[Spheres of Power] Forecast for today is playtesting: The Tempestarian's Handbook

[Jeff the Green]

At long last I have bedimm’d the noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds, and ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak with his own bolt; the strong-based promontory have I made shake and by the spurs pluck’d up the pine and cedar.

Ahem.

What I mean to say is that the Tempestarian's Handbook (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eTcOXxESdsepvyAc7vIp3efQKuV5A05TWSTIPGuvLDU/edit?usp=sharing), expanding upon the Weather sphere, is finally complete. Inside you will find a bevy of new uses fo atmoturgy, including:

Archetypes for alchemist, blood rager, skald, and armorist
Two new talent types, shrouds and mantles, that allow you to create highly localized weather to vex your foes or to become the wind yourself
New types of weather, including aridity and volcanism
New monsters


Please feel free to comment on the document or here. The more specific the comments the better because that way I can address them. "This is awesome!" is appreciated, but "This could be made better by X, Y, and Z" helps me make it better. I'll be reading every comment even if I'm not able to respond to them.


A quick note. There is some content that is almost ready, but since it still needs fixing it isn't included in the playtest doc yet; I'll migrate it as soon as it's ready. There are also a couple missing things; I am aware of them and will be finishing them in the next couple days. Feel free to note them, just know that I'm already planning on filling them.

[AlienFromBeyond]

Keeping an eye on this, but withholding feedback for now until the aforementioned missing pieces are place so I can do everything all at once. Will you be enabling comments on the doc itself when ready to do so?

[Jeff the Green]

Keeping an eye on this, but withholding feedback for now until the aforementioned missing pieces are place so I can do everything all at once. Will you be enabling comments on the doc itself when ready to do so?

That was just an error; I assumed moving it into our internal playtest folder gave that permission, but I needed to do it manually. You can comment now.

[digiman619]

So it turns out Warp will be the last sphere to get a handbook. And here I was assuming it'd be one of the first.

But to the matter at hand; the new Weather sphere stuff. Let's take a look!

* Plasma harvester looks good, but I won't lie and for a few seconds thought whenit talked about plasma, it meant "a component of blood" rather than "The fourth state of matter". Probably not a big deal, but worth mentioning.
* The archetype itself if a neat little mad scientist concept, using storms and other violent weather as a source of power. Kind of reminds me of a Technician in some ways, but not enough to step on toes.
* The Wendigo has a bit of a problem; it has two separate aura effects, but neither include any ways to make it more party friendly. While Famine Aura does at least give immunity if you activate it before heading out, but it can be an easy thing to forget Rime Rage has nothing to stop you from deep freezing your allies accidentally.
* Storm Herald's Tempest Seeker is a bit long, but I don't see a way to shorten it without taking into account the possibilities of already having things.
* The raging songs the Storm Herald has are interesting, but the 14th level one is unfinished. I'm sure you'll get that in place soon enough.
* The Vajrahasta (which has got to be hell on your autocorrect) is an interesting archetype. Way too often, "hurling lighting bolts" is just blaster spells, but this in an interesting take that keeps it more in the range of martial than caster (though it's also a caster, it does it closer to how a martial would rather than a caster, I mean. Or at least that's how it feels, at any rate.)
* I like the precedent the Sage set, in that "Class with few talents gets ability to get 3 more talents", though I agree that limiting them by type works better for the Barbarian/Bloodrager than it would have for the Sage.
* Vog sounded made up, but it is indeed a real thing, basically a volcanologically created smog TIL.
* I get the idea of mantles, but it feels weird that unlike similar effects like totems or wards, there is no automatic mantle you get for taking the sphere, a la Totem of War or Barrier.
* Shrouds are a neat idea, but I am sad there there's no shroud for aurora borealis, so it's impossible, regardless of time or geographical location, for it to be localized entirely in your kitchen.
* Why does Expansive Shroud say "You may select this talent multiple times" where there' only two possible increases? Why not "You may select this talent twice; the second time it increases its range to Long."?
*Interesting design choice in that all Mantles are all buffs while Shrouds are all debuffs. Makes it easier to tell at a glance which way you help the party.
*Climatic Shift is nuts, but seeing as you have to be at least 15th level to pull it off, it's not too overpowered.
*Fire Tornadoes is the 5th advance talent to require more than one sphere. This isn't particularly useful, but I felt like sharing.
*Fimbulvinter mentions a menhir, but what it describes is totally different from the wondrous item menhir described in earlier handbooks I'm pretty sure it was Nature, but I could be wrong about that).
*Why do Cumulative Nimbus and Mantled caster require a MSB as a prerequisite rather than caster level? I can't recall any other sphere thing ever using it as a prerequisite.
* I think that "Sphere-specific drawbacks that give bonus talents must be bought off with a feat rather than a talent" is a tad too much; especially since a magic talent is supposed to be worth a feat.
*I doubt that I would ever get a weapon enchanted with Howling (temporarily getting it via an arcane pool or the like? Sure. Permanently and for gp? Probably not.), but Windblast seems like it would be fun to play around with.

