Spheres of Power: Life Handbook Open Beta

[A.J.Gibson]

After the original was withdrawn several months ago, the new version of the Life handbook has gone into playtesting:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wTv7VGj2qzjGnReD1lLRwC8iNG_G6f-a6XzMQlTB1yM/edit?usp=sharing

It incorporates some of the previous book with material I wrote, with some additional material from Derfael Oliviera and Amber Underwood.

[master4sword]

My group's currently looking through it, so we'll have some feedback for ya!

[inuyasha]

Looking through it, the book seems pretty good, but I really don't like Bright-Burning Rage since it acts much better than the existing Barbarian Rage Power that heals them.

[TheIronGolem]

I like the "Player's Guide" with the varied, generalized suggestions on Life-oriented character builds. Should help combat the "healbot" mindset.

[legomaster00156]

Looking through it, the book seems pretty good, but I really don't like Bright-Burning Rage since it acts much better than the existing Barbarian Rage Power that heals them.
Well, that's because said rage power is an objectively terrible choice.

[inuyasha]

I like the Barbarian power for flavor, and I've played (and seen) Barbarians take it and operate just fine. I'm just not too fond of things that deliberately function better than something in the Core Rulebook while effectively filling the same spot.

[A.J.Gibson]

I like the Barbarian power for flavor, and I've played (and seen) Barbarians take it and operate just fine. I'm just not too fond of things that deliberately function better than something in the Core Rulebook while effectively filling the same spot.

Hmmm. It shouldn't just be better, I agree. Let me think about redesigning it.

[legomaster00156]

I like the Barbarian power for flavor, and I've played (and seen) Barbarians take it and operate just fine. I'm just not too fond of things that deliberately function better than something in the Core Rulebook while effectively filling the same spot.
Well, of course the barbarians will function just fine, but that's because their chassis is solid, not because that rage power itself is a good pick.

[LordOfCain]

What happened to the previous beta?

[Mehangel]

What happened to the previous beta?

The old beta was almost nothing but archetypes that granted the Life sphere and/or high-casting of the Life sphere, and magic items. In addition the old writer stopped supporting the document and so a couple of other writers just cannibalized the document, and this is what was spat out.

[digiman619]

So that just leaves Conjuration, Death, Fate, Illusion, Protection, Warp and Weather left, right?

[A.J.Gibson]

What happened to the previous beta?

The old writer stopped working on it, while it was in playtesting. We had a look, and there was a lot of work needed: he had 14 archetypes and a lot of magic items (several of which were variations on each other), but only a few talents (most of which was written by Amber, I'm told). I started fiddling with it, and Mehangel added in the Pharmakon. The majority of the writing is probably mine by now.

[LordOfCain]

Okay, I was just curious. Thanks for informing me.

[A.J.Gibson]

So that just leaves Conjuration, Death, Fate, Illusion, Protection, Warp and Weather left, right?

Conjuration is probably going to be next. It's being written by Andrew Stoeckle (stack) who wrote Destruction and Alteration.

[digiman619]

Conjuration is probably going to be next. It's being written by Andrew Stoeckle (stack) who wrote Destruction and Alteration.

I know stack; he's one of my players in my Legacy of Fire game. Still, if you'd told me that when you were first making sphere-specific handbooks that Telekinesis would be one of the first third, but Warp one of the last, I'd be quite surprised.

[A.J.Gibson]

I know stack; he's one of my players in my Legacy of Fire game. Still, if you'd told me that when you were first making sphere-specific handbooks that Telekinesis would be one of the first third, but Warp one of the last, I'd be quite surprised.

Warp, like Life, was a case of a writer came on board, wrote a bunch, and then dropped. Amber Underwood (who wrote Telekinesis and Light) has taken Warp over.

Some books are just harder to write. Weather, Fate, and Protection are all pretty narrow or overlap with other spheres a great deal.

[stack]

Warp, like Life, was a case of a writer came on board, wrote a bunch, and then dropped. Amber Underwood (who wrote Telekinesis and Light) has taken Warp over.

Some books are just harder to write. Weather, Fate, and Protection are all pretty narrow or overlap with other spheres a great deal.

Whereas others have convenient overlap, like conjuration computation and alteration, since the former steals from the later even in the base book.

[AmberVael]

So that just leaves Conjuration, Death, Fate, Illusion, Protection, Warp and Weather left, right?

Time is being pulled back for some revision as well (its going through a similar cycle as Life did, as it happens), so expect to see that reemerge in the future.


I know stack; he's one of my players in my Legacy of Fire game. Still, if you'd told me that when you were first making sphere-specific handbooks that Telekinesis would be one of the first third, but Warp one of the last, I'd be quite surprised.

I'd intended to get Warp moving quicker, but I'm also writing for one of our Skybourne books, putting effort into editing handbooks, and doing some projects for Raging Swan Press, which means time for writing Warp is pretty limited. Its in the works though! Just back a ways.

[inuyasha]

Is there a link that has all of the sphere-specific supplements in one place?

[AmberVael]

Is there a link that has all of the sphere-specific supplements in one place?

Are you asking about a list of which ones have been published, a link to where they're for sale, or a place where all the content is available?

We've published:


Alteration
Destruction
Divination
Enhancement
Light
Nature
Telekinesis
War


You can find them all on Paizo's store, Drivethrurpg, the d20pfsrd store - I don't think we have a category for them though.

The majority of content is available for perusal on the Spheres of Power wiki (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/), though its not really sorted into books there.

[inuyasha]

Cool, thank you! I meant a link to the various threads on this forum, but what you've provided is perfect.

[master4sword]

One of my players is requesting a Reincarnation advanced talent (it's his favorite form of resurrection).

[meemaas]

The old writer stopped working on it, while it was in playtesting. We had a look, and there was a lot of work needed: he had 14 archetypes and a lot of magic items (several of which were variations on each other), but only a few talents (most of which was written by Amber, I'm told). I started fiddling with it, and Mehangel added in the Pharmakon. The majority of the writing is probably mine by now.

Honestly, after the beautiful work you did with the War Sphere, I was excited to see what you did to it. I was not disappointed. Compared to the first beta of the Life Sphere this one is just so much more exciting.

[RegalKain]

So, I have a question for clarification.

The Pharmakon (Soul Weaver Archetype)

Hemorrhage: (Requires base Life sphere: Cure ability) Whenever you use the Life sphere to cure a creature, instead of directly healing damage, you may have it deal an 1d6 damage per class level. A successful Will save halves this damage.

My question is, does the enemy have to be injured to make this work? The wording leads me to believe that is the case? "Whenever you use the Life sphere to cure a creature" makes me think they'd have to be damaged (As you can't heal an already full creature? ) Probably just my poor understanding.

I was going to read it as "When targetting a creature with the Cure ability, you instead-" although that still has the same issue I guess. Basically can I use this to harm people like the Inflict spells? If that is the case, maybe it should be altered so that it does damage equal to talents like Cure heals for? Sorry if I'm just being an idiot here.

[Mehangel]

My question is, does the enemy have to be injured to make this work? The wording leads me to believe that is the case? "Whenever you use the Life sphere to cure a creature" makes me think they'd have to be damaged (As you can't heal an already full creature? ) Probably just my poor understanding.

No the enemy does not have to be injured to use the ability. Just as nothing stops you from using cure on a creature already at maximum hit points.


I was going to read it as "When targetting a creature with the Cure ability, you instead-" although that still has the same issue I guess. Basically can I use this to harm people like the Inflict spells? If that is the case, maybe it should be altered so that it does damage equal to talents like Cure heals for? Sorry if I'm just being an idiot here.

Hemorrhage used to deal damage equal to the cure ability, but it was decided that the damage skyrocketed far too easily.

[A.J.Gibson]

So, I have a question for clarification.

The Pharmakon (Soul Weaver Archetype)

Hemorrhage: (Requires base Life sphere: Cure ability) Whenever you use the Life sphere to cure a creature, instead of directly healing damage, you may have it deal an 1d6 damage per class level. A successful Will save halves this damage.

My question is, does the enemy have to be injured to make this work? The wording leads me to believe that is the case? "Whenever you use the Life sphere to cure a creature" makes me think they'd have to be damaged (As you can't heal an already full creature? ) Probably just my poor understanding.

I was going to read it as "When targetting a creature with the Cure ability, you instead-" although that still has the same issue I guess. Basically can I use this to harm people like the Inflict spells? If that is the case, maybe it should be altered so that it does damage equal to talents like Cure heals for? Sorry if I'm just being an idiot here.

