Anti-aging spell

[Astalanya]

Please review. I'd really love feedback on how to make this balanced without making it a 6th level spell. If you know of similar resources I can compare against, please point me to them. (IE: Arcana Evolved, etc.).

Juvenescence
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M, XP
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Target: One living creature
Duration: Instantaneous

You reverse the aging process in a willing, living creature, causing months to pass in the twinkling of an eye. Although natural, physical development to restore youth occurs rapidly and all effects remain permanent. The target loses one year per two caster levels (maximum twenty years) from his existing age. If his age category changes, he takes all requisite penalties and benefits according to the transition. Creatures immune to aging cannot be affected by this spell.

Material Component: A tincture of ground sapphire, nectar and specially prepared water (worth 500 gp) applied to the skin.

XP: 100 XP per casting.

 

[Jack Simth]

Compared to

A special use of the fortify seed grants the target a permanent +1 year to its current age category. For each additional +1 year added to the creature’s current age category, increase the Spellcraft DC by +2. Incremental adjustments to a creature’s maximum age do not stack; they overlap. When a spell increases a creature’s current age category, all higher age categories are also adjusted accordingly.

The spell is cheap, easy, and much more secure. An Epic spellcaster, by the book, wanting to add a scant 12 years to his life, needs to develop an Epic spell with a base DC of 39, and then avoid Disjunctions and Dispels like the plauge. With Juvenescence, on the other hand, a 5th level wizard can stay young forever, and not worry so much about Dispels - just needs to spend 100 xp, 500 gp, and ten minutes of time (not including spell preparation, of course) every other year. To pull 12 years off his age, he needs to cast it six times at a cost of 3,000 gp and 600 xp.

Mind you, a great many people consider epic spellcasting either too weak broken or too strong broken, depending on use.

 

[Corbert]

You should probably state that the mental stats (Int, Wis, Chr) are not changed by the spell since they are changed over time by experienceand working to improve them, and the physical stats are only changed by aging and working to improve them.

 

[VirtualWizard]

My initial thought is that the spell is not balanced for its level. I think that at 3rd level, the spell's target should be personal not creature. Otherwise, your campaign will have to deal with the rich living forever. Maybe that is how it is in your campaign?

On second thought, the balance of this spell depends so much on how time factors into the campaign that any notion of balance will be very arbitrary. I don't think that I can give you a good answer to your question.

 

[Jack Simth]

In the right campaign, age is a form of goad, just like the mystic trinket, the BBEG, and the Damsel in Distress.

In a campaign where age is used as a goad, then the reward for following the plot should basically be at the limits of what they can be expected to achieve - if that's a third level spell, it works; if that's a sixth level spell, it's a sixth level spell. If that's a 23rd level spell, it's a 23rd level spell.

The spell as proposed grants utter agelessness, when used on schedual. If that spell is the reward, it's almost impossible to use age as a goad again without stripping the party of the spell in some fasion (e.g., stealing the Wizard's spellbooks). If, instead, you had several spells that could only be applied once each - say, a 3rd level spell that dropped the target one age category, but could never be applied again, a 6th level spell that did the same (but stacked with the 3rd level version), and a 9th level spell that does EXACTLY THE SAME THING, but stacked with the 3rd and 6th level versions, you can continue the use of age as a goad for a long time.

Contrawise, if age is not an issue (e.g., the characters can be expected to be retired before advancing even a single age category) then the amount of recources used to stay young only matters for other consequences: Villinous motivation: why bother to become a vampire, if a simple 3rd level spell can keep you young without all that blood, evil, and undead stuff; dynasties: Why should a king have an heir if he can reasonably expect to live for as long as his Kingdom lasts? How long would it take for the Prince to assasinate the King as the only method of assuming the throne? Assasination becoming an accepted method of advancement?

Hmm.... Paladin seeking to eradicate a spell as a cure to a societie's ills.....

