T&B: Persistent Spell

[Grog]

Well, the topic initially was about Persistent spell applying to touch spells, but Piratecat brought up the power of Persistent spell in general, and that's what I was commenting on. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

 

[green slime]

Persistent Spell is great, for those Divine X spells.

I'd be interesting in hearing how PC nerfed the feat. An idea I had once was to change it to x5-x10 duration. 24 hours flat is a tad strong for the 1 round/level spells...

 

[LokiDR]

Honestly, did we really need this feat in the first place?

A persistant spell takes a slot 4 levels higher and sets the duration at 24 hours. A 4 times extended spell takes a slot 4 levels higher and multiplies the duration by 5.

10 minutes per level becomes 50 minutes per level. At decent levels, that is as good as all day. 1 minute per level becomes 5 min/level, which makes more sense. If you don't like that, define the stacking of extend to be exponential, so 4x empowered is 16 times duration. You can still cast the minute base spells way before a number of battles, but round based spells don't last all day.

This only prevents concentration spells from being mucked with. Well, why shouldn't extend work on those as well? 4x extended detect magic works for 5 (or 16) times level in rounds after you cease concentrating.

Persistant is like permancy without exp. costs that can be used by clerics and druids. Since when are meta-magiced spells supposed to be better than the higher level spells the coexsist with? I would certainly say that is the case for persistant shield, divine power, and improved invis.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Persistant is like permancy without exp. costs that can be used by clerics and druids. Since when are meta-magiced spells supposed to be better than the higher level spells the coexsist with? I would certainly say that is the case for persistant shield, divine power, and improved invis.

Actually, metamagiced spells have always been "supposed to be better" than most spells of the level they end up. That's why meta-magic feats exist (and cost a feat that could have been spent on spell focus or spell penetration). An Empowered fireball ought to be better than cone of cold at level 9 or 10. It costs a feat to cast Empowered Fireball. It doesn't to cast Cone of Cold. (Note that there are disadvantages associated with the empowered fireball--save DCs and Minor Globes of Invulnerability but it does approx. 5d6 more damage). An Empowered Bull's strength is supposed to be as good or better than Improved Invisibility or Divine Might. In the same way, a heightened disintegrate ought to compete with Finger of Death and a Persistant Shield is supposed to be a reasonable alternative to Wall of Force.

If there is an objection to Persistent Spell, it shouldn't be on the basis that it makes better spells than other spells of level X+4 (Note that the erratta rules out Persistent Improved Invisibility since that spell is Touch), Extend Spell and especially Persistent Spell have other effects that differentiate them from Still, Silent, Enlarge, Heighten, Sculpt, Empower, Maximize Spell etc. They generally are used with buff spells to enable parties to always be prepared. Thus Extend Spell enables a mid level sorceror to constantly have Endure elements running and a high level sorceror to constantly Energy Buffer active at negligable cost in spell slots. Similarly, it enables a mid-level wizard who knows about a battle in advance to cast his buffs one or even two days before the battle actually occurs. Since that is something that higher level spells generally can't do, there's no direct comparison like there is with Empower Spell. Extend Spell, however, is primarily useful for spells that are long duration anyway. It may reduce the opportunity cost of buffing and enable more buffs to be cast but it doesn't make short term buffs into long term buffs. Persistent Spell, OTOH, takes effects that were supposed to be extremely short term (Divine Favor, Divine Power, Righteous Might) buffs and turns them into all day buffs (I'm personally not sure that this is unbalanced in any case except Divine Favor and possibly Divine Power; If a 17th level cleric wants to be large all day, I think that's easier for a DM to deal with than Gate, Miracle, or the other things he could be doing with those 9th level slots--heck, he could use miracle for Tenser's Transformation (on top of Divine Power)).

However, the one use of Persistent Spell that strikes me as the "Most Likely to Wreck a Campaign" is the one nobody's mentioned: Persistent Detect Thoughts. Granted, it wouldn't have much effect in a purely hack and slash campaign but in any kind of a social campaign, it would probably have a more dramatic effect than any other PC capability.

 

[Hypersmurf]

(Note that the erratta rules out Persistent Improved Invisibility since that spell is Touch)

If you cast a Bull's Strength on your friend, it's Range: Touch. If you cast it on yourself, it's Range: Touch. Neither are Persistentable.

If you cast an Improved Invisibility on your friend, it's Range: Touch. But if you cast it on yourself, it's Range: Personal. In that case, it qualifies for Persistent Spell.

Like a Targetted Dispel can be Turned, but an Area Dispel can't. If a spell has multiple versions, then its behaviour is dependent on which version you cast.

-Hyp.

 

[Darklone]

*singing with the chorus*

Even if you forget all others except these two, a persistent Divine Favour or Shield spell is enough for me to ban the feat.

What I don't like about Persistent? Easy. If the normal duration of the spell would have been multiplied with ten, I would have seen a sense...
But why should it enhance spells with low duration so much while being useless for 1hour/level spells?

 

[ruleslawyer]

Banning all touch spells from being affected by Persistent Spell, does absolutely nothing to change wether or not you can make Divine Favor, Divine Power, or Righteous Might persistent. You can still cast all three...

So.

Question: how do those three spells support eliminating non-discharged touch spells from what can or cannot be made Persistent, based especially on the worry of clerics abusing peristent "low level" spells ...?

Answer: they don't. Not in the slightest.

Oops. My bad. Interpreted your statement as a comment on Persistent Spell in general, as did Grog. Take it back.

Touch range spells made Persistent? Sure. Try favor of Ilmater, monstrous regeneration, shield of faith, haste, true seeing, improved invisibility. Sure, all high-level spells, but high-level spells can still be overpowered.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I house ruled persistent to be "increases to next time increment... rounds to minutes, minutes to 10 minutes, etc... as soon as i saw it. My players, realizing this meant most wizards they fought would not have yesterday's shield still up all day did not think too poorly of this rule.

Ditto. But after playtesting this a bunch I've changed it to one time increment, useable on any spell really, and +3 spell levels. I'll have to see how this works, there might be some wierd attack spell abuse.

 

[LokiDR]

Touch range spells made Persistent? Sure. Try favor of Ilmater, monstrous regeneration, shield of faith, haste, true seeing, improved invisibility. Sure, all high-level spells, but high-level spells can still be overpowered.

Haste is and always has been ranged.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Try favor of Ilmater, monstrous regeneration, shield of faith, haste, true seeing, improved invisibility.

Haste is Range: Close. Improved Invisibility can be made Persistent on the caster already.

-Hyp.