Mehangel can answer this better, but my take is that it works on unharmed people as well as the injured, like inflict. The original design was for it to do damage equal to cure (a nice, elegant design), but both it and Disruption had to be changed because of the optimization hijinks possible. Consider a 3rd level Incanter with 2 levels of Pharmakon: they can have Life sphere (with +1 Caster Level), 4 copies of Greater Healing, and the 6 restore talents that add +1d8 to your healing by that time to do 7d8 + 30 (average 61.5) damage at 5th level.

[AmberVael]

So, I have a question for clarification.

The Pharmakon (Soul Weaver Archetype)

Hemorrhage: (Requires base Life sphere: Cure ability) Whenever you use the Life sphere to cure a creature, instead of directly healing damage, you may have it deal an 1d6 damage per class level. A successful Will save halves this damage.

My question is, does the enemy have to be injured to make this work? The wording leads me to believe that is the case? "Whenever you use the Life sphere to cure a creature" makes me think they'd have to be damaged (As you can't heal an already full creature? ) Probably just my poor understanding.

I was going to read it as "When targetting a creature with the Cure ability, you instead-" although that still has the same issue I guess. Basically can I use this to harm people like the Inflict spells? If that is the case, maybe it should be altered so that it does damage equal to talents like Cure heals for? Sorry if I'm just being an idiot here.

An enemy does not need to be injured to use cure on them, therefore, this alteration of it doesn't need them to be injured for you to use it on them. Normally healing an uninjured creature would be a strange thing to do, but you can do it. Also note that 'cure', in this sense, refers to the ability, cure. Not as in healing hit points.

So, yes, you can just outright harm people with it. The reason it doesn't deal damage equal to your cure is because cure's numbers can be extremely frontloaded - and worse yet, all your investment into frontloading it for damage would give you double return, since it would make you that much better at healing as well.

Edit: I appear to have been swordsage'd and ninja'd.

[RegalKain]

Thanks for the snappy replies guys!

I appreciate you clearing it up for me, wasn't sure how it was supposed to work. Also didn't realize the damage could be front loaded so hard like that, makes sense. The only other question I'd have, concerning the same ability then. Is what type of damage is it? Still positive energy or? Thanks again. :)

[A.J.Gibson]

Honestly, after the beautiful work you did with the War Sphere, I was excited to see what you did to it. I was not disappointed. Compared to the first beta of the Life Sphere this one is just so much more exciting.

Thanks. Compared to War, I was much more focused this time around, where I kinda went nuts with War (at first). I'll probably be adding more material to Life as time goes on, though I'm already over the word count.

[Mehangel]

Thanks for the snappy replies guys!

I appreciate you clearing it up for me, wasn't sure how it was supposed to work. Also didn't realize the damage could be front loaded so hard like that, makes sense. The only other question I'd have, concerning the same ability then. Is what type of damage is it? Still positive energy or? Thanks again. :)

The type of damage used to be explicitly positive energy, but a couple of the other authors felt that it would be inappropriate. Instead we simply left it untyped.

[EldritchWeaver]

The type of damage used to be explicitly positive energy, but a couple of the other authors felt that it would be inappropriate. Instead we simply left it untyped.

Can't you die by being overloaded by the positive energy plane? So positive energy makes sense then.

[AmberVael]

Can't you die by being overloaded by the positive energy plane? So positive energy makes sense then.

Using that to justify a damage effect is... strange. Positive energy cures, bolsters, and strengthens. Even when it kills you, it never deals damage. It fills you up with energy until you pop like an overfilled water balloon.

[A.J.Gibson]

So it's been about 2 weeks now, and I want to get a bit of feedback on some of the general ideas presented in the book.

1 - Anathema was introduced as a way to have a positive energy blaster. Originally, it was going to work with both the Life sphere and Positive Energy abilities like Channel Energy, but it became too difficult to write and balance that way. Is it viable as is? Is the alignment restriction too much? Should it support negative energy as well?
2 - Is the Scarred Veteran necessary? The original idea was the Life sphere as an at-will ability, invigorating and suppressing conditions as a swift. It's sort of moved away from the Life sphere, and the Worldsoul Incarnate has stolen a lot of its thunder.
3 - The book introduces several ways of 'harming' using the Life sphere; namely the Pharmakon archetype, several monk powers, and a collection of talents: Affliction, Contagion, Disruption, and Sanctify. The basic idea was that a dedicated healer could pick up a talent and be a threat, without having to grab destruction. Is this too much? I think some people have trouble with Contagion?
4 - Has the support-caster roll been adequately developed? I have Taste for Victory, Sustaining Vitality and Lingering Resilience; is this enough, or is there something I missed?
5 - Is invigorate useful now?

[EldritchWeaver]

So it's been about 2 weeks now, and I want to get a bit of feedback on some of the general ideas presented in the book.

1 - Anathema was introduced as a way to have a positive energy blaster. Originally, it was going to work with both the Life sphere and Positive Energy abilities like Channel Energy, but it became too difficult to write and balance that way. Is it viable as is? Is the alignment restriction too much? Should it support negative energy as well?

I haven't had a chance yet to actually use it for my build and in play, but at least a covenant hedgewitch gets class level/2 damage dice, so it's comparable to an unaugmented destructive blast. There is no option to increase the damage dice with spending a spell point, but then the question is, if you want a positive energy blaster on equal footing with a Destruction user. Meaning that all options can be used, just for the blast type positive energy. In that case I'd be missing a rule stating that Divine Anathema is a blast type and opens up Destruction talents. If you want to keep the damage less than a Destruction blaster, I'd still like a change that Divine Anathema counts as the Destruction sphere for blast shape purposes and any feats building of blast shapes. That would remove Shaped Anathema and allow to spend magic talents on this instead.

Alignment restriction: Only Sacred Anathema cares for alignment. It can be loosened/replaced by requesting positive energy usage. But I don't really see a reason why you can't turn it into a feat which doesn't care for the type as well. Using negative energy harms good people instead and would benefit versatile channelers as well.


2 - Is the Scarred Veteran necessary? The original idea was the Life sphere as an at-will ability, invigorating and suppressing conditions as a swift. It's sort of moved away from the Life sphere, and the Worldsoul Incarnate has stolen a lot of its thunder.

I suppose that it doesn't tie in directly into the Life sphere anymore, but the abilities still seem worthwhile. Looks like a candidate for cutting nonetheless. Maybe you find a better place for this.


3 - The book introduces several ways of 'harming' using the Life sphere; namely the Pharmakon archetype, several monk powers, and a collection of talents: Affliction, Contagion, Disruption, and Sanctify. The basic idea was that a dedicated healer could pick up a talent and be a threat, without having to grab destruction. Is this too much? I think some people have trouble with Contagion?

I actually like the idea of having a way to harm people, but IMO the cost for the effects seems to be high. Namely having to pay SPs, which are required for healing as well. I miss a way to debuff enemies without having to pay SPs. Dark, Death and Destruction all provide such an opportunity.


4 - Has the support-caster roll been adequately developed? I have Taste for Victory, Sustaining Vitality and Lingering Resilience; is this enough, or is there something I missed?

Off the top of my mind I can't think of anything, what might be missing, but at least what you already have seems useful.


5 - Is invigorate useful now?

Studied Healing, otherwise a great feat, should affect invigorate as well. Nonetheless, it seems that the best combination is Greater Invigorate + Deeper Invigorate (+ Healthy Invigorate to go over max hp + modified Studied Healing to improve CL) to get overall 2 * (CL + CAM). I'm not sure if people who complained about merely having CL + CAM are satisfied with merely doubling this. Especially as that is the limit. Maybe tying in other talents which increase cure for some additional increase? Or at least allow Deeper Invigorate taken more than once?

[A.J.Gibson]

About time I addressed all this:


I haven't had a chance yet to actually use it for my build and in play, but at least a covenant hedgewitch gets class level/2 damage dice, so it's comparable to an unaugmented destructive blast. There is no option to increase the damage dice with spending a spell point, but then the question is, if you want a positive energy blaster on equal footing with a Destruction user. Meaning that all options can be used, just for the blast type positive energy. In that case I'd be missing a rule stating that Divine Anathema is a blast type and opens up Destruction talents. If you want to keep the damage less than a Destruction blaster, I'd still like a change that Divine Anathema counts as the Destruction sphere for blast shape purposes and any feats building of blast shapes. That would remove Shaped Anathema and allow to spend magic talents on this instead.

