You nerf Haste... what now?

[Shard O'Glase]

from a balance level how bad is it. It's a 7th lavel spell by then see invisibility should be the norm. I made gogles of see invis/darkvision for the entire party by 8th level, admitedly I'm a item creation freak but still by 13th level see invis isn't an unusal ability for inteigent foes to acquire and not unusual for a natural ability of monsters.

[house rule] personally I just don't like persistent spell in how it works it makes spells that were balanced by a short duration too good sometimes, and just doesn't feel right to me. I would of perfered it being able to be used on a wider range of spells but only increase the duration by one time category(time categorys for this feat would be rounds, minutes, 10 miuntes, and hours) I'd expressly allow it to be stacked so two uses would bump it up two categories. Either be +2 or +3 spell levels not sure which. My next campaign I'm thinking of doing this.

 

[IceBear]

from a balance level how bad is it. It's a 7th lavel spell by then see invisibility should be the norm. I made gogles of see invis/darkvision for the entire party by 8th level, admitedly I'm a item creation freak but still by 13th level see invis isn't an unusal ability for inteigent foes to acquire and not unusual for a natural ability of monsters.

Agreed, like I said - it was a kneejerk reaction. Upon reflection I would let it stand. IF it got abused THEN I'd switch to my initial stance.

BTW - I might be using that same house rule (I recorded it in my notes ages ago) in a future campaign. Given how no one was interested in the persistent feat before, it's probably a moot point.

IceBear

 

[LokiDR]

IceBear, thanks for the quote. You have just made my DMs day (and depending what this changes for the staple gun, my day too )

It's amazing how few people do - I think they remember "I can cast Invisibility on someone else, so I can't make it Persistent", without actually looking up the stat block of the spell.

Every time Persistent Spell comes up, someone talks about their Persistent Haste, Persistent Fly, Persistent Improved Invis combo, and then someone tells them all those spells are illegal, and then a third person (often me, if someone doesn't beat me to it) points out that the range of Improved Invisibility is "as Invisibility", and the range of Invisibility is "Personal or Touch".

As long as you're casting it on yourself... no problem.

-Hyp.

Obviously, those who you start those arguements aren't very carefull in the first place. Haste is ranged, so you can't persistant it even before the errata.

As for the invisibility issue, the character is in the Underdark and the staple gun wears a Ring the Darkhidden. His ring is a lot cheaper than my spell slot every day. Ballance isn't too great of a question.

 

[LokiDR]

Yup... that's the case in our game as well. I've seen our mainline fighter pull off a Cleave because of forcing a MDT check, which it failed.

I'd say that something that scary happens roughly once every 1 to 2 sessions.

What kind of bonuses are these fighters using? I have never seen a fighter dish out more than 50 pt of damage from one attack. Several in a round, sure, but not from one. Maybe a charge by a mounted fighter w/ lance... Well, this isn't a smackdown thread.

Elemental Substitution: Sonic is your friend if you're running into lots of creatures with elemental resistances. While there aren't a lot of critters that are vulnerable to sonic damage, very, very few are resistant to it either.

This is exactly why many, including me, don't like energy sub(sonic). There is no good reason to not take it. If more creatures had weanessess, this might be ballanced, but they don't. This makes the feat cheasy. I don't like cheesy feats.

 

[Seule]

I play a 20th level Evoker. Our Paladin routinely deals out over 100 points of damage a round, and has in the past broken 200. We all agree that in a fight, I'd win. I can deal out way more damage (two Sonic Meteor Swarms will do bad things to most characters, that's 48d6 damage, no save), and I don't have to run up to the opponents to do it. The Paladin's player has threatened me with bodily harm if I kill everything before she can make it into combat again, it's happened so often. Next level I'll be tossing out Maximized Delayed Blast Lightningballs, 160 damage, save DC 35 for half. Twice a round.
Haste adds an extra attack to the fighter types, while it doubles my output. I haven't run out of spells in about 6 levels so that's no longer a balancing factor. I've taken to using more of my spells as buffs for my companions just so that they can contribute to combat. I start every combat with a Mass Haste, so I know how Haste impacts all character types. Spellcasters get a far bigger boost.

