Are these new spells too powerful?

[sir_argo]

I'll state upfront that I have an ulterior motive for this post. I'm going to do it in two parts. This initial post is part 1.


Are these new spells too powerful? Would you take them on one of your wizard characters?


Armor of the Archmage

9th-level abjuration

Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a piece of plate armor)
Duration: 8 hours

You surround yourself with protective magical force until the spell ends. Your base AC becomes 18 + your Dexterity modifier. The spell fails if you are wearing any armor. The spell ends if you don any armor or if you dismiss the spell as an action.



Eyes of the Archmage

9th-level enchantment

Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: 8 hours

For the duration, you see magic as a faint, glowing aura around any creature or object that bears magic out to a range of 30', and you know its school of magic, if any.

The spell can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt.



Heart of the Archmage

9th-level enchantment

Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: 8 hours

You are imbued with increased vitality. For the duration, at the start of each of your turns, you gain temporary hit points equal to your level.



I made each of these spells as 9th level. I do not believe any of them are overpowered. In fact, I think they are under-powered for a 9th level spell slot. But let's just take it on face value for now. Are these too powerful, or should their spell level be lower than 9? And last, let's keep it at 9th level and ask this question: would you take any of these spells on your wizard?

[Unoriginal]

Armor of the Archmage is way too strong, I'd say. Make it Concentration and up to one hour max, at minimum.

Eyes of the Archmage is not too bad, but I think it lasts too long.

Heart of the Archmage is basically a free 20 HP each round, it's just too much. I'd say it should simply give 75-100 temporary HPs for the whole duration.



What is your ulterior motive, by the way?

[FreddyNoNose]

I'll state upfront that I have an ulterior motive for this post. I'm going to do it in two parts. This initial post is part 1.


Are these new spells too powerful? Would you take them on one of your wizard characters?


Armor of the Archmage

9th-level abjuration

Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a piece of plate armor)
Duration: 8 hours

You surround yourself with protective magical force until the spell ends. Your base AC becomes 18 + your Dexterity modifier. The spell fails if you are wearing any armor. The spell ends if you don any armor or if you dismiss the spell as an action.



Eyes of the Archmage

9th-level enchantment

Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: 8 hours

For the duration, you see magic as a faint, glowing aura around any creature or object that bears magic out to a range of 30', and you know its school of magic, if any.

The spell can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt.



Heart of the Archmage

9th-level enchantment

Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: 8 hours

You are imbued with increased vitality. For the duration, at the start of each of your turns, you gain temporary hit points equal to your level.



I made each of these spells as 9th level. I do not believe any of them are overpowered. In fact, I think they are under-powered for a 9th level spell slot. But let's just take it on face value for now. Are these too powerful, or should their spell level be lower than 9? And last, let's keep it at 9th level and ask this question: would you take any of these spells on your wizard?

Are you the DM? Then only you know what you want in your game.
Are a player and a DM told you they are too powerful and you are USING US in an attempt to change his mind then yes they are too powerful.
Are you a player who wants to use these spells. Then generally players are far too often guilty of making over powerful spells.

So Generally:
If you have to ask if they are too powerful, say they are too powerful.
Players are bad at estimating what is appropriate in these situations.
Players will take advantage to be overpowered. Often knowingly.

[Unoriginal]

Now for the question "would you take those spells for your wizard?", well, I'll just say that they're so powerful that it'd make it a bad bargain to not take them, if power is what you want.

[Naanomi]

That armor Spell lets a Bladesinger rock what... 28 AC? 30 if you add Haste?

[GorogIrongut]

Honestly... these actually seem pretty weak. If I was going up against a level 17+ mage, I'd LOVE for them to waste their level 9 spell slot on any of these spells. They're giving up a Wish or a Simulacrum or a Meteor Storm to cast these.

If you made them level 8 spells, then I'd say they were overpowered.

[Unoriginal]

Honestly... these actually seem pretty weak. If I was going up against a level 17+ mage, I'd LOVE for them to waste their level 9 spell slot on any of these spells. They're giving up a Wish or a Simulacrum or a Meteor Storm to cast these.

