Oldie but a Goldie: what the hell is with 1 min/level durati

[Lago_AM3P]

Apparently, the people who wrote PGtF have no guts whatsoever.

Hey, get this--1 min/level is the most unpopular duration in the game. The length justifies it being stronger than day or hour-long spells (though this is rarely the case) yet they never tend to be as awesome as round/level. Apparently, you are supposed to cast them when you get some advance warning of enemies, but the way combat works and the various ways to extend the better suite of round/level spells means that they won't get cast at all.

If there was a 5th level spell called minotaur's strength, which was like bull's strength, only one lasted one minute per level and gave a +8 enhancement bonus to strength, while the other lasted one round per level but gave you a +12 bonus to strength, which one would you prepare all the time, especially with the unnecessarily harsh nerf extend spell got?

The only reason 1 min/level spells have a reason to exist is to let game designers engage in power-tripping buff fantasies yet still waffle enough to please the crowd of weird protest nerfers.

Someone e-mail James Wyatt a copy of Frank logic so they'll have the balls to write some REAL spells.

[fbmf]

You think that would help?

Game On,
fbmf

[RandomCasualty]

I like the minute/level duration spells. They're long term enough that they can last multiple battles, possibly an entire adventure, but short enough that you now worry about doing things like taking a 20 to pick a lock and such because time actually becomes a factor.

10 minute/level durations are basically spelsl that last an entire adventure, but get beaten by ambushes when you're not expecting combat.

1 hour/level durations are trading a spell slot for a free magic item. The key to balancing these spells is they should never duplicate an item that's better than a pearl of power of the appropriate slot. The problem is that WotC rarely follows this rule.

To be honest, I really don't trust WotC to make 10 minute/level and 1 hour/level duration spells. When they do, they tend to be overpowered.

[Sma]

10 min/level spells last an entire adventure ? Talk about differences in playing styles...

What I´d love to see is 1 rnd/level spells being bumped up to the one minute category. That way you wouldn´t have worry about your spell running out because of some dialogoue. Then a spell would basically last one encounter. Well one of the encounters I´m used to, at least.

Sma

[Josh_Kablack]

I think that UA was sorely missing an optional system for divorcing durations from concrete time increments and expressing them in dramatic time increments instead.

There should at least be an optional rules sidebar somewhere outlining how to adapt things so that spells last in terms of Encounters, Sessions or Quests instead of minutes, seconds or hours.

Such a system would be inherently unbalanced and largely subject to DM whim, but it would be asthetically pleasing to many people.

[Oberoni]

I've ranted about this duration endlessly before, I'll do it again.

1 minute a level is conceptually the stupidest duration ever.

Let's look at the other durations:

1 round/level: This will basically last for a fight. Easy to track.

10 minutes/level: This will last for a 'run.' This could be anything from a standard sneak-and-steal to wading through an orc camp.

1 hour/level: Lasts for the better part of a day.

So each of those durations has a nice, easy way to be tracked. You don't need to worry about the 10 minute or 1 hour spells giving out at stupid times if you're exploring the prisons of the castle, and the 1 round spells will basically just last for a fight.

But 1 minute/level?

Wow, I just don't know. Does anyone here keep track of game minutes? I don't. My group doesn't. We just give rough estimates.

"About 5 minutes has gone by."

What does that mean? That phrase means nothing for any other game duration. For 1 minute/level spells, though, it means a lot. What does the 'about' mean? Is there any give and take here at all? If "about 5 minutes" means "6 minutes," that is quite a big freakin' deal. What if I'm level 5--does "about 5 minutes" mean that I have 1 round of my spell left? 2? 3?

At this point, the DM is almost making arbitrary time decisions that will have very real outcomes in the game. "After 5 minutes of walking down the hall, you trigger a poison gas trap."

Does this mean that the level 5 cleric who had Endurance up just lost that extra +2 to his Fort saves? Does he still get one more round? Totally up to the DM.

Not only is that 1 minute/level duration weak, it's conceptually stupid. People got paid money to plaster that duration all over 3.5, and it bugs me to no end.

EDIT: Yeah, back there, I did mean 1 round/level.

[User3]

Hey, get this--1 min/level is the most unpopular duration in the game. The length justifies it being stronger than day or hour-long spells (though this is rarely the case) yet they never tend to be as awesome as round/level. Apparently, you are supposed to cast them when you get some advance warning of enemies, but the way combat works and the various ways to extend the better suite of round/level spells means that they won't get cast at all.

We cast divination spells by the bushel-full (Clairvoyance, Detect Thoughts, Detect Evil, Prying Eyes, etc.). And it helps our preparatory buff-casting considerably especially in regards to time-management. Via divinations, we more or less know where the bad guys are, so we can better guesstimate when to trigger our buffs to as to get maximum use from linking combat encounters (assuming we don't get our collective asses kicked - heh!).

I dunno if 3.5 was meant to be a showcase for emphasizing divinations (the Wizard specialization rules kind of show that), but divinations + revised/craptacular spell durations all seem to work well in conjunction with each other - again, to assist time and resource management.

