[3.P] From a DM's perspective, how does Persistent Spell affect the game?

[Endarire]

Note: I refer to Persistent Spell in Complete Arcane, not in Advanced Player's Guide.

Ahem. This question includes Divine Metamagic, Incantatrix, and other cheaper/free Persist abilities.

I'm interested in positive and negative, but especially positive experiences where Persistent Spell helped you as a DM. For me, it makes things more predictable, and I can dispel the buffers if things get too much.

[Zen Master]

To me as a DM, increasing the powerlevel (which persist certainly does) is an exercise in needless futility. It serves only to do the same thing with greater numbers. It also lets certain types of tactical advantage be available all the time, around the clock, all year long - which basically is the same as removing that tactical advantage from play.

To my thinking, Syndrome is right - when everyone is super ... no one is.

[Aharon]

Above post is true, but it also does away with some problems of the 10 minute workday. My players tend to be a bit more reckless when they know their buffs don't end after mere minutes. Sure, at high levels, those 10 minute/level buffs actually last several hours, but it still feels like too short a time to the players.

So for my group, it encourages proactive play, where they don't retreat to a rope trick after every encounter. I like that. Of course, I could make time a factor, but if time is a factor in every adventure, it gets old after a while as a plot device.

[Killer Angel]

To my thinking, Syndrome is right - when everyone is super ... no one is.

That's true.
Sadly, persistent spells don't belong to everyone. :smallsmile:



For me, it makes things more predictable, and I can dispel the buffers if things get too much.

You cannot dispel always, but sometime, can indeed be a nasty move, 'specially if the caster was overconfident and didn't have substitute spells for the persisted ones.

[Emperor Tippy]

It depends largely on the party.

If your party already only adventures when all of the buffs are up (a few minutes if using scry'n'die to a few hours otherwise) then it really doesn't change anything. If your party doesn't go into every encounter fully topped up/rested then it can significantly increase the power level.

Thanks to rounds/level buffs lasting all day this also ups the power level and can generally be used to make the character massively more powerful/invincible.

Whether all of that is a positive or a negative largely depends on the game, the players, and the DM.

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I've honestly found combat (at least combat where anyone thinks that there is any risk) to be pretty rare at high levels. Most conflicts become political, social, or information gathering type things. Once the players have access to 9th level spells, nothing in the Monster Manuals is really a threat if the party is even half competent (and to survive to that level then the party should be at least reasonably capable).

If that's the case then things that increase combat power don't really matter all that much.
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So it doesn't really bother me.

[Psyx]

To me as a DM, increasing the powerlevel (which persist certainly does) is an exercise in needless futility. It serves only to do the same thing with greater numbers.

This.
It adds nothing but complexity, and changes nothing except the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

[Zen Master]

If your party already only adventures when all of the buffs are up (a few minutes if using scry'n'die to a few hours otherwise) then it really doesn't change anything.

That, however, isn't always for them to decide. Personally I enjoy springing the occasional unpleasant surprise on the players, forcing them to actually work for their food and think on their feet.

[Curmudgeon]

In a world where there are lots of magically buffed characters, there are lots of debuffing magic users as well. A Cleric with the Inquisition domain is always going to be better at debuffing than a comparable arcane caster is at buffing themselves. (Inquisition gives +4 to dispels after the caster level cap part of the formula.) Basically every combat starts out by knocking down the other side's active spells.

[Aotrs Commander]

You cannot dispel always, but sometime, can indeed be a nasty move, 'specially if the caster was overconfident and didn't have substitute spells for the persisted ones.

I have a standing rule-of-thumb that basically everything that has the capablity will almost always have a Dispel Magic to hand (in the same basically everything that has the capability will always have a ranged and melee weapon to hand). In the same way you don't got into battle against a power that had an airforce without anti-aircraft weapons, you don't go into battle against enemies that have spellcasting ability without anti-spell weapons. For me, an encounter of note will have a full mix of opposition, which will include spell support (and thus almost always Dispel Magic at level 5 or more). Anything that doesn't, doesn't qualify as anything other than a chaff enounter (as for example, anything that misses out any other critical element, like ranged ability).

That said, I have not personally had anyone use Persistent Spell in my games yet. But I don't think it would be too problematic even if I did (since Nightsticks have long been on the ban list). And especially since the bad guys would be (ab)using it too!

[Emperor Tippy]

That, however, isn't always for them to decide. Personally I enjoy springing the occasional unpleasant surprise on the players, forcing them to actually work for their food and think on their feet.

No, by the time Persistent spell tends to become viable (no night stick abuse) the party is generally capable of throwing around 7th-9th level spells. They don't need to adventure at all to make ends meet and they have the ability to adventure only when they desire.

Teleport, plane shift, Magnificent Mansion, etc. If you surprise the party with anything time sensitive that they care about then they will just scry'n'die the target, if it's something that they can't scry'n'die then it's an enemy that will require a fairly decent campaign (in character) to defeat. In which case you really can't force the players to actually face more than 1 encounter per day.

