Designing the perfect Caster class

[Tokorona]

... I'm sorry, when did D&D becoem Cops and Robbers? Your system is too dependent on a good DM, and it pretty much throws rules out of the window. (Oh, and Grease, infinite casting? Wow. You're begging for it to be broke.)

IN essences, sticking your headin the sand and going "The DM does x and y" does NOT Mean he does z and a.

[RandomCasualty]

1163603461[/unixtime]]... I'm sorry, when did D&D becoem Cops and Robbers? Your system is too dependent on a good DM, and it pretty much throws rules out of the window. (Oh, and Grease, infinite casting? Wow. You're begging for it to be broke.)

IN essences, sticking your headin the sand and going "The DM does x and y" does NOT Mean he does z and a.

What exactly is it that you think the DM can't do? Decide when to roll initiative? Because he already does this. The rules already expect him to do it.

You're talking like asking the DM to determine when to shift from combat to noncombat mode is some entirely new concept that I've just introduced. No, the rules do that all the time. In fact, every pencil and paper RPG does it. Shadowrun doesn't take place all in combat rounds, nor does White wolf or GURPS.

That's an old concept and one we can pretty much rely on. If you want to criticize infinite casting because infinite grease or whatever is overpowered in your opinion, fine I'd love to hear your arguments.

But like phonelobster, you're making a big deal over nothing here when it comes to the DM adjudicating combat start and end. This isn't some new responsibility I'm placing on the DM, DMs have had to do that since the existence of pencil and paper RPGs. Yeah, you're damn right I expect the DM to be able to do it, it's a required skill.

DM: Ok, orc #2 attacks you, doing 6 points of damage, then orc#1 attacks for 12 damage, and then orc#2 attacks again for 10 damage... and then..-

PC: Whoa? Don't I get an action in there somewhere? Weren't we supposed to roll initiative.

DM: Yeah, probably, but I'm too stupid to figure out when you're supposed to roll initiative, so I'm just doing combat in an arbitrary non-round based format.

Is this what you see when you picture the average DM?

[Sma]

Big difference being that in a normal game you don't roll initiative every turn because it becomes boring pretty quick, so everyone just glosses over that part with the implicit understanding that the GM will ask for rolls when it actually matters, not because you ever are in a undefinable "out of combat" state.

But things become pretty odd when the Cleric can't cast Bulls strength on the barbarian so he can try to open the stuck glass of jam, because they are sitting on the breakfast table, and there's neither ninjas lurking behind the curtains nor does the cleric intend to fight anyone anytime in the near future.

Now you can go ahead and just say "Buffs are castable whenever the DM allows you to." Which is fine and dandy, as long as everyone on the table agrees to that. But if everyone does that anyway, you might as well ask the players in question not to abuse buffing and forget about that chapter right then and there, without the need for elaborate houserules.

[fbmf]

Your suggestion, RC, comes down to a gentlemen's agreement. Basically, everyone agrees to not be bitches.

A gentlemen's agreement is the best way to solve things at the individual gaming table, but it is a horrible rule to have in the rulebook. In other words, it is the best thing for a game but the worst thing for the game.

Game On,
fbmf

[PhoneLobster]

And yeah, these durations take a bit of DM adjudication, but nothing unreasonable at all.

And my whole point boils down to this.

How the hell can you say that when you yourself can't even rule consistently on characters watching a halfling wrestle a midget. (or any other one of a million combinations of issues like and unlike that one example).

I take it he doesn't run encoutners with tavernkeepers in rounds? Or does he.

I don't know, does he? Should he? In your world of mystery adventure combat duration its a strange and exotic mystery that character abilities hinge upon and could go either way at any second.

When you buy your drinks the cleric keeps trying to buff up just in case and if it goes off everyone panicks and piles on the bar keep because he looked at them funny, thats crazy!

Well heres the thing.

THE DM ALREADY DOES THAT.

Does he really.

He never leaves the combat non combat boundary fuzzy because no one really cares?

