Why are so many great spells Personal only?

[X-Codes]

What changed from 3.0 to 3.5 for righteous might?

I think the magnitude of the bonuses did.  I remember that, at some point in time, Righteous Might gave a +8 bonus to Strength.

[TenaciousJ]

+8 is what my 3.5 PHB says, but the SRD says +4.

EDIT: Interesting, I know I'm looking at a 3.5 PHB but all the numbers in the book conflict with the numbers on the SRD for Righteous Might.  +8 Strength, +4 Constitution, +4 natural armor, DR starts at 5 and increases in increments of 5.  The errata on the PHB changes the values to the SRD values.

[Mooncrow]

To be fair, Divine Power isn't anything special when cast on a guy with full BAB.  Righteous Might is the big one, and frankly it really should be a 3rd-levelish short-range spell.  5th-level was, IIRC, appropriate for the un-errata'd or perhaps 3.0 version of the spell, but not the 3.5e one.

It's the un-errata'd version that was kick-ass.  +8 str, +4 con, +4 natural armor, up to DR 15/evil.  The 3.0 version was +4 str and the size increase only. 

@TenaciousJ - check out the errata page: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a

[TenaciousJ]

That errata version kinda sucks for a level 5 spell, especially when stacked against Bite of the Weretiger and Bite of the Werebear.

[X-Codes]

That errata version kinda sucks for a level 5 spell, especially when stacked against Bite of the Weretiger and Bite of the Werebear.

Yeah, my point exactly.  The big benefit is the size bump, which is do-able with a level 1 spell (AND you get a +2 Strength from that spell, too!).  That's why I think the Errata'd Righteous Might really should have been a level 3 short-range spell, instead of level 5 personal.

[Andion Isurand]

I've really been considering of late simply making all personal spells other than emanations to be touch range instead.  But all of my friends I play with think it would be a mistake to do that...

Why not make a metamagic feat for this, so you can still pull it off, but at a cost of a feat and possibly a few spell levels?

[Endarire]

Share Personal Spell [Metamagic] - someone's already done this for Pathfinder.

[X-Codes]

Too bad that feat is terrible.  Should be a +0.

[veekie]

I've really been considering of late simply making all personal spells other than emanations to be touch range instead.  But all of my friends I play with think it would be a mistake to do that...

Why not make a metamagic feat for this, so you can still pull it off, but at a cost of a feat and possibly a few spell levels?

Because it defeats the purpose of the concept. Personal spells, especially personal buffs for a character to do the role of another character, but better, are against team play. They are what makes it better to buff yourself than another character, since the bonuses are far more significant, and if you needed a feat to apply the buff to a different character, you'd generally just buff yourself.

Mainly, combat buffs. Unless they were to make a combat action that gives warriors use of caster-type effects like BFC, buffs, and debuffs, its not good for balance.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yeah, making it cost a feat and higher levels defeats the entire purpose.  The purpose would be to make it the exact same cost, because (hopefully) then it becomes a better idea to give combat buffs to the guy who's already pretty good at combat, since D&D rewards specialization.  Might create its own problems of further rewarding hyper-specialization...but at least casters wouldn't have institutional incentive to be greedy with the buffs anymore...

For an illustration, see here: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html

That's part of the reason I love the polymorph spell and hate the polymorph subschool crap that came after to be "more balanced."  The former's a party-friendly buff to put on anyone that has utility use and lasts long enough for out of combat applications.  The latter are selfish personal buffs that are swift to cast, grant temp hp, and only last for rounds/level.  All of those spells may as say, "CAST THIS TO ROXXOR AT COMBAT AND MAKE THE MARTIALS FEEL LIKE WORTHLESS GIMPS!" in the opening paragraph, since that's basically all they exist to do.

[veekie]

Well, hyperspecialization IS its own problem and far more complex than any easy fix can solve.

[Keldar]

Because it defeats the purpose of the concept. Personal spells, especially personal buffs for a character to do the role of another character, but better, are against team play. They are what makes it better to buff yourself than another character, since the bonuses are far more significant, and if you needed a feat to apply the buff to a different character, you'd generally just buff yourself.

Mainly, combat buffs. Unless they were to make a combat action that gives warriors use of caster-type effects like BFC, buffs, and debuffs, its not good for balance.

