How would game balance change if nearly all spells had a 1-round casting time?

[Elves]

What if nearly all spells that are currently standard actions were 1-round cast times like summon monster, and quicken made them standards instead of swifts?

[Beni-Kujaku]

What if nearly all spells that are currently standard actions were 1-round cast times like summon monster, and quicken made them standards instead of swifts?

... Casters would be slightly weaker in combat, and initiators better, but not to the point of reversing martial-caster discrepancy due to the overwhelming utility spells bring to the balance outside of combat.

[Quertus]

You’d encourage CoDzilla, and discourage BFC (the battlefield will have changed before the spell goes off), direct damage, and any AoE effects.

You’ll encourage long term / Permanent minions, via Animate Dead and Command Undead.

You’ll encourage 3rd Eye of <Concentration>, and still have Wizards demanding that they control the meat shields’ turns for “Teamwork”, as a role reversal of muggles demanding controlling the Wizards’ turns and resources for combat buffs. Wizards will be much more likely to give muggles who ask for combat buffs the middle finger (or cultural equivalent). Muggle players will need to “get good”, and build characters that are less dependent on external buffs.

You’ll get hit upside the head with Grod’s Law, whether you deserve it or not.

Wizard players will need to “get good”, and learn all the innately immediate action spells. Such spells will see much more play.

I suspect Quicken Spell will be less popular, whereas Metamagic Rods of Quicken will be more popular.

5d Wizard Chess will be more common, as it’s almost the only way to play a Wizard now.

In combat, everyone will be a Fighter: Fighter, Rogue, CoDzilla, and Minionmancer. Balance will be really easy to measure: DPS, and Durability. For balance sake, obviously Wizard will have the highest DPS at a balanced table, as they have the lowest durability. It’ll be paradise on earth for those who’ve always wanted a balanced game.

Except that the Fighter still can’t do nothing outside combat.

[ciopo]

What if nearly all spells that are currently standard actions were 1-round cast times like summon monster, and quicken made them standards instead of swifts?

Makes almost no difference to me, my bread and butter are spells with hour/level duration or 10minutes/level duration, the allowance I give myself for round/level buff have no difference in this regard, modus operandi would remain round 1 cast that one buff round 2 shapeshift and poundtown galore

[Thunder999]

It'll make buff and bash combat the go to, casters will still be dominant out of combat for utility, casters will have a strong incentive to buff selfishly, since they can't really do much in combat without buffs now.

I suppose you might see the occasional save or lose spell paired with strong defences.

[icefractal]

As mentioned, it encourages pre-combat buffs over anything in-combat, and utility spells are still good. But that does leave the question - what will casters do in combat?

For some, they buff themselves and wade into melee. But what if that's not your cup of tea?
* Summoning spells are now as fast as anything else, so Summon Monster / SNA are good options.
* Spells that don't require specific positioning and have multiple valid targets are still viable. You're still casting one spell a round either way, it's just that you can't rely on a particular foe still being there or having your party outside the AoE radius.
* Spells that you can spend your future actions on (Call Lightning frex, if it was good) become more useful, since that means you're only vulnerable to disruption on the first round.

Also, if you're not buffed up to an excellent level of defense, you'll want to be extra-cautious, such as casting from around a corner. Spells that fit with this style will be more useful.

Quicken should be less than +4 in this variant. Avoiding the chance of disruption is useful, but not "double your firepower" level like standard Quicken is. +2 maybe, could even be +1 (comparable to Silent/Still in some ways).

Oh, and some fights become more deadly because in-combat healing / condition-removal is difficult.

[ciopo]

Do note that parameters of spells are determined at spell completion, or in other words when the spell is successfull, so no, there is no risk of a fireball not hitting anything because everything moved away between starting casting a spell and the next round rolling over.

At least that was the answer that was given to me in the raw thread when I asked such for the call avalanche spell not too long ago

[Thunder999]

Spells won't ocmpletely miss, but enemies will always have time to spread out or close in, there's no getting a good iniative roll and slapping down a wall that keeps half the enemies from getting close, you'll probably only get one or two enemies with that fireball unless you're dumping it on your allies.

There's also the fact that simply choosing to cast at all mid fight is likely to waste your turn and your slot since enemies can just run up and hit you (or shoot you) and suddenly you've got to make a difficult to impossible concentration check (because they probably do more damage than you have bonus)

[Darg]

It makes the Rapid Spell metamagic feat one of the best to get. Sadly it won't help spontaneous casters.

[rel]

So, I think I see where OP is going with this.

To really explore the interesting changes, we have to take the spirit of the idea and implement it in a more rigorous way:

- ALL spells have a maximum duration of 20 rounds. permanent? Nope, 20 rounds. Instantaneous? If the effect persists once the damage dice stop rolling, 20 rounds.

- ALL spells have a minimum cast time of 1 full round. What about featherfall or quicken? NOPE 1 round cast time. Some spells, feats and class features are added to the may as well not exist list.

- Concentration is no longer a thing. If you take damage or just get jostled while casting your fancy spell it gets automatically disrupted. No more spell.

With suitable safeguards around said rules to prevent clever workarounds of any kind.
What changes if spellcasters must cast in combat, and they can be trivially disrupted.

[icefractal]

I don't think the more extreme version is necessary - and to my tastes it's not very appealing, primarily as it practically eliminates a lot of utility spells.

Whereas the original would probably work fine in a campaign, might be interesting to try. Casters as a whole would still be fine, although some particular classes like Warmage really wouldn't. Obviously something the players need to be aware of before making characters.

The one thing I'd do is remove Persistent Spell. Because buffing is fine, but Persistent encourages a focus on self-buffing only. And self-buffing is fine, but ally buffing should be just as viable an option. Also, buffing is more of a legit trade-off without DMM: Persistent in the picture.

[Bucky]

Combat Resurrection suddenly becomes a dominant tactic.

[Thunder999]

The entire ruleset would favour self buffing, simply because a caster who doesn't self buff would be a liability in combat.

[AvatarVecna]

It makes the Rapid Spell metamagic feat one of the best to get. Sadly it won't help spontaneous casters.

