Divine Metamagic and Persist Spell

[Randomocity132]

Assuming your campaign recognizes the spell Delay Death, is there an argument to simply prepare that as a persisted spell each day, perhaps coupled with a persisted Vigor, to make you virtually immune to death by battle?

[ericgrau]

Neither is a personal spell and therefore ineligible for persist.

[Divide by Zero]

Mass lesser vigor is persistable however, and there are other even cheesier ways around the limitation such as Ocular Spell.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Even if you make it persistable in some way it's pretty much a waste of DMM uses since you're still unconscious and easily killable.
You'd probably get more out of persisting a spell that prevents the damage in the first place.

[ericgrau]

Well if you can cheese a personal range then something to add to the delay death would be the diehard feat. Then you're not unconscious. You only get a move or a standard each round but for a lot of classes like casters, this is enough. Only protects against hp damage but that is quite a start. Next you persist death ward, and continue from there.

[Shazek]

Assuming your campaign recognizes the spell Delay Death, is there an argument to simply prepare that as a persisted spell each day, perhaps coupled with a persisted Vigor, to make you virtually immune to death by battle?

Yep. Use Ocular Spell to give Delay Death and Beastland Ferocity a fixed range, then DMM Persist them. You don't go unconscious this way either. It's a standard trick with super High-Op builds. Think the Twice-Betrayer of Shar popularized it.

[Arael666]

If your GM aproves, you coud use reach spell or occular spell to make it have a fixed range.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I'd rather prevent the damage than take it and die from a well-timed dispel.:smallconfused:

[Arael666]

I'd rather prevent the damage than take it and die from a well-timed dispel.:smallconfused:

You can prevent dispels using string of prayer beads+elder giant magic+Reserves of Strength, resulting in a +11 caster level. I use that trick with GMW and Magic vestment as well for higher bonuses and longer duration.

[sleepyphoenixx]

You can prevent dispels using string of prayer beads+elder giant magic+Reserves of Strength, resulting in a +11 caster level. I use that trick with GMW and Magic vestment as well for higher bonuses and longer duration.

That doesn't prevent dispels, it just raises your chances. It depends on your DM/campaign of course but it's reasonable to assume that a spellcasting enemy is 1-3 levels higher than you.
Aside from using CL boosters of his own if your DM feels mean boosting dispel checks isn't all that hard.
A Dispelling Chord is cheap and the +4 from the Inquisition domain can ruin your whole day. Even a 15 or 20% chance to lose your "haha you can't kill me" spell is a risk i'd rather not take in a serious battle.
Anti Magic Field or Ray care nothing about your CL.

This is all assuming that you rely on Delay Death to keep you alive, of course.
If you have so many TU uses that you don't know what else to persist and the necessary feats to get around persist requirements go ahead, it certainly won't hurt.
I just wouldn't rely on it or persist it over other buffs that might be of a more immediate benefit.
I certainly wouldn't start dumping my HP because "i'm immune to HP damage".

[Verditude]

That doesn't prevent dispels, it just raises your chances. It depends on your DM/campaign of course but it's reasonable to assume that a spellcasting enemy is 1-3 levels higher than you.
Aside from using CL boosters of his own if your DM feels mean boosting dispel checks isn't all that hard.
A Dispelling Chord is cheap and the +4 from the Inquisition domain can ruin your whole day. Even a 15 or 20% chance to lose your "haha you can't kill me" spell is a risk i'd rather not take in a serious battle.
Anti Magic Field or Ray care nothing about your CL.

Which is why you take another page from the Twice-Betrayer - Initiate of Mystra - and persist an AMF as well. Nothing can bring your buffs down except a lucky Disjunction.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Which is why you take another page from the Twice-Betrayer - Initiate of Mystra - and persist an AMF as well. Nothing can bring your buffs down except a lucky Disjunction.

If you DM allows builds like that (doubtful) i would assume that he uses a similar level of optimization in you opponents.
I'd rather avoid giving my DM more reasons to throw circle magic'd Disjunctions at me. :smallamused:

Your buffs will also still fail if you are subject to another AMF since overlapping fields ignore each other and Initiate of Mystra only applies at the time of casting.
Additionaly you will have a 50% spell failure chance (from the CL check) unless you find some way to lower your CL for AMF or constantly boost your CL afterwards.

It's also a bit pointless since there are easier ways to protect yourself from death by hp damage. As a theoretical build it's nice but it's hardly necessary or even practical in most games.

