6th level wizard spell - spell extension?

[Ahku]

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone has any info on weather or not the 6th level wizard spell 'Spell Extension' works? It's supposed to raise the duration of spells to 1 round / level?

I tried it with the following spells to no notable effect:

True Strike (normal duration 9 seconds - virtually useless)
Expeditious Retreat (normal duration 6 seconds / lvl - almost as bad)

Just curious.

[chad878262]

Item properties are not effected (so no true strike), but based on description expeditious retreat should have worked.

[aaron22]

exp retreat: 6sec/level = rd/level so the change is nil.

[chad878262]

but if you cast it just before the other expires it should start the countdown over... My understanding was spell extension is sort of an 'emergency' spell to get ~3 extra minutes when you know your spells are coming up on expiration. Otherwise, what's the point?

[aaron22]

Otherwise, what's the point?

IDK.. never used it.. I thought it was a spell that turned a 60sec spell into a 3 min spell.

[metaquad4]

but if you cast it just before the other expires it should start the countdown over... My understanding was spell extension is sort of an 'emergency' spell to get ~3 extra minutes when you know your spells are coming up on expiration. Otherwise, what's the point?

There is little point to casting it, really. The spell slot it takes up is almost always more valuable, and it doesn't seem to work on spells that are less than 1 round/level.

It is sort of like adding in persistent spell, then not allowing the persistent spell to work on any spell less than 1 minute/level. Pretty pointless.

It is a noob trap. We have a few of those, that is its function. Like power critical, etc. etc..

[chad878262]

spell aught to be refined or removed then, but I suppose that could be said of many spells and feats. age old argument...not everything has to be a good choice. *sigh*

[metaquad4]

spell aught to be refined or removed then, but I suppose that could be said of many spells and feats. age old argument...not everything has to be a good choice. *sigh*

I mean, if I had my way, we'd overhaul things like resist (poison, disease, elements), power critical, spring attack, mobility, this spell, etc. etc.. to be useful. Having "noob traps" (aka useless stuff) is straight up textbook bad game design.

But hey, as ubisoft is fond of saying. . .player choice!

[mrm3ntalist]

Resist poison. What would you do about this feat?

[metaquad4]

Resist Poison. What would you do about this feat?

Wrap a use poison and a resist poison revamp together.

Use Poison: Injury and contact poisons last for twice as long and have twice as many charges. Inhalation poisons linger in a cloud for 1d3 rounds. Ingestion poisons gain a +2 to their DC. You gain a +10 to your DEX check when you attempt to apply a poison.

(Currently, this makes it so you can apply poisons safely. Shift this function to resist poison.)

Rename to "Expert Poisoner" or some-such.

Resist Poison: +2 Saves vs Poison, Poisons you apply will have no chance of poisoning you.

Now Resist Poison is worth taking (there are some decent poisons lying around) for martial builds, classes with use poison are still the best at using poisons (the feat traditionally there to represent their expertise still does that job nicely) and Resist Poison is even worthwhile to them (their bonus gives them a good chance of being able to apply higher DC poisons, but it won't be failsafe unless they have resist poison).

[chad878262]

I hate that idea man. Rogue's are already feat starved and poison has VERY limited usefulness on this server. Why enforce a new feat they need to take in order to use poison safely?

Making a feat useful should not entail taking functionality away from an existing feat that has limited usefulness as it is (and is free for several PRC's - in this case Assassin, Darkfire Disciple and Blackguard).

Maybe wrap resist poison, resist disease, etc. in to one feat or something...

[metaquad4]

I hate that idea man. Rogue's are already feat starved and poison has VERY limited usefulness on this server. Why enforce a new feat they need to take in order to use poison safely?

Making a feat useful should not entail taking functionality away from an existing feat that has limited usefulness as it is (and is free for several PRC's - in this case Assassin, Darkfire Disciple and Blackguard).

Maybe wrap resist poison, resist disease, etc. in to one feat or something...

One can just make resist poison feat given to those classes for free if one wants. Or maybe some classes could get it, and some might not. Assassin would def fit, can replace their class resist poison with the feat itself at one of the early levels.

Making a feat useful does sometimes entail shifting things around. That is part of the nature of overhauls. As long as it is a net gain overall, it isn't a big deal.

Rolling resists poison and resists disease into one feat doesn't fix the issue. Both are worthless effects, making it two useless effects doesn't change that.

You are (and should) going to run into this sort of panic eventually though. If your feat choice is clear-cut and isn't giving you trouble (oh, should I pick this good feat or this equally good feat!) then the game has a problem.

[chad878262]

You are (and should) going to run into this sort of panic eventually though. If your feat choice is clear-cut and isn't giving you trouble (oh, should I pick this good feat or this equally good feat!) then the game has a problem.

and yet on this server "True Believer" was not only voluntarily created/activated, but determined as a good tax to require taking in order to qualify for a PRC and a Kit...

and then there are the ridiculous malus feats...

and there are so many others available that are useless. I just don't see it as a good solution to take something from a useful feat and shift it to a useless feat and then give both to classes. It just makes it less available to classes that don't get it free and want to take it. Now non-assassins (or BG or DFD) have to take 2 feats instead of 1, making an RP build (which is the only thing that would do such a thing) have an extra tax.

Better to just remove them if they're deemed useless rather than detract from other feats to make them marginally more useful. We have too many feats anyway to be honest.

[mrm3ntalist]

Would you take that feat in any relevant build?

[chad878262]

no, but I wouldn't take it on the changes suggested either....I'd just ignore poisons (because they are useful in about one epic area) which is mostly what is done now anyhow.

Oh...maybe you were asking metaquad....