Upside, though: if everybody is already casting spells for 1 round by default, then spontaneous casters casting metamagic'd spells with 1 round casting time is no longer a downside. So this isn't quite as big a nerf for sorcerer as it is for wizard, even taking Rapid Spell into account.

[Telonius]

1-round casting time takes effect at the start of your next turn. This means:

- Spot checks become extremely important
- Everybody wants to have a Tower Shield

[Aracor]

1-round casting time takes effect at the start of your next turn. This means:

- Spot checks become extremely important
- Everybody wants to have a Tower Shield

Out of curiosity, how would a Tower Shield actually help people?

[AvatarVecna]

Out of curiosity, how would a Tower Shield actually help people?

Tower Shield can be used to gain total cover, which makes you "not a valid target". If you see somebody start to cast a spell, ducking behind a tower shield (or a wall) so they can't directly target you is a good defense against a lot of nasty spells.

[Telonius]

Out of curiosity, how would a Tower Shield actually help people?

Huh, and today we learned that my first DM was ruling it wrong. (Never actually went back to read the whole entry on tower shields).

[Aracor]

Tower Shield can be used to gain total cover, which makes you "not a valid target". If you see somebody start to cast a spell, ducking behind a tower shield (or a wall) so they can't directly target you is a good defense against a lot of nasty spells.

That doesn't quite work. Tower Shield has an exception that targeted spells go right through it.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/armor.htm

The shield does not, however, provide cover against targeted spells; a spellcaster can cast a spell on you by targeting the shield you are holding.

[ciopo]

that's why you let go of the tower shield so that it stands on its own without you holding it

[Fizban]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned damage spells, but maybe I shouldn't be since the sort of extreme endpoint theory already ignores damage spells (unless they're jacked up until they're kill spells).

People will still play what they want to play. People who do not want to drown the game in buffs and "gish" builds will not suddenly do so, games that don't have lol fighter sux problems will not suddenly care, nor will games that do suddenly find them fixed.

But the damage spells that the 3.x sets up as an easy, reliable option, suddenly become hugely unreliable, which means that standard arcanists will be less effective (and games where it is accepted that some characters cannot damage certain foes, may find the loss of reliability in this damage delivery method crippling). This does not mean they will suddenly switch to save/lose/bfc, but it does mean that if damage was fine it will be less fine. Meanwhile, some (few) of those save/love spells were already 1 round casting, so some of the strongest spells are completely unaffected. Relatively inoffensive barrier spells can no longer place barriers in time to dictate the battlefield.

Going further away from theory-op, in-battle healing is now *actually* nigh useless. Where even the most hardcore anti-combat-heal people will admit that the proper Heal spell is useful and there are possible situations (which they downplay the chances of) where a sudden Cure Serious can be make or break, now those spells literally cannot be delivered fast enough to prevent a person "one hit" away from death, from dying, because the enemy always gets one more hit. Without vast hp pools and very proactive healing, you really can't heal in combat anymore. The vaunted Revivify, which I've railed against for being bad at its job and actually making the problem it's trying to solve worse, now becomes literally unusable, since by the time the spell finishes the target has been dead for more than 1 round- and even if you ignore that as a bug, you now have a 1,000gp spell the enemy can waste with a single hit in addition to the all the other problems with the spell (the only tiny upside is that with a 1 round cast, the target brought to 1hp can't be killed before your next turn, since they're not up until your turn, so you can heal them immediately if you manage to finish Revivify- except oh wait those heals also have a 1 round cast).

And of course, there's the resistance and immunity buffs the game expects you to have in order to make X monster fair, all of which now give the foe an entire extra round to disrupt or simply drop people before the buff can possibly be up.

"Scouting," normally a good idea but not required (and the flipside, ambush monsters that are meant to not be detected), thus is enshrined as actually a lot more required, because in order to reliably survive certain foes you cannot react. This narrows the available range of engagement types, making the game less interesting for both the DM who has to actually make encounters within those limits, and the players who may not consciously notice why everything is the same. This, plus the need for healing to be proactive, BFC landing 1 turn late, etc, all add up to a game where w+m1 players are penalized and drag the party down even more, while groups that already have a full pack of people who want to play 4d chess (or do nothing but 15 minute adventuring days) will simply shift their plans by half a round and carry on.

In short, while it might sound like a simple, easy fix to all the oh so broken "spellcasters," such a fix does far more to undermine basic gameplay expectations than it does to reign in the actual problem spells. Fix the problem spells (and problem players/DM/gamestate). Too-good-to-be-true quick "fixes" are just that.

If your fix to the problem spells incluces making more of them 1 round casting times, cool- I've applied other nerfs already so I've not had any motivation to do a full list of the spells that ought to have such nerfs added, particularly because it creates a whole extra "tier" of spells since each spell has not only a level, but also a casting time, so you need twice as many benchmarks when the game doesn't really have a full set to begin with.

[Thunder999]

Tower shields get a lot better, noone casts offensive spells so they're no longer trivial to bypass

[Firechanter]

I tried that once. The result was:
Nobody wanted to play a caster.

That said, I've been thinking about porting the AD&D initiative system to 3E, somehow, because that had fluid casting times that made Casters more vulnerable and, thus, more balanced.
Basically it might work roughly like this:

- at the beginning of each round, everyone rolls Initiative.
- then everyone announces what they are going to do, from lowest to highest. "Attack" or "Cast [spell]", mostly, but could also be Guard, Delay etc
- your Initiative is then modified by the exact action; for instance, casting reduces your Ini by the level of the spell. This is when the spell will go off.

This is the important part: the casters start casting at the beginning of the round, and finish exactly when their modified Ini comes up.

In 2E, if a caster takes ANY damage during this time, even 1 point, the spell is LOST. In 3E, I suppose a Concentration check would be in order. DC = 10+Damage Taken or something. No idea how Defensive Casting would work, of if that would even be a thing.
Melf's Acid Arrow was an excellent way to shut down enemy casters, because as long as the spell ticked, it was impossible for the affected target to get off a spell.

