The Creator of Spheres of Power Here: Ask Me Anything [Archive]

Adam Meyers

2015-05-16, 12:27 PM

@MyrPsychologist: Now that I've seen the community here, I think that sounds like a great idea.

@Keledrath: While that sounds awesome, there's a lot of logistics to go through when mixing publishing houses like that, so I can't say if that will ever happen.

As for casting stats, we wanted to give people the freedom to pick their own stats, while not bogging down people who didn't care for extreme customization with too many choices (hence, why some classes can pick and some classes can't.) I see no problem in letting people change it up, though, and a mad scientist sounds fun.

Gestalt characters: I haven't run a gestalt game with SoP, but I'd assume that Caster Level, like BAB, would advanced with the highest included class. I'd let them take talents for both classes though, just as a cleric/wizard gestalt would get two sets of spells.

@Ninjaxenomorph: It's in the works.

@PsyBomb: The printer assures me we'll have the books a couple weeks before Gen Con.

@Forrestfire: We didn't delve into Prestige class adaptations because some of them are very specific to spellcasting, and others work with just a simple conversion without the need for much adaptation. The way you're doing it sounds great.

@Crake: That's actually a complicated question. Skybourne's been kicking around in my head for about 5 years now, but that time's also been spent with two other worlds: a multiverse-level post-apocalyptic, and a world built around mythic adventures. There's an old writer's tip that the best work comes from combining multiple ideas rather than focusing on just one (Jim Butcher's Codex Alera, just as an example, apparently grew from a dare to write a book that mixed pokemon with the lost Roman legion), and Skybourne as it's currently iterated is built from a combination of aspects of all three worlds. So while the setting and its component parts have been in development for years, I specifically wanted to start the kickstarter before the world got too set in stone, as I still wanted the room to play with ideas, mix and match concepts, and get feedback from the kickstarter backers on what ideas they liked best.

@CashanDraven: I don't think it would be a problem to include talents for minor creation or advanced extradimentional spaces, and those ideas will probably appear in future supplements for the system.

A lot of the reasoning behind those decisions comes down to that we wanted those abilities where power is limited only by player imagination to remain fueled by player imagination, but to provide a cap so that imaginative players couldn't just destroy the work of a novice GM day in and day out.

@Segev: Spheres of Power is a concept-based magic system, where rather than fitting your ideas to the magic, you can fit the magic to your ideas. 20 spheres act like magical feat trees letting you build magic, casters, and worlds as you want whether it's Jedi, mystborn, air benders, or anything in-between.

Vhaidara

2015-05-16, 12:54 PM

Now, here's the thornier issue that came up with regards to gestalt caster level: interaction with no sphere casters.

This was actually the mad scientist again. The only standard casters I allowed were alchemist/investigator. He is alchemist//armorist. Now, under a real spheres conversion, he would only be a mid caster. However, that isn't the case. Would you judge it fair to let him act as a full caster?

As a note, I went with yes, but that's mostly because I run games at a very high power floor (I consider it a personal failure if a player feels useless).

stack

2015-05-16, 01:02 PM

If a fey adept is using create reality to make a conjuration sphere companion, are you locked into the same companion every time you do it as you would be with the conjuration sphere properly, or can each illusion be created on a case by case basis?

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-16, 04:12 PM

Do you have a rough ETA on the full completion of the first SoP book? Most sites have serious issues handing out updates, so I'm waiting for the book to actually finish before picking up a copy. I think there are 3-4 others here who feel the same way, not to mention RL buddies of mine.

If you are referring to the PDF, then it is already finished and available on various sites. Regarding updates, DriveThru works for me nicely. I always had the current version when DDS announced an update.

Adam Meyers

2015-05-17, 12:09 PM

@Kelerath: I guess so. Either that or just possess both magic systems Bokor-style.

@Stack: The Fey Adept could choose a different companion each time.

Ilorin Lorati

2015-05-17, 12:18 PM

A bit off topic from SoP, but still topical to Pathfinder ATM: Before Spheres of Power, you did Rogue Glory, which aimed to fix the problems with Rogue at the time. As such, what's your opinion on the new Rogue updates in Pathfinder Unchained? Is there anything done with one that you think could have been done better with the other?

Is there anything in general you wish you had done bettertm in that book?

Endless Rain

2015-05-17, 05:49 PM

When will the print version be released? I really want the book but it's hard for me to use PDFs at my gaming table. I can't find a release date anywhere for the print version.

Der_DWSage

2015-05-17, 10:05 PM

Here's a few from my own gaming group. I'm serving as the mouthpiece for six people, so there's a lot of questions here.

1)Why does the Armorist not get Heavy Armor proficiency without spending a feat or equipment trick? They do feel like they'd be the one to get it. (Also:Why is the Armorist's casting stat Wisdom?)

2)Why is Destruction's basic attack bludgeoning damage, and how do you see that working from a bluff perspective?

3)How does Magical Knack (The +2 to CL so long as it doesn't go above your character level trait) interact with Spherecasting?

4)Elementalists seem a bit...odd. The main gist of the question is, I suppose, why do Elementalists get all good saves? Bonus combat feats also seem a little out of left field, though not as much so.

5)(Rephrasing from 'Why does the Weather Sphere suck?') What uses have you seen the Weather Sphere serve for a player?

6)Why do you make it so that several talents have absolutely horrid scaling-I'm specifically thinking of Fate's base ability, and several from the War Totem, that only grant a +1 bonus per 10 levels. Did AC serve to be that powerful a defense in your playtest?

7)Why do Incanter Sphere Specializations take more feats than Sorcerer Bloodlines, when the Bloodlines tend to be stronger and more useful? +1 Caster Level is nice, but most of the Specializations tend to be more than a little weak.

8)What was your inspiration for this style of casting, and how did you settle on the 20 Spheres chosen?

9)Are Metamagic Rods intended to work with Spherecasting, and if so, how?

10)I'm intending to make a message board with a world setting that only includes Spherecasting in it. Is it permissable to include the rules for Spherecasting on the site itself? Or should I wait until pages are submitted to the PFSRD? (Secondary addition:Do you want any help with that?)

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-18, 02:42 PM

3)How does Magical Knack (The +2 to CL so long as it doesn't go above your character level trait) interact with Spherecasting

I once asked this very question. The answer: "Magical knack is not appropriate for the SoP system."

Adam Meyers

2015-05-18, 03:16 PM

@Ilorin Lorati: I haven't tried the Unchained Rogue at a table yet, but I like the look of it, particularly the skill rank unlocks. I'm not sure I like debilitating injury, not because I don't think it would be a lot of fun to use at the table, but because I've never liked locking rogues (being one of the most versatile classes) into one box, even if that box is a fun one like tactical debilitater. This is, incidentally, why I've come to not quite like the Glory Rogue's ambush ability; it's awesome when you want it, but does lock the rogue into the 'ambusher' box. Honestly, I'd love to run an unchained rogue who gets a guile pool at 4th level in place of debilitating injury, just to make a sort of ultimate versatile skill-master hybrid between the two.

As for Rogue Glory, it was my first book so there's no way I can look at it objectively, but in hindsight I think the mechanics stand up fairly well, although I wish I'd had more experience with the rest of design when I'd done it. I recently looked through it again and noticed I didn't even alphabetize the feats.

@Endless Rain: According to the printer, the physical books will arrive shortly before Gen Con. We didn't plan on having a booth at Gen Con, but we will be bringing copies to Gen Con to give to any kickstarter backers present, and will be shipping the rest to backers and storefronts as soon as we get back.

@Der_DWSage:

1) The fighter's schtick has always been its front-loaded proficiencies; it gives you heavy armor proficiency and tower shields, both of which are rare to get any other way except through feats. Since the armorist gains magic and a powerful class feature at 1st level over what a fighter gets, we thought losing heavy armor and tower shields was a fair trade-off. We gave her Wisdom as a casting stat because the concept of the class was someone who unlocked the potential of equipment through mediation; they aren't a wizard who limits themselves to equipment, but a warrior who unlocked the mystic capabilities of the tools of war, if that makes sense.

2) Originally it was force damage, but we decided bludgeoning was a better way to represent 'a blast of pure magic power' without it automatically bypassing all forms of resistance. I'm not sure what you mean by a bluff perspective, though.

3) Personally, I don't allow Magical Knack at my table when using Spherecasting.

4) The concept behind the Elementalists was actually that of a magical monk: combatants who use magic instead of ki to enhance their combat capabilities. Think Avatar: The Last Airbender, if that helps.

5) In my experience, weather is one of the most powerful spheres in the game, and has been significantly nerfed from its initial presentation. Things a player can do with weather off the top of my head: providing fog cover for the party and their personal army, nullifying most environmental hazards, use lightning or frost to slowly kill of a city or the insides of a building while hiding nearby or barricading the door, changing an environment in your favor before a massive fight, nullifying ranged enemies and blowing all but the largest opponents away, etc.

6) War and Fate can affect any number of people, making them ideal for large player groups and games that include followers. Fate also has abilities that grant multiple benefits at once. In both cases, balance demanded they scale more slowly than other abilities, otherwise they could turn into a win-button in certain situations.

7) Designer math is a finicky thing, but with bloodlines you trade 5 feats for 5 abilities (1st, 3rd, 9th, 15th, and 20th level sorcerer abilities). However, with the sphere specialization you gain 1 bonus sphere, +1 caster level with that sphere, and 3 abilities, one of which scales powerfully and becomes a capstone ability at 20th level. Mathmatically this makes a specialization equal to a sorcerer bloodline (5 abilities to 5 abilities), but in the case of the specialization one of those abilities scales dramatically (making it the equivalent of 2 abilites) and becomes a capstone ability at level 20 (making it the equivalent of 3 abilities), and +1 caster level to a sphere can easily be considered the equivalent of two abilities given its vast array of applications. With the above considerations, the specialization becomes superior to the bloodline in most cases, and we felt it was worth the additional cost.

8) The story of SoP's creation is a long one, but the short version is a friend suggested we do a line of classes that used spell-like abilities instead of spells, which led to a discussion of talent-based magic, which led to the investigation of a universal talent system. The book was originally intended to be much smaller (3-5 classes, I think 10 spheres) but when the kickstarter showed us just how much interest there was in the idea, we decided to significantly increase the scope of the book. The 20 spheres chosen came from brainstorming sessions and dissecting the Pathfinder spell lists and several online databases of super hero powers to try and discover how we could encompass as many types of powers as we could. There can and probably will be more spheres released in the future covering more specific expressions of magic (I've heard of at least one table that combined and re-purposed conjuration and I think enhancement to create a 'mechamagic' sphere), but we wanted to start with as many broad categories as we could to cover as many potential character-types as we could right out of the gate.

9) The general rule in SoP is, when mixing the two systems, divide caster level by 2 to find a sphere effect's equivalent spell level. This can be done to allow metamagic rods to function with Spherecasting.

10) We're waiting on D20pfsrd.com to upload the spheres and if you wanted to help expedite that process you would need to talk to them about it, but I certainly welcome any help making that happen. I love seeing people use SoP to make awesome things and so long as you keep your postings of the rules to things covered by the OGL it shouldn't be a problem, but if you're planning to post up most of the book, I'd ask you to contact the pfsrd about doing it there, just as a courtesy to everyone else who's in a similar boat and wants to have the rules online.

meemaas

2015-05-18, 04:13 PM

@Adam Meyers

You should probably contact the pfsrd and give them explicit permission to work on it. Last I heard, John didn't want to until the full release and he may not be aware.

Mehangel

2015-05-18, 08:26 PM

Does the Destruction Talent: Nether Blast, heal undead, it being negative energy? I understand that Nether Blast specifically states that it doesnt damage undead, but it doesnt state that it doesnt heal it either. If it heals undead, I would recommend having it cost an additional spell point to hinder abuse.

Adam Meyers

2015-05-19, 12:16 PM

@Mehangel: It does not heal undead, no.

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-19, 12:56 PM

@Mehangel: It does not heal undead, no.

Does Life heal undead then?

Ironsides

2015-05-20, 02:26 AM

Does Life heal undead then?

If you give them temporary HP through Invigorate I think that you can give them temporary HP but Cure explicitly states that since Cure is a positive energy effect that it harms the undead.

Milo v3

2015-05-20, 02:36 AM

Is there any chance of making a talent that does Heal undead in the future? Seems like dhampir would be screwed when it comes to healing.

Thatwarforged

2015-05-20, 03:02 AM

Is there any chance of making a talent that does Heal undead in the future? Seems like dhampir would be screwed when it comes to healing.

There is one in the death sphere called manipulate undeath which you can spend a spell point to heal an undead 1d8 per 2 caster levels.

Edit:
So I have a question
If I have a staff or magic item that has a base sphere or magical talent can I use that for prerequisites when making magical items or with activating a part of another talent like Create demiplane? (Example I have a +2 staff of nature with the expanded geomancy talent (Water) and I cast create demiplane. Could I apply the bountiful trait?)

Wrungch

2015-05-20, 09:27 PM

I have two questions.

1) When an illusion is disbelieved by one character, is the illusion dispelled, or does it remain in effect for other characters?
Meaning, every character would need to disbelieve individually?

2) Invisibility talent - does that remain in effect for the 1 min/lvl duration, or is it dispelled when the target performs
an action that would cancel an invisibility spell?

Thanks.

Wrungch

AGrinningCat

2015-05-20, 10:23 PM

Does the False Focus feat apply to Rituals?

Qc Storm

2015-05-20, 11:42 PM

You mentioned Mechamagic earlier. Are there any other potential Spheres you'd like to share as hype material?

CowardlyPaladin

2015-05-21, 12:25 AM

Ironsides

2015-05-21, 12:51 AM

Vhaidara

2015-05-21, 04:58 AM

I only heard about this form this this thread, and since I wasn't a backer, here I am curious about. Without giving too much away mechanically, how does your magic system differ from Vanician and any other D20 magic systems.

Not really sure how you can describe that difference without talking mechanics...

Think Talent Tree instead of spell list, mixed with Warlock invocations and a pool of resources used to enhance your talents. When you run out of spell points, you can still do things, you just aren't operating at 100%.

As a note, something that, if it's in my copy of the PDF, I keep missing: What Creature type is the companion from Conjuration? I've been assuming Outsider, but cannot seem to confirm it.

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-21, 06:47 AM

I looked around the forums but I couldn't find where someone did archetype conversions of all the casting classes to Spheres of Power (base classes, prestige classes, everything). Can someone link to that post? I dislike reinventing the wheel when someone else has done all the hard work. :smallwink:

Have a look at Spheres of Power All Class Conversions (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?392982-Spheres-of-Power-All-Class-Conversions) - except for the base classes, those are included in the book. There people are discussing ways to do so. Overall, most classes fit the magic system nicely.

CowardlyPaladin

2015-05-21, 11:59 AM

Not really sure how you can describe that difference without talking mechanics...

Think Talent Tree instead of spell list, mixed with Warlock invocations and a pool of resources used to enhance your talents. When you run out of spell points, you can still do things, you just aren't operating at 100%.

As a note, something that, if it's in my copy of the PDF, I keep missing: What Creature type is the companion from Conjuration? I've been assuming Outsider, but cannot seem to confirm it.

I mean without writing up the actual spells and what not, just the basic system. Like for example

"Psionics don't use Vancian casting, you learn a certain number of spells per level, and you get a certain number of power points per level. A spell each level costs a certain amount of power points, but you can spend more to have a greater effect". Something like that.

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-21, 12:47 PM

I mean without writing up the actual spells and what not, just the basic system. Like for example

"Psionics don't use Vancian casting, you learn a certain number of spells per level, and you get a certain number of power points per level. A spell each level costs a certain amount of power points, but you can spend more to have a greater effect". Something like that.

The answer to your question was in the second part:

Think Talent Tree instead of spell list, mixed with Warlock invocations and a pool of resources used to enhance your talents. When you run out of spell points, you can still do things, you just aren't operating at 100%.

Or my way:

You choose powers, which grant either a new ability or enhance an another chosen power. Using these powers can be done either at-will or require spell points. At-will abilities can be upgraded in effect by spending an additional spell point as well. The system is pretty malleable as well. It allows GMs and players to fit the magic system to the setting and characters, instead the other way around.

Ironsides

2015-05-21, 08:54 PM

Silly question here. The Channel class feature for the Incantor and to a lesser extent for the Soul Weaver is a bit ambiguous to me in relation to the Command Undead channel feat. Do you use your class level for the DC for the feat? Such as 10 + 1/2 your Incantor/Soul Weaver level + your Charisma modifier for the DC of the feat.

Also the Soul Weaver explicitly states you qualify for all channeling feats, however the Incantor does not not have this wording. Does this mean that the Incantor can't take channeling feats?

I am asking these questions because I am building a gestalt Dread Necromancer using this system and I wanted to be clear on what my options are because Command Undead is a key feat for the build.

Kaidinah

2015-05-21, 10:20 PM

Hello! I am a big big fan of Spheres of Power. All of my players love it too, and are excited to try it out. I have a few question about the upcoming expansion of Spheres of Power.

Will Spheres of Power's expansion get alternate racial traits for races that get bonuses to vancian magic?

Adam Meyers

2015-05-21, 11:31 PM

@meemaas: I have, yeah. John's just particularly swamped and short on help at the moment.

@Thatwarforged: Yes.

@Wrungch:

1) The illusion stays in effect, but the character who disbelieves knows its fake and can make decisions accordingly. Every character would need to disbelieve it individually, but once one person disbelieves it they can often point the illusion out to everyone else.

2) Invisibility follows the same rules as an illusion: It has a duration of concentration unless combined with lingering illusion, and taking actions does not dispel the invisibility. It does have a lower bonus to Stealth checks, though.

@AGrinningCat: We didn't have that feat in mind when designing rituals, but so long as the GM allows it, I think it could apply, sure.

@Qc Storm: We're working on those ideas now, but for example, rather than including racial spells with Skybourne's new races, we're thinking of including racial talents and entire racial spheres.

@Keledrath: Extraplanar outsider, yeah.

@Ironsides: Use your class level as your effective Cleric level. Incanters do qualify for channeling feats; often when designing new classes we include redundancies (such as specifying Soul Weavers can get all feats) to help people get the intent. Not including that redundancy for the Incanter just means we probably were cutting space for the final PDF and didn't think we needed it.

@Kaidinah: It's on the list of expansions, but there's so many other things on the list of expansions that I can't say where or when it will happen.

Kaidinah

2015-05-22, 12:25 AM

Ezekiul

2015-05-22, 09:31 AM

You guys have done a great job with Spheres of Power, it is definitely a very cool system. I have a few questions:

In the update that happened in February you had mentioned with the conjuration school that you can only get 1 form talent for "free". Are there any plans to be able to add more talents with additional cost or are you guys settled with the 1 form talent per summon?

The weather sphere is one of my favorite spheres and I love how you guys created interactions between the different weather effects. My concern is that right now it takes a few rounds to get the minimal effects from the combinations (storm, heavy snow, boil/hail) but less rounds after that to go crazy (tornados, avalanches, typhoons). Can you provide any insight as to the design of this with more specifically on why the minimal effects of the combinations aren't lower on the severity level?

Thanks!

gparali

2015-05-22, 11:19 AM

Would the system be viable if I just dropped it in 3.5 edition campaigns?

What kind of alterations would I need to do?

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-22, 12:26 PM

Someday is better than never!

Another question, is everything in Spheres of Power finalized, or can stuff change between the current PDF and the upcoming physical book? Basically, has it already been submitted to printers?

Last I've heard was that it is already in the process of being printed.

Would the system be viable if I just dropped it in 3.5 edition campaigns?

What kind of alterations would I need to do?

Good question. I'd say that the spells are more broken in 3.5, so the effect of not using Vancian is a bit more pronounced. On the other hand, the base classes of 3.5 are weaker than the SoP ones. So here you would empower players. All in all, I'd say it should still work.

Rasma

2015-05-22, 12:46 PM

Why do some classes have you able to select the casting stat well others are set? Is it thematic or mechanical in nature?

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-22, 03:02 PM

Why do some classes have you able to select the casting stat well others are set? Is it thematic or mechanical in nature?

That question has been asked and answered already in this thread:

Why is the Armorist's casting stat Wisdom?

We gave her Wisdom as a casting stat because the concept of the class was someone who unlocked the potential of equipment through mediation; they aren't a wizard who limits themselves to equipment, but a warrior who unlocked the mystic capabilities of the tools of war, if that makes sense.

Why are some classes open to the choice of casting modifier and others are not? The big one where this came up in my group was Armorist, which is locked to Wisdom. Since the player in question was building a mad scientist who stored various inventions in his hammerspace, I let him swap it to Int, but it struck me as odd.

As for casting stats, we wanted to give people the freedom to pick their own stats, while not bogging down people who didn't care for extreme customization with too many choices (hence, why some classes can pick and some classes can't.) I see no problem in letting people change it up, though, and a mad scientist sounds fun.

An interesting tidbit about the Elementalist:

The concept behind the Elementalists was actually that of a magical monk: combatants who use magic instead of ki to enhance their combat capabilities. Think Avatar: The Last Airbender, if that helps.

I'd like to add that even if you don't do GM fiat, a player would only need to do a level-dip in another casting class and swap the casting stat. As the caster level stacks this is only sacrificing the 20th level cap stone, something most people don't achieve.

stack

2015-05-22, 10:17 PM

I think the fey adept still gets two free form talents when using create reality to make a companion, though I need to see if this changed in the recent update. If not, should they? The wording made it sound as if it was just copying the default, but the default is one.

Ezekiul

2015-05-23, 12:49 AM

Azernak0

2015-05-23, 02:26 AM

I am going to agree with that dirty rotten bastard Ezekiul that y'all have made a great system. However, there seems to be a few concerns I have:

1. Are Spheres that are the same effectd as Spells equivalent to those spells? IE, will Desecrate allow a Reanimate to make more dudes?

2. Soul Weavers. These guys are bad at their jobs. Really bad. An Incanter with Death Specialization and Channel Energy does basically everything better.

