Lactantius
2012-05-03, 02:38 AM
One thing that I never understood is the classification of the spell duration.
We have instantaenous, 1 round / level, 1 minute / level, 10 minutes / level and 1 hour / level.
Even if there are some exceptions, let's focus on this durations only.
I wonder what the designers were thinking if they made this classification.
As a wizard player, I find it a pain and cause of headache to plan and memorize my spells. Even worse, I must find the "perfect timing" to cast the spells if I want to make maximum use of the spell effect.
But let's wind it up with the easier duration:
1 round / level is pretty simple and easy to understand: the designers want that you use a combat round to cast these spells. That's okay, that's fair.
I don't mess around here.
1 hour/level is also very easy: the designers allow some spells to last possibly over a complete dungeon crawl or similiar scenario.
I really like 1 hour/level. Not because it could get more powerful (since you can make use of one spell for more than one encounter). I like it because it is easy to handle. It is convenient.
It does not cause headache and preparation pain.
Heck, I would even go so far and say that some people avoid the wizard class since it leads to extensve planning and spell allocation sessions. That is boring and time consuming. It slows down the gamepace at the gametable, it requires A LOT of metagaming since the rules tell the wizard player that he should have some foresight ability every single day to plan his spells accordingly.
I also believe that players make use of persistent spell in all of its forms just because of convenience and not because of its action economy power.
It is handy and easy to handle if you can apply one party buff at the start of the day.
Fire and forget (like a Tomahawk cruise missile) :smalltongue:
That's why I found the durations "1 minute/lev" and "10 minutes/level" annoying.
They narrow down the general usefulness of spells and to cast them more easily.
Don't get me wrong: I don't want to tweak spell durations to heaven. I understand that a wizard or cleric cannot have a whole battery of buffs online for the complete day.
For example, if we look at the shield spell. It is a combat spell to protect the wizard. It requires to a) waste a combat round or b) cast it with a completely perfect timing just one "tick" before combat begins.
Well, I don't understand 1 minute/level. Do the designers want me to use a shield spell in combat or not?
If yes, just make it 1 round/level and thats all about it.
If no, why not make the duration longer?
But they gave us 1 minute/level. Can someone enlighten me how THAT is helpful?
I can only imagine scenarios where the party is not surprised and can influence the start of the combat by itself.
Sure, if you have such a scenario, 1 min/level is just fine. You don't waste a combat round to buff yourself and are still ready.
But in all other scenarios, 1 minute/level is just pure horror.
Another example to demonstrate my headaches:
the divination spell Clairaudience/Clairvoyance sound pretty good in what the spell can do. Unfortunately, we have this duration tagged which implies that we cannot plan how to use this spell in a useful way.
I understand this spell as a stationary "surveillance camera." The casting time (10 minutes) tell me that it is not useful for hasty, dynamic situations. So, it could be useful to secure a certain place (like a stronghold, a relevant location to defend and so on).
Now, we have a casting time of 10 minutes just to establish a spell which lasts.... well around 5 - 20 minutes.
I am not impressed.
So, if we talk about 1 minute/level, we talk about making the game more complicated and we increase the need to plan, to read the future and to perfectly time all cast spells.
I find this very boring and a reason why people favor a sorcerer over a wizard. Less pain, less headache, less complicated stuff.
But what if we just like to play a wizard class (because of other reasons)?
Why not tweak the problems which hinder a fluent, easy-going gameplay?
My appraoch would be to give the spells a more appealing and useful duration. I just took those wizard spells into account which I found problematic to use. Maybe there are many others, so if you find some, post them here!
I show what spells should be tweaked and I would like to share this creation with you, so you are invited to participate.
1 minute/level
PHB:
Level 1:
protection from alignment and shield: both decent buffs, but a wate to cast the im combat. I would make them 10 minutes/level, maybe even 1 hour/level since I cannot see the difference between mage armor and shield. Both give AC, but not THAT powerful. It just takes care that the wizard doesnt get killled instantly.
Agree/Disagree?
magic weapon: 1 minute/level is just bad. Why not use 1 hour/level? Cast at low levels, it wouldn't lead to a whole-day-long spell anways. At higher levels, you cast GMW anyways. Magic weapon could still be good enough for some NPC or the fighter's secondary weapon.