[Darg]

The one thing I'd do is remove Persistent Spell. Because buffing is fine, but Persistent encourages a focus on self-buffing only. And self-buffing is fine, but ally buffing should be just as viable an option. Also, buffing is more of a legit trade-off without DMM: Persistent in the picture.

Persistent Spell is perfectly fine. What is not fine is really just DMM in combo with it. Ally buffing is a perfectly viable option if you use touch spell RAW. Any single target touch spell can be given up to 6 friends if you hold the charge and use a full-round action. It really changes the value and tactical use of these spells which can be quite questionable when single target only.


Upside, though: if everybody is already casting spells for 1 round by default, then spontaneous casters casting metamagic'd spells with 1 round casting time is no longer a downside. So this isn't quite as big a nerf for sorcerer as it is for wizard, even taking Rapid Spell into account.

The rule is that metamagic increases the cast time of full-round spells by 1 round. As all spells are now full-round.... Anyways, Rapid Metamagic will be paramount for combat casting.

[Quertus]

porting the AD&D initiative system to 3E,

This is the important part: the casters start casting at the beginning of the round, and finish exactly when their modified Ini comes up.

Actually… they’d start casting at their unmodified initiative, and finish casting at their modified initiative. It’s only during that “narrow” window of casting that they’re actually at risk of losing the spell.

Of course, if you’re staying true to older editions, they can still lose the ability to cast the spell before their unmodified initiative. The difference being, they still have the spell, to try again next round, if they so desire.

[sreservoir]

Persistent Spell is perfectly fine. What is not fine is really just DMM in combo with it.

This is a really spicy take, since every interaction with metamagic cost substitution is basically fine with any other single metamagic effect and broken with Persistent Spell—DMM, which at least takes some work to do more a couple times a day, is just the tip of the iceberg. No other metamagic effect quite so readily stomps all over basic system assumptions that go into spell design; take away Persistent Spell, and stuff like Incantatrix and Spelldancer start looking like powerful but costly sidegrades instead of being a "build" pretty much just by existing (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?356451-Edith-the-E6-Persistomancer). On top of that, it's also the one that's written with a stupid restriction and a carveout that doesn't make any sense, which isn't exactly a proper point against it but goes to show how thoroughly they thought about it when they wrote it and then reprinted it a bunch of times but didn't copy the errata.

At some point, you've got to just suck it up and conclude that no, it really is Persistent Spell that is the problem.


Ally buffing is a perfectly viable option if you use touch spell RAW. Any single target touch spell can be given up to 6 friends if you hold the charge and use a full-round action. It really changes the value and tactical use of these spells which can be quite questionable when single target only.

Yeah, I don't think that's a reading I'd expect to fly at a table. Certainly it'd be easier to convince someone to houserule it in than to convince them that it's RAW.

[Darg]

This is a really spicy take, since every interaction with metamagic cost substitution is basically fine with any other single metamagic effect and broken with Persistent Spell—DMM, which at least takes some work to do more a couple times a day, is just the tip of the iceberg. No other metamagic effect quite so readily stomps all over basic system assumptions that go into spell design; take away Persistent Spell, and stuff like Incantatrix and Spelldancer start looking like powerful but costly sidegrades instead of being a "build" pretty much just by existing (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?356451-Edith-the-E6-Persistomancer). On top of that, it's also the one that's written with a stupid restriction and a carveout that doesn't make any sense, which isn't exactly a proper point against it but goes to show how thoroughly they thought about it when they wrote it and then reprinted it a bunch of times but didn't copy the errata.

At some point, you've got to just suck it up and conclude that no, it really is Persistent Spell that is the problem.

Persistent spell uses a slot 6 levels higher. All day divine favor at level 13 isn't going to really ruin anything. Lesser vigor all day is probably the only real game changer, and even that isn't all that much of a problem. Persistent Mass lesser vigor is a 9th level spell. Divine power/polymorph can't be persisted without effort. The only RAW sources of slot cost removal before late game are cheese like DMM, incantatrix, and spell dancer. I'd rather remove the source of the problem rather than reduce the options players have.


Yeah, I don't think that's a reading I'd expect to fly at a table. Certainly it'd be easier to convince someone to houserule it in than to convince them that it's RAW.

When my groups got started that was and still is how we play because that is exactly what the book says. There isn't any other reason for the sentence in 3.5 otherwise. It wasn't until I started looking online for answers to some questions that I learned it wasn't the norm, and when I found a source for the 3.0e PHB I learned it was just a copy and paste holdover from 3.0. I only mentioned it because it is quite successful in fostering cooperative play because buff and healing spells are much more tactically relevant and competitively valuable. When we tried playing without the rule it we found that spellcasters gravitated toward more selfish play and no one really liked it.

[icefractal]

Persistent spell uses a slot 6 levels higher. All day divine favor at level 13 isn't going to really ruin anything. It won't, but it probably won't be cast at all.

The reason I'd remove Persistent Spell rather than metamagic reduction is that the latter has plenty of other uses, where-as Persistent Spell is pretty much unusable when you actually have to pay for it. The only times I've seen Persistent used for the full cost are:
* Very high-level casters using it on one or two particular spells.
* Cases where spell-slots didn't matter, like Aeshkrau + Festering Anger cheese.

IMO, metamagic reduction is a case of "two wrongs making a right" for most metamagic feats. If all metamagic was appropriately costed, then metamagic reduction or things like DMM would be unnecessary. But largely, it isn't - most metamagic is overpriced, seldom worth using. So even things like DMM / Sacred Geometry (PF1) / Incantrix end up being potent but not game-breaking, unless the few "killer app" metamagics show up. And even then, Persistent is in a class of its own.

Personally I'd rank it as (when reduced / not paid for):
S) Persistent - major game-changer, makes the difference between "Cleric is, as a whole, more powerful than any martial class, though the latter may still outshine them sometimes" and "Cleric is just directly better than martial classes in every way, no exceptions"
A) Quicken, Twin - too strong for most campaigns, but ok in high-power ones.
B) Dazing (PF1), Fell Drain/Frighten, Repeat, Chain - potent, too strong for some campaigns, but ok in many.
C) Others - not that big a deal

[RandomPeasant]

Nobody wanted to play a caster.

