Spheres of Power

[sammyp03]

Hello, I recently picked up a copy of SoP and was wondering how easy it is to implement and if you have ran it, do you or your players like it better than the traditional spell casting?

[Extra Anchovies]

From what I've read and seen of it, mid- and low-casters have trouble being effective (or at least the mid- and low-caster archetypes for non-SoP-native classes, like the Bard or Ranger, do), so I don't recommend it as a mandatory replacement for vancian casting.

However, full-casters work just fine with it, and requiring them to use their Spheres archetypes is a good way to balance the game without banning them outright.

[MesiDoomstalker]

I will mimic the call for not forcing the casting. Full casters get nerfed down to something reasonable, but thoroughly fun, enjoyable and on par with most others. I will clarify that the Low and Mid Casters presented in SoP were designed with the system in mind and fare much better than a Sphere Bard. I'd also note the sheer number of options a Sphere's caster (especially a Sphere's class from SoP) is very daunting. I've sat down half a dozen times to try and digest through it all and I'm still flipping back through to know what my 5th level Incanter's Magic Talents do. So a healthy dose of patience and willingness to adjudicate on the fly or book flipping to remember what everything does.

A few things I've seen; its easy to Nova your Spell Points, especially in mid-to-high levels. This is because most Spheres classes gain more and more options for Spell Points as the level (in the way of newer, better class abilities, more Talents and more Metamagic feats). I'd caution your players to ration those spell points out wisely throughout the adventuring day. Inversely, at low levels (pre-5, by my estimate) they will have an excess of spell points. Most Talents which cost a point to cease concentration aren't worth it (1-3 rounds isn't really worth the cost) and unless they grabbed Quicken Spell or liberal use of Destruction Sphere and Empower, probably don't have ways to nova their points off yet. Specifically, I only used 3 Spell Points going from 1 to 2 (3 sessions, probably about 8 encounters) and maybe 10 between 2 and 3 (similar timeframe).

Other things to consider depends on what your player's grab for their talents. The Warp Sphere is particularly interesting. It gives out At-Will, Short-Range LOS only Teleportation, which negates a fair number of low level terrain obstacles. Due to the range and requiring line of sight, its pretty easy to design around though (until they take the power that lets them ignore LoS with appropriate risks).

[Mehangel]

Is it easy to implement, I would have to say yes, everyone in the party (four of us) who had never played with spheres of power found it easy to understand. Only one of the party members wasnt too fond of it, saying that he did not like that when you chose a sphere or talent you were stuck with it. (We just homebrewed a Boon that allowed him to trade out upto half his Talents each day, but made it require 4 general drawbacks instead of the usual 2). He was happy with that. As for what was said earlier about mid and low casters, I will add the following: my character in the game was a bard who focused only in the Life and War Spheres (Started at Level 5, now we are Level 7) and I will say that my bard has no problem buffing or healing the party as necessary. I am particularly fond of the Invigorating Totem from the War Sphere. As for Low-Casters from Core? Spheres of Power in my opinion made a mistake of not giving the Ranger, Paladin, etc the Low-casting progression of the Armorist. And houserule that they cast as such. But other than that, it works great.

[Scowling Dragon]

Only one of the party members wasnt too fond of it, saying that he did not like that when you chose a sphere or talent you were stuck with it.

Take Arcanists. In expanded options they can switch around allot of their Talents.

Also Retraining if you wish.