Alignment restriction: Only Sacred Anathema cares for alignment. It can be loosened/replaced by requesting positive energy usage. But I don't really see a reason why you can't turn it into a feat which doesn't care for the type as well. Using negative energy harms good people instead and would benefit versatile channelers as well.

I've revised anathema to make it stronger. The way I figure it, it's comparable to destruction, with positives and negatives: it does a less resisted damage type, but it has less range and doesn't work on everything. It also swaps 'spend a point to double damage' for Gather Energy, which I personally think is a trade up. The real purpose of anathema is to give paladin and clerics (and I guess warpriests) an alternative to the destruction sphere. Dedicated blasters will probably still want to take it, however.


I actually like the idea of having a way to harm people, but IMO the cost for the effects seems to be high. Namely having to pay SPs, which are required for healing as well. I miss a way to debuff enemies without having to pay SPs. Dark, Death and Destruction all provide such an opportunity.

I introduced the harm mechanics for reasons similar to anathema (in fact, they were the same mechanic for a while, but I found it too difficult to balance both). Every caster needs a way to do damage at some point, and limiting damage to the destruction sphere is a recipe for homogeneity among casters. That said, I don't know if I want there to be good 'free' harming. Harming is supposed to be a secondary ability of the sphere: if you want to spend every round of combat kicking ass, maybe the Life sphere shouldn't be your first pick.


Studied Healing, otherwise a great feat, should affect invigorate as well. Nonetheless, it seems that the best combination is Greater Invigorate + Deeper Invigorate (+ Healthy Invigorate to go over max hp + modified Studied Healing to improve CL) to get overall 2 * (CL + CAM). I'm not sure if people who complained about merely having CL + CAM are satisfied with merely doubling this. Especially as that is the limit. Maybe tying in other talents which increase cure for some additional increase? Or at least allow Deeper Invigorate taken more than once?

I think Deeper Invigorate should probably do more. The original version was stackable like Greater Healing, but that seemed too strong, so I'll have to do something else. I don't think I want to make Studied Healing affect Invigorate, however. SH addresses the desire of people to play the party healer without being a dedicated healer (like the Folk Healer is). Invigorate isn't essential to a party, it's more of an extra for support casters, who will have full caster level already. Plus, as you said, it's a pretty good feat as it is without another buff.

[EldritchWeaver]

I've revised anathema to make it stronger. The way I figure it, it's comparable to destruction, with positives and negatives: it does a less resisted damage type, but it has less range and doesn't work on everything. It also swaps 'spend a point to double damage' for Gather Energy, which I personally think is a trade up. The real purpose of anathema is to give paladin and clerics (and I guess warpriests) an alternative to the destruction sphere. Dedicated blasters will probably still want to take it, however.

Somehow I forgot about the inbuilt Gather Energy. Still, Divine Anathema has to gateway blastshape talents directly. Otherwise you force people either to use feats for Shaped Anathema which are needed for something else or to take Destruction just to be able to invest magic talents instead. The former limits the number of possible builds. The latter goes against your design goal.

On that note, what is currently the purpose of Sacred Anathema? To allow some kind of selective blast for when you employ e.g. Explosive Orb?


I introduced the harm mechanics for reasons similar to anathema (in fact, they were the same mechanic for a while, but I found it too difficult to balance both). Every caster needs a way to do damage at some point, and limiting damage to the destruction sphere is a recipe for homogeneity among casters. That said, I don't know if I want there to be good 'free' harming. Harming is supposed to be a secondary ability of the sphere: if you want to spend every round of combat kicking ass, maybe the Life sphere shouldn't be your first pick.

Well, the cost of good free harming is quite high, compared to other spheres. Let's assume we build an anathema feat which mimics Affliction. Or says you can use Affliction via anathema. This requires two feats and possible a magic talent to get a single target (ranged) attack. The basic effect you can get cheaper using Death's exhausting strike (no SP necessary) and which is upgradable, too. Unless you're playing a human spending the feats on this, this build requires level 3, by which the duration of exhausting strike has caught up with Affliction. Upgrading the range costs feats, not magic talents. Unless you take my suggestion regarding the blast shapes, increasing the number of targets costs feats instead of magic talents. The other parts seem to have equal costs. So IMO you are disadvantaged enough compared to other builds without paying SPs that giving some debuffs no SP costs is justifyable.


I think Deeper Invigorate should probably do more. The original version was stackable like Greater Healing, but that seemed too strong, so I'll have to do something else. I don't think I want to make Studied Healing affect Invigorate, however. SH addresses the desire of people to play the party healer without being a dedicated healer (like the Folk Healer is). Invigorate isn't essential to a party, it's more of an extra for support casters, who will have full caster level already. Plus, as you said, it's a pretty good feat as it is without another buff.

I can imagine a Low-Caster spending two or three magic talents on Life just to help a primary healer out. For those is Studied Healing valuable. Expanding SH to cover that case isn't overpowered. Instead it can be the push to make people employ invigorate at all.

[A.J.Gibson]

Well, the cost of good free harming is quite high, compared to other spheres. Let's assume we build an anathema feat which mimics Affliction. Or says you can use Affliction via anathema. This requires two feats and possible a magic talent to get a single target (ranged) attack. The basic effect you can get cheaper using Death's exhausting strike (no SP necessary) and which is upgradable, too. Unless you're playing a human spending the feats on this, this build requires level 3, by which the duration of exhausting strike has caught up with Affliction. Upgrading the range costs feats, not magic talents. Unless you take my suggestion regarding the blast shapes, increasing the number of targets costs feats instead of magic talents. The other parts seem to have equal costs. So IMO you are disadvantaged enough compared to other builds without paying SPs that giving some debuffs no SP costs is justifyable.


I'm generally trying to avoid giving Life an at-will attack form, because I feel that should be the limitation of the Life sphere - it can harm, but only when it has to. The various harming effects exist so that dedicated healers can have an option when they get trapped in a corner, but characters that intend to be laying out the pain constantly should probably be looking at another sphere. That being said, I'm going to make contagion free to use, since it has other limitations on how often it can be used, and affliction is much better otherwise.

[A.J.Gibson]

I've been working lately on trying to give more support options for Life mages. The Life sphere suffers from being an 'out of combat' sphere because of the action cost of healing, hence so many abilities to let you combine it with other actions, such as Contagion and Taste of Victory. 4e did the right thing here by making a lot of healing abilities swift/minor actions or by giving healers powers that healed in addition to attacking (although a lot of them were weird from a fluff perspective). For support options, I wanted to give the Life caster abilities that would be good in combat, and at the same time would not compete with the Enhancement or Protection spheres (the kings of out of combat and defensive buffing). So I've taken the idea of the Sustained Vitality talent and expanded it into other talents. Each talent gives a creature a strong buff when the Life caster heals them, but which only lasts until the next time they get damaged or fail a saving throw - giving the Life caster incentive to heal them again. Thoughts?

[EldritchWeaver]

You haven't mentioned why you want to use the Shaped Anathema feat instead of Extra Magical Talent for blast shape talents. Can you please elaborate your decision?

[A.J.Gibson]

You haven't mentioned why you want to use the Shaped Anathema feat instead of Extra Magical Talent for blast shape talents. Can you please elaborate your decision?

It's for people who have positive energy features (and anathema) but are not actual casters. The Warrior of the Holy Light Paladin being a good (and possibly only) example.

[EldritchWeaver]

It's for people who have positive energy features (and anathema) but are not actual casters. The Warrior of the Holy Light Paladin being a good (and possibly only) example.

Checking the prereqs for Extra Magic Talent, I see that problem now. Still, you could keep Shaped Anathema, while still add the note that Divine Anathema counts as Destruction for blast shape purposes.

[Eldaran]

Hi, wanted to give some feedback from playing a Life orientated Incanter at level 15.

Most of the Life handbook talents are great, in particular Sustaining Vitality and similar effects are very good, it's a nice way to handle buffing while keeping unique facets of the Life sphere. The one that grants movespeed seems extremely weak though, maybe because we get Haste from another caster, but +10 speed is nothing compared to +4 AC and saves. Compare Fleet to Dodge, both weak feats, but +4 AC is 4x as good as Dodge (and that's not counting the save bonus) while +10 speed is only 2x as good as Fleet.

Adrenaline Surge seems really fun, though I haven't actually had a chance to use it yet. I think the additional 1 SP cost when used with a Mass spell is good.

