements to fit the PC that suggested such a custom feat. I don't think the requirements posted are sufficient since they allow all sorts of combos which I can't oversee; merely that it's OK in principle, with sufficiently narrow requirements which make it unattractive for other PCs. In particular, it should only apply to clerics, and should cost effectively cost two feats.
Now, specifically:
moritheil said:
Now I'm curious. Eamon, how many persistent spells per day would you say it takes for a cleric to become "broken?" It seems to me that even if you find the Sudden Persist feat harmless by itself, what it's really doing in any build that relies on persistent spells is adding another 7 turnings per day to a character with DMM
.
My analysis depends on Sudden persist effectively consuming 2 feat slots. Of course, it shares some with DMM-Persist, so that Sudden Persist would be somewhat better than Extra Turning. A different prerequisite, not extend spell, would fix this. If it costs 2 feats, as it should, it's fine. A different prerequisite would for instance be sudden Extend. (And as to AMF's which you mention later in the post, sure a fighter is hosed too, but less than a Divine-Power dependent Cleric. In any case, it's dispel which is more at issue, being more common).
Infiniti2000 said:
Wait, you forgot the +6 to strength and +1 hp / caster level.
The BAB bonus is the biggest part of divine power, which is why I focussed on it. The hitpoints aren't much more useful when persisted than when not (they can't be healed between encounters). The strength bonus doesn't stack with many things, but is of course useful. However, it's unlikely to tip the cleric over the border of being stronger than the fighter, who will have some other source of strength enhancement, especially as levels rise. Infiniti2000 also mentions other classes (ab)using such a feat, I summarize my objections to that at the end of this post.
Infiniti2000 said:
Right, except for the "merely" part. Pick a value for the maximum number of encounters per day (and night, i.e. 24 hours). Subtract 1 from that number. That's how many of your highest level spells that this feat grants. (Use maximum because we need to know worst case.)
I find the power creep differential between 1/day and 1/encounter to be small. And persist doesn't persist just anything, there's a small selection of spells to choose from.
Nifft said:
... because only Clerics should be allowed to have nice things?
Genuinely confused, -- N
I'll summarize why only clerics can have this particular nice thing at the end of the post.
moritheil said:
I just tell my players not to feed the DM trash, because the DM comes back with better trash.
I have yet to have a problem with abuse of persistent wraithstrikes.
Wraithstrike is one of those spells worst in the hand of a two-handed power-attacker, which doesn't need any more boosting as is. It's definitely more powerful when used
against PC's than when by them, but still, I'd keep it far away from any game I'm in if possible. It's worse than save-or-die, since you usually don't get a save, and many people don't have a defense against it (or don't have that defense "on" until it's too late) - and it's easily lethal in many cases. And wraithstrike+powerattack gets worse at higher levels.
As to why only a cleric should use Sudden Persist: I don't have a problem with boosting other classes, but Sudden Persist simply adds the least risk to a cleric. DMM clerics have been persisting for a while, and the errata's have fixed many egregarious problem spells. The remaining persistable spells for the cleric aren't that brilliant. Righteous Wrath of the Faithful is one of the better ones, as is Divine Power. Other classes haven't had that vetting. A druid using the Bite of... spells is scary. Perhaps other classes would be balanced, I'm just more sure that a cleric is, since I've seen that in play, and it wasn't overshadowing the rest of the party.
Similarly, only a cleric should be able to use Divine Power since the cleric's had that ability for a while, and it's not horribly broken when used with other cleric abilities. Allowing a rogue to have full BAB might be much more serious (in combination with the other Divine Power bonuses).
Basically, Sudden Persist mostly just extends a powerful ability, which the cleric can sustain for one encounter, for potentially several. Since the cleric can only persist 1 such spell, this doesn't overturn the basic limitation of the cleric that his spell slots run out (esp. as a buffing cleric), and it doesn't grant him things within an encounter that he couldn't have otherwise. Notably, the good persistable spells all last at least for 1 round/level which means there aren't any spells (AFAIK) that are more powerful within the encounter. And, a single spell is too little to allow the cleric to simple circumvent bufing entirely (he'll still need to buff to approach a fighter, slowing him down at the start of an encounter). That means that this feat ameliorates but does problematically remove the clerics inherent limitations. Finally, this is all much less balance-changing than Quicken spell, since a cleric busy slogging it out (which is what persist is mostly good for), isn't casting other spells. Unless they're quickened, that's actually quite game-changing. If you're a spell-slinging cleric, DMM-quicken is much much more attractive than extend +persist. As a matter of fact, I think DMM-Quicken is simply better all around, but that's just my opinion.
So really, this comes down to that persist just isn't that broken when you can't use it often, especially for a cleric.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