I find 1 hour/lev more easy, appealing and balanced.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 2:
resist energy: saome words to 10 minutes/level at this point. Although 10 minutes/level is not THAT bad, I have a general problem with it to find the niche of scenarios where 10 minutes/level is "generally useful." Maybe at the classic entrance to the evil dungeon (TM). It would flow with the dungeon dynamics but still, it's only useful in such a scenario and even then, you are forced to look on the watch all the times.
Which player or DM finds that exciting?
Agree/Disagree?
resist energy is a spell which requires some knowledge or foresight anyways. No one casts resist energy "just in case of."
Wait, if we increase the casting time to 1 hour/level, we would cast the spell "just in case of," wouldn't we?
Sure, we are still focused a bit saince we must choose the energy type, but still: we could apply resist energy more convenient and more easily.
Therefore: Yes, increase the duration to 1 hour /level.
invisibility serves as scouting tool since the spell just ends if you use it in combat. So I must ask: why nerf the scouting apllication from 10 minutes/level (which is a useful timeframe) to 1 minute/level (which is a very narrow and tight timeframe?)
Sure, I can live with it since it produces some hurry and drama. But if the party rogue would like to scout farther, why not?
10 minutes/level would be okay.
Agree/Disagree?
bear's endurance/bull's strength/cat's grace/eagle's splendor/fox' cunning/owl's wisdom:
I would strongly support to boost the ability enhancer spells.
First, those spells had the 1 hour/lev-duration in 3.0. Maybe the designers found that too powerful and nerfed them in 3.5.
I think that nowadays, no one really uses the ability enhancers. Maybe a bull's strength for the fighter and that's all about it.
The reason is pretty simple:
by taking away the longer spell duration, the designers took away the general usefulness.
Now, I can't find a balance-shattering fact that would come with using a longer duration.
The opposite would be the case: if ability enhancers last 1 hour/level, the party buffer would have a larger array of spells to apply to the group.
He would use more 2nd-level-spell slots for this case. He would even go so far to use a 6th-level-spell-slot for a mass-version.
And the bast part is: it would decrease the general need to get the usual (boring) ability-enhancement-items.
I find this idea appealing and delightful
So, ability enhancers go up to 1 hour/level.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 3:
Magic Circle against Evil:
although 10 minutes/lev is not that bad, I find 1 hour/level more convenient. It is a party buff after all, so why not use it early enough?
Agree/Disagree?
Protection from Energy:
see resist energy. Most times, players prefer resist energy since the resistance effect is just enough to handle the energy damage. This spell would be more useful if it has a 1 hour/level duration.
Agree/Disagree?
Clairaudience/Clairvoyance:
we already discussed this spell. I would give it at least 10 minutes/level, maybe even 1 hour/level since I just cannot find a general useful scenario with such a limited duration.
Agree/Disagree?
Fly:
sure, a powerful effect and a bread and butter spell for any caster. I'm cautious here and would go to 10 minutes/level only. Same as with invisibility: if you use it out of combat, you can make more usw of the scouting abilites.
If you could even make use of one fly spell within 2 combats, sure, why not? Overland Flight will do that thing anyways later on.
Agree/Disagree?
Keen Edge:
I cannot see the great difference to GMW. Bot buff a weapon. The keen-effect is rather limited in usefulness (no help against crit immune creatures) and still costs a 3rd-level-spell-slot.
Similar to the ability enhancers, an improved keen edge duration would decrease the general need for a standard item enhancement (weapon enchantment keen).
Agree/Disagree?
Level 4:
Arcane Eye:
same arguments as with invisibility and fly: how much time do we allow scounting tools to have?
1 minute/level feels like looking on the watch all the times. Maybe it's just me, but I find that annoying, it can destroy the game atmosphere (since a wizard player is enforced to metagame all the times with time and timing complaints).
Anyways, the Prying Eyes even last 1 hour/level.
So, I would give arcane eye at least 10 minutes, maybe even 1 hour/level.
Agree/Disagree?