That's the problem with a lot of these ideas to fix casters by nerfing them. When someone plays a Wizard, they want to cast spells. Pushing the incentives around so that casting spells is worse for whatever reason doesn't generally work very well. Some things can work (like encouraging people to play Specialist Wizards or equivalents like Warmages), but mostly you're better off finding ways to make weak classes better.


People will still play what they want to play. People who do not want to drown the game in buffs and "gish" builds will not suddenly do so, games that don't have lol fighter sux problems will not suddenly care, nor will games that do suddenly find them fixed.

Yes, people famously never respond to incentives at all. If you change how effective strategies are, people will use those strategies less (or more, as applicable). It is true that the elasticity of that change is sometimes less than 1, but the change does happen. Effecting this cynical attitude just makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about.


the game doesn't really have a full set to begin with.

Actually, the game has five sets, and that's without counting the books that have stuff other than monsters in them. If you're not using those, that's really a "you" problem, not a "the game" problem.


Persistent Spell is perfectly fine. What is not fine is really just DMM in combo with it. Ally buffing is a perfectly viable option if you use touch spell RAW. Any single target touch spell can be given up to 6 friends if you hold the charge and use a full-round action.

I think there are close to zero tables that will tolerate "buff spells are secretly six times as good" but not "I can have my buffs up all day for one set of slots". In fact, that interpretation of how bull's strength works is something that I think no table I have ever played at would allow.


This is a really spicy take, since every interaction with metamagic cost substitution is basically fine with any other single metamagic effect and broken with Persistent Spell

I wouldn't go quite that far. Arcane Thesis is a problem with a number of things. Really, as icefractal says, both metamagic costs and metamagic cost reductions have problems, just in different directions. The idea that I would spend a 6th level spell slot to cast a Widened fireball (or even a Widened stinking cloud) is somewhat absurd. You could put that at +1 and it would be a marginal option like Enlarge.


The reason I'd remove Persistent Spell rather than metamagic reduction is that the latter has plenty of other uses, where-as Persistent Spell is pretty much unusable when you actually have to pay for it. The only times I've seen Persistent used for the full cost are:

I think I would rather rebalance than removing anything. Because, frankly, metamagic reduction ends up being a problem in other places too. The part of the Incantatrix that gets attention is the big pile of Persistent spells, but the thing where you can burn out a wand in one action to deal 300+ damage or stack the capstone with Arcane Thesis is an issue too. Metamagic feats need to be priced to move without figuring out some way to buy them off, and Persistent Spell needs a limit on how many you can stack (the DMM Cleric with divine power + righteous might is honestly fine, the Incantatrix with a page full of buffs less so) and it needs the interactions smoothed out around the edges (all-day wraithstrike is dumb and the feat should not be written to allow you to do that).

[Darg]

It won't, but it probably won't be cast at all.

The reason I'd remove Persistent Spell rather than metamagic reduction is that the latter has plenty of other uses, where-as Persistent Spell is pretty much unusable when you actually have to pay for it. The only times I've seen Persistent used for the full cost are:
* Very high-level casters using it on one or two particular spells.
* Cases where spell-slots didn't matter, like Aeshkrau + Festering Anger cheese.

IMO, metamagic reduction is a case of "two wrongs making a right" for most metamagic feats. If all metamagic was appropriately costed, then metamagic reduction or things like DMM would be unnecessary. But largely, it isn't - most metamagic is overpriced, seldom worth using. So even things like DMM / Sacred Geometry (PF1) / Incantrix end up being potent but not game-breaking, unless the few "killer app" metamagics show up. And even then, Persistent is in a class of its own.

Personally I'd rank it as (when reduced / not paid for):
S) Persistent - major game-changer, makes the difference between "Cleric is, as a whole, more powerful than any martial class, though the latter may still outshine them sometimes" and "Cleric is just directly better than martial classes in every way, no exceptions"
A) Quicken, Twin - too strong for most campaigns, but ok in high-power ones.
B) Dazing (PF1), Fell Drain/Frighten, Repeat, Chain - potent, too strong for some campaigns, but ok in many.
C) Others - not that big a deal

There are quite a bit of useful spells that make persistent spell worth using. This is especially the case when you are able to cast the spells before you rest. In this case you aren't "wasting" a spell slot, you are conserving them. Metamagic cost reduction is hardly a problem because it requires spending resources. Spell slot cost bypass is simply broken when applied to persistent spell because you can mitigate those costs. It's really easy to just say that the feat's slot cost cannot be removed or lower than 1 higher than normal. Our specific rule is that you still need the minimum caster level if the cost reduction or removal doesn't say it doesn't adjust the spell's level.


I think there are close to zero tables that will tolerate "buff spells are secretly six times as good" but not "I can have my buffs up all day for one set of slots". In fact, that interpretation of how bull's strength works is something that I think no table I have ever played at would allow.

Buffs spells are definitely not six times as good. It's rare that you would need to cast the spell on all 6 people (which doesn't include the caster even in 3.0 unless the spell doesn't require touching yourself like teleport). At best they are simply better. It's hard to say that bull's strength on 2-4 people is better than a well placed hideous laughter or any other spell of the same level. Bull's strength on just 1 person is usually a waste of a spell slot.

It's really not as extreme as you think and I've had far more trouble with DMM persistent spell than allowing touch spells (most of which expire quickly) to affect more than one friend.

[Fizban]

Yes, people famously never respond to incentives at all. If you change how effective strategies are, people will use those strategies less (or more, as applicable). It is true that the elasticity of that change is sometimes less than 1, but the change does happen. Effecting this cynical attitude just makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about.
I'd already figured the first portion was probably a bit extreme when Firechanter recounted their own experience and found myself agreeing that I wouldn't initially want to play a caster myself either (though I could be persuaded to take up the challenge for the team, if I thought the DM actually knew what they were doing and/or none of the other players could handle it). But the rest, that this will not suddenly turn people that aren't already interested in "gish" style characters into gishers and that the quick fix that fails to fix the problem will not alter already broken games, those remain.