They both get the same bad saves, BAB, weapon proficiency, and no Armor. However....
A. The Incanter gets Command/Turn Undead for free. It is also not tied to their channel so an Incanter can Channel Positive AND Command Undead.
B. Their Channel and Command/Turn are on separate ability pools. 3 + Casting stat for each ability versus 1+ Cha for both abilities for the Soul Weaver (and they need to take the feat).
C. More talents.

What the Soul Weaver gets instead is a fairly lackluster Blessing/Blight that burn their super limited resources and the ability to summon incorporeal undead for Cha mod rounds. That ability IS great but only by level 8 where it is shadows. By then, the Incanter has 5 more talents as well as having a +1 caster level.

Allowing people to reroll saves is great but the soul either has to be directed into the target, making the fact that it is an immediate action worthless, or be adjacent to the target.

What is so strange is that the incanter doesn't step on the other casters toes as badly. Symbiants have psionics, Fey Adepts are better at illusions, Armorists are better at combat. But the Soul Weaver seems just like a worse Death specialist Incanter.

My question is: what is the reason to choose a Soul Weaver over a Death / Channel Energy Incanter?

3. Conjuration has no ability that can be used for free. Do you have any ideas on what would be fair so that Conjuration has an at will ability?

Vhaidara

2015-05-23, 08:25 AM

Ironsides

2015-05-23, 04:48 PM

2. Soul Weavers. These guys are bad at their jobs. Really bad. An Incanter with Death Specialization and Channel Energy does basically everything better.

They both get the same bad saves, BAB, weapon proficiency, and no Armor. However....
A. The Incanter gets Command/Turn Undead for free. It is also not tied to their channel so an Incanter can Channel Positive AND Command Undead.
B. Their Channel and Command/Turn are on separate ability pools. 3 + Casting stat for each ability versus 1+ Cha for both abilities for the Soul Weaver (and they need to take the feat).
C. More talents.

What the Soul Weaver gets instead is a fairly lackluster Blessing/Blight that burn their super limited resources and the ability to summon incorporeal undead for Cha mod rounds. That ability IS great but only by level 8 where it is shadows. By then, the Incanter has 5 more talents as well as having a +1 caster level.

Allowing people to reroll saves is great but the soul either has to be directed into the target, making the fact that it is an immediate action worthless, or be adjacent to the target.

What is so strange is that the incanter doesn't step on the other casters toes as badly. Symbiants have psionics, Fey Adepts are better at illusions, Armorists are better at combat. But the Soul Weaver seems just like a worse Death specialist Incanter.

My question is: what is the reason to choose a Soul Weaver over a Death / Channel Energy Incanter?

I think that you have a point. Recently I looked over the Death Sphere and decided to make a Dread Necromancer for a gestalt game. Soul Weaver was my first choice but after looking at the Incanter I decided to go with it for my casting class because it provides more for an ambitious necromancer. Here are my 4 big reasons for choosing an Incanter instead of a Soul Weaver for my Necromancer.

The Incanter has 32 magic talents compared to the Soul Weaver's 22 talents (I count the 2 bonus starting talents).
The Incanter can Channel 3+casting mod compared to the Soul Weaver's 1+CHA mod.
Blessing/Blight and Nexus class features of the Soul Weaver are not stronger than 10 more magic talents and +0-11 bonus feats.
You can get all relevant Death Sphere talents for making the undead by level 5 with the Incanter vs level 8 with the Soul Weaver. Here are the 9 talents I base my necromancer on:

Death Sphere (because we need to start somewhere :smallwink:)
Expanded Necromancy (for better undead like bloody skeletons)
Lingering Necromancy (a prerequisite for Permanent Undeath)
Empowered Necromancy (+4 to STR and Dex)
Greater Reanimate (you control 3x your HD in undead with this)
Greater Reanimate (you control 4x your HD in undead with this)
Greater Reanimate (you control 5x your HD in undead with this)
Permanent Undeath advanced talent (because you want minions without the expiration date)
Summon Spirit advanced talent (you need to read this one carefully, this is a VERY powerful and flexible option)

Azernak0, the only point I disagree with you on is the need to take the Death Specialization I think the Incanter is stronger without it. A necromancer based Incanter does not need to take the Death Specialization just the Channel specialization. You get the channel specialization for 2 points that lets you get 6 extra bonus feats that you can spend on other things (yes you need to spend a feat on Command Undead but you still net 5 more bonus feats overall). I think that Death Specialization is a subpar choice compared to getting 5 more bonus feats that can be used for counterspell, metamagic, item creation feats etc.

I think that for a Soul Weaver to be a better necromancer class than the Incanter it needs better channeling, Command Undead as a free bonus feat, and bonus talents from the death sphere every odd level. Otherwise I am picking the Incanter for my necromancy needs every single time.

Azernak0

2015-05-23, 06:14 PM

I think that you have a point. Recently I looked over the Death Sphere and decided to make a Dread Necromancer for a gestalt game. Soul Weaver was my first choice but after looking at the Incanter I decided to go with it for my casting class because it provides more for an ambitious necromancer. Here are my 4 big reasons for choosing an Incanter instead of a Soul Weaver for my Necromancer.

-snip to relevant part-

Azernak0, the only point I disagree with you on is the need to take the Death Specialization I think the Incanter is stronger without it. A necromancer based Incanter does not need to take the Death Specialization just the Channel specialization. You get the channel specialization for 2 points that lets you get 6 extra bonus feats that you can spend on other things (yes you need to spend a feat on Command Undead but you still net 5 more bonus feats overall). I think that Death Specialization is a subpar choice compared to getting 5 more bonus feats that can be used for counterspell, metamagic, item creation feats etc.

I agree with that as well, for the most part. I just took the Death Specialization to show that an Incanter pretending to be a Soul Weaver is flat out better than the Soul Weaver. It is like how a strictly "I buff myself to attack" Cleric without their other spells to greater effect is a weaker Cleric than the Cleric that buffs themselves AND uses magic for other stuff but the selfish buffer is still infinitely better than the Paladin.

Going Death Specialization / Channel Energy allows you to heal and Control Undead without needing Versatile Channeling. Potentially not worth it but as stated even an unoptimized Incanter does the same thing as Soul Weaver but with perks.

Ezekiul

2015-05-25, 12:58 AM

Conjuration only has one ability (Summon Companion), and it is probably one of the strongest in Spheres, because, for the cost of 2 talents, you get a 24 hour duration on the summon. Conjuration does not need any kind of a buff.

That 24 hour duration is a form talent and since you can only have 1 on your companion at the moment you are giving up many strong and unique things just for duration, so alone it does not feel as strong.

I believe the biggest issue is the gap in power of many of the talents when you could take multiple talents per companion. Combinations like the 24 hour duration, the magical companion talent, and multiple companions far out pace many of the other combinations of talents. This specific one makes a mini-leadership feat for the conjuration sphere and opens up the 1-man parties after gaining a few extra companions.

I think multiple talent categories besides "form" (similar to destruction's type and shape) and limits on those categories could scale down the strong combinations while still leaving options open to the conjurer. That or imposing heavy costs (like multiplying the cost for every talent added) and tuning down or removing some of the strong talents like magical companion or extra companion.

squab

2015-05-25, 01:47 AM

Will the book have the same art as the PDF? I have the PDF and I find some of the art rather... underwhelming. (However my primary concern in books is crunch and this has lots.)

Azernak0

2015-05-25, 04:19 AM

Ezekiul, it doesn't say you can only have one form; it states "whenever you select a (form) talent... apply its effects to only a single companion. You may select (form) talents multiple times, but no more than once per companion." (On phone so no exact copy-paste)
So you can have multiple forms on a guy and have an army of those guys but you are paying X times the talents otherwise it would say "no more than one" rather than once.

Multiple dudes still isn't as bad as Leadership but that is an easy bar to slide under.

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-25, 08:24 AM

Will the book have the same art as the PDF? I have the PDF and I find some of the art rather... underwhelming. (However my primary concern in books is crunch and this has lots.)

I don't think that there is a difference between the print version and the version you can currently download.

Regarding the Soul Weaver: When I first saw this class, it failed to grab me. I never could see me actually playing one and mechanically the way you use souls seemed cumbersome as well (although flavorwise it isn't bad). Nice, that I'm not the sole one who thinks this. You even found more weak points than I actually suspected. It might be in the far future, but I hope that once Spheres of Powers spreads far enough to have playtesting on the level Paizo books (like ACG) have before these are published that Adam creates an updated version which fixes such problems.

Grimm2769

2015-05-25, 10:54 PM

I also agree on the soul weaver. I think the flavor is awesome but it does feel as though incanter does the same job better.

Questions.

1: Can a level one shapeshifter take the feat extra bestial traits for a beastial trait since it is one of their class features just no actual beastial traits till level 2?

2: Had a little confusion at the table from wording on wands. do you need to have the base sphere to use them like with staves? Or just "access" to the sphere by having access to sphere casting even if you don't actually possess the stated sphere much like old style Wands needing to be able to cast and further have the spell on your spell list but not actively in your spellbook and if you lack that it's a UMD check?

RegalKain

2015-05-25, 11:12 PM

Ok! So here's my question for you, I will try to be as clear as possible. For the purpose of this Experiment, assume it's a level 5 character.

Weather Sphere Talents Associated- Greater Weather, Severe Weather, Heat Lord, Cold Lord, Wind Lord, Rain Lord.

Ok so here's my question for you, if I use Greater Weather (2 Spell Points 3 Categories) with Severe Weather (1 Spell Point, Severity Increased by 1) With the associated Lords, I can hit Severity 5 on all of my weathers, Can I utilize Greater Weather (3 Categories) to affeect Cold (Lower it's severity level) Heat (Raise it's severity level) and say Wind (Raise it) keeping myself in a safe eye. Doing this, can I hit a Severity 7 on the Heat scale? Because I am actively draining cold, and raising heat? Or do the two not stack in such a way?

If it's a level 20 character doing this (Who can with the previously mentioned talents hit Severity 7) can he "break" the meter so to speak getting things even hotter/colder? Does it scale faster? (Escalating Severity twice a round instead of once a round as is per standard?) to be fair, the book is very clear in how many levels of Severity there are, so I don't think you could break the scale by RAW, however I am curious as to the Level 5 question, as well as if you can increase/decrease faster with Greater Weather in the temperature thing.

Another thought experiment and question. If I have the Easy Focus Boon (Move action to concentrate) can I then use Greater Weather to Affect 3 things, Concentrate on it with Easy Focus, use my next turn's standard action to Affect the 4th thing, and concentrate on it with my Standard actions? I'd be immobile, and couldn't move etc but, I could then affect all weather around me? This is useless of course, if you cannot double dip Cold/Heat to speed them up, make the Severity more punishing etc.

Edit 2: Follow-up question, if I have the Maximize Metamagic, can I Maximize Boiling Lord? Causing it to do it's max damage? Or would I maximize preciptation? What would I maximize to cause my boiling rain to do it's max damage?
Edit 3: Follow-Follow-Up Question! If the Heat Severity around me is say 5 (Of my own doing) can I (Say with Greater Weather) raise the cold Severity in my square? To counteract that? Or do I have to first lower the heat levels? How does that work? Do I oppose myself?

Edit: Fixed spelling errors, added clarification.

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-26, 06:46 AM

1: Can a level one shapeshifter take the feat extra bestial traits for a beastial trait since it is one of their class features just no actual beastial traits till level 2?

As I had a similar discussion about the Hedgewitch, I can authoritatively say: No, the Extra feats require the class feature. If you do not have the class feature, you may not choose the feat. A similar ruling has been provided for the Arcanist by Paizo, too.

2: Had a little confusion at the table from wording on wands. do you need to have the base sphere to use them like with staves? Or just "access" to the sphere by having access to sphere casting even if you don't actually possess the stated sphere much like old style Wands needing to be able to cast and further have the spell on your spell list but not actively in your spellbook and if you lack that it's a UMD check?

I believe you got it confused:

A caster must possess the wand’s base sphere in order to activate it.

Looking through the Staff text I only found this regarding the Magic Talent ability:

Any caster wielding the staff gains access to a magic talent contained within the staff.

Aside from having access some way to the required spheres (by having it or a companion having it or having a wand or staff having it) for creation purposes, only wands require the base sphere when using it. So you could create staffs with only a base sphere talents and then employ wands for the rest if the magic talents do not suffice on their own.

Ok! So here's my question for you, I will try to be as clear as possible. For the purpose of this Experiment, assume it's a level 5 character.

Weather Sphere Talents Associated- Greater Weather, Severe Weather, Heat Lord, Cold Lord, Wind Lord, Rain Lord.

Ok so here's my question for you, if I use Greater Weather (2 Spell Points 3 Categories) with Severe Weather (1 Spell Point, Severity Increased by 1) With the associated Lords, I can hit Severity 5 on all of my weathers, Can I utilize Greater Weather (3 Categories) to affeect Cold (Lower it's severity level) Heat (Raise it's severity level) and say Wind (Raise it) keeping myself in a safe eye. Doing this, can I hit a Severity 7 on the Heat scale? Because I am actively draining cold, and raising heat? Or do the two not stack in such a way?

If it's a level 20 character doing this (Who can with the previously mentioned talents hit Severity 7) can he "break" the meter so to speak getting things even hotter/colder? Does it scale faster? (Escalating Severity twice a round instead of once a round as is per standard?) to be fair, the book is very clear in how many levels of Severity there are, so I don't think you could break the scale by RAW, however I am curious as to the Level 5 question, as well as if you can increase/decrease faster with Greater Weather in the temperature thing.

It is a safe thing to assume that you can't circumvent the SP, talents and caster level requirements just by some clever argument.

Another thought experiment and question. If I have the Easy Focus Boon (Move action to concentrate) can I then use Greater Weather to Affect 3 things, Concentrate on it with Easy Focus, use my next turn's standard action to Affect the 4th thing, and concentrate on it with my Standard actions? I'd be immobile, and couldn't move etc but, I could then affect all weather around me? This is useless of course, if you cannot double dip Cold/Heat to speed them up, make the Severity more punishing etc.

Instead of checking, if the weather sphere can work like this, I'll answer generally: It is allowed to use both move and standard actions to concentrate on two different spells, as otherwise Easy Focus would have been formulated differently as it is. Be aware, that you still can do a 5-ft. step in this situation.

Edit 2: Follow-up question, if I have the Maximize Metamagic, can I Maximize Boiling Lord? Causing it to do it's max damage? Or would I maximize preciptation? What would I maximize to cause my boiling rain to do it's max damage?

All variable, numeric effects of a spell modified by this feat are maximized. Saving throws and opposed rolls are not affected, nor are spells without random variables.

I don't see why Maximize wouldn't work, although it is a waste of SP here. Personally, I would use a spellcrafted effect, which includes the Destruction sphere.

Edit 3: Follow-Follow-Up Question! If the Heat Severity around me is say 5 (Of my own doing) can I (Say with Greater Weather) raise the cold Severity in my square? To counteract that? Or do I have to first lower the heat levels? How does that work? Do I oppose myself?

I'd say that counteracting your own magic works either like counteracting normal weather effects, if you don't sustain the previous effect, or like counteracting an opposing mage, where you automatically win the check, if you still sustain the previous effect (with Easy Focus). Which means that you always start at the current level and not at the level where the first spell started.

RegalKain

2015-05-26, 09:12 AM

It is a safe thing to assume that you can't circumvent the SP, talents and caster level requirements just by some clever argument.
Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear (I was tired, my apologies.) I am not trying to circumvent SP, talents etc. I am actually trying to see how certain talents and SP usage is handled when utilizing the weather Sphere. In this case, Spending 3 Spell Points (Greather Weather 2, Severe Weather 1) with all associated Lord Talents, allows a character (Of any level with said feats) to increase their max severity with all weather effects by 2, so a first level with all the feats (Getting them through whatever ways) can control/effect up to level 5 Severity levels.

The biggest question, is if you utilize Cold and Heat at the same time,, can you double the rate at which the severity changes? If I use the Weather Sphere, and affect the Cold Severity by attempting to decrease it (Make it warmer) while ALSO (Through Greater Weather Talent) affecting Heat Severity and attempting to raise it (Making it warmer) do I slide twice on the severity scale? I am led to believe yes, since Temperature is said to share the same chart with 13 levels, but Cold and Heat are different talents, meaning you can affect them seperately. That is what I was trying to ask. It's not a clever arguement to circumvent SP, talent and Caster level requirements. It is using all three of those things, to boost the effects I can create with the Weather talent, and I am wondering how certain interactions happen that's all!

Instead of checking, if the weather sphere can work like this, I'll answer generally: It is allowed to use both move and standard actions to concentrate on two different spells, as otherwise Easy Focus would have been formulated differently as it is. Be aware, that you still can do a 5-ft. step in this situation.

This is what I assumed (I am unsure about the 5ft Step however) but I wanted to clarify! It never hurts to be safe when making a judgement call on rules, especially when the Creator of the material at hand, is willing to answer a question! Edit: The reason I am unsure about the 5ft Step, is because this is not technically a full-round action, it is a round in which you use your move and standard action on seperate tasks, so I was unsure if you were allowed to utilize a 5ft step.

I don't see why Maximize wouldn't work, although it is a waste of SP here. Personally, I would use a spellcrafted effect, which includes the Destruction sphere.
It's not a waste of SP actually, let me break it down. Level is irrelevant here so long as you have the proper talents, let me break down what you would need. For now, we'll assume a level 20 Incanter though.
Weather Sphere, Boiling Lord (This one is especially important), Greater Weather, Heat Lord, Rain Lord, Severe Weather, Storm Lord (Twice), Wind Lord, Maximize Spell, Empower Spell. If (Big If) advanced magic is allowed, Greater Size, Climate(Advanced Magic Talent)

Furthermore, assume I have the Easy Focus Boon.

This is how I view this as working (again, why I asked, if I am wrong I'd like to be corrected. ) As a 20th level character, I can affect up to 5th level Severity, I spend a spell point on Severe Weather, I can now affect level 6 Severity, with all Associated Lords (Heat, Rain, Wind) I can now affect level 7 Severity. I use 2 spell points on Greater Weather, which now allows me to affect 3 weather categories at the same time. I want to increase the Severity of Heat, Rain and Wind to 7, creating an "eye" of the storm equal to my character's space, using Wind Lord to create a downdraft so that the wind blows outwards from me. I then spend 3 Spell points to Maximize, and 2 Spell points to Empower. As per Boiling Lord "When using control weather to create precipitation of Severity 4 or above in an area of Heat severity 4 or above, you may cause the rain to boil, dealing 1d6 fire damage per precipitation level, per round to all creatures within the affected area.) base, that means I am dealing 7d6 Fire damage (No save) per round to all creatures within the area of which I can affect weather. If I maximize and empower that, it is now dealing 63 points of Fire damage (No savE) per round, to all creatures within my affected zone. Furthermore, if Advanced Magic Talents are allowed, I spend an additional spell point when I initially cast, and affect a 2-mile Radius (After the casting time of course.) as per the Climate talent. Which means that within a 2-mile radius of me, all creatures take 63 points of fire damage from boiling lord (No save), furthermore the entire area is affected as though it was a Great Flood (As per Precipitation table) And because the Heat is severity level 7, this means they take an additional 3d6 (MAx/Emp for 27 a round no save) from the heat, or! a full 10d6(Max/emp for a 90 a round no save) because of immersion in boiling liquid. In addition to this, because of taking Storm Lord twice, I choose where Lightning bolts strike (As per storm effects) and this happens once per round, my lightning at this point deals 10d8 (Max/Emp for 120 a round reflex/half) per round. Because Maximize/Empower is affecting a single spell (Greather Weather, Weather Sphere in this case) and this is a 2-MILE RADIUS.

So a Recap- 63 Fire Damage (No Save) a round from rain, 27 fire damage a round (no save) from heat Severity, or! 90 damage a round from immersion in boiling liquid (Also no save) in addition to 120 lightning damage (reflex half) once in each round, in a 2 mile radius around me, this is also a move action to maintain after it's initial casting, the first spell point dump to it, is 9 Spell points (2 Greather Weather, 1 Severe Weather, 3 Maximize, 2 Empower, 1 Climate)

I'd say that counteracting your own magic works either like counteracting normal weather effects, if you don't sustain the previous effect, or like counteracting an opposing mage, where you automatically win the check, if you still sustain the previous effect (with Easy Focus). Which means that you always start at the current level and not at the level where the first spell started.
This is what I thought, but I wasn't sure.

Another question, if an area has Heat Severity 5, can I use Cold to bring that down? Or do I have to bring it down with Heat, then immediately switch over to cold to make it say, a Cold Severity 5?

TheEvilGM

2015-05-26, 12:53 PM

Under Summon, Where it says “ Every companion comes with one of the following base forms, chosen by the caster. Once made, this choice cannot be altered.”

If a caster has (and applies); Biped, additional limbs, armored companion, the first time he summons this companion. Are all the choices locked in or is Biped the only one?

Where the caster gains a new form talent, can he add it to his companion or does he need to acquire a new companion to add it to?

Or am I totally out to lunch?:smallamused:

Thanks, The Evil Gm

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-26, 02:32 PM

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear (I was tired, my apologies.) I am not trying to circumvent SP, talents etc. I am actually trying to see how certain talents and SP usage is handled when utilizing the weather Sphere. In this case, Spending 3 Spell Points (Greather Weather 2, Severe Weather 1) with all associated Lord Talents, allows a character (Of any level with said feats) to increase their max severity with all weather effects by 2, so a first level with all the feats (Getting them through whatever ways) can control/effect up to level 5 Severity levels.

The biggest question, is if you utilize Cold and Heat at the same time,, can you double the rate at which the severity changes? If I use the Weather Sphere, and affect the Cold Severity by attempting to decrease it (Make it warmer) while ALSO (Through Greater Weather Talent) affecting Heat Severity and attempting to raise it (Making it warmer) do I slide twice on the severity scale? I am led to believe yes, since Temperature is said to share the same chart with 13 levels, but Cold and Heat are different talents, meaning you can affect them seperately. That is what I was trying to ask. It's not a clever arguement to circumvent SP, talent and Caster level requirements. It is using all three of those things, to boost the effects I can create with the Weather talent, and I am wondering how certain interactions happen that's all!