[da_chicken]

Of course, neo-clairvoyance randomly takes 10 minutes to cast now. Gee, why not just sneak in and look around? That'll take only 1 minute. Isn't magic supposed to be better or something? How about equal? Coupled with the glorious 1 min/lvl duration, you run into the three monkeys problem. You can see what's going on or hear it, but never both.

[The_Hanged_Man]

1081068106[/unixtime]]I've ranted about this duration endlessly before, I'll do it again.

1 minute a level is conceptually the stupidest duration ever.

Let's look at the other durations:

1 minute/level: This will basically last for a fight. Easy to track.

You meant 1 round/level, right?

I have a different take. My main group does a lot of 4th-10th level campaigns. The 1 minute/level work much better than rounds for us. Rounds mean we cast it, get a few rounds, then it's gone almost before we finish updating your mods. Even at the higher end of our games, if either side in a combat actually does something tactical, like retreat to a strong place, hit and run, etc, those spells are gone long before the end of the battle. Extend helps a little, but not that much.

Minute/level guarantees the spell will last even what would be a "long" combat. IME, which seems to be unusual, it does have a real difference in the usefulness of the spells.

I can see where high-level campaigns make minutes a silly duration, though.

[da_chicken]

That's the real problem. The only time minutes ever make sense is at early levels (before 5th). Combat never lasts more than 2 minutes. If it does, something strange is going on.

[The_Hanged_Man]

True. How to balance a duration that works at level 5 w/ a duration that works for level 20.

But although combats generally don't last more than 10 or so rounds, an encounter can. Example from Sat's game:

We're camped. A bunch of kobolds (:rolleyes: I know, but they were tough kobolds) attack. The ride throught he camp, some of us wake up and start buffing, then they ride out of camp. They wait a few rounds out of sight, then ride back in. They take some important stuff while we're distracted, then ride out. We have to chase them, then get ambushed.

The total rounds of combat was something like 8. But the encounter took about 10 minutes of time.

[Username17]

There's no particular reason why spell duration has to be linked to class levels at all.

Seriously, there's no particular reason why it should be like that in the first place.

-Username17

[Sma]

There's no particular reason why spell duration has to be linked to class levels at all.
Seriously, there's no particular reason why it should be like that in the first place.

Aye, in favour.

There´s liitle worse than 1 round Summon Monsters
But it´d a heck of work to actually convert the spells to fixed durations.

I´m wondering if converting the durations to something abstract, like Encounter would do more harm than good.

[The_Hanged_Man]

1081201051[/unixtime]]There's no particular reason why spell duration has to be linked to class levels at all.

Seriously, there's no particular reason why it should be like that in the first place.

-Username17

That depends on the spell. Some spells vary in power based almost entirely how long you can use them. AMF, for example. Melf's Acid Arrow, Repulsion, etc.

I wouldn't be that annoyed if they changed all the minute/level to 10 min/level, though. Most of the durations that affect the power of the spell are round/level.

[Username17]

That depends on the spell. Some spells vary in power based almost entirely how long you can use them. AMF, for example. Melf's Acid Arrow, Repulsion, etc.

And why should that be linked to Class level? Class level already determines (supposedly) how powerful a spell you can cast, why should it also change the power of an individual spell you have access to?

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

Spells w/in a certain level should increase with class level, just not to the level that they overpowere higher level spells. Although spell level should be the biggest factor in how powerful a spell is, caster level should also have an impact. A 17th level caster should be better at casting suck spells than a 1st leve lcaster, and should get more out of it.

A lot of spells have value only b/c they increase in power w/ caster level. Magic Missile, for example. If it didn't ever increase in power after the initial level, it would just flat-out suck. It's marginally more useful than just using a crossbow, at 1st level. Only the increased power at higher levels makes it worth taking, period.

So, unless you radically change the magic system, use something like Shadowrun or Vampire, spells must become better w/ caster level. We're talking about a much bigger change that just getting rid of min/level duration.

[Username17]

Spells w/in a certain level should increase with class level

Why?

There is a tremendous problem in D&D with multiclassed Spellcasters. Right now, increases in Class Level within a caster class increase:

1> Your chances of affecting creatures with your spells.
2> The power of spells you have access to.
3> The effect each of your spells has when cast.
4> How many spells you get to cast before your run out of spells.

And fundamentally, you can't swing a sword and cast hold person at the same time.

So by multiclassing, you are losing relative power in four separate dimensions. And that makes compensating the multiclassed spellcaster mathematically intractable.

So long as it is impossible to quantify how much you are losing by multiclassing, compensating multiclassed spellchuckers in a fair manner is likewise impossible.

So I ask again, why should gaining more levels of a casting class change your power in more than one way?

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1081209861[/unixtime]]
A lot of spells have value only b/c they increase in power w/ caster level. Magic Missile, for example. If it didn't ever increase in power after the initial level, it would just flat-out suck. It's marginally more useful than just using a crossbow, at 1st level. Only the increased power at higher levels makes it worth taking, period.