Stoneskin:
Sure, it is a powerful protection effect. And still, players avoid stoneskin because of its costs. A balancing factor could be to increase toe duration to 1 hour/level, since a player would get more "bang for the buck."
250 gp would help for more than 1 combat, but not always since the spell could be eaten up anyways at combat 1.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 6:
True Seeing:
Comparable to stoneskin. Both require gold to cast them. Ideally, you want to use bot spells as daily spells, so you could get poor pretty fast. True Seeing is a powerful effect, but again, 1 minute/level is narrowing down the general usefulness so much that it requires a second thought to cast or even memorize the spell or not.
I would go to 10 minutes/level.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 7:
Greater Arcane Sight:
the reason why I mention greater arcane sight, but not arcane sight is that you could just make arcane sight permanent, but not the greater version.
So I wonder why I should cast a 7th-level-spell with a duration of 1 minute/level if I can have the permanent version with enough abilites to justify using the lower version?
Furthermore, analyze dweomer can do pretty much of the stuff that greater arcane sight can do (combat divination PLUS item identification).
That makes greater arcane sight look very weak.
Yes, I would go so far to increase the duration to 1 hour/level.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 8:
Protection from Spells: Compared to other level-8-spells (say, mind blank) and the fact that player will aready have a high resistance bonus (by using a cloak or superior resistance), this spell is weak already.
Even worse, if has a gold component (twice, material and focus!).
So, either we increase the duration from 10 minutes to 1 hour/level to give it more usefulness or we change the bonus type so that it could stack with resistance bonus.
Maybe I would keep the duration and change the bonus type to circumstancial or competence.
Heck, it's a level-8-party-buff after all. It should be capable of something.
Level 9:
Etheralness: since this is a travel spell, I'm sceptic if 1 min/lev is enough to make use of this kind of travelling in a useful way.
But I must admit, I never used that spell and I cannot judge if it would be enough or not.
Agree/Disagree?
Foresight: The effect is good, but not THAT huge (especially since we talk about level 9). Why limit it to 10 minutes?
I find 1 hour/level good enough to make use of the spell at the start of the days (that's where you would like to cast this spell anyway, right?).
Agree/Disagree?
We have instantaenous, 1 round / level, 1 minute / level, 10 minutes / level and 1 hour / level.
Even if there are some exceptions, let's focus on this durations only.
I wonder what the designers were thinking if they made this classification.
As a wizard player, I find it a pain and cause of headache to plan and memorize my spells. Even worse, I must find the "perfect timing" to cast the spells if I want to make maximum use of the spell effect.
But let's wind it up with the easier duration:
1 round / level is pretty simple and easy to understand: the designers want that you use a combat round to cast these spells. That's okay, that's fair.
I don't mess around here.
1 hour/level is also very easy: the designers allow some spells to last possibly over a complete dungeon crawl or similiar scenario.
I really like 1 hour/level. Not because it could get more powerful (since you can make use of one spell for more than one encounter). I like it because it is easy to handle. It is convenient.
It does not cause headache and preparation pain.
Heck, I would even go so far and say that some people avoid the wizard class since it leads to extensve planning and spell allocation sessions. That is boring and time consuming. It slows down the gamepace at the gametable, it requires A LOT of metagaming since the rules tell the wizard player that he should have some foresight ability every single day to plan his spells accordingly.
I also believe that players make use of persistent spell in all of its forms just because of convenience and not because of its action economy power.
It is handy and easy to handle if you can apply one party buff at the start of the day.
Fire and forget (like a Tomahawk cruise missile) :smalltongue:
That's why I found the durations "1 minute/lev" and "10 minutes/level" annoying.
They narrow down the general usefulness of spells and to cast them more easily.
Don't get me wrong: I don't want to tweak spell durations to heaven. I understand that a wizard or cleric cannot have a whole battery of buffs online for the complete day.
For example, if we look at the shield spell. It is a combat spell to protect the wizard. It requires to a) waste a combat round or b) cast it with a completely perfect timing just one "tick" before combat begins.
Well, I don't understand 1 minute/level. Do the designers want me to use a shield spell in combat or not?
If yes, just make it 1 round/level and thats all about it.
If no, why not make the duration longer?
