Persistent Spell and Lesser Vigor :O

[shaga]

Ok so one of my players is going to take persistent spell, in combination with Divine metamagic (persistent spell). So with 7 turn undeads he can cast mast of his spells as persistent.
The problem is, he asked to cast the Vigor lesser as persistent. If you don't know that spell, its on complete divine and it gives you fast healing 1hp for 10 rounds +1 round / level, maximum 15 rounds. Can he actually cast persistent Vigor lesser and gain fast healing 1hp for the entire day?!?

The only chance I can see of stopping him for casting this spell persistent is the part where the persistent feat says "Spells with a FIXED or personal range..." can have this feat applied on them. I know what personal range is, its very clear which spells have "personal range" but what's a "fixed" range???

[Urpriest]

Fixed is a specific number, like 30ft. Touch doesn't count.

It's still plenty possible with Mass Lesser Vigor, but it's not really that crazy. Challenges in D&D are rarely measured by how many healing spells they take.

[stack]

Of all the spells on the cleric list, lesser vigor should not be your biggest concern. Basically he's trading a big chuck of turn attempts to not have to use any OOC healing on himself. Not a big deal.

[Madeiner]

A fixed range is something that doesn't scale with levels.

100ft + 10ft/level is NOT fixed.
30 feet is fixed.

Btw, i would not allow persistent vigor. It changes the game too much, as you can now wait 5 minutes and you are full health, after every encounter.
Remember, most encounters in a day are there to deplete their resources.
Someone may discover that it is now possible to win most underCRed encounters by just autoattacking or using free powers, taking probably 3x as long, but coming out without resource depletion.

It is also most evident in videogames. In NWN, when you had enough fast healing, you could do encounters by autoattacking and waiting. Boring as hell, but actually the most effective move.

You don't want the most effective move to be the most boring one.


But hey, i hate persistent spells in general, in my games i try to incentivatae players not to take very long duration spells, as i find them detrimental to the game.
Got persistent flight? Very well, now most challenges related to movement are removed from the game.
Big chasm? Fly and take friends one a time. Stuck in a forest? Just fly all day up and direct the others. Land traps? Completely ignored. Etc etc

[Vladislav]

By strict RAW, Lesser Vigor can't be Persisted, because it has a range of "Touch", which is not a fixed range - because it depends on your natural reach (now you're Medium with a reach of 5', next thing someone casts Enlarge Person and oops, your natural reach is 10').

However, on a personal note, I would allow it, there are a lot worse things that could be done with DMM: Persist than your Cleric starting every encounter at full health. Pelor knows they have enough healing spells to do that anyway.

[JeminiZero]

Note that whether or not touch counts as persistable is subject to debate, and I won't go into it here. Even if you rule no, that just delays the issue, as there is also mass lesser vigor which DOES have a fixed range.

That said, persist LV or MLV should be the least of you worries. There are more gamebreaking things he could do.

[navar100]

It's not a crime against gamedom for the party or an individual character to be at full health for the non-first combat of the day. The bad guys are.

The cleric is using his resources. He's used up his Turn attempts. He's used up the spell slot for Mass Lesser Vigor. He'll be casting other spells. That he is at full health the second, third, and fourth combat is not a big deal. Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor means he gets to be a healbot and not a healbot at the same time because he doesn't have to keep casting Cure Wounds out of combat.

When he wants to persist Holy Aura or Greater Visage of the Deity, come back to us. :smallsmile:

[Togo]

I generally ban persist, and ban DMM. So do many others. If you allow both, then this is far from the biggest you'll encounter

[Slipperychicken]

I think it would be worth it to consider the implications on your game. How long do combats usually last? 1hp/round isn't going to matter much in a 5 round combat, or when enemies are dealing significant damage. Out of combat, the party was already healing to full after each encounter, certainly in less than five minutes anyway.


Your Cleric was probably just eating charges from a CLW or Lesser Vigor Wand before for something like 1-2gp per point of healing, so Persisting is really just trading 7 turn attempts and a spell slot each day, plus the extremely high investment of cash (7.5k for a nightstick, 1k for a Reliquary Holy symbol), feats (3-6 feats: Extend Spell, Persist Spell, DMM:Persist, and several iterations of Extra Turning), and domain choices (Planning and Undeath, right?) to save a trivial amount of gold after each combat.