He never allows mixes of combat and non combat actions and various characters participation or not because none of that causes all kinds of durations and contrived house rules to collapse like a house of cards?

But most of all the PLAYERS never decide when combat begins? They can ONLY start buffing up in wide open fields when the GM says they see characters, but in the same wide open field at the same range from the same opponents if the GM doesn't tell them they can the players cannot themselves declare combat has begun and buff up?

Thats a world where the players never get to decide combat begins by buffing up before opening a door and stepping into a mysterious room unless they can see in a window first and wave hello at the orcs inside!

That is freaking nuts.

Thats what players will say facing this sort of junk. Because its NOT just an unfair adjudication issue where the GM may or may not use it for good or for evil.

Its an issue where you take away a massive chunk of control of the game from the players and give it the to GM for his birthday present, just because you can.

It doesn't SOLVE anything, it has its own problems but you give it to him for some other wierd reason, I suspect rampant nepotism.

[RandomCasualty]

1163610064[/unixtime]]Big difference being that in a normal game you don't roll initiative every turn because it becomes boring pretty quick, so everyone just glosses over that part with the implicit understanding that the GM will ask for rolls when it actually matters, not because you ever are in a undefinable "out of combat" state.

And oddly enough, characters in combat stand in nice neat 5 ft square increments when they get into combat and yet can spread out more in noncombat situations. There are a lot of various weird stuff that game mechanics introduce. Sure they're arbitrary, but it's just something we live with.

But things become pretty odd when the Cleric can't cast Bulls strength on the barbarian so he can try to open the stuck glass of jam, because they are sitting on the breakfast table, and there's neither ninjas lurking behind the curtains nor does the cleric intend to fight anyone anytime in the near future.

Why? you just redefine the flavor. Maybe it's a chant to the god of war granting and drawing strength from the fervor of combat as opposed to the miracle adrenal boost. Remember, this is magic we're talking about, not science. Magic doens't have to make sense. There's no real reason why you can't conjure creatures in midair save that the rules say you can't. This could be the same difference why bull's strength can't be cast outside of combat. Perhaps the essences of conflict serve to fuel the spell and the spell itself dies out without such fuel.

Now you can go ahead and just say "Buffs are castable whenever the DM allows you to." Which is fine and dandy, as long as everyone on the table agrees to that. But if everyone does that anyway, you might as well ask the players in question not to abuse buffing and forget about that chapter right then and there, without the need for elaborate houserules.

Well, it's not exactly saying buffs are allowed whenever the DM wants. The DM has some pretty good guidelines as to when buffs can be cast. I can't think of many legitimate situations where the DM would deny a PC the ability to use his buffs due to bad adjudication of the rules.

[RandomCasualty]

1163633944[/unixtime]]
How the hell can you say that when you yourself can't even rule consistently on characters watching a halfling wrestle a midget. (or any other one of a million combinations of issues like and unlike that one example).

I don't even fully understand the scenario, so it's rather difficult for me to rule on it, you'll have to explain it more thoroughly, as in how it happened and why the PCs are casting buff spells while fighting a helpless target.

When you buy your drinks the cleric keeps trying to buff up just in case and if it goes off everyone panicks and piles on the bar keep because he looked at them funny, thats crazy!

No point doing this weird metagame trick, because out of character the PCs know when combat is starting anyway, because the DM tells them to roll initiative. So they know the buff won't work if they keep casting it in a tavern. Doesn't achieve anything.

Thats a world where the players never get to decide combat begins by buffing up before opening a door and stepping into a mysterious room unless they can see in a window first and wave hello at the orcs inside!

That is freaking nuts.

It's magic. And it's relatively easy to back up the mechanics with flavor. And your PC knows when buffs are castable and when not beacuse of his training, the same way he knows what gestures to use when casting a magic missile.

