Spells that enhance the party, often referred to as ‘buff-spells’, have very short durations. At the same time, the 5-minute adventuring day is a problem for many groups. Wouldn’t it be logical to, therefore, simply extend the duration of these spells substantially? I would say change it to 10 mintues or 1 hour per level (or maybe even longer durations), rather than 1 round or 1 minute per level (I like durations that are 'per level' and thus increase with the level of the caster). This would provide less incentive for the party to rest and more to carry on with adventuring. I don’t foresee any game-breaking problems that this would engender, after all, durations of some spells used to be longer in past editions.
Which spells would have their duration increased, would have to be considered carefully, but with spells like 'Bless' and so on, I think this would be desirable.
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Depending on the 'buff' in question, I'd be pretty content with some of them (Bull's Strength or Invisibility, for example) just lasting the rest of the day.
Removing the level-based durations would also, IMO, address some of the weirdness. If a Blur spell lasts 10 minutes, whether you are 3rd level or 17th, it would be more useful at the lower levels, and yet not drag through two or three possible combats at higher levels, and require some (occasionally annoying) tracking.
[Insert protestations of 'but that's like 4E!' and my rebuttal of 'So what? Even a stopped clock can be right twice a day...']
I could be completely wrong on this but I seem to remember reading when Alpha or Beta was released that the limiting of the buff spells duration was intentional, basically to keep spell casters from casting a few spells once or twice per day and benefiting from the effects all "adventuring" day long. For all intents it was changed to prevent exactly what you are requesting it to be extended for.
My problem for long duration buff spells, it's that's very easy to combine a lot of them at once, which make things more complicated by adding a lot of calculations.
Depending on the 'buff' in question, I'd be pretty content with some of them (Bull's Strength or Invisibility, for example) just lasting the rest of the day.
If this change was made, stat booster items and rings of invisibility would become much less desired items.
Also, most summoners, buffers, healers and other supporting characters would be invisible all the time starting at level 3 when they can cast invisiility or ask another party member to cast it on them.
I agree 3.5 lowered the buff time to avoid worrying about keeping track of them encounter to encounter and to limit all day buffing, a huge nightmare and probably where the name codzilla started.
I posted a suggested feat, which extends spell durations to a level between extend and persistent. You can find it by doing a search of prolonged spell. Sorry I am not a good linker. lol