There is no way to affect temperature like this. You start for both effects separately at the same level and move at the same speed down or up.

This is what I assumed (I am unsure about the 5ft Step however) but I wanted to clarify! It never hurts to be safe when making a judgement call on rules, especially when the Creator of the material at hand, is willing to answer a question! Edit: The reason I am unsure about the 5ft Step, is because this is not technically a full-round action, it is a round in which you use your move and standard action on seperate tasks, so I was unsure if you were allowed to utilize a 5ft step.

You can move 5 feet in any round when you don't perform any other kind of movement.

There is no mention that you have to do a full-round action to benefit from this.

It's not a waste of SP actually, let me break it down. Level is irrelevant here so long as you have the proper talents, let me break down what you would need. For now, we'll assume a level 20 Incanter though.
Weather Sphere, Boiling Lord (This one is especially important), Greater Weather, Heat Lord, Rain Lord, Severe Weather, Storm Lord (Twice), Wind Lord, Maximize Spell, Empower Spell. If (Big If) advanced magic is allowed, Greater Size, Climate(Advanced Magic Talent)

Furthermore, assume I have the Easy Focus Boon.

This is how I view this as working (again, why I asked, if I am wrong I'd like to be corrected. ) As a 20th level character, I can affect up to 5th level Severity, I spend a spell point on Severe Weather, I can now affect level 6 Severity, with all Associated Lords (Heat, Rain, Wind) I can now affect level 7 Severity. I use 2 spell points on Greater Weather, which now allows me to affect 3 weather categories at the same time. I want to increase the Severity of Heat, Rain and Wind to 7, creating an "eye" of the storm equal to my character's space, using Wind Lord to create a downdraft so that the wind blows outwards from me. I then spend 3 Spell points to Maximize, and 2 Spell points to Empower. As per Boiling Lord "When using control weather to create precipitation of Severity 4 or above in an area of Heat severity 4 or above, you may cause the rain to boil, dealing 1d6 fire damage per precipitation level, per round to all creatures within the affected area.) base, that means I am dealing 7d6 Fire damage (No save) per round to all creatures within the area of which I can affect weather. If I maximize and empower that, it is now dealing 63 points of Fire damage (No savE) per round, to all creatures within my affected zone. Furthermore, if Advanced Magic Talents are allowed, I spend an additional spell point when I initially cast, and affect a 2-mile Radius (After the casting time of course.) as per the Climate talent. Which means that within a 2-mile radius of me, all creatures take 63 points of fire damage from boiling lord (No save), furthermore the entire area is affected as though it was a Great Flood (As per Precipitation table) And because the Heat is severity level 7, this means they take an additional 3d6 (MAx/Emp for 27 a round no save) from the heat, or! a full 10d6(Max/emp for a 90 a round no save) because of immersion in boiling liquid. In addition to this, because of taking Storm Lord twice, I choose where Lightning bolts strike (As per storm effects) and this happens once per round, my lightning at this point deals 10d8 (Max/Emp for 120 a round reflex/half) per round. Because Maximize/Empower is affecting a single spell (Greather Weather, Weather Sphere in this case) and this is a 2-MILE RADIUS.

So a Recap- 63 Fire Damage (No Save) a round from rain, 27 fire damage a round (no save) from heat Severity, or! 90 damage a round from immersion in boiling liquid (Also no save) in addition to 120 lightning damage (reflex half) once in each round, in a 2 mile radius around me, this is also a move action to maintain after it's initial casting, the first spell point dump to it, is 9 Spell points (2 Greather Weather, 1 Severe Weather, 3 Maximize, 2 Empower, 1 Climate)

I didn't think about those combinations before (and thought that it was just 1d6 fire damage at most). I'd say, druids are really scary. If you fly around you could eradicate vast swathes of land. And you are heavily protected as well. People have to enter the disaster area to fight you first.

Another question, if an area has Heat Severity 5, can I use Cold to bring that down? Or do I have to bring it down with Heat, then immediately switch over to cold to make it say, a Cold Severity 5?

I'd say you can make a desert freeze in the middle of the day, but not warmer via Cold.

Under Summon, Where it says “ Every companion comes with one of the following base forms, chosen by the caster. Once made, this choice cannot be altered.”

If a caster has (and applies); Biped, additional limbs, armored companion, the first time he summons this companion. Are all the choices locked in or is Biped the only one?

Where the caster gains a new form talent, can he add it to his companion or does he need to acquire a new companion to add it to?

Or am I totally out to lunch?:smallamused:

Thanks, The Evil Gm

My understanding is that form talents only apply to a single companion. You do not need ever to take a second companion to do that. Once you have made a choice it is locked in (unless you use Retraining rules). This goes for the basic form as well.

Adam Meyers

2015-05-26, 02:33 PM

Sorry for the delay in posts; Paizo Con took a lot more out of me than I thought it would.

@Kaidinah: The book is at the printer, and will arrive before Gen Con.

@Ezekiul: You can always spend a magic talent to add a new form talent to one of your summons.
Weather was a strange one to get right; there are so many rules in regard to environment, and when we looked at druid weather spells as a potential guide they were all over the place in regard to strength and severity. The levels of weather severity were based on the wind severity chart, and as far as when different effects came into play, they were also based on that chart (wind doesn't begin affecting battle until about severity level 4, so we used that same metric to gauge the other areas of weather to keep it consistant). Combined effects are awesome, but since they are strictly additive (a storm gets storm effects, wind effects, and precipitation effects), we didn't want them to come into play until severity level 4 either. There are many other ways it could have been done, this was just the approach that we felt best meshed with the environmental rules as-written.

@gparall: There are some standard tweaks that need to happen when converting pathfinder to 3.5 (drop hit dice by a die size for most casters, etc.) and the balance for the classes were based on Pathfinder mechanial levels, but as for the magic system itself, I don't think that many alterations would really be necessary. If you add the system to a 3.5 campaign, I'd be curious to hear how it ends up going.

@Rasma: We wanted to give people the power to design their own casters with SoP, but we also know that some people love using written flavor and story rather than always building their own from scratch. We wanted SoP to appeal to both groups, so we included classes that came with specific flavor (Soul Weaver, Symbiat, etc.), and others that were designed as blank templates so people could build with them (Mageknight, Incanter, Thaumaturge, Hedgewitch). That way, we could hopefully avoid both the 4th ed. problem as well as the RAW problem (losing all flavor in favor of mechanical ease to the point it isn't inspiring anymore vs. feeling obligated to use the rules as-written because if you don't you're 'doing the game wrong'.)

In essence, I wanted people to be able to create setting-parameters on the MITH classes without feeling like they were stomping player creativity (deciding that in one world all thaumaturges are warlocks and should use Cha, for example), while also giving permission to people that wanted to alter the set classes (change the casting stat of the elementalist, for example) by giving them examples of other classes in the same book they could point to that allow that freedom. Does that make sense?

@stack: If the Fey Adept still says 2, it was an oversight on our part; the Fey Adept should only get 1 form talent per companion instead of 2.

@Azernak0:
1. With page count already much higher than we'd originally planned, there was a point (especially in regard to how spells and spheres mixed) where we needed to stop and leave the rest up to the GMs. Personally, I would say Desecrate would work with the Death Sphere, yes.

2. We gave them a limited supply of bound nexus and channel energy because their abilities became so dang powerful as they raised in level. If you want someone who has all of the Death sphere, an Incanter is great. But a Soul Weaver has save or dies and unbeatable summons, and as the only class that gains them, they can be quite powerful. In my games, Soul Weavers definitely earned their keep. However, that being said, in hindsight I think I made them too specific to a niche playstyle, and increasing their channels and bound nexus to 3+Cha certainly wouldn't be a problem.

3. In a future release, we're planning on including a 'companion' you can choose with the Conjuration sphere that allows you to summon half-strength companions as an at-will ability, even changing up the body type and form talents (to represent a summon-monster style versatile conjurer). We ran out of page space to include this idea in the main book and it still needs to be tested, but that 's the idea we're playing with.
@squab: the book will look like the PDF.

@Grimm2769:
1. That's a question for how Pathfinder works instead of specifically how SoP works, but I believe the standard Pathfinder answer is that you have to have the class feature before you can spend feats to get additional types of that class feature. That being said, I wouldn't have a problem allowing it in my games.

2. You need to have the base sphere in order to use a wand, unless you want to activate it via Use Magic Device. If I were writing my own RPG instead of a Pathfinder supplement I probably wouldn't do it that way, but with the way Pathfinder works, it's what we decided to go with.

@RegalKain:
1. The two wouldn't stack that way, no.

2. That one would work.

3. Maximizing the use of the weather sphere that created the boiling water would maximize the damage, yes.

4. If you have Heat Lord, you can choose not to increase the heat in just your square. Otherwise, you can't create a weather effect that only targets one square.

5. Heat and Cold have a lot of separate things, but it's better to think of them as the same category; that's why you can't affect heat and cold at the same time as you asked about above. So you can use Cold to bring down heat, or heat to bring down heat.

@TheEvilGM: All choices of form talents and forms are locked in once chosen. New form talents can be added to old companions.

RegalKain

2015-05-26, 03:47 PM

@Adam- Thanks for the replies and clearing things up! It certainly helps, also love the system it has replaced Vancian in our games, we are just trying to fine-tune things we feel need it for our playstyles.

In response to the wand question posed by Grimm, I do have a sort of follow-up question. What's a good way to tweak that for us? We feel needing the base Sphere defeats the purpose of the base Wand (1K GP wand) as it does nothing you can't already do if you can just auto-use it. It defeats the purpose of low level wands except for UMD people, who are probably better off spending the 1K somewhere else. Is there a way people can think of to help alleviate this issue? My group and I debated making it so if you have Spherecasting you can simply use Wands period, that isn't such a big deal at low levels, but I feel as though it gets more and more crazy as Wands go up in power, furthermore it makes the Barbarian who takes Basic Magic Training, capable of using all wands globally, any happy middle ground?

Grimm2769

2015-05-26, 04:11 PM

Further question.

On the Thaumaturge if you take Master of Cosmos feat, am I correct in the assumption that it means when calculating the strength, or hd, of the summon you just add your forbidden lore bonus to the total no risk just sweet boon as it seems to imply from the feat?

or

Does it mean that if you apply that bonus now as you could not before that you now suffer a 15% chance of failure at summoning the companion whenever you summon him but get the boost if the cast succeeds and take the penalties if the cast fails?

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-26, 04:32 PM

I've been wondering if people shouldn't get the Cantrips feat for free, if they have the Casting class feature. It provides characters with a bit more options outside of their chosen spheres (but drawbacks should be still taken into account). Also, detect magic is really missing ingame. Only problem is that this is the Detection base sphere which no one in my group actually has, as the competition is fierce. Maybe allow a cantrip which merely can tell that magic is around, but no school/sphere distinction, close range, requires concentration. Maybe 1 minute base casting time instead of 10 minutes.

Vhaidara

2015-05-26, 04:56 PM

As a note, I do give free Cantrips to my players.

I think the complete list of Spheres houserules I have are as follows
1. Pick your casting stat [customization ftw]
2. Anyone with casting (or Radiance House's Occultist) can choose to get the Cantrips feat for free [because it won't break anything]
3. High Casters may not spend more than 1/3 of their base (class) talents on the Conjuration Sphere. Mid Casters may not spend more than 1/2. (This one might change is someone wants to play a thaumaturge. It may just became Incanter who is limited instead of High Casters) [because full Conjuration Incanter is BS]
4. Greater Transformation doesn't add one trait, it doubles the number you can use [Because Alteration is fun, and, in my case, my players are emulating a werewolf and a guy who turns into a dragon]

And I think that's all. Though, to be fair, they've only touched about half of the spheres/classes.

Oh, and one of my players is going to use Fey Adept to make a Toon Town character. Yes, he's going to pull classic cartoon gags with illusions. And we're working on figuring out how to Killer Gnome his shadowstuff, because I find superreal illusions hilarious.

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-27, 05:02 AM

3. High Casters may not spend more than 1/3 of their base (class) talents on the Conjuration Sphere. Mid Casters may not spend more than 1/2. (This one might change is someone wants to play a thaumaturge. It may just became Incanter who is limited instead of High Casters) [because full Conjuration Incanter is BS]

BS because such a character is overpowered? Also, your restriction should be more something based on the magic talents only as the number of talents is the real problem, not the caster level. Considering your rule, I'd say the number of Conjuration talents should not exceed character level / 2 (minimum 1).

4. Greater Transformation doesn't add one trait, it doubles the number you can use [Because Alteration is fun, and, in my case, my players are emulating a werewolf and a guy who turns into a dragon]

I've seen somewhere the houserule that you can use otherwise superfluous traits can be spent as +2 each to one physical attribute. It makes certainly sense to provide someone with a high caster level some way to improve his abilities over someone with a low caster level, if otherwise there is no way to spend a trait (e.g. turning into a housecat has limited physical traits to pay for). Not sure if combining this houserule with yours would be a good idea or not.

And we're working on figuring out how to Killer Gnome his shadowstuff, because I find superreal illusions hilarious.

"Killer Gnome" is a verb here? I don't get this.

Vhaidara

2015-05-27, 06:09 AM

The Conjuration fix was a quick slap together after I built a one man party with a level 6 Human Incanter (24 hour duration Beatstick, blaster, and skillmonkey). It hasn't actually become relevant for my players, and since one of them IS an Incanter using Conjuration, the principle seems to work.

Well, I would allow it, but I also run very high power games (27 point buy DSP/SoP/RH Gestalt)

Killer Gnome being the Shadow illusion build in 3.5 that achieves 120% reality with their illusions. We're looking into doing that here.

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-27, 08:43 AM

Killer Gnome being the Shadow illusion build in 3.5 that achieves 120% reality with their illusions.

"We are sharper than reality!" :biggrin:

@Adam: What do you think about using one page or two for house rules in the Wizards Academy book? There are number of proposals which seem to popup more often and it would be nice to have them collected somewhere.

Adam Meyers

2015-05-27, 12:57 PM

@RegalKain: Include a feat: Wand Aficionado. Prerequisite: caster level 1. Benefits: You can use any wand, even if you do not possess its base sphere.

@Grimm2769: The first one, but the second sounds like a great houserule if someone is trying to abuse that power and you need an additional check on it.

@EldritchWeaver: Free cantrips and a cantrip detect magic wouldn't break the game, but it would alter it. This is one of those design decisions that basically boiled down to 'what kind of game do I want to play'.

Pathfinder is the first game in the F20 tradition that allowed Detect Magic and Read Magic to be available at-will, and it significantly changed the way the game was played. I didn't include it as a cantrip because, at least for my games, I preferred it that way (if you want to read all scrolls for free and know the make, model, and hidden location of all magic items, I'd rather you pay at least a 1 magic talent fee for the power). If you don't prefer it that way, a magic-detecting cantrip (or even just giving all casters the Divination sphere as a bonus sphere) certainly would alleviate the problem.

@ELdritchWeaver: A thread collecting houserules is the kind of thing I'd love to see at the Drop Dead Studios forum; that way we can have a centralized online database for people who want to see alternate ways of doing things.

Azernak0

2015-05-29, 05:35 AM

More questions from the jerk to the guy that makes all the things.

1. So, is Light supposed to still last minutes per caster level for everything? Bound Light is a touch attack no save versus Entanglement that has a save every round versus Staggered as well as having Dimensional Anchor. That is pretty damn powerful for lasting minutes a caster level and only needing a ranged or melee touch attack.

2. Also, was it your intention to have some of the classes be generally more powerful than some of the other classes in base Pathfinder? Comparing the Armorist to the Fighter was a lot like reading the Warblade compared to the 3.5 Fighter. Perhaps it is just that some of the Spheres are quite powerful. IE, a level 1 Armorist can teleport 25 feet at will with Warp or War's Rally abilities that are basically the same as the Marshal Mythic Powers.

This is not me being a "ugga bugga, too powerful!" I am actually curious if you intended the Mageknight and Armorist better than the Big Stupid Fighters?

3. The Evil GM and Ezekiul are a player and the DM in a current campaign I am in (guess who is who...). I think we might be one of the first groups to try out Mythic and Spheres of Power. Some of the ones work fine; a Swift Action attack from the Champion works out the same way. However, we are really quite confused on how a couple of things might work. Could you give us a little taste on how these two things might work?

The Archmage's and Hierophant both have a Mythic Power that is essentially "cast a Spell without using a Spell Slot, add two caster levels, and if you are spontaneous caster just cast whatever the heck you want." At the moment we are just running with "use a Sphere without burning SP" but that fails to capture the true power that it would have for spells. Would it be possible to throw us the slightest of hints or lifelines on how these things could interact?

Thanks so much for coming to these here forums and giving us some information.

By the way, you spell "that light, shiny metal that makes good armor" as both mithral and mithril in the book. :-P

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-29, 04:10 PM

This is not me being a "ugga bugga, too powerful!" I am actually curious if you intended the Mageknight and Armorist better than the Big Stupid Fighters?

According to Tier classifications, Fighter is Tier 5. The general recommend Tiers for play are 3 and 4, so balancing any class against the Fighter makes the class too weak. So if you want people to play Fighters you need to boost them. I've heard about the Unchained Stamina system, that it helps in this regard.

The Evil GM and Ezekiul are a player and the DM in a current campaign I am in (guess who is who...).

Hmm... That's really difficult... You?

stack

2015-05-29, 04:41 PM

I just confirmed that the last update does say two form talents for the create reality companion, so that's one for the errata list.

I suppose that companion, since it is actually an illusion, gets to benefit from staves or other effects that increase the illusion sphere CL?

Fallenreality

2015-05-29, 04:44 PM

Hey, I'm one of the players in Keledrath's game (The one who was actually familiar with Pathfinder)

I've been loving the Spheres of Power stuff, started out with a Fey Adept that I intend to get back to once we reach a plot relevant point.

I rather enjoy how you managed to do the level of customization in the classes themselves that most Pathfinder classes only do with archetypes.

Are there any plans for an Artificer style class for use with Spheres of Power?

Azernak0

2015-05-29, 05:09 PM

According to Tier classifications, Fighter is Tier 5. The general recommend Tiers for play are 3 and 4, so balancing any class against the Fighter makes the class too weak. So if you want people to play Fighters you need to boost them. I've heard about the Unchained Stamina system, that it helps in this regard.
Right, I wasn't saying it was a bad thing to have the Armorist/Mage Knight to be superior to the Fighter. Reading through them, I thought the same thing when I first saw ToB: "Don't let a Warblade/Armorist in the same party as a Fighter." 'Melee needs nice things too', which is why I love ToB and the Armorist/Mage Knight.

Adam Meyers

2015-05-30, 01:03 PM

@Azernak0:

1. It would not be inappropriate to say it lasts for a round per caster level when used in that way.

2. I've actually found the fighter and armorist to be an amazing team when they work together: The armorist creates the perfect weapon for the situation and hands it to the fighter who, thanks to weapon training, can wield it better than the armorist ever could.

Balancing for the core fighter is like balancing for the core rogue; with the community in more-or-less agreement that it's underpowered, you always end up a little bit behind the other classes. With so many house rules (and thanks to Pathfinder Unchained, official alternate options) out there for making the fighter and rogue more powerful, we didn't feel like it was a problem if the Mageknight or Armorist were balanced more to the other martial options.

3. Mythic guidelines are in development for SoP so hopefully there should be more info on that coming, but we're playing with combinations of 'doesn't cost a spell point', 'gain the use of a talent you don't possess,' and 'increase caster level by 2'. Personally, I think all three work for that ability, and 'talent you don't possess' can be a new sphere.

@stack: That is correct.

@Fallenreality: The first class we ever did was called the Artisan, and might fit your needs. Also, see the custom tradition created for the Artificer's Guild on page 205. Beyond that I can neither confirm nor deny if we'll revisit the idea in a sphere-specific way in the future.

Mehangel

2015-05-30, 01:32 PM

@Fallenreality: The first class we ever did was called the Artisan, and might fit your needs. Also, see the custom tradition created for the Artificer's Guild on page 205. Beyond that I can neither confirm nor deny if we'll revisit the idea in a sphere-specific way in the future.

If you do revisit previously published classes, I am a fan of the Dilettante class that you published and would love to see an official conversion of it into spheres of power.

stack

2015-05-30, 08:51 PM

So, one thing that has bugged me is the punitive degree that the thaumaturge gets penalized for failing when using forbidden lore. Cross posted from the Drop Dead forums:

"The penalty for failure is so punitive that I think it ruins the class outside of death/conjuration builds. A 15% chance to waste your action, spell points, and to take a -1 to attacks, saves, and skills is killer. I can't imagine risking it except in utter desperation, to the point where I would just run a different class instead. If the spell still went off and the penalties lasted rounds or even to the end of the encounter, I think the class would be vastly more attractive. Risking losing SP, an action, and eating all-day penalties is just too much. (Passing it off on another creature is certainly helpful, but doesn't come online until level 7, making life hard for lower level characters)

I think the comparison to the wilder is worthwhile, both granting an ability to take a risk to boost caster level. Let's assume wild surge's ability to pay for the augmentation is offset by enervation's cost in PP, so you are left with your surge's status penalty vs forbidden lore's penalties. The best surge type, student, gives a stacking dazzled for rounds equal to your surge, which at higher levels is basically just -1 per point of surge to attack rolls for the rest of the encounter. Others are sickened or staggered, conditions that inflict real limitations but still allow the character to function (free surge and daze being the exception, but that is only there for legacy reasons as far as I can tell). Wild surge still allows the power to go off, thus not wasting a precious action in combat. The two classes are similar, trading breadth for (risky) power, but a wilder is dramatically more able to use its signature ability."

So, is there something I'm missing that would change my feelings about the class?

TheEvilGM

2015-05-31, 12:27 AM

More questions from the jerk to the guy that makes all the things.

