Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 darioth Jun 15, 2010 17:40:34	According to the epic level handbook the epic seeds if you combine them you get the sortest duration on the resulting spell. That would mean that if I combine the compel seed and the energy seed the resulting spell would be a dominate with instantaneous duration and an instantaneous energy burst dealing the standard damage. The same would be true with the effects of the transform and fortify seeds making them irreversible through dispeling or supression. Has anyone found any official RAW to counter it?
#2 Omen_of_Peace Jun 16, 2010 6:50:55	Your own example kinda defeats what you want to do: instantaneous can mean duration 0 (like an energy spell) or it can mean duration infinite (irreversible). You can't go from one to the other when it suits you. To go back to RAW since I was using plain English: the domination will last as long as the energy burst, i.e. it will have duration 0 - not very useful.
#3 darioth Jun 16, 2010 10:42:24	I would otherwise be with you in that one but  if you have the duration of a spell writen as instantaneous and it's description writes it is a dominate that also deals some damage,would you really point out that the dominate effect is immaterial OR that "Oh my god,it is the same as the 3rd edition's thrall psionic power with a little damage on it's back to make it have a cool entrance!"? That's where exists a flow in design that is vexing me deeply. Again...anything countering it?
#4 urpriest Jun 16, 2010 13:55:21	First, there's an explicit DM approval step listed in the "Developing an Epic Spell" section, so even a DM who goes perfectly by RAW has a way out. If the DM is cooperative, however, this is irrelevant. More to the point, you're assuming that instantaneous is a shorter duration than others. If there were a table of durations and the rule said to go to the lowest point on the table I would agree with you, but as it stands instantaneous is not equal to zero duration. Instantaneous is a category that is neither shorter nor longer than a numerical duration (the same applies to permanent), so you cannot apply the rule. As a DM I would rule that the energy is instantaneous and the domination lasts 20 hours, but RAW you simply have no rule that tells you what to do and the universe explodes.
#5 darioth Jun 16, 2010 22:51:02	That the DM will be cooperative is a given in a situation that you are asking about rules. More importantly I understand the first part of the second paragraph but I can't seem to understand why the rules say that instantaneous duration in this particular case is not the shortest and why permanent not the longest.What changes and where?More importantly if you were presented by a bunch of spells in a quizz that,if answered correctly,will provide you with 100000 dollars and the question was: which has the shortest durasion? fireball,pollymorph or permanency?would you really answer what you wrote?I think not. Four hours ago I found a vestigial solution consisted of RAW in PHB where the durations are noted. In the instantaneous duration it says that spell having it come and go in an instant but can have lingering effects.They don't have to have lingering effects except if noted.As such the transformation effect can have lingering effects or not as the spell is not written in a book with instantaneous duration it could have instantaneous or lingering effects however one likes to understand it. Thats just the first part of it. In the time duration spells it mentions that their effects are dependent on the duration of a spell and when it's gone they end.So if a time duration spell becomes instantaneous for any reason its effect ends with the duration.So a fireball dominate will have the effects of the fireball and the effects of a nanosec. enduring dominate.