BigCoffee |
I'm currently playing a wizard/fighter and soon to be eldritch knight in an AP and I'm facing the problems of needing a good 6-7 rounds to buff myself (or less depending on situations). So I was wondering if there was a way I could create a magic item or even a spell to facilitate using that. Mostly because the buff spells that work per round/minute are annoying to calculate when the actions die down :
How many seconds passed between this and that, we talked IC/OOC for a minute, did a minute pass? The hourly/tens of minute stuff can usually last an entire dungeon, but it's the little things.
My main idea for making the item would be some sort of charger, where you transfer the spells on your item and they are held there until they can be released all at the same time for say, a full round action. Making everything all neat and proper. If unusued, the item discharges at the end of the day so you can't cheat and save more spells.
Wheldrake |
Each spell takes a standard action to activate (barring quickened spells or special spell rules). So the only way to speed things up would be to have additional casters casting some of those buffs. Something like:
- a familiar who can use wands
- another PC who can use wands / other buffing items
- maybe an intelligent item that could cast all on its own.
AFAIK, all spell storing items still require a standard action to activate each spell, so no gains to be made there.
If you have loads of gold, perhaps you could use a quicken spell rod to toss 3 low-level buffs in addition to other spellcasting on the first 3 rounds.
This is a built-in limit on buffing, and IMO should not be changed via houserules. Of course, your houserules are your own, but allowing an item to cast multiple spells (buffs or whatever) at the same time would be brokenly powerful.
Claxon |
If you need that many rounds to buff to make yourself viable in combat you have a problem.
Do you actually need all these buffs, or do you just want them?
Consider that spending 7 spells each combat to buff will quickly deplete your ability to fight more than once or twice a day.
However, you can certainly prebuff before walking into a fight. Though trying to buff while the enemy is talking will likely just start combat immediately.
As far as creating a custom magic item or spell to facilitate faster buffing....no not really. Not within the rules, and not within a lot of agreement from your GM. And what you're asking for is essentially to combine 6 or 7 rounds of spellcasting into 1 or 2. That's the equivalent of 3 rounds of spell casting with quickened spells each round. And quicken cost an extra 4 spell slots. It's just wayyyyyyyyyyyy toooooooooooo muchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I'd certainly never allow it.
Why do you think you need this many rounds of buffing?
Also wheel drake is right, that this is a purposefully built in limitation on buffing to prevent exactly what it sounds like you are trying to do. Which is buff yourself to a point where you are head and shoulder above everything else.
BigCoffee |
I want them, I hate having to have all these buffs and calculate them 1 by 1, by minute, tens of minutes, seconds. It bothers me a little. And of course there's quicken rods and all that *obviously*. I'm looking for something to bypass all of that, something to make spellcasting neat. I don't think spending what I assume is a good few thousand gold pieces to sync the minor buffs togheter something to be broken.
Every morning/before a dungeon it's mage armor, then the first thing that goes up is shield. But then you have mirror image, the stat spells, and everything else in the minute department. I don't need all of them, but when I know we're going to have trouble and I need to blow everything, making sure I half every buff I'm packing on me is good to know.
The party is a summoner, eldritch knight, battle cleric and bard, our whole shtick is medium equipped melee characters (bard is 100% support, summoner has a melee summon) buffing ourselves up the wazoo and going in.
I don't need it, I want it, because it's clean, call it minor OCD or something. It's why I also reprint my character sheet every time it gets a bit too crowded, or why I appear to be the only person ever to keep record of gear weight, cost of living and everything minor that should be taken care of in a regular game.
You're not meant to buff that much, but investing a lot of money to make something specific, that's doable. I do plan on having a rod of quicken for side attack spells, and because it fits the character.
Claxon |
What you're requesting would cost several hundred thousand gold to do since you're looking at somehow casting 6 spells in a single round.
It's simply not tenable.
If you know a battle is about to happen, take a few turns, buff, and then walk in.
The time limitation is intentional.
As far as SigaVa suggestion. I can tell you that it's unbalanced.
The closest you can get within existing rules is a level 2 spell and a level 6 spell to get the effects of two 2nd level spells in one round. And it takes both a standard and a swift action. If you wanted to get two spell effects from 2nd level spells as a standard action, that would cost at least a 7th level spell.
Actually, as a GM, I'd probably allow that. The price is steep, but that's the point.
BigCoffee |
So the only way to appease my bookkeeping OCD is 500k in magic items. Which is in short, stupid as hell. At this point I'l just handweave the 6-24 seconds difference in the shorter buffs within reasonable reason and just cast whatever I need unless the DM gives me specific things I can and can't do. Or get leadership and hire someone to follow me and buff me around or something.
Claxon |
Just ask your GM to adopt a different method of measuring buff duration.
I suggest this.
This basically measure how long your buffs last in terms of number of combats or scenes. This gets rid of actual hard measurements and basically just says that your buffs persist through X many things in game instead of actually measuring time.
The only ones that remain unchanged are rounds per level buffs. For relatively obvious reasons.
But yes, otherwise what you are asking for is increidbly unbalanced within the rules. I'm sorry that is the case. But honestly, the only things it should matter on are rounds per level spells. The rest are so unlikely to run out with others still remaining into another activity that it's irrelevant.
All your minute/level spells will run out at the same time.
All your 10 min/level spells will run out at the same time.
All your hour/level spells will run out at the same time.
The 30 seconds difference that might exist between some of them just isn't going to be important. If your group actually keeps track of time outside of combat (down to the round) then your group do something that probably no one else attempts because there is just to much abstraction to do so.
BigCoffee |
Interesting, I do realize it was unbalanced, but it was more out of annoyance then game breaking needs. I'l give this side duration thing a look. With a group of 4 buffers this might be interesting for everyone.
And no I try and keep track, others do it loosely, but there was this nagging feeling and this might just be the thing to make things simple.
Claxon |
I can understand your frustration of trying to track each buff separately. And while your intentions may be noble, if your GM allows it for you he would be hard pressed to deny it to others...who then might abuse the ability.
It is unfortunate that something like this cannot be simply added because of the true power and way in which it could be used, even though that is not your goal. That is why I evaluate it as I have.
But, this method of shifting buff duration into scenes and acts streamlines things IMO. Hopefully your GM is amenable to this idea and willing to give it a try. And if he does I hope this works and satisfies you.
Adept_Woodwright |
Maybe you could use something like a spellcasting focus, where all it does is act as a temporary charge holder... you'd still need all the rounds to cast spells at the item, and once your satisfied with the buffs you'd let it release all at once. As long as you're not beating action economy, that's not super powerful. I'd make it so that it will automatically give the buffs to an appropriate target/s if a round passes without new spells going in (this prevents you from casting the spells and holding them until a fight comes out)
The strongest benefit of this comes in with the round/level or shorter spells. Where usually these would be impacted by the extra rounds needed to buff, the item would keep all spells at max duration until the charges are released. There might be some unintended consequences of that (which if exploited, might cause concern for a GM)
I wouldn't make it cost very much (probably no more than a +2 rod of metamagic for a given level of spells), but I wont bother trying to price unless you're interested in the idea.