If you made them level 8 spells, then I'd say they were overpowered.

On their own they're not that bad, but you can build some ridiculous combo with that kind of stuff.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Hmm. I'd say the AC one isn't too bad. I'd allow a Wish to do something similar, probably.

The detect magic one seems like a waste of a 9th level spell slot. Warlocks can do this for free at level 2.

The temporary HP one feels wrong, somehow. I think it should be a 1 minute duration.

[FreddyNoNose]

Now for the question "would you take those spells for your wizard?", well, I'll just say that they're so powerful that it'd make it a bad bargain to not take them, if power is what you want.

Too true. Hope it doesn't ruin it.

[Unoriginal]

The detect magic one seems like a waste of a 9th level spell slot. Warlocks can do this for free at level 2.


Can the warlock version detect through obstacles?

[Sigreid]

Not one of those is something I would consider spending my 9th level spell slot on.

[Provo]

Yeah, armor of the archmage seems a bit strong. Consider that it works in conjunction with shield (which a high level wizard might be casting without spell slots).

Eyes of archmage possibly a bit weak. It is so easily countered with walls or range. The spell is certainly powerful, but not quite 9th level.

Heart of archmage seems appropriate strength. It FEELS wrong, but temp HP is nothing compared to actual healing since it doesn't stack. Most 9th level casters won't be getting hit frequently (Sorlock is a significant exception)

[Naanomi]

Yeah, armor of the archmage seems a bit strong. Consider that it works in conjunction with shield (which a high level wizard might be casting without spell slots).
AC: 18+5(DEX)+5(Bladesinging)+2(Haste)+5(Free Shield Spell)... AC 35; maybe with Mirror Image in there as well.

If you can get +3 AC out of magic items as well, then every published monster would need a Critical to hit you

[Ninja_Prawn]

Can the warlock version detect through obstacles?

No, but neither can this one. They have the exact same wording as far as I can see.

[CantigThimble]

So the best comparison here is foresight, its also 8 hours, no concentration and 9th level. So, compared to armor of the archmagi its +5 AC vs disadvantage on attacks against you. (Assuming you would have mage armor otherwise) I believe people have calculated that advantage ~ 5 points on the die so they're pretty similar mathematically. Foresight also gives you advantage on everything though, so I think it's better.

Is it stupidly powerful? Yes, but it's a 9th level spell.

[ArtificialElf]

Right. I'm a long term forum-hoverer, but I felt like I had to contribute something here :smallbiggrin:.


Armor of the Archmage is way too strong, I'd say.
I'm going to have to COMPLETELY disagree here. I figure it's worth a comparison to good, but fairly simple 9th level spell: foresight. While this spell gives a reasonable 18 + dex mod, which assuming a very good and also unlikely dex of 20, gives 23 AC, the 1st level spell mage armor can still grant 18 AC. And due to the large bonuses some high level monsters have, a pit fiend is for example still going to hit you 60% of the time; it has a +14 to hit. AC really isn't as huge as people think. Whereas with our good friend foresight, all attacks against us have disadvantage. With the 18 AC of mage armor, and the potential for shield, that means a wizard is still well protected (though I'm not going to do the maths :smalltongue:). But alongside that the wizard can't be surprised, and gets advantage on all attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws (which usually cause the most pain anyway). I'd take foresight anyday, bearing in mind an eldritch knight with magical armor and shield (spell and the actual thing mind :smallwink:) was going to beat your AC anyway.

As for Eyes of the Archmage, I've just checked, and detect magic has the same obstacle penetration. The only difference is that Eyes doesn't take an action to examine the location and type of aura. Oh, and detect magic is a first level ritual spell on every spellcasters list bar warlocks, who get an at will invocation from second level. I really can't grasp in what world a first level spell with a long duration is 9th level. Personally, I'd say based on seeming giving an 8 hour first level spell (to a group) with a debuff use, this should be 5th level. Even then, I'd rather just ritual cast detect magic, since it mostly falls under out of combat fluff.