If you really want the party to blow non-renewable resources on healing for some reason, then disallowing it kind of makes sense. You don't have to find a rules justification: It's okay to say "I don't want you using this combination, since I feel it would imbalance the game. I would rather you consume gold or spell slots to heal up instead".

[panaikhan]

My GM would allow it.
He'd then shift the goalposts.
Instead of worrying about losing hit points to attacking monsters, we'd be worrying about losing ability points to the attacking monster's poisons.
He's literally throw hundreds of minimal-CR encounters at us (ones where no XP would be awarded).
He'd move the adventure to somewhere the environment caused damage.
In short he would show to us that, in an arms race against the GM, the GM WINS.

We don't go for this kind of tomfoolery precisely out of self-preservation. Our GM would make it cost us resources, one way or another. and healing HP is a lot cheaper than some of the alternatives.

[navar100]

My GM would allow it.
He'd then shift the goalposts.
Instead of worrying about losing hit points to attacking monsters, we'd be worrying about losing ability points to the attacking monster's poisons.
He's literally throw hundreds of minimal-CR encounters at us (ones where no XP would be awarded).
He'd move the adventure to somewhere the environment caused damage.
In short he would show to us that, in an arms race against the GM, the GM WINS.

We don't go for this kind of tomfoolery precisely out of self-preservation. Our GM would make it cost us resources, one way or another. and healing HP is a lot cheaper than some of the alternatives.

If the Wizard learns Fireball, do most of the monsters suddenly have fire resistance/immunity? If the Rogue focuses on two-weapon fighting, are you fighting lots of undead and constructs? If the Fighter specializes in Spiked Chain, take Combat Reflexes and Improved Trip, and tends to drink Enlarge Person potions or buys the wizard a wand of it, do you find yourselves fighting a lot of large size flying four-legged creatures?

[Answerer]

Infinite out-of-combat healing is available as soon as the party can cooperate enough to communally buy a 750 gp Wand of Lesser Vigor. Lesser Vigor is never going to heal enough in combat to matter.

Basically, there's nothing wrong with infinite-but-slow healing. It doesn't even remotely break the game. It actually very much favors lower-tier classes, since their primary resource is HP, which can be healed, unlike spellcasters, whose primary resource is their spell slots, which cannot be. So it's probably a good thing to have it available.

[Fouredged Sword]

Not really an issue if you plan your game right. Just remember that things happen while the party waits and plan accordingly.

Players assault a goblin stronghold? If they don't break into the mess hall before twenty rounds then the goblins who are eating all grab crossbows and overturn the tables to for cover and to block movement, turning a simple encounter with six or seven goblins into a tactical mess.

Yes, LV will make him happy, likely happier than in a slower paced game as every turn will count for things like buffs and healing. Not having to heal himself of minor wounds will speed them all up. He still wont be able to just wait for the HP fountain to fix the problem though.

Counter attacks happen. The next room gets ample warning of your attack and prepares. The treasure you are chasing packs up and leaves while you are sitting in the first room. The hostages are killed. The wizard completes the ritual.

Tell the party that you are going to try to make the game a little more time sensitive, that waiting will now have logical consequences. Don't make the issues unsurmountable, but leave the choice of waiting for health and the next encounter being harder be one the party is forced to actually think about.

[Tyndmyr]

Ok so one of my players is going to take persistent spell, in combination with Divine metamagic (persistent spell). So with 7 turn undeads he can cast mast of his spells as persistent.
The problem is, he asked to cast the Vigor lesser as persistent. If you don't know that spell, its on complete divine and it gives you fast healing 1hp for 10 rounds +1 round / level, maximum 15 rounds. Can he actually cast persistent Vigor lesser and gain fast healing 1hp for the entire day?!?

The only chance I can see of stopping him for casting this spell persistent is the part where the persistent feat says "Spells with a FIXED or personal range..." can have this feat applied on them. I know what personal range is, its very clear which spells have "personal range" but what's a "fixed" range???

This combo works.

It's less of a big deal than you'd think, since the amount of healing it gives you in combat is minimal. It just saves time post-combat.


My GM would allow it.
He'd then shift the goalposts.
Instead of worrying about losing hit points to attacking monsters, we'd be worrying about losing ability points to the attacking monster's poisons.
He's literally throw hundreds of minimal-CR encounters at us (ones where no XP would be awarded).
He'd move the adventure to somewhere the environment caused damage.
In short he would show to us that, in an arms race against the GM, the GM WINS.

