Does this spell seem balanced to you?

[Jowgen]

Divination
Level: Brd 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level

Pick a skill: you may use it untrained for the duration of the spell and gain a compentence bonus equal to 4 + CL/2.


The minute long casting time and bonus typing puts a dampner on it, but the uncapped nature of the bonus plus the versitality of using any skill makes me thing this spell might be too good for a 1st level.

Thoughts?

[liquidformat]

I think it is balanced because of the 1 round/level duration and long casting time. If effectively limits its usefulness to things like deactivating a trap, scaling a short stretch of wall, hiding people for an ambush...

[heavyfuel]

It being Persistable makes it far more useful, though that's more of a problem with the feat than with the spell itself.

4+1/2lv means that a mid level wizard will have +9 in any skill they want, including UMD.

Honestly, it's a bit too strong for a lv 1 spell. I'd make it Bard 1, Wizard 2. Perhaps even remove the ability to use skills untrained

[Gnaeus]

In a vacuum not op.
Divine insight is Cleric/Pal 2, gives a bonus of CL+5 for a single skill check, insight. With easier use (1 hour/level, discharged when used). Clearly better, but a second level spell.

My concern would be with the interactions. If you can get both spells (not trivial, but looting spells from other lists can happen), you are CLx1.5+9. Make your spell an insight bonus and that problem goes away.


It being Persistable makes it far more useful, though that's more of a problem with the feat than with the spell itself.

4+1/2lv means that a mid level wizard will have +9 in any skill they want, including UMD.

Honestly, it's a bit too strong for a lv 1 spell. I'd make it Bard 1, Wizard 2. Perhaps even remove the ability to use skills untrained

Good point. Maybe limit it to a single check?

[liquidformat]

limiting it to a single check seems like a reasonable choice.

Another question is what type of skill could it be used on? A balance, tumble, spellcraft, and Jump check typically take a standard action to a round to use. UMD, Climb, handle animal, and Knowledge checks can be variable lengths of time from a round to minutes. And finally things like Hide, Move Silently, Craft, forgery, bluff, diplomacy tend to be measured in minutes or more. Should a spell that is only in effect for round/level be able to effect skills take longer than that duration? Should persisting the spell make it able to effect skills with long cycle time but standardly it only works on skills that have a cycle time equal to or less than the spell duration?

[Fizban]

Nope.

But I "ban" Divine Insight already, so yeah. What's one of the major complaints with the skill system? The fact that there are many published spells which trample all over it. A 1st level spell that works with any skill and adds a bonus which stacks with many other existing spells does not help this. The minute long casting time doesn't matter, because skill invalidation is primarily a problem out of combat. The duration might matter, because many skill checks are supposed to take a while, but many DM's don't actually run those properly anyway, and the when's and how's of mental skills are not well defined enough to wall off similarly undefined spell boosting.

I would say to just a write a spell that boosts the skill you want boosted (and then push it back far enough that the skill is still the best way to do it), but obviously what you want is a spell that boosts any skill. I find this fundamentally incompatible with the skill system, so I have no suggestions to fix it.

[Kalkra]

This is Loresong, right?

[Thurbane]

Has some similarities with Share Talents (PHB2) and Ancient Knowledge (MoE), with a much shorter duration but more versatility.

It has some abuse potential, but I don't think it would be too overpowered.

Actually, Wieldskill is a decent comparison (MoF, 1st level Cleric spell): +10 competence bonus to a skill, can use it untrained, 1 minute/level. It also appears in PGtF as a domain only spell, with a smaller bonus.

[Gnaeus]

Nope.

But I "ban" Divine Insight already, so yeah. What's one of the major complaints with the skill system? The fact that there are many published spells which trample all over it. A 1st level spell that works with any skill and adds a bonus which stacks with many other existing spells does not help this. The minute long casting time doesn't matter, because skill invalidation is primarily a problem out of combat. The duration might matter, because many skill checks are supposed to take a while, but many DM's don't actually run those properly anyway, and the when's and how's of mental skills are not well defined enough to wall off similarly undefined spell boosting.

