Tenser's Transformation

[voodoogroves]

Umm a persistent wraithstrike is a level 8 spell. Your level 15 before you can pull that off. If your extending so your using a level 9 slot every 2 days instead of a level 8 spell every day, your level 17. A wraithstrike item by the formula given is 2X3X2000...or 12k gold.

You aren't trying hard enough.

Persistent Wraithstrike can probably be carried off by someone much earlier with only minimal use of splatbooks. A few of the substitue-something-for-metamagics do carry a limitation that you have to be able to cast the metamagic'd spell already (thus would retain the 15th level requirement) but many do not and can be used much much earlier. The one that uses your bard songs, for instance, I recall carries the restriction.

Clerics can cast persistent Divine Power at 7th, easily, using Divine Metamagic. An Ultimate Magus could persist Wraithstrike around 10th w/o much work or wonkiness. There are a few PRCs that allow the player to simply apply a given metamagic feat w/o paying an adjustment a few times a day (Wyrm Wizard is one example).

Aspenor's point is that divine power on an item is hardly game breaking and out of line with what others can do already.

Which is more game breaking? Your wizard crafting a Divine Power clicky, or your Cleric having Divine Power persisted 24x7? In those environments when players use the feats, PRCs, etc. to their strongest, that Divine Power clicky isn't that expensive. In fact, the command-word activation (the opportunity cost) becomes the real cost, far more than any gold. It takes some sort of action (even swift or free) and in a really intense, highly optimized game those are your real limiting factors. It isn't money or spell slots; it's action efficiency.






Now, if you're running a restricted game, you're not likely to allow many of the splatbooks, etc. You're imposing your own rules to a restricted set of content. That's great, and perfectly fine. In that environment a Divine Power clicky may be "too powerful". You may not allow Divine Metamagic ... it is in a splat book and afterall, an optional rule.

Recognize though that is YOUR RESTRICTION on the materials that brings it out of line, and not something that is mandated by the publisher of the game or hard in the rules. If you cast your eye on the breadth of it, a divine power clickie using the basic rules is NOT out of line.

[ColdNapalm]

You aren't trying hard enough.

Persistent Wraithstrike can probably be carried off by someone much earlier with only minimal use of splatbooks. A few of the substitue-something-for-metamagics do carry a limitation that you have to be able to cast the metamagic'd spell already (thus would retain the 15th level requirement) but many do not and can be used much much earlier. The one that uses your bard songs, for instance, I recall carries the restriction.

Clerics can cast persistent Divine Power at 7th, easily, using Divine Metamagic. An Ultimate Magus could persist Wraithstrike around 10th w/o much work or wonkiness. There are a few PRCs that allow the player to simply apply a given metamagic feat w/o paying an adjustment a few times a day (Wyrm Wizard is one example).

Aspenor's point is that divine power on an item is hardly game breaking and out of line with what others can do already.

Which is more game breaking? Your wizard crafting a Divine Power clicky, or your Cleric having Divine Power persisted 24x7? In those environments when players use the feats, PRCs, etc. to their strongest, that Divine Power clicky isn't that expensive. In fact, the command-word activation (the opportunity cost) becomes the real cost, far more than any gold. It takes some sort of action (even swift or free) and in a really intense, highly optimized game those are your real limiting factors. It isn't money or spell slots; it's action efficiency.

Now, if you're running a restricted game, you're not likely to allow many of the splatbooks, etc. You're imposing your own rules to a restricted set of content. That's great, and perfectly fine. In that environment a Divine Power clicky may be "too powerful". You may not allow Divine Metamagic ... it is in a splat book and afterall, an optional rule.

Recognize though that is YOUR RESTRICTION on the materials that brings it out of line, and not something that is mandated by the publisher of the game or hard in the rules. If you cast your eye on the breadth of it, a divine power clickie using the basic rules is NOT out of line.