We don't go for this kind of tomfoolery precisely out of self-preservation. Our GM would make it cost us resources, one way or another. and healing HP is a lot cheaper than some of the alternatives.

Your GM sounds like a jerk. The entire world changes because he doesn't like the thing I took, and that he allowed?

Suddenly there are hundreds of unavoidable no-xp encounters? Sounds pretty ridiculous. In such a situation, I'd probably take a reserve feat, then gleefully rejoice over the wealth I'm gaining from no resource cost encounters.

[ILM]

If the Rogue focuses on two-weapon fighting, are you fighting lots of undead and constructs?
In a game I played in, I was a level 10 TWF-rogue. The DM handed me a cinematic solo encounter against a cleric of some dark god or another in which my character lost an arm. By cinematic, I mean that I was able to hit him, once in the entire fight, on a 18 (that was before he started with his wand of throw-you-around-with-no-save). In a game where high-level casters were unheard of, so forget about Regeneration. Plus, by losing an arm, I lost a ring, magical sword, and glove (disabling the pair). That wasn't the best game I played in my life. Would not recommend.

I'm struggling to find something on-topic to say that hasn't been said already, sorry.

[Pilo]

Remember that persisted spells can still be dispelled, if he buff himself in a combat and a enemy caster see it, he can cast dispell on him (If your NPC doesn't know that the PC is magically improved, it will not be fair to cast dispell magic).

[2xMachina]

IMO, Persisted Lesser Vigor isn't even worth dispelling. It's really not that strong.

[Melnir]

Ok so one of my players is going to take persistent spell, in combination with Divine metamagic (persistent spell). So with 7 turn undeads he can cast mast of his spells as persistent.
The problem is, he asked to cast the Vigor lesser as persistent. If you don't know that spell, its on complete divine and it gives you fast healing 1hp for 10 rounds +1 round / level, maximum 15 rounds. Can he actually cast persistent Vigor lesser and gain fast healing 1hp for the entire day?!?

The only chance I can see of stopping him for casting this spell persistent is the part where the persistent feat says "Spells with a FIXED or personal range..." can have this feat applied on them. I know what personal range is, its very clear which spells have "personal range" but what's a "fixed" range???

Fixed is:

30 ft.
100 ft. + 10 ft./level
touch

Most people ignore this but wizard allowed it (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870454/Persistant_Spell_List_and_FAQ).

[Fyermind]

I'd say it goes. A lot of spells get very shady when persisted, but fast healing isn't really one of them. Does allowing persist MLV also mean allowing persist divine might? That might be a problem. Keep looking for buff spells in the cleric list, there are a lot, and most of them are worse than fast healing if they last all day.

Even looking at the worst case scenario:
If a cleric decides to invest all his wealth in nightsticks and protections against dispel magic and uses all his spells at the beginning of each day to buff himself to the best he can be, he will be a very powerful wisdom based melee combatant. There are really worse things a tier 1 can do to your game.

[PersonMan]

Your GM sounds like a jerk. The entire world changes because he doesn't like the thing I took, and that he allowed?

Suddenly there are hundreds of unavoidable no-xp encounters? Sounds pretty ridiculous. In such a situation, I'd probably take a reserve feat, then gleefully rejoice over the wealth I'm gaining from no resource cost encounters.

I'm going to have to agree. "We don't try out potentially cool, interesting things because we're afraid of our DM making our lives hell for it" does not sound fun to me. Maybe we just have differing definitions, but somehow 'hey, I found a combo to give unlimited healing, is that ok?' does not sound like the beginning of an arms race to me. It's like you're racing against small children who ask you if they can have a head start - you don't say yes and then trip them before sprinting at five times their speed as a response.

I've DMed and played in both low as well as high level games; in all of them, HP hasn't been a big issue. If your mission is to sneak into a camp and rescue a hostage, having Fast Healing instead of healing via spells doesn't really matter much unless you really need to use every single one of your spells.

In my experience, one never uses so many resources on healing that it determines the length of your adventuring day. Even if you are all healed to full HP between fights, you won't keep going once your X-per-day people are out of juice, or once you've completed the mission.

In the end, all it changes, IMO, is that you go from 'ok, combat's over. I cast CMW. *rolls* Now I cast CLW. *rolls* Now I cast CLW again. *rolls* Now I cast CMW again. *rolls* Now I cast CLW again. *rolls* Now I convert Bull's Strength into CMW and cast it. *rolls*' to 'ok, combat's over, let's keep going/ let's rest up a bit and let our Fast Healing do it's work'.