And again, if PCs get a surprise round, they're free to buff during the surprise round. so in the aforementioned scenario, they could have some buffs being cast while the barbarian kicks open the door or something. What they couldn't do is sit outside for several rounds and keep casting, because they get onyl a single surprise round in each battle.

Its an issue where you take away a massive chunk of control of the game from the players and give it the to GM for his birthday present, just because you can.

If by control you mean the ability to abuse prebuffing tactics, then yes, I have taken that away. Aside from that, they haven't lost much.

[Sma]

Why? you just redefine the flavor. Maybe it's a chant to the god of war granting and drawing strength from the fervor of combat as opposed to the miracle adrenal boost. Remember, this is magic we're talking about, not science. Magic doens't have to make sense. There's no real reason why you can't conjure creatures in midair save that the rules say you can't. This could be the same difference why bull's strength can't be cast outside of combat. Perhaps the essences of conflict serve to fuel the spell and the spell itself dies out without such fuel.

Its odd because the cleric decided to prepare the "make people really strong" spell, because he's moving today, and there's quite a few buffs whose main utility lies outside of combat. Unlike Magic not having to make sense rules should aim to make some.

Well, it's not exactly saying buffs are allowed whenever the DM wants. The DM has some pretty good guidelines as to when buffs can be cast. I can't think of many legitimate situations where the DM would deny a PC the ability to use his buffs due to bad adjudication of the rules.

If even you can think of a few why are we having this discussion ? Even without having played under those rules we can't find a way to codify them. How are people sitting at the table supposed to make any sense out of these guidelines in a way that doesn't lead to a lengthy discussion ?

Rules are in the game so if people disagree on what is happening and what their own character is capable of doing you can pick up the book and read up on it. Now I think we can agree on rules being incapable of covering each and every situation, but for something basic as "When is this class of spells being able to be cast", and touting it as the solution to Scry and Die you'll have to come up with something more substantive than "Combat starts when the GM decides to roll initiative, and forget using Blindsight to find your way out of a dark cave, in time to rescue the princess."

[The_Matthew]

You can't have a system where the durations of spells and the times you can cast them are both arbitrarily decided by the GM is a gigantic step backwards in game balance.

By setting buffs to a purely combat spell, you ruin them. Hell, what is the line being drawn on buffs anyway? Is polymorph a buff? Hows about Alter Self? Comprehend Languages? Darkvision? Invisability? Mind Blank? Iron Body? I could keep going on, but I'd rather get to my point. I know people who could argue that any one of these is a 'buff' and I can give non-combat uses for every single one of these. Hell, I can't give real combat uses for some of them...

In short, giving the DM absolute control of when spells can be cast and when their duration runs out is a completely stupid rule that causes the game to be Cops and Robbers once more, and allows the DM to outright ruin the enjoyment of some players.

[PhoneLobster]

And oddly enough, characters in combat stand in nice neat 5 ft square increments

Everyone knows my stance on teeny tiny squares.

No point doing this weird metagame trick, because out of character the PCs know when combat is starting anyway, because the DM tells them to roll initiative. So they know the buff won't work if they keep casting it in a tavern. Doesn't achieve anything.

Wait so now the scenario is the GM tells the players to roll iniative and their characters inexplicably freak out and jump the Bar Keep, AGAIN.

It's magic. And it's relatively easy to back up the mechanics with flavor. And your PC knows when buffs are castable and when not beacuse of his training, the same way he knows what gestures to use when casting a magic missile.

Wait, so they only get to cast buffs before storming orc fortress if they exchange rude jestures with the orcs through a window first and the justification is "Because its Magic!". Pull the other one, its got bells on.

And again, if PCs get a surprise round, they're free to buff during the surprise round. so in the aforementioned scenario, they could have some buffs being cast while the barbarian kicks open the door or something. What they couldn't do is sit outside for several rounds and keep casting, because they get onyl a single surprise round in each battle.

So, in an open plain if they "know" danger is on its way (thats GM informed knowing, no player intuition) they can buff for any number of weird surprise/not surprise pre-combat-and-yet-in-combat rounds. But even if they know danger is on the other side of the door they can only buff for as long as it takes one poor unbuffing sucker among them to open the door?

