What spells SHOULD be Personal range only?

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

A small number of spells in D&D 3.x and Pathfinder 1e are self-only, like alter self (duh), mirror image, and shapechange. D&D 3.x and PF1e each have mechanics to allow at least some self-only spells to be made into touch range spells or otherwise able to affect other subjects. A bunch of these self-only spells are notably powerful, such as the ones mentioned above - at least in 3.x. However, self-only spells are inherently selfish unlike, say, haste, which can affect subjects besides the caster.

Thus, from the perspective of players and GMs, what are the likely impacts of changing all self-only spells to touch range spells and modifying their verbage to account for the possibility of affecting others? I know that Persistent Spell (3.5) may need changing to account for this change, and the Bonded Mind/Share Spells teamwork feats from PF1e are effectively automatically granted to everyone. What else changes?

Ultimately, a question I want answered by the crowd is, "What makes a single subject spell worthy of being personal only when it could and likely should instead be of a different range like touch?" My design goal was to make buffs castable on others like martial characters who likely needed them more, instead of just encouraging everyone to go Wizard or Sor for mirror image, shield, shapechange, and so on.

Thankee!

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Transcend mortality. I mean, it'd be great if you could hit enemies with it for a no-save-just-die when you dismiss it, but...

[Arael666]

mage armor, luminous armor and their greater versions. I feel they should protect the caster and only the caster, specially if the caster is a gish. They being touch means you can just cast it on someone else who should be using heavy armor to begin with.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Transcend mortality. I mean, it'd be great if you could hit enemies with it for a no-save-just-die when you dismiss it, but...

Just put a Fortitude save to avoid the primary effect and you're good to go. And this is a 9th level touch spell. Using two standard actions to no-save-just-die something would probably not be overpowered.

[Kurald Galain]

Thus, from the perspective of players and GMs, what are the likely impacts of changing all self-only spells to touch range spells and modifying their verbage to account for the possibility of affecting others?
First, personal spells cannot be made into potions, and touch spells can.

Second, you'll lose a lot of niche protection and make characters less diverse if everybody can use everything. Like, Longstrider changes from a druid-specific buff to something the whole party can use frequently.


mage armor, luminous armor and their greater versions. I feel they should protect the caster and only the caster
Yep, mage armor is an excellent buff on animal companions, shapeshifted druids, and anything with wisdom-to-AC; and it arguably shouldn't be.

[Aotrs Commander]

Yep, mage armor is an excellent buff on animal companions, shapeshifted druids, and anything with wisdom-to-AC; and it arguably shouldn't be.

No more so than Bracers of Armour or, in the case of Druids, just, like, having any of the the at least two options (in 3.5) for wearing armour while shifted... A +4 armour bonus is really nothing in the grand scheme of things. (Especially since one of those Wis-to-AC things is MONK and at this point, is anyone going to argue that other than MAYBE the Unchained PF Monk, monk doesn't need all the help it can get...?

Mage Armour is a cheaper option, sure - provided the wizard isn't using his 1st level spells for other things - but that just means it's also open to dispel.



Of course, the OP's change would mean that Shield would now be an option on top of that - which is much stronger, since unlike an armour bonus, shield bonus generally require you to have or be using a shield, which tends to be less characters and creatures than those that are. Shield bonuses also come at an opportunity cost, since unlike with an armour bonus, a shield bonus precludes other things. The Shield spell also replicates something that you can't get at level 1 right out of the gate (since characters can easily get a +4 armour bonus from armour from mundane gear, but only +2 from a shield without an even more significant opportunity cost). Shield should be personal; Mage Armour should not be.



Do I need to mention what happens when Divine Power or Righteous Might becomes something that folk other than the cleric can use...?



Certainly in my experience, players will actually happily stack buffs on one character if they think it will be totally overpowered. The Shock Trooper Lion Totem-Pouncing Barbarian is already getting Good Hope (morale bonus), Elation (morale bonus to STATS), Inspire Courage (competance bonus), (plus Dragonfire Inspiration) and Sonic Weapon and if a fight LASTS more than two rounds or the PCs have buffing time, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful*... I shudder to think what you could further do (Righteous Might, for a start, it's better than Enlarge - if one was using the PF version of Divine Power, that would stack too) with personal buff to touch...



*This is not a theotherical, incidently, this is standard modus operandii of my current Rise of the Runelords party.

[Eurus]

First, personal spells cannot be made into potions, and touch spells can.

Second, you'll lose a lot of niche protection and make characters less diverse if everybody can use everything. Like, Longstrider changes from a druid-specific buff to something the whole party can use frequently.

Is that necessarily a bad thing? It could be argued that most of the classes capable of casting buff spells have a lot of other things they can do already, and an extremely broad "niche" in general.

Making Longstrider a touch range buff makes the druid very slightly (indirectly) stronger since they have an extra dump for low level spell slots at higher levels, and makes non-druids slightly stronger because they can use it in potion form. Non-druids probably benefit more, but not every player wants to bother with tracking low level potions, so I don't think it would hurt diversity that much.