3. The Evil GM and Ezekiul are a player and the DM in a current campaign I am in (guess who is who...). I think we might be one of the first groups to try out Mythic and Spheres of Power. P

Don’t let AzernakO say fool you, he is much more evil than me, when he GM’s.

That said (being evil and all) I am running the players through a heavily modified ‘Wrath of the Righteous’ campaign. I required all the players to be Aasimars’ and am only allowing classes from ‘Spheres and Powers’. They are at the end of the first module so; 5th level class and 1st Tier Mythic. We as a group are also new to pathfinder (been playing D&D since first edition). I expect to have a lot of rules ‘discussions’. I also expect a lot of our questions to show up here.

And speaking of questions, One of my players just asked;

Light has a talent called Dancing Light with lets a caster use the Glow ability without a target and can direct them as a free action.
Is it possible to direct them to attach to a target so that the target will be affected by Glow?

My thoughts

Yes but you still need to meet the basic glow requirement;

Glow: As a standard action, you may cause an object or creature to glow for 1 minute per caster level, outlining it with light as a candle, which may be of any color you wish. This requires a touch attack or ranged touch attack.
I can just imagine 4-8 (or more) lingering glows all swarming my; kind, minding their own business mobs, and as a free action 'the glows' attack all my mobs and have negative effects placed on them. while the PC performs another action.
And I am not going to let it be a free action to get unlimited (or however many dancing lights you have) attacks. That would definitely break the action economy.
normally it takes a standard action per attached glow to get the negative effects to be applied.
As a standard action, you can direct one glow globe to get a 1 (your) full BAB touch attack.

I am willing to try letting you use a move action to get more (than 1)[have to play with # to get a balance] at a reduced BAB (have to decide how much reduced).

Comments? Suggestions?

Thanks, The Evil Gm

EldritchWeaver

2015-05-31, 09:33 AM

My thoughts
...
As a standard action, you can direct one glow globe to get a 1 (your) full BAB touch attack.

I am willing to try letting you use a move action to get more (than 1)[have to play with # to get a balance] at a reduced BAB (have to decide how much reduced).[/INDENT]

In general, this sounds good, so I'd only add, if you have Divided Mind already that you should be able to attack with multiple glows, if your BAB is high enough.

CashanDraven

2015-06-01, 11:28 AM

The Shifter BEastial Talents need to get a look over to be honest, Quick Healing and Barding especially. Quick healing is a really, really BAD substitute for fast healing, and barding comes online far to late to be useful, as you can get the wild enchantment long before you can this talent. Lvl 14 is way to high, as most campaigns will top out before you have access to the talent. compare this to the Flight ability you can get at lvl 2.

Adam Meyers

2015-06-01, 01:48 PM

@stack: The comparison to the Wilder doesn't quite work, because the Thaumaturge's ability is inherently superior to that of the Wilder. In the SoP system, caster level isn't just caster level, it's also spell level; imagine if the Wilder didn't just increase his caster level, but also applied Heighten Spell for free. And, since the Thaumaturge can maintain many effects through concentration, he can make the check once and keep the ability going for as long as he wants. That was the reasoning behind the more powerful penalty.

@TheEvilGM: It wasn't the intention of the ability to allow someone to attack a target with a dancing light, and I personally wouldn't allow it for that same action economy reason you laid out. It can already get dangerous enough when people are using it to strategically place Blinding Lights and other such things.

@CashanDraven: Quick Healing is a very powerful tool for players to possess; a ring of regeneration costs 90,000 gp and heals only 1 point of damage per round. True that's a regeneration spell and not just Fast Healing, but as few GMs deal in severed limbs it's practically the same thing. Quick Healing is pulled almost word for word from the Alchemist ability Spontaneous Healing, as an example of how to do healing as a class option. As for Barding, the Wild enchantment is a +3 enhancement, which means it cannot come into play with lower than +4 equipment, and at its highest level can cost 36,000 to add to a suit of armor. For these reasons, Barding (which lets you get these benefits without having to dedicate a +3 armor bonus to achieve it) is considered a top-level class option.

stack

2015-06-01, 03:30 PM

Many powers a wilder is augmenting have a save that scales with PP spent, so not raising the level isn't as big of a difference unless other level dependent effects come into play, but point taken. However, an all-day penalty to faster level is a huge deal precisely because of the reasons you cite. Losing caster level hurts every spell you cast until you rest. That is such a huge drawback that I, personally, lose all interest in the class. It's just not with the risk when I could play an incanter instead and have a huge breadth of options and the same power, since the power boost is too risky to use. Losing both actions and caster level is just incredibly painful.

CashanDraven

2015-06-03, 12:48 AM

@stack:

@CashanDraven: Quick Healing is a very powerful tool for players to possess; a ring of regeneration costs 90,000 gp and heals only 1 point of damage per round. True that's a regeneration spell and not just Fast Healing, but as few GMs deal in severed limbs it's practically the same thing. Quick Healing is pulled almost word for word from the Alchemist ability Spontaneous Healing, as an example of how to do healing as a class option. As for Barding, the Wild enchantment is a +3 enhancement, which means it cannot come into play with lower than +4 equipment, and at its highest level can cost 36,000 to add to a suit of armor. For these reasons, Barding (which lets you get these benefits without having to dedicate a +3 armor bonus to achieve it) is considered a top-level class option.

And the Quick Healing is honestly a bad option, there is a magic item that heals on average the same amount per day and doesn't take one of your valuable slots as an Alchemist or as a Shifter which has many more powerful abilities available at every level (Evasion vs Fast Healing is a joke at 2nd level, and at every chance there are better choices for such a limited ability). Also grab a bead of healing and you have a once per day cure serious wounds (3d8+5, average 17) so you have to be AT LEAST lvl 10 before you can beat this ability.

Also, Barding vs Wild enchantment, a +4 bonus means you need 16k, plus the cost of the armor, so let's say Mithral Breastplate (4,450gp) for a grand total of 20,450gp, which you can obtain in an average game (according to WPL), at lvl 8 with about 13k to spare. Enough for a weapon which you don't need given your options of natural weapons and a small scaling enhancement bonus. This puts the class ability a full SIX levels behind what you could be getting for your gold which is much easier to come by.

Personally, I would say lvl 10 would be a good compromise, though level 8 would be better, but again I'm willing to work with things here. This puts the class ability as an option that many players would actually see in play, rather than dreaming about for later. As it is right now, you're wasting a Bestial Trait option, as you can pick it up with gold MUCH earlier. If it came online sooner, you could at least be breaking even.

Extra Anchovies

2015-06-03, 07:30 PM

Where you at all inspired by the magic system in the Stormlight Archive series when creating the Spheres of Power system? The two seem very compatible from what I've heard/seen of each.

Majgamer

2015-06-03, 11:59 PM

So I've always been a huge fan of teleporting, I've always wanted to make a nightcrawler-esque character and am now working on one with this system.

So my question is, how does ranged teleport interact with Unwilling teleport? Unwilling teleport states: "You must succeed at a melee touch attack (made as part of the standard action required to use teleport) against the target"

and Ranged teleport says "You no longer need to be touching another creature in order to teleport them, although the creature must still be within Close range to be affected in this manner."

Does Ranged teleport Override the melee touch attack bit?(perhaps replacing it with a ranged touch attack?) or do you still need to make the Melee touch attack?

As a side note, Telekinesis is hilarious, I find the idea of beating my enemies up with each other brilliant!

Azernak0

2015-06-04, 02:26 AM

On phone so no exact copy paste.

How the heck does the Rally ability that allows you to move X distance as an Immediate Action work as a response to attack? I know Emergency Teleport explains what it does but the Rally ability does not.

It came up last session and had us scratching our big monkey heads.

Adam Meyers

2015-06-04, 05:37 PM

@Extra Anchovies: I haven't finished Way of Kings yet, but its on my list. It wasn't really an influence, but Brandon's work in general has been.

@Majgamer: Ranged Teleport would trump the need for a touch attack. You'd need to spend the spell point first, then they get to make the save.

@Azernak0: I apoplogize for that oversight; I would treat it the same as emergency teleport when used in that fashion.

stack

2015-06-04, 06:38 PM

Sorry if I come across as overly critical; I really want to like the thaumaturge, it has the potential to be a favorite but is held back by the objections posted.

Alagos

2015-06-05, 01:19 AM

Quick question regarding caster level, spells, metamagic and traits.

The traits Gifted Adept and Magical Lineage are my chief concern. Gifted Adept gives a flat +1 to caster level to any one spell. However, what constitutes a spell in Spheres? Is it a base Sphere ability, such as Destructive Blast? Would this still simply increase the caster level of the spell by one? Would this affect all the different damage types, blast shapes, etc. that you can use with Destructive Blast?

Magical Lineage allows you to apply a +1 metamagic feat to a spell of your choice, without having to raise the caster level. Now, does this mean that if I applied the Selective Spell (+1) feat or any other +1 metamagic feat to Destructive Blast, it would still increase the casting time from Standard to Full Round Action, but not cost an extra spell point to cast?

One last question. The list of metamagic feats that work with Spheres does not include things like Dazing Spell or Rime Spell, or a number of other metamagic feats found on the SRD. Is this intentionally for balance issues? Or was that simply an oversight during writing/editing?

And just a quick thank you for creating this wonderfully simple, powerful and flexible system. I've finally been able to create character builds like Aang from Avatar, or simulate the magical philosophies and workings of Middle Earth.

Mehangel

2015-06-05, 04:47 AM

Just a quick question about crafting potions with spheres of magic. Lets say I have the brew potion feat with the alteration sphere + plant transformation talent. If I were to brew a potion with those two talents would its complexity be 2 (Base Sphere + 1 Trait). I could however decide that the duration listed for the potion is too short, and thus increase its complexity by 1 so that instead of 1 round/level, it will have a duration of 1 minute/level. If the crafter of the potion was a level 3 high caster, his caster level would be 3. Thus calculations for cost of crafting such a potion would be (25 x 3 [complexity] x 3 [caster level]) = 225gp.

Is this correct? Just asking, because it just seems that crafting of wands is so much easier than potions and I just wanted to verify that I got everything right.

Ruethgar

2015-06-05, 08:41 AM

I just got the book and love the system. I am, however, backporting it into 3.5 and have a couple questions as to how some things should interact and what better way than to ask the creator? I know it is intended for PF, but it is an awesome system and I would like to be able to use it across the board if I can.

How should spheres interact with bloodlines? Should they advance caster level as they normally do? Should they advance talents for classes that do so by class level? Logic and balance say no to the talents but official word is always better.

How would you alter the three NPC caster classes to fit the spheres system? Would it be better to just make a new one and leave the old ones? Magewright Eberron Campaign Setting p256, Psychic Adept Dark Sun p246, Adept Dungeon Master's Guide 3.5 p107

What level of caster should a Mystic Ranger be? Medium as a bard, low as normal but without the -3, or somewhere in between(such as CL Medium but with the low talent/spell point progression)?

Should PF domains be backported with the Spheres of Power system or would 3.5 domains suffice?

How much Sphere to Spell transparency should there be from existing options? Alagos called out a few instances in PF traits, but there are innumerable others especially backporting to 3.5.

Adam Meyers

2015-06-06, 05:34 AM

@Alagos: Neither trait works with SoP, and I personally wouldn't allow either of them. We chose our list of metamagic feats from those that most easily gelled with the new system; if you want to use more and the GM gives it an ok, that should be perfectly fine.

@Mehangel: Increasing duration increases the complexity by +2 not +1, but otherwise I believe you are correct.

@Ruethgar: I'm actually not that familiar with a lot of the mechanics you've mentioned, and don't quite know how to answer those questions. I actually sort-of jumped from 2nd edition to Pathfinder, and I never got involved in 3.5 beyond the core books. Answering as best as I can:

1. I'm not sure what you mean by bloodlines, since sorcerers don't get them in 3.5 and those are the only bloodlines I'm familiar with.

2. The principle of adaptation is pretty well laid-out for high, mid, and low casters, so I'd just pick whichever is most appropriate.

3. Sorry, I'm not very familiar with that class, but it seems it should be low-caster without the -3?

4. Different domain lists shouldn't be a problem.

5. I honestly tried not to get bogged down with spell/spell transience, and when in doubt I personally cut the options or re-write them. I'm not sure if that helps or not, but with so many options in 3.5 dedicated to spells, I can imagine how hard it would be to adjust each one individually.

Ruethgar

2015-06-06, 08:18 AM

Bloodlines (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm) in 3.5 are class levels that don't alter your estimated character level, provide very minor bonuses but also advance all class level dependent features, such as caster level, DCs, and initiator level.

I suppose I'll just put them all at low, but without the spell lists or their very minor class features that make no sense in the sphere system there isn't really anything to differentiate them aside from each using a different casting stat. Which is why I was considering just making a new NPC class. Something like: low BaB, high Will, Light Armor, Simple Weapons, Low Caster, pick 5 class skills, ranks at 2+Int.

The Wild Defender matches that perfectly, just moves the ranger progression to start at first, but Mystic Ranger has more spells and more spell levels almost equal to the bard. Are 6th level spells simply the defining feature of mid casters and anything below is a low caster?

The main issue I was looking at with the 3.5 domains is the massive number of domains that just increase caster level, but without spell/spell transience, I suppose that wouldn't be a problem. If for example you took the Artifice and Creation domains to get +3 CL on Conjuration(Creation) spells as an Incantor, then again as a Cleric.

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-06, 08:32 AM

Are 6th level spells simply the defining feature of mid casters and anything below is a low caster?

In SoP, caster levels and magic talents can be advanced independently. You might want to have a low-caster with 15 magic talents instead of 10 at level 20. Just something to think about.

Ruethgar

2015-06-06, 11:29 AM

It just seems odd to me that a class putting a higher focus on casting would have a CL able to be replicated with a single feat.

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-07, 08:20 AM

It just seems odd to me that a class putting a higher focus on casting would have a CL able to be replicated with a single feat.

Are you referring to Advanced Magical Training? I can understand both your point and Adam's. It does feel as if it devalues the low-caster classes, but there isn't another way to add caster levels in a d20-class based system. It can be argued if one feat to cover all non-casting class levels is not enough, but consider that a character with no SoP class levels has only as many talents as feats he spent on. As feats don't grow on trees, it is doubtful that more than three are used in that fashion without employing a casting class at some point. So at 20th level for example someone knows a few destruction based talents. Or a dabbling thief uses remote sleight of hand. Or a fighter wants a bit of self-buffing. There I don't see a real competition.

That leaves multi-classing with non-casting classes. Assuming martial classes only, the sole benefit is the added caster level. You lose out on magic talents. So this means we a character who is not just dabbling in magic, but a serious amateur who wants to augment his martial abilities. Again not a real competition compared to SoP multi-classing. If the AMT feat also considers core-casting class levels as non-casting ones (if it doesn't, where would Alchemist and other similar classes fall into?), then we have the classic casting class multi-classing problem. AMT would at least a bit alleviate this for the SoP-side. The Bokor prestige class is still doing better job for this, but both options are completely compatible. Overall I don't a real competition here as well.

Mehangel

2015-06-07, 12:02 PM

Are you referring to Advanced Magical Training? I can understand both your point and Adam's. It does feel as if it devalues the low-caster classes, but there isn't another way to add caster levels in a d20-class based system. It can be argued if one feat to cover all non-casting class levels is not enough, but consider that a character with no SoP class levels has only as many talents as feats he spent on. As feats don't grow on trees, it is doubtful that more than three are used in that fashion without employing a casting class at some point. So at 20th level for example someone knows a few destruction based talents. Or a dabbling thief uses remote sleight of hand. Or a fighter wants a bit of self-buffing. There I don't see a real competition.

That leaves multi-classing with non-casting classes. Assuming martial classes only, the sole benefit is the added caster level. You lose out on magic talents. So this means we a character who is not just dabbling in magic, but a serious amateur who wants to augment his martial abilities. Again not a real competition compared to SoP multi-classing. If the AMT feat also considers core-casting class levels as non-casting ones (if it doesn't, where would Alchemist and other similar classes fall into?), then we have the classic casting class multi-classing problem. AMT would at least a bit alleviate this for the SoP-side. The Bokor prestige class is still doing better job for this, but both options are completely compatible. Overall I don't a real competition here as well.

I understand that it isnt how the feat works, but in one of my games we houserule that Advanced Magical Training will also give you additional talents equal to your caster level. This is because when we look at classes, whenever they gain a caster level, it comes with another talent. To prevent abuse of specific builds, we have also ruled that spherecasters with levels in a spellcasting class may not apply advanced magical training to a spellcasting class.

Adam Meyers

2015-06-08, 04:35 PM

I'm not sure what I could add to either debates since they're getting so far into houserules and 3.5 content, but I do like seeing what people are up to with the system.

Alagos

2015-06-08, 06:08 PM

A few more quick question regarding the Illusion, Nature and Destruction spheres.

For the Illusion Sphere's talent Invisibility, does it function as per the normal spell Invisibility or as greater invisibility? Will attack actions dispel this illusion? It does not specify in the text whether it does or not, so I'm assuming that the illusion remains even after hostile action, so long as you maintain concentration and/or have talents that extend the duration via spell points. Also, is this a single-target only ability? Or does it follow the same rules as the normal Illusion ability with its max size per Caster Level? Could I cast this on all creatures within a 15ft cube at CL 5th?

For the Nature Sphere's talent Geomancing: Earth's ability Bury, it says it requires sand to function. How much sand are we talking here? Could I gather enough dust or grit from any outdoor area, or within a dusty room/dungeon? Or do I need an entire pit of sand? How far away does this sand or dirt have to be? I know there's realistic interpretations for this, but a RAW answer can't hurt.
For the Forge Earth talent, can the terrain be any kind of terrain? Indoors and out? Could I say, seal a doorway with a 10ft tall, 10ft thick wall of stone raised from the ground beneath us? And is there any way for my enemies (barring a Burrow speed) to get through this barrier? What are its HP? DR? Could I also use this to create a pit 10ft deep, with the variations being inwardly sloping, smooth walls and a roof sealing the pit? Apologies for all the ideas being thrown, but the ability is rather ambiguous on what's possible with it.
For the Create Water talent, is this water permanent?
Also, as a more general question, for abilities like Water Geomancing: Freeze or Vortex, where it states that on a failed save the target cannot move, does this prevent them from attempting Reflex saves as well as losing their DEX to AC, CMD, etc.? Probably a silly question, but I just wanted to make sure.

For the Destruction Sphere's talent Energy Sphere, it states that the effect is non-instantaneous. What exactly does this mean? Is it possible to summon the sphere within an enemy's square? Or must I spend the move action to propel the sphere into an enemy on the round I cast it?

Thanks for your quick responses. Its great seeing a developer so involved in its playerbase.

SwordChucks

2015-06-10, 01:33 PM

How does the Time sphere's Age talent affect a dragon or other creatures that use different age catagories?

Adam Meyers

2015-06-10, 03:05 PM

@Alagos:

1. Invisibility does not dispel after hostile action, and is comparable to greater invisibility in that fashion. It is a single-target ability, but for group work you could definitely place an illusion over a group veil-style to make them look like something they aren't (so long as nothing enters the illusion's space and notices that everything looks different).

2. The idea of geomancing is quite literally the terrain the target is standing on; they must be standing in sand deep enough to swallow them before you can swallow them up with the sand.

3. Things like that are purposely left vague, because the DR, HP, etc., would be entirely dependent on the material and situation in question, according to the material guidelines in the GM's Guide. Also, one of our design philosophies was to encourage player creativity in areas clearly defined for GM ease. As for Forge Earth specifically, it must be earth being manipulated; you could do that with the stone or dirt of a cave, but not with a wooden floor. You could use it on the stone floor of a building on ground level, but higher floors might only allow you to break the floor and drop opponents, since there isn't enough stone there for anything else. You could not create a pit with a lid and sloping walls, although you could certain do that by combining forge earth with the Creation sphere

4. Created water is permanent, yes.

5. That's a Pathfinder question rather than an SoP one. In Pathfinder, a rogue with evasion can quite literally be holding the bomb that explodes, and still make their Reflex save for no damage. While logically it would make sense to say someone who can't move loses their Dex and Reflex saves, Pathfinder rules say otherwise.

6. Almost all Destruction sphere abilities are instantaneous; this is a mechanical distinction, which means they cannot be elongated via magic, nor can they be dispelled unless their initial casting is countered (as opposed to, say, confusion which has an effect with a duration and can be broken early). Energy sphere is non-instantaneous, which means unlike most of the sphere, it has a duration. You could summon it in a target's square if they are in range, making that target the subject of your first attack with the sphere.

@SwordChucks: For simple balance reasons, I'd argue that a dragon can't be affected by that ability (as dragons are so magical in nature, it's just one more thing they're immune to.) That being said, you have just given me an idea for an awesome BBEG: a time mage with an advanced talent called 'dragon age' that lets him use aging to advance dragons up and down in age categories. He has a series of dragon followers, and begins his fights by transforming them into ancient powerhouses to tackle the party on his behalf.

SwordChucks

2015-06-10, 03:06 PM

Yea, I helped!

Ironsides

2015-06-13, 12:02 AM

I am looking at how to make Gilgamesh from Fate/Stay Night with SOP and I would like some clarifications with the Telekinetic Sphere.

http://ekladata.com/e6Dqs68QctwSVb2xphlmsCofCE0.jpg
I get to make this character now :smallcool:

How do you calculate the damage when you have Divided Mind, Dancing Weapon, and the Flair talents and a whole flock of daggers, swords, and other pointy objects when they are used as a single bludgeon? Would you calculate a dagger + longsword + greataxe as 1d4+1d8+1d12+your casting modifier?

When you have Divided Mind, Dancing Weapon, and the Flair talents how do you take into account different critical hit modifiers? Let's say you are using a dagger and a kukri as a bludgeon and you hit with a 18 which is a critical for a kukri but not a dagger. Do you still multiply just the kukri’s damage and your casting modifier or does something else happen?