If by control you mean the ability to abuse prebuffing tactics, then yes, I have taken that away. Aside from that, they haven't lost much.

No, you took away from the players the ability to define combat. What you are describing is a system where players never get to initiate combat on THEIR grounds. The GM decides if you get to prepare for combat (if at all) and when and where it happens and that is it.

You can't lure bad guys into a trap because you can't prepare the trap at the same time as luring and as soon as you stop luring your trap voids its warranty.

You can't wait in the shadows plotting and scheming then leap out with the full power of rounds worth of observation and preparedness, you get a surprise round of that plotting only, if anything. Unless apparently you are on an open plain.

You can't make sure you have every sane protection you can give yourself before opening the big scary demon door at the bottom of the dungeon because you only get to do one before the door opens, and then only if you KNOW something is inside and even then only if you aren't the sucker opening the door.

What you are doing is banning planning and preparation from combat, and that hurts game play in ways that go well beyond any broken rules of any single system.

I don't even fully understand the scenario

Its all the scenarios you seem to keep dismissing. Any subset of the characters can or will fight while others are there but can't or won't.

Are the non participants in the combat? If so why? If not why not? There is no right answer to that, none, both answers do freaky annoying crap to your game.

And thats before you get into wierder crap like the guns and knife fight variation of that scenario you just don't seem to care about and thats a BIG deal.

[RandomCasualty]

1163647356[/unixtime]]
You can't make sure you have every sane protection you can give yourself before opening the big scary demon door at the bottom of the dungeon because you only get to do one before the door opens, and then only if you KNOW something is inside and even then only if you aren't the sucker opening the door.

This is exactly the kind of BS that makes casters godly and fighters suck. The advantage of the fighter is that he requires no time to charge up his skills in combat. He's always good to go. When you allow casters to prebuff, you basically negate any advantage the fighter holds.

What you are doing is banning planning and preparation from combat, and that hurts game play in ways that go well beyond any broken rules of any single system.

Planning and preparation still work, What I'm banning is long range artillery strikes where you can perform actions detrimental to combat before you're even wtihin range of your enemies to respond. That isn't even good for the game, because it's something only casters can do, and therefore throws fighter balance way out the window.

We don't need to kick non-casters in the balls anymore than we already do. Wizards can't be sitting back in thier fortress of doom powering up in safety and then come to the battle with a 6 round head start over everyone else. It just isn't balanced. If you're not about to hand a rogue six free roudns of full attacks from the shadows when he gains surprise, you shouldn't do the same for a wizard or buffing cleric.

Are the non participants in the combat? If so why? If not why not? There is no right answer to that, none, both answers do freaky annoying crap to your game.

Yes, everyone is considered part of the combat if they're acting in rounds (even if they're just delaying or readying actions). I've said this before, and I'm saying it again. Seriously, it's not that hard. If you're declaring your actions in terms of rounds, then you're fighting in a combat.

And thats before you get into wierder crap like the guns and knife fight variation of that scenario you just don't seem to care about and thats a BIG deal.

I'm not sure what the guns and knife figth variation is, so I really can't comment on it.

[RandomCasualty]

1163646551[/unixtime]]You can't have a system where the durations of spells and the times you can cast them are both arbitrarily decided by the GM is a gigantic step backwards in game balance.

Well, here's a catch. The Duration of spells during non-combat situations is already arbitrarily decided, and in a much more vague fashion than my system.

Here's the current system.

<i>We just finished a battle which took 5 rounds. We search and loot 6 orcs and an ogre which we just killed. We proceed to perform a search of the entire room. We spend a while discussing in character what to do next. We listen at the northern and western doors, then proceed to search the north door for traps, and disable device the poison needle we found. Then we pick the lock, and proceed down the corridor for 200 ft, searching as we go fro more traps. We get to the next door, have to search it, spend time discussing whether to proceed or not and finally decide to continue. We then pick the lock, opening into another room with a second combat. How much time has passed between battles? </i>

You want to talk about arbitrary? That's fucking arbitrary.