[Silva Stormrage]

Which is why you take another page from the Twice-Betrayer - Initiate of Mystra - and persist an AMF as well. Nothing can bring your buffs down except a lucky Disjunction.

If your dm lets you use Twice betrayer then you have other issues to worry about. Your DM would be more likely to start spamming disjunctions using adamantine horrors (Disintegrate also works quite well as if it hits you die if you are in negatives automatically).

[Randomocity132]

Even if you make it persistable in some way it's pretty much a waste of DMM uses since you're still unconscious and easily killable.
You'd probably get more out of persisting a spell that prevents the damage in the first place.

Only from save-or-die spells. Your unconscious body will eventually stand up again with Vigor going.

[Silva Stormrage]

Only from save-or-die spells. Your unconscious body will eventually stand up again with Vigor going.

Does delay death prevent coup de graces? If not then thats an easy way of killing the person. What about drowning? Suffocation? Cutting of their head? Its a decent trick, especially if you chain it to all allies but its not invincible.

[hobbitkniver]

How has no one mentioned persistent time stop?

[Silva Stormrage]

How has no one mentioned persistent time stop?

Because you can't do that, its was errated to be counted as an instantaneous spell instead of having a duration.

[Eldariel]

Your buffs will also still fail if you are subject to another AMF since overlapping fields ignore each other and Initiate of Mystra only applies at the time of casting.
Additionaly you will have a 50% spell failure chance (from the CL check) unless you find some way to lower your CL for AMF or constantly boost your CL afterwards.

You should definitely cast a bunch of AMFs first and then buff yourself; buffs cast afterwards work just fine with Initiate. Twice-Betrayer used Shadow Magic, of course, but Initiate of Mystra is kinda better if you can make it work. Obviously you always expect Disjunction if no holds are barred; it's the most obvious spell to cast in every fight ever.

[ericgrau]

Does delay death prevent coup de graces? If not then thats an easy way of killing the person. What about drowning? Suffocation? Cutting of their head? Its a decent trick, especially if you chain it to all allies but its not invincible.
Crit immunity does though. Armor of heavy fortification and you're set. It's obviously not invincible yet because it only works against hp damage. But it takes way longer than a fight to get your armor off or etc. Next you start piling on other immunities and perhaps a timed auto-escape.

Killing you and then also dispelling you is a bit rare among foes. Even if they can, knowing to attempt it is incredibly unlikely. What's more likely, but still very rare, is to be hit by a random dispel and then killed. That PC can flee, or have a backup buff and flee if both are removed. I wouldn't worry about it too much but once you get spare gold you get a ring of counterspells set to greater dispel magic.


Because you can't do that, its was errated to be counted as an instantaneous spell instead of having a duration.
I prefer to think that the actual duration (in real time) is changed to 24 hours and it still contains 1d4+1 rounds of apparent time for the caster :smallbiggrin:. But that isn't actually so and this is a bit of a tangent.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Dispelling is not all that rare in my experience. Depends on your DM i guess.
That aside, you still need to spend 18 TU uses for this (Delay Death, Mass lesser Vigor, Beastland Ferocity). Unless you use all your feats for Extra Turning and/or your DM allows Nightstick-stacking that's probably a good chunk of your available daily uses.
And you still want some or all of Divine Power, Divine Favor, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Righteus Might, True Seeing, etc. persisted.
All of those are more useful or more important than Delay Death imo.

[Chronos]

Killing you and then also dispelling you is a bit rare among foes. Even if they can, knowing to attempt it is incredibly unlikely.
By the level you're getting something like this up, you can probably count on a fair chunk of your opponents having Arcane Sight (or at least Detect Magic and a decent Spellcraft roll) easily available. Consider what PCs do when they defeat a challenging opponent: They immediately cast Detect Magic to see what loot is worth keeping. One should expect opponents to do the same. And if, when they do so, they see that the "corpse" still has active spells on it, including conjuration (healing), they're probably going to figure out what's going on.

[sleepyphoenixx]

By the level you're getting something like this up, you can probably count on a fair chunk of your opponents having Arcane Sight (or at least Detect Magic and a decent Spellcraft roll) easily available. Consider what PCs do when they defeat a challenging opponent: They immediately cast Detect Magic to see what loot is worth keeping. One should expect opponents to do the same. And if, when they do so, they see that the "corpse" still has active spells on it, including conjuration (healing), they're probably going to figure out what's going on.

Or they just see your wounds visibly healing. Since you don't look like a troll it's pretty safe to assume you are a spellcaster of some sort.
Or they set you on fire anyway, destroying your body and thus overcoming your Delay Death.