Guess which uses up less game time and reduces bookkeeping?

[panaikhan]

If the Wizard learns Fireball, do most of the monsters suddenly have fire resistance/immunity? If the Rogue focuses on two-weapon fighting, are you fighting lots of undead and constructs? If the Fighter specializes in Spiked Chain, take Combat Reflexes and Improved Trip, and tends to drink Enlarge Person potions or buys the wizard a wand of it, do you find yourselves fighting a lot of large size flying four-legged creatures?
Wizard: it is ultimately down to the DM whether a wizard can learn any particular spell.
To answer the next question - Sorceror: Narrow corridors or vast spaces, limiting number of viable targets (unless the party wants to be extra-crispy)
Rogue: yes.
Fighter: hasn't come up. but we have already fought flying quadrupeds (dragons)
Edit - I'm not saying every encounter is specifically engineered to play to our weaknesses. I'm saying no 'advantage' lasts long enough to break the game. I'd rather be on my back foot and thinking creatively than one-shotting whole encounters and saying "how much XP this time?"

[ILM]

Wizard: it is ultimately down to the DM whether a wizard can learn any particular spell.
Not really, since a Wizard gets two free spells each level.

[panaikhan]

Not really, since a Wizard gets two free spells each level.
So a Wizard's player can pick spells the GM has never seen, nor has any knowledge of?

[ILM]

So a Wizard's player can pick spells the GM has never seen, nor has any knowledge of?
No more than a Sorcerer, which you seemed fine to discuss.

[Elfinor]

It takes hitting some obscure sources, but it looks like touch spells are not counted as fixed range. There is an entry in the 3e FAQ (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20030221a) which clearly defines fixed range and there is no 3.5 ruling to the contrary. The description of the War Weaver's Enlarged Tapestry ability (in Heroes of Battle, a 3.5 book) also distinguishes between fixed and touch range spells.

EDIT: As JeminiZero said, this still means that Mass Lesser Vigor works.

Fixed is:

30 ft.
100 ft. + 10 ft./level
touch

Most people ignore this but wizard allowed it (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870454/Persistant_Spell_List_and_FAQ). Mentioning a house rule can be helpful. Trying to pass off an unknown user's forum post on a WoTC site as 'WoTC approved' material is most certainly not.

[CTrees]

So a Wizard's player can pick spells the GM has never seen, nor has any knowledge of?

A DM is perfectly within his rights to limit book choices-I don't think anyone here would disagree (though many would be unhappy with certain, very restrictive choices).

[NichG]

Infinite out-of-combat healing is available as soon as the party can cooperate enough to communally buy a 750 gp Wand of Lesser Vigor. Lesser Vigor is never going to heal enough in combat to matter.

Basically, there's nothing wrong with infinite-but-slow healing. It doesn't even remotely break the game. It actually very much favors lower-tier classes, since their primary resource is HP, which can be healed, unlike spellcasters, whose primary resource is their spell slots, which cannot be. So it's probably a good thing to have it available.

I think that this analysis is actually reversed in the long run in a campaign with an adaptive DM. I don't mean a DM who gives everyone fire immunity when the wizard learns Fireball, but rather a DM that recognizes that some encounters are essentially being steamrolled and are trivial, and simply allows the party to narratively bypass those encounters.

I mean, if I had a four hour game and each encounter took 45 minutes, and I knew that the goblin sniper ambush was there to deplete party HP so that they'd be winded by the time they got to the boss encounter, then I'd basically say 'some goblins ambush you on the road, but you wipe them out handily - now on to the interesting stuff' if I knew the party could trivially heal to full.

What this'd mean in effect is that on average, more game time would be spent on higher CR encounters. Which would by corollary mean (if I'm not changing the game world/module/etc at all) that more time is passing in a given game session, which means more frequent rests for the Wizards.

[Answerer]

That's an interesting idea; it's possible I suppose. Still, that strikes me as a very good thing for the game, even if it does favor higher-tier classes again.

[MeeposFire]

A fixed range is something that doesn't scale with levels.

100ft + 10ft/level is NOT fixed.
30 feet is fixed.

Btw, i would not allow persistent vigor. It changes the game too much, as you can now wait 5 minutes and you are full health, after every encounter.
Remember, most encounters in a day are there to deplete their resources.
Someone may discover that it is now possible to win most underCRed encounters by just autoattacking or using free powers, taking probably 3x as long, but coming out without resource depletion.