Finally, Heart of the Archmage actually seems like it could be 9th level. Like an immortal mystic ability plus, IIRC. Honestly, this one may actually be a little too good, but I'm not entirely sure.

TL;DR: 9th level spells are good. Like make dragons out of boulders, turn buildings into gnats, advantage on all the things, go anywhere you like, oh, and you can wish for almost any spell you like good. Aethelm the not-actually-17th-level-wizard wizard wouldn't cast (2 of) these if you paid him. Sorry :smallfrown: (I honestly feel I'm missing something because something like true polymorph seems so much better).

[sir_argo]

Now for part 2... the ulterior motive.

This thread is actually about how powerful a spell becomes with longer duration. I posted this question because of a discussion I had on the D&D Facebook page regarding a guy's proposed demon conjuration spell that has a permanent duration. It summons a CR 9 demon, but unlike other conjuration spells it does not require concentration and does not have a duration. I said the fact it is permanent makes the spell too powerful. So I thought I'd try to determine if permanent duration makes a spell too powerful. I personally don't think any of the spells I posted are worth a 9th level slot. But now let's change their duration to permanent.

Would the spells be overpowered if their duration were increased to permanent? Now would your wizard take them?

[CantigThimble]

Now for part 2... the ulterior motive.

This thread is actually about how powerful a spell becomes with longer duration. I posted this question because of a discussion I had on the D&D Facebook page regarding a guy's proposed demon conjuration spell that has a permanent duration. It summons a CR 9 demon, but unlike other conjuration spells it does not require concentration and does not have a duration. I said the fact it is permanent makes the spell too powerful. So I thought I'd try to determine if permanent duration makes a spell too powerful. I personally don't think any of the spells I posted are worth a 9th level slot. But now let's change their duration to permanent.

Would the spells be overpowered if their duration were increased to permanent? Now would your wizard take them?

The armor spell is only balanced because it is mutually exclusive with foresight, so that would be broken.

The detect magic would be fine, I was actually thinking of suggesting a duration increase to a month.

I'm not sure about the heart one. I've never even gotten close to level 17 so I don't know how much damage you expect to take in one turn.

[Naanomi]

Note: especially broken as Wizard spells, since you can write them in the Spell book from an external source and not 'give up' anything other than the cash. Still wouldn't go out of my way to hunt down the Detect Magic one

[staylost]

I find them all worse than Foresight and Wish.

The eyes and heart ones are terrible. That eyes may be situationally more useful than mid level divinations (you are fighting only magically armed enemies all day). The heart one is just sad compared to the damage output 17th level characters expect to receive. I guess if you were crossing an environmental hazard that did 20 damage a round for the whole day it would be good... or you could just teleport?

The armor is more difficult because you could conceivably Foresight + Armor and be immune to attack rolls except crits. Still a bad choice for a 9th level spell slot, but it is a silver bullet against any martial that can't chunk you in one crit. It would be fun running around killing everything with near impunity until another wizard who chose better spells wiped the floor with you.

Remember, at high level magic users are both difficult to disable and the highest level threats on the board. These spells don't really faze them at all.

[staylost]

Now for part 2... the ulterior motive.

This thread is actually about how powerful a spell becomes with longer duration. I posted this question because of a discussion I had on the D&D Facebook page regarding a guy's proposed demon conjuration spell that has a permanent duration. It summons a CR 9 demon, but unlike other conjuration spells it does not require concentration and does not have a duration. I said the fact it is permanent makes the spell too powerful. So I thought I'd try to determine if permanent duration makes a spell too powerful. I personally don't think any of the spells I posted are worth a 9th level slot. But now let's change their duration to permanent.

Would the spells be overpowered if their duration were increased to permanent? Now would your wizard take them?

Quite obviously if they were permanent they would be as silly as Wish not having the drawbacks described in the Player's Handbook. It would be akin to handing out permanent high level spell slots in this case.