My main qualm with the book is Deeper Invigorate. This talent is absurdly powerful. At level 15 I have a CL of 20 (15+4 Staff +1 Ioun Stone) and a 9 Int mod, which means that Invigorate gives 116 temp HP for 1 SP, though usually 2 SP because I use it with Healthy Invigorate (3 SP to hit the whole party). This is only 3 talents invested in Invigorate. This means Invigorate is far more powerful than my Cure ability, even with the Healing Domain and quite a few talents improving it (6d8+60)

Temporary HP is already more powerful than healing to begin with, in particular because you can use it prior to combat. At level 15 this is effectively doubling my max HP and is a 50% increase to the tankiest member of the party. It's the equivalent of getting the Toughness feat more than 7 times, or half the benefit of over +14 Con (no bonus to Fort saves, but all the HP). The difference is even more pronounced at lower levels. At level 5 full caster with CL 6 and 5 Int mod is handing out 44 temps, almost 9 times their level.

This is compounded by Sudden Invigoration allowing you to dispense temp HP as an immediate action. This is better than using Quicken Spell at 1/4 the SP cost. This would be extremely good without Deeper Invigorate, but combined with it you can have your whole party eat tons of AoE damage and undo it in the blink of an eye.

My suggestions to fix this would be either to remove Deeper Invigorate entirely, it already has Greater Invigorate to buff it nicely, and leave Sudden Invigoration alone. Or change Deeper Invigorate to give +50% more temp HP without an SP and 100% more with an SP (half its current values) and change Sudden Invigoration to cost 2 or 3 SP.

These changes would leave Invigorate as a viable option without invalidating all other forms of healing or temp HP.

[EldritchWeaver]

Invigorate notes

Woah, I completely missed those interactions. Even if nerfed those talents seem to be worthwhile for a character of mine. Thanks for inspiring me!

[A.J.Gibson]

Hi, wanted to give some feedback from playing a Life orientated Incanter at level 15.

Most of the Life handbook talents are great, in particular Sustaining Vitality and similar effects are very good, it's a nice way to handle buffing while keeping unique facets of the Life sphere. The one that grants movespeed seems extremely weak though, maybe because we get Haste from another caster, but +10 speed is nothing compared to +4 AC and saves. Compare Fleet to Dodge, both weak feats, but +4 AC is 4x as good as Dodge (and that's not counting the save bonus) while +10 speed is only 2x as good as Fleet.

I haven't done a lot of work on Life lately - real life stuff interfering, and at the current publishing rate it won't be out until next year - but it's pretty close, I think. anathema and the 'vitality' talents are both in flux somewhat, and I suspect Scarred Veteran will get cut.

The vitality talents are a way to let Life have some boosting power, while rewarding using Life during battle (since the buffs will probably get ended during battle) and not impinging on protection or enhancement. The issue is that characters will often get healed after battle, and then they'll receive these benefits until the next time they get damaged - which probably won't be for a while. I'm not certain what I'm going to do: limit the duration, or make the boosts less useful outside of combat.


Adrenaline Surge seems really fun, though I haven't actually had a chance to use it yet. I think the additional 1 SP cost when used with a Mass spell is good.

Thanks. One of my goals is to steal ideas from 4e to make playing support casters more fun.



My main qualm with the book is Deeper Invigorate. This talent is absurdly powerful. At level 15 I have a CL of 20 (15+4 Staff +1 Ioun Stone) and a 9 Int mod, which means that Invigorate gives 116 temp HP for 1 SP, though usually 2 SP because I use it with Healthy Invigorate (3 SP to hit the whole party). This is only 3 talents invested in Invigorate. This means Invigorate is far more powerful than my Cure ability, even with the Healing Domain and quite a few talents improving it (6d8+60)

Temporary HP is already more powerful than healing to begin with, in particular because you can use it prior to combat. At level 15 this is effectively doubling my max HP and is a 50% increase to the tankiest member of the party. It's the equivalent of getting the Toughness feat more than 7 times, or half the benefit of over +14 Con (no bonus to Fort saves, but all the HP). The difference is even more pronounced at lower levels. At level 5 full caster with CL 6 and 5 Int mod is handing out 44 temps, almost 9 times their level.

This is compounded by Sudden Invigoration allowing you to dispense temp HP as an immediate action. This is better than using Quicken Spell at 1/4 the SP cost. This would be extremely good without Deeper Invigorate, but combined with it you can have your whole party eat tons of AoE damage and undo it in the blink of an eye.

My suggestions to fix this would be either to remove Deeper Invigorate entirely, it already has Greater Invigorate to buff it nicely, and leave Sudden Invigoration alone. Or change Deeper Invigorate to give +50% more temp HP without an SP and 100% more with an SP (half its current values) and change Sudden Invigoration to cost 2 or 3 SP.

These changes would leave Invigorate as a viable option without invalidating all other forms of healing or temp HP.

Math. Yum. I've been thinking about Deeper Invigorate as well: maybe I'll drop it to 1 spell point for double temps, and leave it at that. SI is a bit trickier, because there is already an invigorate rally in the war book (which I also wrote), that it has to compete with.

[stack]

My rule of thumb is that if you can drop more THP than a vitalist, something is wrong. That would be character level x5 single target, - 5 per additional target. Since vitalists are amazing dedicated healers and awesome at THP buffing, approaching that level should require noticeable investment.

[A.J.Gibson]

So to summarize:

Basic invigorate:
Temps up to CL, limited by damage taken, 1 hour duration

Greater Invigorate:
Add casting ability modifier to the amount of temps granted, increase duration to 1 hour per caster level.

Healthy Invigorate:
Spend a spell point to go beyond damage taken.

Deeper Invigorate:
Spend a spell point to double temps (CL, + CAM if Greater Invigorate)

Sudden Invigorate:
Invigorate as an immediate action.

I hadn't realized that healthy costs a spell point. I'm thinking now that Deeper might actually be fine without the spell point cost. Compare:
Cure+Greater Healing * 2 = CL*3 hit points gained, limited by damage taken (obviously) for 1 spell point
Invigorate+Greater Invigorate+Deeper Invigorate = CL*2 + CAM*2 temps gains for 1 hour, limited by damage taken

Cure has the advantage that it stacks with itself (being permanent), but invigorate is free, and CAM*2 is probably going to be comparable to CL (at least past level 10).

[Eldaran]

You're still missing two important factors. Healthy Invigorate can be cast before battle, giving it a very powerful action economy advantage. Having the entire party go into battle with a bunch of temporary HP makes them extremely durable.

Second, Sudden Invigorate is immediate action, the most powerful action available. Not only is it effectively Quicken Spell, but it even lets you do it to save an ally taking damage (and you're not spending an SP for Healthy Invigorate at that point). Keep in mind there's nothing stopping Sudden Invigorate from applying to the whole party via Mass Healing or Mass Command. This means the "healing" output of Invigorate is potentially twice that of Cure, though slightly more situational since it won't stack.

[A.J.Gibson]

I've discussed the Deeper Invigorate issue with some of other writers, and opinion varies. I kind of like 1 spell point add +CL and CAM (it gives you a reason to actually take Greater Invigorate), while others prefer +CL with no cost (and only being able to take the talent once, unlike Greater Healing). Of course, the book won't be out for a while (currently we're getting about one book every 3 months, with Dark now in layout, and Mind and Creation next, that puts Life around next February).

I've altered the Vitality talents so they last one minute or until you're harmed. I know the longer time limit was more interesting, but trying to come up with bonuses that were useful in combat while being safe to give all day was too difficult. Energizing Vitality now grants +30ft to speed.

[Eldaran]

Yikes, one book every 3 months, even though a lot of the material is written, and it's being done by multiple authors? Why such long delays? I was really looking forward to more of the Spheres getting expanded.

I think I prefer adding CL once without an SP as well. Adding CAM more than once seems pretty unusual, I can't think of any effects that let you do that currently. The extended duration on Greater Invigorate is already pretty nice, also it can be a lot more competitive with CL on low or mid casters.

I'll see how the new duration on the Vitality talents work, definitely makes them more of an in combat buff, which is not a bad thing.

[EldritchWeaver]

The bottleneck seems to be Adam and his layouter. There was a Kickstarter post for Skybourne about this.

[Mehangel]

I've discussed the Deeper Invigorate issue with some of other writers, and opinion varies. I kind of like 1 spell point add +CL and CAM (it gives you a reason to actually take Greater Invigorate), while others prefer +CL with no cost (and only being able to take the talent once, unlike Greater Healing).