[Saintheart]

It's a big change. Runecasters can already do this indirectly given any spell they've got access to can be cast into a touch-activated rune that makes the toucher of the rune the target of the spell, no restrictions on personal/touch/ranged/whatever at all, i.e. stronger than potions and not restricted down to 3rd level spells. The control on it - insofar as there is one - is that to do it reliably it costs you eight levels in a pedestrian PrC ... and dosh and XP each time you want to set up a spell like that, although the latter limits are pretty meaningless once you start building permanent runes that grant you item creation XP at a touch and you assume GP is a river. The breakage potential is fairly nice to contemplate but expensive, which is why it's (rightly I think) a niche. And if you want to start down the auto-reset magic trap route, it's a similar analysis. Effectively what you're talking about is taking away the costs that were (wisely or otherwise) placed on that option, for whatever un/godly reason they thought it had to be there.

At the very least the cleric gets called on to be even more of a buffer to his buddies. Divine Power is the first thing I think of because it's the most obvious: now the distaff BAB 1/2 to 3/4 types like monks, rangers, and friends have full BAB across the board and bigger muscles to hit people with, and multiclassing gishes can be a bit more relaxed on finding full BAB classes to hit the all-important and wholly arbitrary +16 at level 20. I'm sure there's any number of dynamic-altering phenomena that crop up with a change like this to the mechanics, it's not likely to be something you can judge without a very small spell set to evaluate.

[Kurald Galain]

No more so than Bracers of Armour
Except mage armor appears at level 1, and bracers +4 are not really affordable until level 12 or so (considering you also want a magic weapon, cloak, and stat boosters). Sure, it's not a big impact at level 20, but people don't usually play at level 20.

[Arcanist]

Just put a Fortitude save to avoid the primary effect and you're good to go.

That sounds great if you're a Necropolitan.


Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).


And this is a 9th level touch spell. Using two standard actions to no-save-just-die something would probably not be overpowered.

It is an immediate action to cast so it is swift + standard action to dismiss it.

[Beni-Kujaku]

That sounds great if you're a Necropolitan.

It is an immediate action to cast so it is swift + standard action to dismiss it.

Well‚ that just means that Necropolitans can't cast the spell on themselves‚ which is honestly not a big issue. It's not a Fortitude to avoid dying‚ but to avoid being affected by the spell. The death at the end would still be no-save. I'm wondering‚ can undead choose to get affected by harmless spells that require Fortitude saves‚ such as Virtue or Girallon's Blessing?

And yeah‚ I didn't process that it was an immediate action (obviously it is). That's still most probably the equivalent of two spells (most high level characters have things that they do with their swift‚ be it casting a quickened spell or something else)‚ but might be pretty strong indeed without a saving throw.

[Arcanist]

I'm wondering‚ can undead choose to get affected by harmless spells that require Fortitude saves‚ such as Virtue or Girallon's Blessing?

You cannot lower your immunity unless it explicitly says you can. You can do that for spell resistance and choose to automatically fail a saving throw, but if you are immune to something you can't be affected by it period. That said, an Undead can ignore their immunity if the effect is (harmless), which Virtue and Girallon's Blessing are.

[Endarire]

At present, UMD and custom items can circumvent 'personal only' to allow anyone with the right item/spell to be used by another.

Pathfinder 1e already allows Alchemists at level 2 to pick an ability to change their personal only spells ('extracts') to touch range. PF seems to allow and encourage casters to be more party-friendly with buffs with Bonded Mind, Share Spells, an Inquisitor's Solo Tactics, and so on.

Ultimately, a question I want answered by the crowd is, "What makes a single subject spell worthy of being personal only when it could and likely should instead be of a different range like touch?" My design goal was to make buffs castable on others like martial characters who likely needed them more, instead of just encouraging everyone to go Wizard or Sor for mirror image, shield, shapechange, and so on.

[Darg]

Except mage armor appears at level 1, and bracers +4 are not really affordable until level 12 or so (considering you also want a magic weapon, cloak, and stat boosters). Sure, it's not a big impact at level 20, but people don't usually play at level 20.

At level 1 mage armor lasts for an hour. Bracers last for as long as you wear them. I know it's common on these boards for whole 4+ encounter adventuring days to only last 20 rounds, but not every one plays that way. Nor was the game designed for players to regularly shrink their entire 1-20 journey into resting factories. Mage armor is a powerful spell in its niche, but in the vast majority of cases it isn't particularly stunning. It costs the arcane caster a spell slot every time to use it. Heck, my groups use an interpretation of the full-round touch six friends rule of holding the charge of 3.5 that lets you use one cast to affect up to 6 "friends" and none of us have ever complained about mage armor being the one thing to break the game (haven't actually come across any friendly touch spells that do except for early game vigor spells).


Ultimately, a question I want answered by the crowd is, "What makes a single subject spell worthy of being personal only when it could and likely should instead be of a different range like touch?" My design goal was to make buffs castable on others like martial characters who likely needed them more, instead of just encouraging everyone to go Wizard or Sor for mirror image, shield, shapechange, and so on.

