St Fan
2013-01-12, 08:31 AM
Hello there. I’ve been giving some thoughts to personal spells and how to share them to other characters than the caster.
My question is simply: would this be a game breaker?
There are lots of spells (arcane, mostly, but divine casters are probably concerned too) that have a range of “personal” and a target of “you”, probably for game balance. They range from mildly useful to useless (especially those that increase the fighting prowess, since it’s usually a bad idea for an arcane caster to get involved in melee, except for a gish build). Plus some have further drawbacks, such as making the caster unable to use magic for the duration.
The Spell Compendium, especially, is rife with them, but there’s a few in core, like Shield or Tenser’s Transformation.
Now, there are a few way of sharing them to other characters in the party, making them way more interesting, especially the fight-improvement ones.
For spells of level 1-3, potions are the easy way.
For higher-level spells, scrolls or wands and a character with ranks in Use Magic Device can do miracles.
I won’t go into “Magic Jar” shenanigans right now...
A homebrewed metamagic feat can be found on this site (http://www.angelfire.com/la/larryadnd/3rd%20Edition%20Rules.html): Share Spell
Its effect is simple: for a rise in 1 spell level, a personal spell gets a range of “touch” and a target of “creature touched”.
Again, the question is: would introducing this feat, or letting players use other tricks, upset game balance by making spells usually reserved to the caster available to anybody?
My question is simply: would this be a game breaker?
There are lots of spells (arcane, mostly, but divine casters are probably concerned too) that have a range of “personal” and a target of “you”, probably for game balance. They range from mildly useful to useless (especially those that increase the fighting prowess, since it’s usually a bad idea for an arcane caster to get involved in melee, except for a gish build). Plus some have further drawbacks, such as making the caster unable to use magic for the duration.
The Spell Compendium, especially, is rife with them, but there’s a few in core, like Shield or Tenser’s Transformation.
Now, there are a few way of sharing them to other characters in the party, making them way more interesting, especially the fight-improvement ones.
For spells of level 1-3, potions are the easy way.
For higher-level spells, scrolls or wands and a character with ranks in Use Magic Device can do miracles.
I won’t go into “Magic Jar” shenanigans right now...
A homebrewed metamagic feat can be found on this site (http://www.angelfire.com/la/larryadnd/3rd%20Edition%20Rules.html): Share Spell
Its effect is simple: for a rise in 1 spell level, a personal spell gets a range of “touch” and a target of “creature touched”.
Again, the question is: would introducing this feat, or letting players use other tricks, upset game balance by making spells usually reserved to the caster available to anybody?