T&B: Persistent Spell

[LokiDR]

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.

An empowered fireball may do more damage than cone of cold, but that doesn't make it better. Lower save, lower effective level, common spell (first resistance I ever want is fire), and stoped by minor globe. This doesn't make empowered fireball better, just a decent alternative. Persistant doesn't have any of these problems. Even the sorcerer metamagic restriction doesn't come up. You get all the benefits of a great higher level spell without any of the drawbacks that might come with it.

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)).

Perhaps there is a REASON why the designers did not make a 5th level spell that gives you 3/4 cover from half the battlefield all day or invisible all day. As others have said, persistant improve invis works with or without the errata. Beside the "making better spells" argument, persistant also replaces a number of magic items, which allow you to move value into items whose effects you can't mimic with spells.

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.

Wizards already pemancy that, if they really want to, and there is the medalian of thoughts. But it does feed the "don't need to buy that, I have persistant" theory.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

An empowered fireball may do more damage than cone of cold, but that doesn't make it better. Lower save, lower effective level, common spell (first resistance I ever want is fire), and stoped by minor globe. This doesn't make empowered fireball better, just a decent alternative. Persistant doesn't have any of these problems. Even the sorcerer metamagic restriction doesn't come up. You get all the benefits of a great higher level spell without any of the drawbacks that might come with it.

Actually, I think that the extra damage does make the empowered fireball better. That's why people choose it. People don't spend a feat to get "a decent alternative." They could have taken Spell Focus evocation or Greater Spell Penetration instead and actually made Cone of Cold better. There are drawbacks (although fire is a red herring; one could just as easily energy substitute the fireball to acid or sonic or just empower an Icy Burst or Lightning Bolt instead. (Actually, lightning bolt is more directly comparable to cone of cold because of the similar area of effect). Better doesn't mean "no drawbacks." Better means that, on the balance, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Perhaps there is a REASON why the designers did not make a 5th level spell that gives you 3/4 cover from half the battlefield all day or invisible all day. As others have said, persistant improve invis works with or without the errata. Beside the "making better spells" argument, persistant also replaces a number of magic items, which allow you to move value into items whose effects you can't mimic with spells..

Actually, Improved Invisibility would be an 8th level spell if made Persistent. Now I've never played or DMed in a level 15+campaign where 8th level spells would be available but at that point, it doesn't seem like Persistent Improved Invisibility would be much of a problem. If creatures don't have a way of dealing with invisibility at that level, they're going to get toasted no matter what. True Seeing, See Invisibility, Tremorsense, Blindsight, etc are to be expected at that point. Unless you allow Mind Blank to make an invisible character undetectable, I don't imagine you'll have insurmountable problems. And if the spell or a combination of spells allows the character to cake walk some encounters, that's what 8th level spells are supposed to do. Forcecage will ruin plenty of encounters as well and Iron Body may go just as far towards making the character invulnerable.

As for the persistent Shield, I imagine the reason the designers didn't create a 5th level spell that did what shield does is that they already had a 1st level spell that does that. Unless you start giving it to fighters in fullplate (I suppose you could with a ring or ioun stone of spellstoring, but that's a problem with the item not the feat--the 1st level shield spell is almost as bad in that situation and the Righteous Might, Divine Favor (metamagiced so as to ensure a higher caster level), or Tenser's Transformation are probably worse). Persistent Shield is not going to break anything. (Heck, at high levels, a 1st level shield (or an extended shield) will often last through all the encounters in a particular area--you don't need to use a 5th level spell slot to get the effect).

Your "making better spells" argument is specious and, while I think Persistent Divine Favor and Divine Power may be examples of "things you shouldn't be able to do"

Wizards already pemancy that, if they really want to, and there is the medalian of thoughts. But it does feed the "don't need to buy that, I have persistant" theory.

And there's nothing broken or problematic about "I don't need to buy that..." either. Bull's Strength and Cat's Grace often substitute for Gloves of Dex +2 and Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Fly usually substitutes for winged boots or wings of flying. Spider Climb substitutes for slippers of spider climbing. It's a matter of availability and opportunity cost. For a 12th level character, 4500gp for boots of Striding and Springing is probably a better expenditure of resources than a 5th level spell slot for persistent Expeditious Retreat. 16000gp for a +4 belt of giant strength is probably better than relying on Bull's Strength (although a double extended empowered bull's strength is still a very viable alternative). Spells substituting for magic items is an integral part of D&D--indeed many people would put that phrase the other way around and say magic items substitute for spells and "teamwork."

What may be broken about persistent spell is not that it can make better spells than other spells of level X+4 (that is an inherent feature of metamagic). Nor is it that it enables characters to forgoe certain magic items (that's a feature of spellcasting in general). What could be problematic about it is its transformation of extremely limited duration effects (random (Time Stop), fixed (Divine Favor), or less than 1 min/level (Divine Power)) into long term buffs. Even min/level buffs like Shield and Improved Invisibility are significant duration buffs by the time Persistent Spell is available--especially if extended (and since Extend Spell is a prerequisite of Persistent Spell, that's always a possbility). Consequently, even for min/level buffs, Persistent Spell represents a change in magnitude rather than a change in the kind of spell. For round/level, random duration, and fixed duration spells however, it represents a change in the kind of spell that they are.