Well, IMO spells tend to scale far too much. It's one of the most overused mechanics in the game. As your caster level increases, your spells go farther, last longer, grant better bonuses, and tons of other stuff. This generally means they start out really crappy. The way direct damage spells scale totally sucks, because you just raise the dice cap, that's it. A cone of cold at 9th level is exactly the same as a fireball at 9th level in terms of damage. That just ain't right.

Spells need to scale a lot less than they do now. Perhaps scale over only 3-4 caster levels and then stop.

I'd also like to see durations and ranges to become fixed, as opposed to scaling. I'd actually make summon monster I and II possibly useable instead of "a rat appears, it attacks, it disappears... congratulations you just used a 1 round casting time spell to get one attack from a crappy monster."

[Mole_2]

1081210637[/unixtime]]
So I ask again, why should gaining more levels of a casting class change your power in more than one way?

-Username17

By taking your argument to its logical conclusion, spells such as Greater Magic Weapon should have fixed effect, so to maintain utility and game balance we would need five different spells :

a 4th level version that makes a weapon +1 for 7 hours
a 5th level version that makes +2 for 11 hours
a 7th level version that makes +3 for 13 hours
a 8th level version that makes +4 for 15 hours
a 9th level version that makes +5 for 17 hours

Heck even a humble elemental damage spell such as lightning bolt would need multiple versions :

3rd level lightning bolt doing 5 (or perhaps 6) d6
4th level lightning bolt doing 7 (or perhaps 8) d6
5th level lightning bolt doing 9 (or perhaps 10) d6


Permitting some spells to scale with caster level keeps the number of different spell in the game to a manageable level.
Making spells be level independant would also have repercussions on the relative power of arcane casters (limited selection) vs divine ones (unlimited selection).

Personally I prefer the status quo, however much harder that makes your mathematical analysis of multi-class spellcasters.

[Username17]

By taking your argument to its logical conclusion, spells such as Greater Magic Weapon should have fixed effect

GMW should have a fixed effect - it should increase the enhancement bonus of the weapon by +1 over its normal. The current effect, where it replaces the enhancement bonus of the weapon with some other arbitrary value, is totally broken.

Heck even a humble elemental damage spell such as lightning bolt would need multiple versions :

It already has multiple versions:

Shocking Grasp
Scorching Ray
Lightning Bolt
Electric Orb
Cone of Cold
Blah Blah Blah.

Fundamentally, there are currently 26 distinct sub schools of magic in D&D, which each have various representation at various levels - often more than once with a better and worse version of the same spell at the same level.

If we just reduced it to 26 spells which could have different effects when prepared in different levelled spell slots - we would have 260 spell entries in the entire game. A number rather smaller and more manageable than is currently the case.

There is absolutely no reason why having spell force become the primary driving factor in spell versatility and power would necessarily take up more space than giving class-level scaled bonus powers to a bunch of randomly named and distributed spells spread throughout the levels of each spell list.

-Username17

[Falgund]

Which is how the WotC "Wheel of Time" spell system is done, which i found the closest to perfection. (Except that many of the spells are really world-dependent ...)

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

It's also a D&D take on the HERO power system. One of my favorite things about HERO is that all of the powers have absolutely zero flavor just mechanics and as it's a classless system they're not tied to class.

Before jumping on the whole, but you need flavor train it's up to the player and the GM to figure out the flavor for each power.

You can call it Lightening Bolt, Fireball, or Acid Arrow, but the fact is that each is just a different application of Energy Blast with different limitations and FX. I would love if D&D would move to something nearly as straight forward as this (without having to run the formuals to get the power totals.)

[RandomCasualty]

1081250201[/unixtime]]
There is absolutely no reason why having spell force become the primary driving factor in spell versatility and power would necessarily take up more space than giving class-level scaled bonus powers to a bunch of randomly named and distributed spells spread throughout the levels of each spell list.

Well, the problem is that most of the powers don't fit any pattern, and transmutation would be a mess. For evocation, it's fine to do something like that because evocations are all the same.

You'd need to add (or subtract) lots of spells to make that system work.

[Username17]

Well, the problem is that most of the powers don't fit any pattern, and transmutation would be a mess. For evocation, it's fine to do something like that because evocations are all the same.

That's why the D&D spell total is 26, and not 8 like they try to tell you.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

Are you talking schools? Those have always been wonky and artificial. Unless you're willing to put up with some schools being relatively sucky b/c the related spells are relatively sucky or limited, schools are never going to make sense.

Frank, I don't have a problem w/ static spells.

But that is a completely different magic system than 3.5. It is balanced (to the extent it's balanced) as a system in which low level spells increase in power somewhat w/ caster level. One way they increase is w/ duration increases w/ caster level. So, if you want to get rid of duration increases, you have to also get rid of the other level-based power-ups. Which turns the magic system upside-down.

That's all I'm saying. You can't get rid of level-based durations, and leave the rest of 3.5 the same. The relative balance of most spells would be out of whack. Revamping the entire magic system's a pretty big task to get rid of a duration that is at worst annoying.