But they gave us 1 minute/level. Can someone enlighten me how THAT is helpful?
I can only imagine scenarios where the party is not surprised and can influence the start of the combat by itself.
Sure, if you have such a scenario, 1 min/level is just fine. You don't waste a combat round to buff yourself and are still ready.
But in all other scenarios, 1 minute/level is just pure horror.
Another example to demonstrate my headaches:
the divination spell Clairaudience/Clairvoyance sound pretty good in what the spell can do. Unfortunately, we have this duration tagged which implies that we cannot plan how to use this spell in a useful way.
I understand this spell as a stationary "surveillance camera." The casting time (10 minutes) tell me that it is not useful for hasty, dynamic situations. So, it could be useful to secure a certain place (like a stronghold, a relevant location to defend and so on).
Now, we have a casting time of 10 minutes just to establish a spell which lasts.... well around 5 - 20 minutes.
I am not impressed.
So, if we talk about 1 minute/level, we talk about making the game more complicated and we increase the need to plan, to read the future and to perfectly time all cast spells.
I find this very boring and a reason why people favor a sorcerer over a wizard. Less pain, less headache, less complicated stuff.
But what if we just like to play a wizard class (because of other reasons)?
Why not tweak the problems which hinder a fluent, easy-going gameplay?
My appraoch would be to give the spells a more appealing and useful duration. I just took those wizard spells into account which I found problematic to use. Maybe there are many others, so if you find some, post them here!
I show what spells should be tweaked and I would like to share this creation with you, so you are invited to participate.
1 minute/level
PHB:
Level 1:
protection from alignment and shield: both decent buffs, but a wate to cast the im combat. I would make them 10 minutes/level, maybe even 1 hour/level since I cannot see the difference between mage armor and shield. Both give AC, but not THAT powerful. It just takes care that the wizard doesnt get killled instantly.
Agree/Disagree?
magic weapon: 1 minute/level is just bad. Why not use 1 hour/level? Cast at low levels, it wouldn't lead to a whole-day-long spell anways. At higher levels, you cast GMW anyways. Magic weapon could still be good enough for some NPC or the fighter's secondary weapon.
I find 1 hour/lev more easy, appealing and balanced.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 2:
resist energy: saome words to 10 minutes/level at this point. Although 10 minutes/level is not THAT bad, I have a general problem with it to find the niche of scenarios where 10 minutes/level is "generally useful." Maybe at the classic entrance to the evil dungeon (TM). It would flow with the dungeon dynamics but still, it's only useful in such a scenario and even then, you are forced to look on the watch all the times.
Which player or DM finds that exciting?
Agree/Disagree?
resist energy is a spell which requires some knowledge or foresight anyways. No one casts resist energy "just in case of."
Wait, if we increase the casting time to 1 hour/level, we would cast the spell "just in case of," wouldn't we?
Sure, we are still focused a bit saince we must choose the energy type, but still: we could apply resist energy more convenient and more easily.
Therefore: Yes, increase the duration to 1 hour /level.
invisibility serves as scouting tool since the spell just ends if you use it in combat. So I must ask: why nerf the scouting apllication from 10 minutes/level (which is a useful timeframe) to 1 minute/level (which is a very narrow and tight timeframe?)
Sure, I can live with it since it produces some hurry and drama. But if the party rogue would like to scout farther, why not?
10 minutes/level would be okay.
Agree/Disagree?
bear's endurance/bull's strength/cat's grace/eagle's splendor/fox' cunning/owl's wisdom:
I would strongly support to boost the ability enhancer spells.
First, those spells had the 1 hour/lev-duration in 3.0. Maybe the designers found that too powerful and nerfed them in 3.5.
I think that nowadays, no one really uses the ability enhancers. Maybe a bull's strength for the fighter and that's all about it.
The reason is pretty simple:
by taking away the longer spell duration, the designers took away the general usefulness.
Now, I can't find a balance-shattering fact that would come with using a longer duration.
The opposite would be the case: if ability enhancers last 1 hour/level, the party buffer would have a larger array of spells to apply to the group.
He would use more 2nd-level-spell slots for this case. He would even go so far to use a 6th-level-spell-slot for a mass-version.