[Randomocity132]

Or they just see your wounds visibly healing. Since you don't look like a troll it's pretty safe to assume you are a spellcaster of some sort.
Or they set you on fire anyway, destroying your body and thus overcoming your Delay Death.

Would setting on fire do that to a regenerating body (assuming you don't have a fire weakness like trolls do)? Isn't fire just a source of damage?

I mean realistically, yes that makes sense, but this is D&D, so I'm more inclined to say that your wounds would heal the burn damage eventually.

Decapitation would probably do it, along with Destruction, Disintegrate, Phantasmal Killer, Slay Living, etc.

I don't think a coup de grace would, considering all that does is make sure you deal full damage. That's just more hit point loss. However, if you're dealing more than 50 points and get the massive-damage fatality, that would probably do it, since that isn't tied to how many hitpoints the target has remaining, seeing as you can do it to someone with a hundred hitpoints left.

[Chronos]

A coup de grace has two effects: First, it's a guaranteed hit and critical hit (not necessarily maximum damage), which does indeed deliver a big pile of HP damage (especially since you can Sneak Attack and/or Power Attack for full). Second, though, it also forces a Fort save-or-die with a DC based on the damage done (which, in practice, will usually be so high that you'll live only on a natural 20).

[Randomocity132]

A coup de grace has two effects: First, it's a guaranteed hit and critical hit (not necessarily maximum damage), which does indeed deliver a big pile of HP damage (especially since you can Sneak Attack and/or Power Attack for full). Second, though, it also forces a Fort save-or-die with a DC based on the damage done (which, in practice, will usually be so high that you'll live only on a natural 20).

Well then that fits the parameters of the 2nd part of my statement, if a coup de grace forces the save-or-die.

[lsfreak]

Because you can't do that, its was errated to be counted as an instantaneous spell instead of having a duration.

Can you point me to this? Because it's not in the PHB errata, and consensus on these boards, when I've been off-and-on over the last seven years, is that it works by RAW.

[Randomocity132]

Can you point me to this? Because it's not in the PHB errata, and consensus on these boards, when I've been off-and-on over the last seven years, is that it works by RAW.

SRD describes it as making you incredibly fast for a single round, as if you had been given several rounds to take actions with, so it would be a targeted self-buff with a duration. I don't see why it couldn't be persisted, unless you can't modify domain spells.

[olentu]

Can you point me to this? Because it's not in the PHB errata, and consensus on these boards, when I've been off-and-on over the last seven years, is that it works by RAW.

Well they might be talking about the 3.0 FAQ entry. If not then I can't remember any other place that kind of thing was mentioned at the moment.

[ramrod]

*cough* disintegrate *cough*


I hope that this is an intellectual exercise and not for realsies.. There are just much easier ways of doing these things than blowing all your dmm and feats for an eventuality that you shouldn't be planning for anyway...

Be better and avoid death to begin with. Pay some local farm boy to funnel healing pots into your mouth, have contingent spells, use items to do the same thing.

Dmm should be used for better things (or not at all, saying that from a cleric point of view too lol)

[Eldariel]

*cough* disintegrate *cough*


I hope that this is an intellectual exercise and not for realsies.. There are just much easier ways of doing these things than blowing all your dmm and feats for an eventuality that you shouldn't be planning for anyway...

Be better and avoid death to begin with. Pay some local farm boy to funnel healing pots into your mouth, have contingent spells, use items to do the same thing.

Dmm should be used for better things (or not at all, saying that from a cleric point of view too lol)

Immunity to damage is pretty nice. No need to worry about Orbs, Dragon Breath, acid paths or any number of things. Honestly, damage is usually the most common form of offense you'll encounter so being immune to it is quite convenient.

[ramrod]

Immunity to damage is pretty nice. No need to worry about Orbs, Dragon Breath, acid paths or any number of things. Honestly, damage is usually the most common form of offense you'll encounter so being immune to it is quite convenient.

Absolutely... I'm all with you on this. I can count the number of times I've had SoD aimed at me on one hand versus the thousands of times I've been whacked for HPs. My point was just that there are much easier ways than wasting DMM, which should be used for preventing you from getting to that point anyway, or just use items if you have a big phobia of death lol.

Feats are too precious to waste on delaying death! I might make allowances if you were a meat shield and regularly stand in harms way, but even then you shouldn't be standing toe to toe for several rounds if that is the case and your DM shouldn't really be throwing creatures that can wipe a well equipped party tank in 1 round.