Ask any two DMs and they're going to give you a vastly different answer of how much time has passed. COuld be anywhere from 2 minutes to a half hour. You seriously don't fucking know and there isn't even a shred of guidelines to help the DM determine most of this stuff.

By setting buffs to a purely combat spell, you ruin them. Hell, what is the line being drawn on buffs anyway? Is polymorph a buff? Hows about Alter Self? Comprehend Languages? Darkvision? Invisability? Mind Blank? Iron Body? I could keep going on, but I'd rather get to my point. I know people who could argue that any one of these is a 'buff' and I can give non-combat uses for every single one of these. Hell, I can't give real combat uses for some of them...

Well, not all spells are going to be classified as buffs. The spells that I would classify as buffs in this case are the 1 round/level duration spells that are supposed to last for a combat anyway. That would include greater invis (but not regular), divine favor, divine power, righteous might, displacement, etc.

In short, giving the DM absolute control of when spells can be cast and when their duration runs out is a completely stupid rule that causes the game to be Cops and Robbers once more, and allows the DM to outright ruin the enjoyment of some players.

Cops and Robbers is the current system. Find me any two DMs who can agree on how much time is spent doing the above typical adventuring actions above. My system is much less arbitrary than that. It at least has reasonable guidelines and doesn't require complex calculations to try to determine how much time has passed.

Sure, it's not perfect, but it's better than what we've got.

I mean go back and consider the system we have now and tell me that it doesn't give the DM a huge amount of control over spell duration simply by declaring how much time it takes the party to perform certain actions.

[User3]

If you really want to curb the 6 buffs at a time preparation problem, then just limit the amount of active buff spells a person can have on at once.

There definitely would have to be tweaks required to that kind of system, but I think it is doable.

[The_Matthew]

RC, it looks like you actually do want to re-write large sections of the rules, and then run through the entire spell list (which is immense) and tag everything with whether it is a buff or not. That is more work than the suggestion of just giving people the various number buffs as by level abilities, which involves making one balanced chart.

It is never going to be feasable to use combat as a duration simply because I've seen fights where you fight with some illusions, then shortly after they are gone you fight with the illusionist. By your rule system either this fight can't happen (oh, sorry, my BBEG can't use his tactic of delaying you with illusions before you fight him) or completely wipes all of the buffs the party had going for no reason. And I don't think that either of these should be acceptable concessions in order to make a spelcasting class that we don't need, which will either be definably better than any other class or be a giant nerf to spellcasting in general.

[RandomCasualty]

1163672805[/unixtime]]RC, it looks like you actually do want to re-write large sections of the rules, and then run through the entire spell list (which is immense) and tag everything with whether it is a buff or not. That is more work than the suggestion of just giving people the various number buffs as by level abilities, which involves making one balanced chart.

Yeah, it is a lot more work than I planned for, however buffing is broken under the current model anyway, so it probably would do the game good to fix it, since the problem with buffing is present right now under RAW.

I mean regardless of inventing new spellcasting classes, you probably have to fix prebuffing anyway.

It is never going to be feasable to use combat as a duration simply because I've seen fights where you fight with some illusions, then shortly after they are gone you fight with the illusionist. By your rule system either this fight can't happen (oh, sorry, my BBEG can't use his tactic of delaying you with illusions before you fight him) or completely wipes all of the buffs the party had going for no reason. And I don't think that either of these should be acceptable concessions in order to make a spelcasting class that we don't need, which will either be definably better than any other class or be a giant nerf to spellcasting in general.

Well, if the whole encounter is an illusion, then it makes a lot more sense that it should waste buffs. Lets remember that the purpose of illusions in this case is to misdirect the party and waste their resources. So if they burn up a fireball on the illusory red dragon, what's wrong with burning up a divine power?