In my personal game, I've outlawed anything that gives extra actions. It speeds up combat a whole lot, and since nobody has them, nobody misses them.

I have Persistent Spell, and the only spell I use it on is Shield. Any spell that has any range other than Personal or fixed can't be persisted. Improved Invisibility has a range of Personal or Touch, thus making it not available (to say nothing of the fact that I have Illusion banned).
Where Persistant Spell breaks down is for Clerics. There are some huge Clerical buffing spells that have a Personal range, letting a high-level Cleric outperform the fighters in many situations.

--Seule

 

[Shard O'Glase]

This is exactly why many, including me, don't like energy sub(sonic). There is no good reason to not take it. If more creatures had weanessess, this might be ballanced, but they don't. This makes the feat cheasy. I don't like cheesy feats.

Considering how weak the damage spells are compared to save or else spells I do a litle happy dance if a player decieds to take ES sonic, instead of spell focus enchantment. The damage part of it is totally irrelevent IMO, elemental resistance to acid aint common either, heck even fire resistance isn't that common, the big bennie of sonic is it blasts inanimate objects at full damage. Which since I think spells do lame damage to objects I am happy for.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Obviously, those who you start those arguements aren't very carefull in the first place. Haste is ranged, so you can't persistant it even before the errata.

Oh, the people who think Haste, Fly, and II can all be Persistent are obviously wrong.

I just disagree with the people who think that none of those spells can be Persistent.

A spell with a range of "Personal or Touch" can be a spell with range "Personal" or range "Touch", depending on the decision you make when you cast it. If it's Personal, Persistent works.

-Hyp.

 

[LokiDR]

Considering how weak the damage spells are compared to save or else spells I do a litle happy dance if a player decieds to take ES sonic, instead of spell focus enchantment. The damage part of it is totally irrelevent IMO, elemental resistance to acid aint common either, heck even fire resistance isn't that common, the big bennie of sonic is it blasts inanimate objects at full damage. Which since I think spells do lame damage to objects I am happy for.

I would prefer mages use damage vs save-or-die spells too. However, if you are going to damage them people, sonic is too easy of a choice and lacks style. Also, most save-or-die spells have a fort save. The average enemy tends to be a grunt with decent to high fort save, not the best option. Add SR, and the smart mage will have other options.

As for resistances, there have got to be 5 times as many creatures with resistances than there are weaknesses. Almost none have resistance to sonic. A no brainer.

I don't think it is unballanced. It just sits on my "lacking style" shelf. A decision that almost always comes from powergaming rather than character theme or interest. If you are going to powergame, you can at least do it with style

 

[Limper]

Natural Sonic resistance is rare however Spells which protect you from Sonic are not... lvl 1 24 hours of 5 points.

The High Fort save of nearly every creture in the game is aggravating... first you have to cast Enervate on the foe before anything stands a chance of taking them out.

I'm really surprised that more of you don't have mid level fighters doing a lot more damage than you do... I'll have to chart it out and see.

 

[mtbdm]

You gotta be kidding

Don't let Limper kid ya. His wizard is PLENTY potent with or without haste. The guy's spell DCs are insanely high. Most of the "bad guys" have to roll a twenty to hit them. He has fought and fireballed many a crowd of goblinoids. But the real kicker is, the session before he started this bitching, his invisible flying wizard single handedly killed two cloud giants and got three more to retreat (they could do nothing against their invisible foe). The whining is truly unnecessary.
Limper finds and exploits broken rules like a munchkin on crack--always has. And he always gets pissed when I nerf them. He's gotten away with all kinds of stuff in my game (for example, a 2E monk with 16 attacks per round--when I stupidly ruled that a haste effect stacked with his speed maneuver, he cleared an entire ship of crew in a single round with his 32 attacks. There are many more similar stories). In this particular case, he's whining and I haven't even nerfed the spell yet. Though, after seeing this thread, I'm more convinced than ever that is needs it. Hopefully they'll fix it in the new edition.
MtbDM