Draconic Might Duration

[Steve]

Hey, if you all want to give my Paladin-divinate 60 minutes of +5 ability and AC bonus, be my guest.

Just gives me more time to hunt Tieflings.

[RedLancer]

Edit: A compromise could be to fire the +5 bonus only if a sorcerer of draconic bloodline fires it?

I've no preference here, though if a paladin has chosen Draconic Heritage instead of Luck of Heroes as their level 1 feat, the perceived "imbalance" of allowing the +5 bonuses to stand has worked itself out.

[Goat]

There are two versions of the spell in the literature. The variant in draconomicon is arguably more powerful, however both only have a natural armor of +4!

draconomicon:

+5 Str/Con/Cha (enhancement), +4 natural armor (enhancement), immunity to sleep and paralysis. Sorcerers +1 CL, 1 min per level. Funnily enough there is a material component listed in the header, but not explained in the description.

spell compendium:

+4 Str/Con/Cha/Natural AC (enhancement), immunity to sleep and paralysis, Sorcerers +1 CL, 1 min per level

Both fire for both paladins (level 4) and wizards/sorcerers level 5.

Edit: A compromise could be to fire the +5 bonus only if a sorcerer of draconic bloodline fires it?

personally really like all of this, and if the spell is touched it should be in this manner

I would probably prefer this is we go this route.

[DaloLorn]

Edit: A compromise could be to fire the +5 bonus only if a sorcerer of draconic bloodline fires it?

I've no preference here, though if a paladin has chosen Draconic Heritage instead of Luck of Heroes as their level 1 feat, the perceived "imbalance" of allowing the +5 bonuses to stand has worked itself out.

Mmm, a human could take both.

There are two versions of the spell in the literature. The variant in draconomicon is arguably more powerful, however both only have a natural armor of +4!

draconomicon:

+5 Str/Con/Cha (enhancement), +4 natural armor (enhancement), immunity to sleep and paralysis. Sorcerers +1 CL, 1 min per level. Funnily enough there is a material component listed in the header, but not explained in the description.

spell compendium:

+4 Str/Con/Cha/Natural AC (enhancement), immunity to sleep and paralysis, Sorcerers +1 CL, 1 min per level

Both fire for both paladins (level 4) and wizards/sorcerers level 5.

Edit: A compromise could be to fire the +5 bonus only if a sorcerer of draconic bloodline fires it?

personally really like all of this, and if the spell is touched it should be in this manner

I would probably prefer this is we go this route.

There's two "this routes" in the post you quoted. Of the two, I definitely favor the Spell Compendium.

[renshouj]

There's two "this routes" in the post you quoted. Of the two, I definitely favor the Spell Compendium.

Only one, the spell compendium for everyone but give +5s stats to ppl with draconic ancestry. I like the sound of it a lot - granted, idk much about balance and if that would break anything.

[DaloLorn]

There's two "this routes" in the post you quoted. Of the two, I definitely favor the Spell Compendium.

Only one, the spell compendium for everyone but give +5s stats to ppl with draconic ancestry. I like the sound of it a lot - granted, idk much about balance and if that would break anything.

No, Ithrinael's post listed two different PnP sources and a homebrew proposal.

Draconomicon gave +5 STR/CON/CHA, +4 Natural, and sleep/paralysis immunities to everyone, at 1 min/level and with a +1 CL bonus to sorcerers. This is mostly an upgrade over BG stats: 10x duration, no need for Draconic Heritage, -1 Natural (which is largely meaningless anyway). (Incidentally, it's not "arguably" more powerful: It is unambiguously more powerful, though you need to plan your ability scores to get the maximum benefit. No aspect of the Draconomicon statblock is in any way inferior to the Spell Compendium statblock.)

Spell Compendium went with +4 STR/CON/CHA and was otherwise identical to Draconomicon. This would be my preferred choice.

Ithrinael went on to propose a homebrewed "compromise" where the spell worked as in Spell Compendium, but upgraded to all +5s if you had Draconic Heritage. The net effect of this is also a straight buff: The spell would work exactly as it did today, but with the decupled duration first requested in the OP.

The mere fact of having a single minute/level spell convey +4s to three ability scores already makes the Spell Compendium statblock powerful enough to become a staple choice of paladins, sorcerous (and to an extent wizardly) gishes, and thanks to elixirs, various builds reliant on those ability scores such as MaAs, non-paladin EDMers, and the like. Letting such a spell grant a +5 bonus is simply too much.

As an example:

Hidden: show

My own fighter/MaA, Belinda, is already built to end with odd scores in STR, CON, and CHA: all three abilities affected by Draconic Might, and all of them highly relevant to her build. She does not, at this time, have Draconic Heritage, but as a human, she could easily forgo one of her other feats to take Draconic Heritage... and I already have 2-4 viable candidates in mind. She also has enough UMD ranks to use wands, and has enough STR and inventory space to carry enough UMD items to autopass scroll checks, if she finds them.

As a level 4 paladin spell, Draconic Might is wandable. As a level 4 paladin and level 5 arcane spell, Draconic Might fits in elixirs. Because Draconic Might can be cast on allies, and only checks the caster for the heritage feat, Draconic Might can be used to grant +5s to as many allies as there are available spell slots.

Belinda therefore has a wide range of options to access Draconic Might, and could easily adjust her build to maximize the spell's power at next to no cost. (And if she instead befriends a dragonblooded mage, she wouldn't even need to tweak her build.) Now, it is easy for you to say "but that's anti-RP", and I won't disagree. But why present the temptation in the first place? It's not like one couldn't draw up an equivalent character which had Draconic Heritage baked into the build from the outset.