Seriously, the knee-jerk "blah everything is druids and gishes!" reaction to everything mostly comes from people who already do that, even when responding to people who specifically ask for something that's not that. Incentives, sure, hell you can phrase the entire point of all my little nudging fixes and brews as incentives towards this or away from that, but this is not an incentive (for one it would be a disincentive): it's both a fundamental system change, and also not change at all to anyone who doesn't seriously think about what happens as a result. So what I might call "normal" players, no, they're not going to suddenly change their tastes. Optimizers will flee from active casters, and if they were gish-inclined and still want to play a caster (for "utility") then they'll probably go there, sure, but that's really not important compared to flipping so much of the basic game mechanics on their head. People who already push the game to the limit with tactics unaffected by the rule change, will obviously see no change.

The unstated but clearly implied premise is that the group actually needs this sort of nerf, which further implies that they don't have players who will be blindsided. But if the group is so aware of how the game works, they should be capable of seeing that this fix is not actually a fix and thus I question the question. And if they're not aware enough to see that, then they will have players that will not see that, and then the problems of the most basic spells no longer working, will be a problem, so they really shouldn't do it. And if this is a truly academic question on mechanical results, then "hypothetical player tendencies" don't matter at all, but again, uprooting half the game does.


Actually, the game has five sets, and that's without counting the books that have stuff other than monsters in them. If you're not using those, that's really a "you" problem, not a "the game" problem.
Pretty sure you missed my point- I assume you're talking about "five sets" of full spellcasting lists? Leaving aside that there are really only two, that's not the sets I was referring to.

It is theorhetically possible to have a benchmark spell at each of 9 spell levels for each thing you could do at each given level. A particular spell at each level setting the benchmark for doing X at that level. However, the game does not have this- the PHB spell lists have holes, some glaring and some less, making it impossible to guarantee a given benchmark for every function at every level. Adding in the entire body of splatbook spells makes things worse as the power levels swing all over the place, so hole that gets filled is as likely to overwhelm benchmarks from neighboring levels. There is not a fully functional set of benchmarks existing, and so when you make a new spell you often have no true benchmark to compare it to (thus the splat spells careening all over the place even when they aren't blatantly violating existing benchmarks on purpose). Making a serious effort to create/split spells into standard and 1 round means that you would now want 18 benchmarks, when most things didn't even have the full 9.



The goal of fixing most problem spells with a wide-sweeping categorical increase to 1 round casting times is not a lost cause of course, it's just not as simple as pretending that the dirty spellcasters and their dirty spells are all equal. Simply use something like, "any spell which causes the loss of more than a single action for an enemy, or grants more than a single action for an ally, has a minimum 1 round casting time." Or if that still leaves too many problems untouched, take it up to any spell which grants or removes actions. As as said before, I'd lean towards leaving indirect battlefield shaping, walls etc, alone, because in order for them to work at all as expected they need to be just as immediate as damage and healing, but an action-based clause rounds up every bit of mind control, status effect, and action shenanigan in a single swoop, without impacting any of the basic damage, healing, or status removal and prevention.

[Elves]

Slow down guys. The pitch is not "this one tweak will completely fix martial caster balance". That would require a big rehaul.


Re: Inconvenience isn't a good balancing mechanism. Totally agree. For example, the common suggestion of multi-round casting times that result in you doing nothing on your turn isn't viable in a turn-based game.

But 1 round casting times don't result in losing turns. It's just that the spell's effect is delayed.

I don't think this is a mere inconvenience, it's something that could create interesting counterplay. Spellcraft suddenly becomes important because knowing what spell is being cast tells you how to react. When caster starts casting fireball, people all split apart and run for cover. It's much more cinematic. It gives you the drama of a "cast bar" without having to skip any of the spellcaster's turns.

The only inconvenience is not being able to move. But we could even remove the full-round-action part of the 1 round cast time. The main interesting thing is the time bomb effect.


Re: Would incentivize gish/buffzilla. The best point that's been made. The underlying problem here is that casters can beat martials at their own shtick -- half just don't bother to because their spells are even better.

So this is a good point if implementing this change in the game as-is. From a fundamentals viewpoint, though, I don't think it's a criticism of this mechanic, but of the fact that casters have too much combat capability -- even if you nerfed their traditional spells into the ground, way beyond this, they could still out-warrior the warriors.




The thread title is an exaggeration. I don't think all spells should work this way. But I do think the 1 round cast time mechanic is underused and I'm interested in the tactical play it might open up -- it's a way of doing a cast bar in a turn based game without skipping anyone's turn.

[Fizban]

Then I reiterate- I think the simplest and most effective place to start is applying the change to all spells that remove enemy/add allied actions. This is basically the reasoning already given for the mechanic in the first place, they just didn't actually apply it to all spells of that nature and stopped bothering almost immediately. Action loss/incoming reinforcements/big buff killing ground (and Haste is the big buff) are the things that you really need a chance to preemptively disrupt or flee from and should provide plenty of gamefeel. Then you can add more powerful damage and mass healing spells for risk/reward gambles/payoffs to good setup, while maintaining the quick and dirty, just so long as the quick and dirty are still good enough to get the job done.

You might apply the restriction to all mass targeting spells, but I still think that at high levels the ability to shield the whole party from insta-kill effects as a standard action is important. Unless of course you make sure to add "insta-kill" spells to the list of 1 round casting times, but that will still leave things like sufficiently powerful breath weapons (make Maximize Breath 1 round casting) and other creature abilities (now you're starting to change the monsters and fragile insta-kill monsters stop working).

[RandomPeasant]

Buffs spells are definitely not six times as good. It's rare that you would need to cast the spell on all 6 people (which doesn't include the caster even in 3.0 unless the spell doesn't require touching yourself like teleport). At best they are simply better. It's hard to say that bull's strength on 2-4 people is better than a well placed hideous laughter or any other spell of the same level. Bull's strength on just 1 person is usually a waste of a spell slot.

Gotta be honest with you, the problem was really not "specifically the number six is too many times to get bull's strength for one spell slot". Four times is also a problem. Because there are mechanism to let you cast bull's strength on several people. Like mass bull's strength or War Weaver. Pretending you can do that naturally just makes those things kind of confusing and pointless.


