Time in ALFA - Spells

[FoamBats4All]

Take a moment and look at the changes. What are the net changes from increasing the duration of hour/level spells?

-6 minutes/CL (7min/CL -> 1min/CL): Control Undead, Death Ward, Magic Weapon, Protection from Alignment.

+3 minutes/CL (7min/CL -> 10min/CL): Barkskin, Light, Magic Circle Against Alignment, Stoneskin

+?? minutes/CL (7min/CL -> ??min/CL): Animate Dead, Charm Person, Create Undead, Enervation, False Life, Greater Magic Weapon, Greater Stoneskin, Low Light Vision, Mage Armor, Magic Vestment, Owl's Insight, Premonition, Protection from Arrows, Shield Other, Spike Growth

+?? minutes/CL (1min/CL -> ??min/CL): Greater Magic Fang

- - - - -

Notice the ones that get buffed. Ones that should last most of the day. The one exception being Greater Stoneskin, which we should remove (it's a homebrew Obsidian spell). We minorly buff a few. Again, normal stoneskin here, but with decent durations we can finally start implementing material components (or at least gold costs to cast).

More importantly, look at the ones we nerf. Death Ward is perhaps one of the most overpowered spells in the game. It makes you immune to damn near everything. Protection from Alignment is another often-used, powerful spell.

Nerf a handful of super powerful spells. Buff (then nerf with costs) a single very powerful spell.

It's not as big of a buff as some people think. What do we get in exchange for the buff? We get more consistent RP/balance, less rush in DM events, and more opportunity to roleplay during DM events/combat.

[Galadorn]

Double ouch.

[Rumple C]

Sounds good to me.

[vergin_sacrifice]

yes, OUCH.

But I'm all for rp at least of component usage, if not actual cost of it. Thats the trade off as I have said ICly actually, that wizards have amazing powers, but they literally run on gold.

Though I'm certain some people will be more apt to start charting their expenses and charging parties for their services.

EDIT - See, OOTS is already ahead of me on this.

[Ithildur]

+?? minutes/CL (7min/CL -> ??min/CL): Animate Dead, Charm Person, Create Undead, Enervation, False Life, Greater Magic Weapon, Greater Stoneskin, Low Light Vision, Mage Armor, Magic Vestment, Owl's Insight, Premonition, Protection from Arrows, Shield Other, Spike Growth

+?? minutes/CL (1min/CL -> ??min/CL): Greater Magic Fang

Further analysis of the above:

Low Light Vision doesn't function iirc.

Maybe someday folks will play an overtly evil necro type and have to endure the NWN2 versions of the undead creation spells...

I think people would WANT Spike Growth to be shorter duration actually if anyone uses it... >.>

Longer duration Charm person/monster/Dominate makes them function as RP spells with dialog/emotes (i.e. when time speeds up). Charm spells are also easily dismissible by a DM ICly long before the full duration.

The combat buffs that people cast are False Life, GMW, Mage Amor/Imp Mage Armor, Magic Vestment, Owl's Insight, (Premonition if we ever get a lvl 15 wizzie) Protection from Arrows, and Shield Other. If someone's brave enough to use a lvl 3 spellslot for their animal companion in combat, Greater Magic Fang.

9, maybe 10 buffs. That's a small list out of hundreds of spells out there, and half of the current list.

[kid]

So again we're increasing the power of our most powerful classes.
And ignore disadvantages they should have.

There's no DM to dispell you most times, Or someone to cast silance, you do not run out of spells and when you do you can just rest.
You character is not alive 24/7 and is not vaulnerable when asleep and doesnt actualy need the rest it just needs a 2 min break from play to regain full power.
And we're only logged for 2-3 hours which allows you to be fully buffed during all your play time with hourly spells at lv7 or so?
(instead of being buffed for... 7 out of 24 h you'll be buffed all the time that you're logged)

Bah. This would be a mistake.
Also...
You forgot to increase the duration of silance and allow it to be cast on oneself.

[causk]

With pnp duration changes(oh no nerf!) to some of the most powerfull spell im not convinced this is a huge buff to spellcasters overall. What concerns me more is the disparity between hourly and 10 min CL spells. With the later generally being much more powerfull than they should be (spiderskin, heroism, convinction come to mind). Is it possible to decrease the 10minperCL duration itself ? Making 10 min spells last for example 5 min and hourly spells 10+ minutes would make their duration and power difference more noticable. I think there should be at least a factor of 2 difference. Spellduration, and likely in some respect the power of spells have been balanced, in PnP by 10:10:6. We currently have 10:10:0.7, with ten minutes to hourly factor being completely out of whack.
As a baseline:
If we changed the 10 min spells to 7 mins and the hourly duration to 10, i dont think anyone could argue that spellcasters overall became much more powerfull, but the odds of those spells that are supposed to last half a day are less likely run out, because a party has an extended scouting and strategizing session in the middle of the DangerZone. Personally i think something like 10:7:2 would be better as the difference is more noticeable for low level casters.

