From a DM's perspective, how does Persistent Spell affect the game?

[Endarire]

This includes Divine Metamagic, Incantatrix, and other cheaper/free Persist abilities.

I'm interested in positive and negative, but especially positive experiences where Persistent Spell helped you as a DM.  For me, it makes things more predictable, and I can dispel the buffers if things get too much.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Does "the dude just uses it to persist laser eyes, and now sets things on fire with d6 damage laser eyes, rather than polymorphing the fighter into a hydra" count?

[ninjarabbit]

Persistented spells like wraithstrike and divine power make the fighter even more useless except as a torch bearer

[Gods_Trick]

  Not sure about 'positive' experiences, but it led to clerics showboating and generally making the rest of the party feel like torchbearers. The GM seemed unwilling to dispel and when he did botched the calculations to overcome their CL. The upshot was the party became 3 clerics, the Core rogue and me, the Talashtora monk. Suffice to say the rogue was bored out of her skull.

  Tactics wise I think a competent GM would start out with Greater Dispel or Reaving Dispel, but it really kills variety for BBEGs if their all some variant of caster.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

As a DM, it lets me make powerful evil bosses without giving tons of loot.

[Bozwevial]

It makes things easier in that you don't have to worry so much about buff durations anymore. If it's becoming too much of a problem, remember that now the party won't spend that round buffing pre-battle or mid-battle and scale the difficulty of your fights to match. As always, gentlemen's agreement is in play.

[jameswilliamogle]

  Not sure about 'positive' experiences, but it led to clerics showboating and generally making the rest of the party feel like torchbearers. The GM seemed unwilling to dispel and when he did botched the calculations to overcome their CL. The upshot was the party became 3 clerics, the Core rogue and me, the Talashtora monk. Suffice to say the rogue was bored out of her skull.

  Tactics wise I think a competent GM would start out with Greater Dispel or Reaving Dispel, but it really kills variety for BBEGs if their all some variant of caster.

Which in turn makes Spelltheifs better

[Unbeliever]

It makes things easier in that you don't have to worry so much about buff durations anymore. If it's becoming too much of a problem, remember that now the party won't spend that round buffing pre-battle or mid-battle and scale the difficulty of your fights to match. As always, gentlemen's agreement is in play.

+1

The standard persistent type builds involve a lot of buffing, producing a combat machine.  So, you just need to make sure any other fighter types in the group are pretty well-optimized so they don't feel outclassed.  I personally have played games w/ DMM(persist) melee clerics and not felt like they completely dominated the melee field, and that's allowing things like Divine Power and a slightly-nerfed Polymorph.  It's certainly weaker than a War Weaver, I think.

[jameswilliamogle]

I've never seen a War Weaver in play...  Hrm...  That gives me some ideas...