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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 864333" data-attributes="member: 3146">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.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"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.</blockquote>

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