I think I also prefer the +CL with no cost.

[A.J.Gibson]

I've finally decided on a version of anathema I like. The big issue with it until now was that there were so many gateways into it, and balancing them was an issue. My solution is to have a different entry feat depending on what class feature you are using to enter, with a few cookies for the weaker options to balance things.

In addition, I've given anathema some limitations: it doesn't work with the destruction sphere, doesn't work with negative energy, and only affects evil targets. This is supposed to be a way to create a 'holy blaster', and my attempts to make it work with everything was turning it into Destruction Sphere v2. I think these limitations will give the ability focus, and make it interesting for the (now fewer) characters who will find it attractive.

There have also been made changes to the vitality feats, in light of feedback indicating their strength when used together.

With these changes, I think the book is pretty close to done. There was a cleric archetype I was toying with, but I think I'll save it.

[stack]

Making an ability that only works on a single alignment is counter to SoP precedent.

[A.J.Gibson]

Making an ability that only works on a single alignment is counter to SoP precedent.

Can you elaborate?

[stack]

There are no alignment tags in the base book outside of fate, and even there each ability works equally for all alignments. In expanded options the mageknight archetype mimicking paladins is balanced by a similar evil option. Making an option that only effects evil is outside the design paradigm.

[master4sword]

It doesn't seem too outrageous to allow channeled negative energy/negative energy fervor/touch of corruption to grant an attack that works against Good foes.

[EldritchWeaver]

Interestingly, I don't really mind the restriction to Good/Evil flavorwise and mechanicswise. The character I have doesn't want to harm non-evil folk anyway and overall it follows the precedent of Smite Evil/Good as well. Also, allowing anathema to work with Life alone opens an alternative way to build my character. Currently I have the covenant tradition, but maybe I replace it with an archetype. Triple Goddess might work well instead.


It doesn't seem too outrageous to allow channeled negative energy/negative energy fervor/touch of corruption to grant an attack that works against Good foes.

And if someone has versatile channeling, that should allow to switch between both modes.

[A.J.Gibson]

It doesn't seem too outrageous to allow channeled negative energy/negative energy fervor/touch of corruption to grant an attack that works against Good foes.

I might do something like that, where negative energy harms good characters, but negative energy already has so many offensive applications, I'm not certain it's worth it.

[EldritchWeaver]

I might do something like that, where negative energy harms good characters, but negative energy already has so many offensive applications, I'm not certain it's worth it.

Well, the option to use negative energy makes it symmetrical. Even if most builds ignore it, some can benefit and the option isn't a must-have either.

BTW, why doesn't anathema scale in range? Close range and then an upgrade to medium is more consistent with the rest of SoP and isn't that much of an increase of power.

BTW, number two, I only noticed yesterday that Life doesn't provide a way to increase the range from close to medium. Is that deliberate?

[A.J.Gibson]

Well, the option to use negative energy makes it symmetrical. Even if most builds ignore it, some can benefit and the option isn't a must-have either.

BTW, why doesn't anathema scale in range? Close range and then an upgrade to medium is more consistent with the rest of SoP and isn't that much of an increase of power.

BTW, number two, I only noticed yesterday that Life doesn't provide a way to increase the range from close to medium. Is that deliberate?

Symmetry is nice in games, but positive/negative energy isn't really symmetrical to begin with, since living and undead aren't symmetrical in terms of size of population. Negative energy is an attack ability, not a healing ability. I'll have to give it some thought, and maybe get feedback from the group.

The limited range on Life is because support powers generally don't have that great a range (most PF heal spells are range touch, nevermind close). A long-range support character is not something I really want to introduce to the game, though a scry-and-buff might be hilarious - adventure from your home!

[EldritchWeaver]

The limited range on Life is because support powers generally don't have that great a range (most PF heal spells are range touch, nevermind close). A long-range support character is not something I really want to introduce to the game, though a scry-and-buff might be hilarious - adventure from your home!

Well, we have already wizards who use Astral Projection to adventure from their personal home demiplane. So this isn't that absurd to have, although I meant with longer range to havie a similar range as Destruction. Though spellcrafting Life + Nonlethal destruction + Extreme Range + Dark's Midnight to heal-bomb cities is already an option in game. Also I think you missed this part to answer:


BTW, why doesn't anathema scale in range? Close range and then an upgrade to medium is more consistent with the rest of SoP and isn't that much of an increase of power.

And another question which popped up: Can you employ Simple Cure to fill up Fount of Life as well?

[A.J.Gibson]

And another question which popped up: Can you employ Simple Cure to fill up Fount of Life as well?

Nope. It's not a creature.

[A.J.Gibson]

BTW, why doesn't anathema scale in range? Close range and then an upgrade to medium is more consistent with the rest of SoP and isn't that much of an increase of power.

A few reasons:
First, the majority of anathema uses are using it with lay on hands and the like, which have a range of 30 ft.
Second, Close range is built on caster level. Anathema does not require the creature to be a caster, so you would have to define what Close means in that case, and at that point you've broken consistency already.
Third, anathema is supposed to be for a specific type of character: the front-line healer. I really don't want it to be an alternative to blasting. Though I did include a feat to extend range.
Fourth, it helps balance the ability. Anathema is basically destruction, with the drawbacks of limited range, limited targeting and not being able to spend a spell point to double your dice, but with the advantage of being a supernatural ability with a rarely-resisted damage type and an additional bonus based on the source of your anathema.

[EldritchWeaver]

I've been wondering regarding Simple Cure and attacking undead. Does not spending a spell point cut of the damage at half of the hit points of the undead? If yes, would succeeding the will save half the capped damage or half the unmodified damage, which would be capped?

[A.J.Gibson]

I've been wondering regarding Simple Cure and attacking undead. Does not spending a spell point cut of the damage at half of the hit points of the undead? If yes, would succeeding the will save half the capped damage or half the unmodified damage, which would be capped?

It's an interesting thought, but it doesn't fit with what Simple Cure is supposed to do, so I think I'll just say they're incompatible.

[Mehangel]

I've been wondering regarding Simple Cure and attacking undead. Does not spending a spell point cut of the damage at half of the hit points of the undead? If yes, would succeeding the will save half the capped damage or half the unmodified damage, which would be capped?
It's an interesting thought, but it doesn't fit with what Simple Cure is supposed to do, so I think I'll just say they're incompatible.

Outside of undead focused campaigns, I actually dont see alot of issues with allowing Simple Cure to be used against undead (besides for the fact that anyone focused in the Life sphere is likely to outperform someone who focused in the Destruction sphere).

[A.J.Gibson]

Outside of undead focused campaigns, I actually dont see alot of issues with allowing Simple Cure to be used against undead (besides for the fact that anyone focused in the Life sphere is likely to outperform someone who focused in the Destruction sphere).

From a power stand-point, probably not, since using a full-round action to do damage equal to your level (save for half) with a melee touch attack isn't that great. But it's just more complexity, more unnecessary details and another special case that the game just doesn't need.

[EldritchWeaver]

From a power stand-point, probably not, since using a full-round action to do damage equal to your level (save for half) with a melee touch attack isn't that great. But it's just more complexity, more unnecessary details and another special case that the game just doesn't need.

How much complexity, etc. is it in reality? Life already is providing the undead damaging effect. The range of the cure effect can be increased to Close range already. Mass Healing allows to target several targets at once. So we have an undead killer for 2 SPs in the core game already.

Simple Cure only adds the requirement of a full-round action which decreases the cost by 1 SP and has a cap regarding the cure effect. The cure effect which is positive energy. So denying Simple Cure to be employed against undead is the same amount of ruling as would be a clarification regarding the save issue*. It is actually even worse, because then we have a positive energy effect which doesn't harm undead, which is an exception to the expected ruling.


*Regarding the save issue, I've come to the conclusion that the cap needs to be applied after the save has been resolved. After all, only then the exact amount of damage is known which a target would suffer.

[EldritchWeaver]

Simple Cure is gone? What the heck?

[A.J.Gibson]

Simple Cure is gone? What the heck?

Yes, Simple Cure has been deleted for a third time. It's been the most contentious talent in the book, and yesterday the writers discussed it. Ultimately, I decided to delete it (again) for a number of reasons:
First, Simple Cure breaks the basic contract of the game: hit points are a daily resource that can (usually) only be recovered with another daily source. Sure, it was limited, but it still broke the contract, resulting it in being the talent that I got the most questions about. And I'm tired of having to edit other talents to prevent infinite loops with Simple Cure.
Second, Simple Cure impinges on the Heal skill, which already provides free, daily healing, with the Treat Deadly Injury action (which is further boosted by the recent skill unlock and also two feats in this book). Furthermore, it impinges on the Invigorate ability, which is stronger now with Deeper Invigorate.
Third, it's kinda bad. Seriously, revitalize is much better, especially with the new second level.

