How common are free Persistent Spells?

[sorcererlover]

Every table I've been in virtually all of the clerics get DMM:Persist.

Online I see people going ZOMG DMM:PERSIST! TO MUNCHKIN! DIE! but in the tables I play it's weird if a cleric doesn't go DMM:Persistent Spell.

And I'm not seeing a problem with it too. I've read threads on this forum about how they're better than uberchargers and impossible to kill, but I'm not seeing it. Every table says nightsticks don't stack either because they say that's how it works or just for balance sake, so everyone is getting like 2 or 4 extended persisted spells up at most. 6 or 8 if you literally dedicate your entire character to it.

Persisted Elation, Mass Lesser Vigor, Recitation, and Righteous Wrath of the Faithful are basically the only spells that can be persisted and they don't do much. All together they're like... +6 to hit, +3 to AC, +4 to damage, and no out of combat healing. Hardly game breaking and they have yet to break a game I've been in.

Divine Favor, Divine Power, and Righteous Might are only for melee clerics and I haven't seen much of those and even then they perform worse than barbarians or other gishes and is rendered worthless by a targeted dispel magic.

Consumptive Field requires a build to it and that's TO, but that's a problem with the spell not persistent spell.

So... how common is it really? Because from online it seemed like some kind of munchkin TO strategy that only the munchiest of munchkins use because it's lauded as a game breaker but in actual tables I've played in everyone full expects you to get at least 1 extended persistent spell per day in your build.

[Quertus]

I almost always persist stuff, on myself and/or on others. Because eating a combat round or two casting buffs is terrible - especially when the Fighter doesn't function without them.

[ExLibrisMortis]

DMM without multiple turning pools/nightstick stacking/spell list-diving/consumptive field isn't so bad.

Incantatrix with body outside body is pretty bad.

Persistent Spell, like everything else, covers a spectrum, in casu from "nicely high-powered" to "every buff forever".

Persistent consumptive field is a very, very nice thing to have. Something like Summon Elemental lets you charge the field for free, which will only take a few minutes after casting.

A cleric with Divine Magician can Persist fun things like draconic polymorph, greater invisibility, bite of the werebear, and so on, so gishing is definitely a very good option.

Targeted dispel magic (and variants) is always a problem, but that's why you use a bead of karma, Elder Giant Magic, ring of enduring arcana, 1/day item of Extended dispelling screen @ ML 12 (28 800 gp), and so on. While it's possible for a dedicated dispeller to reach dispel bonuses in the range of [CL +10], very few spellcasters will have those abilities, and even if they do, they won't be able to punch through your DCs with consumptive field up.

[Arael666]

There are several issues that I think the most problematic

1 - It makes melee obsolete; why play a warblade, a barbarian or a ranger if I can persist amazing buffs, be a better fighter than any other melee class and still have cleric spellcasting to back me up?

2 - It can get to a ridiculous ammount of spells very easy; There are several ways to increase the ammount of spells you can persist, nigthstick is dubious at best, the best, but not the only way; A cleric who's really dedicated to persist can have rubuke dragons or destroy undead, get turn undead from a dip into sacred exorcist and get rebuke undead with a dip into death delver (3 separate turning pools).

With base 18 CHA and a +6 CHA item he will have 7 turns into each pool, wich totals into 21. A single extra turning (a dedicated persister will surely have more than one, but lets go with just one) will add 12 more turns (remember, it add 4 turns to each pool), now we have 33. A single nightstick and a reliquary holy symbol add another 5, we're at 38 now and can persist a total of 5 spells. Using metamagic rods of extend we jump to 10 persistable spells per day.

That being said, the example above is not even that optmized towards persisting. You can really go crazy if you pick a race with a CHA bonus, select more extra turnings and pick metamagic reducers (Dweomerkeeper, easy metamagic and the like);

3 - Depends on what spells you're persisting; sure, righteous might just makes you like any other full bab melee oriented class, but delay death+beastland ferocity renders you immune to death by hit point damage; sonorous hum lets you keep concentration spells indefinitely; G. consumptive field allows you to pick and arbitrarily high caster level and so on.