[kid]

Its silly.

To be covered by a hour/lv spell all the time in PnP you'd need to be a caster lv24 (assuming no extanded spell casting)
As it is atm a lv12 caster can have it on with new system for 156/204 mins. that is somewhere between 2.5-3.5 hours
which is usualy the time you spend IG.
meaning your lv12 caster would almost allways be buffed with an hourly buff even though that in PnP those would cover him
only for half the day.

Not to mention how silly is the 10min powerful buffs.
A lv12 caster would have the 10min buffs on him for 2hours out of every 24. that is 1/12 of the time.
Atm, a lv12 caster can have those powerful buffs on for 2 hours out of what? 2-3 hours logged? 4 hours logged?
Instead of having buffs that should cover him for 1/12 of his living time it would be closer to 50-100% of his active play time.
No catching him off guard, no catching him on his down time. player logged off. fin.

So what do we do?
We want to increase our hourlies to allow them to cover our eniter play time (even though they really should cover less than that we just wont play that long)
And of course keep our unproportional 10min/lv spells that last much longer than they should compared to our play time.

Time is set. DM can't (or usualy wont) say "5 hours passed while travling your bufffs begin to ware off".
So really...
You wanna increase the duration of hourlies, at the very least cut down the duration of 10min ones.
That would allow us to keep some notion of balnace.

And if cutting down 10mins to 5min is impossible or too hard... or too much work, well... then dont change things, not untill you have the will and energy to change them in a way that takes the balance of our game into mind in a more responsible way.

Giving casters more power than they allready have is just plain silly.

[t-ice]

Let's break this down:

Rnd/lvl spells are extremely powerful and meant to last one encounter (some unusual situations might mean they last two encounter at very high lvls). ICly, that's what usually happens; it usually doesn't make sense for them to last longer than one battle. These are fine as they are currently most of the time.

Minute/lvl spells are usually meant to last a handful of encounters at most (usually far less, often just one if there's any searching or planning going on, etc). ICly, we usually do ok with these; sure, our planning/banter/skillchecks take far longer usually than they should ICly (which effectively speeds up time), but it's tolerable. Honestly, I've seen very little use of say the animal buffs in ALFA2 because of the fact by the time the banter/planning/skillchecks are rolled, these are gone. But as long as they last enough for one or two fights, it's tolerable.

10min/lvl spells vary in power; a few are quite useful or powerful, but a lot of them are disproportionately desirable in ALFA largely because of the fact that these currently are the longest lasting spells for us, which is one of those silly things we've learned to live with for so long and gotten used to being silly about (the sillypart being that we nerfed hour/lvl spells to last shorter than 10 minutes). By mid lvls these spells are already supposed to last over an hour; what does that mean? It means they're extremely useful for an extended period of time/over multiple encounters in a dungeon situation, good enough so you don't have to get too antsy when time suddenly 'speeds up' during skillchecks/dialog, but not so much when overland travel or any significant passage of time is involved. If we use these with some self restraint and avoid casting them before starting overland/long distance travel, they're fine.

Hour (or hours)/lvl spells: there's far fewer of these spells than any of the other categories, especially once we fix durations to match 3.5e. These are by design intended to last a significant part of an adventuring day; by midlvls and above you're talking about long enough to cover an entire day's worth of marching/overland travel, or if cast once you arrive at a dungeon, long enough to last until it's time to rest. Extended castings by high lvl casters should last an entire day. That's how they're meant to work.

I don't think either minute per level nor 10 minutes per level spells should last more than an encounter in any but exceptional cases. The idea that it's RP to clear a dungeon of 50 monsters constituting 5 encounters in an hour is the cancer that CRPGs have brought. Just cathing your breath and bearings after a fight should take about an hour when RPing. Only hour/levels you prepare "strategically" in advance. Most 10 mins per level spells in Foam's list above are for a good reason the most common spells used now, and remain to be overtly powerful in comparison even if hourlies would last 14 RL minutes. (Stoneskin, Barkskin, ProtFromEvil, ProtFromElements)

Hour per level spells should be given the strategic value they should have by extending their duration. But likewise 10mins per level should not have the strategic value they do have now. And would have if they lasted roughly the same time as hour per levels.

