The Gaming Den

What if buff spells were lessened in duration, but cast as quickened actions?

You see, as a mage, I have long been the guy wearing a constant Mage Armor. This has been the case for so long that I have never been excited by Bracers of Armor. Hell, by the time I can afford those bracers, my MA lasts 8 hours.

However, many of the mage/cleric buff spells don't give a big enough punch for a full spell (when compared to an offence spell) to be worth the time to cast them. You are better off casting a Flame Strike than a Death Ward.

Which is why all of those buff spells have these long-ass durations. You are encouraged to put all your magic in a in one space and then ambush your enemies.

Rather than doing that, if you dropped the buff spells to 1 round/level and let them be cast as quickened actions, you could have mages casting Shield in combat(which doesn't happen past level 4 or so) as well as contributing to party's overall combat effectiveness.

This seems like a better mechanic than iterative spellcasting or other such nonsense, and it lets spellcasters use low level slots in a useful way and not do the "rush, rush, rush" of trying to get the most bang out of your 1 min/level spells or turn some spell slots into defacto magic items.

You know, buff spells as quickened actions have the exact same effect as long-lasting ones.

The only problem is that people get a finite number of spell slots. So the power of buffs, like all magic in D&D, will vary wildly with how many encounters per replenishment period you have.

Also, quickened buffs still favor the attacker rather than the defender, which is the keystone to teleport ambushes.

Buffs SHOULD last all day, then it'd be easier to evaluate them in the same vein as feats and magical items.

The value of a persistent divine favor is easy to judge, but that of a quickened divine favor is not, especially if you don't have the spell slots to cast it for each encounter or it interferes with other buffs.

Lago wrote:Also, quickened buffs still favor the attacker rather than the defender, which is the keystone to teleport ambushes.

I don't agree.

With durations down to 1 round/level, and the defender able cast buffs as QAs as well, the attacker gets his first round, then the defense can cast buffs like Invis., Blink, or Stoneskin and throw delaying spells like Solid Fog or Wall of Force(assuming they survive the first round/get initiative).

They can also play a delaying game where they use illusions/summoned monsters/Wall effects or the like to distract the enemy until the durations on the buffs burn up.

Fighter guys also get the option to just run and keep running until his enemies are out of buffs.

Rogues can Hide and wait out the spells.

The attacker will always have the advantage(in life, as well as in gaming), but at least the defender won't have to worry about monsterously buffed spellcasters from eating him alive with the 15 buffs on them.

K, it's just a simple damn fact with how spells work.

If the spell lasts for 1/round a level, quickened or no, this STILL favors the attacker immensely, since they can stack them all at once. 1 quickened buff a round is not going to save the defender's ass; even persistent spell hasn't saved the cleric archer from getting owned by another one.

That's how game theory works; the attacker only has to choose one line of attack (any time out of a replenishment cycle to launch a teleport ambush) while the defender has to defend against all of them.

Now, if you're proposing that, like I think you suggested, that you can just throw up all of your buff spells as free actions rather than 1 a round, that would still favor the attacker, unless you're going to make every spell with an ambush opportunity a 'buff'. And it'd still break under the 'encounters per replenishment cycle' paradigm, but that needs to go anyway.

If all buffs are going to be made so that they can be thrown up whenever you want to, then you might as well just have them last all the time. That'd make them much easier to balance, since you wouldn't have stupidity like having your shields down in case you wanted to adventure that day.

I agree with Lago. The vast majority of battles I've seen are settled in the first round. Either you do enough in the first round to kick ass, or you don't and get your ass kicked. So this favors the attacker, who can pre-buff.

This is how i see it working out, btw:

Teleport ambushes are unbalanced for their own reasons, and thats a whole thread I don't want to post in.

I'm concerned with day to day adventurering.

By changing buff spells to Qed actions with short durations, you wouldn't have nonsense like "the DM can't cast a Dispel Magic on me because me character instantly dies in that situation because I have all these holes in my defenses."

It also means that spellcasters will tend to balance more of their spells chosen on defense, and not have such glass jaws.