So yeah, it's another way to deplete people's spells using illusions. It only makes the tactic better if anything.

[RandomCasualty]

1163667499[/unixtime]]If you really want to curb the 6 buffs at a time preparation problem, then just limit the amount of active buff spells a person can have on at once.

There definitely would have to be tweaks required to that kind of system, but I think it is doable.

I thought about this. But really the problem here is that now you are seriously limiting the PCs options. Some people like playing buff characters that can get really huge numbers after several rounds of charging up.

To be worth anything, you'd have to limit them to maybe 2 buffs at a time. And by the end of it you still end up with buff based characters that either suck or control the game. And effectively you still reward people for prebuffing and scry & die, which is totally nonheroic and should probably not even work at all (or work very poorly)

The traditional buff system is very problematic and here's why:

-It's a tremendous attacker advantage.
-It kicks fighter types in the teeth because they have no way of using precombat actions to do anything like that.
-Short duration buff spells themselves are balanced by the idea that you're going to cast them in combat and waste a combat round doing so. Once you get around that, those spells become broken.

[Tokorona]

But your way makes them useless, as at least currently, the DM can't pretend to run by the rules and play hurt-the-person-I-don't-like.

GIving more power to the DM doesn't work.

[RandomCasualty]

1163688770[/unixtime]]But your way makes them useless, as at least currently, the DM can't pretend to run by the rules and play hurt-the-person-I-don't-like.

Ok first, how have I made them useless? Are you saying buffs are only good if you prebuff or what?

As far as the DM hurting the person he doesn't like. He can already do that. It goes like this.

DM: "Ok, you finish up combat and you take 10 minutes to loot and divide all the treasure from the bodies. All your buffs are gone."

PC: "What? We're not taking 10 minutes!! My shield spell only lasts 6 minutes."

Dm: "Yeah I decided that's how long it's going to take to loot the bodies, since that's totally within my power to arbitrate, so unless you don't want treasure, you're hosed."

Determining when a combat ends and begins is a lot more self-evident than trying to determine how much time passes between combats. Seriously, nobody can agree on that, it's all guestimates. Basing spell durations off the DM's constant guestimations is pretty crazy. We're much better off using storytelling units as opposed to scientific time units, because outside of combat, scientific time doesn't exist. The DM can at any time declare that 5 minutes pass, an hour passes, or whatever.

There is a definite shift between combat and noncombat and time flows differently in each. I am simply removing the worry about handling noncombat time entirely.

What abuses do you think a DM is going to do in my system anyway? Just stop a battle in the middle for no reason, reroll initiative just to screw someone over? That'd be awfully transparent. And if you've got one of those vendetta DMs out to screw you, then you're gonna die, it's that simple. Whether it's because you got picked off by a creature 10 CRs higher than you, or some random finger of death trap with an uber DC happened to take you out, you're still going down.

LIke I said before, if your DM sucks, the game is frelled anyway, don't even bother trying to make rules to handle the contingency of a bad DM. You just can't protect yourself from someone with absolute power, you can inconvience his attempts to screw you over slightly, but eventually if he wants to, he will find a way.

[Tokorona]

Yes, but that type of thought is a fallacy - namely, giving power to A because he can break B that will further break B so he doesn't break B and does option C instead doesn't always hold up. At the base of it, D&D Is a game, which means it has rules. DEfined rules. Not "whenever the referee calls it" rules. It ceases to be a game at that point.

[RandomCasualty]

1163707341[/unixtime]]Yes, but that type of thought is a fallacy - namely, giving power to A because he can break B that will further break B so he doesn't break B and does option C instead doesn't always hold up. At the base of it, D&D Is a game, which means it has rules. DEfined rules. Not "whenever the referee calls it" rules. It ceases to be a game at that point.

Ok, so how is determining non-combat time fall under "Defined rules" at all. I mean, that's totally and completely arbitrary and yet you guys put on blinders when it comes to that.