Hope that input helps!

[AlienFromBeyond]

I think that "Sphere-specific drawbacks that give bonus talents must be bought off with a feat rather than a talent" is a tad too much; especially since a magic talent is supposed to be worth a feat.
War has already had a sphere-specific drawback that gives a feat instead of a talent, though it doesn't have the clause of needing to be bought off with a feat instead of a talent. I think it would be a little more balanced if it did tbh, so doing so here makes sense to me.

[MeimuHakurei]

How do you enhance a tornado such that sharks can swim in it unharmed?

[Kitsuneymg]

Haven’t finished reading the whole thing, but am out of time and wanted to comment.

The “vaj” Armorist archetypes name is terrible and unpronounceable. Also, it trades bound equipment for good, but ultimately lackluster, throwing weapons. You lose 5-6 100-200k items for lightning daggers. And you don’t even get enough to make a real throwing build! (Twf+rapid shot+haste) so you still need a blink back belt.

Vog is broken. Yes you need to waste 3 spheres in nature and a feat, but large area,escalating DC, con damage? And at severity 6 no save l nauesate? When combined with the tempestrelli PRC, this is a standard action to win against anything not immune to con and nauseate. Which is most things. Hell, by level 8 (tempestrelli 3), you’re talking 1800 foot radius of save or con damage outside with escalating save dcs. Yes, it’s likely evil. So? There are evil casters. This seems like it should at least be an advanced talent because it fundamentally alters the way the world needs to work. As in, the world at late needs to adapt on a massive scale to handle people with this power. Toss in friendship aegis as another prerequisite and you’re still at “world altering” levels of insanity.

[khadgar567]

is there any way we can use a shroud talent as an additional defense instead of offense like using our mastery of winds to pull base kinetic defense option of air.

[Castilonium]

Haven’t finished reading the whole thing, but am out of time and wanted to comment.

The “vaj” Armorist archetypes name is terrible and unpronounceable. Also, it trades bound equipment for good, but ultimately lackluster, throwing weapons. You lose 5-6 100-200k items for lightning daggers. And you don’t even get enough to make a real throwing build! (Twf+rapid shot+haste) so you still need a blink back belt.

Do you even Vajrayana Buddhism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana), bro?

Considering the point of the archetype is to impale with the Lancer sphere, you probably don't want the vajras to automatically return to your hand.

[stack]

Digi - if I recall, the counterspell feats were errata'd to have a MSB prerequisite in order for low casters to get them in a timely fashion.

[calyst]

The Vog CON damage on a concentration effect with large area of effect is extremely overpowered. In addition it references a non-existant nature talent.

Edit - Oops forgot to look in advanced for Volcano.
Further edit - Volcano Lord feat only mentions create/alter ash not Vog so really I think Vog can be removed entirely as currently there is nothing besides said Volcano Advanced Nature Talent that makes it and that talent handles it in its own rules.

[Mcdt2]

The Vog CON damage on a concentration effect with large area of effect is extremely overpowered. In addition it references a non-existant nature talent.

The Volcano talent exists, it's just an advanced talent. I'm inclined to agree on balance, however, and I find it somewhat odd to require a feat to use it. Seems unintuitive.

I'd rather see these as an Advanced talent of their own, honestly. More in line with how other spheres do things.

[Arcueid]

Is there any plans to address the major early game balance issues with this sphere? Generally in my group and a few others we ended up banning the sphere thanks to a very easy to make theorycraft we ended up with.

To explain the primary issue is the weather sphere starts weak and scales into crazy area/damage quickly, this is compounded by the many abilities to boost severity levels far beyond your normal level range.

1st level, you have the ability to create up to severity level 3:
For heat this is Fort save each hour.

Heat lord Talent: This boosts the severity you can create by 1 in addition you can designate 80ft of safety.
This boosts heat to a check every 10 minutes.