Thanks in advance Adam, I am big fan of your book. :smallsmile:

Doc_Maynot

2015-06-13, 12:46 AM

Extra Anchovies

2015-06-13, 01:09 AM

Just a quick question: I know Sphere Magic lets metamagic be applied, but (how) does it interact with Sacred Geometry? I only ask because I player brought it up to me, and it just left me scratching my head.

The interaction is a simple one-step process.
1. Ban Sacred Geometry.

Seriously, if you're introducing a system that's supposed to provide a balanced magic system, don't mix it with the least balanced feat (heck, least balanced anything) in the game.

Doc_Maynot

2015-06-13, 01:10 AM

The interaction is a simple one-step process.
1. Ban Sacred Geometry.

Seriously, if you're introducing a system that's supposed to provide a balanced magic system, don't mix it with the least balanced feat (heck, least balanced anything) in the game.

I mean, that's basically what I ended up doing is just telling them it couldn't be used, but I was just curious as to Adam's say in the matter.

Ruethgar

2015-06-13, 10:13 AM

Just a quick question: I know Sphere Magic lets metamagic be applied, but (how) does it interact with Sacred Geometry? I only ask because I player brought it up to me, and it just left me scratching my head.

I honestly tried not to get bogged down with spell/spell transience, and when in doubt I personally cut the options or re-write them.

Even if you do not ban Sacred Geometry and maintain the venetian Vancian system, the first suggestion is to cut the option for Spheres.

Edit: Stupid autocorrecting phone.

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-13, 12:15 PM

Even if you do not ban Sacred Geometry and maintain the venetian system, the first suggestion is to cut the option for Spheres.

Venetian? Do you mean Vancian instead?

Pyromancer999

2015-06-13, 07:26 PM

Would exchanging racial SLAs for the Basic Magical Training feat work as a good house rule?

Ruethgar

2015-06-13, 08:05 PM

The problem I see with replacing SLA's with Basic Magical Training is that it makes SLA races better at magic than all other races which SLA's do not do by default. I think a better option would be to give them a few spells known over the normal cap with the spellcrafting system(likely limited to just base sphere abilities). That would give them some magical flavor, but wouldn't advance their casting ability like a bonus talent would.

Edit: Or the Cantrips feat, that would work too.

Vhaidara

2015-06-13, 09:15 PM

I usually toss them free access to a related sphere. So light for aasimar, etc.

stack

2015-06-16, 08:25 AM

I've been writing a handbook (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15a4d5ga61bcWMuqJxBOEleKPSsSUgkzz-Yj7POJNhD8/edit)to the elementalist, which has been great for making me look more closely at things I only skimmed before. I don't claim to have extraordinary insight into the class, but I have found handbooks to be a great way to get people interested in a class (and system) so wanted to do my part.

In this process, I've spent more time getting my head around the magic items section and have given some thought to crafting. Forge ring and craft staff have relatively high level requirements, but staves are a basic item for every mid and high caster and if you use sphere items exclusively then 'rings' cover a huge swathe of vital items. This makes a crafting character much more limited than with traditional items, since craft wondrous item comes online at level 2. I wondered if you could share your thoughts on this design choice?

Also, as part of my guide I was linking relevant posts from this thread, but it occurs to me that I should probably ask your permission to be quoted. Please?

Do magic items use the standard DCs for UMD checks for items of their type? Given the way spheres are accessed, hitting a flat DC20 on UMD to activate a wand would be nice, especially since saves scale (thank you for that, by the way, that made me quite pleased).

Out of curiosity, what is the highest CL you have been able to achieve? I'm thinking a specialist incanter/thaumaturge with the feats boosting CL at low HP and SP with a +5 staff would probably max things out, wondered if I missed anything. (20 base from full caster levels, thaumaturge +6, incanter with specialization +1, +5 staff, +2 deathful magic, +2 empowered abilities for CL36 in one sphere when using forbidden knowledge, out of spell pool, and below 25% health) Not saying this is a practical build, you really don't want to be in a situation to take full advantage of it, just curious what the max was.

Now I just have to remember what other questions came up...

Adam Meyers

2015-06-16, 03:27 PM

@Ironsides: This is one of those things where the concept is awesome, but the mechanics behind that concept run up on balance issues depending on how you handle them. For balance's sake, I would argue that anything other than an individual weapon attack would follow the 'hunks of flying metal' rule; if I have 4 floating daggers and I can make 4 attacks per turn, I can hurl each one individually. If, however, I throw all 4 daggers as part of the same 'attack', then they stop being a series of expertly-hurled missiles and instead become a 1d4-dealing Small-sized ball of flying metal, as likely to hit with the flat of the blade or the hilt as the blade because of the lack of precision in their use.

That being said, a horde of swirling weapons with Dancing Weapon is a fun way to give all of your allies flanking partners, and I present the following feat to you to help with your concept:

Telekinetic Storm
Prerequisites: Telekinesis Sphere, Divided Mind, 4th Caster Level or higher with the Telekinesis Sphere, and one of the following feats: Two-Weapon Fighting, Rapid Shot.
Effect: As a full-round action, you may spend 2 spell points to make a bludgeon attack with every object you are holding with your Telekinesis. You may move each object up to your telekinesis speed in order to make the attack.

@Doc_Maynot: Yeah, I have to agree with everyone's comments: I really can't think of a way that feat could be adapted to SoP without serious revision of the whole way the math is accomplished.

@Pyromancer999: That is an exchange I've seen several people do, and I think works, as well as those alternative versions other people have mentioned.

@stack: Magic item crafting is a strange system, because as I understand it, it evolved over time with different iterations of the game before players using it was even considered. For example, Craft Wondrous Item is considered grossly overpowered since it covers so many slots and concepts, especially when compared with 'forge ring', which only covers one item slot. Like spheres did to spells, we wanted magic item creation to be free for player ingenuity, while at the same time leveling out the imbalances as much as we could and making everything a little bit easier to understand. One way we did this was to map the ambiguous item creation feats to types of creation rather than slots, and the result is what you see in the book.

And yeah, feel free to quote anything from this thread.

As for the highest CL possible, that is pretty much what we got as well I think; I don't remember the exact numbers we ran, but we were aware that someone could achieve that if they really strived for it. While really, really big, we thought the dedicated built to achieve it sounded kinda awesome (provided the GM can handle it), so we didn't worry about it.

(Besides, being in that situation, back to the wall, end of your rope, out of SP and health and trying to decimate the enemy with one last powerful blast is the kind of situation that makes everyone stand up when you roll that Forbidden Knowledge failure check...)

stack

2015-06-16, 03:34 PM

Yeah, I suppose the larger concern would be the guy that has his friends beat him near unconsciousness at the beginning of the day before he summons his super-companions using the boost to push his conjuration farther off the chart. Niche case though and most of that is coming form thaumaturge, not from the boons.

LudoDiamonte

2015-06-16, 05:51 PM

This question may have been answered else where or I may have overlooked it, but can a conjuration companion have more than one form applied at one time? Thanks in advance.

Pyromancer999

2015-06-16, 06:07 PM

This question may have been answered else where or I may have overlooked it, but can a conjuration companion have more than one form applied at one time? Thanks in advance.

Yes, but you must select a Form Talent each time you wish to apply it to a companion.

So you could select Form Talents W and X for Conjuration Companion Y, but you'd have to select each again to let either apply to Conjuration Companion Z.

daremetoidareyo

2015-06-16, 08:34 PM

spellcrafting and spellbooks

When you craft a spell via the spellcrafting feat, do you only get to cast that spell once without a spellbook, or is it retained. Let's say you hammer out the specifics with weather sphere and creation sphere for it to rain oaken kitchen tables. You cast it. Now do you have to do a bunch of research to do it again? If not, why get the spellbook feat at all, seeing as how you can just make a caster of a tradition that doesn't use academics.

Further, when spell crafting, can you use the spiritualist tradition of the Hedgewitch to grant you access to a sphere in order to spellcraft something? Can you then record that into your spellbook? Say our weatherman decides that he wants it to rain holy water by combining with the life sphere, but he doesn't have the life sphere, could he then use spiritualist to do the research as if he had the sphere? Would it require another spirit point to record it down?

stack

2015-06-17, 06:34 PM

Missed one CL booster, you can use a metamagic feat for another +1, though unless its a +0 metamagic you can't combine it with the one that gives +2 when out of SP.

Extra Anchovies

2015-06-18, 03:48 AM

One of the common gripes about the D&D 3.5 Ranger and Paladin was that their caster level equalled one-half their class level. Why did you decide to reintroduce classes with half-scaling caster levels to Pathfinder (and even 3/4 scaling, for that matter)?

I ask because I'm probably going to be joining a Spheres of Power game soon, and am having trouble seeing any reason to play a low-caster, or even a mid-caster, who uses any of the duration-based effects (e.g. buffs). The list of things I can do with a zero-round duration on all of my non-concentration effects is a frustratingly short one, and most of the abilites are standard actions anyways so I won't be able to get any use out of most of the basic sphere abilities until level 4 at the earliest (3 for mid-casters). Granted, basically every SoP character sucks at 1st level because they either run out of spell points by the second encounter or spend every round concentrating (and not having any standard actions is exactly zero fun), but at least the high casters are playable by level 3 or so.

(As an aside, is there something I missed where concentrating on a sphere ability doesn't take the same standard action as concentrating on a spell?)

To be honest, the presence of different caster level scalings feels backwards and poorly designed, and they're by far my least favorite part of the system. I'm wondering what your reasoning was for making them a part of Spheres of Power.

Vhaidara

2015-06-18, 05:34 AM

I'll give you the explanation one of my players gave me for that
You have 2 classes. One of them is a d6, low BAB class with full casting (bear in mind that spherecasting generally caps at T3), 30 Talents, and no real class features. The other is a d10, full BAB class with full casting, 10 talents, and a bevy of nice class features. Would you ever really want to pick the first option?

The reason it balances out is because spherecasting isn't as potent as Vancian casting. Also, you still get the same number of Spell Points (Level +Casting mod), so not concentrating is easier for the low casters, who generally have things other than casting to do with their turns.

stack

2015-06-18, 07:12 AM

There is a boon that allows concentrating as a move action. I have a hard time not taking it on most builds. Destruction doesn't really need it, but it's amazing for others.

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-18, 09:30 AM

The list of things I can do with a zero-round duration on all of my non-concentration effects is a frustratingly short one...

Luckily, there is a rule which states - if you have a CL 0 - that you are treated for effects as CL 1.

Extra Anchovies

2015-06-18, 11:22 AM

Luckily, there is a rule which states - if you have a CL 0 - that you are treated for effects as CL 1.

Thanks for pointing that out. I just got my PDF yesterday and haven't read it cover-to-cover yet.

I'll give you the explanation one of my players gave me for that
You have 2 classes. One of them is a d6, low BAB class with full casting (bear in mind that spherecasting generally caps at T3), 30 Talents, and no real class features. The other is a d10, full BAB class with full casting, 10 talents, and a bevy of nice class features. Would you ever really want to pick the first option?

The reason it balances out is because spherecasting isn't as potent as Vancian casting. Also, you still get the same number of Spell Points (Level +Casting mod), so not concentrating is easier for the low casters, who generally have things other than casting to do with their turns.

Thanks for the explanation. I suppose that makes sense.

Vhaidara

2015-06-18, 11:25 AM

It came up because I have an alchemist//armorist, and we were debating his caster level. Since alchemist pulls standard cl=level, I was okay with letting that be a thing (the player is our most hardcore rper, I know he won't abuse things). But another player made the argument I presented above.

Adam Meyers

2015-06-19, 09:49 AM

@stack: Temporary increases in caster level such as the boons you mention don't increase the strength of companions, actually.

@LudoDiamonte: Yeah, they can have as many form talents as you have magic talents to spend on them.

@daremetoidareyo: You do not forget a spell after casting it. The spellbook is for the character who wants 20-something spells, as opposed to just a signature move or two.

Personally, I would allow someone to use things like the Spiritualist's powers to create spells, but if they don't use their spiritualist powers each time they cast the spell to re-gain the required talents, then they face that chance the spell will fail on them.

@Extra Anchovies: Pretty much what everyone's already said: Pathfinder is built on the concept of scaling magic, so when we re-designed the system, something needed to scale; since we removed spell levels, the simplest idea was to transform caster level into a BAB-like stat.

Segev

2015-06-19, 10:09 AM

Alright, I'm afraid we've had enough *****-footing around here. Let's get to the hard-hitting, technical questions.

How many licks does it take to get to the toosie-roll center of the Candy Sphere?

edit: Huh, did not expect that censoring.

Vhaidara

2015-06-19, 11:18 AM

I second this idea.

What is the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?

stack

2015-06-19, 02:46 PM

I knew that this staff bonus didn't apply and forgot to mention it in my post. Wasn't sure on the boons, so that's good to know. Thaumaturge of course only helps if you grab the master of cosmos feat, but that is still enough to make them a good basis for a companion build.

Ironsides

2015-06-19, 05:19 PM

I am still on the road to building Gilgamesh and I have some more questions to ask you that relate to it.

Can the Armorist materialize weapons larger than what their character would normally wield. Like a small sized halfling summoning a huge sized nodachi and then using the Dancing Weapon talent to do battle with it.
The Telekinetic Sphere has size restrictions on what size things you can move around telekinetically at certain levels as determined by the Object Size Chart in that section. What rule of thumb would you use when you try to use Dancing Weapon on a weapon that is large, huge, colossal sized weapons compared to your size weapon. I was going with this as my rule of thumb but I wanted your opinion on it. I am assuming that a candelabra is roughly equal to a normal sized longsword.

A longsword that a small sized character would use would be Diminutive sized for the object size chart in the Telekinetic Sphere.
A longsword that a medium sized character would use would be Tiny sized for the object size chart in the Telekinetic Sphere.
A longsword that a large sized character would use would be Small sized for the object size chart in the Telekinetic Sphere.
A longsword that a huge sized character would use would be Medium sized for the object size chart in the Telekinetic Sphere.
A longsword that a gargantuan sized character would use would be Large sized for the object size chart in the Telekinetic Sphere.
A longsword that a colossal sized character would use would be Huge sized for the object size chart in the Telekinetic Sphere.

I assume that If I combine the talents Dancing Weapon, Animate Object, and Bestow Intelligence on a weapon that the weapon will now be able to threaten squares around it and make attacks of opportunity, but could that weapon make attacks of opportunity with just the Dancing Weapon and Animate Object talents instead.

AGrinningCat

2015-06-19, 11:09 PM

@Ironsides:

Weapon Size: Every weapon has a size category. This designation indicates the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. A weapon's size category isn't the same as its size as an object. In general, a light weapon is an object two size categories smaller than the wielder, a one-handed weapon is an object one size category smaller than the wielder, and a two-handed weapon is an object of the same size category as the wielder.

A longsword for a medium creature is a Small object.

Telekinetic Storm
Prerequisites: Telekinesis Sphere, Divided Mind, 4th Caster Level or higher with the Telekinesis Sphere, and one of the following feats: Two-Weapon Fighting, Rapid Shot.
Effect: As a full-round action, you may spend 2 spell points to make a bludgeon attack with every object you are holding with your Telekinesis. You may move each object up to your telekinesis speed in order to make the attack.

Adam; I got someone else poking me about this Gates of Babylon stuff.

Right now, to fully emulate this ability, the player is running into a pair of issues: 1) Weapons are heavy as ****, and 2) Action economy to withdraw items from the storage. Can I ask for an advanced talent/feat to fix this? Like (CL^2)x10lbs for determining your capacity, and you can pull from the storage as a free action?

(Also the new book was pretty good; Particularly a fan of the two Hedgewitch Archetypes. What's next in the lineup?)

Forrestfire

2015-06-20, 02:05 AM

That is quite the feat :smalleek:

With Dancing Weapon adding casting mod to damage, you can toss out fairly insane burst early on. A hypothetical Human Sorcerer 2/Incanter 1 with Focus Sphere and Sphere Specialization can toss out 6 attacks for 1d4+casting stat per use of the ability (assuming arrows), and adds another one every time he levels up (eventually getting better damage dice, too). Sure, it costs spell points, but normal bludgeons don't, so you have the ability to likely instantly kill something level-appropriate, then fall back on normal telekinesis in-between. Seems like an advanced talent, or something that scales up your attacks slightly faster than with BAB, would be a bit better to have around.

I'm not sure what the normal etiquette about feats posted in that manner is, but I felt I'd post my thoughts on it. Concept is awesome and something I like, but I was really enjoying that Spheres had the first actually balanced telekinetic combat option I'd seen in 3.x. All the others tend towards too weak/situational or ludicrously strong volleys of damage.

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-20, 03:09 AM

Adam Meyers

2015-06-20, 07:59 AM

@Segev: You laugh, but I've been playing around with new spheres. No candy sphere as yet, but if someone can come up with a concept for one that works...

@Keledrath: Forty-Two.

@Ironsides:
1.Technically yes, there is no restriction on the size of weapon the armorist can create, but I could see myself putting a reasonable restriction on that as a GM if it got out of hand.

2. Size-charts are not a standardized thing in Pathfinder; I do believe a one-handed Medium weapon is considered a Small object, but you're right in the comparison of a sword to other listed objects; it's up to GM interpretation I guess.

3. Animate Object turns it into a creature, and creatures make attacks of opportunity, so yeah, I think that should work.

AGrinningCat: Personally, I'd say if the character keeps 20 daggers in a backpack, they could dump it all on the ground as a move action, lift them into the air with Divided Mind as a standard action, then the next round be poised to make a Telekinetic Storm attack.

@Forrestfire: Yeah, there's a reason things like that weren't included in the actual book.

If one were to include such a feat as the hypothetical Telekinetic Storm to their game, it can certainly get powerful; aside from spell points, the balance on it is that the caster needs to make an attack roll for each object (which given most caster's low BAB can become troublesome) and that it costs so many magic talents to set up as opposed to the Destruction spheres d6-per-level area blast that only costs 1 talent. Combined with the multi-round set-up (as mentioned above, one must first pick up the objects to be used for the storm) I think it becomes more manageable (I'd be willing to try it at my own table), but since I haven't personally tested this in a game it's all still very hypothetical for me. Still, I'm curious to hear how Ironside's character runs at the table.

Vhaidara

2015-06-20, 08:27 AM

@Keledrath: Forty-Two.

I asked for the question, not the answer to the question :smalltongue:

AGrinningCat

2015-06-20, 10:53 AM

@AGrinningCat:

"A weapon's size category isn't the same as its size as an object." But the Telekinesis Sphere uses the object sizes to determine what can be levitated. It would be strange if just because something is shaped like sword, it becomes heavier to lift.

Keep reading -- A Medium sized Twohander is considered Medium sized. A medium sized One hander is considered small. A Medium sized Light weapon is considered tiny.

@Adam;
Backpacks with daggers is lame though. It's so much cooler to just pull them out of a portal.

Also I noticed something when going through the Sphere list -- There isn't a whole lot of penalties you can dish out. Can we expect new spheres/extra talents to be debuff oriented?

Ssalarn

2015-06-20, 01:33 PM

Also I noticed something when going through the Sphere list -- There isn't a whole lot of penalties you can dish out. Can we expect new spheres/extra talents to be debuff oriented?
Sub-Spheres that are a combination of two existing Spheres could be a cool way to handle this; for example a Decay sphere that's a sub of Death and Time and is dedicated to rusting armor, weakening scales, rotting teeth to impose penalties on spells with verbal components, etc.

Or a Shadow sphere that's a sub of Darkness and Illusion and lets you do crazy stuff like binding someone's shadow to the ground and limiting their movement, clouding an individual's vision, etc.

Mehangel

2015-06-20, 01:39 PM

Sub-Spheres that are a combination of two existing Spheres could be a cool way to handle this; for example a Decay sphere that's a sub of Death and Time and is dedicated to rusting armor, weakening scales, rotting teeth to impose penalties on spells with verbal components, etc.

Or a Shadow sphere that's a sub of Darkness and Illusion and lets you do crazy stuff like binding someone's shadow to the ground and limiting their movement, clouding an individual's vision, etc.

For a campaign that I am participating in, we have a bunch of 'Advanced Spheres' which do exactly this. In order to pick talents from an advanced sphere, one must have both base spheres.

Fallenreality

2015-06-20, 05:24 PM

Sub-Spheres that are a combination of two existing Spheres could be a cool way to handle this; for example a Decay sphere that's a sub of Death and Time and is dedicated to rusting armor, weakening scales, rotting teeth to impose penalties on spells with verbal components, etc.

Or a Shadow sphere that's a sub of Darkness and Illusion and lets you do crazy stuff like binding someone's shadow to the ground and limiting their movement, clouding an individual's vision, etc.

I would take something like that shadow sphere idea so fast...

Ironsides

2015-06-20, 11:04 PM

Keep reading -- A Medium sized Twohander is considered Medium sized. A medium sized One hander is considered small. A Medium sized Light weapon is considered tiny.

@Adam;
Backpacks with daggers is lame though. It's so much cooler to just pull them out of a portal.

Also I noticed something when going through the Sphere list -- There isn't a whole lot of penalties you can dish out. Can we expect new spheres/extra talents to be debuff oriented?

Nice catch AGrinningCat.

@Adam;
I just noticed that this ruling on weapon sizes makes this style of play relatively difficult to pull off until later on in your build. Would it be possible for you to take Powerful Telekinesis multiple times (it is implied that you can only take a talent once unless it explicitly states that you can take it more times). Maybe if Powerful Telekinesis had some limiter on how many times you could take it or at what levels this would be reasonable.

Also do you need to be proficient with the weapon in order to use Dancing Weapon talent on the weapon?

CyanEyed

2015-06-21, 05:36 AM

Does use of the energy blade blast shape provoke attacks of opportunity? Asking because I want to hit people but don't really want to get hit that much.

Vhaidara

2015-06-21, 06:17 AM

What do you think Spheres' biggest weakness is?