It is also most evident in videogames. In NWN, when you had enough fast healing, you could do encounters by autoattacking and waiting. Boring as hell, but actually the most effective move.

You don't want the most effective move to be the most boring one.


But hey, i hate persistent spells in general, in my games i try to incentivatae players not to take very long duration spells, as i find them detrimental to the game.
Got persistent flight? Very well, now most challenges related to movement are removed from the game.
Big chasm? Fly and take friends one a time. Stuck in a forest? Just fly all day up and direct the others. Land traps? Completely ignored. Etc etc

Actually knowing that characters will have full health increases your knowledge of their abilities and thus makes it easier for the DM to create encounters since that is one less thing to guess about. In addition the only real consequence is that it allows for a longer adventure day since the cleric having healing in spells or items is no longer a limiting factor (granted in most groups that use wands and the like it was never an issue in the first place). Heck don't most groups complain about the 15 minute work day? This works against that even though it does not cure the big problem (the daily spells that actually matter) and I don't think I recall anybody saying that the adventure day is too long (though at times I have heard of an individual battle last that long).

If I was to give persistent anything vigor is the type I would want to allow since it reduces several types of headaches.

[Tyndmyr]

I think that this analysis is actually reversed in the long run in a campaign with an adaptive DM. I don't mean a DM who gives everyone fire immunity when the wizard learns Fireball, but rather a DM that recognizes that some encounters are essentially being steamrolled and are trivial, and simply allows the party to narratively bypass those encounters.

I have actually done this...the narrative bypass is known as the "goblin killing montage". Bandits and terribly low level threats don't always realize that you're badass, and sometimes, you run into an angry bear or whatever that comes after you regardless of being way below appropriate CR. Then, the players just describe how they slaughter their way through it, and we roll onward.

When something's only hitting on 20s, and is going to last like one hit, there's no point rolling dice.

[Melnir]

Mentioning a house rule can be helpful. Trying to pass off an unknown user's forum post on a WoTC site as 'WoTC approved' material is most certainly not.

Wait a minute. I'haven't quoted some random guy and what he thinks about persistant spells.
It's wizard customer service that said touch spells are ok, he just made a list of FAQs and questions he asked to customer service. Of course you can say you don't believe him, but I'm quite optimistic that a user with over 400.000 posts on wizards community is not saying random things.

[Lostbutseeking]

Wait a minute. I'haven't quoted some random guy and what he thinks about persistant spells.
It's wizard customer service that said touch spells are ok, he just made a list of FAQs and questions he asked to customer service. Of course you can say you don't believe him, but I'm quite optimistic that a user with over 400.000 posts on wizards community is not saying random things.

I am afraid to say that your optimism is misplaced.

[Boci]

Isn't touch spells having a fixed range debatable? Yes you can increase your natrual reach, but can't you increase the range of other spells as well, with classfeatures, feats item?

[Tyndmyr]

Wait a minute. I'haven't quoted some random guy and what he thinks about persistant spells.
It's wizard customer service that said touch spells are ok, he just made a list of FAQs and questions he asked to customer service. Of course you can say you don't believe him, but I'm quite optimistic that a user with over 400.000 posts on wizards community is not saying random things.

Wizard Customer Service is mostly irrelevant. My understanding is that I, or any other random high-TO player on these boards, has a broader knowledge of the game than the random person on the other end. The internet has basically surpassed phone support in this area.

[TuggyNE]

Wait a minute. I'haven't quoted some random guy and what he thinks about persistant spells.
It's wizard customer service that said touch spells are ok, he just made a list of FAQs and questions he asked to customer service. Of course you can say you don't believe him, but I'm quite optimistic that a user with over 400.000 posts on wizards community is not saying random things.

The user in question (zombiegleemax) is a catchall placeholder for the numerous accounts that were lost when Wizards converted their forums some years ago. In other words, no information is given about who originally posted it, how many posts they had, or anything else.

[Jack_Simth]

Ok so one of my players is going to take persistent spell, in combination with Divine metamagic (persistent spell). So with 7 turn undeads he can cast mast of his spells as persistent.
The problem is, he asked to cast the Vigor lesser as persistent. If you don't know that spell, its on complete divine and it gives you fast healing 1hp for 10 rounds +1 round / level, maximum 15 rounds. Can he actually cast persistent Vigor lesser and gain fast healing 1hp for the entire day?!?

