Spheres of Power: Divination Handbook Open Beta

[Mehangel]

Drop Dead Studios (http://www.dropdeadstudios.com/) is producing a series of expansions for the Spheres of Power (http://paizo.com/products/btpy96pr?Spheres-of-Power) alternate magic system, each expanding upon a single sphere. I am the author working on the Divination sphere. I would appreciate any feedback on the handbook, and so like Stack (author of the destruction handbook), I have come to you, and so with no further ado, I present to you:

The Divination Handbook (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ms0B319YXDQrJQeI4dVcsYWAQEHUlzLXCuee88d1qFE/edit?usp=sharing)

[stack]

You have the psionic tag on a feat that you don't have to be psionic to benefit from, clairvoyant synergy. I believe you have to have the psionic subtype to take psionic feats.

Also, congrats on hitting beta!

[Mehangel]

You have the psionic tag on a feat that you don't have to be psionic to benefit from, clairvoyant synergy. I believe you have to have the psionic subtype to take psionic feats.

Also, congrats on hitting beta!

Fixing now, thanks for the catch.

[A.J.Gibson]

I've only started reading; is there an equivalent to Moment of Prescience?

Also, I think you need some more combat applications, thing like: make an attack, if it fails, spend a spell point to cancel it and attack someone else instead. Some sort of 'find weakness' ability would be good to: spend a spell point to overcome DR, for example. Or something like the Death's Shot deed Gunslingers get. And maybe a talent to give you an initiative bonus?

[Saidoro]

I'm really not seeing any non-abusive applications for divine irony. Any information it does give you is pretty much just the result of your GM purposely contorting dialogue to throw you a bone for picking it, the sorts of things it works on really don't come up all that often naturally.

Detect teleportation should maybe work within the last 11 or 15 minutes so that you can actually slow cast it if you were present at the time the teleportation was cast? Also, I'm not sure it needs to be an advanced talent, it doesn't really do anything huge unless advanced talents were already in play.

Keen scent definitely does not need to be an advanced talent.

You may be underestimating the value of the mount class feature on the blind swordsman, even suboptimal animal companions like horses are pretty dang useful.

Looking at the Eldritch Knowledge feature on Eldritch Cultist, the way I'm reading it is that in order to pay for the two bonus talents you temporarily lose access to the first level invocations for levels 1 and 2 but then regain them at 3 and suffer no penalties from then on out. Is this correct?

Familiar concentration is probably too powerful. A whole extra free spell maintained at once is pretty significant.

Hope these help. :)

[Prime32]

Needs a monk/rogue/etc. archetype for making ludicrously precise attacks that do weird things (think Shatterpoints (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shatterpoint), Hokuto Shinken (http://hokuto.wikia.com/wiki/Hokuto_Shin_Ken) or Mystic Eyes of Death Perception (http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Mystic_Eyes_of_Death_Perception)). Maybe a rogue who can sneak attack anything up to and including objects and spell effects, can feint more quickly and uses Perception instead of Bluff, and can choose for things he sneak attacks to explode. Or a monk who specialises in Stunning Fist and can use it to remove any condition he could normally inflict, like that Pressure Point Strike feat from Dragon magazine.


The Blind Swordsman archetype could use some mechanics that encourage you to keep your eyes closed - e.g. give them a continuous blindfolded oracle effect that turns off for the next 8 hours if they ever open their eyes. For that matter, this archetype seems like a good place for blindfolded oracle to get a scaling increase to range. A sidebar with rules on playing a blind character also seems appropriate (including clarifications like "if you were born blind, then a simple remove blindness/deafness spell can't fix it", and noting that you're immune to gaze attacks and can't use scrolls or activate magic traps triggered by reading).


Finally, his blind swordsman levels count as fighter levels and stack with any fighter levels he may possess.This is badly worded. Unless you wanted to grant double class features. :smalltongue:

[stack]

For divine destruction, you could maybe detect the lingering auras from blast types used in the last (hours/days/whatever) to let you know what type of blasts they can toss out? Just a thought.

[EldritchWeaver]

Familiar concentration is probably too powerful. A whole extra free spell maintained at once is pretty significant.

Let's compare it with the Easy Focus boon. It costs two general drawbacks and requires a move action from the caster. It still allows the familiar to act as before. Familiar Concentration kills basically familiar actions, but still grants the move action. Hmm, it is extremely good. I'd say most people would spend a feat to get the benefit, instead of getting saddled with the drawbacks. Not sure how to fix it. Maybe still require swift actions from the caster, so he can't have three spells active in the same round?

[A.J.Gibson]

For divine destruction, you could maybe detect the lingering auras from blast types used in the last (hours/days/whatever) to let you know what type of blasts they can toss out? Just a thought.

Or maybe detect elements, since the destruction sphere is very much the elemental sphere?

[Saidoro]

Let's compare it with the Easy Focus boon. It costs two general drawbacks and requires a move action from the caster. It still allows the familiar to act as before. Familiar Concentration kills basically familiar actions, but still grants the move action. Hmm, it is extremely good. I'd say most people would spend a feat to get the benefit, instead of getting saddled with the drawbacks. Not sure how to fix it. Maybe still require swift actions from the caster, so he can't have three spells active in the same round?

Familiar concentration is actually stronger, maintaining concentration prevents you from casting spells; having your familiar do it would not.

[stack]

Familiar concentration is actually stronger, maintaining concentration prevents you from casting spells; having your familiar do it would not.

With errata to SoP concentrating on a sphere effect does not prevent casting provided you have the actions to do so.

