Time in ALFA - Spells

[SwordSaintMusashi]

Typically, that's the cost of minute/level buffs: You put them on situation to situation, not the long term (and they are more powerful because of this reason, typically).

[Xanthea]

But at higher levels it's reasonable to expect that minute/level spells should last for multiple encounters if they're close together, particularly when extended.

Time spent RPing still takes longer than it should and still forces rushing out of people with minute/level buffs ticking.

[kid]

Point is that time is out of wack and you can't solve it completely. Sometimes you gain benefits from it and at times it's a disadvantage. I'm not saying don't try to make time more to your liking, I'm saying make sure you don't fuck up balance while you do it.

So if you choose to prolong durations if hourly spells go gor it. At the very lest we should make the 10min ones shorter. Anything else is just a one sided increase in casters power.

[I-KP]

If anything the likely result is more common use of the sort of spells that were meant to be more commonly used but currently arent owing to being so fleeting in duration because of the way the game plays.

[FoamBats4All]

If anything the likely result is more common use of the sort of spells that were meant to be more commonly used but currently arent owing to being so fleeting in duration because of the way the game plays.

This.

The problem isn't that 10 minute/level spells are too long, it's that we decided to nerf hour/level spells so accidentally/badly.

That said, 1:1 hourly spells is total overkill, and would definitely be something to get concerned over. There are other considerations to take into account, such as travel. Something like 13-17 minute/level would be more appropriate.

This should be done paired (not before, not after) changing some key, important spells. Spells like barkskin, death ward, magic circle of protection v. alignment, magic weapon, protection from alignment, protection from elements, and stoneskin should all have their durations fixed to PnP standards. We should fix other spells while we're at it, favoring at least some semblance of balance that PnP at least pretends to have, as opposed to our current favor of Obsidian's crackpot durations/effects.

[danielmn]

i voted Yes because:

i hate the stress i feel behind my screen when i see people fire off their precious buffs. As it is, combat in alfa is clumbsy and hard to get a firm grip and control over as it is and as soon as attackrolls are rolled, my ability to capability RP, emote what my toon/s does, reacts, says, etc are lowered to a painful minimum of a occational *dodges* *curses* *yelps* if i get the time inbetween target reassignment, movement, consumable-poping, spellthrowing, HPtracking, pathing-frustration.

so. knowing and seeing the effects of everyone knowing how the precious spells seconds/minutes ticks away when that dredgery of combat finally ends, and the OOC feeling of needing to squeeze out every last droop of a possible difference between life and death that those buffs in alot of cases can present, makes the RP die even more, even after the mechanical dredgery is over-and-done-with.

if the spells actually, mechanically doesnt wear off in "a blink of an eye" - atleast I would feel alot more comfortable with giving the tiem to RP more... after all... it feels so utterly compeltely worthless to minimize the trauma comatness-life-and-death-situations to stressed "everyone's alright..? good, that door, after you" RP (and yes, i to a 99% blames the buffs and their durations. the RP that IG is swift and perhaps not takes time at all, but takes time to express and react to emotewise, takes up alot of OOC time to write up)


i hope this doesnt comes out as to whiney

Mmmm. I have to question how much changing the spell times would affect. I love rping in all circumstances as well, and I understand the point trying to be made. However...I've played non-casters and have had just as much a horrible time rping during battle because there are a lot of twitch skills involved. I guess it would improve upon the after fight rp if you weren't rushing to squeeze every last drop out of a spell. But the very short duration spells are meant to be just that: likely because they are some of the most powerful IG. I really don't see a change having an impact during immediate combat as far as the arguement of rp though, again, combat is very intensive when it comes to getting technical ducks in a row (whom to attack, when to use potion ect.)

[kid]

If anything the likely result is more common use of the sort of spells that were meant to be more commonly used but currently arent owing to being so fleeting in duration because of the way the game plays.

This is kinda silly.
The changes are an increase in power. If they were not then no one would care so much about bufffs fading.
Granted it may result in more casting options. However more casting options are still an increase in power.

So again, the main question is that of balace, which we all seem to ignore.
If we believe casters are now at a disadvantage by all means lets buff them up.

if we do not think they are, and we wish to give them a boost, at the very least we should normalize the benefits they gain in other ways. Mainly: Cost for componants, and 10min spell overly long duration.

Other than that a 13/17 min hour would not be so bad.

[I-KP]

It’s not an increase in material power tho is it, it’s an increase in versatility, the kind of versatility that should have been there all along. It seems to me that you are distilling the various considerations that factor in the proposed change into one of only two categories, ‘buff’ or ‘nerf’, with little or no consideration as to their weight or even relevance; such binary approaches to discussion are rarely productive.

I would back a 17min hour.

[kid]

A lot of things should have been there in the first place and are not.
For some reason we only choose to implement those that make are Characters more powerful.
Odd ins't it?

The point doesn't change. If you wish to increase the power of casters under the premise that's that is how they were intended to be played, then very well. Do change other things to match to the way that was intended. Only this time things that are somewhat a decrease in the power of casters.