Severe weather: Spend an extra spell point to raise the severity by an additonal 1.
This boosts heat to 5th now, 1d6 fire damage every minute, and a fort save every 5 minutes.

Greater Weather+Boiling lord+Rain lord: we're at the same level in precipitation now, and now it deals 1d6 damage per round also. Add greater size and we're at long range area.
That took 7 talents to absolutely destroy stuff in long range. Well i say 1d6...but its 1d6 per severity level...so its actually 5d6.

As an incanter with weather sphere specialization would have: 5 talents (2 base +2 from incanter + bonus sphere from specialization). We could burn a feat on extra magic talent to put us at 6, and at 2nd level we'd have 7.

So the spell affects 400+40 per CL: We're CL 3 in this sphere thanks to incanter, so 520ft of area, with an 80ft safe zone. So yes this will take alot of spellpoints to start, but at that level someone could keep this going fairly easily and demolish anything that doesn't have some sort of cover...and admittedly this sphere makes no real mention of cover/shelter (which admittedly eventually the cold/fire effects get too great for even shelter to make sense).

Now at 4th level we can take thaumaturge. So we're 5th CL, and the thaumaturge boosts his CL an extra 2 to 7th, so we've just went up yet another severity. So the fort saves are every round, and we're at the equivalent of severe wind in terms of our boiling rainfall in our 680ft area. Now you may point out that this has to be centered on you meaning you're kinda trapped for its duration, but at this point we can easily grab talents (or have been an human to get yet another extra magic talent feat) to let it affect stuff within long range and create the area out from there, allowing us to easily put even more space between us and anything that would want to get near us.



I know this is basically a bit of a min-max option, but i think it well shows the silliness of the weather sphere. Its either a minor inconvenience either lesser or on par with the base pathfinder fog/temperature/ect.. stuff, and extremely quickly scales up with too many options to bump up severity way faster than intended.

I know spheres isn't super huge on errata, but it does happen from time to time, and i do think some consideration should be made to either:
A: remove the abilities that boost caps. Or put a level requirement on those abilities.
B: Hard cap severity based on Hit dice then so severity boosters aren't useful to full casters, that way severity can scale up at a more reasonable pace. (because the system assumes 4th severity aka 7th level is a difficult to obtain thing, when its not that hard baseline to grab).

[YroPro]

Please feel free to comment on the document or here. The more specific the comments the better because that way I can address them.

Great job on all the buff/debuffs effects by the way, it's awesome that I can try to make my party hate me less while contributing lol.


It's weird that you can't use Dry Lighting to make...dry lightning. I'd expect it to let you use it with Aridity.

Please tell me Borne Aloft lets my crossbow focused Inquisitor ally shoot while flying without ranged penalties.

Also for the purpose of things like Rain Bomb, could you maybe put some more hard description towards heavy precipitation effects? As it is it's pretty GM fiat heavy atm.

Also the Self Mantle Feat is generally less Helpful than just getting +2 Spellpoints. Cause Hour/Lvl Duration

Under the Black Ice shroud, what's with the random flat footed mention?

Can you elaborate on Head in the Clouds?
Does that mean I can cast two at the same time? Or standard to make A, then next round Standard to Make B? But now A drops unless you have Easy Focus? Or does it exist solely to pair with Encompassing shroud to spend a point to make A/B, then concentrate each round to maintain them?

I really feel like there needs to be a way to apply multiple Mantles. Right now it's massively Spellpoint expensive to make your entire class theme party friendly.
Literally most teams want nothing to do with a weather ally because it's hard to protect them from it.

[Test Pattern]

Raising severity requires a turn per raise. In part this does depend on game.

If your playing in a game based upon gladiatorial combat, then yeah you probably will dominate most stuff most of the time (Assuming your enemies don't just get closer to the safe zone), but Id say this is one of those things thats super powerful on paper.

[stack]

Weather in the base book responds strongly to conditions. You can wipe entire towns off the map at low levels, but good luck getting more than a concealing mist during a dungeon crawl. I don't know how you fix that without making it fundamentally different. Heat and cold below the higher severities are fluff, wind has minor debuffs at low levels, leaving rain awesome for making heavy mists (goz masks all around!). The handbook does a lot for giving you something to do other than use a different sphere, but the base issues...(shrug).

[YroPro]

I don't know how you fix that without making it fundamentally different.

Tempestarii Prestige class.

[Test Pattern]

Tempestarii Prestige class.