Personally, I think option paralysis

stack

2015-06-21, 01:55 PM

I was just pondering the dimensional dervish feat line, specifically for a mage knight. I'm basing the idea on the warp sphere counting for the prerequisite, since it obviously corresponds well to dimension door. Makes for quick progression through the feat chain, though I need to see if I can squeeze enough feats into the build to make use of dimensional maneuver. Any reason a spheres game shouldn't allow warp to count?

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-21, 02:19 PM

Keep reading -- A Medium sized Twohander is considered Medium sized. A medium sized One hander is considered small. A Medium sized Light weapon is considered tiny.

Nice catch AGrinningCat.

@Adam;
I just noticed that this ruling on weapon sizes makes this style of play relatively difficult to pull off until later on in your build. Would it be possible for you to take Powerful Telekinesis multiple times (it is implied that you can only take a talent once unless it explicitly states that you can take it more times). Maybe if Powerful Telekinesis had some limiter on how many times you could take it or at what levels this would be reasonable.

@AGrinningCat
I did read further. Objects and weapons use different scales. Telekinesis follows the object one. Applying the weapon progression makes no sense because of this.

@Ironsides
That also means that your proposal is unnecessary.

Ironsides

2015-06-22, 02:52 AM

I think there may be a issue with Dancing Weapon and object sizes. Let me quote the relevant rules first.

A weapon's size category isn't the same as its size as an object. Instead, a weapon's size category is keyed to the size of the intended wielder. In general, a light weapon is an object two size categories smaller than the wielder, a one-handed weapon is an object one size category smaller than the wielder, and a two-handed weapon is an object of the same size category as the wielder. This is quoted from the PFSRD. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons) Look at page 141 of the core rulebook (5th printing) to find it there.

To me this means that a Dagger that a medium sized character would wield would count as a Tiny object. However, the book states that a dagger is a Diminutive object instead which is differant from . To me the telekinesis Object Size table works better for players because it gives them more wiggle room. I would add this paragraph to the Telekinesis Sphere rules.

A weapon's size category isn't the same as its size as an object when picked up telekinetically. Instead, a weapon's size category is keyed to the size of the intended wielder. In general, a light weapon is an object three size categories smaller than the wielder, a one-handed weapon is an object two size category smaller than the wielder, and a two-handed weapon is one size category smaller than the weilder.

Castor Level
Object Size
Example Object Size
Weapon as Objects Sizes
Light Weapon
One-Handed Weapon
Two-Handed Weapon

1
Diminutive
Dagger
Diminutive
Small
Tiny
Diminutive

3
Tiny
Candelabra
Tiny
Medium (Dagger)
Small
Tiny

5
Small
Heavy Shield
Small
Large
Medium

8
Medium
Cage
Medium
Huge
Large
Small

11
Large
Statue
Large
Gargantuan
Huge
Large

15
Huge
Wagon
Huge
Colossal
Gargantuan
Huge

20
Gargantuan
Catapult
Gargantuan
Colossal
Colossal
Gargantuan

25
Colossal
Ship
Colossal
Colossal
Colossal
Colossal

Also do you need to be proficient with the weapon you are using with Dancing Weapon talent? I assume not but I want to be sure.

Adam Meyers

2015-06-22, 06:40 PM

@AMKeledrath: How many orcs must a unicorn impale?

@A Lot of People: we are planning to release new spheres with upcoming projects, and advanced spheres is an idea I hadn't considered, but sounds awesome. we had some shadow abilities that got cut early on in the design process, perhaps it's time to pull those back out...

@Ironsides: You are not supposed to be able to take it more than once, but to make your concept I think I might allow that if I were the GM, but I might regret it in the high levels. You do not need to be proficient with the weapon to use it with Dancing Weapon, but considering how many feats there are that require you to be proficient with the weapon to take them, I'd stick to ones I was proficient with; use exclusively short swords or something so i could apply weapon focus to them, stuff like that.

@CyanEyed: It does provoke an attack of opportunity; it's the universal Pathfinder limit on castings that being said, if you're using a mid or low caster, taking combat casting is about all you need.

@Keledrath: Well that's a loaded question to ask a designer. Hm... Alchemy. Try as I might, I have not thought of a good way to do Spheres of a power with an alchemist concept that wasn't way too difficult or lengthy for daily use. The best I've got is making potions as if you were using the Brew Potion feat, but with a 1-minute crafting time and only you can drink them.

@stack: Personally, I would require Quick Teleport as well, and require them to spend that spell point each time they use it, but otherwise I don't see why not.

@ironsides: The problem is that there are multiple size charts in Pathfinder, and each of them has different objects listed as examples. I believe the reference to daggers as diminutive objects was pulled directly from a size chart, and therefore we didn't think that was something we needed to double check. I would go with the official Pathfinder ruling on weapon sizes, personally.

Vhaidara

2015-06-22, 06:50 PM

I knew it was a loaded question. I never claimed to be a good person :smalltongue:

On the subject of Alchemy, I actually think it is fine with Vancian. It actually makes a degree of sense in that style. If you really want to introduce it via Spheres, I would do it via casting traditions. You have to prepare your spells in advance in potion form, but then your allies can use them like potions

Okay, here's another one: Top 5 character concepts you've made with spheres. Concept, Class/Race, and sphere focus.

For example, for a kingmaker spheres game coming up on these forums, I'm making a gnome incanter. He has all the traditional drawbacks (focus, magical signs, 2x somatic, verbal). He focuses on the Time and Warp Spheres.

He's a university professor who gives lectures on theoretical magiphysics, drawing diagrams in the air (magical signs) with his handy dandy chalk (focus). As he does so, time and space warp in accordance to what he is teaching.

On a related note, why did you make Skilled casting SO hard? I really wanted to run it on him using Craft(Lectures), but even if I invested in Skill Focus, I'd still be running a 10% spell failure chance. It is by far the most flavorful drawback, but it is absolutely CRIPPLING.

the_david

2015-06-23, 03:57 AM

Hey Adam, thanks for taking the time to answer questions.

How would the Magical Knack trait stack with caster levels?

I've noticed there's no mention of critical hits in both Energy Blade (Destruction Sphere) and Energy Weapon (Enhancement). Normally extra dice wouldn't be multiplied on a critical hit, but a +X would. Is this how I should treat crits under those circumstances?

Is an Adept a Low-Caster?

stack

2015-06-23, 06:56 AM

stack

2015-06-23, 11:22 AM

If using the dancing weapons telekinesis talent, what area do the lifted objects threaten?

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-23, 12:23 PM

I've been thinking about to imitate the Pathfinder Cleric with the Incanter, but I don't see how you would get a better selection of armor/weapon proficiencies starting at level one. I had not yet time to look over the Expanded Options book, but at least the two Incanter archetypes provided don't match what I'm looking for. Anyone with an idea how to achieve that?

stack

2015-06-23, 12:27 PM

Easiest way is taking a spheres archetype cleric for a level to get the proficiencies. They are full-casters, so you don't lose any CL. Grab domains and channeling as incanter specializations and you should be good to go. Heck, stay cleric and reap the benefits of free talents from domains.

I plan to do the similar on a druid for a PBP starting soon, two levels of druid (spheres/menhir savant) for armor, shields, detect (stuff), and place magic, then run incanter for more talents.

stack

2015-06-25, 11:51 AM

Expanded Options - copy paste error, under recommended traditions the summoner says witch.

Triple goddess hedgewitch archetype - 17th level ability should specify if it counts as a [death] effect or not, highly relevant.

Azernak0

2015-06-25, 01:08 PM

Another question:

Retry (time)
Does this grant the person back their resources as well? IE, a Barbarian's Rage, an Incanter's Spell Points, Mythic Power, etc? It never really explains that only stating "If you choose to redo your own turn in this manner, you do not recover the action or spell points spent using this ability."

So is Self target the only one not getting the Immediate Action and 2 SP back?

What about the Rogue opening a locked door that drops a boulder on his head? Is the boulder placed back? Does he still take the damage? If an alarm goes off, does it untrip? What about damage taken? Basically, is it this? (https://youtu.be/zcWywJYo3ck?t=3m10s)

Mehangel

2015-06-25, 01:15 PM

Quick question concerning the Sphere Magus in Spheres of Power Expanded. Why does the Magus lose its Arcane Pool while the Hedgewitch gets it?

Ssalarn

2015-06-25, 01:49 PM

Quick question concerning the Sphere Magus in Spheres of Power Expanded. Why does the Magus lose its Arcane Pool while the Hedgewitch gets it?

The Magus kind of worked with Spheres of Power much differently than the Hedgewitch, who was intended to interact with the system from the beginning. Here's Adam's response:

The reason we did the Magus the way we did was two-fold:
1. Especially at low-levels, spheres already give the Magus a significant power boost: because of the way his powers interacted with at-will sphere abilities, he ended up dual-wielding sword and sword-strike destructive blasts quite literally forever, and he ended up with two pools to work with when the poor Mageknight only had one to accomplish many of the same feats of power.
2. Aside from the weapon empowerment itself and certain Magus Arcana, most of the Magus' abilities dealt with swapping arcane points for spells, which meant depending on the trade ratio of arcane points for spell points, the two were virtually one pool anyway.
One could break the two pools apart, but it would mean recalculating 'trade-ins' for things like Spell Recall. I'd suggest Spell Recall becomes "Spend 3 arcane points in place of a spell point" and Improved Spell Recall becomes "Spend 2 arcane points in place of a spell point", but that hasn't really been tested so I can't vouch for it beyond sounds-good-off-the-top-of-my-head.

stack

2015-06-25, 03:56 PM

Any chance of an elementalist archetype focused on weather the way the geomancer is focused on nature? I only ask because it seems an easy enough adaptation and I am inordinately fond of the weather sphere.

Speaking of which, when you concentrate on a weather effect while moving, the effect follows. Does each new square the effect enters require time to move up to the severity of the effect, or does the full severity move?

Scowling Dragon

2015-06-26, 03:20 AM

stack

2015-06-26, 06:16 AM

Expanded options geomancer loses favored element but no mention is made of elemental defense. Since you elemental defense is based on you favored element choices, how does this work for the geomancer?

Edit - Also, on the Drop Dead forums, you answered that the conjuration table can be extrapolated beyond CL 20. Does this apply to other tables that stop at 20? Obviously tables like weather cap since the system doesn't define conditions beyond those listed.

edit 2 - Nature Sphere Fire Wielder Talent only calls out unarmed strikes. Could we get a feat or some other method to allow it to apply to natural attacks? If I read it right, it would cap out at +4d6 fire per attack without CL boosting, which isn't that much for a commonly resisted element at high levels. I acknowledge that natural attacks create design problems, so understand if you prefer to decline.

Ssalarn

2015-06-26, 12:54 PM

Sweet, glad this thread is rather fresh. Nothing more disheartening then to find a help thread thats 5 years old.

Few questions:

A: Have you ever read Elements of Magic? Not accusing you of plagiarism. Your system is very differently structured just interesting.

B: This is just a personal taste thing: In my games I prefer all spell-casting traits be based off of wisdom, and all Will saves and the like be based off of Charisma. If I use this system, does this mess anything up in a major way? In my games most undead still have a constitution score representing the energy animating them, and only a few undeads use some other ability score as a constitution replacement (Usually Intelligence). I do this in order to give all of the stats purpose to avoid dumping of the stat.

Adam's the designer and creator of SoP, but my name is credited as an author in the SoP:E book, so I'll stick out my neck a bit and answer B for you:

First and foremost, when you make a house rules change that wasn't considered in the design process, the law of unintended consequences says something is probably going to break somewhere, though you may never notice the nature of the break or its impact.

Now, since many of the classes let you pick your casting stat anyways, your proposed change will have much less impact in Spheres of Power than in most other systems, though it will have a few negative consequences, like making Armorists a bit weaker since their casting stat no longer supports their Will and they need to keep their physical stats relatively high since they're primarily a fighting class.

Undead having a CON score shouldn't change much.

The rest of this response is not SoP specific, and is more just a general opinion: it sounds like your tweak is a flavor fix that has a very wide reaching mechanical effect throughout the game. Casters generally have good Will saves anyways, so letting all of them use WIS just means that they're getting bonuses to pretty solid skills, like Perception, and if they do decide to shore up their Will further it actually pays off with better social skills and UMD. Wizards will lose out, because they're expected to have more skills due to a high INT, but it's not a big deal overall. Caster Clerics come out ahead because now they're benefiting evenly from both their casting and channeling stats.

Half-casters and non-casters who use WIS for class abilities get boned hard though. The Ranger and the Monk (particularly the UC version) expect that WIS to be shoring up their weak save and really don't have points to spare in most expected builds to shore up CHA as well. I totally get where the idea for the change comes from (what with CHA representing force of personality and WIS being your awareness and intuition), but the change actually is largely cosmetic for the more versatile (some would say more powerful) classes in the game, while it can be a harsh imposition for classes in the Tier 3 or lower range.

stack

2015-06-26, 01:39 PM

Expanded again - thaumaturge - pact mage - infernal pact - dark lore: when you suffer the backlash penalty you do not lose any actions, correct? Very nice, especially when you stack it with the human favored class bonus to get +12 CL at level 17 (before whatever other bonuses you manage to have). Obviously its not something you can afford to do often, but makes for a great emergency button to fry the BBEG or heal the entire party to full or teleport the army away. Can the penalty still be passed off with channel punishment?

Unspeakable's curse of entropy is probably my favorite though, since it comes online at level 2 and never gets old. No-save debuffs are fun, even more-so as a free action.

Hmm, thaumaturge or mageknight for my next handbook? (need to polish the elementalist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?421155-Elementalist-Handbook-%28Spheres-of-Power%29&p=19391308#post19391308) one first, but polishing is harder work)

Regarding invocations, technically you can't take free actions when it isn't your turn, making defensive invocation mostly useless. Perhaps errata specifying that you can use them even when it isn't your turn?

(I admit that the class is growing on me, despite my initial low-level reservations. The devourer archetype is a big part of this. I want to play a half-orc devourer using the human FCB and a keen falchion to gish it up.

Adam Meyers

2015-06-26, 03:03 PM

@Keledrath: Aside from the NPCs from SoP itself, I've made a human thaumaturge fire package Nature expert that was a ball of fire speeding across the battlefield, a halfling incanter who rode on the back of her giant guerrilla conjured companion keeping it alive with the Protection sphere, and, inspired by someone's candy-mage from a different threat, I tried out my own human incanter creation-expert with the candy limited creation drawback.

Skilled casting was a weird one we kept going back and forth on, because a little optimization could make it so easy to never fail at, but we didn't want it to be only usable by optimizers, so we went in the middle and tried to make it work.

@the_david: Magical Knack really isn't appropriate for the SoP system; it's too designed for traditional caster levels.

If you are hitting someone with a normal destructive blast, a crit is a 20/x2. If you are applying a destructive blast to a weapon, the destructive blast's damage is not multiplied.

I would personally just make an adept a mid-caster for ease of everything, but a more accurate adaption I think would be a caster level progression of 0/1/2/2/3/4/4/5/6/6/7/8/8/9/10/10/11/12/12/13, with a magic talent gained at each caster level increase.

@stack: I would argue the weapon threatens whatever it does normally; a halberd would have reach, a longsword would threaten 5 ft, and a giant weapon would threaten a larger area.

@EldritchWeaver: I agree with the suggestion given; SoP provides an ease of multi-classing, such that it shouldn't be hard to divide up however you need to to get your concept going.

@stack: It should be a death effect, yes.

@Azernak0: Everything resets, things spent are un-spent, with the exception of the caster's immediate action and 2 SP.

So yeah, it could be used to save a rogue from the results of a botched trap disarming by re-setting the trap, etc.

@Mehangel: The quote reposted above is correct.

@stack: We'd already done 5 elementalist archetypes so we had to draw the line somewhere, but yeah that would be completely doable and was slated to be the 6th.

As the weather sphere effect moves, each new 5-ft square would need to grow into the full effect a round at a time, and the 5-ft squares left behind would go back to normal weather a round at a time.

@Scowling Dragon:

A: We looked through a bunch of alternate magic systems during our research phase, and that was one of them, yeah.

B: I don't think changes like that should break anything too great; it would make some classes weaker, some classes stronger, but is the kind of flavorful change to the rules that always interest me as a player.

@stack:

A. We updated elemental defense in the book and PDF a while ago; elemental defense no longer plays off of favored element. If your game is hitting high enough levels and your caster levels are getting that far up there, yeah a lot of them could expand beyond their list-tops. It's another thing that couldn't be included because of page-space and page-count, but we might do a guidebook in the future for epic-level SoP play with tables that go higher.

B. You're right; Fire Wielder should apply to natural attacks. We borrowed language from similar abilities from Core Pathfinder to make sure our language was congruent, and they only mentioned unarmed strikes, but I'd say it should apply to natural attacks as well.

C. The human benefit is only a +2 to your Forbidden Lore bonus by level 16, making your 17th level bonus a +8, not +12, and yeah, it can still be passed off with channel punishment. As we've had these disagreements on the Thaumaturge's power before, though, I'd say do whatever makes it more fun for you to roll with.

stack

2015-06-26, 03:18 PM

The +12 was from the infernal pack level 14 ability giving another +4 over the base +6 and human +2.

On weather, that makes sense, just makes me a little sad that I can't run into the room and start frying things with lightning right away, which probably would have been excessive.

With some optimization its not too hard to get off the charts before the highest levels assuming the use of staves (because how could you NOT use a staff?), boons, and the thaumaturge, so I look forward to a guide on extending them formally. I don't expect to personally need it, being a low-level player myself, I just like knowing its covered.

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-26, 04:13 PM

Thanks to you both @Adam and @stack for your replies. :smallsmile: I'll employ your suggestion in my game.

Scowling Dragon

2015-06-26, 05:17 PM

Half-casters and non-casters who use WIS for class abilities get boned hard though. The Ranger and the Monk (particularly the UC version) expect that WIS to be shoring up their weak save and really don't have points to spare in most expected builds to shore up CHA as well. I totally get where the idea for the change comes from (what with CHA representing force of personality and WIS being your awareness and intuition), but the change actually is largely cosmetic for the more versatile (some would say more powerful) classes in the game, while it can be a harsh imposition for classes in the Tier 3 or lower range.

Eh, I use more house-rules, variant classes and rules edits than any other person, using automatic progression, and a whole bunch of other crap. I primarily use Talented Genius Guide Versions of all the martial classes in any case, and Hero Points. So this shouldn't hurt as bad. I don't like dump stats ever in any case.

Also I just noticed the following hiccup under sphere summoner:

Recommended Casting Tradition: The classic feel of the
witch can be recreated through taking the traditional magic
casting tradition.

It lists the witch recommendation.

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-29, 01:41 PM

What was the reason that "Crafted Blast" no longer applies to altered blasts?

Adam Meyers

2015-06-29, 02:16 PM

EldritchWeaver: It is the blast type talent for the unaltered destructive blast, which was once force but was changed.

EldritchWeaver

2015-06-29, 05:24 PM

Yes, but previously Crafted Blast would have worked on e.g. fire typed blasts. Why did you weaken it? To make the normal blast more desirable?

Edit: Something I noticed when looking at the Sphere Arcanist: You give a high-caster only 10 magic talents (compare this to the Incanter who gets 30). Also only these 10 magic talents may be exchanged once per day. Not having played one yet, I still wonder, if 10 talents at level 20 are actually enough? That seems kinda low, especially that exploits seem to mimic sphere talents/feats in a weaker form and with higher costs (see below). An Arcanist/Incanter multiclass seems to be able to access more talents/feats, for the price that less talents can be switched out. On the other hand, with Quick Study you can get any magic talent (whose prereqs you fulfill?). That seems very potent, but it still costs a full-round action. So an ill-prepared Arcanist might be able to attack only at half speed until he switches out the useless ones. I suppose a relatively easy fix without blowing the current balance completely apart would be to grant Extra Magic Talent bonus feats which can't be switched.

Regarding exploits: In particular, the damage exploits seem redundant and limited compared to the Destruction sphere talents. You are spending a points of the Arcane Reservoir for the same damage you'd get by a destruction sphere talent at-will. The Energy Sphere talent seems to be superior to the greater exploits as well, although you do need to pay 1 SP here. So why would people choose these? I have the feeling that if the option would be given to turn exploits into magic related bonus feats, the number of actual interesting exploits drops low. This seems to be a missed opportunity to clean up this class.

Mehangel

2015-06-29, 07:58 PM

Quick question, is there a reason why spell descriptors were not added to specific sphere abilities? For example I notice that all the sphere powers that deal with fire or deal fire damage do not have the [fire] descriptor, nor do any with cold, acid or sonic. Was this intentional? Are they supposed to have the descriptor tags? Or do they have it, but are simply stated off to the side in some sidebar that I did not see?

Adam Meyers

2015-06-30, 01:39 PM

@EldritchWeaver: I'm not sure I understand the question; Crafted Blast was created for the unaltered blast, and never applied to all blasts.

The arcanist's schtick is very spell dependent, and their sphere variant was our way of keeping their flavor of being able to swap out spells. Never underestimate the power of a caster who can completely swap his sphere setup from combat to utility to town on a daily basis, nor underestimate the power of an exploit that does the work of the Destruction sphere + 2 talents. The arcanist is all about versatility, and the damage-dealing exploits still serve the same purpose as with a spell arcanist; You could invest heavily in destructive magic and be a versatile blaster, or you can take one exploit to always have direct damage covered, and invest those extra three talents int0 Time, Death, or something else equally nasty.

@Mehangel: It seemed unnecessary; there are very few places where descriptors are used, and very few of those places we found translate very much to spheres. Some sphere effects mention their descriptors- The Mind sphere is mind-altering compulsion (except enthrall which states it is a charm effect), and the ghost strike from the Death sphere says it is a Death effect. Beyond that, it shouldn't be hard to decide which descriptors an effect should have if knowing it is [fire] becomes necessary.

Mehangel

2015-07-01, 11:08 AM

Lets say at level 11 a Soulweaver takes the leadership feat. As its cohort it chooses the monster cohort (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/monster-cohorts): Ghoul. Lets say the soulweaver at this time has a leadership score to have a Ghoul cohort with 3 levels in fighter. On its first level of fighter, it acquires the Basic Magical Training: Death Sphere. On its third level of fighter it gains the feat Advanced Magical Training.

