Confused about casting time [3.5]

[Froogleyboy]

Ok, I've been thinking about the spells I wana prepare for tommrows session. I've noticed that alot of spells I'm intrested in have casting times of days or weeks (looking at you genesis) How are you gonna cast one of those in a session? You'll be standing still for several sessions! It'd be more fun to stay home! Any thoughts?

[SSGoW]

well the DM could jump time and ask if anyone else is going to do anything and if not then hey look its two weeks later

another thing some people do is not show up for a session or two while everyone else does stuff

[kamikasei]

Do it during down time. If you don't have down time in your adventures, you probably shouldn't be casting those spells.

Does your party never spend a month living off your loot in a city, training, stocking up, partying and politicking? Do it then.

[Froogleyboy]

Actually, We are all Generals,kings,dictators,emporers,etc. who lead over neighboring cities. A large country is sending its troops to take over the island we live on so we are in a war. So . . . .

[kamikasei]

Note the casting time on Genesis, your example: "1 week (8 hours/day)". You don't have to stand in one spot repeating "Genesis" every six seconds for a full week, uninterrupted. You can still meet with your subordinates in the evenings to keep up to date on events and issue orders. You're just spending a full working day casting that one spell instead of whatever you might normally doing, which presumably would be casting a bunch of other spells anyway.

If your plans require constant intervention by you such that you can't afford to dedicate that time... see "no downtime", above.

(Incidentally, you're presumably doing something more involved than just repeating "Genesis" over and over during those eight hours, too. Drawing and walking a magic circle, combining reagents, whatever. You could play it as you entering a trance for the full eight hours, but there's no issue with your taking time to eat or use the bathroom, so long as you're not engaged in "useful" work at the same time as you're casting.)

[Decoy Lockbox]

Note the casting time on Genesis, your example: "1 week (8 hours/day)". You don't have to stand in one spot repeating "Genesis" every six seconds for a full week, uninterrupted. You can still meet with your subordinates in the evenings to keep up to date on events and issue orders. You're just spending a full working day casting that one spell instead of whatever you might normally doing, which presumably would be casting a bunch of other spells anyway.

If your plans require constant intervention by you such that you can't afford to dedicate that time... see "no downtime", above.

(Incidentally, you're presumably doing something more involved than just repeating "Genesis" over and over during those eight hours, too. Drawing and walking a magic circle, combining reagents, whatever. You could play it as you entering a trance for the full eight hours, but there's no issue with your taking time to eat or use the bathroom, so long as you're not engaged in "useful" work at the same time as you're casting.)

I would envision it more like "you go into a trance and use the magical equivalent of a 3d-modeling program to design the plane you are creating. As one would guess, this takes a buttload of time."

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

That's why you include having already cast that spell in your character background, so you begin play with your demiplane already created.

Edit: Plus it can only be cast while on the ethereal plane, and even if you only spend 8 hrs/day casting it you cannot cast other spells during that casting time. That means no Plane Shift or Ethereal Jaunt to get back to the material plane for a week, so forget about trying to interact with anyone during that time.

[Froogleyboy]

I might go with that. My DM already knows I've spent a lot of time on the ethreal plane (He hid out there when he was wanted for planar piracy) My familiar is a wyrmling Ethreal dragon and my cohort is an adult Ethreal dragon

[Keld Denar]

I would envision it more like "you go into a trance and use the magical equivalent of a 3d-modeling program to design the plane you are creating. As one would guess, this takes a buttload of time."

I hate that I can never get my collision settings to work just right....My planes always have issues with people falling through floors and water not being...wet.

[Froogleyboy]

I hate that I can never get my collision settings to work just right....My planes always have issues with people falling through floors and water not being...wet.

Dude! Thats so funny! (Imma laugh if my DM lets people walk through walls and call it programing)

[KillianHawkeye]

Just make sure your plane has built-in options to activate cheats with a hotkey, so you can activate "Godmode" and "Walk Through Walls" as an immediate action.

[Sinfire Titan]

There's a way to cast Genesis as a Standard action, but it's so cheesy you may get a Rock Falls scenario for using it.


Gnome Wizard 10/Shadowcraft Mage 10 with the Gnome Wizard Substitution levels from Races of the Wild (I think). Heighten Spell (Silent Image) to 9th level, then use Earth Spell+Some metamagic reducer that I can't remember right now to turn the Silent Image into a 10th level spell. Then use the Shadowcraft Mage's 3rd level class feature to turn it into a Shadow Conjuration that can duplicate any Creation spell of 9th level or lower on the Sor/Wiz list.

It lets you duplicate the Genesis spell as a Standard action.