4 - You can get acess to wizard spells, even in core; Once you throw in wizard spells it gets stupid, and I'm not talking about stacking different bonuses and get a +30 bonus to STR, I'm talking about Shard Blessing Aura, Aspect of the Platinum Dragon, and of course, shapechange.

5 - It raises the play level; being more powerfull just makes the DM throw more powerfull stuff at you, he'll either have to tailor every single encounter and improve every monster you come across (and believe me, that get's tiring very fast) or he'll just throw higher CR monsters at the party, either way you're now playing rocket tag at every encounter.

That being said, I love the DMM persist cleric. It's one of my favorite concepts for a character (a divine champion who uses the power of the gods to enhance his physical abilities and fight evil), yet I know very well you cannot pay this in any table.

[RoboEmperor]

There are several issues that I think the most problematic

1 - It makes melee obsolete; why play a warblade, a barbarian or a ranger if I can persist amazing buffs, be a better fighter than any other melee class and still have cleric spellcasting to back me up?

2 - It can get to a ridiculous ammount of spells very easy; There are several ways to increase the ammount of spells you can persist, nigthstick is dubious at best, the best, but not the only way; A cleric who's really dedicated to persist can have rubuke dragons or destroy undead, get turn undead from a dip into sacred exorcist and get rebuke undead with a dip into death delver (3 separate turning pools).

With base 18 CHA and a +6 CHA item he will have 7 turns into each pool, wich totals into 21. A single extra turning (a dedicated persister will surely have more than one, but lets go with just one) will add 12 more turns (remember, it add 4 turns to each pool), now we have 33. A single nightstick and a reliquary holy symbol add another 5, we're at 38 now and can persist a total of 5 spells. Using metamagic rods of extend we jump to 10 persistable spells per day.

That being said, the example above is not even that optmized towards persisting. You can really go crazy if you pick a race with a CHA bonus, select more extra turnings and pick metamagic reducers (Dweomerkeeper, easy metamagic and the like);

3 - Depends on what spells you're persisting; sure, righteous might just makes you like any other full bab melee oriented class, but delay death+beastland ferocity renders you immune to death by hit point damage; sonorous hum lets you keep concentration spells indefinitely; G. consumptive field allows you to pick and arbitrarily high caster level and so on.

4 - You can get acess to wizard spells, even in core; Once you throw in wizard spells it gets stupid, and I'm not talking about stacking different bonuses and get a +30 bonus to STR, I'm talking about Shard Blessing Aura, Aspect of the Platinum Dragon, and of course, shapechange.

5 - It raises the play level; being more powerfull just makes the DM throw more powerfull stuff at you, he'll either have to tailor every single encounter and improve every monster you come across (and believe me, that get's tiring very fast) or he'll just throw higher CR monsters at the party, either way you're now playing rocket tag at every encounter.

That being said, I love the DMM persist cleric. It's one of my favorite concepts for a character (a divine champion who uses the power of the gods to enhance his physical abilities and fight evil), yet I know very well you cannot pay this in any table.

Do you have a problem with Naenhoon Illumians?

to answer the OP's question, it's very common at my tables too. I have never seen anyone munchkin like Arael666 said but my experience was similar to yours. People like persistent clerics because they buff melees all day. People don't like them when they go munchkin and one shot everything while being unkillable.

The problems are: Multiple turning pools, Nightsticks, Ocular Spell, and Reach Spell. Remove these four interactions with Persistent spell and it's not powerful, it's normal.

[SLOTHRPG95]

I've only run one campaign where players even had access to DMM:Persist shenanigans, but in that limited experience I didn't have any problems. Pretty standard stuff, i.e. persisted Mass Lesser Vigor and the like. With that said, I've never played at someone else's table and had them let DMM in, because of its reputation. I think it really depends on what level of OP your tables generally play at.

[Crake]

I've only run one campaign where players even had access to DMM:Persist shenanigans, but in that limited experience I didn't have any problems. Pretty standard stuff, i.e. persisted Mass Lesser Vigor and the like. With that said, I've never played at someone else's table and had them let DMM in, because of its reputation. I think it really depends on what level of OP your tables generally play at.

Sounds like my experience. I've only run one game with DMM, and it never actually went beyond persisted lesser vigor on themselves to begin with, and then persisted mass lesser vigor later on.

