Spheres of Power - spellcrafting permanent effects

[Eldaran]

I have a question on how to handle spellcrafting permanent effects via the advanced talents of Alteration and Illusion, possibly the Creation and Death ones as well. Spellcrafting seems to be balanced by the increased casting time and spell point expenditure, but for a permanent effect you can spend the time and SP in advance, gaining a very powerful effect for no cost. The same can also possibly be applied to metamagic feats on permanent effects, though I'm not sure how many are applicable.

For example, you can spellcraft an alteration effect and stack a bunch of aegis talents on top, gaining a bunch of permanent buffs. Also short duration effects like time's haste ability, permanent areas of dark/light, and many other things.

How would you balance this? Simply not allowing spellcrafting/metamagic on permanent effects seems like an effective solution (but harsh), or possibly reducing the duration by one or more steps via the normal spellcrafting rules? If so, does permanent go to hours/level or days/level?

[stack]

Short answer is 'whatever works at your table'. Permanent durations are definitely undefined in relation to the duration table.

Making an hr/level effect may be better done coming from the other direction, increasing the base duration, but there may be cases it makes more sense to go the other way. I've never turn the numbers on that actually.

[Waddacku]

It's really a place the system leaves to GM adjudication. Depends on whether you consider permanent buffs suitable for the campaign or not. That's also the reason the permanent alteration is an Advanced Talent to begin with, of course. If you play at high enough optimization levels, it might just be what's needed for some characters to keep up! It might also break the game for you. There's no one-size-fits-all answer here.