To use "buff spells" or not to use "buff spells"? That is the question.

[James McMurray]

Even your own? ... That'd be kind of spooky actually...

It might be cool for a while. And with the cloning technology advancing as it is...

Or he just wants to replace all the other people with clones of himself.....

Actually, on second thought I don't know about that. I'm a power gamer at heart and having every character in the group min/maxed could make it rough on the poor DM. And if I'm the DM, I certainly wouldn't want my job to be rough.

Well, sure, but I think it'd have been nicve if they had included the flare with the spell. Sometimes I'm flared out for describing spells like that.

Very few spells have flare built in. Unless you call being a ball of fire or a blast of lightning flare. However, since every wizard or sorcerer's lightning bolt is a blast of lightning, you'll have to add descriptions to make those have flare as well.

Then again, all of this talk of flare doesn't apply to me as much as you may think. In my game, the players I currently have seem more interested in achieving goals and less interested in "flavor text". Heck, I've even had a player tell the rest of the group something didn't matter because it was flavor text. They later found it did matter, and had to trek all the way back to look around that particular room again.

I do try to add flare to the spells cast when I write the updates for my game though (link in the sig ). Otherwise people wouldn't want to read them.

 

[Lela]

My group could use more players like you.

Or, uh, you could start trying to be a player like him. If you start descibing things, maybe the rest of the players will start to catch on.

 

[Grraf]

As a DM I've been seeing a lot of buffing recently. Buffing spells are much more useful when

1. The party is going to encounter a lot of not terribly threatening encounters. Bull's strengthing the fighter makes a huge difference.

2. When combats are challenging but short in duration, known of in advance (i.e. we're going into a cave with something in it) and the caster can't get off all their spells before the battle is over. In this case casting a spell in advance improves the odds of the spell slot having some impact.

3. When the future is unknown and varied. Most spells have relatively short durations, fixed effects and other limits. Especially for wizards buffing spells let them have a spell or two which is general in purpose and applicable in a number of different situations.
(clearly a sorc would learn buffing spells for similar reasons though the mindset is different)

When you know you'll be fighting packs of snow wolves fireballs a no brainer. (Partially because its D&D) The likelyhood of somebody hitting something with a weapon is always high.

 

[Azimer the Mad]

As a Half-Orc Cleric of Kord, I'm almost exclusively Buff spells. My second level is all Bull's Strength and Endurance. Bear's Heart and Divine Favor help too. Basically, I view my position as an intermediary between Kord and mortal heroes. I give them Kord's aid, and they try to pay the Brawler Lord back by doing valorous deeds. I also just love the image of a Half-Orc in plate mail who's buffer then the paladin screaming praises to Kord and laughing like Brian Blessed at a Kilngon Convention.

The spells may not have flare in the books, but what I do with them does. An example is when I made the last two Hill Giants in a fight run after growing bigger than them and shouting, "Hey, Shrimps!" while decapitating one. I use the buff spells to act like a cackling, "It is a good day to die"-style warrior, so I get plenty of cool out of them

 

[arwink]

Before the monk was taken out of the campaign, my players used to do some ungodly buffing at the start of every game session. Hit a monk with Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Endurance and Owls Wisdom at the start of every day, then throw in a high level mage armor, and things start to get very, very nasty for their opponents.

Since the mage left, buffing has become slightly less predominant. They throw an endurance or cats grace around, but its usually pretty well spread over the group, not all thrown on one person.

 

[Nvvyn]

The gorup I play with (7 players, 1 dm) does very little buffing. I, being the only mage, do a lot of buffing, only on myself though. Usually before every heavy battle, I cast improved invis, shield, mage armor, stone skin, true strike, cat's grace all on myself.

 

[Numion]

Well let's see...

Our cleric uses:

Triple Empowered Bull's Strength
Triple Empowered Endurance
Spell Turning (Luck Domain)
Spell Resistance
Spell Immunity
Death Ward
Freedom of Movement
Greater Magic Weapon
Magic Vestment
5 x Protection From Elements (Different Element)
Slow Poison

I probably forgot a few, but that's an impressive list. 1 hr / level spells are cast in the morning, 10 min / level are cast at first sign possible danger / or in vicinity of the target location.

In addition Divine Power or quickened Divine Favor are common.

that's just the cleric; almost everyone else uses buffs too...

 

[kenjib]

Every single spell in the game can be done with or without flare (except of course for the spell flare itself ). "I fireball for 36 damage" vs. "Scorching flames engulf my foes, leaving them blistered and burnt (for 36 damage).

I think that the flare should have been in the rules as well as the description though. A really rough example:

Bull's Strength
(stats similar to standard but higher level)
You are imbued with the spirit of a bull. You gain d4 + 1 strength. In addition, when threatened by enemies you must make a will save DC 15 or be filled with raging anger. This confers the same benefits as barbarian rage (including duration). If rage takes ahold, the target of the spell can not stop pursuing and attacking the enemies that initiated the rage until they are either dead or it is impossible to follow them, regardless of whether or not the rage has expired. Subjects of this spell often become irritable, short of temper, and develop bloodshot eyes.
Material component: The heart of a bull, which must be devoured by the recipient of the spell.

Cat's Grace
(stats similar to standard but higher level)
You are imbued with the spirit of a cat. You gain d4 + 1 dexterity and low light vision if you do not already have it. You also receive an additional +4 competence bonus to balance, tumble, and jump checks. Finally, when falling you may ignore damage from the first 10 feet of distance. Subjects of this spell often become alternately fickle, aloof, and fawning, and also tend to be tense and easily startled.
Material Component: A whisker from a cat.

Anyway, the exact details of my examples aren't important -- it's just a rough example. The main point is that the stat gain spells as written seem designed with game mechanics in mind first, and spell concept second. The six ability scores in the PHB are just a bookkeeping way of representing a character's talents, not something that I think should be categorically understood to exist by wizards in the game world. Translating them directly to spells (one directly mapped to each ability score no less if you include the splatbooks) feels like meta-gaming. They just decided to create spells that increase your stats and then slapped on names. That's backwards from how I would like spells to be designed. The concept should be considered first and then the effects should follow.

I won't even get into alignment and the spells pertain thereto...

 

[hong]

I think that the flare should have been in the rules as well as the description though.

All that would happen is that people just cast the same spells as they always did, but now they have to do even more metagaming to work around the unwanted frills.

Boring players result in a boring game. Long-winded spell descriptions with lots of side-effects won't make boring players more interesting.

 

[Fenes 2]

In one campaign the PCs moderately use buff spells. The bard (10) casts mage armor on herself when out in the wilderness and sings her Inspire Courage during a fight but has yet to use Inspire Greatness on the Fighter or Paladin. Eagle's Splendor is mostly used for an important perfomrance, and most of the rest of her spell slots are used for cure spells since the party has no cleric. The paladin mainly uses Divine Sacrifice and then starts meleeing.

In the other campaign, the sorceress casts extended mage armor on herself and the party sworddancer each day. She has no other buff spells. The last cleric we had used buffs extensively, granting the knight of the party the ability to cast 2 1st and 1 2nd level spell each day and using both greater magic weapon and enlarge.
Our present cleric had wanted to use divine power regulalry, but I had to alter that spell, since our campaign rarely has more than one fight per day, so the cleric would have outdamaged any party fighter type with ease.