But the rest, that this will not suddenly turn people that aren't already interested in "gish" style characters into gishers and that the quick fix that fails to fix the problem will not alter already broken games, those remain.

Again, people do actually respond to incentives. No, this change will not cause people to play only gishes. But it absolutely will lead to the marginal non-gish player playing a gish instead. And, frankly, that's who you should care about, because if people are just going to ignore incentives, it's not really clear there's anything you can do for them, or that they would be causing any particular balance problems to begin with.


this is not an incentive (for one it would be a disincentive):

"This isn't a number, for one it's a negative number!"


Pretty sure you missed my point- I assume you're talking about "five sets" of full spellcasting lists? Leaving aside that there are really only two, that's not the sets I was referring to.

I'm talking about the Monster Manuals, which are full of monsters with defined CRs that provide a benchmark for how effective people should be in combat. I recall that you have some contortion about how that's not really what CR means, but again that's a "you" problem. The game has very well-defined benchmarks. They just say that casters are mostly fine and the problem is Fighters and Monks, which some people really don't want to accept.


I don't think this is a mere inconvenience, it's something that could create interesting counterplay. Spellcraft suddenly becomes important because knowing what spell is being cast tells you how to react. When caster starts casting fireball, people all split apart and run for cover. It's much more cinematic. It gives you the drama of a "cast bar" without having to skip any of the spellcaster's turns.

That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure the game is really set up to handle it. The only agency (most) enemies have to deal with (most) spells is "spread out from the AoE" or "break line of sight". You could design things so that there were more complicated dynamics involved, but it would require adding a lot of complexity to the system. And you'd probably have to make spell effects better to compensate for the fact that, on balance, you are casting them on enemies better-equipped to survive them.


So this is a good point if implementing this change in the game as-is. From a fundamentals viewpoint, though, I don't think it's a criticism of this mechanic, but of the fact that casters have too much combat capability -- even if you nerfed their traditional spells into the ground, way beyond this, they could still out-warrior the warriors.

I don't think that's really right. People talk a lot about how casters can beat the Fighter at his game without any real effort, but what's really going on is that without significant investment a Cleric or Druid can do the Fighter role as well as it needs to be done and still be most of a caster afterwards. And that spanks the pants off the Fighter, but the Fighter is just not very good. If you compare those builds to a Warblade or a Crusader, they're not coming out ahead for free. They can do better if they invest resources into it, but at that point you're talking about two different people who are both putting down resources to play a martial character, and it becomes much harder to say that the Cleric is horning in on the Warblade's turf.

[Elves]

The only agency (most) enemies have to deal with (most) spells is "spread out from the AoE" or "break line of sight".
Breaking line of sight so that you can’t be targeted seems like a very meaningful form of agency.

Nor does it lead to degenerate play since it mimics real-life warfare — it’s realistic for this to be a major part of combat.


And you'd probably have to make spell effects better to compensate for the fact that, on balance, you are casting them on enemies better-equipped to survive them.
What if you can cancel the spell and not expend it? You’ve still paid the action cost (and the sunk cost of the action creates a tactical choice in situation where target isn’t ideal).

[Darg]

Gotta be honest with you, the problem was really not "specifically the number six is too many times to get bull's strength for one spell slot". Four times is also a problem. Because there are mechanism to let you cast bull's strength on several people. Like mass bull's strength or War Weaver. Pretending you can do that naturally just makes those things kind of confusing and pointless.

War weaver is a PrC. There is no guarantee that something like that exists at any point. Mass Bull's Strength has advantage in that you can target creatures that aren't your friends; such as minions, other allies, and yourself; while also not requiring strict positioning and adjacency and 2 rounds of actions. Bull's Strength lasts 1 min per level. Normally one cast is not enough to last more than 1-2 encounters. Timing is especially necessary as you get higher in level where standing close together becomes especially more dangerous. I'm surprised the argument isn't about cure spells being a problem, but I guess cheap out of combat healing is already a thing.

[Elkad]

Bull's Strength lasts 1 min per level. Normally one cast is not enough to last more than 1-2 encounters.


Heh. Play at my table...
A 5+ minute spell is going to cover most of the dungeon.
My players will blitz through multiple rooms like a SWAT team. Sometimes including dragging whole encounters into the next room, on the theory that the more targets you can get in an AoE, the more efficient it is.
Picking up treasure is for after every creature larger than a microbe is dead dead dead.

Abnormal is encounters that are physically too far apart to combine (wilderness).

On the other hand, if I put the pit trap between 2 rooms, they always fall in :)

[Gnaeus]

Heh. Play at my table...
A 5+ minute spell is going to cover most of the dungeon.
My players will blitz through multiple rooms like a SWAT team. Sometimes including dragging whole encounters into the next room, on the theory that the more targets you can get in an AoE, the more efficient it is.
Picking up treasure is for after every creature larger than a microbe is dead dead dead.

Abnormal is encounters that are physically too far apart to combine (wilderness).

On the other hand, if I put the pit trap between 2 rooms, they always fall in :)

This matches my experience as well.

[Fizban]

Again, people do actually respond to incentives. No, this change will not cause people to play only gishes. But it absolutely will lead to the marginal non-gish player playing a gish instead. And, frankly, that's who you should care about, because if people are just going to ignore incentives, it's not really clear there's anything you can do for them, or that they would be causing any particular balance problems to begin with.
Relying only on incentives just means you're leaving the problems in and hoping people don't cause problems anyway, so an incentive (making something better so people are more likely to use it) does not fix anything. A combination of penalties (either "disincentives", or really actual fixes to the problems), along with incentives to make people feel better about the stuff that they are using, is the comprehensive approach.


"This isn't a number, for one it's a negative number!"
An incentive is, for example, handing someone money if they do a thing. A disincentive is, for example, taking someone's money away if they do a thing. These provoke two very different reactions and do not work the same way. If you mix up numbers and negative numbers in one of those vaunted formulas, you're going to get very different, obviously wrong results. Words mean things. And really, the more I try to make that word fit, the clearer it becomes I should have objected to your use of the word in the first place, because as I just said, you can't fix "balance problems" with incentives. You fix problems by fixing problems. Incentives are for encouraging new behavior, like giving Bob a something cool if they play a Cleric because the party needs one, or roleplaying xp to get people to try roleplaying more, etc.