Though to make it work the Qed actions probably need to be cast "out of round" like a Feather Fall. That way a spellcaster can cast his buffs in response to attacks.

The two ideas are interchangeable. Note that it doesn't have to be "teleport ambushes", it can be "regular ambushes". You know, the ones in which one group knows that the other is coming and not vice versa? The thing that happens all the damn time, even in the real world?

If a buff spell lasts some finite amount of time, it favors the attacker, period. If the buff spell is on all the time it favors neither the attacker nor the defender.

That's not a negotiable thing, you can't ever get away from it. Fundamentally you are asking for players and monsters to fight without some of their class features if combat happens to them suddenly. So if one group considers the fight to be "sudden", and the other group does not, you've injected imbalance into the game. On purpose.

So really the question becomes not one of "how can we justify these buff spells", but instead one of "if we can even pretend that these bonuses are balanced, how can we justify arbitrarily having the characters not have them sometimes?"

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1094603317[/unixtime]]The two ideas are interchangeable. Note that it doesn't have to be "teleport ambushes", it can be "regular ambushes". You know, the ones in which one group knows that the other is coming and not vice versa? The thing that happens all the damn time, even in the real world?

Well, you can always have buff spells cause some kind of visual effect. It gives off a glow and a sound effect when the spell is cast. That solves all the mundane ambush problems. Or really even you could just not care about mundane ambushes. If you're getting surprise through investing ranks in hide, for your entire party, then you deserve a surprise round. After all, that's why you invested those ranks.

If a buff spell lasts some finite amount of time, it favors the attacker, period. If the buff spell is on all the time it favors neither the attacker nor the defender.

This is true, but if a buff spell is on all the time without investing an action to cast it, it favors the caster over the non-caster.

That's not a negotiable thing, you can't ever get away from it. Fundamentally you are asking for players and monsters to fight without some of their class features if combat happens to them suddenly. So if one group considers the fight to be "sudden", and the other group does not, you've injected imbalance into the game. On purpose.

Not really, no. To say that a cleric unbuffed should be weaker than a fighter is a no brainer. To say that a target ambushed shouldn't be at a disadvantage is similarly a no brainer. Are we really worried about some cleric in full plate trying a hide check? I mean seriously... teleport ambushes are broke anyway, so we gotta get rid of them regardless of what we do with buffs. So we are down to mundane hiding.

And if it's really that much of a problem make the spell give off a loud sound and a bright light, making him basically give away his presence by casting it. Problem solved.

This all just raises a bunch of questions to me.

Between flashy tell tale crap and the round per level duration are you basically advocating a situation where buff spells last one combat or less and can basically ONLY be cast during combat (duration forces close range, flashy tell tale means even if hidden the buff is basically the surprise round)?

If you didn't make them all quickened spells as mentioned wouldn'tt that rendered the vast majority of buff spells pretty much useless in comparison to spending your action actually killing something?

If buffs annoy you why make them free (in action terms) and thus somewhat more ubiquitous?

Do casters get to buff only themselves or others as well with free action buffs?

Do they get limitless free action out of turn buffs, one per target or one for themselves, or just one for anyone?

Are the group "mass" buffs included as free action buffs?

Can you still cast a buff with your normal action as well, getting up to two buffs on one target per round?

Can you still cast a standard quickened spell buff as well getting up to THREE buffs on one target per round?

OK lets say its a no brainer that a cleric without buffs is weaker than a fighter without buffs (a fighter can't cast killer spells, but lets just say its so).

But how MANY buffs does he need to be an equal at least?

If we ARE assuming the cleric can only peel off their one free action buff a round and doesn't get potential normal action buffs or standard quicken spell buffs then that means he is basically limited to a total amount of buffs no greater than the number of rounds of combat passed AND no greater than his own level at best.

If he basically "needs" ALL or even most of his available buffs in order to equal/exceed the fighter because then it takes him longer and longer to be "effective" in combat as he goes up levels! Can you imagine a cleric that needs 5 or 6 or more rounds of combat before he is actually an equal participant in combat (due to the inferior without buffs claim)?

Is the "charge up and miss the action" combat guy such great fun to play?