[Drackolus]

Permanent spells are extremely powerful. Permanent spells with no real cost are class features. Things like Clone.

[MrStabby]

Ok, so by themselves i don't think they are too powerful.

As permanent? hells yes they are too powerful.

At 8 hours they are balanced against you not being able to cast a level 9 spell that day. You have a world changing spell... or more armour? It just isn't an issue really, at least in a world where there are effects that need a save.

If they are permanent, then you can have that effect AND a level 9 spell on any day after you have found a spare day or your adventuring was not so hard you needed to crack out your level 9 slot. This is much less restrictive.

[Malifice]

I'll state upfront that I have an ulterior motive for this post. I'm going to do it in two parts. This initial post is part 1.


Are these new spells too powerful? Would you take them on one of your wizard characters?


Armor of the Archmage

9th-level abjuration

Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a piece of plate armor)
Duration: 8 hours

You surround yourself with protective magical force until the spell ends. Your base AC becomes 18 + your Dexterity modifier. The spell fails if you are wearing any armor. The spell ends if you don any armor or if you dismiss the spell as an action.



Eyes of the Archmage

9th-level enchantment

Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: 8 hours

For the duration, you see magic as a faint, glowing aura around any creature or object that bears magic out to a range of 30', and you know its school of magic, if any.

The spell can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt.



Heart of the Archmage

9th-level enchantment

Casting time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: 8 hours

You are imbued with increased vitality. For the duration, at the start of each of your turns, you gain temporary hit points equal to your level.



I made each of these spells as 9th level. I do not believe any of them are overpowered. In fact, I think they are under-powered for a 9th level spell slot. But let's just take it on face value for now. Are these too powerful, or should their spell level be lower than 9? And last, let's keep it at 9th level and ask this question: would you take any of these spells on your wizard?

Too weak for 9th level spells.

I would drop them a level.

True sight is already better than the 'Eyes' spell (and a lower level) and you can cast Detect magic as a ritual anyway for free. I would let the spell also automatically identify the name, effects and ablities (including saves and DCs) of any magic effect, spell or magic item percieved while the spell is active.

20 temp HP a round is nothing at 17th level. Id rather cast foresight granting everyone disadv to hit me and granting me adv (and immunity to surprise). Disadv to attack rolls against you alone is worth 20 hp a round easy.

As for the 'armor' one I'd reduce the AC to a flat AC 20.

Reduce them to 8th level.

[Vaz]

Heart of the Archmage could be, for 8 hours. For comparison, a Feat gives you +25 1/short rest, with a 10 minute casting time. You get +20/turn for a full adventuring day.

The rest seem slightly underpowered.

[Malifice]

Heart of the Archmage could be, for 8 hours. For comparison, a Feat gives you +25 1/short rest, with a 10 minute casting time. You get +20/turn for a full adventuring day.

A 20th level Fiend 'lock is milking 20 Temp HP per round.

A dont think a replenishing (level) temp HP 'shield' is in any way OP as a 9th level spell. At that level you're copping a lot of damage each round in any event. Particularly when you consider the other spells available at 9th (wish, meteor swarm, foresight etc).

I'd happily pick any of them over this bad boy.

I'd be happy dropping it to 8th level and either adding a concentration requirement or requiring a bonus action to 'replenish' the ward.

[90sMusic]

I don't really think Armor of the Archmage is too strong.

I mean imagine a wizard at level 1 with mage armor and 14 dexterity having 15 AC. Most enemies will have around +4 to hit give or take, so they'll need an 11 or higher to hit you.

Your spell is 9th level, meaning it won't be obtainable until level 17. At this point enemies have around a +11-13 to hit (or more). If you still have 14 dex, you're sitting at 20 AC, they'll still only need a 7 or better to hit you. So its still unlikely that it'll help against enemies that are really a challenge to you anyway.

And people, its a 9th level spell. It is on the same level as Wish, True Polymorph, and so on. It is nowhere near as strong as those spells. Honestly True Polymorph can give you more ac as well as hundreds of extra hitpoints and high damaging special powers as well, and casting it an hour in advance means you dont have to worry about concentration either.

