How can you protect your Permanencied spells from Dispelling?

[SinsI]

If you cast Permanency on a buff affecting yourself, it can only be dispelled by a caster of higher level than you were when you cast the spell.

It means that as you rise up in level, more and more enemies will have no problem destroying your hefty earlier XP investment with a single spell or spell-like ability.

Is there any way to protect your investment - to increase the level of existing spell, or to apply some kind of Spell Lock that must be dispelled before anything you've Permanencied on yourself can be dispelled?

Or maybe some way to trade casting time/spell slots to drastically increase your caster level when you cast Permanency?

Bonus points if it can protect other uses of Permanency as well.

[Silva Stormrage]

Ring of Enduring Arcana + Prayer Beads of Karama are a good option in general to prevent buffs from being dispelled.

[SinsI]

Prayer beads of Karma are for Divine casters, Permanency is a Sorcerer/Wizard spell.

Thus, instead of helping - they *hurt*, as enemy Divine casters have Dispel magic, too.

[Forrestfire]

A pair of +1 Spellblade gauntlets, set to Dispel Magic and Greater Dispel Magic. 8,302gp each, grants immunity to the targeted versions (and also sends them back if you want).

For good measure, maybe grab a +1 Spellblade braidblade or armor spikes or just a Ring of Counterspelling, and set that one to Arcane Turmoil.

Doesn't protect you from area dispels, but it'll drop a lot of the risk.

[Zanos]

Prayer beads of Karma are for Divine casters, Permanency is a Sorcerer/Wizard spell.

Thus, instead of helping - they *hurt*, as enemy Divine casters have Dispel magic, too.
Prayer beads don't specify which CL they increase. If an arcane caster UMDs them or can cast divine spells their arcane spells benefit.

[Silva Stormrage]

Prayer beads don't specify which CL they increase. If an arcane caster UMDs them or can cast divine spells their arcane spells benefit.

^ This. Frankly it doesn't even state that you NEED to be a divine caster to activate them. A divine caster automatically knows how to use the beads and can simply tell you how they work.

Also clerics can get permanency on their list too. Time Domain grants it as a spell I believe.

If you have a psion in your party dispelling buffer might help too.

[SinsI]

A pair of +1 Spellblade gauntlets, set to Dispel Magic and Greater Dispel Magic. 8,302gp each, grants immunity to the targeted versions (and also sends them back if you want).

For good measure, maybe grab a +1 Spellblade braidblade or armor spikes or just a Ring of Counterspelling, and set that one to Arcane Turmoil.

Doesn't protect you from area dispels, but it'll drop a lot of the risk.
Unfortunately, it is only good against those two spells. There are other SLAs and spells (~20 of them, AFAIK) that can dispel...

Area dispels are not really a problem - any 24 hour long buff of higher level automatically serves as the abovementioned Spell Lock.

[Forrestfire]

Well, they're the two most common ones, at least. And cheap enough to get those out of the way, and then you can send the other resources on stopping the others.

[Rebel7284]

Dweomerkeeper can cast a spell as a supernatural ability. This makes it not subject to dispelling.

[SinsI]

Dweomerkeeper can cast a spell as a supernatural ability. This makes it not subject to dispelling.

Permanency has a casting time of 2 rounds.
Supernatural Spell works only on spells with casting time of up to 1 standard action. :(
You can't quicken spells with casting time longer than 1 full round.

The only way to do it is by using that ability on Wish/Limited Wish to emulate Permanency.
But that already makes the problem moot - your Supernatural spells are XP-free.
And it comes a little too late.

[Silva Stormrage]

Permanency has a casting time of 2 rounds.
Supernatural Spell works only on spells with casting time of up to 1 standard action. :(
You can't quicken spells with casting time longer than 1 full round.

Rapid Spell + Quicken Spell? Probably with a metamagic rod to reduce costs.

Getting permanency as an SU ability also removes its XP cost so thats a good option if a bit cheesy.

[SinsI]

Rapid Spell + Quicken Spell? Probably with a metamagic rod to reduce costs.

Won't work. "A spell can be made rapid and quickened only if its original casting time was 1 full round. "

[Dimers]

Depending on how your DM runs contingent effects, you might use Craft Contingent Item feat to use your own dispel magic to counterspell incoming dispel attempts, teleport you out of the area of effect, blast the caster to break her concentration, et cetera.

Third-party: Relics and Rituals includes a 4th-level illusion spell, ghostdweomer, that acts as a one-time buffer against dispelling. You can have one such spell running on each item or spell you have.