Otherwise it just doesn't make sense.

Again, unless the claim is that casters are a weaker class in ALFA and that our balance so far is bad, and we should do something to aid the poor wee casting classes.

Claiming this is about RP seems kinda bullshit to me.
If you care about RP you don't care when your buffs ware off, you just RP.
If you care about how strong you can be or how long, then you talk about spell duration.

[Brokenbone]

It's simply a power increase poll at this stage.

I have a caster with a half decent caster level, and will see huge benefit in terms of time expansion, except maybe some of my "favourites" would go to minute / level (like PfE), but don't worry, I will find new favourites. If I feel like playing DMless, smashing crap out in the wilderness, the power increase will be quite noticeable. I could "hunt stuff" for a nice long time. Not super interested in that as a style, I have other games that is fun for. If playing DM'd, the chances are the increase in power won't be as noticeable, I'm used to long sessions, I guess rather than glancing at a clock in RL and saying "guess this buff lasts til 11:45pm real time", it'd be "now it lasts til 1am." Our RP tends to take a long time no matter what we do, our group is resigned to the odd buff winking out whenever it has run it's course, maybe that won't happen as often, whatever.

Gradual change though to see if the world's thrown out of whack I guess is good. Experiment with slight lengthening, then more lengthening? It's not like there's a mountain of dead casters right now we're trying to make more survivable though, so I do not know how success would be measured (i.e., 2 less dead casters per month, hurray!) I am really not sure how success would be measured, come to think of it. "Oh boy my roleplay is amazing now that I can type more during a 14 minute hour!!!", really don't know.

As an afterthought, I guess it's "high" casters who see much bigger benefit than "low" casters with messing with time. Someone at level 2, looking at 14 mins becoming say 28 minutes, that ain't bad. At level 10 though, 70 minutes becoming 140 minutes, well... now we're talking. Yes, lots of intense DM sessions can go longer than two hours, but more casual play of "lets all do a bunch of statics or help the nooblins with some statics or let's explore something scary", a couple hours DMless and fully buffed is I guess a lot of exploration potential. Everyone "feels" at least a little benefit from time expanding, but the more levels under the belt, the more marked the benefit it'd seem. Just as people right now may feel like "wow, Extend metamagic makes for a long spell", new style would be like (sake of argument if doubling), like Extend for free, and actual use of Extend on top of that would be like 4x whatever a normal spell today might feel like. I think we're all going to be drunk on power, ha ha.

[Swift]

And that is one of the issues. Wizards are very much designed to be squishy in the early levels and come into their true power in the mid to high levels. With time as it is, mid to high level casters can already be devastating. TSM has seen a couple of casters in its time who fall into this category.

Any change to spell time or general time is a direct increase in how powerful these characters can be. Certainly any drastic change to time without appropriate other balance considerations would be a direct and significant boost to a class that is already powerful.

[Brokenbone]

Well, some of the "other balance" I suppose comes in with correcting some spells that Obsidian just said "sure, hour/level", PnP says "no, minute / level."

Protection from Alignment is one of those level 1 spells that I'd think everyone relies on, high or low. Magic Weapon is also relied on a good deal when at a stage where "not worth buying a +1 weapon, but for the next few IG hours, I'm buffed up good"... both those could end up RL minute/level. Sure, the big boy versions of those spells like Magic Circle vs. Alignment or Greater Magic Weapon are "hourlies", but people may think twice about what the best use of their 3rd / 4th slots are, compared to the no brainer of PfA in a level 1 slot being great for hours and hours, personal range.

Not saying "great, everything's balanced because nerfs coming in at same time", but it's part of the equation I suppose. The higher level casters who will most benefit from time expansion will also suffer "some amount" of disadvantage if their 9 hour or 12 hour or whatever PfA becomes 9 mins or 12 mins or something like that. Maybe that "PnP-ized" durations business will actually neuter lowbie casters, can't say. Think you had a hard time with 7 minute of +1 weapon, now it's 1 minute, but your rare hourly buffs are now 14 mins or 20 mins or 30 mins or whatever.

[oldgrayrogue]

I think my next PC will be a caster =P

[SwordSaintMusashi]

Protection from Alignment is one of those level 1 spells that I'd think everyone relies on, high or low. Magic Weapon is also relied on a good deal when at a stage where "not worth buying a +1 weapon, but for the next few IG hours, I'm buffed up good"... both those could end up RL minute/level. Sure, the big boy versions of those spells like Magic Circle vs. Alignment or Greater Magic Weapon are "hourlies", but people may think twice about what the best use of their 3rd / 4th slots are, compared to the no brainer of PfA in a level 1 slot being great for hours and hours, personal range.

Magic Weapon: Minutes per level. Not hours, which is the discussion.
Protection from Alignment: Being changed to its proper duration, as has been stated multiple times.
Magic Circle Against Alignment: Also having its duration reduced to the proper one, as has been stated.

[oldgrayrogue]

I think my next PC will be a caster =P

C'mon, be honest, you are all thinking it, admit it.