How would you handle the 2 undead Hit Dice for the Ghoul (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/ghoul) for purposes of the Advanced Magical Training?

I understand 'Rules As Written' state that the feat only grants a caster level with class levels, not racial HD. Should a feat be homebrewed to allow Racial Hit Dice be counted as Low-Caster? Or do you suggest that a houserule be made to allow Advanced Magical Training count Racial HD as non-sphere casting class levels?

What is your recommendation?

Scowling Dragon

2015-07-03, 05:26 AM

Quick question:

I prefer to use the armor as DR rules, however the issue is that your character sheets are locked from editing. Could you be kind enough to either a: Unlock the sheet for editing, or B: have a version with that variant rule?

Adam Meyers

2015-07-03, 12:01 PM

@Mehangel: Racial hit dice for PCs are such a finicky thing that I've never seen a GM not have to tweak something here or there. I'd allow Advanced Magic Training to work for racial HD, but be ready in case it somehow gets out of hand. I don't think it will, though.

@Scowling Dragon: Huh. I'll ask our layout person; I don't see why not, but I'm not the one who makes things like that.

stack

2015-07-03, 12:28 PM

The way I read it, the sphere magus can use any known sphere/talent with spell combat and spell strike, not limited to talents gained from magus levels. Is this correct? If so, I need to update my handbook because two levels of sphere magus is an awesome dip. Going to be key to my melee thaumaturge build as well.

Scowling Dragon

2015-07-03, 04:51 PM

Well in the case that you get a character sheet going, please contact me.

wooper

2015-07-03, 06:37 PM

The quadruped baseform for the conjuration sphere starts off with two sets of legs and a head as well as a Bite attack, which means that according to RAW, it cannot take Claw attacks until it grows a pair of arms as well. Considering most quadruped animals in Pathfinder have Claw attacks, isn't that a bit silly? It looks like something that should be changed somehow.

Adam Meyers

2015-07-04, 03:57 PM

@stack: Yeah; another reason why we combined the magus' pools together.

@wooper: It's esoteric in its distinction; most animals were designed before we got into Eidolon build-a-monster territory. RAW you can give them hoof attacks, or just allow them to have claw attacks in the spirit of not letting esoteric distinctions bog down a game.

Mehangel

2015-07-05, 12:38 AM

The objects and creatures you may lift are restricted by size; the largest object you can lift is given in the chart below. This assumes the object is made from a dense material, such as stone. Objects made of lighter materials, mostly open space, or reduced to 1/2 weight with the lighten talent of the enhancement sphere count as being one size category smaller, while weightless objects count as being 2 size categories smaller for this purpose.

Telekinesis states that creatures you may lift are restricted by size, yet nowhere that I can find includes a chart for such. Do you use the Object chart for creatures? If so, then does that mean that Flight is difficult to pull off with telekinesis before caster level 8? I find it strange as Alteration allows for flight at caster level 5.

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-05, 04:48 AM

Elkad

2015-07-05, 09:48 PM

Just picked this up from Paizo today. The copy I looked at was so awesome I had to have it (and pre-ordered the softback when it ships), despite having never played Pathfinder.
File dated 05 May 2015

Couple things I've noticed already. Checked the errata, no correction there either.

Page 120, Create Greater Undead
"including banshees, vampires, wrights,"
I'm assuming this should be "wights", not "wrights".

Page 123, Reverse Gravity
"an area of up to 10 cubic ft per caster level"
Should this not be a 10' cube per caster level?

Page 128, Create Demiplane.
"You may permanently close a portal to your demiplane as a free action, but know that only interdimensional travel can reach a demiplane without a working portal."
If the caster closes all the portals, can he create a new one?

Abithrios

2015-07-05, 10:39 PM

Page 120, Create Greater Undead
"including banshees, vampires, wrights,"
I'm assuming this should be "wights", not "wrights".

That is another way of getting flight, although I suppose it should be capitalized.

Majgamer

2015-07-06, 04:20 AM

So, here's a thought, assuming you had finesse and flair for Telekinesis, could you telekinetically use guns? That would be the most ridiculous gunslinger ever. Just imagine all the pistols, or hell, rifles you could use?

Ilorin Lorati

2015-07-06, 01:17 PM

stack

2015-07-06, 02:21 PM

Can melee touch sphere effects have their charge 'held' like a spell? Its rather important when spending spell points. Apologies if this has been asked, the search didn't turn anything up for 'held charge'.

stack

2015-07-07, 02:08 PM

Does dancing weapon apply your casting modifier to ranged attacks if using dancing weapon+flair? If so, I presume it would not allow you to stack your casting modifier (intelligence) with Kirin strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/kirin-strike-combat) for 3xInt to damage due to Paizo's ruling on stat mod stacking.

Just working out a ranged build.

squab

2015-07-08, 01:39 AM

Me and my friends are planning out a gestalt campaign with spheres of power, and Incanter/Arcanist sounds AMAZING. Tons of spells AND I get to swap some of them out.

Adam Meyers

2015-07-08, 03:26 AM

@Elkad:
1. Yeah

2. Yeah

3. Yeah; Create Demiplane states: "Alternately, you may use this ability to create a new portal to a permanent demiplane you have previously created."

@Majgamer: I'd allow it, yeah.

@stack: You can hold a charge, yeah.

Dancing Weapon + Flair: It does, and I would allow them to stack; the idea of the Telekinesis talent is you're using your casting ability modifier in place of your Strength modifier, as you would use it for thrown or melee weapons.

stack

2015-07-08, 11:59 AM

Hmm, telekinetic archer could be nasty...but now I want to use that ruling to ride a flying cannon into battle, vital striking and using Kirin Style.

Federebus

2015-07-08, 06:38 PM

I'm starting a new game using spheres of power, and so far we are having a blast. A very nice alternative to vancian magic. However during character creation we got a couple of questions, and we would like to know if we overlookend something:
1) how big can you make the Nature sphere Wave power? The book explain how far can it go, but not how large.
2) can you use the Dark sphere Step Through Darkness power while remaining inside a single darkness effect? It says that you can step in one patch of darkness and emerge in another (so you need two darkness "bubbles"), but in the next paragraph the only requisite is that both the locations are in the area of your darkness
3) One of my players want to specialize in telekinesis and weather (wind), is there any way to quicken the severity change (using a power in the first round of a combat and getting some benefit from it starting on the third round is not so great). How should i treat his telekinetic weapons for the effect of the winds (should they count as ranged attack or as flying creatures)?
Sorry if i'm not very clear, English is not my main language.

Mehangel

2015-07-08, 06:52 PM

3) One of my players want to specialize in telekinesis and weather (wind), is there any way to quicken the severity change (using a power in the first round of a combat and getting some benefit from it starting on the third round is not so great). How should i treat his telekinetic weapons for the effect of the winds (should they count as ranged attack or as flying creatures)? Sorry if i'm not very clear, English is not my main language.

I see two possibilities:

1) Take the Greater Weather Talent, it allows you to spend an additional 2 spell points to increase the categories to 3 per round (if I understand that correctly; It could be understood that Severity is a category of weather, but it could just as easily be referring to the types of weather i.e. wind, heat, cold, etc)

2) Apply the Extend Spell Meta-magic feat to the Time Sphere Talent: Time Freeze. This would give you 2 rounds to begin casting Weather (Wind). At the end of the casting you could be at the beginning or end of your third round of casting Weather (Wind).

squab

2015-07-09, 02:38 AM

Two questions: can the Greater Transformation talent be taken multiple times?I feel like the answer is no but I have to ask. The Alteration school makes me sad because I feel so limited in the amount of options I can pick especially vs the amount of options I have. (Altho having more options might wreck game balance.) (Also I could just play a damn shifter if I really want more options.)

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-09, 03:02 AM

squab

2015-07-09, 03:33 AM

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-09, 06:10 AM

Sadface. Also. I just broke down and got Expanded Options. Looking through Arcanist. Quick Study exploit. "As a full-round action that provokes an
attack of opportunity, the sphere arcanist may spend 1 point from her arcane reservoir to change one of her selected magic talents to a different magic talent." Does... does this mean that an Arcanist, instead of retraining a magic talent (and my magical talent I mean a magical talent gained as part of levels taken in other classes, as part of the 2 bonus talents all casters gain they first gain the casting class feature, or magic talents gained from taking the Extra Magic Talent) she could just spend an arcane point to swap it out to something out? That feels bonkers. SO bonkers.

(Yeah I'm really beginning to see why Arcanists are High-Casters that max out at 12 talents.)

The text specifically states that only magic talents gained through the Arcanist class progression can be swapped. So this excludes Extra Magic Talent as well talents gained from other classes. The two bonus all casters gain they first gain the casting class feature are not eligible, too, despite being part of the Arcanist progression as these two talents might be gained with a completely different class. In that case the order of the classes taken would matter. What hasn't been mentioned is if the bonus talents gained via favored class bonus are eligible for the swapping but I'm inclined to say that these do not count as well. Overall, if you want some swapping you need to take at least two Arcanist levels, gaining at most 10 talents which can be affected with Quick Study.

IMO, most people will likely go Incanter/Arcanist, to have access to more magic talents. The fixed talents are simply those which are useful in most situations, switching only to more specialized talents.

Scowling Dragon

2015-07-09, 08:01 AM

I would say its less of the fault of the design and more of the fault of the Arcanists. You gotta make rules for them, even if the class is popo, so you do what you can.

stack

2015-07-09, 08:30 AM

Telekinesis states that creatures you may lift are restricted by size, yet nowhere that I can find includes a chart for such. Do you use the Object chart for creatures? If so, then does that mean that Flight is difficult to pull off with telekinesis before caster level 8? I find it strange as Alteration allows for flight at caster level 5.

Do creatures count as dense material? Water is heavy (only slightly denser than the values I find for an average human body, so a good comparison), but water is about a seventh the density of cast iron, half the density of dense concrete, WAY less than gold. Water is about 1x10^3 kg/m^3, other densities pulled from here (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/density-solids-d_1265.html). Perhaps a reference point for 'less dense' would be helpful? I don't mean to include a chart, but it would be good to know if 'wood' or 'human body' count as 'lighter materials'.

Why yes, I am an engineer...why do you ask?

squab

2015-07-09, 12:50 PM

The text specifically states that only magic talents gained through the Arcanist class progression can be swapped. So this excludes Extra Magic Talent as well talents gained from other classes. The two bonus all casters gain they first gain the casting class feature are not eligible, too, despite being part of the Arcanist progression as these two talents might be gained with a completely different class. In that case the order of the classes taken would matter. What hasn't been mentioned is if the bonus talents gained via favored class bonus are eligible for the swapping but I'm inclined to say that these do not count as well. Overall, if you want some swapping you need to take at least two Arcanist levels, gaining at most 10 talents which can be affected with Quick Study.

IMO, most people will likely go Incanter/Arcanist, to have access to more magic talents. The fixed talents are simply those which are useful in most situations, switching only to more specialized talents.

You're absolutely correct on the talents gained from taking levels in arcanist and their whole "swapping them out after a long rest*" schtick. The only ones that can be changed after the Arcanist rests to regain her spell points are the spheres/talents gained from every second level in Arcanist. (You could make an argument that you can change out the spheres/talents gained from favored class bonus; this seems like a grey area RAW but given all the other restrictions on swapping out your spheres/talents after a long rest* I'd say RAI you can't.)

What isn't clear is if there are any restrictions on swapping out spheres/talents with Quick Study, since there aren't any restrictions mentioned in that exploit. Given that you could take the Quick Study exploit at level 1 (i.e. before you have any spheres/talents that are eligible to be reassigned after a long rest*) then at the very least, the spheres/talents gained from taking a level in a casting class for the first time can be changed with Quick Study. Given that the Quick Study exploit doesn't mention any restriction on what spheres/talents can be reassigned with it, and given that Quick Study clearly doesn't follow the same restrictions in reassignment as reassigning spheres/talents after a long rest,* it would seem that Quick Study, RAW, does not have any restrictions on what spheres/talents it can swap out. At the very least, a level dip in Arcanist would let you swap out the bonus two spheres/talents gained from taking levels in a spell casting class for the first time via Quick Study. (Since it definitely works like that if you start with Arcanist 1.)

*ok I'm pretty sure long rest is 5th ed terminology but it's also a lot less bulky to say "long rest" then it is to say "after the arcanist rests to restore her spell points" and I don't really wanna say 8 hour rest since not all races need 8 hours to get the benefit of an 8 hour rest

And this is why I'm asking the creator :P

squab

2015-07-09, 01:22 PM

Does boosting your caster level with Thaumaturge allow you to get extra traits when you cast Shapeshift, assuming it bumps you up to the next multiple of 5? (I think no but I wanna double check.) Are there other ways to boost your caster level such that you could get extra traits when you cast Shapeshift?

EDIT: Since I should stop making new posts... why does Bokor require the Advanced Magical Training feat? If it's the one from the build, it's the one that turns levels from a non-casting class into a low-casting class; considering you need probably minimum 8 levels in a full casting classes for it (and realistically you'll have 10 levels in full casting classes) why is this feat here? I also feel like, fluff-wise, bokor should give access to both arcane and divine spells.

stack

2015-07-09, 03:48 PM

I believe the only time the extra CL from forbidden lore doesn't apply is for conjuration companion level and controlled undead HD, though there is a feat for each. Those two are not affected by temporary CL, such as from items, boons, or forbidden lore, though the durations would be (so at level 1 forbidden lore gets your companion for LONGER, but not a more powerful companion, barring the feat).

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-09, 04:11 PM

What isn't clear is if there are any restrictions on swapping out spheres/talents with Quick Study, since there aren't any restrictions mentioned in that exploit.

I'd be very surprised if Quick Study can affect any magic talent which isn't part of the "every even Arcanist level" group. Otherwise the restriction on these talents is moot.

EDIT: Since I should stop making new posts... why does Bokor require the Advanced Magical Training feat? If it's the one from the build, it's the one that turns levels from a non-casting class into a low-casting class; considering you need probably minimum 8 levels in a full casting classes for it (and realistically you'll have 10 levels in full casting classes) why is this feat here? I also feel like, fluff-wise, bokor should give access to both arcane and divine spells.

A careful reading or the prereqs implies that you need Advanced Magical Training to be able access the prestige class at level 11 in the first place or you'd never be able to fulfill the caster level prereq (and that requires a full-casting core rule class as well).

stack

2015-07-09, 04:29 PM

As a side note, I believe the current max caster level possible is 20 level + 1 incanter specialization + 6 forbidden lore + 2 human thaumaturge FCB + 4 infernal pact thaumaturge +5 staff +6 boons = 44.

Gestalt with geomancer elementalist for a nice 50 CL.

squab

2015-07-09, 06:19 PM

I'd be very surprised if Quick Study can affect any magic talent which isn't part of the "every even Arcanist level" group. Otherwise the restriction on these talents is moot.

A careful reading or the prereqs implies that you need Advanced Magical Training to be able access the prestige class at level 11 in the first place or you'd never be able to fulfill the caster level prereq (and that requires a full-casting core rule class as well).

First point: you have, well, a point. I'm pretty sure I'm correct RAW but the DM (well host) of our RPG nights probably won't buy it for good reason. If Adam Meyers states that there should be restrictions on Quick Study I won't even try to get it past my group.

Second point:
Incanters get 5 talents at level 3 plus two bonus talents the first time they take levels in a sphere casting class, so they have 7 at level 3. Sorcerers and some other classes get 5th level spells at level 6, Clerics and Wizards get them at level 5. Sorcerers, Wizards and Clerics are also High Casters so I increase my caster level every time I level up in one of those classes. So worse case scenario, if I'm sticking to full casters, I have the spell and sphere prerequisites at level 9. (Sorcerer/Incanter.) I just need to wait until level 10 so I can put 10 ranks in Spellcraft and Knowledge (Arcana.)

In fact we need 7 magic talents total right? 2 talents for first level Incanter plus the bonus 2, become level 2 you've got 5 talents, spend your feat on a sixth, spend your wizard feat at 5th level to get a 7th. At level 7 I now have caster level 7 (because, again, Wizards, Clerics, etc are high casters), 7 talents spent on stuff and a third level arcane spell. Now I can use my human bonus feat to gain the useless Advanced Magical Training (and there's gotta be more then one way to get a bonus feat, are drawbacks available?), and the only thing stopping me from taking this class at level 7 is because I can't have more ranks in a skill then my total Hit Die. Wonder if there's any way in Pathfinder to get a 5th level spell before level 5? And I've still got feats to spare despite burning one on a useless prerequisite....
I could even do Sorcerer 6/Thumaturge 4, spend 3/4 feats on extra talents and the 4rth one on useless prerequisite feat.

I'm now wondering if there's a way for a full caster to get enough feats to qualify without dipping... the real question is, do I count as having levels in a spell casting class if that class is a Vancian wizard? The most logical conclusion I can come to is, no you don't count as having levels in a spell casting class (for the purposes of spheres of power) if you only have vancian magic, but those classes do increase your Caster Level. So assuming that, spend all my feats on spheres and basic magical training and advanced magical training, and I quality for Bokor at level 10 playing a pure wizard.

Now I've been very hard on the feat; it's a very useful feat, just not if you're playing High-Casters, and if you're playing a Bokor I'd expect you to. I mean the feat is only useful if you're playing a caster but for some reason decided to take a few levels in a class without any magic. (I.e. something that doesn't give you divine/arcane spells or spheres.)

@stack: how are you using forbidden lore to boost caster level? Why specifically human thaumaturge and what's FCB? What's Infernal Pact Thaumaturge and how does it boost more? How are boons getting up to +6? I can only see +5, and that's if you're out of spell points. I simply don't understand all of your last post and I'm trying to understand it.

stack

2015-07-09, 10:49 PM

Forbidden lore (did I screw the name up, could have the wrong name) boosts your caster level at the risk of backlash, costing you your action and applying harsh penalties. You can use it with any sphere ability, though temporary boosts like that don't impact conjuration companion HD or undead control caps. FCB is favored class bonus. In expanded options, the human FCB is increasing your forbidden lore bonus by 1/8, while also increasing your backlash chance. There is an archetype that lets you make pacts with outsiders for various benefits, one of which is an infernal pact that, at level 14, gives the ability to increase forbidden lore by 4 without rolling for backlash, but suffering it immediately after.

Boons might only get +5 total, at 0 SP and below 25% HP while fatiguing yourself, I am away from PDF so I can't check if the fatigue boon is +1 or 2.

As for being out of spell points, take the wand feat and use your new super caster level while the wand supplies the SP.

Geomancer is also an expanded options archetype, trading destruction for nature and getting CL boosts to the packages as you level in place of favored element.

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-10, 02:10 AM

Second point: How Bokor supposedly works.

You seem to misunderstand a lot of things. Firstly, only sphere caster level stack with themselves. Vancian caster levels stack only if specified as doing so, which is done only for prestige classes. So that means we need to level up in at least two classes. But let's have a closer look:

Skills: Knowledge (Arcana) 10 ranks, Spellcraft 10 ranks. You can't get that without having a character level of 10 at the minimum.
Spells: Able to cast 3rd-level arcane or divine spells. Only way I know is to do so with Cleric 5/Wizard 5 at the earliest.
Feats: Advanced Magic Training.Above statement results in adding 2 for the sphere caster level.
Spheres: A sphere magic caster level of at least 7, and possession of at least 7 magic talents (this may be one sphere with 6 talents, 7 spheres, or another combination). We only need a sphere caster level of 5 due to Advanced Magical Training, which is provided by any high-caster class which adds at least 1 magic talents every level (there are classes who only grant 20 talents now due to expanded options.).

Taking everything into account, the earliest way is e.g. Incanter 5/Cleric 5.

Crake

2015-07-10, 03:16 AM

squab

2015-07-10, 03:27 AM

You seem to misunderstand a lot of things. Firstly, only sphere caster level stack with themselves. Vancian caster levels stack only if specified as doing so, which is done only for prestige classes. So that means we need to level up in at least two classes. But let's have a closer look:

Skills: Knowledge (Arcana) 10 ranks, Spellcraft 10 ranks. You can't get that without having a character level of 10 at the minimum.
Spells: Able to cast 3rd-level arcane or divine spells. Only way I know is to do so with Cleric 5/Wizard 5 at the earliest.
Feats: Advanced Magic Training.Above statement results in adding 2 for the sphere caster level.
Spheres: A sphere magic caster level of at least 7, and possession of at least 7 magic talents (this may be one sphere with 6 talents, 7 spheres, or another combination). We only need a sphere caster level of 5 due to Advanced Magical Training, which is provided by any high-caster class which adds at least 1 magic talents every level (there are classes who only grant 20 talents now due to expanded options.).

Taking everything into account, the earliest way is e.g. Incanter 5/Cleric 5.

Hmm. You seem correct here. Looking at it further, the Basic Magical Talent feat in particular just doesn't really make any sense if we assume that Vancian wizards count as a "spellcasting class" within the realms of the Spheres of Power book. The problem is that the terminology that Spheres of Power uses to exclusively refer to Sphere-casters is the same terminology that in the rest of Pathfinder/D&D is used to refer to Wizards and other regular Vancian magic users. (Or at least that's what confused me.)

Also random thought, I kinda of want to try out a sphere-sorcerer, anyone have any good ideas on bloodlines? I feel like bloodlines will be more hit and miss then usual since anything that affects normal sorcerer casting is useless. (And I'm not an expert on sorcerer builds, but I feel like the most powerful bloodlines are bloodlines that positively affect your spellcasting and therefore are likely to be the ones recommended by optimizers?) And I somehow feel like this might have been mentioned before but is cross-blooded all upside now?

EDIT: Added context.

squab

2015-07-10, 04:20 AM

I don't know if this has been answered already in this thread, or elsewhere, but how would you facilitate the learning/casting of vancian spells with spherecasting? I've mused at the idea of the spell costing a number of spellpoints equal to the spell level (possibly minimum 1 for cantrips). I may have missed the bit where spheres integrates vancian spells if it's in the book, if so, could anyone direct me to it's location in the book?

