Why is permanency restricted to just the spells it says?

[eyebreaker7]

Is it just for game balance or is there a particular reason? Not a single cleric spell? I know perm is a wiz/sorc spell but what if your a cleric/mage or something?
And why are some spells restricted to just yourself for making permanent? Again, game balance?

[Powerdork]

A lot of spells, it simply doesn't make sense to make permanent when you can just cast them again. Spells that last days/level already.
A lot of spells, it's unclear what permanency even does for it. Spells like heat metal, or spells that are instantaneous.
A lot of spells, the designers may not have seen a demand for, such as confusion or control water.
Some spells, the designers may have suspected would have been too much. Consider greater arcane sight and how it compares to arcane sight in this regard, or consider what you could do if you could use your adventurer funding to give a small platoon invisibility.

But the premise of your question isn't right to begin with.

"The DM may allow other selected spells to be made permanent. Researching this possible application of a spell costs as much time and money as independently researching the selected spell (see the Dungeon Master’s Guide for details). If the DM has already determined that the application is not possible, the research automatically fails. Note that you never learn what is possible except by the success or failure of your research."

[eyebreaker7]

Yea a platoon of invisible beings would be a bit much. lol. But couldn't you do something similar by making a bunch of cloaks with permanent invisibility on them?
I was thinking like spells with a duration such as darkness or daylight or the spells listed for personal use to be used on others as well.

[Nifft]

Historically the spell was restricted.

The original reason was probably game balance, or game balance + emulation of the source material.

For example, being able to make permanent guards and wards wouldn't do much for most players, but it helps DMs who want to justify why an ancient Wizard's tower still has ongoing magical protections -- and the spell itself probably came from a book, where someone did exactly that.

Allowing PCs to use permanency at all is frankly kinda odd, especially in an edition where PCs have explicit rules for making magic items.

[Powerdork]

But couldn't you do something similar by making a bunch of cloaks with permanent invisibility on them?

The difference is that a magic item lasts after the subject, inevitably, dies.

[Tvtyrant]

Is it just for game balance or is there a particular reason? Not a single cleric spell? I know perm is a wiz/sorc spell but what if your a cleric/mage or something?
And why are some spells restricted to just yourself for making permanent? Again, game balance?

Permanency is assumed to be used by a higher level foe against the party, but in 3.5 all rules apply equally so the party can use it to. Dispelling the evil wizard's fortress is hard, them dispelling the permanently giant dwarf is easy.

[RNightstalker]

Is it just for game balance or is there a particular reason? Not a single cleric spell? I know perm is a wiz/sorc spell but what if your a cleric/mage or something?
And why are some spells restricted to just yourself for making permanent? Again, game balance?

1. Balance
2. Balance
3. Balance

Imagine Persistomancy on a whole new scale, that won't even eat up your daily spell slots.

[SimonMoon6]

Permanency is overall a strange spell.

It tries to seem impressive by being such a powerful spell that it costs XP to cast. But it can still be dispelled and then you've wasted your XP. And frankly, if you have a lot of buffs up, any sensible spellcaster is going to start off combat by dispelling your buffs, so it's not a weird corner case that "maybe somebody would someday dispel your spells". No. It's going to be pretty much tactic #1. So, you're going to waste any XP that you spend on any spell that's buffing you or a friend.

The spells you can use it on are categorized in 3 categories:

(1) Spells you can only use on yourself, which are the most minor of low level sensory advantages, with I think the highest level one being Tongues. Sure, you could spend 500 XP to make a cantrip (detect magic, read magic, etc) permanent... or just realize that you're high enough level to simply cast it as many times as you need (or get a wand if you really think you need more). These are all stupid options, though possibly flavorful (Flavor: I don't have to cast read magic, I can ALWAYS read magic... unless someone casts dispel magic on me).

(2) Buffs that you can cast on anyone... but they're not the good stuff, like Bull's Strength. It's the weird corner case "some people might occasionally find this useful" spells, like enlarge person, reduce person, and magic fang. Oh, and another cantrip (resistance). Again, all terrible options to spend XP on.

(3) Stuff PC's won't use. These are the cool spells for setting up stuff in a dungeon, like Magic Mouth, Wall of Force, Prismatic Sphere... or stuff that could be cool except that they can only be cast on object, so they're not cool (Invisibility). I mean, great, you can make all the chairs in your home be permanently invisible. Whee!