One way to do that might be a "advance time 1 hour for my party's buffs" -tool for the DM to use in appropriate spots, such as after an encounter. Which would reduce 6 CLs worth of time from 10mins per level spells, but only 1 CL worth of time from hour per level spells. But I guess that isn't possible?

[FoamBats4All]

So again we're increasing the power of our most powerful classes.
And ignore disadvantages they should have.

If you don't read other people's posts, why do you bother posting yourself?

[kid]

Dunno. You seem to ignore everything else I've said. Bottom line this proposal would allow a caster to be buffed with horlies and 10min spells for nearly the entire duration of his play time. This Unlike what he should be in pnp with both types of spells.
And while its somewhat understandable with the hourly spells it has no justification with the 10min ones who should be active at most for one two hours out of each day.
Your not supposed to cruise through a dungeon in 2 hours and most defently not supposed to run through mountains forests UD or areas which include days of walking with your 10min lv buffs on at all times. More like 10% of the time at level 16 or so and much less at lower levels.

I'm sorry this is not to your liking. But that's the way it is.
So change your hours if you like but decrease the 10min ones.

[vergin_sacrifice]

Dunno. You seem to ignore everything else I've said. Bottom line this proposal would ....

Kid, there are changes proposed above that would counter balance making it expensive to be a caster for one, bringing into line a cost for spell casting that was left out before, as well as correcting times for spells done incorrectly by obsidian.

But the largest key here, is not about anyone being more powerful or less powerful. It's about giving breathing room to allow for some RP in the middle. So that we can play the way we want to, without feeling so rushed to complete the adventure before the buffs wear off. That's the real goal, to improve the experience for everyone. That is the bottom line as I see it from the posted comments; To make the game a more rewarding RP experience, and less about hack n slash before the spells wear off.

[FoamBats4All]

Dunno. You seem to ignore everything else I've said. Bottom line this proposal would ....

It's about giving breathing room to allow for some RP in the middle. So that we can play the way we want to, without feeling so rushed to complete the adventure before the buffs wear off.

Well said.

There are other things we can do to balance powers, such as material component costs. And, more importantly, nerf the spells that Obsidian (in their infinite wisdom) broke/buffed absurdly. Time, however, needs to be a bit longer. A smidge of RP in a dungeon shouldn't cripple your long-lasting buffs. A player going to the bathroom shouldn't remove spells that should last for most of the day. It's time that's the problem. Fix it, both in the module, and in the scripts, and you arguably nerf casters (some of the biggest, coolest spells get made weaker, and you have to wait much longer to rest). Additional nerfs needed? Well, add material costs to the spells that should have them.

I know as a caster that idea makes me sigh, as it'll cost gold to go into combat, and my most trusty protection spells (such as Protection from Alignment and Stoneskin) are no longer go-to. But at least when I do cast something like False Life or Protection from Arrows (woo?), I know it'll last enough to make sense.

[kid]

And it still doesn't change the fact that you allow buffs that should cover you for about 5% of the time to cover you through nearly your entire play time.
There's ample room for RP. You gain a lot of time when covering a mountain range take 5 mins instead of half a day.
Just don't worry about when your buffs fade. Most times the 10min ones should not last anyways the moment you get to traveling.

If you want to RP just RP. but no, you want to RP and be powerful without any real justification.

[vergin_sacrifice]

And it still doesn't change the fact that you allow buffs that should cover you for about 5% of the time to cover you through nearly your entire play time.
There's ample room for RP. You gain a lot of time when covering a mountain range take 5 mins instead of half a day.
Just don't worry about when your buffs fade. Most times the 10min ones should not last anyways the moment you get to traveling.

If you want to RP just RP. but no, you want to RP and be powerful without any real justification.

I don't think you are getting the point that I was attempting to make.... its not the travel, it's the during the encounter. If travel is not represented properly for a DM's liking, they can advance time by debuffing etc.

But things happen during an encounter; like when the DM has the NPC monologue in classic comic book fashion, or the players need a quick AFK and the DM halts the encounter, but doesn't want to inconvenience the whole server to accommodate one player. There is a whole range of RP or actions that take place in seconds that take minutes to act out, but with time running so fast, it translates to hours instead. Hours should not pass as seconds are acted out, we are just trying to get across a need to give some breathing room.

I know some people will say the DM can control that... but there are a lot of us, who don't require a DM to have a good adventure and RP. This would help us as well.