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Playing as a mage cleric to fully optimize all your buffs having such a large array of spells a sort by duration would be incredible.
PLEASE.
PLEASE.
0
Comments
The first issue is that a spell doesn't simply have a single number in it that determines its duration. Instead, each effect of the spell has its own duration. Although most effects of each spell last the same amount of time as the other effects of the spell, there are some exceptions. For example, the Protection from Evil spell has an effect that creates a blue lightning animation over the character's head; this effect lasts for 4 seconds. On the other hand, the other effects of Protection from Evil last longer than 4 seconds. Would this spell be considered to have a duration of 4 seconds or the duration of its other effects? That might seem simple for a human to decide, but for this idea to work the game needs to have a systematic way of deciding the duration of the spells.
One idea I had was to make it so that the duration of the spell is equal to the longest duration among its effects. This would solve the problem with Protection from Evil. However, there are still issues. You see, there are some spells whose effects have no duration but cast a secondary spell that does have a duration. For example, the spell Spell Immunity has no duration on its effects, but it has you select from a list of secondary spells which do have durations. If the game were to look at the effects of Spell Immunity and figure out its duration, it would find that it has a duration of zero when in fact it doesn't. I think a way to solve this would be to give the effects of Spell Immunity the same duration as the effects of the spells it lets you cast (the effects of the main Spell Immunity spell are happen instantaneously so it doesn't matter what their duration is).
Personally I'm not too big of a fan of this idea, but it does seem possible.