So, basically, Permanency is made to be a spell that won't ever be actually useful (at least not for PCs), so you need to go buy/make items if you want magic that lasts for a while. So, that's why you can't just use it with any old spell. Permanency might be useful it you did... although it still is a bad idea to sink XP into a dispellable buff.

[King of Nowhere]

Some spells, the designers may have suspected would have been too much. Consider greater arcane sight and how it compares to arcane sight in this regard, or consider what you could do if you could use your adventurer funding to give a small platoon invisibility.


not much at all.

first of all, it would cost something like 30 thousand xp or so.

this platoon, besides being invisible, won't have any boost. meaning they'll still need a natural 20 to hit something that your party fighter can hit with a 2, and they won't deal any significant damage.
and third, as soon as they go against any level-appropriate challenge, they are getting dispelled.
because, seriously. if you have access to permanency and you have nothing against invisibility, you should not be in the game.

1. Balance
2. Balance
3. Balance

Imagine Persistomancy on a whole new scale, that won't even eat up your daily spell slots.

if they were trying to keep balance, they should not have made any polymorph.
seriously, permanencing stuff costs a ton of xp, that you lose every time you are dispelled. it's not persistomancy, it's self level-drain.

my players at some point had virtually unlimited money and tried to pay to get permanent buffs on them, but they gave up after being dispelled the nth time. granted, the big bad being a team of four 20th level casters that would all start a fight with disjunction (possibly followed by a quickened disjunction too) helped it.

SimonMoon analyzed it in more depth.

[Tvtyrant]

Also SLA Permanency isn't that hard to get, in which case you can spam it all the time.

[HouseRules]

It's also an old school style meta-magic. In old school style, meta-magic is a separate spell that you need to cast; usually before, but sometimes after; the spell it modifies.

Extend Spell (meta-magic) doubles duration in 3e; Spell Level +1.

In Supplement I Grayhawk

Extension I is a 3rd Level Spell, Extension II is a 4th Level Spell, Extension III is a 5th Level Spell, etc.
Summon I is a 3rd Level Spell, Summon II is a 4th Level Spell, Summon III is a 5th Level Spell, etc.


So comparing OD&D and 3E shows that OD&D has weaker magic.
Many Spells drop in levels withing changing their effects through the evolution of editions.
Most Meta-Magic Spells are no longer separate Spells.

[Thunder999]

Because many spells aren't meant to be available permanently.
It's like how custom magic items require GM permission. The designers figued the listed spells shouldn't be a problem to have permanent and wanted stuff like a permanently invisible door or permanent teleportation circle to be possible.

Permanent enlarge person is an OK way to let the fighter take those fun large size only feats (the other being polymorph any object), permanent see invisiblilty is nice because you often won't know there's anything invisible about until it's too late otherwise, arcane sight is fun to automatically recognise whenever anyone/anything has spells on it and may well counter many illusions by revealing them as such.

[HouseRules]

There's also racial features that are permanent level 2 spells: such as low-light vision, and dark vision.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

The real issue with Permanency is that it's dispellable, and is hit by basically any dispel effect. Compare that to magic items, which are only dispelled when directly targeted, and are suppressed for 1d4 rounds. Make Permanency'd spells cast on a person suppressed for 1d4 minutes and suddenly it's a reasonable expenditure, right now its a good way to delevel yourself.

As for OP, Permanency costs 500 xp per spell level, minimum 500, and requires a caster level of 8+spell level, minimum 9. Make it apply to any personal-range spell or area effect with a duration, reserve the right to ban any abuses of it, and no one will bat an eye.

[NigelWalmsley]

As for OP, Permanency costs 500 xp per spell level, minimum 500, and requires a caster level of 8+spell level, minimum 9. Make it apply to any personal-range spell or area effect with a duration, reserve the right to ban any abuses of it, and no one will bat an eye.

That sounds kind of awful. It seems like that would end up either being worthless (and therefore wasting everyone's time), or encouraging players to sink XP into dispellable buffs instead of character levels, creating a deeply unfun situation where the players are overpowered, but if the DM tries to do anything to mitigate it they'll become dramatically under-powered. If you wanted to do that, you should just make "permanent buffs" into alternate fluff for magic items.