Uhhh... half the point of Spheres of Power is to replace the vancian system. A huge flaw in the vancian system is at low levels you basically don't have enough spells to actually act like a mage (when you're supposed to be a mage and spend 80% of combat shooting something with a crossbow because that's your most effective option somethings gone wrong) and a lot of high level spells solve problems in a way that mundanes can't come close to matching.

The closest thing spheres of powers has to integrating vancian spells is the ritual system. Instead of casting stuff in a round, you cast it as a ritual with increasingly high times as spell level goes up. A 9th level spell, by default, is a two day ritual that takes 2500 GP worth of material.

Scowling Dragon

2015-07-10, 07:29 AM

As much as I agree with Squab, I also do have a theoretical system:

You can spend a talent to unlock a single "Spell Level" of a single spell school.

So a Wizard with 5 talents could spend them to purchase 2 levels of abjuration, and 3 levels of necromancy.

But honestly use rituals. This Sphere system is much more fair.

Crake

2015-07-10, 10:23 PM

Uhhh... half the point of Spheres of Power is to replace the vancian system. A huge flaw in the vancian system is at low levels you basically don't have enough spells to actually act like a mage (when you're supposed to be a mage and spend 80% of combat shooting something with a crossbow because that's your most effective option somethings gone wrong) and a lot of high level spells solve problems in a way that mundanes can't come close to matching.

The closest thing spheres of powers has to integrating vancian spells is the ritual system. Instead of casting stuff in a round, you cast it as a ritual with increasingly high times as spell level goes up. A 9th level spell, by default, is a two day ritual that takes 2500 GP worth of material.

While I understand that spheres of power can replace vancian casting, I see no reason why they cannot co-exist. I can understand how rituals might replace a more utility-type spell, but what about something like color spray, or web? These kinds of spells I feel are much better represented by spellcrafting.

In my game I'm looking to have spherecasters represent the more raw, innate kind of magic user, vs the vancian caster being more of an analytical, almost scientific kind of caster, one who understands the minute details of magic and can combine them to create very specific effects (as vancian magic is able to do). What I want is a way to represent an innate (sphere) caster learning some more specific magic kinds. Spending a number of magical talets equal to the spell level you want to learn seems like a bit much, though in the context of no vancian casting, I can see how it would make sense if you feel that vancian spells are really powerful.

In the absense of any other ideas, I'm going to go with spending a feat or talent to learn a spell of which you have an appropriately related sphere, max equal to (CL/2)-1, allowing for 9th level spells at CL 20.

Edit: Upon re-reading Scowling Dragon's post, I realise he said spend a number of talents to unlock entire schools of magic of level equal to number of talents spent. I don't particularly like that idea, it opens up way too much at once.

Scowling Dragon

2015-07-10, 11:08 PM

Well the main problem of regular magic is just how unlimited it is. Except for the Wizards paltry limitation of two schools, even a necromancer will learn every single kind of spell.

Whilst this version limits you much more to a theme you specialize in.

Slavezero

2015-07-11, 01:50 AM

hello had a question about destruction energy focus. if you got say energy focus fire could you still use the basic Destructive Blast to do blunt damage or can you only use fire blast?

EDIT: i had another question is there a chain form for the destruction sphere? i want to make something like chain lightning but can't find it

ANOTHER EDIT: would an incanter who gets domains get a bonus sphere and the extra talents with that sphere like a cleric would?

Adam Meyers

2015-07-11, 05:21 PM

@Federebus:
1. I apologize for that oversight; it's a line effect, so it effects a 5'ft square in width. However, in my games I'd allow someone to double the width by halving the length, applicable as many times as appropriate.

2. You can step into and appear out of the same darkness effect.

3. There is no RAW for quickening an effect, but it's not hard to add an appropriate weather talent:

Quicken Weather
You may spend an additional spell point to hasten the effects of your control weather; rather than altering the severity one level per round, the full effects of your control weather happen immediately. The weather's severity still returns to normal one level per round.

4. I'd treat the objects as flying creatures.

@squab:
1. Greater Transformation can only be taken once, as it get out of hand if you have limitless traits (especially when you add in staves and thaumaturges who can already break the 'cap' on trait limits). If your GM is ok with it you could take it multiple times, but as a rule it's once-only.

2. That exploit should only work with the talents gained as part of the class; i.e., the ones they can swap around after resting to regain spell points. talents gained as favored class bonuses would count as talents gained from the class.

@stack: wood and people would count as a dense material for the telekinesis sphere (which is more based on size than density), but not as a dense material for the falling damage listed under the Creation sphere (which is more based on density than size). We referenced rules from all over Pathfinder when making our own, and sometimes the detailed inconsistancies transfered over, I apologize.

@squab:

1. Yeah, thaumaturges would get extra traits. Staves would do the same thing.

2. It allows your non-sphere casting classes (aka., you spell-casting classes) to add caster levels to your sphere-casting CL. The class can be taken once you have 5 levels of spellcasting (for 3rd level spells) and 5 levels of a high-casting sphere class, provided you have the Advanced Magical Training feat (which gives me +2 CL to my sphere-casting).

@Crake: You can always be a spellcaster who takes basic magic training to gain spheres, and there are some feats that help with integration of the two systems if you're a cross-class caster, but otherwise yea, the spellcrafting system is the way to go.

I'd use the following system if you want to quick-convert spells into spellcrafting:

Use the rules for research, development, or copying a spell from a spellbook as if it were a ritual, but treat them as Spellcrafting as far as how many you can have memorized at a time. Use the spell's level divided by 2 (minimum: 1) to find the cost in spell points to cast the spell. It's not an exact duplication (custom spellcraftings will usually have a higher casting time but a lower cost) but balance-wise it shouldn't be a problem.

@Slavezero: The energy focus drawback prohibits you from making any destructive blasts other than your chosen element. That being said, you can always spend a magic talent to remove the drawback and regain the other forms of destructive blast.

There is no chain-talent, but it shouldn't be hard to create one.

An incanter wouldn't only get the domain's powers, not its associated spheres or talents.

stack

2015-07-11, 06:33 PM

Can you enlarge a fire you are wielding with fire wielder? I expect no, since it seems to only apply to normally sustained fires.

How does moving flying creatures work with hostile telekinesis? Do you move them on your turn, then hey still fly on theirs?

About the densities, your answer is what I expected, just wanted clarification since I thought of it. I find these answers handy for quoting in my handbook, and I plan on writing more.

That weather talent needs to be made official in your next publication. Do it, do it now!:smalltongue:

MesiDoomstalker

2015-07-11, 08:21 PM

If a Sphere Caster has an Orange Prism Ioun Stone, what benefit does it bestow? Increase his Caster Level, I presume, but Spehre's CL is different and more powerful than Vancian's CL.

Additionally, if a Sphere Caster has the Focus Casting Tradition, choosing some kind of weapon (say a Quarterstaff) as his focus. If that weapon is enchanted as a magical weapon (say a +1 for argument's sake). This doesn't affect his Sphere Casting (positive or negative) in anyway right?

Scowling Dragon

2015-07-12, 02:26 PM

Im making an ooze form for the Alteration sphere. Im basing some of the abilities off of the Ooze form from Deep magic (As a starting point).

I think it would work well based off of the elemental form but I run into issues of the exact implementation. My idea is to split the Ooze types into 3 groups: Hunter, Splitter, Absorber.

But Im not sure which abilities to make applicable to the whole group, and which abilities to make group unique. Here is what I have so far:

Ooze Transformation

You may spend an additional spell point to grant the form of a Ooze with your shapeshift.

A Ooze’s body is mutable, additional limbs or natural attacks cannot be added to this form through traits, though this does grant the target the Compression ability.

The target gains a 15 ft move speed and a 25% ability to ignore critical hits and precision damage, which increases by 25% per 5 caster levels to a maximum of 100%. The target also gains DR/Bludgeoning equal to the caster level.

The target gains 2 slam attacks (Primary, 1d6, 1d4 small) that deal an additional 1D6 acid damage on a hit, natural armor equal to 2 +1 per 5 caster levels, and one of the following packages depending on which Ooze is being mimicked:

Hunter, Splitter, Absorber,

Hunter:
Your gain an overland, climb, and a swim speed of 20ft +5 per 5 caster levels, as well as the Constrict (1D6, 1D4 small+1D6 acid+1 die per every 10 caster levels) special ability.

Splitter:
You gain the split special ability (ex): Whenever a slashing or piercing attack bypasses your damage resistance, you split into two beings both with half your HP (Round down). One contains your intelligence, whilst the other is mindless. The mindless being will attack aggressors, and then attempt to eat any organic looking material in the area. When the spell ends all the duplicates melt into nothing, and all split HP is lost this way expect for the duplicates that are adjacent to you.

Absorber:
You deal an additional die of acid damage with your attacks +1 per every 5 caster levels. Creatures or objects striking you also take that acid damage unless they can succeed on a reflex save of 10+1 every 2 caster levels. Lastly you gain the engulf ability. The DC for the engulf ability is 10+1 every 5 caster levels as well as the targets strength modifier. Engulfed creatures are pinned and begin suffocating, and are subject to the users acid damage until they are no longer pinned. If the spell ends before the creature escapes the pin, it is harmlessly released from the pin in a square adjacent to you.

You may also grant the following traits to your forms:
Elemental Resistance to acid equal to your caster level.
The Compression Trait
Transparency: Perception Difficulty 15, +1 every other caster level

Any editing suggestions?

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-13, 01:38 AM

I'm trying to find a Paladin replacement, and so far the Mageknight archetypes Dragoon and Warrior of the Holy Knight come the closest, but it seems that they can't be combined. Any alternative for getting a mount like that? Employ the Summoning feat? Use the Animal Companion feat (can't remember its name)?

stack

2015-07-13, 06:10 AM

Animal ally. Comes online at level 5 but you still need boon companion to get the HD up. Need nature soul first, so three feats total.

stack

2015-07-13, 10:45 AM

Air blast specifies that CMB equals CL + caster mod, but that doesn't mention other bonuses. Do size, improved/greater bull rush feats, gauntlets of the skilled maneuvers, etc apply to air blast? The size difference adds up to +8 on your check (effective size colossal, huge from alteration size change, + 1 effective size change via martial training feats to get primal warrior stance (or other source)).

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-13, 02:20 PM

Animal ally. Comes online at level 5 but you still need boon companion to get the HD up. Need nature soul first, so three feats total.

Thanks for looking this up!:smallsmile:

stack

2015-07-13, 03:02 PM

Thanks for looking this up!:smallsmile:

I did just the other day for my elementalist handbook, so it was fresh.

Hmm, Alteration makes for scary mooks. Any level 1 medium character with decent strength, using size change gets a good area of control and a nice strength boost for good damage/CMB.

Ironsides

2015-07-15, 02:56 PM

Supposing you have the Weather Sphere and have taken Storm Lord twice, do you need to spend an action to direct the lightning or is it considered a free action? The text doesn't specify what it is or I have missed where it says otherwise.

Ssalarn

2015-07-15, 03:24 PM

I'm trying to find a Paladin replacement, and so far the Mageknight archetypes Dragoon and Warrior of the Holy Knight come the closest, but it seems that they can't be combined.

When Dragoon and Warrior of Holy Light were originally written, Dragoon traded one of the bonus spell talents all casters get instead of resist magic with the intent to keep the two compatible. While that changed in the final version, I'd suggest swapping those trades back and combining the two for a true paladin replacement.

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-15, 04:14 PM

When Dragoon and Warrior of Holy Light were originally written, Dragoon traded one of the bonus spell talents all casters get instead of resist magic with the intent to keep the two compatible. While that changed in the final version, I'd suggest swapping those trades back and combining the two for a true paladin replacement.

Thanks for that tip! But what was the reason for this change? Is the animal companion too powerful to be traded for merely a single talent? Personally, compatible archetypes allow for more mixing, so this make me sad.

stack

2015-07-16, 08:39 AM

I suspect the reason is that trading one of the universal +2 talents would work oddly with the system when multiclassing into mageknight from another class.

Hmm, seems like spheres would work pretty well for Dresden-verse magic. Interesting...

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-16, 08:48 AM

I suspect the reason is that trading one of the universal +2 talents would work oddly with the system when multiclassing into mageknight from another class.

I suppose one fix would be to optionally allow to trade mount against another feature of a later level, which also would mean that the mount comes online later as well.

BTW, does this trading of "resist magic" completely remove this feature or just the first level one?

stack

2015-07-16, 09:29 AM

I suppose one fix would be to optionally allow to trade mount against another feature of a later level, which also would mean that the mount comes online later as well.

BTW, does this trading of "resist magic" completely remove this feature or just the first level one?

If it said "replaces the increase to resist magic at level (x)" it would only be that level, but resist magic itself is a feature that grants a scaling bonus, so replacing the features replaces all of it.

PsyBomb

2015-07-16, 09:40 AM

Hmm, seems like spheres would work pretty well for Dresden-verse magic. Interesting...

If someone were to run this, I'd join in about 12 seconds.

stack

2015-07-16, 10:27 AM

If someone were to run this, I'd join in about 12 seconds.

Don't tempt me man. There's no way I can wrap my head around the layers and levels of schemes required to have Dresden-verse fey around.

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-16, 11:17 AM

If it said "replaces the increase to resist magic at level (x)" it would only be that level, but resist magic itself is a feature that grants a scaling bonus, so replacing the features replaces all of it.

So an alternative way to access the feature would in theory require 5 feats. Considering we can get an animal companion for three feats this seems quite expensive. :\

stack

2015-07-16, 11:49 AM

Not all features are necessarily equal in feat value, obviously. Steel soul (dwarf only) is pretty equivalent to resist magic +2, so +5 is kinda-sort 2.5 feats. Note that the value of a feat is hard to estimate, given the variance in how good different feats are.

Ssalarn

2015-07-16, 12:14 PM

I suspect the reason is that trading one of the universal +2 talents would work oddly with the system when multiclassing into mageknight from another class.

Yeah, that'd be a big factor. I tried rewriting Dragoon like 20 different ways trying to get a version that gave you a mount at a reasonable level and was compatible with as many other archetypes as possible. I suspect that ultimately, Adam deemed the crazy contortions not worth the effort and red-penned it down to the final version for simplicity's sake.

The bonus talent fix works for straight-classed Mageknights, but stack is correct that it'll get a bit wonky if you start with another spherecasting class and multiclass over to MK.

Trisagon

2015-07-16, 12:35 PM

Do Incanter's Channel energy Specialization and Soul Weaver's Channel energy stack? Imagine an Incanter 5/ Soul Weaver 5, does he get 6d6 Channel energy or 2 separate 3d6 Channel Energy pool, like what happens when multiclassing Paladin and Cleric, since they dont stack?

Mithril Leaf

2015-07-16, 01:45 PM

Don't tempt me man. There's no way I can wrap my head around the layers and levels of schemes required to have Dresden-verse fey around.

I am also going to tempt you as I finished the whole series for the first time a matter of days ago. Having started 12 days earlier. It's good stuff.

EDIT: Seelie Disciple with a talent or two into Nature for plant growth would be really fun.

EldritchWeaver

2015-07-16, 01:48 PM

Yeah, that'd be a big factor. I tried rewriting Dragoon like 20 different ways trying to get a version that gave you a mount at a reasonable level and was compatible with as many other archetypes as possible. I suspect that ultimately, Adam deemed the crazy contortions not worth the effort and red-penned it down to the final version for simplicity's sake.

The bonus talent fix works for straight-classed Mageknights, but stack is correct that it'll get a bit wonky if you start with another spherecasting class and multiclass over to MK.

This might be really crazy, but why don't you instead trade the magic talent you get at the second level? That slot is unused so far.

Ssalarn

2015-07-16, 01:55 PM

This might be really crazy, but why don't you instead trade the magic talent you get at the second level? That slot is unused so far.

I think that part of the thought process there was that you end up going like 3 levels without learning any new talents, so you've basically got a cantrip as one of your core class features. I guess it would be pretty well balanced, actually, but it's a long time to go without being able to modify your starting casting abilities.

But yeah, I think that would be a really good substitution prereq for the Dragoon if you want to combo it with Warrior of Holy Light for a real mounted Paladin feel.

Mithril Leaf

2015-07-16, 05:47 PM

With regards to the Sphere Magus, do they possess the ability to use arcane pool recovery to gain spell points? Such as through the Bladebound's Transfer Arcana ability.

Adam Meyers

2015-07-18, 03:23 AM

I apologize for disappearing for so long; I've been finishing up Worlds of Power and the Skybourne races, and finishing tweaks always consume my attention.

@stack: You can't enlarge it, but you can have both uses of Fire Wielder active at once if you want to go all-out flame.

If you are maintaining the hostile lift effect and the flying creature does not make their Will save, they cannot move.

@MesiDoomstalker: Considering the stone costs $30,000 gp, I'd allow it. It's a bit more powerful than it is in Core, but not so much so that I think an adjustment is required, or at least that's my impression off the top of my head.

And while it is possible to enchant an item as both a weapon and a staff, enhancing a focus item as a weapon does not affect casting by itself, no.

@Scowling Dragon: Personally, I'd remove the natural armor; that's not really ooze's style. In exchange, I think you could give it another ability; I'd say grab.

I haven't done the balancing exercises of course, but I think it should work.

@EldritchWeaver: I'd go Warrior of Holy Light and Conjuration sphere; you can have a mount, or an angel companion if you'd prefer.

@stack: size wouldn't affect anything, but I allow related feats to affect it, yeah.

@Ironsides: Guiding the lightning would be a free action.

@EldritchWeaver: That alternate trade works, yeah; right before publication I'm always making tweaks here and there if I feel like something's off, and honestly I can't tell you why that got changed.

Trading resist magic removes the whole ability.

@Trisagon: That's a Pathfinder question; I believe the general rule is they do not stack, so you'd end up with two channel energy pools at a weaker power level rather than one pool at a combined power level.

@Mithril Leaf: I have not tested that, but tentatively yes?

Mathias1313

2015-07-18, 10:39 AM

Ok, so ever since I got Spheres of power I have loved it. I use it as much as possible in any of the games I DM.
Having said that I have found that a lot of the abilities need clarification or aren't quite as good as they should be. I have included my thought below.

Alteration:
-You should be able to add more traits than 1 + 1/5 lvls. So at 20th lvl I can add 5 traits to someone?
Also I think you should be able to maintain Shapeshift on yourself as concentration as a swift action, or there should be a feat or trait that allows you to do so. I can understand you having to maintain concentration on others but it should be easier in yourself.
Also when you are concentrating on maintaining an ability can it be disrupted by being attack like concentrating on a normal Spell. If so I think you should change that or make a trait that eliminates it.

Conjuration:
-Adv talent: There should be a specification on what you can Summon with the Summoning talent. Such as HD limit. Something that give a better idea of what your capable of doing.

Creation:
-Adv Talent
-Fleshcraft- Loves this ability but how do you choose its Str, Dex and Con? Do you roll like normal? point Buy? Craft check? I think you should be able to craft the ability scores, maybe costing Spell points and high craft checks?

Death:
Adv Talent
-Summon Spirit- Clarification is needed here. I love that I can use this to turn my party into undead. But as it is written if I put my 10th lvl fighter friends body into 10HD Ogre fast zombie then he loses all his class lvls as per "creature may recover or gain class levels over time, but loses at least 1 level per Hit Die of its new form" However as per this post http://www.dropdeadstudios.com/forum/#/20150502/summon-spirit-advanced-talent-and-pcs-4747447/
it is implied the reverse, that my class lvl overwrites the HD. Which is it?

Destruction:
-I think there should be a Talent that Allows you to use your destructive blast as part of a full attack but lowers your caster lvl by half when doing so and doesnt work when combined with a Blast type that changes the area of the blast. This would give you options in combat other than "Standard action Smash".

Enhancement:
-Animate Object- So if I animate an Opponents weapon to become an Animate object then they have to make a Ref save as long as they hold the item and if they Make it, they use the item as normal? If they fail, their turn is wasted? Is that correct? Then if they drop the item it functions as a normal Animate object correct?
-Adv talents
- Why is there no Permanent Enhancement Talent? I would have thought of all the spheres this would be the one that needs it most. Especially in regards to creating Magic items.

Protection:
-Spell ward- Since this affects all magic affects in range I would assume if affects mine as well, Correct? Can I choose to fail the roll to suppress an item to allow mine and my companions effects to continue working?
-Adv Talent
-Anti-Magic Aura - I suppose this question applies to the Spell-ward as well. Since I can create a Ward so small it only covers me, dose that mean that I can create an Anti-magic Aura or Spell-Ward that only affects others abilities or would it still affect me?

Telekinesis:
-Bludgeon- If i understand this correctly, as a standard action i pick up an object and move it my 20ft +5ft/5 caster lvl make an attack with?
It says I have to move the object into the opponents Square... why is that? I ask because dosent that provoke an attack of opportunity?
-Why is there no talent or feat that allows you to use your Caster lvl instead of Bab when making an attack. Not having this makes pure casters suck when using telekinesis.
-Steal and Telekinetic Maneuver: Why is there a Will save as well as a CMB check? Why is the CMB check at -5. Having both these requirements makes these abilities almost useless. Also, for the CMB check, do I use any other bonuses I might have to the Maneuvers, such as from size, feats, or traits? because as it is worded right it seems you only get Caster lvl + Casting stat -5 which puts you significantly behind any equal lvl CMD.

I suppose my biggest problem is that Telekinesis uses its normal BaB instead of caster lvl and that concentrating on the Sphere powers can by disrupted by being attacked. That makes for problems with low lvl casting.
I gotta say too that I was highly disappointed with the Telekinetic Warrior Archetype. Looks more like they traded some abilities for some arbitrary +'s that don't really do anything useful. When I think of a telekinetic warrior so many cool things come to mind.

I apologise if any of this comes off as Harsh, that is not my intention. I truly love Spheres of Power, I think it just needs some tweeking.