Of course, that assumes you are the DM. If you are a player upset at your character getting old, check with your DM - chances are, he'd be perfectly happy to arrange a quest for some old potions of youth....

 

[Sledge]

This spell has some significant issues for any campaign. I wouldn't allow a spell to create an inherent change like this, especially at such a low level. It needs to be higher level and have some risks and flaws.

 

[Anubis]

A 3rd-Level spell that is superior to an epic feat? I think not.

I wouldn't compare it to any epic spells, though. Those epic spells are monumentally retarded by design and don't work at all in a real campaign. (Example: By the time you can cast Vengeful Gaze of God, which would be around Level 100 minimum, it will fell like casting magic missile at most enemies, or basically a scratch, while taking off most if not all of a wizard's hit points. These spells just don't work.)

By the way, what the flying flip is a goad?

 

[Jack Simth]

I wouldn't compare it to any epic spells, though. Those epic spells are monumentally retarded by design and don't work at all in a real campaign. (Example: By the time you can cast Vengeful Gaze of God, which would be around Level 100 minimum, it will fell like casting magic missile at most enemies, or basically a scratch, while taking off most if not all of a wizard's hit points. These spells just don't work.)

Which I mentioned, incidentally, in the same post I did the comparison.....

However, they can be broken in the other direction, if you have Leadership, Epic Leadership, or just lots of time.

Consider: a 21st level Sorceror with Epic Spellcasting wants to be a Gold Dragon.
The Transform seed can do it all.
Base DC 21.
A Young Adult Gold Dragon has 20 Hit Dice, is size Huge, has two breath weapons, alternate form, water breathing, iummunity to fire (crafting your own spell, it's potentially possible to skip the Vulnerability to Cold....), DR 5/Magic, seven natural attacks (one of which is Ex), Frightful Presence, Immunity to Sleep, Immunity to Paralysis, Spell Resistence, Blindsense, and Keen Senses. Two size categories up from medium: +6 DC; type change, +5 DC; 5 hit dice above 15: +10 DC; 14 Ex/Su abilities: +140 DC. It's already permanent. So, we have a base Spellcraft DC of 21+6+5+10+140=182, base.
Now we mitigate: Personal: -2; Extra 10 minutes: -20; Now, adding 80 days, 160 first level spell slots in a ritual, 54 2nd level spell slots, 32 3rd level spell slots, or some combination thereof will drop the DC all the way down to 0 (and a Sorceror with Leadership can likely arrange that fairly easily).

And then you have the Permanent ability to ignore a fairly long list of effects, change your form three times per day, use two types of breath weapon, fly, and such. For 0 XP and 0 Gp.

By the way, what the flying flip is a goad?

In the context of a D&D DM? Something to convince the players to go where you want them to go, do what you want them to do, without too much in the way of "forcing" - rewards, villians, the Paladin's Oath & peasants begging help all qualify as goads - for a player that's really worried about a character who's about to leave venerable on the high side, anti-aging potions make quite the goad: "And as the arthritis in your joins once again makes it difficult for you to avoid the arrow headed your direction, you recall a legend of a man who bottled water from the fountain of youth...." is a great way to convince that nervous player to follow willingly into that dungeon you've prepared, looking for the last of his stock.

 

[the Jester]

Good lord, eternal youth as a 3rd-level spell??

Not in my campaign, mang.

I don't know how you're expecting to balance this "without making it a 6th-level spell"... I assume you want to keep it under 6th level?

Look at the transformation into a lich- you have to be significantly more powerful, and many would argue that this is better.

 

[Astalanya]

Ah, but here's the kicker -- a lot of this campaign requires hopping into the ethereal plane, which our world treats something like the old tales of Faerie. You go in and for a day that passes there, ten years pass on the regular world. It is not quite so dramatic, but we do age much faster than normal people will. In the space of a few months game time, most of us are a decade to three older. We can't really not go into the ethereal plane -- because that's really a focus of the game.