# Rapid Spell Feat (Complete Divine)



## Herzog (Feb 5, 2009)

> Only spells with a casting time greater than 1
> standard action can be made rapid. A rapid spell with a casting
> time of 1 full round can be cast as a standard action. A
> rapid spell with a casting time measured in rounds can be
> ...




Am I correct in assuming this spell is useless for spells with a casting time of (exactly) 1 minute and/or 1 hour?
Or should 1 minute be considered 10 rounds?


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## Thanee (Feb 5, 2009)

Yep, it seems to have no effect on those.

Bye
Thanee


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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 5, 2009)

The actual wording is "casting times measured in *minutes*" and "casting times measured in *hours*" ergo these are both plural meaning more than one minute and more than one hour.  So its not useless for those, so unless you have a pain in the neck DM who rules lawyers against the players (had one of those) then a spell with a casting time of 1 minute should be cast in 1 round and a spell with a casting time of 1 hour should be cast in one minute.


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## Thanee (Feb 5, 2009)

Achan hiArusa said:


> The actual wording is "casting times measured in *minutes*" and "casting times measured in *hours*" ergo these are both plural meaning more than one minute and more than one hour.  So its not useless for those, so unless you have a pain in the neck DM who rules lawyers against the players (had one of those) then a spell with a casting time of 1 minute should be cast in 1 round and a spell with a casting time of 1 hour should be cast in one minute.




And why is that?

The feat description says nothing about turning 1 minute into 1 round and so on!?

Bye
Thanee


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## Flatus Maximus (Feb 6, 2009)

Achan hiArusa said:


> The actual wording is "casting times measured in *minutes*" and "casting times measured in *hours*" ergo these are both plural meaning more than one minute and more than one hour.  So its not useless for those, so unless you have a pain in the neck DM who rules lawyers against the players (had one of those) then a spell with a casting time of 1 minute should be cast in 1 round and a spell with a casting time of 1 hour should be cast in one minute.




With that logic, why not take it all the way and convert minutes/hours into rounds and cast everything in at most a full round?


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## Herzog (Feb 6, 2009)

@Achan hiArusa:

The Feat mentions plural forms. It does NOT mention any singular form except for single full round (which becomes a standard action).

So, either the plural form incudes the singular form or the singular form is not mentioned at all.

In either case, casting time of 1 minute is not reduced, casting time of 1 hour is not reduced.
casting time of 1 day or several days is also not reduced.
casting time of less than 1 full round is also not reduced (you need quicken spell for that)

I was just hoping for an errata or FAQ entry someone might have encountered before....


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## Thanee (Feb 6, 2009)

Did you have any specific application you were looking at? _Identify_? 

Just asking, since those casting times aren't _exactly_ common.

Bye
Thanee


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## Herzog (Feb 6, 2009)

Yes, actually. Artificer Infusions. They have long casting times, and several of them have a casting time of one minute. 

The Eberron system allows the Artificer to spend action points to decrease that time, but I was looking for an alternative. (since action points are limited per level, and higher level spell slots only per day.....)


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## moritheil (Feb 6, 2009)

Flatus Maximus said:


> With that logic, why not take it all the way and convert minutes/hours into rounds and cast everything in at most a full round?




For the reason that there is a larger reduction that has yet to take place, and the feat specifies that multiple hours must turn into one hour.  Everyone agrees that multiple hours to one hour is legal - where people disagree is on whether 1 hour can be broken into 60 minutes, one minute can be broken into 10 rounds, and so forth. RAW, Rapid spell does not allow it, but I am sympathetic to the point that it seems unnecessarily obnoxious to disallow use of the feat in this fashion - particularly if playing a class that depends on Action Points to shorten casting times, in a campaign that has removed Action Points.

FWIW, if a campaign has action points, I'd tell the players to suck it up: the mechanic to shorten casting exists and is prebalanced thus.  If, however, a campaign did not have action points, I'd want to allow the artificer some way of achieving that effect so as to not disrupt play.  (This actually happened, in my Invasion campaign, and that was how I ruled.)


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## Herzog (Feb 6, 2009)

As a generic comment I'd like to add this:

The artificer's infusion are best used when the party has time to prepare for an encounter, since then casting time isn't important.

However, if the campaign has the PC's running into encounters without any possibility of preperation time and again, an Artificer is going to run out of action points very soon. If you, as a DM, allowed the artificer but didn't include action points, and have the kind of campaign where the PC's almost never know what to expect, you are screwing your artificer PC over bigtime.
Of course, in my experience it's as much a problem with the other PC's as it can be with the DM (always running after plothooks without preparation.....).

In any case, an artificer can become pretty frustrated when all his applicable infusions can't be used because the fight will be over before he can finish it. In those cases, reading '10 rounds' instead of '1 minute' is the only fair option I would see as a DM. (now only to convince my DM....)

Having said that, reducing the casting time of a 1 hour spell to 1 minute was never my intention. I already feel 24 hour casting time being reduced to 1 hour is a very big advantage for only 1 level.


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## Nimloth (Feb 6, 2009)

I've never played, or had anyone in my group play, an Artificer (or Eberron for that matter, though it looks fun), but would infusions qualify as spells for this feat?


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## Herzog (Feb 6, 2009)

yes:


> Like a spellcaster, an artificer can apply item creation
> feats and metamagic feats to his infusions. Like a
> sorcerer, an artificer can apply a metamagic feat to an
> infusion spontaneously, but doing this requires extra
> ...


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## Flatus Maximus (Feb 6, 2009)

moritheil said:


> For the reason that there is a larger reduction that has yet to take place...