[Endarire]

@OP
Because Gygax, that's why.

I changed permanency so dispelling a permanent effect only suppressed it for d4 rounds. Also, allowing many or most buffs to be made permanent for a significant EXP cost is sorta like a mid-game pick-your-own-level-adjustment.

[Thunder999]

You can totally buy scrolls with the xp cost included if you prefer spending gold to xp.
It's mostly just an alternative to convincing your GM to let you make custom constant effect slotless magic items.

Honestly past a certain level you're super screwed by dispels anyway so just have to focus on preventing them (a ring of counterspells on one finger, and a ring of spell battle on the other is a decent start)

[NigelWalmsley]

Honestly past a certain level you're super screwed by dispels anyway so just have to focus on preventing them (a ring of counterspells on one finger, and a ring of spell battle on the other is a decent start)

I would super rather have someone cast Dispel Magic on me than Finger of Death on me at basically any level. Dispelling hurts, but it is far from the worst thing a high level caster can do to you.

But anyway, the problem with Permanency isn't that it can be dispelled, it's that getting dispelled is permanent. If your magic items get dispelled, that's a debuff that will end in fairly short order. But getting a Permanency'd magical effect dispelled costs you a bunch of GP/XP.

[Afghanistan]

I would super rather have someone cast Dispel Magic on me than Finger of Death on me at basically any level.

You would rather them dispel your Death Ward/Soulfire Armor, and then Finger of Death you?

[Fizban]

From a previous thread, I quoth myself:


For example, should it only be harmless spells with a duration of hours/level or longer? Are there any exceptions to that, and if so do they follow a pattern?All you gotta do for that is look at the spells and find the pattern- that also means looking at the 3.0 list and seeing what changed.

Self only: basic magical senses. Read/Detect Magic, Arcane Sight, Darkvision, See Invisibility, Comprehend Languages and Tongues. 3.0 Didn't have Arcane Sight, so you can see it was brought in as an extension of Detect Magic, but Analyze Dweomer isn't on either list. Darkvision is usually given out all but free as a racial ability, while See Invisibility is a very general effect- it can also be noted that Sor/Wiz does not have Spot/Listen, making permanent See Invis a very specific counter that doesn't help with serious stealth creatures that have the skills. No True Seeing.

Other creatures: Enlarge/Reduce Person, Magic Fang/Greater and Resistance. I'm not sure what compelled them to add Telepathic Bond, but it's the highest level of the spells, and Greater Magic Fang is really just an extension of the basic version. 3.0 didn't actually have Reduce on there either, or GMF, so we can see that they decided that greater version was worthwhile, and also both Enlarge and Reduce as a set.

Areas and locations, now this is where it gets interesting. There's no flat physical effects, terrain alterations or transmutations, it's all energy, wards, and creep.

-Creep: Stinking Cloud, Solid Fog, and Web are the most "physical," all of which can be pushed through or physically removed. Note the conspicuous absence of higher level Acid Fog or Incendiary Cloud.

-Manifestations of energy: Dancing Lights, Ghost Sound, Gust of Wind, Invisibility, Wall of Fire, Wall of Force, Prismatic Wall, Prismatic Sphere. Note that Wall of Ice is conspicuously absent, despite being the same level and having far fewer implications than Wall of Fire, why is this?

-Wards/symbols: Alarm, Magic Mouth, Symbol of X, Mage's Private Sanctum. Note the conspicuous absence of Dimensional Lock, despite them coming from the same 3.0 source, as well as the lack of Guards and Wards. Just permanent symbols, sound/talking program/trap, and creature detection trap. No Explosive Runes, Fire Traps, or Sepia Snake Sigils, and it can also be noted that Symbol was originally one spell with different options.

-Object manipulation: Animate Objects, Invisibility, and Shrink Item, with Animate Objects not being present in 3.0. I'm pretty sure that was added simply because there was no way to actually create animated objects, while permanently invisible and shrinkable objects are things that pop up in fantasy from time to time. There's no Magic Weapon, no Heat Metal, Levitate, or hardly much else though, so clearly this is a very limited category.