Very well put. 

[veekie]

Granted, I can see a role for personal buffs, but those are for semi-martial characters like rogues and monks using spells to take themselves from mediocre at their own field to great at it. Its fairly basic to Role Protection that you can't make yourself great at another's niche, since D&D is built with 2/3s of characters suffering from crippling overspecialization.

[Rejakor]

Spells are not the answer to melee being shit.

Rewriting melee classes to give them thematic abilities and immunities that aren't based on spellcasting or pseudospellcasting (maneuvers) is the way to make melee not shit.

[X-Codes]

Actually, martial maneuvers went a very long way towards making melee viable with thematic abilities.

Remember, the reason that the Wizard is Tier 1, the Warblade is Tier 3, and the Fighter is Tier 5 is because the Wizard gets to be creative with the best stuff, the Warblade gets to be creative with good stuff, and the Fighter pretty much has to take every feat ever made for a specific niche in order to perform at the same level as a Warblade of equal level in that specific niche, and even then, doesn't tend to work.

[Rejakor]

I didn't say 'doesn't', I said 'is not'.

Warblade is perfectly 'viable' it's just not the theme of a fighter.  Thematically it's closer to a fighter than a wizard, but it's still based around pseudospells (maneuvers).  Giving fighting-types always-on(immunities, resistances, movement modes, lockdown, fast movement, extra actions) or at-will(tripping, debuffing, countering, disarming, intimidating, moving AND full attacking) abilities is a lot more fighter-themed than rechargeable/prepared special attacks.

[X-Codes]

A lot more street-thug themed, maybe, but not "Master of the Sword" Fighter themed.  In actual martial arts and combat styles, there are real stances, and, unlike in Street Fighter, using the same technique over and over again is not really effective; it's rare for an attack to leave you in position to immediately make the same strike again, and if you do the same thing over and over again then your opponent will see it coming and make you look like a tool before killing you.  So the whole stance/maneuver thing does kinda make sense in a mechanical approach.

There is an issue with some techniques, such as Crusader Strike, where the effect of the techniques don't make logical sense, but honestly that's handled fine by the simple fact that this is D&D and suspension of disbelief is in play.

I'm sure you could come up with a methodology that could work aside from the ToB way of doing things, but that doesn't mean that ToB is inherently wrong.

[Endarire]

What is the point in making some of the best buffs self-only?

[Keldar]

What is the point in making some of the best buffs self-only?

Developer terror at the idea that mixing abilities between classes would somehow create something overpowered coupled with the mistaken belief that Personal range was somehow a good limitation to impose.  Making it work on anyone but the caster would have been a real limitation that actually *gasp* encouraged team play.  Heaven forbid R&D actually had to think how the classes might interact with each other beyond "Cleric heal gud."

[Ziegander]

Honestly, I think you're asking the wrong question, and because of that you're getting answers that are relevant to slightly different aspects of the overall conversation. A more apt question might be, "why are so many Personal range spells so damn good?" But that question may not have any good answer.

It's not that the developers were deviously trying to make casters rock harder at melee than Fighters, it's just that they were pretty dumb and just did whatever felt right without testing anything. I see a lot of posters here basically saying that Personal range is just retarded in general, which is a stupid premise. There are many reasons why a spell should be designed personal-only, not the least of which simply being, "because it feels right." And I bet that's the exact reason why spells like Mage Armor and Righteous Might are personal-only, because it feels right. The problem is not with Personal range in general, the problem is that some Personal range spells are just really powerful. Too powerful.

In fact, maybe the worst justification for a Personal range spell being personal-only is, "because making it usable on others would make it 'too powerful.'" Because that brings us in large part to the large problem we have with spells like Divine Power or Mirror Image. In my opinion, Mirror Image is simply too powerful to be a 2nd level spell and there's no reason for it to be personal-only other than "well, it's really fucking powerful, let's make it personal-only." So, how about making it a 3rd level spell and allowing the caster to create one Mirror Image per caster level (or two caster levels, or whatever), each of any creature within some given range, to a max of 8 per creature? Not only does that make the spell much more interesting, it allows the caster to use it on others and it puts it at a more reasonable spell level. It could probably even be a 4th level spell with that effect.