[EldritchWeaver]

My pseudo-cleric was supposed to use both Simple Cure and Revitalize. The latter to ensure that the party always has a source of healing even when my char isn't near enough to heal them otherwise. The former, if the revitalize pool is too slow and a party member needs a fresh hp infusion before they dies. Simple Cure would have been able to save some SPs in the beginning of the adventurer career or even allowed the use of cure in the first place. Now only Nature's Rejuvenation can help out with the SP cost, but the time until healing is done is as bad as for Revitalize. I suppose I have to spend the SPs then. And decide which talent I take instead of Simple Cure.

BTW, I'd really have appreciated, if you had stated this in this thread that you kill/plan to kill Simple Cure. After all, we were in a discussion about this talent. Discovering this from a second source left a bit of sour taste. :smallannoyed:

[Quarian Rex]

Good day. Just a mini-PEACH of the Essentialist archetype and some things surrounding it. I'm looking to make some characters with it and I have run into some issues and hope to find/offer some remedies.

Elements of Life
Standard option for most SoP archetypes. The only problem here is the cost in abilities. Specifically poison resistance and poison immunity. These are two core abilities that are thematically appropriate for a healing specialist and taking them away is inappropriate. Sure, you added Acquired Tolerance as a discovery but that just comes off as mildly insulting, seemingly admitting that it is something the class should have but adding an additional cost for no reason. Please reconsider.

Essences
This is a thematic and interesting replacement for mutagen. More uses per day and usable on others countered by drastically lowered duration. Nice job.

Mutating Essence
Nice little addition, maintaining the feel and a bit of the function of mutagen and maintaining the allure of self-buffing. Note that, even though you have separated them for clarity, Essences and Mutating Essence are the same class ability. One that happens to have a slightly altered effect when used on ones self. For this one class ability you have taken away both Bombs and Mutagen. That is a pretty heavy trade. Even more reason to put poison resistance/immunity back in (nudge... nudge...).

Acquired Tolerance
Please, please, get rid of this and restore these basic abilities of the class. Again, removing an ability only to add it at the cost of a precious discovery is bad form (triple the nudge...).

Clean Living
Logical option for the archetype. Just, for the love of the babby jebus, get rid of the 10th level requirement. by the time it becomes available it has lost its relevance. If the immunity to magical diseases is a factor just delay that aspect (but still being part of the same discovery) till 10th. If the campaign is set in the fantasy version of the black plague then a Life focused Alchemist should be able to walk the land doing what he needs to do without becoming a statistic.

Enhancing Essence
This seems to imply that the Alchemist gets to use his full class level as his caster level for enhancements since he gets to treat them "as Life sphere abilities". That is a damn fine idea, capturing the specialist nature of the Alchemist in the SoP ruleset. If that wasn't the intent, then please reconsider. Either way, the language needs to be clarified.

Essential Injection
Language needs to be cleared up here as well. This ambiguous as hell. Is the spell point paid when the Water of Life is imbued or when it is being injected? Does the item have to be in hand to be used as a free action (pretty much negating the point) or not? It seems to be sayng both and neither. Please clarify.

Poisonous Root
Thematically relevant and mechanically interesting. Good job.

Positive Essence
This is really weak. How about adding an effect similar to what Dhampirs have? For reference...

Resist Level Drain (Ex): A dhampir takes no penalties from energy drain effects, though he can still be killed if he accrues more negative levels then he has Hit Dice. After 24 hours, any negative levels a dhampir takes are removed without the need for an additional saving throw.

... something like that but limited to the duration of the essence. Thoughts?

Transforming Essence
Much like Enhancing Essence above this is a potentially interesting option but the wording doesn't seem to imply that it benefits from the increased caster level of Life effects. I believe that to be a mistake. I think that both the Enhancing and Transforming Essence discoveries can potentially let this archetype do what similar attempts have failed at, correctly translating the Alchemist into SoP. While being a mid-caster is appropriate for the class it doesn't reflect an Alchemist's superior capability in healing, buffing, and shapeshifting. The option to get a full caster level in Life, Enhancement, and Alteration (even with limitations) does that beautifully. If this isn't what you intended, please reconsider.

Water of Life
This is an interesting take on getting Infused Extracts in SoP, but I think that you missed the mark a bit. This has a benefit (letting someone else 'cast' a heal/buff when you need), paired with a drawback (functionally the Prepared Caster drawback as SP must be preallocated), and compounded with a massive drawback (the imbued consumable only lasting a few hours). It's that last drawback that needs to be fixed. Currently you can prepare Water of Life (WoL) in the morning and have all of those SP be completely wasted by lunch. Prepare them closer to the encounter you say? If the Alchemist knows when the encounter is then why not just cast the buffs normally? Where is the utility of WoL?

How to fix this? Have all imbusments made with WoL last till the next time the caster replenishes their spell pool. If the caster had any imbuements that cost spell points then he has the option to not recover those points and maintain the selected imbuements. Specify that this is only an option for imbuements that actually had a SP cost (to prevent stockpiling and selling 'free' potions). Maintaining the utility of Extract-type casting without senselessly penalizing the user. Thoughts?

Vitality Talents
This is an interesting idea but it greatly suffers from being pre-nerfed into the ground. You have nice little buffs that you can stack onto Life effects. Nice idea, has utility and makes healing in combat a viable-ish option. I min duration to balance it. Sure, short-term buff it is. While each Vitality buff is pretty minor at least you can put a few together (with heavy investment) to make something interesting, right? What's that? Only one effect can be active at once. Hmmm... that limits things. No point in getting many of these. Which would be useful in combat? What's that again...? The effect is dispelled the moment the target takes damage? So a combat buff is immediately dispelled by the most common thing to happen in combat? And you are actually charging a talent for this? Who hurt you and why are you trying to share the pain?

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm beating a dead horse here, but I hope you're getting my point. SoP is all about making choices and expanding options but the Vitality talents, as they are currently, are horrible choices offering deceptively useless options. I might offer the option that one pick of a vitality talent provides multiple options to get more bang for the talent buck but you only have three options. Two of which are exclusively combat options, all of which are immediately dispelled by the one thing combat is for, damage. The only playable option (as I see it) is to remove the dispel on damaged component. It is unworkable for the options you have provided otherwise. Perhaps reduce the duration to 5 rounds if you feel the need to compensate. Thoughts?

Adrenaline Surge
Nice possibilities. SP cost to provide an immediate action option. I get it. Pay another SP to be able to affect multiple people on top on the cost (SP and Talent-wise) to actually affect multiple people? Please, for the love of the babby jebus, stop the madness! This is an interesting option that has a cost. Affecting multiple people is an interesting option that has its own cost. There is absolutely no reason to multiply that cost. The spell pool is small enough as it is. Avoid SP bloat at all costs.

Disruption
SP bloat here again. This is providing a small enough and niche enough option that it doesn't step on Destruction's toes. The effect is not, in any way, worthy of a SP cost.

I just want to remind you that I am pretty impressed with what you've done here. You have made more out of the Life sphere than I thought possible. Good job.

[A.J.Gibson]

Good day. Just a mini-PEACH of the Essentialist archetype and some things surrounding it. I'm looking to make some characters with it and I have run into some issues and hope to find/offer some remedies.

Elements of Life
Standard option for most SoP archetypes. The only problem here is the cost in abilities. Specifically poison resistance and poison immunity. These are two core abilities that are thematically appropriate for a healing specialist and taking them away is inappropriate. Sure, you added Acquired Tolerance as a discovery but that just comes off as mildly insulting, seemingly admitting that it is something the class should have but adding an additional cost for no reason. Please reconsider.

Essences
This is a thematic and interesting replacement for mutagen. More uses per day and usable on others countered by drastically lowered duration. Nice job.

Mutating Essence
Nice little addition, maintaining the feel and a bit of the function of mutagen and maintaining the allure of self-buffing. Note that, even though you have separated them for clarity, Essences and Mutating Essence are the same class ability. One that happens to have a slightly altered effect when used on ones self. For this one class ability you have taken away both Bombs and Mutagen. That is a pretty heavy trade. Even more reason to put poison resistance/immunity back in (nudge... nudge...).