[sorcererlover]

I've only run one campaign where players even had access to DMM:Persist shenanigans, but in that limited experience I didn't have any problems. Pretty standard stuff, i.e. persisted Mass Lesser Vigor and the like. With that said, I've never played at someone else's table and had them let DMM in, because of its reputation. I think it really depends on what level of OP your tables generally play at.


Sounds like my experience. I've only run one game with DMM, and it never actually went beyond persisted lesser vigor on themselves to begin with, and then persisted mass lesser vigor later on.

If it's not a problem then why aren't you running it in every game?

[Elkad]

Separate turning pools is half the problem. If the ability to turn elementals just adds them to the existing pool, you avoid a lot of cheese.

[Mike Miller]

As to the OP, I don't allow persist spell in my games. So, there is one table at odds with the above groups.

[Faily]

The simple truth is that each playgroup is different, and the playstyle of the majority of playgroups don't break the game, in my experience.

I've played DMM: Persist-cleric, I've played Dweomerkeeper, I've seen groups with other strong builds using stuff that is considered OP or Munchkin. Our weekly PF-group have had high-level spells for the last year or so, with Cleric and Sorcerer having access to Miracle and Wish respectively.

And it's never been a problem.

For some tables, these things can be a problem. For others, it's not. Neither is wrong or wrongbadfun. People posting online on forums is only a fraction of the ones playing 3.5 and PF, so for each story you hear about how OP-spells and gimmicks ruin the game, there is another playgroup playing with it with no problems.


So how common is it? I'd guess more common than we think, tbh.

[Crake]

If it's not a problem then why aren't you running it in every game?

Because the players haven't selected it on their characters?

[heavyfuel]

I only ever had 1, and he was allowed to retrain after many dismal performances

DMM:Persist is probably the worst possible use of your resources ever. It's one of the most overrated things in optimization, if not the most. It's only moderately decent with Nightstick stacking, and even then it still kind of sucks.

If a casting of Dispel Magic can absolutely ruin your day, then your character concept is not good at all.

"But what about my ring of counterspelling!!??" you might ask. Well, if you're at the optimization level where DMM:Persist and Nightstick stacking are a thing, then your DM is well aware of the much superior DMM:Twin or DMM:Quicken, which makes you, with your ring of counterspelling, cry.

I don't allow for Nightstick stacking, but if I did, I wouldn't even mind DMM:Persist Clerics. I'd be much more afraid of a Divine Defiance Cleric single handedly nullifying any spellcasters I throw at the party (which is why that feat is 100% banned in my games)

[Quertus]

Play to the power range of the group. If you do that, everything is fine. If you don't... how can you expect the game to work? That seems to apply here, just like everywhere else.

But, to answer the OP better, I've seen lots of Persist (and ways to make it cheaper). But, oddly, it's rarer to actually seen the specific DMM:Persist mechanic at my tables.

[Crake]

I'd be much more afraid of a Divine Defiance Cleric single handedly nullifying any spellcasters I throw at the party (which is why that feat is 100% banned in my games)

Haha, oh yes, I threw one of these at my party once, on a cleric with the inquisition domain, and some finangling to get arcane mastery. Automatic counterspell. The party cleric just straight up gave on trying to cast any spells, ironically EXACTLY as the enemy cleric ran out of dispel magics.

[ExLibrisMortis]

DMM:Persist should be combined with some measures to protect against counterspelling, naturally. I mentioned a few earlier. In any case, actions burned on dispelling are actions not spent on killing you, so it's one spell slot you don't have to worry about. Of course, dispelling eventually reduces to Mordenkainen's disjunction, because all other dispels have caps in the region of 55-60 (surge of fortune roll of 20 + CL 25 chain dispel + 4 Inquisition domain + 5 Master Specialist 10 + 4 Soultouched Spellcasting + 2 dispelling cord = 60), and the dispel DC goes beyond that easily (base 11, CL 24 with bead of karma, CL 36 with consumptive field, CL 54 with greater consumptive field, +4 ring of enduring arcana = 69).