Ultimate Magus can't pull off a persistent wraithstrike as early as level 10. They lose 4 CL so even with their ability to swap out spells for metas, they can't do a persistent wraitstrike until level 14. An incantrix can do it at level 13 due to their cheaper meta ability and that is the earliest you can legally cast a persistent wraithstrike or at level 15, they can use their capstone to cast it as a 2nd level spell...and that is using a PrC that is universally considered broken good (I consider it just mearly very good).

As for divine meta magic and persistent divine might...for that to work, you need DMM, extend and persistent spell AND still be able to cast 10th level spells (aka epic). That has been errata-ed so it only works with meta feats you have on top of you actually having the slot to cast said spell. Wyrm wizard is not an offical PrC...if you include dragon materials and 3rd party stuff...the level of broken is irrelivant as anyone who even has an inkling of optimizing will render the game unplayable. And not the whole everyone should play a druid and do all roles borked, but pun pun level borked. And yes pun pun is an offical rules based borked build...but your argument that a persistent divine might isn't borked based on a ruleset that allows for multiple pun pun level of borked isn't exactly a good argument for why a persistent divine might should exist...and exist cheaply no less. And we weren't even talking about a persistent divine might anyways...you just upped the bar for some reason.

I have no issue with command word divine might. It eats up a standard action and it only lasts for 7 rounds. And increasing the CL for each round isn't cheap either. And unless your in a monty haul game, money STILL matters. If you don't think money is a resource, you maybe playing in a monty haul game.

So using offical WotC stuff and not allowing stupidly broken and badly written rule set like say mongoose stuff is a RESTICTED game?!? Since when the bloody hell did that happen?!? Even splat books are suppose to be optional, but I'm being generous and including those.

[voodoogroves]

Wyrm Wizard is in Dragon Magic absolutely published by WOTC. Not sure where you're getting the Mongoose ****; it is definitely an official PRC.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x...blefilter=wyrm

If Divine Metamagic has been errated in the last 2 or so years, then I wasn't watching; I'll give you that. 2-3 whatever years ago it ABSOLUTELY DID NOT carry that restriction (needing a 10th level slot); the lyric metamagic or whatever explicitly did. No needing to carry 10th level spells, nada. I hope you actually mean errata for this as well, and not "ask the sage" which is the often-self-conflicting Dragon magazine article they moved to the web format and is not actual errata.

BTW, before typing this I checked the Complete Divine errata; no such limitation as you're suggesting is there, only that you must have the feat you wish to apply and the adjustment +1 turn attempts (which you can have by 7th if building for it). Maybe it's published elsewhere? It isn't in my rules compedium either.

Ultimate Magus can be early-entried. There are a host of ways to apply metamagic reductions as well.



Seriously, I'm a bit rusty but this stuff does work and does work with only WOTC materials. Nothing I've suggested uses the magazines, 3rd party materials or even hybrid 3.0 pre 3.5 stuff (ie, Savage Species).

[voodoogroves]

For interested readers; again if this has had major errata after 4e came out, I won't claim to have seen it

http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...l_List_and_FAQ

[Aspenor]

Ultimate Magus can't pull off a persistent wraithstrike as early as level 10. They lose 4 CL so even with their ability to swap out spells for metas, they can't do a persistent wraitstrike until level 14. An incantrix can do it at level 13 due to their cheaper meta ability and that is the earliest you can legally cast a persistent wraithstrike or at level 15, they can use their capstone to cast it as a 2nd level spell...and that is using a PrC that is universally considered broken good (I consider it just mearly very good).

As for divine meta magic and persistent divine might...for that to work, you need DMM, extend and persistent spell AND still be able to cast 10th level spells (aka epic). That has been errata-ed so it only works with meta feats you have on top of you actually having the slot to cast said spell. Wyrm wizard is not an offical PrC...if you include dragon materials and 3rd party stuff...the level of broken is irrelivant as anyone who even has an inkling of optimizing will render the game unplayable. And not the whole everyone should play a druid and do all roles borked, but pun pun level borked. And yes pun pun is an offical rules based borked build...but your argument that a persistent divine might isn't borked based on a ruleset that allows for multiple pun pun level of borked isn't exactly a good argument for why a persistent divine might should exist...and exist cheaply no less. And we weren't even talking about a persistent divine might anyways...you just upped the bar for some reason.