-"Because I said so": That all leaves Phase Door and Teleportation Circle. The former being an exceedingly good escape route/hidden passage for the owner, and the latter being both an official core one-way portal (for the same plane) and explicitly set up as the "you don't even know you were teleported" trap for making impossible mazes. This category could also include Prismatic Sphere, as it lets the caster simply 5' step into their own personal safety bubble, great for giving a high level caster advantages in their base.


So what spells are conspicuously absent? The missing creep spells are higher level and deal damage to those passing through, more weapons than a delaying tactic. The missing "manifestation of energy" spell that gets me is Wall of Ice: it deals damage, but so does Wall of fire- but Wall of Ice also impedes movement with it's own physical hp, worse than the creep spells that aren't allowed to damage people.

You can have what might be called environmental energy with Gust of Wind, Dancing Lights, and Ghost Sound, as well as the harmless but unbreakable Wall of Force, often featured as a building material in high level dungeons, and Prismatic Walls, a "more threatening" unbeatable wall with a gimmick also featured in high level dungeons.

There are specific traps you can make permanent, basically alarms, talking, and the high level Symbol trap which has a bunch of specific mechanics, but none of the one and done low-level traps. Symbol must explicitly be visible to function.

You're allowed to permanently shutter the curtains against divination, but not stop teleportation- that remains the sole domain of the clerical Forbiddance spell.

You're allowed to hide, shrink, or animate objects, but not make them better weapons or do anything outside of themselves.

You're allowed to make portals that can move people without their noticing.


What's the theme? Stuff that high level bad guys can use to harass the PCs and be "high level wizards," without "unfairly" causing them a bunch of damage on the way. Let them teleport in, but not scry the bad guy's plans. Let the bad guy see and understand them without wasting spells buffing, but not give him a bunch of free power buffs. Set up "magical terrain" that can be combined with minions but is only dangerous if they jump into it, traps that they can either see literally written on the wall or which merely move them around.

Edit: and to be clear, duration is not really a factor. There are spells with durations of rounds and even 1 round in there (Gust of Wind is actually impossible to Permanency thanks to the 2 round casting time), in addition to minutes or concentration or until discharged. Permanency is not about paying xp to stop cycling your extended long duration buffs.


In addition, Permanency is currently only a Wiz/Sor spell. Would it be game breaking to give it to Clerics and Druids at the same spell level? I cant see why it would, but you never can tell.
Aside from Magic Fang and Animate Objects, there aren't any permanent-able spells that are divine only. Divine casters have their own permanent effects: Hallow, Forbiddence, and Glyph of Warding for their traps. They don't have the "arcane science/boss tech" prerogative drawn from the "arcane magic does anything I want" theme.

There's one missing bit: Savage Species, as mentioned, has more permanent-able spells. These. . . are pretty clearly not written by someone who was paying attention. It's basically a lit of all the buffs in the book. Some of them can be justified: Blindisght is strictly better than See Invis, but at least it's similar, same with Scent (which is Sor/Wiz 2 in that book), and Low-Light Vision is spot-on, Greater/Superior Resistance are higher level versions of Resistance, Bridge of Sound and Illusory Pit are harmless terrain/traps.

But the rest are just straight power: Air Breathing has no allowed Water Breathing analogue from the PHB; Extend Tentacles, Fins to Feet, Cloud Wings, Fuse Arms, Girallon's Blessing, Rapid Burrowing, Weapon of Energy, and Wings of the Sea are just buffs (and Wall of Limbs is a physical wall with damage). The best that can be said is playing them off as mad science using permanency to make monsters, but it's a blatant pile of buffs that laughts at the PHB permanency list. They have Improved Enlarge on there when it isn't even an upgrade- it's a longer duration version of the 1st level effect, which has no reason to be made permanent, but it's on the list because Enlarge is on the list and they just slapped it on there.

So back to putting Permanency on the Cleric and Druid lists: well they only have a couple spells that even appear on the list, so it's hardly going to affect anything. Making a bunch of their spells permanent-able is the risk, and since you're the one who decides what game-breaking is, that's up to you.

-Edit: was skimming back through Tome and Blood and found more missing/official 3.0 permanencies. Enhance and Fortify Familiar, Familiar Pocket, Dispelling Screen, Spiritwall, and Dimensional Lock. So it's real odd they kept Arcane Sight and Private Sanctum but not Dim Lock. I was quite gratified to see Dispelling Screen and Spiritwall right after I'd put them on my own shortlist for expanding permanency.