In conjunction with the enchanted items noted by other posters, you could try to arrange to always have a high-level, low-caster-level spell in operation on you. Then any area dispels will try to remove that before the permanency and will auto-succeed, ending the buffer spell but leaving the permanency intact. And if the offending dispel attempt is targeted, then the items prevent the problem. Dunno if there's a RAW way to drop CL, though.

[Silva Stormrage]

Won't work. "A spell can be made rapid and quickened only if its original casting time was 1 full round. "

Ah missed that. Arcane Spellsurge then?

[SinsI]

Ah missed that. Arcane Spellsurge then?

Still not enough. Reduces to 1 round action - but can only speed up 1 full-round actions.

But I like Dweomerkeeper solution. Wizard 5/Dweomerkeeper 8 can use Limited Wish as Supernatural Ability at lvl 13 - earlier than even Permanency itself allows to make, say, Prismatic Wall permanent. And no 4500 XP needed.

It means you are only at risk for 4 levels at most, from 9th to 13th.

[Syrinth]

Alternately, you could combo several spells together.

Spell Enhancer from the Spell Compendium
Death Knell from d20srd
Mass sacrifice of chickens via Consumptive Field to give yourself a further caster boost.

Yes, I know that the last two there are Cleric only spells, but you're a wizard. Be creative. I'm sure you can find a way to fake those UMD checks.

Assuming a CL of 9 to start

11 from Spell Enhancer
12 from Death Knell
18 from Consumptive Field

[Zancloufer]

Alternately, you could combo several spells together.

Spell Enhancer from the Spell Compendium
Death Knell from d20srd
Mass sacrifice of chickens via Consumptive Field to give yourself a further caster boost.

Yes, I know that the last two there are Cleric only spells, but you're a wizard. Be creative. I'm sure you can find a way to fake those UMD checks.

Assuming a CL of 9 to start

11 from Spell Enhancer
12 from Death Knell
18 from Consumptive Field


Very nice CL boost, only lasts 10 rounds though. Also You'd have to cast Spell Enhancer last as it only has a 1 round duration, so you'd only get 17 CL from that combo. Not to mention it wouldn't reliably stop a Dispel Magic if they really wanted to take your buffs.

Fun fact, you can EMPOWER Dispel magic. At CL 9 the average roll of a Empowered dispel magic would dispel CL 19 spells. So unless you have a way of more than DOUBLING your effective CL, you won't reliable stop Empowered (Greater) Dispel Magic spells that way.

Best way IMHO would be Celerity while you have a (Greater) Dispel magic prepared/available to counter-spell with. Other wise they can just hit you with a Empowered Area Dispel Magic (At CL 20, Empowered Greater Dispel hits CLs of 20-49 horrifyingly enough).

[ericgrau]

The most basic method is action economy. You limit yourself to 2-4 permanencied spells and buffs. If they do get dispelled, you recast later. Xp is a river (you get extra whenever you're briefly behind a level) so you'll get the cost back after not too long. Why does that work? A dispel might only get half your buffs, and that's assuming your enemy is equal to you, and costs your enemy his turn. Even if your DM is mean and suddenly starts dispelling you repeatedly, the ability to eliminate the action of a powerful foe is more powerful than whatever buff you had up anyway. More likely foes will rarely dispel; how do they even know you have any significant buffs? So most of the time dispel isn't even an issue and needs nothing to address it.

Boosting your caster level or countering dispel on top of that is nice if you can find an easy way, but I wouldn't waste huge resources on it.

For area dispels pumping up the caster level of a magic mouth above your other buffs is an old trick. So then foes have to target you specifically to get anywhere. Then scatter buffs across yourself and allies and the dispeller's wasted turn becomes that much more pointless.



But I like Dweomerkeeper solution. Wizard 5/Dweomerkeeper 8 can use Limited Wish as Supernatural Ability at lvl 13 - earlier than even Permanency itself allows to make, say, Prismatic Wall permanent. And no 4500 XP needed.
Is there a trick to get around the divine casting requirement without losing a caster level? That would be pretty nice and not only for permanency.



Fun fact, you can EMPOWER Dispel magic.
I don't think you can. The roll is variable and it's numeric, but it's not the effect. I think a FAQ or something nixed maximize in fact.

[Syrinth]

It sounds very suspect that you could empower the Dispel check... but I admit that I'm unsure.

*Mind racing trying to think of other spells that have a similar effect but cannot be empowered and I cannot think of anything.