I'm talking about the Monster Manuals, which are full of monsters with defined CRs that provide a benchmark for how effective people should be in combat. I recall that you have some contortion about how that's not really what CR means, but again that's a "you" problem. The game has very well-defined benchmarks. They just say that casters are mostly fine and the problem is Fighters and Monks, which some people really don't want to accept.
That's funny, because I'm the one who goes around saying "Hey if all these published monsters that define the CR system are too weak to fight your PCs, that means your PCs are by definition overpowered." It seems you've already decided, as you suggested above, that I "don't know what I'm talking about."

And considering I made exactly zero mention of monsters in a section that was clearly all about spell comparisons, nerfs, and levels, that's all you bringing up the monsters. And did indeed miss my point, and did not acknowledge when I elaborated upon it.


Regarding monsters, they do not generally form useful benchmarks for adding or adjusting individual spells, because monsters fight the whole party. Monsters do tell you when certain status removal/resistance buffs should be available, and because their powers are almost invariably standard-action this tells us that those countermeasures must also be standard action, but the monster manuals will not tell you whether a theoretical 1 round cast Fireball should use d8s, or d10, or 2d6, or add a flat +3d6 before caster level, or what have you- at best you may discover that you think damage spells don't do enough (or do too much) and you need to change the initial benchmarks entirely, but it still won't tell you by how much until you run it through your idea of a standard party. If one assumes the basic premise that the printed spells are usable, then those spells can be used as benchmarks for adding new spells (and then you run into gaps in the benchmarks and the near complete lack of benchmarks for 1 round casting time spells).


That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure the game is really set up to handle it. The only agency (most) enemies have to deal with (most) spells is "spread out from the AoE" or "break line of sight". You could design things so that there were more complicated dynamics involved, but it would require adding a lot of complexity to the system. And you'd probably have to make spell effects better to compensate for the fact that, on balance, you are casting them on enemies better-equipped to survive them.
Not that hard, you just add another general line to the effect of:

"Spells with 1 round casting times are always obvious, those within range having an instinctive knowledge of what is about to happen that allows them to take action appropriately. An incoming mind control spell might feel like a surge of desperate despair akin facing a jail cell, an impending area damage effect raising the hairs on your arms, a mass Haste like a spotlight shining on the enemy in preparation for their dramatic moment, etc."

The only question is how much information you want to impart- since action loss and gain are the two main categories being changed, those are the two most obvious. Damage is another, non-action loss penalties can be another if desired (though many of these such as blindness ought to be ruled as action loss), insta-kill can be its own distinct sense, and I think that about covers everything (spells affecting the environment don't directly affect people, and thus don't give off the same vibe, but if you put a delay on those they can still be guessed by the fact that they're one of the only types that don't give off a danger vibe).


What if you can cancel the spell and not expend it? You’ve still paid the action cost (and the sunk cost of the action creates a tactical choice in situation where target isn’t ideal).
That does seem good at first, but it would depend heavily on how the DM runs the monsters. You could easily run into a new problem where merely threatening a big spell causes all the enemy to waste their turn with effectively no save, while the caster never actually expends a spell. I would say it's better to be safe and say that if the caster starts casting they're commited, so you'd better not start casting if you aren't ready to lose the spell. Since I'm saying the change should apply primarily to action loss, and even a spell dodged has caused action loss, the cost ought to be paid.

[RandomPeasant]

Breaking line of sight so that you can’t be targeted seems like a very meaningful form of agency.

I suppose I meant it more in terms of ways to respond to different forms of spells differently. It's true that "you can move before the spell goes off" is a form of agency you don't have if spells go off instantly, but if the appropriate response to all of cone of cold, orb of fire, black tentacles, and finger of death is "move away from the caster", I'm not convinced that's all that interesting or that you're adding all that much agency.


What if you can cancel the spell and not expend it? You’ve still paid the action cost (and the sunk cost of the action creates a tactical choice in situation where target isn’t ideal).

A tactical choice compared to what? The best-case replacement action for a spellcaster who isn't casting a spell is that they have a Reserve Feat to fire off, and that's a sharp enough differential that I'm not convinced it creates an interesting choice.

What I think could work is a system where you have some super-moves (analogous in power to spells) and some basic attacks (analogous in power to Reserve Feats or Eldritch Blast). Then you start the turn by picking what super-move you want to use, and when the time comes to take your action you can choose between that or the basic attacks. The problem is that I don't see an easy way to wire that into 3e, both because it wants spells that are more different from each other than existing ones (choosing "single target or AoE" every turn isn't super deep gameplay) and because it doesn't really fit into the initiative system (I guess you hack it by having you declare the action for the next round at the end of your turn?).

But I think just "spells take longer" doesn't really add much to gameplay on its own, even if I get what you're trying to do. I think at minimum there needs to be some kind of spellcaster-y action people have by default that just happens so that you don't ever end up picking between "I shoot it with my crossbow" and "I lose my action" as a Wizard.


War weaver is a PrC. There is no guarantee that something like that exists at any point.

The same devs (well, the same dev team, I'm not going to track down specific authors) that wrote bull's strength wrote the War Weaver. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but I don't really credit the notion that they wrote a PrC specifically to do a thing the rules already let you do.


Mass Bull's Strength has advantage in that you can target creatures that aren't your friends; such as minions, other allies, and yourself;

I've been trying to avoid asking what the hell ass your interpretation here is, but what the hell ass is your interpretation that you can multi-cast bull's strength to target Gary the Barbarian (who is your party member) but not Gary the Barbarian (who is your cohort or NPC ally)?


Relying only on incentives just means you're leaving the problems in and hoping people don't cause problems anyway

The "problem" here is "I think these things are too powerful". When you reduce the incentive to play things by making them less powerful, you are exactly removing problems. If, for instance, you think it is a problem that people are able to cast spells in combat without enemies having an opportunity to respond, this thread fixes that. And it does that in a way that reduces the incentive to play a combat caster.