[NigelWalmsley]

You would rather them dispel your Death Ward/Soulfire Armor, and then Finger of Death you?

Well, rather that than what? Presumably the alternative is that they case some Save or Die that I'm not currently immune to, so yes I would rather them do the thing that takes them two actions to do instead of the thing that takes one. I'll grant that if you have dispel-able immunities to every offensive spell, you're pretty worried about Dispel Magic, but that's pretty far outside the norm.

[Aotrs Commander]

The spell says "DM discretion" for very good reason.

I am put finishing up completing shifting (a fair chunk, not even all) Pathfinder spells into my house-rules to the existing fair chunk (and not even all) of 3.5 spells and there are now I would hazard something on the order of three THOUSAND spells available in my game. I think that proves that it would be completely impossible for the writers of any edition to be able to predict what spells could come along afterwards and whether they should be permenant-able or not (later spells that are say so). Furthermore, a blanket rule won't work, because there is so much varity that you HAVE to take each instance on a case-by-case basis, because whatever blanket rule you set is going to fail at some point. And making massive list of every spell that you could make permenant every single time (or even globally after the fact as you could now with (official) 3.5 or PF1 when no more expansion is coming) - or the inverse, a list of spells you CAN'T - would simply be a huge time-sink for very little gain in practise.



Myself, I am very much for permenant spells being permenantly dispellable and permenant-able spells being very limited in scope for the absolute and express purpose of dissuading the PCs from using them on themselves (as opposed to, like, their home base or something). That is a can of worms that such not be opened, as what's good for the goose is good for the gander. So if the PCs are going to persist buffs, any and all NPCs in a position to do so (because it would be stupid to do so in an environment where it is possible to do so) will all persist buffs too and the BBEGs will do it for ALL the buffs, because they very definitely aren't stupid. And no-one really wants to deal with a permenantly buffed cleric (really, REALLY rendering the martials moot) coming at them from the other side of the screen (from either side), nor when a simple targeted Dispel becomes as tedious a the worst versions of Disjunction. Buff spells, in my opinion, should absolutely not become a tacit class feature as soon as the PCs get enough cash.

[Afghanistan]

Well, rather that than what? Presumably the alternative is that they case some Save or Die that I'm not currently immune to, so yes I would rather them do the thing that takes them two actions to do instead of the thing that takes one. I'll grant that if you have dispel-able immunities to every offensive spell, you're pretty worried about Dispel Magic, but that's pretty far outside the norm.

I mean Quicken Dispel Magic comes online at the same time as Finger of Death is what I am saying, and furthermore, most Spellcasters are going to want to pick up Quicken Spell by at least 9th or 12th level (assuming they aren't losing spell slots). I'll concede that the gold standard of immunity is racial immunity (Necropolitan and other Undead being the king in this regard), however this is exceptionally far from the norm and most immunities do in fact come from magical immunities because unfortunately of the core playable races, none of them have the immunities necessary to justify walking around without some magical immunities at high levels. I think this more than merits and justifies the Ring layout you responded you, if only because most creatures aren't Necropolitans.

This is of course ignoring how suboptimal Finger of Death is. Save Or Dies, while common, are not necessarily the bests uses for 7th level spell. That in mind, given the sheer importance of magic items and spells for these immunities, immunity to one of the few options that just shuts all of them down is kind of important, if not imperative.

[NigelWalmsley]

This is of course ignoring how suboptimal Finger of Death is. Save Or Dies, while common, are not necessarily the bests uses for 7th level spell. That in mind, given the sheer importance of magic items and spells for these immunities, immunity to one of the few options that just shuts all of them down is kind of important, if not imperative.

Consider the margin. Suppose that you have gotten yourself Death Ward and are now considering either some anti-Dispel protection or Mind Blank. Which one is the better one to take? It seems pretty obvious to me that you'd prefer the thing that stops your opponent from hitting you with Dominate Person to the one that costs your opponent an extra action/spell slot before they hit you with Finger of Death. Is there some point where you'd want to get immunity to dispelling? I suppose, but the vast majority of even optimized campaigns won't reach that point, because immunity to death is better than immunity to debuffs (on account of death being worse than debuffing).