[Abithrios]

I have not read all of the way through the document, but I do have one comment so far, concerning divine force. At least in the real world, diamonds are not actually super dense. Diamond has a density of 3.515 grams per cubic centimeter, less than half that of iron (7.874 grams per cubic centimeter), which is in the merely Dense category.

[AmberVael]

The density table seems to be largely copied from the table I made for the telekinetic handbook. Diamond is new though - and yeah, it definitely falls into the 'dense' category.

I feel compelled to note that the density table on its own is not really complete. You definitely need to specify that it assumes natural packing, otherwise some of the categories and examples don't make sense - for instance, snow can have a very wide range of densities depending on how packed it is. This is a necessary clarification.

[Mehangel]

Okay, first off I want to apologize for not responding to all your comments earlier, I was busy moving into a new house.


I've only started reading; is there an equivalent to Moment of Prescience?
See Divine Future (divine) found in Spheres of Power, page 28.

Also, I think you need some more combat applications, thing like: make an attack, if it fails, spend a spell point to cancel it and attack someone else instead.
I will see about adding a talent, or maybe even a feat like this.

Some sort of 'find weakness' ability would be good to: spend a spell point to overcome DR, for example. Or something like the Death's Shot deed Gunslingers get.
I will look into these, no promises ofcourse.

And maybe a talent to give you an initiative bonus?
See Foreshadow (sense) found in Spheres of Power, page 28.

I'm really not seeing any non-abusive applications for divine irony. Any information it does give you is pretty much just the result of your GM purposely contorting dialogue to throw you a bone for picking it, the sorts of things it works on really don't come up all that often naturally.
I am thinking about removing it myself, someone suggested it and I thought I would humour them and put it up and see what sort of responses I would get from others.

Detect teleportation should maybe work within the last 11 or 15 minutes so that you can actually slow cast it if you were present at the time the teleportation was cast? Also, I'm not sure it needs to be an advanced talent, it doesn't really do anything huge unless advanced talents were already in play.
I have made changes to the talent so that the time it can be cast later. As for it being an advanced talent, some games revolve around having the BBEG teleporting away. If such is the case, by making this an advanced talent, you can keep the game intact without too much effort on the gm's part by simply not approving the talent.

Keen scent definitely does not need to be an advanced talent
Fixed Keen Scent, by implementing similiar to Blindfolded Oracle.

You may be underestimating the value of the mount class feature on the blind swordsman, even suboptimal animal companions like horses are pretty dang useful.
While it is true that the mount is a very useful class feature, this archetype is made to make a very specific character concept possible.

Looking at the Eldritch Knowledge feature on Eldritch Cultist, the way I'm reading it is that in order to pay for the two bonus talents you temporarily lose access to the first level invocations for levels 1 and 2 but then regain them at 3 and suffer no penalties from then on out. Is this correct?
Yes

Familiar concentration is probably too powerful. A whole extra free spell maintained at once is pretty significant
I am working on adding additional hinderances to make it a bit more restrictive and balanced, but as you probably have noticed it is inspired by a 3.5 feat

Hope these help. :)
All the input is very much appreciated.

Needs a monk/rogue/etc. archetype for making ludicrously precise attacks that do weird things (think Shatterpoints, Hokuto Shinken or Mystic Eyes of Death Perception).
The mind sphere handbook is going to include this, so stay tuned.

Maybe a rogue who can sneak attack anything up to and including objects and spell effects, can feint more quickly and uses Perception instead of Bluff, and can choose for things he sneak attacks to explode.
The illusion sphere handbook will include several neat tricks for rogues and feinting.

Or a monk who specialises in Stunning Fist and can use it to remove any condition he could normally inflict, like that Pressure Point Strike feat from Dragon magazine.
The life sphere handbook has a monk archetype that does this.

The Blind Swordsman archetype could use some mechanics that encourage you to keep your eyes closed - e.g. give them a continuous blindfolded oracle effect that turns off for the next 8 hours if they ever open their eyes. For that matter, this archetype seems like a good place for blindfolded oracle to get a scaling increase to range.
I will look into this

A sidebar with rules on playing a blind character also seems appropriate (including clarifications like "if you were born blind, then a simple remove blindness/deafness spell can't fix it", and noting that you're immune to gaze attacks and can't use scrolls or activate magic traps triggered by reading).
Definitely doing this.

For divine destruction, you could maybe detect the lingering auras from blast types used in the last (hours/days/whatever) to let you know what type of blasts they can toss out? Just a thought.
So something like, "If you possess the Destruction sphere, you may divine[i] destruction sphere effects; The aura of such effects lingers as if its aura strength was one category stronger and you gain a bonus on spellcraft checks to identify its properties equal to 1/2 your caster level (minimum 1)"

Or maybe detect elements, since the destruction sphere is very much the elemental sphere?
So something like "If you possess the Destruction sphere, you may [i]divine for elemental creatures and creatures with an element subtype. Element subtypes include: Air, Cold, Earth and Fire." After typing it up, I think the issue with this idea is that the Alternate Divination Divine Unnaturals, found in Spheres of Power, page 27 already divines for Outsiders and Aberrations, which covers all elementals.

I have not read all of the way through the document, but I do have one comment so far, concerning divine force. At least in the real world, diamonds are not actually super dense. Diamond has a density of 3.515 grams per cubic centimeter, less than half that of iron (7.874 grams per cubic centimeter), which is in the merely Dense category.
Yeah, I grabbed the table from the telekinetic handbook, for some reason I thought diamonds were actually very dense. Fixing it now.