Favorite Long Duration or Permanent spells

[Corvino]

I was having a think yesterday about the various long or permanent duration spells available, and the shenigans you can get up to with each.

A Dwarf Cleric in heavy armor with the Travel Domain and Longstrider can have the highest movement in the party all day, everyday!

With the Wall of Stone spell and a month of downtime you can build yourself a pretty decent castle. Use Transmute Mud to Rock to create a foundation and Stone Shape for extra windows/arrowslits. If you really want to get advanced you can throw in Move Earth to create a moat.

What are your favorite long duration or permanent spells? Bonus points if you can get them to all day use with an extend rod.

[Anzyr]

Well lets start with the bests:
Planar Binding
Simulacrum
Fabricate
Greater Create Demiplane
Aroden's Spellbane
Explosive Runes, Explosive Runes, and more Explosive Runes.

Good stuff:
Magic Vestments
Greater Heroism
Fickle Winds
Masterwork Transformation
Rope Trick
Shrink Item
Animate Dead
More...

[Nifty Butterfinger]

Cure Light Wounds

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

Anzyr wrote:

Well lets start with the bests:

Planar Binding
Simulacrum
Fabricate
Greater Create Demiplane
Aroden's Spellbane
Explosive Runes, Explosive Runes, and more Explosive Runes.

Good stuff:
Magic Vestments
Greater Heroism
Fickle Winds
Masterwork Transformation
Rope Trick
Shrink Item
Animate Dead
More...

You forgot greater magic weapon

[Captain K.]

Arcane Sight
See Invisibility
Detect Magic
Read Magic
Tongues

However, I can imagine life becoming a little less wondrous, all rather cynical. Like in John Carpenter's Them.

[CraziFuzzy]

Permanency

[Corvino]

Good examples guys.

Greater Magic Weapon and Magic Vestment are the sort of thing I was looking at - the duration is long enough that they can last all day easily. Greater Heroism is great, but at 1 min/level it's only going to last one combat. Regular Heroism has a 10 min/level duration, so by level 10 with a lesser extend rod it'll likely last you a number of combats.

Fabricate is an interesting one, and similar in intention to the castle example I used in the original post. It lets you use magic to create a mundane item in much less time, but you still need the raw materials and appropriate craft skills. I can see it being very useful if your GM denies easy access to masterwork weapons/armor in special materials, are there other great uses?

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

All the 10 min per level buffs are good with extend past a certain point as well. CL 10th extended is over 3 hours, that should easily get you through a significant amount of exploration and battles.

See Invisibility
Freedom of Movement
Heroism

and a few hour/level buffs I haven't seen yet

Mage Armor
False Life
Longstrider

[Ravingdork]

I once made a wizard where the goal was to have as many all-day spells up as possible. That necessitated me researching all the long-duration spells in the game.

Some of the spells he always had up: arcane sight*, contingency, countless eyes, cushioning bands, delay pain, greater darkvision*, greater false life, lesser astral projection, mind blank, moment of prescience, overland flight, protection from arrows, ride the waves, see invisibility,* and tongues*.

* Made permanent via permanency.

EDIT: I also recommend extended heroism. Amazing long-duration buff. Did you know that shapechange lets you stay in dragon form 24/7 if you have enough slots from a high ability score (or extend spell). Adventuring as a dragon all the time is a lot of fun.

[Falcar]

Along with this there is the ring of continuation , it makes any 10 minute per level or longer spell last 24 hours. Only downside is that once you cast another personal spell it ends the 24 hour hour effect and goes back to its normal duration remaining.

[Owly]

Blindness/Deafness

One little 2nd level spell can change everything.

[Corvino]

Wow Ravingdork, I've never heard of some of those spells! The flavor text for countless eyes is pretty weird, thanks for an interesting reading list. Having countless eyes, cushioning bands and delay pain up at the same time must have burned a lot of spell slots. I also wasn't aware of the ring of continuation, good one Falcar.

Blindness/Deafness is indeed a nasty 2nd level spell, but I was more considering buffs than debuffs.

[Kayerloth]

Spells I've used excluding the ones on RD's list to avoid repetition: Status, Detect Scrying, Private Sanctum (often paired with having Secure Shelter memorized), Telepathic Bond (permanency), Nondetection.