I have no issue with command word divine might. It eats up a standard action and it only lasts for 7 rounds. And increasing the CL for each round isn't cheap either. And unless your in a monty haul game, money STILL matters. If you don't think money is a resource, you maybe playing in a monty haul game.

So using offical WotC stuff and not allowing stupidly broken and badly written rule set like say mongoose stuff is a RESTICTED game?!? Since when the bloody hell did that happen?!? Even splat books are suppose to be optional, but I'm being generous and including those.

Divine Metamagic does not carry the restriction that you must be able to cast it from a regular spell slot. I'm not sure where you got that from, but it's not there, even post-errata. All that the errata did was require you to take Divine Metamagic for a metamagic feat that you actually have, and required that the spell be a divine spell. Before that, it was rules-legal to take and use DMM for a feat that you never actually took, and you could use DMM on arcane spells. This means the Cleric has persistent Divine Power at level 7.

Incantrix can do Wraithstrike as early as...level 8, when the 3rd level of the PrC is gained and Metamagic Effect comes into play. There is no restriction that you must be able to cast the spell from a normal spell slot for Metamagic Effect. This restriction is only carried by the Instant Metamagic class feature, as per the Errata.

A multitude of other builds can do the exact same things. Some later, some earlier. The errata for Divine Metamagic effectively nixed using Anyspell to cast persistent Wraithstrike, though. There are arguably ways to make it work, however, which results in a cleric with sufficient turns being able to cast both persistent Divine Power and Wraithstrike at level 7. I won't say that's definite, because rules interpretation can go both ways on that one. It'd take 14 turns, so 16 charisma, one Extra Turning feat, and a Nightstick. Easily doable by a level 7 cleric, whose feats would be: Extend Spell, Persist Spell (Human Bonus), Southern Magician, and DMM: Persist Spell.

Wyrm Wizard is in Dragon Magic, and is an official WotC published PrC.

[Roziel_Longblade]

From how I understand things, everything outside of the DMG, PH, and the Complete books, are variants blessed by WoTC. Blessed by WoTC but you still need to ask the DM if it can be used in his campaign.

I dont understand the argument about magic items. If it is not in the book it is a new item. The book gives guidlines about how to make them but the GM needs to approve any non - DMG creation. Not sure how else it could sensibly be done.

... As to what Tenser's was meant to be in PnP, it has changed over editions because it was pretty sweet in AD&D. Even thought it was situationally nerfed in 3.5 it still is more valuable than its current implementation in DDO. Turbine has consistently strengthened or nerfed aspects of D&D to make it work in DDO. There should be little argument that Tensers needs that kind of intervention.

[ColdNapalm]

Divine Metamagic does not carry the restriction that you must be able to cast it from a regular spell slot. I'm not sure where you got that from, but it's not there, even post-errata. All that the errata did was require you to take Divine Metamagic for a metamagic feat that you actually have, and required that the spell be a divine spell. Before that, it was rules-legal to take and use DMM for a feat that you never actually took, and you could use DMM on arcane spells. This means the Cleric has persistent Divine Power at level 7.

Incantrix can do Wraithstrike as early as...level 8, when the 3rd level of the PrC is gained and Metamagic Effect comes into play. There is no restriction that you must be able to cast the spell from a normal spell slot for Metamagic Effect. This restriction is only carried by the Instant Metamagic class feature, as per the Errata.

A multitude of other builds can do the exact same things. Some later, some earlier. The errata for Divine Metamagic effectively nixed using Anyspell to cast persistent Wraithstrike, though. There are arguably ways to make it work, however, which results in a cleric with sufficient turns being able to cast both persistent Divine Power and Wraithstrike at level 7. I won't say that's definite, because rules interpretation can go both ways on that one. It'd take 14 turns, so 16 charisma, one Extra Turning feat, and a Nightstick. Easily doable by a level 7 cleric, whose feats would be: Extend Spell, Persist Spell (Human Bonus), Southern Magician, and DMM: Persist Spell.