These provoke two very different reactions and do not work the same way.

As do the incentives "I will pay you $20" and "here is a bottle of wine I bought" or the disincentives "I will fine you $1000" and "you go to jail for six months". Obviously different incentives are different, but they are still incentives.


And considering I made exactly zero mention of monsters in a section that was clearly all about spell comparisons, nerfs, and levels, that's all you bringing up the monsters. And did indeed miss my point, and did not acknowledge when I elaborated upon it.

No, it's you missing the point. You don't need separate "monster benchmarks" and "spell benchmarks" any more than you need separate "Cleric benchmarks" and "Fighter benchmarks". If a spell allows people to clear challenges too easily, it is overpowered. Assessing a combat spell in some other context is not necessary, and unlikely to be helpful.


Regarding monsters, they do not generally form useful benchmarks for adding or adjusting individual spells, because monsters fight the whole party.

"The whole party" is not some indivisible unit of account. The game is entirely capable of handling "whole parties" which consist of only Wizards (or even individual Wizards) where spells are entirely relevant. Indeed, testing with individual characters is better than testing with exclusively "whole parties", for the same reason that software developers really like automated unit testing.

[Darg]

The same devs (well, the same dev team, I'm not going to track down specific authors) that wrote bull's strength wrote the War Weaver. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but I don't really credit the notion that they wrote a PrC specifically to do a thing the rules already let you do.

I've been trying to avoid asking what the hell ass your interpretation here is, but what the hell ass is your interpretation that you can multi-cast bull's strength to target Gary the Barbarian (who is your party member) but not Gary the Barbarian (who is your cohort or NPC ally)?

I'm not arguing the RAI. RAW is RAW though.

"You can touch one friend as a standard action or up to six friends as a full-round action."

"Some touch spells, such as teleport and water walk, allow you to touch multiple targets. You can touch as many willing targets as you can reach as part of the casting, but all targets of the spell must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell."

You can't hold the charge of a multi-target touch spell. So then the logical conclusion is that the first quote must apply to single target touch spells. It was that or the line was defunct and at the time we didn't think that WotC would make such a blatant mistake (we had never played table top D&D before).

As for the interpretation of "friends," the book uses the term to refer to party members and so that's how we use it.


Heh. Play at my table...
A 5+ minute spell is going to cover most of the dungeon.
My players will blitz through multiple rooms like a SWAT team. Sometimes including dragging whole encounters into the next room, on the theory that the more targets you can get in an AoE, the more efficient it is.
Picking up treasure is for after every creature larger than a microbe is dead dead dead.

Abnormal is encounters that are physically too far apart to combine (wilderness).

On the other hand, if I put the pit trap between 2 rooms, they always fall in :)

Unless the creatures are int 0 or 1, I don't play them as having tactical deficiencies. Even dogs and cats understand that at the very least terrain advantage is important. Human level intelligent creatures of 5th level or higher have a very good chance to understand the danger of AoE spells and abilities and make efficient use of complex layouts. This is just the way we play though. I've definitely made slaughterhouses before though.

[RandomPeasant]

I'm not arguing the RAI. RAW is RAW though.

Yes, and RAW (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/bullsStrength.htm) says that the target of bull's strength is a "creature touched". You can touch as many creatures as you want, but spells only effect their target. So pick one, and that guy gets the benefit of the spell (and, no, he does not have to be a party member, the notion that "friend" is a well-defined rules term does is not worth giving the time of day).

[Darg]

Yes, and RAW (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/bullsStrength.htm) says that the target of bull's strength is a "creature touched". You can touch as many creatures as you want, but spells only effect their target. So pick one, and that guy gets the benefit of the spell (and, no, he does not have to be a party member, the notion that "friend" is a well-defined rules term does is not worth giving the time of day).

You can argue what you want, but it doesn't change the fact the rules give you permission as written under Holding the Charge (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#standardCastaSpell). I already admitted that it's defunct as the devs intended and no one said that "friends" was a defined term. I only mentioned how I interpreted and used the term. Trying to argue that it means what you think it means while I am using it in a more restrictive fashion doesn't help you or me.

[RandomPeasant]

Nothing under "Holding the Charge" says it changes the target of the spell. The reason I'm harping on the "friend means only party members" thing you're doing is that it demonstrates a fundamentally unserious approach to analyzing the rules. If that's the sort of analysis you think matters, you are doing the wrong sort of analysis.

[Darg]

Nothing under "Holding the Charge" says it changes the target of the spell. The reason I'm harping on the "friend means only party members" thing you're doing is that it demonstrates a fundamentally unserious approach to analyzing the rules. If that's the sort of analysis you think matters, you are doing the wrong sort of analysis.

It was years ago when we started playing. Of course we weren't seriously strict rules lawyering about the meaning of "friends."

"If you don’t discharge the spell in the round when you cast the spell, you can hold the discharge of the spell (hold the charge) indefinitely. You can continue to make touch attacks round after round. You can touch one friend as a standard action or up to six friends as a full-round action."

It literally says that you can hold the charge and immediately afterward says you can touch one friend or up to 6 friends. It might not change the target of the spell, but I mean come on. This one is definitely more convincing than dragonwrought kobold being a true dragon. You can at least see how it could be when there isn't a rule that specifically counters the prior interpretation. No rule that says if the target line is singular that it can only ever apply to 1 target. The rules are permissive and they permit you to touch up to 6 targets. Nothing in the rules say that only the first touched receives the benefit. To reiterate, you cannot hold the charge on a multi-target touch spell in 3.5. What other touch spells are there?

The only counter is another interpretation. An interpretation of what a singular target must mean with no specific rule to back it up. This interpretation is the correct one by design, but as written it's not very obvious without cultural literacy.

[zlefin]

Personally, I can see the argument fine, and it does seem like a plausible, or at least very understandable, interpretation of the rules.

One thing I miss about playing more MtG is that they really took care to nail down the rules there. Probably cuz it has a tournament scene where it really does matter competitively.