Haste - Or, Speed Kills

It was one of the rare opportunities, where my friend Darren DM'd a campaign and I got to play. My LE Gray Elven MU with a 19 intelligence and an eye in the back of his head (mutation) was probably around 10th level or so at this point. Darren's wife Rachel is playing my character's sister, a CE Fighter. She had one of the Vecna artifacts, though I don't remember which one. She later found the second one and went insane! Cool! Leon is playing a 1/2 Orc Cleric/Thief. He was evil as well, of course, though I don't remember which flavor.

We enter into a major battle with the Shadowlord, our ex-employer. First thing I do, is cast Haste on the whole party. Round two - something occurs to me, which I've never thought of before.

"Darren, what would happen if I cast haste on the party again?"

Darren thinks for a second. "You know it would work, but you're not sure what the stress from a double haste would do to someone."

"Ok. I'm casting Haste, but not on me. Just them." What the hell. I'm evil and curious. Leon throws me a rather comical "What the Fuck?" look. Rachel laughs.

After a round of triple attacks from my party members, the Shadowlord casts a Slow spell, bringing them back down to single Haste speed. Darren tells me later, that their hearts would have burst in 1d4 rounds, if not for our opponent counteracting the second spell. If he had rolled well, from our perspective, that would have been plenty of time to wipe out our foe, with that many attacks coming from our ranks. No problem, though. We defeat the Shadowlord, rather decisively, anyway.

In my Kastmaria campaign, Haste was pretty much a constant. Rachel played an MU and always had the damn thing memorized. At one point, Darren's Cavalier had built up something like 20 years of magical aging, due to Haste spells. Of course, denying him and the other party members some means of restoration would have nipped that in the bud, real quick. But, I would have felt kind of like a dick, doing so. I let her have the spell, in the first place. So, Haste became a constant factor, in any important battle and something I always had to take into consideration. I never pulled any punches, so again, I can't say I blamed them.

I don't exactly consider it a problem, but I am tempted to borrow from Osric and rule that the spell ages the recipient by two years, instead of just one. I'd still let the players reverse the aging, eventually. But it might make them think twice before casting it.

Hah! No it wouldn't!