[Tokorona]

... COmbat and Non-combat are DM purview, agreed. Determining Spell Lengths AREN'T. They're an entirely different ball of wax.

[NineInchNall]

1163553951[/unixtime]]Because you cannot guarantee the DM is good and the players aren't - for example, if the DM is bad but the players know the rules the DM will overrule them if it's not a outright rule.

It simply does not work to depend on the DM. Ever. THe rules should run so that hte DM can know nothing - he doesn't have to use common sense. And your system isn't D&D because you want to do that - it's some other system entirely.

I had a DM once try to make the argument that a character couldn't get up from prone (move action), take a 5' step (non-action), and fire (standard action) all in the same round.

A primary failing of too many DMs is that they try to apply common sense to a game that is not based on common sense.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

RC, if you're rewriting half the spell system anyway, why not just make it so that buffs a) give smaller bonuses b) stack with each other less often c)Either don't do things other classes do or do it less well, and d) Have to be cast on someone other than the caster in more cases?

We still want buff spells. We want the spellcasters to cast their spells on the fighter, because that's clearly part of the assumed paradigm for fighters. We want the cleric to be able to cast SOME spells on himself. We just don't want the casters to hoard all their little shinies in a pile and then use them to become godlike in comparason to the party.

-Des

[Fwib]

As far as buffs go, wouldn't the problem be that casters are being selfish? I can see how they would want to buff themselves with 'stop me being killed'-type buffs, but surely 'make-the-target-a-killing-machine'-type buffs are more efficient to use on the mêléeists? - that way, the fighter-types get to go their thing most efficiently, and also (and more importantly) they get to continue to take the risk of death.

That is to say: the problem where casters end up being so much better in combat than non-casters.

[RandomCasualty]

1163713942[/unixtime]]RC, if you're rewriting half the spell system anyway, why not just make it so that buffs a) give smaller bonuses b) stack with each other less often c)Either don't do things other classes do or do it less well, and d) Have to be cast on someone other than the caster in more cases?

We still want buff spells. We want the spellcasters to cast their spells on the fighter, because that's clearly part of the assumed paradigm for fighters. We want the cleric to be able to cast SOME spells on himself. We just don't want the casters to hoard all their little shinies in a pile and then use them to become godlike in comparason to the party.

Well, by limiting things to combat only, you actually don't have to worry about making bonuses smaller, or fixing stacking and what not, because the new rule already does that for you. It doesn't stop people from buffing the fighter. The cleric can very well throw a buff on the party fighter as his action instead of buffing himself, the wizard can still haste the party if he wants to. It's just none of that happens outside of combat and that balances things out.

The problem with nerfing buff spells so they give smaller bonuses is that you're just encouraging epople to prebuff. Now the spells utterly suck if you dont' prebuff and that's bad. It means that people who use buffs casually take it up the butt while people who want to abuse buffs by doing scry and die just end up taking slightly more prep time. The best way to limit buffing is to make the cost real. A combat action.

Is it worth it? Maybe. Maybe not. But buffing is no longer a no brainer.

... COmbat and Non-combat are DM purview, agreed. Determining Spell Lengths AREN'T. They're an entirely different ball of wax.

DM determines how fast time passes out of combat. Meaning that any spell not cast in combat (where the PCs are moving in rounds) is effectively a spell length of "DM decides". It's just not explicitly stated in the rules. Nonetheless if the DM wants to hose you and have your buff durations go away, he can and there isn't much you can do about it.

It may make you feel better that your spell duration appears to be in scientific units, but you can't measure with a clock while the game is going on. Time passes entirely relative to how fast the DM wants it to pass, because there is no rigid time structure. In fact, the DM doesn't even have to tell you how much game time has passed for any given action.

So yeah, a spell might last 5 minutes as a fixed timeframe, and you ight know that 5 minutes equals 50 rounds, but outside of combat, a minute means whatever the hell the DM wants it to mean. And that effectively means that your codified spell duration also becomes meaningless.