And during that time he ain't got diddly time to go buff anyone else because he apparently "needs" his buffs. Goodbye friend buffing.

In fact now even if he has buffs to spare he is saving them just in case further combats occur (if he really needs them to keep up with the fighter then his current buffs won't last more than one combat, he may even need to spend a second identical buff during the same combat to keep it going simulataneously to his other buffs and remain up to supposed scratch).

Longer durations never hurt anyone worse than that looks.

RC wrote:This is true, but if a buff spell is on all the time without investing an action to cast it, it favors the caster over the non-caster.

So Great Fortitude favors the Caster over the Non-Caster? How?

An alwayts on buff is just an ability. That you seem to think that "abilities" favor casters probably means that you have rather strange ideas of what non-casters should be capable of. Are you saying that non-casters should not have abilities? Because if you aren't, that statement just makes no god damned bit of sense at all.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1094617871[/unixtime]]
An alwayts on buff is just an ability. That you seem to think that "abilities" favor casters probably means that you have rather strange ideas of what non-casters should be capable of. Are you saying that non-casters should not have abilities? Because if you aren't, that statement just makes no god damned bit of sense at all.

Because you get less abilities than you do spells. The reason you get more spells is because they aren't always on, and they're usually one shot things that last for one battle, or even one action. And they have casting times which try to balance them out further.

The disadvantage of spells is that you have to cast them. Unlike feats, you get to choose them everyday and they can be different, but you also have to pay an activation cost. You can't have your divine favor unless you pay an action or at the very least a quickened action as K is suggesting. Though you get lots of spells you can't cast them all at once, and that's what limits them. With feats, you can power attack ,use expertise, use weapon focus, use weapon spec, use spring attack and use mobility and dodge all in the same action.

But there has to be a cost, otherwise spells are way superior to feats AND you get more spells than feats and abilities. Oh yeah, and casters get feats too... so, to allow all day buffs essentially is to give fighters no chance at all. When your buffs become like feats and you can have all of them on at a time without any activation cost, then there's no point being a fighter. You might as well always just be a cleric with buffs.

RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1094621621[/unixtime]]

Because you get less abilities than you do spells. The reason you get more spells is because they aren't always on, and they're usually one shot things that last for one battle, or even one action.

This is conceptually different from Barbarian Rage 2/day exactly how?

You and Frank are talking at cross purposes here - he's talking general design concepts and you're talking about very specific changes to existing character classes.

Frank wrote:Fundamentally you are asking for players and monsters to fight without some of their class features if combat happens to them suddenly.

Right.

Ambushes are bad for the guy getting ambushed.

So?

People being ambushed should be at a disadvantage. I mean, should fighters always have Full Plate AC and shield and a mounted speed and sword damage when they are naked in the bath?

I mean, if you want that, then its fine to have all day buffs. One style of play cannot exist without the other.

It is the all-day buffs that make a combat cleric better than a fighter(and a druid better than a fighter with his all day Wildshape) in 95% of DnD gaming situations.

So who cares if the ambusher in combat has an advantage? That ambusher, with the 1 round/level durations I am proposing is going to have a far worse chance of setting up his ambush before some or all of his spells elapse(with the exception of the teleport ambush, which is broken for its own reasons).

By making buffs quickened actions and short in duration, buffs get cast in combat and only in combat, or a few rounds before.

I mean, in a normal ambush sitation, are you really going to get more than 2-3 rounds of prep time before you attack an enemy?

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(For those posting here who are not 100% on the rules, the RAW limits people to one quickened action a round, and quickened actions are in all other ways like free actions.)

Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1094654927[/unixtime]]
This is conceptually different from Barbarian Rage 2/day exactly how?

You and Frank are talking at cross purposes here - he's talking general design concepts and you're talking about very specific changes to existing character classes.

Well, rage is almost a spell ability, the only difference is that you can't swap it out for spells. You can't decide you'd rather have your rage fire a magic missile instead of giving you a strength boost.

Personally I don't really like rage as a class ability, because it's another one of those things that is entirely based on how many encounters per day you have. Like spells you can just abuse it by resting as much as you need in between battles.