I wasn't advocating Achan hiArusa's interpretation, I was showing that his/her interpretation leads to absurd conclusions.


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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 6, 2009)

Oh, its a male Tsolyanu name so maisúr is the proper address, but you may use túsmidàli when addressing me directly and I shall use tsamungá to address you.  Also using the word Absurd is not helpful when making arguements, but here I will stoop.

So basically a spell with a casting time of 2-9 rounds can be cast as a full-round action, but all we have to do is add 6 seconds to that and it becomes a minute!?  Really?  And that isn't an absurd triumph of rules over sense?  Same goes for the difference between a spell with a casting time of 59 minutes vs. one of 60 minutes (if such existed).  Again...

EDIT:  An no your absurd interpretation would not work because at that point that is a direct violation of the wording of the feat.


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## Thanee (Feb 6, 2009)

Well, the border must be drawn _somewhere_.

Bye
Thanee


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## Jeff Wilder (Feb 6, 2009)

As a DM with a 12th level artificer in his game, I advise caution: letting an artificer cast spell-storing infusions more rapidly, without the limit of action points, is a very, very bad idea.


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## Flatus Maximus (Feb 6, 2009)

Achan hiArusa said:


> So basically a spell with a casting time of 2-9 rounds can be cast as a full-round action, but all we have to do is add 6 seconds to that and it becomes a minute!?  Really?  And that isn't an absurd triumph of rules over sense?  Same goes for the difference between a spell with a casting time of 59 minutes vs. one of 60 minutes (if such existed).  Again...
> 
> EDIT:  An no your absurd interpretation would not work because at that point that is a direct violation of the wording of the feat.




I'm not sure what was so offensive about using the word "absurd," but I certainly didn't mean to offend.

Yes, adding 6 seconds means that the time can now be measured in MINUTES.  (Yes, 1 minute can be measured in MINUTES, just like 1 hour can be measure in HOURS.)  I was just pointing out that if you want to say that you can measure 1 minute in rounds, then yes, you can, but why not measure it minutes?  And since we are now ignoring some of the wording of the description, why not other parts: why not measure 2 minutes in terms of rounds instead of minutes, etc.

As Thanee said, ultimately you have to draw the line somewhere.


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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 7, 2009)

And that's why we have DMs.  I am going to draw the line differently apparently than everyone else here.


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## Shin Okada (Feb 8, 2009)

Nimloth said:


> I've never played, or had anyone in my group play, an Artificer (or Eberron for that matter, though it looks fun), but would infusions qualify as spells for this feat?




Yes. Artificers can apply metamagic feats on their infusions. It is written in ECS.

But if an artificer want to do something faster, he should create items which actually contain spells. Then use UMD to activate them.


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## moritheil (Feb 9, 2009)

Jeff Wilder said:


> As a DM with a 12th level artificer in his game, I advise caution: letting an artificer cast spell-storing infusions more rapidly, without the limit of action points, is a very, very bad idea.




Well, it's a bad idea to allow a blastificer in general unless you account for it by throwing more bodies into the mix and making the ultimate goals not combat-oriented.  Right?


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## Jeff Wilder (Feb 9, 2009)

moritheil said:


> Well, it's a bad idea to allow a blastificer in general unless you account for it by throwing more bodies into the mix and making the ultimate goals not combat-oriented.  Right?



I'm not sure what you mean by "blastificer," but I think the artificer is a broken class, yes.  I don't have any issues with _scorching ray_ wands or anything with my player ... the problems are more subtle and more wide-ranging, best illustrated by a now common joke at our table: "Is there anything Slate [the artificer] _can't_ do?"

The problem with the artificer -- deliberate munchkinizing aside -- is similar to that with _polymorph_ ... every expansion makes it more powerful.  With _polymorph_, the expansion problem was "creatures."  With artificers, the expansion problem is "spells."  As a DM, I made a mistake early in not limiting, somehow, what spells an artificer can emulate, and the player has a very good time finding every spell that's perfect for every possible situation.  The most consistently useful ones -- _benign transposition_, _resist energy_, etc. -- he builds into items.  The ones that are more tailored for less common situations he just burns an action point for.

Anyway, off-topic.  Just ranting a little.  I'll be relieved when I wrap this campaign ... I've learned a lot about how to limit certain issues in the game, and I'm looking forward to playing a more balanced campaign.


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## Herzog (Feb 9, 2009)

I've been playing an Artificer for a while now, and while I have to agree with you that being able to emulate every spell in the available books, I've not really been in the habit of doing that (If only because the time at the table doesn't allow me enough time to find the spell in question)
Also, as mentioned, the number of action points available is limited.

As for creating items: my artificer has always been pressed for time and/or money to be able to craft the things he'd like.
This is partly the result of him losing his homonculus the session after it was created, partly because of one of the characters hoarding a large piece of the treasure from the first adventure, leaving us all a bit short on cash.

Of course, should the Artificer be the one creating only items for him/her self, the party balance will be gone within a few sessions. I've been making stuff for other characters too....


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## Maldor (Feb 9, 2009)

i'm going to have to say that the intent of the feat was to make 1 minute become 1 full round and one hour to become 1 minute this feat predated the artficer and was not desinged with any abuse that class might get from taking it but if it does not alter 1 minute and 1 hour spell then the feat is nearly usless for spells that have a casting time longer then 1 full round do to the number of spell that have odd casting time is like what 20 out of a 1000 maybe less and if the feat doesn't reduce 1 hour or 1 minute then what a waste of ink to even print that part the feat that now is only usful to summon spells.

P.S. it's seems to me that 1 minute and 1 hour are use as short hand for the sake of simpilcty


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