Banning Divine Defiance doesn't make much sense to me. Yes, it's very useful to counterspell as an immediate action, but, like DMM:Persist, it requires some investment to be good, and unlike DMM:Persist, it's useless against entire classes of enemies (those who don't cast spells in combat), and you can't use exotic dispels as part of counterspelling (technically not even greater dispel magic).

[Cosi]

1 - It makes melee obsolete; why play a warblade, a barbarian or a ranger if I can persist amazing buffs, be a better fighter than any other melee class and still have cleric spellcasting to back me up?

It doesn't make melee obsolete. The Cleric who casts Persistent divine power and hits people with a hammer is still fighting in melee. It no more "makes melee obsolete" than playing a Warblade instead of a Fighter or a Fighter instead of a Warrior does.


5 - It raises the play level; being more powerfull just makes the DM throw more powerfull stuff at you, he'll either have to tailor every single encounter and improve every monster you come across (and believe me, that get's tiring very fast) or he'll just throw higher CR monsters at the party, either way you're now playing rocket tag at every encounter.

I certainly agree that playing a DMM:Persistent Cleric in a party that is otherwise at a dramatically lower level of optimization is a problem, but that's a general problem with playing a radically different level of optimization than the rest of the party, not a specific problem with free Persistent spells.

Beyond that, I think saying that "being more powerfull just makes the DM throw more powerfull stuff at you" is a mistake and an oversimplification. No, optimizing isn't going to result in you simply overrunning the entire campaign (usually). But it's not just going to result in the same story but with bigger numbers, at least not if people are putting effort into the game. You can tell different stories with optimized characters than you can with non-optimized ones. Not necessarily better ones, but different ones and ones that people might reasonably prefer.

[Arael666]

It doesn't make melee obsolete. The Cleric who casts Persistent divine power and hits people with a hammer is still fighting in melee. It no more "makes melee obsolete" than playing a Warblade instead of a Fighter or a Fighter instead of a Warrior does.

Agreed, I should have said it overshadows other melee classes, not that it makes melee obsolete.


I certainly agree that playing a DMM:Persistent Cleric in a party that is otherwise at a dramatically lower level of optimization is a problem, but that's a general problem with playing a radically different level of optimization than the rest of the party, not a specific problem with free Persistent spells.

Beyond that, I think saying that "being more powerfull just makes the DM throw more powerfull stuff at you" is a mistake and an oversimplification. No, optimizing isn't going to result in you simply overrunning the entire campaign (usually). But it's not just going to result in the same story but with bigger numbers, at least not if people are putting effort into the game. You can tell different stories with optimized characters than you can with non-optimized ones. Not necessarily better ones, but different ones and ones that people might reasonably prefer.

While I am oversimplifying things, my argument was that it vastly increases DM work, since you have to fix or adjust the chalenges to avoid them being too easy, and that gets tiring (we're discussing why people usualy ban DMM persist). I mentioned the rocket tag because it's a very well known issue that happens at higher levels and with optmized characters, but I end up putting to much emphasis on that instead of my original, and straightforward point, if something increases the DM's workload it has a higher chance of being banned.

[lord_khaine]

I did not have trouble with it because i did not allow nightstick stacking, or for that matter even turning pool stacking.
That made for a cleric that was decently effective without overshadowing anyone.

[SLOTHRPG95]

If it's not a problem then why aren't you running it in every game?


Because the players haven't selected it on their characters?

Yeah, for the most part this just hasn't come up. My players generally aren't the sort to go fishing for powerful build/combo elements on fora, and most of them don't spend their time reading through non-core rulebooks. This is generally true both of the newer players, and the ones who've been playing RPGs (and sometimes specifically D&D 3.5) for a decade or more. I don't discourage players from looking around. It just so happens that the sorts of players that my DMing attracts are (mostly) not the sort to find core (or mostly-core) play unsatisfying.

With that said, all that applies to when I'm running a game in an established, published campaign setting like FR or Greyhawk. If I'm running a campaign in a setting I baked from scratch, then you'd better believe I'm carefully seeing what material fits the world's feel and what doesn't.

[Necroticplague]

I only ever pick up Persistent when I can get it for free. Normally on a Spelldancer build.

[Aetis]

PCs use it at my table sometimes. I use it sometimes on NPCs once in awhile.

It's not overpowered. It's not a big deal.