So rage is a rather weird ability, and clearly not the norm as far as class abilities go.

RC wrote:So rage is a rather weird ability, and clearly not the norm as far as class abilities go.

So you're saying that class abilities should be more like Stunning Fist, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, or Lay on Hands?

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1094690978[/unixtime]]
So you're saying that class abilities should be more like Stunning Fist, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, or Lay on Hands?

Well per attack abilities are a little different balance wise, because they can be used more than once in a combat if you have them.

Rage is just kinda stupid in general, you can be a barbarian for X number of combats per day, then you basically cease being a barbarian until you rest. I mean what's the point?

But even with those abilities, they still aren't the norm, The norm is stuff like divine grace, or power attack or uncanny dodge, monk wisdom to AC, monk increased speed, and so on.

RC wrote:But even with those abilities, they still aren't the norm, The norm is stuff like divine grace, or power attack or uncanny dodge, monk wisdom to AC, monk increased speed, and so on.

Oh hell no, you aren't going there. If you include "Power Attack" as a class feature you have to include "Entangle", "Fireball", and "Sacrifice" as class features. Basically, your assumption that abilties usable X times per day is somehow not the "norm" is retarded if you are talking about D&D.

Of the 11 classes, only the Rogue doesn't have inherent class abilties that are usable X times/day. And the Sorcerer doesn't have any abilities that are usable by any other method.

Now, abilities usable X/day is a bad mechanic, but it is the norm. If you are arguing "things shouldn't work that way" - then I'm way ahead of you, they shouldn't. But one of the ways things go about not working that way is to have buff spells last all day. The only reason to make buff spells not last all day is to increase the relative power of ambushes as levels rise (a bad idea), or to attempt to make the X/day mechanic (which is itself a bad idea) loom large in peoples' calculations.

If you are taking the position "this is how things are" rather than "this is how things should be", then you have to talk about things as they actually are. So if you are going to make the argument

RC wrote:Because you get less abilities than you do spells.

then you have to accept that the X/day mechanic is the norm. If you don't accept that people should get fundamentally more better spells than they get non-magical abilities, then you also don't have to accept that people should have abilities which arbitrarily no longer exist if they participate in more than N combats per day. And vice versa and so on.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1094746331[/unixtime]] But one of the ways things go about not working that way is to have buff spells last all day. The only reason to make buff spells not last all day is to increase the relative power of ambushes as levels rise (a bad idea), or to attempt to make the X/day mechanic (which is itself a bad idea) loom large in peoples' calculations.

Well really, I could care less how many times you can cast a buff spell. The real cost IMO, is the time you take to cast it, whether a qucikened action or a normal one, you still need some limitation, because that limits how many buffs you can have on at once.

The problem with all day buffs is that it hoses the fighter immensely, and makes it impossible to compete with a cleric. While the ambushes and attacker/defender stuff might be important, this is much more important. Spells already have the advantage of being able to be chosen each and every day, over class abilities and feats whcih can't be. They also produce better effects than feats or class abilities do. Just compare weapon focus to divine favor or divine power. If you allow that crap to be accessible all day at no action cost, then the fighter has no chance.

While it fixes the ambush problem, you're telling all non-casters to pull their pants down and bend over, and that's just not acceptable. Because that's what all day buffs do. Any chance you ever had to be decent in combat as a non-caster is gone, because your cleric is walking around with permanent SR, permanent divine favor, power, and righteous might as well as any other spells he feels like casting.

The action cost for casting a buff must remain. It's all that keeps buffs in line, and why persistent spell is so ridiculously crazy.

Personally I'd say every buff, should be 1 round/level, and while I wouldn't quicken them all as K is suggesting, I'd make spells like bull's strength and such autoquickened. The big buffs like divine power and such should probably remain at their normal casting speed unless they're toned down.

RC wrote:The real cost IMO, is the time you take to cast it, whether a qucikened action or a normal one, you still need some limitation, because that limits how many buffs you can have on at once.