[Afghanistan]

Consider the margin. Suppose that you have gotten yourself Death Ward and are now considering either some anti-Dispel protection or Mind Blank.

Let's presume that you are a 15th level character, the absolute bear minimum to have Mind Blank (excessive, sure, but you selected the spell) and you have your 200k gold from Wealth. Would you truly be breaking the bank, by purchasing, or crafting a Ring of Counterspelling, some 4,000gp, and an Armor of Soulfire, at minimum 16,000gp? No. This is 1/10th of your Wealth to essentially ignore the two most common types of assault that you selected yourself. And even further, lets presume that we want the immunity to mind effecting that Mind Blank offers. We can receive this for the same price of the Ring of Counterspelling, at some 4,000gp, from a custom item of constant Protection from X.

So you can reasonably afford both. I have no idea why you are even suggesting this is a "this or that" type of scenario :smallsigh:


I suppose, but the vast majority of even optimized campaigns won't reach that point, because immunity to death is better than immunity to debuffs (on account of death being worse than debuffing).

I'm not exactly sure where you are getting this information on how "the vast majority of even optimized campaigns" play out, how long they generally go for, and what generally flies, but I do agree that straight up dying is worse than being debuffed, but that is pretty much all we're really agreeing on here.

[NigelWalmsley]

So you can reasonably afford both. I have no idea why you are even suggesting this is a "this or that" type of scenario :smallsigh:

Yes, you can buy both. But there are other defenses you might also want. At some point something has to give, and it's usually going to be dispelling protection, because that doesn't actually stop death spells. Now, it is true that you can defend against Dispel Magic cheaply. It might be true that there are various points where your leftover money can afford a 4k Ring of Counterspelling, but not some actual defensive item. But "it's not nothing and you have money to burn" is very different from the urgency you're ascribing to it.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

Yes, you can buy both. But there are other defenses you might also want. At some point something has to give, and it's usually going to be dispelling protection, because that doesn't actually stop death spells. Now, it is true that you can defend against Dispel Magic cheaply. It might be true that there are various points where your leftover money can afford a 4k Ring of Counterspelling, but not some actual defensive item. But "it's not nothing and you have money to burn" is very different from the urgency you're ascribing to it.

The thing is, as a high-level caster, Dispel Magic is death. Once characters pass about lvl 10-15, the game starts being "what mechanics do I not want to worry about anymore?". Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, True Seeing, Energy Immunity, Contingency, Astral Projection, even Shaped AMFs, at this point you should be pushing immunity to anything that can actually harm you. Given that, a war between to high-level Wizards either relies purely on loads of Divinations to figure out what defenses your oppt has so you can find the one thing he didn't ward against, OR you show up, hit him with a couple spells to strip those buffs, and then kill with whatever's handy. Under those circumstances, Immunity to Dispel/Disjoin is exactly as valuable as Immunity to Mind Control.

[Thunder999]

Being dispelled at high level is deadly, and enemies with greater dispel are common (to say nothing of the terrifying creatures with at will greater dispel as an SLA).

As an example Death ward is all that stands between you and a wide variety of horrible death effects and energy drain, along with certain undead creatures' ability damaging attacks.
A perfectly reasonable encounter could have one enemy greater dispel then a creature with energy drain on hit full attack you, and suddenly unless you've lost most of your best spells, a fair chunk of hp and are worse at everything.

Many enemies just have a bunch of really nasty effects, often on hit, as gazes, as auras, or as free or swift actions and you really need to just be immune if you want to reliably survive.

I'll never forget the session where we knew the enemy had death effects so waited until the next day to assault them with death ward on everyone, but the enemy used AOE greater dispel, one guy lost his, rolls poorly on one of his fort saves and that's the end of him.

Or perhaps you want the creature with a +50 grapple modifier that noone is escaping without freedom of movement.

