Wonderful, broken Simulacrum

[Jack Simth]

It probably could use a drop down to about 2nd-3rd level (it's more flexible than True Strike, but less powerful for most your character's career, and level-dependant to boot), or be made to work more often (once per three full caster levels? Something that could cast a level-8 spell (minimum 15) would be able to use it five times - (pretty much) negating 5 things that it applies to, or making a fairly certain hit 5 times with those nifty touch-attack ranged spells on tough opponents, or....)

 

[Saeviomagy]

It probably could use a drop down to about 2nd-3rd level (it's more flexible than True Strike, but less powerful for most your character's career, and level-dependant to boot), or be made to work more often (once per three full caster levels? Something that could cast a level-8 spell (minimum 15) would be able to use it five times - (pretty much) negating 5 things that it applies to, or making a fairly certain hit 5 times with those nifty touch-attack ranged spells on tough opponents, or....)

Yer kidding, right? An instant-action +15 or more to saves OR attacks OR skills OR attribute checks OR AC is nowhere near being 2nd-3rd level. And 5 times a day would make it a guaranteed, 100% certainly used every day by every character capable of casting it.

 

[ARandomGod]

Yer kidding, right? An instant-action +15 or more to saves OR attacks OR skills OR attribute checks OR AC is nowhere near being 2nd-3rd level. And 5 times a day would make it a guaranteed, 100% certainly used every day by every character capable of casting it.

He HAS to be kidding. This should clearly be a cantrip...

 

[Rystil Arden]

The Moment of Prescience spell is very powerful if used in specific situations, particularly when a single skill check determines an important outcome. Two big uses that come to mind are mundane Crafting and Epic Spellcasting. For Epic Spellcasting, it lets you reliably cast spells that are absurdly more powerful, and for crafting, you can really quicken your throughput if you use the bonus to take a voluntary DC raise, in order to craft faster. Also, this could help you complete actions with extremely high DCs (perhaps a cleric with the Trickery domain can convince the King of something crazy, like that he is the King's reincarnation from the future who needs the crown jewels to avert a war in the future).

 

[Saeviomagy]

Others that come to mind are:
Talking to a major god without going insane (contact other plane).
Casting vision and being successful (although I'm not sure that MoP applies to caster level checks).

 

[Jack Simth]

Actually, I'm not joking - it's closest cousin (that I'm aware of, anyway...), the Cleric's Guidance spell, is a level-0 spell that functions in much the same way, only it's a flat 1-point bonus, has a duration of 1 minute or until discharged, and can't be used on Opposed skill checks or AC. Compare the differences to that of, say, the differences between Ray of Frost (Sor/Wiz 0) and Scorching Ray (Sor/Wiz 2). Both deal damage (although with different elements). One deals a fairly flat, piddling amount of damage (1d3 for Ray of Frost), while the other deals a reasonable amount of scaling damage (4d6 for each ray, 1 ray for the spell itself, one ray per four levels above 3rd, max 3 rays at 11th level (12d6 damage)). Go up another level and you can compare with Fireball or Lightning Bolt instead - which both affect multiple targets, have longer ranges, have a higher base damage, and scale with level (up to 10d6).

Using Guidance as a starting point, and Ray of Frost (low end)/Lightning Bolt (high end) to establish a step multiplier (Can also use Acid Splash on the low end, and Fireball or Scorching Ray at the high) for a baseline, then Moment of Precience probably would be 2nd/3rd level (although admittedly with a differnt max bonus cap - probably 10).

Granted, there are counterexamples up at 8th level which would indicate that's exactly where Moment of Precience needs to be - Polar Ray, specifically (but come on, who takes that when there are such spells as Clenched Fist, Power Word Stun, Prismatic Wall, Irresistable Dance.... et cetera at that level) - but those also have intermediate varieties that are very similar except for the caps at middle levels. Perhaps there should simply be more steps to the spell - Lesser (2nd-3rd, cap 10), normal (5th-6th, cap 15-20) and Greater (8th, cap 25; Moment of Precience as is)

 

[Rystil Arden]

One-time giant stacking bonuses are really completely incomparable to damage spells. Compare instead to the Bard song Inspire Competence to see that a bonus of +2 (which is a competence bonus and thus does not stack with other skill-enhancing effects such as wondrous items like Moment of Prescience does) with a short duration is a power of a third-level character. Moment of Prescience is a powerful 9th-level ability, and it fared rather well on the old "What 8th-level spells are essential for a wizard to have on his list" poll thread.

 

[Jack Simth]

It's not a giant bonus until you get up there - a level-20 caster gets a +20 bonus; a level 5 caster would theoretically get a +5 bonus; a level-1 caster would theoretically get a +1 bonus. Meanwhile, there is a level-0 spell that already grants a level-1 caster a flat +1 bonus on most the same tasks.

Compare with Heroism, which grants a +2 bonus on ALL skill checks, attack rolls, and saves for 10 minutes/level, and is a mere level 3 spell (2 for bards). MoP is one-shot; Heroism (and it's +4 Greater brother) can be used for all skill checks in it's duration, not just one, and also stack with most other bonuses (Morale effect), while giving even more bennefits to boot. The assorted one-target stat boosting spells are all level-2, and give a +2 bonus to skill and stat checks due to the enchancement on the base stat. Such spells as Jump are level 1, but apply a large bonus - but for a period, not a single check, but also only for a single type. True Strike grants a single bonus of a flat +20 (which will meet or beat MoP's benifit on attack rolls until you can swing a caster level of 21+; and even then, it won't ever be much below MoP's cap of 25), but it's less flexible and has a much shorter duration. There's a few big bonus spells out there already - and all of them at lower levels (well... except Wish and it's Limited sibling... but those are completely different balls of wax).

Edit: It came in tied for 12th (with Charm Monster, Mass) of 35, at 12 of 77 votes when I checked just now; I'm not sure if I'd call that fairing rather well.

 

[Jack Simth]

Others that come to mind are:
Talking to a major god without going insane (contact other plane).
Casting vision and being successful (although I'm not sure that MoP applies to caster level checks).

Probably not, on two counts - requires Opposed checks, and specifies skill or ability checks.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Really though, the number isn't important. The fact is that with the existence of all these other low level abilities (Heroism, Inspire Competence), there could be big stacking trouble if you add in another low-level ability that gives a +5 insight bonus. Do you really want the 5th-level wizard with Lesser MoP, Heroism, and a Cloak of the Elvenkind and 10 Dex to Hide as well as an 18 Dex Rogue of the same level with maxed-out ranks? If so, then I guess that this spell is right for your campaign. As for me, I still remember the trivialisation of thieves in 2E and the brokenness of the +10 Cloak of the Elvenkind in 3.0, and I'm quite happy with things as they stand for skill bonuses. And that's not to mention the ability of the spell to pull your buns off the burner when you need to make the critical save/ dodge the critical attack.