And some depending on circumstance in the campaign at the time: False Vision and/or Screen, Seeming, Veil, Sequester and Instant Summons.

And a few used with Extend: Stoneskin, Protection from Energy, Prismatic Sphere, Greater Spell Immunity/Spell Immunity, Foresight, Protection from Spells.

[Rynjin]

Echolocation is the bomb.

"Mists, darkness, blindness? Not a problem. Gaze attacks? You must be joking. Invisible creatures? Don't make me laugh."

[Zalman]

There are some themes that occur again and again, in every game. One of those themes is party separation. I cannot count the number of times adversity is achieved or enhanced by the simple mechanism of making it so one party member doesn't know another's doings, situation, or immediate whereabouts. It is arguably the most common trait of any adverse situation for the characters.

Given this recurring theme in its myriad forms, I think that Telepathic Bond may be the most underused long-running spell in the game. It last an hour or two, rather than all day, which is still generally plenty of time to cover a day's dungeon crawling. It can also be made permanent.

Even when the situation isn't particularly "adverse" at the moment, the expedient of, say, all party members knowing exactly what the party scout knows -- as they are scouting -- is a massive advantage, particularly for the sort of mid- to high-level parties that would be casting 5th-level spells, giving everyone a chance to dress themselves in all sorts of encounter-appropriate enhancements before any dice are rolled.

Perfect inter-party communication, over any distance, without sound or movement. A huge, huge win.

[Fig]

CraziFuzzy wrote:

Permanency

I was coming here to say that one, too.

Isn't the duration on unseen servant something like 24 hours?

EDIT: Nope, Servant is 1 hr/level. Steed is 2/level. Is it a magical camp that is 24 hours?

[Magda Luckbender]

These are good lists. No one has mentioned the most common, low-level all-day spell: Endure Elements (24 hour duration). Every first level divine caster can have this up all the time, almost for free.

A first level Cleric might prepare this default first level spell list: Bless, Divine Favor, Open Spell Slot. Shortly before renewing spells prepare and cast Endure Elements in the Open Spell Slot. This leaves the spell always-on, except the day after an adventuring day if you prepare some other spell in the Open Spell Slot.

This same trick also works for higher level extended hour-per-level spells. Creative use of Open Spell Slots can get you several always-on spells.

[Thelemic_Noun]

Clerics can't leave slots open. Only arcane prepared casters can.

[Rynjin]

Thelemic_Noun wrote:

Clerics can't leave slots open. Only arcane prepared casters can.

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out where you got this notion.

[Kayerloth]

Rynjin wrote:

Thelemic_Noun wrote:

Clerics can't leave slots open. Only arcane prepared casters can.

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out where you got this notion.

Probably as a result of the contradiction of logic in

1) "A divine spellcaster selects and prepares spells ahead of time through prayer and meditation at a particular time of day." and
2) "Later during that day, she can repeat the preparation process as often as she likes. During these extra sessions of preparation, she can fill these unused spell slots."

Rendering the 'particular time' kind of moot fluff rather than a concrete difference enhancing the way in which a cleric or other divine caster gets (or rather receives) their spells.

[paul Riggs]

The only two I can think of is Ablative barrier
from ultimate combat it gives you +2 armour bonus and the 1st 5 points of an attack are converted to non lethal damage for every round until
you have used up 5hp per level with a maximum of 50 points.

The mount spell get a trained and cooperative horse or pony for 2hr per level.

[andreww]

Overland Flight is pretty much the best long duration buff going for anyone with access to it. All day long flight renders you largely immune to a huge array of primarily melee based enemies. Many monsters have no means of flight and few if any effective ranged attacks.

Darkvision is another excellent pick if you cannot see in the dark and lasts an hour per level.

My divine casters routinely drop delay poison on themselves every day, at an hour per level it isn't hard to have it up all day. Air Walk and Freedom of Movement are both great 10min/level buffs.

Ant Haul is 2 hours per level and is great for low strength casters who want to avoid any question of medium encumbrance. Life Bubble is also 2 hours per level and will make you immune to a range of effects.