Acquired Tolerance
Please, please, get rid of this and restore these basic abilities of the class. Again, removing an ability only to add it at the cost of a precious discovery is bad form (triple the nudge...).

Clean Living
Logical option for the archetype. Just, for the love of the babby jebus, get rid of the 10th level requirement. by the time it becomes available it has lost its relevance. If the immunity to magical diseases is a factor just delay that aspect (but still being part of the same discovery) till 10th. If the campaign is set in the fantasy version of the black plague then a Life focused Alchemist should be able to walk the land doing what he needs to do without becoming a statistic.

Enhancing Essence
This seems to imply that the Alchemist gets to use his full class level as his caster level for enhancements since he gets to treat them "as Life sphere abilities". That is a damn fine idea, capturing the specialist nature of the Alchemist in the SoP ruleset. If that wasn't the intent, then please reconsider. Either way, the language needs to be clarified.

Essential Injection
Language needs to be cleared up here as well. This ambiguous as hell. Is the spell point paid when the Water of Life is imbued or when it is being injected? Does the item have to be in hand to be used as a free action (pretty much negating the point) or not? It seems to be sayng both and neither. Please clarify.

Poisonous Root
Thematically relevant and mechanically interesting. Good job.

Positive Essence
This is really weak. How about adding an effect similar to what Dhampirs have? For reference...

Resist Level Drain (Ex): A dhampir takes no penalties from energy drain effects, though he can still be killed if he accrues more negative levels then he has Hit Dice. After 24 hours, any negative levels a dhampir takes are removed without the need for an additional saving throw.

... something like that but limited to the duration of the essence. Thoughts?

Transforming Essence
Much like Enhancing Essence above this is a potentially interesting option but the wording doesn't seem to imply that it benefits from the increased caster level of Life effects. I believe that to be a mistake. I think that both the Enhancing and Transforming Essence discoveries can potentially let this archetype do what similar attempts have failed at, correctly translating the Alchemist into SoP. While being a mid-caster is appropriate for the class it doesn't reflect an Alchemist's superior capability in healing, buffing, and shapeshifting. The option to get a full caster level in Life, Enhancement, and Alteration (even with limitations) does that beautifully. If this isn't what you intended, please reconsider.

Water of Life
This is an interesting take on getting Infused Extracts in SoP, but I think that you missed the mark a bit. This has a benefit (letting someone else 'cast' a heal/buff when you need), paired with a drawback (functionally the Prepared Caster drawback as SP must be preallocated), and compounded with a massive drawback (the imbued consumable only lasting a few hours). It's that last drawback that needs to be fixed. Currently you can prepare Water of Life (WoL) in the morning and have all of those SP be completely wasted by lunch. Prepare them closer to the encounter you say? If the Alchemist knows when the encounter is then why not just cast the buffs normally? Where is the utility of WoL?

How to fix this? Have all imbusments made with WoL last till the next time the caster replenishes their spell pool. If the caster had any imbuements that cost spell points then he has the option to not recover those points and maintain the selected imbuements. Specify that this is only an option for imbuements that actually had a SP cost (to prevent stockpiling and selling 'free' potions). Maintaining the utility of Extract-type casting without senselessly penalizing the user. Thoughts?

Vitality Talents
This is an interesting idea but it greatly suffers from being pre-nerfed into the ground. You have nice little buffs that you can stack onto Life effects. Nice idea, has utility and makes healing in combat a viable-ish option. I min duration to balance it. Sure, short-term buff it is. While each Vitality buff is pretty minor at least you can put a few together (with heavy investment) to make something interesting, right? What's that? Only one effect can be active at once. Hmmm... that limits things. No point in getting many of these. Which would be useful in combat? What's that again...? The effect is dispelled the moment the target takes damage? So a combat buff is immediately dispelled by the most common thing to happen in combat? And you are actually charging a talent for this? Who hurt you and why are you trying to share the pain?

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm beating a dead horse here, but I hope you're getting my point. SoP is all about making choices and expanding options but the Vitality talents, as they are currently, are horrible choices offering deceptively useless options. I might offer the option that one pick of a vitality talent provides multiple options to get more bang for the talent buck but you only have three options. Two of which are exclusively combat options, all of which are immediately dispelled by the one thing combat is for, damage. The only playable option (as I see it) is to remove the dispel on damaged component. It is unworkable for the options you have provided otherwise. Perhaps reduce the duration to 5 rounds if you feel the need to compensate. Thoughts?

Adrenaline Surge
Nice possibilities. SP cost to provide an immediate action option. I get it. Pay another SP to be able to affect multiple people on top on the cost (SP and Talent-wise) to actually affect multiple people? Please, for the love of the babby jebus, stop the madness! This is an interesting option that has a cost. Affecting multiple people is an interesting option that has its own cost. There is absolutely no reason to multiply that cost. The spell pool is small enough as it is. Avoid SP bloat at all costs.

Disruption
SP bloat here again. This is providing a small enough and niche enough option that it doesn't step on Destruction's toes. The effect is not, in any way, worthy of a SP cost.

I just want to remind you that I am pretty impressed with what you've done here. You have made more out of the Life sphere than I thought possible. Good job.

Wow. There's a lot here, so it may take time to go through this all. Any chance you can write some of this into comments on the document? I'll try and address soem of your points now:

Elements of Life
Losing poison resistance does kinda suck, but I had to lose two things to give them Life at full CL. Throw anything was one thing, and Poison Resistance/Immunity was the other. I wouldn't be against restoring it, but what should they lose in it's place? Swift Alchemy/Instant Alchemy is an option.

On a side note, archtyping the alchemist is tricky, because a lot of the class features are blended together (alchemy and poison use, for example).

Mutating Essence
They don't actually lose mutagen, this just rewrites the rules a bit. They receive an additional +2 attribute bonus from their mutagen, doesn't take a -2 penalty to another attribute, still receives the natural AC bonus, and can use it on any attribute out of the gate, not just the physical ones. And I've written essentialist versions of the mutagen booster discoveries to replace the ones thsat don't make sense anymore.

Acquired Tolerance and Clean Living
If I can give poison resistance back, then the former becomes irrelevant and the latter can be rewritten as 'your poison resistance applies to disease'.

Enhancing Essence and Transforming Essence
They don't currently give the alchemist full CL, but that actually is a good suggestion. I'll give it some thought.

Essential Injection
Wow, this needs to be rewritten.

Poisonous Root
Part of what I wanted to do was make a poison fighter a viable option, which meant introducing at least one poison worth using. I would hope anyone using this would have access to some 3pp solution that fixes PF poisons, though.

Positive Essence
This is basically the Deathless aegis from the Protection sphere. It's not outright immunity like the dhampir has, but it's applicable to a lot more situations, so I think it's actually better. In addition, if the essentialist wants to have remove negative levels, they can pick up Greater Restore, the dhampir ability you suggested overlaps with that to some degree.

Water of Life
I've made the duration change you suggested. I'm not certain about giving the 'do not recover sp' option, it seems fairly complicated for something that probably won't come up often.

Vitality Talents
I've been thinking about this as well. The idea is that the buffs are strong, but they don't last long, encouraging more in-combat healing. Making them last until the character is hit effectively gives them the same duration as the hit points your cure gives them - they get hit, lost their buff, and you respond by curing them again, restoring the buff. And having only one be available per Life sphere ability use makes it so you always pick the same one (the aggro one).

Adrenaline Surge
I've been thinking about the 'extra sp when used en-masse' but as well. It was suggested by the editor (I think).

Disruption
Disruption costs a spell point because the destruction sphere costs a spell point to use if you want damage dice equal to CL. It lacks a 'don't spend a spell point to do half dice' option.

A way of thinking about it is this: imagine a destruction talent that did 1d8 non-lethal and dazed on a crit. You take destruction, you take a drawback to swap the default blast for this, you take a no-range drawback to gain focused blast to do 1d10 per CL, and then you take a drawback to not be able to not spend a spell point to do half damage in order to take focused blast a second time (which is illegal, but just pretend), and you end up with this effect as if you had 4 levels of greater blast. I'm not against buffing it a bit, but the sp point cost has to stay.

[Quarian Rex]

Elements of Life
Losing poison resistance does kinda suck, but I had to lose two things to give them Life at full CL. Throw anything was one thing, and Poison Resistance/Immunity was the other. I wouldn't be against restoring it, but what should they lose in it's place? Swift Alchemy/Instant Alchemy is an option.