Additionally to the comment on my above spell comboing:

Yes, it only lasts for 10 rounds, but I only need it to last long enough to cast the spells I want permanencied and then cast permanency *shrug*

[Zancloufer]

Empower Spell (Metamagic)
Benefit

All variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by one-half.

Saving throws and opposed rolls are not affected, nor are spells without random variables. An empowered spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell’s actual level.

So the max CL a Dispel magic can effect is a Numeric Variable right? You roll the d20+x and if you effect spells with a CL equal to your roll -11. It's not a saving throw or opposed roll, and it's not a static number. By RAW I don't see anything saying you CAN'T.

Also iirc you CAN Maximize and Empower Time Stop. Why is it that you can effect the DURATION of apparent time with Empower/Maximize but not the power of Dispel Magic?

On the Note of FAQ/Errata: I haven't heard of that before this thread. Any idea what book/site it came from?

@Spell Combo: Yeah the duration of Death Knell/Consumptive field is effectively null, but my point about Spell Enhancer. It HAS to be the last spell you cast, therefore you would only have CL 10 before Consumptive field, making it's buff only to 15, 17 with Spell Enhancer (as it only effects the spell(s) has next round).

[Syrinth]

Valid point, or you could just cast several. I mean, at this point you might as well just go for it :P

If we're arguing metamagic shenanigans as viable, you'd also be able to maximize and empower the thing as well for a dispel check of... ridonc.

I agree that I don't believe there's anything in RAW that covers it, but I definitely don't think it's RAI.

[Segev]

The spellblade gauntlets sound like they'll work well for the targeted dispel/greater dispel versions. I am not positive; I don't know those items too well, myself. But if they do what is said here, they should work.

That leaves area dispel. Area dispel works on only one spell on any given creature (in this case, you) in the area. And that spell is specifically the one with the highest caster level.

So what you do is you make your permanent spells have the lowest caster level you can without impeding their efficacy, and then you cast a long-duration buff with the highest CL you can muster at the start of every day. It needn't be impressive. It's job is to be a buffer against the spells you actually care about being area-dispelled.

[Zancloufer]

So what you do is you make your permanent spells have the lowest caster level you can without impeding their efficacy, and then you cast a long-duration buff with the highest CL you can muster at the start of every day. It needn't be impressive. It's job is to be a buffer against the spells you actually care about being area-dispelled.

Except if the CL of the highest spell is TOO high, Dispel Magic Won't cancel it out, and jump to the next spell.

Area Dispel only stops trying to Dispel Spells after it has either: A) Succeeded in cancelling a spell (starting with highest CL 1st), or B) has tried and failed at dispelling everything. So in all actuality something like ~10-20 spells with a higher CL than your permanency, but still low enough to be dispelled, is the only way to make a 100% effective buffer.

[Curmudgeon]

For area dispels pumping up the caster level of a magic mouth above your other buffs is an old trick.
Magic Mouth is almost the cheapest permanent spell you can get. (Arcane Mark is cheaper, but has the annoying property of not being dispellable.)

"Look! Up in the sky! A whale!" is probably only going to be dispelled, never triggered and spoken.

[Seclora]

If you've made it to Epic levels, the Tenacious Magic(page 68, ELH) feat allows you to make one(1) spell you can cast impossible to dispel, with dispel instead only suppressing it for 1d4 rounds. Contingency and Permanence are obvious choices.

[captain fubar]

dispelling buffer is a nice method of protecting ones buff stack if psi magic transparency is in effect. if you haven't been pumping your caster level for some reason a solar has permanency as a 20th caster level sla. even if your caster level is below your ecl you can ask the dm how much consumptive field use is permitted before it is considered abuse.

[Xianth]

Fun fact, you can EMPOWER Dispel magic. At CL 9 the average roll of a Empowered dispel magic would dispel CL 19 spells. So unless you have a way of more than DOUBLING your effective CL, you won't reliable stop Empowered (Greater) Dispel Magic spells that way.



You can't Empower Dispel magic. It's plainly excluded in the wording of the empower spell feat.


All variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by one-half. An empowered spell deals half again as much damage as normal, cures half again as many hit points, affects half again as many targets, and so forth, as appropriate. For example, an empowered magic missile deals 1-1/2 times its normal damage (roll 1d4+1 and multiply the result by 1-1/2 for each missile). Saving throws and opposed rolls (such as the one you make when you cast dispel magic) are not affected, nor are spells without random variables. An empowered spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level.