Personal spells are spells meant to give the casting class uniqueness while also/or being something you don't necessarily want to be easy to transfer to others. While a fighter might need shapechange more than a wizard, the class features of the martial can increase the power of the spell beyond the intended level. Fighter has full BAB and likely a bunch of fighter feats. Divine power might be something a monk might want in 3.5 (generally get magic items made for it at higher levels and is basically a necessity in epic levels for martials), but you don't really want to be freely handing it out to the random wizard for the free temp HP, str, and BAB. Imagine the horror of DMM added on to that.

[rel]

I'm increasingly liking an all or nothing model; either all spells are castable on anyone or NO spells are. And other abilities and powers would fall under the same restriction.

Thus you have two very differently flavored magic systems, one in which magic (and deals with demons and weird sword tricks) are broadly applicable and another in which all such power is inherent to the practitioner and cannot be readily shared.

Obviously a pretty big homebrew project and the choice would be made once for each campaign world.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'm increasingly liking an all or nothing model; either all spells are castable on anyone or NO spells are. And other abilities and powers would fall under the same restriction.

Thus you have two very differently flavored magic systems, one in which magic (and deals with demons and weird sword tricks) are broadly applicable and another in which all such power is inherent to the practitioner and cannot be readily shared.

Obviously a pretty big homebrew project and the choice would be made once for each campaign world."I cast finger of death."

"Wait, you can only cast that on yourself!"

"OHSHI--"

"Welp, there goes the wizard. So much for having a high Int score, I guess."

[Kurald Galain]

At level 1 mage armor lasts for an hour. Bracers last for as long as you wear them.

(facepalm) at the level where you can afford Bracers, Mage Armor also easily lasts for the whole day.

[RSGA]

If you want to get real specific, at the point where you're supposed to be able to get Bracers of Armor +4, Mage Armor will last 9 hours per casting. From sixth up until then it's far too much of a persons expected WBL to be a reasonable found treasure and even if we're talking crafting it, the expected point where a character is 'supposed' to be able to afford that kind of expense is level 7. So 7 hours a cast. Of course, crafting and WBL expectations can put things all over the place.

[zlefin]

Ah, a crowdsources answer. As I ponder, I'm finding that while there exist reasons for personal range only, they're not that compelling or important. Though maybe I'll think of counterpoints as I think more.

General balance reasons aren't that important, since the casters are mostly stronger anyways.

A more specific balance issue is combinations; personal range limits the combinability of spells, and certain spells/buffs may be too strong in combinations or synergize too well with some other classes. They may also override or make redundant some class features.

Thematic arguments may apply in some cases; arguably certain spells may be so tied to the essential nature of a class that they should only properly work for a member of that class, and shouldn't work when handed out to others. I could see this applying to certain druid or cleric spells.

The issue may be a bit different with swift or immediate action spells; I'm not sure what implications that has exactly, just a feeling that it may be more important.

Spells with 'use by next turn' or similar may create an issue. Such spells are partly balanced by that limitation, so casting it on another leaves more room for stacking effects. I thought of one I'd be potentially concerned with, though I doubt it's going to break anything in practice compared to what else casters can do: You could combine True strike and Hunter's mercy and I dunno what else.

Battle blessing feat with the paladin's spells, several of which are personal buffs? Hmm, I reckon it couldn't be that broken, and it'd probably leave paladin's better balanced.

[Vaern]

You cannot lower your immunity unless it explicitly says you can. You can do that for spell resistance and choose to automatically fail a saving throw, but if you are immune to something you can't be affected by it period. That said, an Undead can ignore their immunity if the effect is (harmless), which Virtue and Girallon's Blessing are.

The PHB's bit on foregoing saving throws allows creatures to willingly suppress special resistances to magic to accept a spell's effect, citing an elves' immunity to magical sleep effects as the given example. The special resistances this section is referencing are those that would ordinarily prevent you from rolling a saving throw to begin with - even if you would normally be unaffected, you can still voluntarily accept the spell's effect.

Spell resistance, on the other hand, is its own separate defined mechanic and can not be simply brushed aside when foregoing a saving throw to accept a spell's effect, even if that effect is harmless or beneficial. Lowering spell resistance costs a standard action, and it automatically comes back up on your next turn unless you spend another standard action to keep it lowered.

[Elkad]

mage armor, luminous armor and their greater versions. I feel they should protect the caster and only the caster, specially if the caster is a gish. They being touch means you can just cast it on someone else who should be using heavy armor to begin with.

Mage armor expires, takes spell slots, and is vulnerable to Dispel. Luminous has the same restrictions, plus an alignment restriction, does Str damage to the caster (a stat he likely already dumped, good luck buffing the whole party), and renders stealth nearly impossible.

And of course you can't put other effects on any of those. (fortification, etc)

Should the Monk buy a Pearl of Power so the mage has another Mage Armor for him? Probably. Everyone else might as well just get a chain shirt (and eventually a mithril breastplate). Exception if you are somewhere you can't wear armor (water adventure, infiltrating the royal ball, etc)

Do my wizards cast a bunch of them every day? Yes. But not on the paladin, he doesn't need it. It goes on self, familiar (can't use spell sharing, it needs to scout), monk, animal companion, the paladin's warhorse, the princess we rescued and are escorting home, and other creatures that either can't wear armor, or don't have any.