On a side note, archtyping the alchemist is tricky, because a lot of the class features are blended together (alchemy and poison use, for example).

Remember, these are not one for one trades. Look at other archetypes, some are replaced directly, some are additions, all depending on the goals of the archetype. Also, this is not a normal archetype, this is a full conversion from a standard-ish vancian class to a SoP analogue. Try not to get stuck in too linear a mentality.

I think that it is more important to make sure that you have a balanced class that makes sense thematically and mechanically. Don't forget the trade offs that tend to get hand waived in this sort of thing as well. Things like the Alchemists extract list. It only has 6 levels (mid-caster) but it has selected spells (mainly those dealing with healing, buffs, and shapeshifting) given early access (like being a full caster in Life, Enhancement, and Alteration). In short, I really don't think that you need to sacrifice any more features.



Mutating Essence
They don't actually lose mutagen, this just rewrites the rules a bit. They receive an additional +2 attribute bonus from their mutagen, doesn't take a -2 penalty to another attribute, still receives the natural AC bonus, and can use it on any attribute out of the gate, not just the physical ones. And I've written essentialist versions of the mutagen booster discoveries to replace the ones thsat don't make sense anymore.

I must say, that was not clear at all. Essences and Mutating Essence seemed to have fully replaced Mutagen both thematically and mechanically, and I am quite fine with that. In fact, I think you should remove Mutagen altogether. There is too much overlap between it and Essences, and the Essences are central to the archetype and just too damn interesting.



Acquired Tolerance and Clean Living
If I can give poison resistance back, then the former becomes irrelevant and the latter can be rewritten as 'your poison resistance applies to disease'.

Just remember to put in something for magical diseases since poisons don't seem to have any equivalent.



Enhancing Essence and Transforming Essence
They don't currently give the alchemist full CL, but that actually is a good suggestion. I'll give it some thought.

Glad to hear. I think that it might be the key to making the archetype something really interesting. Remember too that you have good precedent for this sort of thing with the Triple Goddess archetype and such.



Poisonous Root
Part of what I wanted to do was make a poison fighter a viable option, which meant introducing at least one poison worth using. I would hope anyone using this would have access to some 3pp solution that fixes PF poisons, though.

I think you did a pretty good job achieving your goal. There are plenty of discoveries to enhance poison use as well. This provides a good base.

P.S. You really need to remove the 24hr limitation on poisons created with the discount. Any time you bring in the crafting rules you have to let the item stand as-is. If it usually takes a week or more to create (and additional gp materials as well) then you need to let it be an actual item.



Positive Essence
This is basically the Deathless aegis from the Protection sphere. It's not outright immunity like the dhampir has, but it's applicable to a lot more situations, so I think it's actually better. In addition, if the essentialist wants to have remove negative levels, they can pick up Greater Restore, the dhampir ability you suggested overlaps with that to some degree.

Remember, the dhampir ability doesn't actually make anyone immune to energy drain, just the penalties associated with it. The drain levels are still there, they still die when the drain exceeds HD, and the penalties will be back in full force once the essence wears off. Sure you can remove temporary negative levels with Restore Soul after the fact but this discovery is about dealing with such things as they happen, and so is a separate niche. I think there is room for both.



Water of Life
I've made the duration change you suggested. I'm not certain about giving the 'do not recover sp' option, it seems fairly complicated for something that probably won't come up often.

The 'do not recover sp' option is functionally identical to the Infusion discovery, an option that players looking at an Alchemist archetype will not find complicated, and believe me, it will come up often. Whether its due to bargains, long term plans, or just convenience, it is something that opens up options with little to no downside. Please consider.



Vitality Talents
I've been thinking about this as well. The idea is that the buffs are strong, but they don't last long, encouraging more in-combat healing. Making them last until the character is hit effectively gives them the same duration as the hit points your cure gives them - they get hit, lost their buff, and you respond by curing them again, restoring the buff. And having only one be available per Life sphere ability use makes it so you always pick the same one (the aggro one).

I get your thinking but it is not a direct analogue. Temporary HP last till they are gone, usually longer than a single hit. The one hit dispel leads to the effect being dispelled before the target gets a chance to even use it, making these a wasted talent pick. If you want to encourage in-combat healing then remove the damage dispel and shorten the duration to 5 or maybe even 3 rounds. Perhaps even add a Greater Vitality talent that allows one to have two vitality talents active/cast at once. The key here is that you just need to give them something for the talent pick. Currently the benefit disappears so quickly that no benefit can be had.



Disruption
Disruption costs a spell point because the destruction sphere costs a spell point to use if you want damage dice equal to CL. It lacks a 'don't spend a spell point to do half dice' option.

Completely disregard my previous comment on Disruption. I originally saw the 1d4 nonlethal damage increasing to 1d12 and somehow completely missed the 'per caster level' component of the damage. My bad.

[A.J.Gibson]

Remember, these are not one for one trades. Look at other archetypes, some are replaced directly, some are additions, all depending on the goals of the archetype. Also, this is not a normal archetype, this is a full conversion from a standard-ish vancian class to a SoP analogue. Try not to get stuck in too linear a mentality.

I think that it is more important to make sure that you have a balanced class that makes sense thematically and mechanically. Don't forget the trade offs that tend to get hand waived in this sort of thing as well. Things like the Alchemists extract list. It only has 6 levels (mid-caster) but it has selected spells (mainly those dealing with healing, buffs, and shapeshifting) given early access (like being a full caster in Life, Enhancement, and Alteration). In short, I really don't think that you need to sacrifice any more features.


I must say, that was not clear at all. Essences and Mutating Essence seemed to have fully replaced Mutagen both thematically and mechanically, and I am quite fine with that. In fact, I think you should remove Mutagen altogether. There is too much overlap between it and Essences, and the Essences are central to the archetype and just too damn interesting.


Just remember to put in something for magical diseases since poisons don't seem to have any equivalent.


Glad to hear. I think that it might be the key to making the archetype something really interesting. Remember too that you have good precedent for this sort of thing with the Triple Goddess archetype and such.


I think you did a pretty good job achieving your goal. There are plenty of discoveries to enhance poison use as well. This provides a good base.

P.S. You really need to remove the 24hr limitation on poisons created with the discount. Any time you bring in the crafting rules you have to let the item stand as-is. If it usually takes a week or more to create (and additional gp materials as well) then you need to let it be an actual item.


Remember, the dhampir ability doesn't actually make anyone immune to energy drain, just the penalties associated with it. The drain levels are still there, they still die when the drain exceeds HD, and the penalties will be back in full force once the essence wears off. Sure you can remove temporary negative levels with Restore Soul after the fact but this discovery is about dealing with such things as they happen, and so is a separate niche. I think there is room for both.


The 'do not recover sp' option is functionally identical to the Infusion discovery, an option that players looking at an Alchemist archetype will not find complicated, and believe me, it will come up often. Whether its due to bargains, long term plans, or just convenience, it is something that opens up options with little to no downside. Please consider.


I get your thinking but it is not a direct analogue. Temporary HP last till they are gone, usually longer than a single hit. The one hit dispel leads to the effect being dispelled before the target gets a chance to even use it, making these a wasted talent pick. If you want to encourage in-combat healing then remove the damage dispel and shorten the duration to 5 or maybe even 3 rounds. Perhaps even add a Greater Vitality talent that allows one to have two vitality talents active/cast at once. The key here is that you just need to give them something for the talent pick. Currently the benefit disappears so quickly that no benefit can be had.


Completely disregard my previous comment on Disruption. I originally saw the 1d4 nonlethal damage increasing to 1d12 and somehow completely missed the 'per caster level' component of the damage. My bad.

I've made some changes:
-Life casting doesn't replace poison resistance/immunity anymore, but I nerfed it slightly so that you only get full CL when using Water of Life, I might have to take away swift/instant alchemy as well, depending on Adam's mood
-Mutated Essence has been clarified, but nothing has changed
-Acquired Tolerance is gone (obviously), while Clean Living now grants the poison resistance/immunity against disease as well
-Enhancement and Alteration spheres work at full CL when used with Water of Life
-I modified the poison so you can 'recharge' it with a new essence if you don't use it the day you make it
-I'm keeping Positive Essence as is, I think it works better this way and doesn't compete with Greater Restore this way, and it also thematically fits the essentialist this way (granting resistance to a number of things instead of immunity to the effects of a smaller number of things)
-I'm also still thinking about the 'do not recover sp' option for essences and about Vitality feats