I would say to just a write a spell that boosts the skill you want boosted (and then push it back far enough that the skill is still the best way to do it), but obviously what you want is a spell that boosts any skill. I find this fundamentally incompatible with the skill system, so I have no suggestions to fix it.

This is legit, because the question “is x balanced” assumes the answer to the second question “balanced against what?”. If you mean “is it balanced against published spells?” Then yes, because divine insight is a published spell, as is wieldskill. It is entirely arguable that Divine Insight is itself unbalanced, against say the average 2nd level spell, whatever that is. And is a spell unbalanced because it breaks the game? This doesn’t. Or is it unbalanced because it makes tier 1 casters even better at replacing low tier classes (the other 2 spells are cleric, this gives that power to the wizard)? This does. So......

[King of Nowhere]

the spell doesn't seem bad per se, but i don't like spells helping skills too much as it risk making the skill monkeys irrelevant.
personally i have a policy that magic can help skill but can never completely replace it, so i wouldn't use it at my table.

[Jowgen]

This is Loresong, right?

Indeed it is. I elected to leave out the name/source so that people would only consider the spell in itself rather than the source, but you get a kudos for recoginizing it.


Has some similarities with Share Talents (PHB2) and Ancient Knowledge (MoE), with a much shorter duration but more versatility.

It has some abuse potential, but I don't think it would be too overpowered.

Actually, Wieldskill is a decent comparison (MoF, 1st level Cleric spell): +10 competence bonus to a skill, can use it untrained, 1 minute/level. It also appears in PGtF as a domain only spell, with a smaller bonus.

Another similar spell would the Improvisation, which is better in that it's Luck types and can also apply to attack rolls and ability checks; but its Bard only, doesn't open up untrained skills, and rather than a static bonus you allocate up to 1/2 CL of bonus to individual rolls as you please (up to a limit of 2 x CL while duration goes on).

[Fizban]

If comparing to Improvisation, another thing to note is how its level dropped like a rock from its original printing, 5th to 1st, as well as being Bard only. Also that a 1/2 level bonus is the kind of thing that won't actually invalidate the skill system. If the difference is that a particular spell is also giving a massive base value sufficient to invalidate the skill of an equivalently leveled character. . .

[Kalkra]

the spell doesn't seem bad per se, but i don't like spells helping skills too much as it risk making the skill monkeys irrelevant.
personally i have a policy that magic can help skill but can never completely replace it, so i wouldn't use it at my table.

Why not, though? I mean, why should magic be able to make you stronger or smarter, or turn you into a musk ox, but not make you better at stuff? I mean, I get that you don't want skillmonkeys to be irrelevant, but you've already made everybody else irrelevant, so why not?

[heavyfuel]

After giving it some extra thought, I have some considerations:

It's a useful spell to have as your own, but it sucks to have on a scroll/wand. However, it's not a particularly useful spell that Bards and Sorcerers would ever spend one of their precious few spells known just to get it.

Getting it through means of a Knowstone costs 1000 gp, which means it's accessible at mid to high levels when this value is nothing, but I don't see someone spending over 10% of their wealth to get it at lv 5 or so, especially with a rd/lv duration.

So it's a low-level spell that only high-ish level casters actually use. A 12th level caster gains +10 competence bonus to any skill for about a minute. A custom item of +10 bonus to a single skill costs 10'000gp, but lasts forever.

I say we make this spell 3rd level for all classes, since a Knowstone of that level is more in sync with the value of the competence item.

That, of course, on top of the "can't use untrained" restriction I mentioned earlier. I also wouldn't be opposed to capping the bonus at +10 or something.

[rel]

It's weaker than a number of published divination spells of comparable level. I'd say it's fine.

[Crake]

If you want to make skill boosting spells balanced, then have them cap their bonus out at a value equal to the number of ranks already invested in the skill, with a minimum value of half the character's max ranks (0.5(level+3)).

That way the skill boosting spells will help classes that are already invested in skills, while not allowing classes with no skills to overtake them, but still letting them perform at a reasonable level.