PDA

View Full Version : [3.PF] - Retooled Metamagic Persistent Spell Feat Progression [PEACH]



faus7rav3n
2011-06-09, 06:30 AM
I'm personally a big fan of Persistent Spell, but WotC never produced a logical feat progression of spell duration adjusting feats that fit correctly with Persistent Spell. 'Where are all the feats inbetween?' I asked myself. It goes straight from one spell level to six spell levels. No recourse, no sidestops for a pick up in power, no ramp up at all.

As my first official Homebrew Project here on the forums, I decided to put this together with a few modifications and a rename/retooling of Persistent Spell and a feat that make the jump to the new feat slightly more logical while maintaining a modicum of balance.

PROTRACTED SPELL [Metamagic]
You can make your spells last three times as long
Prerequisite: Extend Spell
Benefit: A Protracted Spell lasts three times as long as normal. A spell with a duration of concentration, instantaneous, or permanent is not affected by this feat. A Protracted Spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level.
Special: Does not stack with Extend Spell (b/c: You can't triple stamp a double stamp!)

ENDURING SPELL [Metamagic]
You can extend the duration of spells to 8 hours.
Prerequisite: Extend Spell, Protracted Spell
Benefit: Spells with a Range of Fixed, Personal or Touch with a Target of Creature Touched (with You as the Target) can have their duration increased to 8 hours. Spells of Instantaneous Duration cannot be affected. You don't need to maintain concentration on Enduring detect spells (i.e. detect magic or detect thoughts) for you to be aware of the mere presence or absence of the subject detected, but gaining additional information requires concentration as normal. An Enduring Spell uses up a spell slot four levels higher than the spell's actual level.

NOTES: After some deliberation to find an adaquate replacement for Persistent Spell, I settled on using an 8 hour time table as an acceptable basis. Using Extend Spell, Protracted and Enduring Spell in variance can produce 8, 16, or 24 hour buffs giving the caster a great arsenal of overlapping buffs for a reasonable cost. The costs for a 24 hour buff is exactly the same as 3.5e Persistent Spell. Preventing the use of Extend+Protracted+Enduring together eliminates the 24/48/24 hour buffing cycle originally concieved for a DMM Persist build. What do you think? Thanks for the views!

~faus7rav3n

Seerow
2011-06-09, 09:57 AM
I agree with the concept, but I prefer making spells go up in steps, rather than multiplying the duration. Even with your feats, a 1 round/level spell goes from lasting 2 minutes, to 4 minutes, to 6 minutes, to 8 hours. Personally I would go with something like:

Extend Spell
Benefit: An extended spell's duration is increased one category, from 1 round, to 1 round per level, to 1 minute per level, to 10 minutes per level, to 1 hour per level, to 24 hours. A spell with a duration of concentration, instantaneous, or permanent is not affected by this feat. An extended spell uses up a spell slot 1 slot higher than normal.
Special: Extend Spell may be applied to a spell more than once. Applying it a second time, or any number of times after that, increases the level of the spell slot used by 2 levels per application, rather than the 1 level from the original application.




This makes it so a round/level spell gets the effects of persist spell with a spell slot adjustment of 7 levels, but a hour per level spell can do it with only 1 level adjustment.

faus7rav3n
2011-06-09, 10:41 AM
I like that idea, but I know that my DM who's approval I'm seeking with this project, would probably cry wolf b/c of all that variability in a single feat. It feels like it's screaming min/max.

Lets be honest, in a given Persistent build, the only reason people take Extend is to GET to Persist, once they have it they use it for the 48 hour buffing. In between it rarely gets used.

**The more I read it the better your idea sounds, although dependant on the spell it could get really outrageous. It would make it quite cheap to extend very specific spells and that could potentially break a game. It feels strange. Example: (2) 4th Level Spells

Divine Power: 1rnd/level - 4 steps to 24hr
Freedom of Movement: 10min/level - 2 steps to 24hr

The disparity between extending a these 4th level spells is quite glaring, it would cost significantly more to extend Divine Power than it does to extend Freedom of Movement. Many spells that are more powerful than these have only 1 or step to 24hr durations. A flat rate number is needed based on spell level like the rest of the MM feats.

Seerow
2011-06-09, 11:14 AM
The disparity between extending a these 4th level spells is quite glaring, it would cost significantly more to extend Divine Power than it does to extend Freedom of Movement. Many spells that are more powerful than these have only 1 or step to 24hr durations. A flat rate number is needed based on spell level like the rest of the MM feats.

Well that's the point. The spells that are only 1 or 2 steps away are already high enough duration they don't need persist spell. It SHOULD cost more to get a round/level spell to 24 hours than a 10min/level spell to 24 hours. Hell, even as is, with a 10min/level spell, with your normal +cl items during morning buffing (so around CL26 or so), you can use a regular extend spell (the one in core, x2 duration) to make it last 520 minutes. That is 8.6 hours, more than enough to last a whole adventuring day.

On the other hand, once you get persist spell, it takes 6 spell levels to increase that 8.6 hours to 24 hours, but the same 6 spell levels takes a 2.6 minute duration spell to 24 hours? No. It should take more, because it is in fact a bigger effect.


The reason no other metamagic works like this is because no other metamagic needs to work like this. Persistent spell is an anomaly in that it automatically takes any spell it affects to a specific duration, rather than increasing it (as other metamagics do).

Imagine if you had a metamagic that automatically increased the spell's damage to 100 points of damage for +6 spell levels. You would have to spend the same 6 spell levels to increase your 20d6 spell to that as you would for your 5d4+5 magic missile. Whereas normally you would apply other metamagics to get the same effect, say maximize spell, you would only get 25 damage on the magic missile, but 120 damage on the 20d6 spell. Would this seem like a good metamagic feat? Because it's pretty much the damage equivalent of persist spell.

An alternative is just continuing with Extend Spell but allowing it to be applied multiple times, multiplying the duration each time. (ie 2 minutes becomes 4 minutes, becomes 8 minutes, becomes 16 minutes, becomes 32 minutes, becomes an hour, becomes 2 hours, becomes 4 hours, becomes 8 hours, becomes 16 hours, becomes 32 hours), but then that takes 8 spell levels to increase from rounds per level to 16 hours, and 9 spell levels to get beyond 24 hours. My proposed method actually works much smoother, with less calculation involved.

faus7rav3n
2011-06-09, 11:25 AM
I think my thinking box just got opened. Do you mind if I use this idea, since I didn't think of it, gotta give ya credit. I've really only been tooling around with this idea for about 2 or 3 months, since we switched from 3.5 to PF. Thanks for the recommendation!

Seerow
2011-06-09, 11:28 AM
If I minded anyone taking it, I wouldn't be posting it on the internet. Have fun.