And the bast part is: it would decrease the general need to get the usual (boring) ability-enhancement-items.
I find this idea appealing and delightful
So, ability enhancers go up to 1 hour/level.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 3:
Magic Circle against Evil:
although 10 minutes/lev is not that bad, I find 1 hour/level more convenient. It is a party buff after all, so why not use it early enough?
Agree/Disagree?
Protection from Energy:
see resist energy. Most times, players prefer resist energy since the resistance effect is just enough to handle the energy damage. This spell would be more useful if it has a 1 hour/level duration.
Agree/Disagree?
Clairaudience/Clairvoyance:
we already discussed this spell. I would give it at least 10 minutes/level, maybe even 1 hour/level since I just cannot find a general useful scenario with such a limited duration.
Agree/Disagree?
Fly:
sure, a powerful effect and a bread and butter spell for any caster. I'm cautious here and would go to 10 minutes/level only. Same as with invisibility: if you use it out of combat, you can make more usw of the scouting abilites.
If you could even make use of one fly spell within 2 combats, sure, why not? Overland Flight will do that thing anyways later on.
Agree/Disagree?
Keen Edge:
I cannot see the great difference to GMW. Bot buff a weapon. The keen-effect is rather limited in usefulness (no help against crit immune creatures) and still costs a 3rd-level-spell-slot.
Similar to the ability enhancers, an improved keen edge duration would decrease the general need for a standard item enhancement (weapon enchantment keen).
Agree/Disagree?
Level 4:
Arcane Eye:
same arguments as with invisibility and fly: how much time do we allow scounting tools to have?
1 minute/level feels like looking on the watch all the times. Maybe it's just me, but I find that annoying, it can destroy the game atmosphere (since a wizard player is enforced to metagame all the times with time and timing complaints).
Anyways, the Prying Eyes even last 1 hour/level.
So, I would give arcane eye at least 10 minutes, maybe even 1 hour/level.
Agree/Disagree?
Stoneskin:
Sure, it is a powerful protection effect. And still, players avoid stoneskin because of its costs. A balancing factor could be to increase toe duration to 1 hour/level, since a player would get more "bang for the buck."
250 gp would help for more than 1 combat, but not always since the spell could be eaten up anyways at combat 1.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 6:
True Seeing:
Comparable to stoneskin. Both require gold to cast them. Ideally, you want to use bot spells as daily spells, so you could get poor pretty fast. True Seeing is a powerful effect, but again, 1 minute/level is narrowing down the general usefulness so much that it requires a second thought to cast or even memorize the spell or not.
I would go to 10 minutes/level.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 7:
Greater Arcane Sight:
the reason why I mention greater arcane sight, but not arcane sight is that you could just make arcane sight permanent, but not the greater version.
So I wonder why I should cast a 7th-level-spell with a duration of 1 minute/level if I can have the permanent version with enough abilites to justify using the lower version?
Furthermore, analyze dweomer can do pretty much of the stuff that greater arcane sight can do (combat divination PLUS item identification).
That makes greater arcane sight look very weak.
Yes, I would go so far to increase the duration to 1 hour/level.
Agree/Disagree?
Level 8:
Protection from Spells: Compared to other level-8-spells (say, mind blank) and the fact that player will aready have a high resistance bonus (by using a cloak or superior resistance), this spell is weak already.
Even worse, if has a gold component (twice, material and focus!).
So, either we increase the duration from 10 minutes to 1 hour/level to give it more usefulness or we change the bonus type so that it could stack with resistance bonus.
Maybe I would keep the duration and change the bonus type to circumstancial or competence.
Heck, it's a level-8-party-buff after all. It should be capable of something.
Level 9:
Etheralness: since this is a travel spell, I'm sceptic if 1 min/lev is enough to make use of this kind of travelling in a useful way.
But I must admit, I never used that spell and I cannot judge if it would be enough or not.
Agree/Disagree?
Foresight: The effect is good, but not THAT huge (especially since we talk about level 9). Why limit it to 10 minutes?
I find 1 hour/level good enough to make use of the spell at the start of the days (that's where you would like to cast this spell anyway, right?).
Agree/Disagree?