[Pathfinder] Questions about Ebberron, Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might.

[Nautilust]

I am currently putting together a campaign using the Pathfinder mechanics.

I'm interested in using the 3.5 Eberron setting. I recently was introduced to this site, https://sites.google.com/site/eberronpathfinder/ , by one of my players. I haven't gotten a chance to take a good look at it.

I was wondering if anyone's read or used that content. Is it any good?

Also it looks like I am using Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might. People who have run or played using those rules. What should I know or consider before using them?

[DrMartin]

Out of my own experience with spheres of power: fun system, but throws a bit of the classic d20 expectations out of the window. On the one hand characters can get access to fly as soon as level 1 (elemental transformation), on the other hand either a caster spent a talent on divination or he's not going to be able to detect magic. Removing certain afflictions may also take way more than waiting the next day for the cleric to memorize that break enchantment or remove poison/disease/curse/what have you, unless the party healer has picked the right talents or has other ways to sidestep the issue.

Not bad things per se, but might throw off base expectations on what a party can and cannot do.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

The long and short of Spheres vs Base Pathfinder is that casters and martials will both start out stronger in one or two ways and from there

* Martials will grow fast and have significantly more/better tricks than you might expect. It’s recommended you look at the Advanced Talents and decide whether certain things are within the scope of you game, but you should imo definitely allow most of them as they patch many of the holes in noncasters’ capabilities.

* Casters will start with one or two things they can do all day and a trick or two they can’t, and grow from there. Aside from boosting range/duration, spheres magic tends to only grow in power through levels, while more talents simply means more versatility. You can fly at 1st if you want, but that will cost even the high-casting classes 2/3 of their starting talents for example. Don’t allow the Advanced Talents here because unlike the stuff in SoM they’re all commonly-cited campaign breakers like resurrection and mass instantaneous teleports

[Epic Legand]

I like this site as well.

http://pf-eberron.wikidot.com/

[Nautilust]

Out of my own experience with spheres of power: fun system, but throws a bit of the classic d20 expectations out of the window. On the one hand characters can get access to fly as soon as level 1 (elemental transformation), on the other hand either a caster spent a talent on divination or he's not going to be able to detect magic. Removing certain afflictions may also take way more than waiting the next day for the cleric to memorize that break enchantment or remove poison/disease/curse/what have you, unless the party healer has picked the right talents or has other ways to sidestep the issue.

Not bad things per se, but might throw off base expectations on what a party can and cannot do.

That's cool. I think it would be nice to change up some of the base expectations of D&D. I've gotten to the point honestly, where D&D kind of bores me. But it's pretty easy to find people who want to play D&D/Pathfinder so I still play it.


The long and short of Spheres vs Base Pathfinder is that casters and martials will both start out stronger in one or two ways and from there

* Martials will grow fast and have significantly more/better tricks than you might expect. It’s recommended you look at the Advanced Talents and decide whether certain things are within the scope of you game, but you should imo definitely allow most of them as they patch many of the holes in noncasters’ capabilities.

* Casters will start with one or two things they can do all day and a trick or two they can’t, and grow from there. Aside from boosting range/duration, spheres magic tends to only grow in power through levels, while more talents simply means more versatility. You can fly at 1st if you want, but that will cost even the high-casting classes 2/3 of their starting talents for example. Don’t allow the Advanced Talents here because unlike the stuff in SoM they’re all commonly-cited campaign breakers like resurrection and mass instantaneous teleports

It's cool that it makes martial classes more balanced. I think that stuff like resurrection and mass instantaneous teleports sounds pretty cool, especially if everyone is doing stuff like that. But I see how it would mess with game balance and make it suck to play a martial class.





I like this site as well.

http://pf-eberron.wikidot.com/

Thanks for the Eberron resource. It looks cool though i'm not sure if it's for my game.

[digiman619]

It's cool that it makes martial classes more balanced. I think that stuff like resurrection and mass instantaneous teleports sounds pretty cool, especially if everyone is doing stuff like that. But I see how it would mess with game balance and make it suck to play a martial class.
Then keep them as incantations. That way someone with the appropriate skills can do it, even if they don't have a single magical talent (It's trivial to get whatever class skills you want, so you can do it even if you have no wizards)

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Then keep them as incantations. That way someone with the appropriate skills can do it, even if they don't have a single magical talent (It's trivial to get whatever class skills you want, so you can do it even if you have no wizards)

This is how my now all-spheres group does it. No magic advanced talents, but Incantations and to a lesser extent Rituals (which we’ve capped at 6th level spells) allow for the rare grander effects (and from a greater variety of characters)

You can already pull off mass rez and long range teleport with the basic stuff anyway, if you’re willing to accept some restrictions. There’s a Life talent iirc that works like Breath of Life, and if there isn’t one to hit an area with it, then spellcrafting allows you as DM to help the players make such a spell