Improve spell duration to allow for more RP.

[wilkins1952]

So I have recently started playing and I have noticed that a lot of the spells like Invis/Improved Invis use the Turn/Level for duration. I think personally increasing the duration of certain spells to Hour per level would help a lot with allowing people to RP both in dungeons and the world at large. Right now it is a case of RP Cast fight RP where if the durations were increased RP can take place during such encounters which benefits everyone. As to what spells I would increase to Hour per level The following is what I had in mind

Invisibility
Improved Invisibility
Clarity
Lesser Mindblank
Mindblank
Ultravision
Trueseeing
Flame Weapon
Darkfire
Shadow Shield
Protection from Spells
Spell Resistance
Magic Fang
Greater Magic Fang
Freedom of Movement

To me the short duration is a hold over from the Default NWN and largely is adjusted from that rather than what a persistant world and people doing constant RP is based around. I also consider that none of these are combat spells in the sense that they deal damage Directly, Rather increasing this duration allows for more RP to happen at players own pace.

[Diestormlie]

I have definitely felt the press of 'would like to RP mid-dungeon, but we're on a strict time limit here.' I know some dungeons have in-dungeon Rest Points, but that just seems like a workaround that doesn't actually attack the core issue.

[Aliana]

I'm going to take a contrary position here.

If longer-lasting buffs removing danger and urgency increase roleplay then why not have a command that summons a 30 War Wizard and Silverstar of Selune to fully buff you with everything they have?

This would allow for almost unlimited time to roleplay in dungeons and would ensure that there was no penalization to non-casters who are left behind the power curve if you simply make every buff last indefinitely.

[wilkins1952]

Its not about removing the danger, That is still present even if wards last longer, More so it is allowing you to RP while these short term spells are up for example Just about to enter what is a tough fight you can RP about it beforehand then enter said fight without worrying about your wards dropping part way through. Which the case is currently, Ward Rush as much as you can because wards only last so long not taking the time to RP and talk in a dungeon. Which is a shame as some of the dungeons are quite thematic and interesting. As for penalising none casters. From what I have seen most casters are willing to ward non-casters as well and most spells that I listed are in fact spells that would be cast on every member of the party. And not to mention this would also apply to scroll cast spell duration as well.

[Nymera]

I've pondered the idea before of slitting the turn/level buffs into "long duration" (hour/level) and "encounter duration" (round/level) buffs before for the exact reason you describe, because it does seems elegant on its surface. However, like so many things in game design this is not a quick and easy fix, but would introduce a ton of knock-on effects that would take a ton of work to resolve:

- Some spells like Mindblank would become extremely powerful, only able to be lost on dispel.  For some this may be seen as a positive, but it would dramatically shift the flow of dungeoning in ways that would need to be playtested before committing to such a sweeping change.

- It de-emphasizes feats like Extend Spell and makes scroll-casting much closer to real casting.  I tend to not be in favor of things that homogenize the abilities and features classes bring to the table, since party dynamics are fundamental to the D&D experience.  Right now, getting buffs like displacement or Emotions from a proper mage feels much stronger, with durations that can go the distance.  This would be lost if the base spells lasted an hour/level.

- Resource consumption is part of the game loop.  Items that give short term buffs, scrolls, and rods that give spells are part of the cost of dungeoning, and longer-term buffs would need to be used less often.  On a server where gold is already far too easy to obtain, I don't believe removing more gold sinks is the wisest move.


There's just a ton of balance issues this could create, and a high cost of development time/work, for very minor benefit: RP in dungeons absolutely still happens on CD, particularly with a few more levels under your belt, but it tends to be fast-paced quips, dialogue, and emotes because we are all still there to do the dungeon.  Longer duration buffs is unlikely to change that.

[Sir Ven]

On principle and the surface of the idea, I like thinking that we could make a change like this to take the pressure off and make dungeons more conductive to RP.     However, as Nym has outlined above, it's not quite that simple.    There's a broad range and reach of knock-on effects.    

Mages and clerics suddenly don't need to use as many spell slots to repeat their short-duration buffs, giving them access to more 'attack' spells, changing the dynamic and power level of these classes significantly.    Fighter types would also suddenly be much more powerful - no longer would the more valuable, shorter-duration buffs be used just in the big fights or to tackle bosses, but characters would have them up and running constantly.

As a result, dungeons and encounters across the server would need to be buffed in order to account for the increase in power across the board.    This is just a huge amount of work for our volunteer staff.

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There's also something to be said for checking-in with the people you're running the dungeon with.  There are absolutely times where I'd prefer to RP my way through a dungeon, there are other times (often during periods of peak stress), where I just want to login, smack something around for an hour and then log back out to get back on with whatever is happening in real life.    -  Depends on the day, depends on the mood.  The thing is to try and be considerate of everyone's needs, so everyone can have fun

In short, I really like your instincts and that your motivation is on wanting to promote and facilitate RP, but I'm not sure it's as simple to fix, as it may initially seem.

[Edge]

Most of the spells on this list have already been altered or tinkered to some degree - MF and GMF have already been extended to match MW and GMW, for example. Also some have been completely changed or replaced - Flame Weapon and Darkfire for example don't exist on CD, having been replaced by Elemental Weapon. And some have been deliberately nerfed - Improved Invis has been reduced to only grant 30% concealment instead of 50%, so as not to compete with Displacement. The presence of some of these spells (especially the ones that don't exist on CD anymore at all) honestly had me curious as to whether or not you actually had played on CD before making it, or if this list was pre-made from another server or just NWN in general.

For many of the ones that remain short duration, Nymera and Ven have the whole of it - the spells are left as such to encourage use of a true caster and Extend Spell, and/or to serve as a gold sink for the procurement of more resources for groups who lack a caster to provide the spell at a full CL's duration. Increasing the duration of these lessens the value of that gold sink and likewise narrows the gap between the spell's usefulness off an item versus provided by a caster.

[DubiousScroll]

I will add that clerics really suffer from this with their buffs (and I assume it's because they're team-based) but it makes RPing in a dungeon with a divine caster incredibly difficult until your level ramps up and Extend Spell kicks in.

[allatum]

Clerics tend to be punished the most in this regard, yes, considering their entire combat potency is reliant on short duration buffs of Divine Favor, Divine Power, and Crusade (or Recitation at lower levels.) It's an incredible turn off for bringing a cleric to an event where there's lots of Dispels, and/or lots of waiting, and no resting at all allowed.

I've seen servers put in a lot of script work to make buffs a lot more forgiving for 'non-single combat' buffs. Scars of Risenholm, for example, had a very neat idea of making long duration buffs only tic down during combat. Meaning their duration paused out of combat and to counterbalance this, every spell had a fixed duration. It's a lot of work to balance any spell durations, given just adjusting the in-game clock to be longer only affects hour duration spells, and not turn/minute, or round duration.

In all, while I like Risenholm's system a lot, I think this issue is more in how lenient or not a given DM may be in an event, and how they generally plan their events to go, and not so much this server's implantation of spell durations. I'm more in favor of politely requesting forethought on rest vs no rest events rather than asking the workload of spell changes.