If you permit the various things that go into it, then:
Mass Lesser Vigor (cleric-3): Absolutely.
Lesser Vigor (cleric-1): Possibly, it depends on whether or not "touch" qualifies as "fixed" when it comes to range. This is subject to interpretation, and DM dependant.

It's not, however, gamebreaking. Past maybe 2nd or 3rd level, out of combat healing is pretty easy to come by anyway. A Wand of Lesser Vigor heals 550 hp before it burns out, and costs 750 gp. 1.(36) gp/hp (or 0.6(81) gp and 0.1(09) xp per hp, plus a feat). The 1 hp/round isn't going to affect a battle, much, beyond the auto-stabilizing nature of the fast healing. A 'long' battle is going to last maybe 3 rounds, and that's less than one hit.

There are much worse things he could be doing to game balance than investing resources into HP healing. If anything, this tactic benefits the skillmonkies and meatshields more than it does the Wizards and Clerics - and guess which side needs the boost? It's fine, really.

[Melnir]

Ok, my fault. I found a FAQ that states that touch spells are not eligible for persistant spell.


Would spells that have touch range, such as spell
resistance, be considered to have a fixed range, and
therefore be usable with the Persistent Spell feat?
No. Range touch is not “fixed” for purposes of the Persistent
Spell feat. The spell must affect the caster’s person (personal
range) or have some effect that radiates from the caster’s
person (a fixed range, expressed in feet).

[Answerer]

The FAQ is not particularly meaningful.

[Melnir]

I know FAQ is not RAW, but might be better than nothing if you don't have a clear RAW interpretation.

[JKTrickster]

Edit - I'm not saying every encounter is specifically engineered to play to our weaknesses. I'm saying no 'advantage' lasts long enough to break the game. I'd rather be on my back foot and thinking creatively than one-shotting whole encounters and saying "how much XP this time?"

I'm not sure but maybe you worded your original response too strongly. You made it sound like the DM was stealth nerfing the characters, or worse, deliberately singling them out to "punish" them for optimizing.

See if the DM doesn't want the characters to go there, he/she can just not allow it. Allowing the rogue to use TWF but negating his only source of bonus damage? Why not just tell the rogue no?

From this edit, it sounds more like the DM is simply not allowing any advantage to win every fight - that's cool. After all, fights should be fun and tactical.

But if your character has say, 3 or 4 tricks, the DM shouldn't be shutting ALL of those tricks EVERY fight (without a really good reason). Being disadvantaged means you can use some creativity to make up for not being able to use all of your tricks. Being deprived of ALL of your class abilities means you're a Commoner with better base stats. Since most games have the premise that you're a hero, that really isn't that fun.

[navar100]

I'm not sure but maybe you worded your original response too strongly. You made it sound like the DM was stealth nerfing the characters, or worse, deliberately singling them out to "punish" them for optimizing.

See if the DM doesn't want the characters to go there, he/she can just not allow it. Allowing the rogue to use TWF but negating his only source of bonus damage? Why not just tell the rogue no?

From this edit, it sounds more like the DM is simply not allowing any advantage to win every fight - that's cool. After all, fights should be fun and tactical.

But if your character has say, 3 or 4 tricks, the DM shouldn't be shutting ALL of those tricks EVERY fight (without a really good reason). Being disadvantaged means you can use some creativity to make up for not being able to use all of your tricks. Being deprived of ALL of your class abilities means you're a Commoner with better base stats. Since most games have the premise that you're a hero, that really isn't that fun.

And some fights you should be able to use all your character's shticks without any disadvantages at all. The whole point of having them is to use them. That's the fun. Just go mano-a-mano against the bad guys giving all they got as you give all you got.

[Elfinor]

Wait a minute. I'haven't quoted some random guy and what he thinks about persistant spells.
It's wizard customer service that said touch spells are ok, he just made a list of FAQs and questions he asked to customer service. Of course you can say you don't believe him, but I'm quite optimistic that a user with over 400.000 posts on wizards community is not saying random things. Erp... I did word my post a little tersely, sorry about that. It's really impossible to tell who originally made the post: ZombieGleemax is an amalgamation of inactive accounts from the Gleemax boards, not one user. Even taking the user's word for it (and s/he stated that CustServ only approved touch spells, not 100 ft. + 10 ft./level ones) there are clear sources to the contrary. An offhand, but nonetheless clear, 3.5 RAW reference (Heroes of Battle) and the 3e FAQ entry you quoted.