[King of Nowhere]

i also have to point out that if you have a good fort save you can skip the death ward thing, and if you have a good will save you can skip the mind blank, or you can get the lesser thing as protection from evil.
in fact, if your party is not the kind with the players whining over using spell slots for anyone but themselves, you should have all the party members with weak fortitude protected by death ward, and all those with weak minds protected by protection from evil, every day. at that level you can afford to cast those spells a half dozen times per day easily, they are low level spells as far as your party is concerned, and you don't really have much else you may need at those spell levels.

on the other hand, protection from dispelling is harder to do with temporary buffs.

as for the most common attack against which to defend, it depends on the table. some enemies may try to hit you with finger of death first. some others will assume that you are proteted from all major avenues of attack and, rather that trying to guess which one you left open, will just try to dispel all.
regardless of specifics, a permanent spell is very dangerous to have on. no matter how good your defences, it's unlikely that it will never happen that something will slip through them.

by the way, if you die and are resurrected, do you keep your permanent spells or not?

[RNightstalker]

by the way, if you die and are resurrected, do you keep your permanent spells or not?

I would imagine not.

[Powerdork]

The game is somewhat ambiguous about whether a dead creature is still a creature or just an object, or at which point the former becomes the latter, but nothing about permanency suggests it needs to be cast on living creatures, meaning you need to rely on the Target line of the spell made permanent to judge.

[Nifft]

The game is somewhat ambiguous about whether a dead creature is still a creature or just an object, or at which point the former becomes the latter, but nothing about permanency suggests it needs to be cast on living creatures, meaning you need to rely on the Target line of the spell made permanent to judge.

The body of a creature becomes an object; the creature may or may not continue to exist in a different form, depending on local cosmology and / or metaphysics.

And yeay, living shouldn't be considered necessary for permanency -- spells like guards and wards are only applicable to a location, and the BBEG lich or vampire really ought to be able to make spells permanent on itself.

[King of Nowhere]

if your body is intact i can see a good case for keeping permanent spells, but in case your body is disintegrated and resurrection provides a new one? I can see a good case for not keeping them

Just like i don't think a castle would keep a guards and wards if it is reduced to rubble

[Kelb_Panthera]

by the way, if you die and are resurrected, do you keep your permanent spells or not?


I would imagine not.

I don't see why not. The magic's duration hasn't lapsed and it's not tied to the target's life force in any way. That goes for non-permanent spells too. Revivify is a thing and you don't want the easiest, most realiable dispelling short of disjunction to be getting one-shotted.

[eyebreaker7]

iby the way, if you die and are resurrected, do you keep your permanent spells or not?

I don't know about 3rd edition but in 1st and 2nd somewhere in the rules it said that spells were lost and needed to be re-memorized. I don't remember the reasoning. It's been a looooong time.

[Asmotherion]

It's mostly meant to be a restriction on the Caster, instead of enabling them to create magic items and buffstacks on a whim.

Post Core, it doesn't matter, as there are multiple ways to gain buffstacks, but it's effective if you play core only.

[Tvtyrant]

I don't know about 3rd edition but in 1st and 2nd somewhere in the rules it said that spells were lost and needed to be re-memorized. I don't remember the reasoning. It's been a looooong time.

The spells were precast and you just used the finishing words to finish casting it. It comes from Tales of a Dying Earth by Jack Vance, and is why it took multiple days in some versions of the game to recover higher level spells.

[Elkad]

I only make my players pay the XP cost once.

So once you Enlarge and Permanency the Fighter (paying the 500xp), you can do it again for no XP cost if it gets dispelled.

I considered just making Dispel Magic deactivate the spells for 1d4 hours or something. Which might be even better.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The spells were precast and you just used the finishing words to finish casting it. It comes from Tales of a Dying Earth by Jack Vance, and is why it took multiple days in some versions of the game to recover higher level spells.

I believe eyebreaker was talking about the reasoning for losing prepared spells upon resurrection, not the reasoning for why spells are prepared in general.

Unfortunately, there's no mention in the 1e or 2e DMG as to whether permanency'd spells or memorized spells remain when you're resurrected; the only hard rule I can find to that effect is the 3e rule on losing prepared spells when you're raised.

[magwaaf]

because like my buddy kyle found out that when people don't go by the list they have to have hundreds of thousands of gold refunded and spells and abilities he thought he could just have removed lol... it was a process and took forever lol

[Bohandas]

I don't know why its just those spells but I can see why some spells would be excluded. For example, putting permanancy on Greater Magic Weapon would make it kind of pointless to put large enhancemsnt bonuses on magic weapons since you could just create a +1 sword of whatever and then use permanent greater magic weapon to raise the enhancement bonus

[el minster]

I would imagine not.

it would probobly depend on the spell