Wyrm Wizard is in Dragon Magic, and is an official WotC published PrC.

The limit was a sage advice...which I know a lot of people dislike. However, when given I can take the word of the sage that it's suppose to work one way vs a random player who WISHES it worked another...the sage wins. Since there is nothing in RAW or the errata that specifically says that there is no such limit, it's not a case of conflicting rules like some of the few sage advice that people keep wanting to hold onto when they wanna discredit it all so they can have a rules the way they want.

Umm the level 3 incantrix for persistent is a spellcraft DC of 42 for a level 2 spell. That is not a DC your gonna be hitting until level teenish anyways. Forgot that broken wonk. Been a while since I was in a FR game...and even longer since I met a DM who didn't take one look at the incantrix and laugh in my face for wanting to play it.

I could have sworn souther magian was to cast arcane spells as divine or a divine spell as arcane...the main use was so you can enter the hexer PrC without being an NPC class. It doesn't actually shift around spells know.

I don't remember any wonk metamagic stuff in dragon magic...can't really check as I no longer have that 3.5 book anymore.

[sephiroth1084]

Sage advice isn't necessarily any more reliable than the word of some random player. There have been Sage Advice answers that contradicted other Sage Advice answers, and ones that have contradicted WotC CutServ, which itself appears to give differing answers depending upon what day of the week and hour of the day you reach them.

[ColdNapalm]

Sage advice isn't necessarily any more reliable than the word of some random player. There have been Sage Advice answers that contradicted other Sage Advice answers, and ones that have contradicted WotC CutServ, which itself appears to give differing answers depending upon what day of the week and hour of the day you reach them.

Yes I am aware of the issues with sage advice (which isn't nearly as numerous as people make it out to be). As for custserv...trained monkies?!? I could ask them what the damage for a medium sized longsword is and not get 1d8. So they are pretty much a non factor. Back to the sage...yes he doesn't have a perfect track record...but once again, the player who wants DMM and a stack of night sticks to work at level 7 to make himself a fighting god on top of having all his cleric spells is not the person I'm gonna take the word of vs a ruling that basically makes sense as other such shinanigens have similar limitations. It's not like such a limit is comming off left field, instant meta magic for instance has such a limit. As does sudden metamagic.

[Aspenor]

While it is fair to use the Sage's rulings as a way to balance the game, the Sage has literally zero RAW weight, and does not change what the rules actually are. Whether the DM wants to go by RAW or not is up to them, and there is no shame in going against it.

Basically, what the Sage says is not a rule, it is only suggestions. Often contradictory suggestions. Sage rulings carry even less weight than the FAQ, which is otherwise known as Skip Smokes Craq.

As far as making the Spellcraft check, hmm lets see:
10 Ranks
5 Int
2 Aid Another (familiar)
3 Skill Focus: Spellcraft (master specialist 1)
20 Wand of Guidance of the Avatar
2 Masterwork Spellcraft Tool
= 32 + Take 10 = 42

[Henrieta]

Was just going to post about this spell. Are we going to see any changes this year? Any hints?

[Entelech]

Tenser's Transformation was originally implemented in 1st ed, which had some very peculiar ideas about enforcing stereotypes.

It was a subpar spell back then.

For 3.0 it got more or less ported in without comment. It was totally worthless. Moreso, in fact, because Clerics could cast Time Stop and Meteor Swarm and Fireball with the right domains.

Frankly, given how lame it was, I am flabbergasted that it made it into DDO at all.

Fix it, or implement something useful. When a SELF-BUFF spell is the nastiest, most pernicious and annoying thing those black chaos spheres in "Invaders!" can cast on you, it might be a clue that it's broken.