An upgrade for buff spells

[spawnofpoorlighting]

So I've been playing some Cleric lives recently, and I noticed some things.

There are a lot of junk spells that are more or less unusable. Bull's Strength, Bear's Endurance etc. in particular have pretty much zero functionality.

My Suggestion is simple enough.

Make them increase power with caster level, such that they are always one point behind Cannith Crafting. The purpose of this is fairly straightforward. As a Completionist character, I often find that I want to run R3+ because elite is a joke. However I also want to run with some of the newer players, guildies, alts etc. who find elite to be challenging still.

The idea here is to allow me to buff my adventurer ally, in a way that is more or less useless to other players with dozens of past lives, allowing us to "uplift" a less advanced player and have them function as our highly effective minion.

Keeping the Enhancement Bonus typing, and making the number slightly lower than most gear, we'll be able to take that first life Barbarian friend and have them act as if they have good gear and stats. Or at least... not terrible gear and stats.

The goal is to a) make buff spells interesting and useful again and b) reduce the variance of player statistics in the game by allowing powerful characters to pull the less powerful up to our level for a little while.

[HastyPudding]

I prefer that they lower the amount on buff spells but make them stack. For example, turn the ability score buff spells into a stacking 'spell bonus' and lower them to +1. There are a ton of spells that are just plain obsolete because they don't stack.

[spawnofpoorlighting]

I prefer that they lower the amount on buff spells but make them stack. For example, turn the ability score buff spells into a stacking 'spell bonus' and lower them to +1. There are a ton of spells that are just plain obsolete because they don't stack.

That has the disadvantage of mucking with game balance. I could see them having (for example) a small quality bonus alongside the enhancement bonus. What we don't want is for the Otto's boxing triple completionist crowd (which I am probably closer to in power level these days) to pick up yet another bonus at the top end.

Rather, the goal is to reduce the variance in statistical oomph.

[Xgya]

I'd simply make the stat spells hand out split bonuses.

Bull's Strength: "Gives one of each +1 spell, quality, enhancement and insightful bonuses to Strength"

Still +4 Str. Won't increase the actual maximum, but might give out some bonus types to people that didn't have them yet or didn't have the equipment slot to put them in.

The spell has a very long duration, so giving it more power than it currently has is an awful idea. Making the spell help out those people that didn't get their share of the power creep yet, however, sounds useful.

[spawnofpoorlighting]

I'd simply make the stat spells hand out split bonuses.

Bull's Strength: "Gives one of each +1 spell, quality, enhancement and insightful bonuses to Strength"

Still +4 Str. Won't increase the actual maximum, but might give out some bonus types to people that didn't have them yet or didn't have the equipment slot to put them in.

The spell has a very long duration, so giving it more power than it currently has is an awful idea. Making the spell help out those people that didn't get their share of the power creep yet, however, sounds useful.

That's more like it. I was thinking of suggesting something to add to Magister ED that would give them an insight bonus (maybe instead of those ridiculous sigils).

I think the key is that the 'more power' idea is fine, so long as it's tied to caster level and still weaker than gear. It'd be bad for it to ever get better than gear with it's long duration, but having it eternally one or two points behind (though technically at level 3 it's ahead of the curve by 2) would mean it was just a way to replace gear for those who don't have it.

The absolute worst case scenario outcome of increasing it that way would be that at level 18 it would have a +7 or +8 bonus (Cannith crafting has +9) which would allow people who don't care about that last +1 or +2 to drop that stat from their gear and slot something else.

Which is also not so bad, given that there are a ridiculous number of items at 20 with a +6 bonus that just isn't good enough for a primary stat. So as a caster you could slot some cool and fun old school named item (things like the ToD sets have +6 with min level 18) and then cast the buff on yourself to bump up the stat so you're not at a major disadvantage. -3 to stat is usually going to be -2 to whatever that stat does, be that something as minor as a save or in the worst case scenario damage or DCs. Giving us a way to use fun itemization despite low stats on old named items is definitely a win in my book!

So the progression would look like:

+4 enhancement bonus to stat, +5 at level 10 then +1 per two caster levels. If someone is cheeky or clever they might manage to eek out another +2 caster levels somewhere and get to parity with CC gear, but that's not completely unacceptable given that it's not easy to get universal caster level increases.

Keeping the +4 total bonus would be a net increase at early levels (where it's technically too strong and makes gear obsolete - but costs a lot of SP and has a short duration) but it would still be irrelevant by level 10 as better gear becomes available with a permanent bonus. Having Quality, Insight and Profane at that point would be a little too much IMO. Obviously there's less concern about balance at level 5, but having an extra +3 to any stat could get a little silly for people who already have some fairly obscene muscle, as well as potentially supplanting gear right up until epics. Who needs a +1 Profane/Quality bonus from Slaver's gear when you can get it practically for free from a pot/wand?