But the existence of the Ambush tactic makes any such cost unenforceable by definition. The fact is that it is possible for one group of people to be "in combat" while the other group is "not in combat", and that's not just by "abusing teleport" or even taking advantage of fantasy elements at all. Battles in which one side is more prepared than the other are real, and there is no way to write them out of the game without being a total cock.

The "time out of your combat" limitation is inherently a bad mechanic because you only have to pay that cost half the time. That's not negotiable. You can't bend the universe into some chess-like symmetry in which using up your turn always has meaning because fundamentally it really really doesn't.

By the time you made "skip your turn" into something that always was a cost, you wouldn't be playing a role playing game at all - you'd be playing a board game. In a role playing game, you can step outside the box. You can run outside and bar the door while you buff yourself. You can erect a wall of stone between you and the ettin. You can pick and choose your combats based on superior intelligence gathering capabilities granted by invisible friends. Whatever. You can go absolutely nuts, because it's open ended storytelling and getting the jump on someone is a story aspect so astoundingly rooted in reality that it is absolutely unavoidable.

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So if you absolutely demand that things have a cost, that can't be it. It can be all kinds of crazy other things, from simple opportunity cost to drain to weird magic systems in which every buff spell also penalizes you in some other category. Whatever. But it can't be "losing turns" if you want any semblance of balance because that cost is by definition variable all the way down to nothing.

-Username17

Frank wrote:In a role playing game, you can step outside the box. You can run outside and bar the door while you buff yourself. You can erect a wall of stone between you and the ettin. You can pick and choose your combats based on superior intelligence gathering capabilities granted by invisible friends.

Right, those are situations where good tactics or clever thinking means that players or villains get an advantage.

So?

Fundamentally, making it possible for all-day spells to exist means that no one really has to plan things out and tactical play has exited the game. We might as well return to the bad old days of "kick down the door and fight!"

Wierd systems of drain or buff/debuff relationships are complicated and as much fun as counting cards, and just as exploitable as round/level buffs, but you get the added dilemma that level X guy of X class is always better or worse or equal to the guy who is level Y of Y class, and its a four-hour session of paper, rock, scissors with little chance for innovative ideas to change or affect the outcome.

Short durations on buffs means that some people with superior plans and tactics have an advantage, which is not something I have a problem with. Aside from Scry and Die Teleport ambushes(which fundamentally break the story and mechanic of most games), short buffs encourage "thinking-outside-the-box" play while all day buffs encourage the kind of unrealistic balance you seem to be trying to avoid.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1094771274[/unixtime]]
But the existence of the Ambush tactic makes any such cost unenforceable by definition. The fact is that it is possible for one group of people to be "in combat" while the other group is "not in combat", and that's not just by "abusing teleport" or even taking advantage of fantasy elements at all. Battles in which one side is more prepared than the other are real, and there is no way to write them out of the game without being a total cock.

But you really don't want to write them out of the game either. If you're giving a rogue advantages with sneak attack for taking a guy by surprise, what's wrong with doing the same for a caster?

I mean so what? If he spends his ranks in hide, or some other way to get an ambush situation then let him.

The "time out of your combat" limitation is inherently a bad mechanic because you only have to pay that cost half the time. That's not negotiable. You can't bend the universe into some chess-like symmetry in which using up your turn always has meaning because fundamentally it really really doesn't.

No, sometimes you may get a free action, other times you wont'. But against heavily buffed opponents, remember you can always just run away. Right, just run away and come back in 2 minutes, so even if he gets his buffs off, they aren't anywhere near perfect.

Remember if they're 1 round/level buffs, you can just run the hell away and come back later. So you now have some options

-Surprise him
-Don't get surprised yourself
-If you do get surprised run away.

So if you absolutely demand that things have a cost, that can't be it. It can be all kinds of crazy other things, from simple opportunity cost to drain to weird magic systems in which every buff spell also penalizes you in some other category. Whatever. But it can't be "losing turns" if you want any semblance of balance because that cost is by definition variable all the way down to nothing.

None of those especially work for buff spells. If it's a penalty, either the penalty is significant, in which case the spell sucks, or it's not. If it's a drain system, either the drain is significant or it's not. If it's significant, you probably won't bother casting the spell at all, if it's not then you won't care.