This spell would eat his 9th slot. It's not too strong, seems fine to me.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Yes, making them permanent pushes the armour and heart ones into 'way overpowered' and the eyes one to 'maybe acceptable'.

What? Did you expect people to say 'eh, duration doesn't factor into a spell's power at all'? :smallconfused:

[qube]

On their own they're not that bad, but you can build some ridiculous combo with that kind of stuff.This.

Wielding an AC which makes you neih-impossible to get hit for 8 hours, is silly. Giving 18+dex AC to a dex 10 wizard without shield/haste/... spell would be underpowered (maybe even balanced, because the wizard decides his stats to reflect low AC) while giving it to a bladesinger who has a lot of extra features for defense would be overpowered.


So, basically it's a bad spell (you won't take it if it's underpowered for you, and a "must have", if you do have the build for it)


And people, its a 9th level spell. It is on the same level as Wish, True Polymorph, and so on. It is nowhere near as strong as those spells. Honestly True Polymorph can give you more ac as well as hundreds of extra hitpoints and high damaging special powers as well, and casting it an hour in advance means you dont have to worry about concentration either.except, true polymorph makes you lose all your spellscasting ability. it doesn't replace your race - but everything.


The target's game Statistics, including mental Ability Scores, are replaced by the Statistics of the new form. It retains its alignment and personality.
Including, spellcasting ability, even ability to think if you transform into the wrong monster (golem, ooze, ...)

Considering the typical true polymorph examples are dragons, which (CR17 gold & CR20 brass) only have 19 or 20 AC, they are nothing compared to a wizard who focusses on AC.

-------------
In the end: WotC didn't make mage armor increase in power by using higher spellslots. It seems for good reason. So, breaking this would be silly.

[ArtificialElf]

I figure I should mention, but in 5e the longest duration is until dispelled - not permanent (as I believe was corrected in the wording of true polymorph). Not that I find it likely someone will realise you can detect all the magic and decide it's worth their action to dispel :smallwink:.

Anyway, the way I see it, all these spells would be nice if lasting until dispelled. Almost definitely too nice, but I feel like there's another much better way of doing this: magic items.

Magic items are entirely DM dependant, and typically give a permanent but not too beneficial effect for their expected level, or limited charges of a more potent effect. So it's totally up to the DM if you even find a certain magic item, and they have balance mechanics already in place - attunement. For example, if Armor of the Archmage was a legendary magic item, we can compare it to say, the Robe of the Archmagi, for balance. The robe only gives AC 15 + dex, but also offers magic resistance and a good bonus to save DC and attack bonus. Overall? I'd say they're similar in power, though there is no real need for the Armor. Similarly, the Eyes would make a good (and certainly not too powerful) legendary magic item. Because the beauty is, in 5e, rarity need not correspond to power.

Oh, and on an unrelated note: a 17th level wizard can already summon a CR 9 demon until it is dispelled - see true polymorph :smallwink: (man I love that spell).

[BurgerBeast]

Armour: 7
Eyes: 4
Heart: 8 (maybe 7)

The permanent question is weird. It sort of turns a spell into a class feature.

Armour: 7. (I tend to hand-wave Mage armour into a one-cast lasts all day anyway).
Eyes: 5.
Heart: 9.

You've got me thinking though, now, that it might be cool to have some spells (or have some classes that use spells) that can be made permanent as long as the wizard gives up the slot to make it so. This is sort of how concentration spells worked in the first Dragon Age video game.

[furby076]

Well, unless they were permenant, i wouldnt cast any of these spells. Heck, make any beneficial spell permenant and its OP...but a reasonable duration (no more than going from long rest to long rest) is meh

[Theodoxus]

Oh, and on an unrelated note: a 17th level wizard can already summon a CR 9 demon until it is dispelled - see true polymorph :smallwink: (man I love that spell).