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After about 9th level you simply can't force random encounters or multiple encounters per day.

[dsmiles]

This.
It adds nothing but complexity, and changes nothing except the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.
Don't you mean 'casters' and 'non-casters'?

After about 9th level you simply can't force random encounters or multiple encounters per day.
Personally, at that level, I would prefer to have multiple encounters per day, because, you know, life gets pretty boring when you rule the world. :smallwink:

[Zen Master]

After about 9th level you simply can't force random encounters or multiple encounters per day.

Of course I can. I'm the DM - anything the players can do, I can do better .... if I so chose.

That said, my group has long since evolved beyond using high level magics, and now limit ourselves to say, levels around 13-15 max.

Which, of course, is fairly irrelevant to the larger discussion.

[Chen]

After about 9th level you simply can't force random encounters or multiple encounters per day.

This really just depends on the type of campaign you're running. A strict dungeon crawling or non-connected type adventure game sure. Most campaigns I play in had other things going on in the world that generally didn't make it wise to just rest for 8 hours every 15 minutes lest important events pass you by.

[awa]

you can force multiple encounters a day it just requires different actions they teleport home demons teleport after them, sure maby monsters like the trasq cant do anything to stop the pcs from walking all over it but many monsters have 9th level casting as well any defense pcs put up they can as well, and of course their is always dm fiat, the dungeons traps you in an extra dimensional plane when you enter wich prevents you from leaving or scrying as long as the boss is still alive.

[2xMachina]

You can't follow a teleport IIRC.
All you can do is scry and then teleport to where they are.
Scry fails? You don't know where to teleport to.

[DragoonWraith]

Huh.

I have the amusing idea of a world where there's a band of high-level scry'n'die adventurers who basically do 1 encounter per day, using scry'n'die. They always win, and then go reprepare spells.

You're a group of evil dudes who want to get something done - you have to trigger their scry'n'die without dying, and then you have 8 hours to get whatever you want done, or they'll scry'n'die you and you'll almost certainly lose.

Would be an interesting one-shot, anyway.

[huttj509]

Huh.

I have the amusing idea of a world where there's a band of high-level scry'n'die adventurers who basically do 1 encounter per day, using scry'n'die. They always win, and then go reprepare spells.

You're a group of evil dudes who want to get something done - you have to trigger their scry'n'die without dying, and then you have 8 hours to get whatever you want done, or they'll scry'n'die you and you'll almost certainly lose.

Would be an interesting one-shot, anyway.

I have an image of the planner watching, and when the heroes leave, starting a timer on his watch to countdown their deadline.

"Cmon guys, we've only got 3 minutes left!"

[Endarire]

My group is concerned that Divine Metamagic, Incantatrix, and other means of making Persist available from level 1 are too much.

As I told my friends, a Wizard worth his spells isn't using his level 7 slots to make shield last all day.

[Endarire]

Any other insights?/

[BobVosh]

I have an image of the planner watching, and when the heroes leave, starting a timer on his watch to countdown their deadline.

"Cmon guys, we've only got 3 minutes left!"

I can't imagine how this will go down if they have prepared and spon casters. "What if they go in without the cleric at full, since they have a sorcerer? The cleric only used 3 high level spells before the rest period, and they know what we are up to man! THEY KNOW!"

[Eldariel]

In a world where there are lots of magically buffed characters, there are lots of debuffing magic users as well. A Cleric with the Inquisition domain is always going to be better at debuffing than a comparable arcane caster is at buffing themselves. (Inquisition gives +4 to dispels after the caster level cap part of the formula.) Basically every combat starts out by knocking down the other side's active spells.

A truly solid buffer tends to have enough situational bonuses to caster level while buffing that his CL will be ~8+ points higher than normal, and Ring of Enduring Arcana grants +4 more to resist Dispelling.

A solid Dispeller (say, Master Specialist Abjurer with Inquisition-domain through Planar Touchstone/Cleric-dip, and Elven Spell Lore) can get +11 so it comes down to how close to the caster level cap of Dispel Magic-line you are acting on; near 10 and near 20 dispelling optimized persisters becomes nigh' impossible but otherwise dispellers' ability to utilize caster level boosts too allows them to keep up.

[BeholderSlayer]

it increases the need for the DM to optimize as well, and use dispel magic. in a party of optimized characters, they should be fighting optimized NPC's.

[Hague]

There's always the ol' Dispelling trap room with accompanying arcane marked goons. Goons get a buff, but the trap uses Detect Magic to determine the authorized users with an Arcane Mark. Those with the mark won't be targeted for Dispel Magic while anyone else in the area gets nailed over and over again.

Put it in a hard-to-reach place or make it part of the room (and thus, not easily stolen by players) and you shouldn't have much trouble dealing with persistent buffs. Especially if you seed the map with lots of these.