Losing turns is in fact the best way to balance spells like that. Because while the cost isn't always there in terms of actions, it's always causing you to do stuff. Whether it's try to set up ambushes or whatnot, you have to actually think to get the most out of your buffs, and that's a good thing. And your enemies can outthink you by turning and running away or doing something else.

There's no thought to all day buffs, they're just something that is going to get each and every cleric to burn all their slots on them and then just play a "fighter".

IMO the advantages for ambush teleport are too great. Being able to assault a "naked" opponent with a full complement of buffs is the closest thing you've got to an automatically won battle, and surely that is too big an effect for just "spending ranks in hide" (or, even worse, "having bought a scroll of teleport")

If running away was "always" an option which always worked and at no cost to boot, as was apparently just implied...

Well, then buffs with ANY limit to duration may as well not exist, every time they are seen in effect the opposition can run away and come back later.

In fact if you really can "always" run away then the ambush tactic itself may as well be non existent.

Because if you can "always" escape then you need never face any such thing as a circumstantial disadvantage (like the circumstance of opponents being buffed). Ever.

And thats just mind numbingly stupid.

The problem is not that ambushing people gives you an advantage - it is that if it turns of buffs it gives you a relative scaling advantage, and that's bad.

Let's say hypothetically that ambushing someone turns off half their bonuses - a not unreasonable assumption based on first level where a PC loses out on 3 points of dex AC and takes a -2 unaware opponent penalty out of his original total AC bonus of +10 (+5 armor, +2 shield, +3 Dex). So ambushing someone at low level gives you a +5 to-hit. On a d20. That's pretty big, the ambushed people are definately in a bad way here.

But scale that up a bit. Now you're higher level and your total bonuses are +20 instead of +10. Some of your bonuses are coming out of buffs that aren't on when people get the jump on you - so now the ambush bonus is +10 on a d20. That's really big. And when you're actually high level and have total bonuses in the +40 range, the ambush bonus has now gone to +20 on a d20 - now you might as well just coup de grace yourself and save time.

The problem isn't "Oh no, ambushes give bonuses!" - the problem is that ambushes already inherently give bonuses, and having them additionally shut off a percentage of your class features means that the ambush bonuses will grow in relative value as characters become more powerful until they eclipse everything. That's the problem, and there's no need for it.

-Username17

Frank wrote:The problem isn't "Oh no, ambushes give bonuses!" - the problem is that ambushes already inherently give bonuses, and having them additionally shut off a percentage of your class features means that the ambush bonuses will grow in relative value as characters become more powerful until they eclipse everything. That's the problem, and there's no need for it.

How is that different from ambushing a fighter in the bath?

I mean, without his mithril magic Full plate and shield, he's out anywhere from 10-22 points of AC and any Dex bonus he's got for the first round(we'll asume he keeps wearing natty armor amulets but not bracers of armor) as well as any bonus he gets from Expertise since his attack weapons are normally so good that he can spend BAB on AC and still hit.

Unless his magic sword or bow is in the bath with him he just lost his Weapon Focus and its magic bonus, so he's out 1-7 points of Attack bonus right there and his one method of doing lethal damage(without taking another -4) and 2-9 points of damage with every hit (and possibly more if he was a charge fighter or two-handed melee weapon fighter). If he was a reach or bow fighter, he may have just lost use on all of his feats. Lack of magic arrows means that he might have lost another 1-5 points of attack.

What about the AMF ambush for the Wizard? He's basically a Commoner of his level without his magic, so he's just actually lost all his class features.

What about the rogue locked into a room(from the outside) with children throwing rocks or vials of acid from a balcony?

Trying to pretend that ambushes are not devestating is silly.

But trying to make clerics and druids so powerful that, unlike everyone else, there is no easy way of negating some of their bonuses... is dumb.

Round/level durations do one thing: make it impossible for spellcasters to outfight fighters.

If you want to deal with the lethality of ambushes in DnD, or the way that most battles can be decided in a surprise turn, thats a whole other thread.

I'm talking about making spellcasters better at being spellcasters and worse as fighters.

-K