CR 9 would be pretty weaksauce for TP. I mean, I guess a 17th+ Wizard could just go to the local adventurer's guild and ask around for a 9th level fighter if he wanted to... "Hey buddy, wanna be a demon?" Nudge nudge, wink wink...

Considering you could turn a 20th level party member into a CR 20 demon (or dragon, or godling, or rock...) and make it permanent (/boggle) I honestly don't think getting a permanent CR 9 pet demon is all that impressive...

Now, if you could get a 9th level Spirit Guardians made permanent, where you could spend an action to declare hostiles... that would be pretty OP ;)

[ArtificialElf]

CR 9 would be pretty weaksauce for TP. I mean, I guess a 17th+ Wizard could just go to the local adventurer's guild and ask around for a 9th level fighter if he wanted to... "Hey buddy, wanna be a demon?" Nudge nudge, wink wink...

I completely agree :smallbiggrin:. I just figured since the OP talked about:


I posted this question because of a discussion I had on the D&D Facebook page regarding a guy's proposed demon conjuration spell that has a permanent duration. It summons a CR 9 demon, but unlike other conjuration spells it does not require concentration and does not have a duration.

That it was worth mentioning that this was essentially already possible with a 9th level spell. And as you mention, TP can be far more effective than creating (or rather, transforming objects into) a CR 9 creature, which is why I feel some people have underestimated the power of a 9th level spell :smallwink:.

[KorvinStarmast]

A dont think a replenishing (level) temp HP 'shield' is in any way OP as a 9th level spell. At that level you're copping a lot of damage each round in any event. Particularly when you consider the other spells available at 9th (wish, meteor swarm, foresight etc).

I'd be happy dropping it to 8th level and either adding a concentration requirement or requiring a bonus action to 'replenish' the ward. Concentration.

in 5e the longest duration is until dispelled - not permanent Exception is teleportation circle after a year of casting it ... but yeah.

[rudy]

Apologies of this was said, but I think the first one might be okay *IF* you add a caveat that it counts as wearing armor for purposes of things that don't work with armor. Like, it would not stack with Bracers of Defense +2, for example.

Bear in mind, folks, that's the ONE 9th level spell for the day... and it only lasts 8 hours. It's an unusually kind GM that causes all encounters to take place in the 8 hour adventuring day.

[Zorku]

Aside from my burning hatred for anything that screws with AC formulas, I don't particularly care if these spells are permanent. What the permanent detect magic spell is mostly going to do is reveal illusions before you have any reason to suspect that there are illusions at play, and maybe tip off magical traps or something, but because the normie duration spell is a ritual, wizards generally have it up during exploration all the time anyway. They only don't get to cast it for free if you surprise them and then force them to rush, but even then they probably just burn a slot to make it happen anyway because they saw through your vain attempt to catch them off guard.

The temp hp kind of bothers me as an 8 hour effect, even though high level encounters are going to take off damage in bigger chunks than that. Every other source of the stuff actually tampers with action economy or requires some kind of expenditure of resources on a rather short time scale. Making it permanent doesn't really change it much so much as it amounts to giving you another level 9 spell slot each day you want to have it, which is epic boon type stuff, so it's sort of got a measurable power level in that sense but I still don't really like it for some reason.

If I just rewrite the armor equation to be exactly what the barbarian gets, except say 10+int+dex, so that I can stop obsessing over the math, then it still feels weird for a wizard, but doesn't seem crazily overpowered as a permanent spell.



The demon summoning thing seems very powerful as a permanent spell because of the assumption that it stacks with itself. If it only allows you to summon a particular demon over and over, then that's a lot like the find familiar/steed spells, except that this thing is presumably a pretty nasty force in combat that can act independently from you. That's really different from existing 5e features, but I don't know if that way would so much be broken. It ends up fitting much more in line with something like a manual of golem creation (I think that the manual is consumed in the process? Either way there's a big time and material cost iircc.) The golems have potential to unbalance a game, but because it's not a spell the DM has a lot more power to halt it or deny the possibility in the first place.