The spell Magical Backlash, has a similar effect that deals more damage to creatures with active spell effects. At lower levels, this can be downright deadly, dealing 2 points of damage per spell level in effect.

Higher level dispels work well too, such as Slashing Dispel and Reaving Dispel.

[jiriku]

Note: I refer to Persistent Spell in Complete Arcane, not in Advanced Player's Guide.

Ahem. This question includes Divine Metamagic, Incantatrix, and other cheaper/free Persist abilities.

I'm interested in positive and negative, but especially positive experiences where Persistent Spell helped you as a DM. For me, it makes things more predictable, and I can dispel the buffers if things get too much.

I've had mixed experience with Persistent Spell. My tl;dr take on it is that it doesn't change the game much: weak players don't have the opti-fu to take full advantage of it, while strong players will simply find another route to power if you ban it.

IMC, only one player has consistently used Persistent Spell. He goes the full monty route with Divine Metamagic and a rack of nightsticks. Heck, I use DMM: Persist clerics all the time as NPC opponents, so he even gets plenty of chances to loot more nightsticks off the bad guys. However, his player struggles to pull his own weight in the group; he's always persisting weak spells and making poor tactical choices in combat, and that hamstrings his effectiveness.

OTOH, my opti-fu is pretty good, and the NPC opponents I make who use Persist are holy terrors in combat, held back only by my desire to make encounters merely challenging, rather than deadly. But I can make a swordsage or even a warmage just as dangerous; when you're good enough, you don't need any particular tool to make a strong character because 3.5 gives you so many tools to choose from.

The only time Persist becomes an issue is if the player sets out to break the game with it (note: this is true of almost any character option). This I solve simply by requiring players to show me the builds for their new characters and explain how they work and what they're expected to do. Players understand that I'll veto anything abusive, or anything that makes a character so much stronger than his comrades as to be disruptive to the game. After the first few vetos, I rarely even have to use that power any more.

[Jack_Simth]

This.
It adds nothing but complexity, and changes nothing except the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

That depends on how you use it.

The DMM(Persist) cleric that uses Divine Favor, Divine Power, and Righteous Might? The party Barbarian goes off and cries (unless he's an Ubercharger or some such).

The DMM(Persist) cleric that uses Holy Aura, Mass Vigor, and Righteous Wrath of the Faithful just made the rest of the party much better at their jobs - especially the meatshield and skillmonkey, who now no longer have any per-day limits to their primary abilities.

[Morithias]

I find persist is really only brutal when the party is challenging the non-casting creatures and NPCs. Face it, how often when their abusing it's powers do they prepare backup copies? One disjunction spell, and they're on their way to getting their butts kicked.

Say what you will about the monk, at least it can't have all of it's abilities blown away in one round.

[herrhauptmann]

I find persist is really only brutal when the party is challenging the non-casting creatures and NPCs. Face it, how often when their abusing it's powers do they prepare backup copies? One disjunction spell, and they're on their way to getting their butts kicked.

One disjunction and most of the party is suddenly on its way to getting curbstomped.
There goes all of their buffs, and likely most of their magic items. A batman and a cleric can still win without a +6 stat item, but all the noncasters have just been screwed. Permanently. A level 16 warrior with just masterwork items is going to suck.


Why not just use slashing dispel? Remove their buffs, deactivate their magic items, and deal damage, without ruining a character. And you'll use a lower level slot.

[awa]

more than that disjunctions just not fun for the players they spent most of their carrier getting all that stuff and to losing large amounts in one shot just isn't fun disjunction breaks all parties not just those who rely on persisted spells in fact i would say clerics with their excellent will saves will come out of a disjunction far better than a fighter.

[Emperor Tippy]

Disjunction should really only be in play if you allow wish abuse to ensure that players can return to proper WBL after the fight is over.

Disjunction and wish, both broken on their own, can work fairly well together if the players are willing to stop wishing once they get to WBL. It let's you basically tailor your WBL on a daily basis but that isn't too bad, and it let's the baddies use disjunction (which is a great way to strip the party of their defenses).

[awa]

I really don't think wish abuse is the answer

[Emperor Tippy]

I really don't think wish abuse is the answer

Nope, it pretty much is the answer to disjunction.

WBL is supposed to be the characters wealth at any point that they are that level. If all of their wealth is lost, they are supposed to find/gain WBL worth of wealth shortly there after. Disjunction wipes out WBL with every casting, so if you use it then you need a mechanism for the players to regain the resources lost to bring them back to WBL.

Wish abuse works great for doing that, and generally if you tell the players (outside of the game) that you don't have a problem with it so long as they don't exceed WBL then everyone will be happy. The players don't have to worry about finding that 1 item that they want, or getting stuck with that cool item that they want now but maybe not next level (or next week), and the DM doesn't have to worry about tailoring treasure or items to the PC's (or providing shops that contain all the items that they want) or using disjunction.