Phantom Steed

[lianightdemon]

Is it just me or does this spell seem like it should have a longer duration.
Even cast as a ritual to use it for travel you would need to recast it every hour which would take 11 minutes each time. Seems kind of annoying to have to stop so much each hour just to re conjure your horse.

Thoughts?

[MadGrady]

Is it just me or does this spell seem like it should have a longer duration.
Even cast as a ritual to use it for travel you would need to recast it every hour which would take 11 minutes each time. Seems kind of annoying to have to stop so much each hour just to re conjure your horse.

Thoughts?

Personally - if my DM is going to be that nit-picky over travel time in-game, I would find a new DM lol. However, to actually answer your question - yes that seems absurdly irritating if fully acted out.

[Zariel]

In our playthrough we and ours GM just ignored the 11 min cast time.
Well not entirely. One of us who can cast it just cast it while sitting on a horse :D Because why not?
Unless you have different opinion i would like to hear it :)

[Dalebert]

This and Unseen Servant should last 8 hours, if not immediately then at a higher spell slot. Though since they're rituals, they should just last 8 hours.

[Zariel]

Reaching to math and of course if our GM allows it there is reason why this spell only last 1 hour.
With that we can gallop on our phantom steed (granted we have road to gallop on) with speed of give or take 45 miles per hour(72,5 km/h).
How we do it:
We can gallop for only 1 hour.
Our phantom stead last 1 hour.
When the recast is near we cast another one (this is also the part where you must have your GM ob board(or horse)).
And our new horse is a new one, fresh.
Once more we gallop! 8h later we are (+-)360 miles later.
Now math(again we need our GM open minded):

Our phantom stead have speed of 100ft. With dash he will have 200ft. With gallop we have 400ft per round.
400*10(rounds in 1 min) = 4000ft/min * 60(min in h) = 240000 ft/hour. Changing it to miles/h we will have 45 miles and 800 yards. (Oh god i hate this metric system).

If your GM or you have a problem with it you can always gallop and use the fast pace of 13 miles/hour and just double it with gallop. 26 miles/h is meaby not so great speed(in comparison to 45miles/h). But well...
You still are 8 times faster than somebody traveling with normal pace :)

With this stead being with you for 8h, you could of course recast it. But with just 1 cast you could be galloping for 1h.

[Giant2005]

Even with a 1 hour duration and 11 mins casting time it is a better deal than using a normal horse.
At a fast pace your phantom steed covers 13 miles in 1 hour 11 mins; or 967' per minute.
At a fast pace a standard horse covers 8 miles in 1 hour; or 704' per minute.
I'm happy to deal with the extra hassle if it means I move (And get to my destination) 37% faster.

[JoeJ]

Even if you have to stop every hour and spend 11 minutes casting the spell again, you're still traveling 10 miles every 71 minutes at a regular pace or 13 miles in 71 minutes at a fast pace. That comes to 67.6 miles in an 8 hour day, or 87.9 miles at a fast pace. Compared to normal travel speeds of 24 or 30 miles per 8 hour day, that's an incredible improvement.

Having to stop after each hour of travel might be annoying for the characters, but the player can simply say, "I recast the spell as many times an I need to until we get there." Any halfway competent DM will fast-forward time until the PCs get to their destination, or there's an encounter, or something else happens that is interesting enough to be worth playing out.