I dont agree. I don't believe that cool concepts be hit with nerfbats because of munchkins with uncreative GMs.

[YroPro]

I was just saying it fixes the ramp up, that's all. I'm making a 95% Weather based caster in the RotRL game I'm in. Level 5 atm so starting that next level.

[Test Pattern]

I was just saying it fixes the ramp up, that's all.

What do you mean by that?

[Arcueid]

Raising severity requires a turn per raise. In part this does depend on game.

If your playing in a game based upon gladiatorial combat, then yeah you probably will dominate most stuff most of the time (Assuming your enemies don't just get closer to the safe zone), but Id say this is one of those things thats super powerful on paper.

I would argue gladitorial is the one place it would be weaker because the 80ft safe zone gives them alot of room to kill you and be safe. But with one extra talent instead of centering it on yourself you can simply center it anywhere within your long range and suddenly the safe zone isn't really a thing anymore, you only really care about that safe zone ability when there's stuff approaching from all sides.

The issue is you can decimate most creatures out in the open, and destroy cities full of people and with 500+ feet of distance most everything will die before it reaches you. You generally have the ultimate tool to jump people, just get someone to get some level of scrying or the like to simply nuke an area in front of you before you proceed. We're talking about 2nd level characters doing 5d6 in huge areas every round to all creatures/object/ect... within. Most creatures that you'd face at that level will die 1st or 2nd round assuming you low super low. Even minmaxers on the destruction sphere can only at worst throw 30ft fireballs of instant incineration, but at least they aren't leveling entire cities.
In dungeon scenarios yes your power will be reduced, but its not like you can't just pick up destruction when weather isn't an option.


Weather in the base book responds strongly to conditions. You can wipe entire towns off the map at low levels, but good luck getting more than a concealing mist during a dungeon crawl. I don't know how you fix that without making it fundamentally different. Heat and cold below the higher severities are fluff, wind has minor debuffs at low levels, leaving rain awesome for making heavy mists (goz masks all around!). The handbook does a lot for giving you something to do other than use a different sphere, but the base issues...(shrug).

I completely agree, this kinda summaries the problem with the base sphere, and i also agree regarding this book allowing for some branching out.
This is the overall issue with the sphere, long had our group hoped for a just straight re-write of the sphere or at least some heavy errata:


The sphere as a whole was clearly meant to copy the basic pathfinder weather and mist abilities but instead seems to achieve neither.
The first 3 severities seems to be pointless outside of the mist ability which is somewhat nice to have.
4 is super easy to obtain right away thanks to the silly amount of abilities that boost severity, even though the basic sphere seems to think the difference between 3rd severity and 4th is about 6 levels, and yet we have a single talent that is equivalent to jumping in 6 CL. Now its possible to summon large areas of boiling rain, and while i bring that one up alot, the storm/other abilities all get huge power boosts at their level.
5 and above we get into the territory of having the equivalent of the control weather spell, which is both a 7th level spell, and takes 10 minutes to cast. But at this point we're at the point of stuff getting blown away and ranged attacks becoming impossible and thats only from wind.
Everything past 5th is just extra, you're already the destoyer of worlds.



The overall problem is the sphere just scales very poorly, and yet it feels like the entire sphere was designed from 20th level and made backwards.
At 14th + all those lord + severe weather abilities let you hit the max severity of 7 as the base sphere stops scaling on severity at 14th level at 5th severity. So the other talents help it along to that final stretch. Now i would argue that things like the telekinesis sphere and such have stuff far above 20th level casters as they seem to take into account the existence of staves that boost caster level, so one could argue this sphere should require around a 25th CL to reach that 7th level weather ability, as the current setup puts all weather control within grasp of even 1/2 or 3/4 casters with the help of staves/traits.
Ignoring that though the issue comes from the fact that these boosters for severity exist from 1st level. Meaning a 1st level caster can skip straight to the 14th level caster's base level with 2 talents. And yet without them the base level of the sphere seems mostly there just so the system/GM had a way to describe severity levels below 4.

Now i'm not knocking this book even though it seems like i am. I really like the idea of the mantles and gaining more utility and smaller scale abilities other than just wiping towns off the map, heck even the new weather types aren't terrible ideas in themselves.
Its just the base sphere is so poorly balanced that we'd almost be better doing a re-write of weather or simply making a "weather but not weather" sphere (just so the base sphere can exist in its own poorly balance bubble, and a new sphere can be there as a more proper replacement).

[Test Pattern]

The overall problem is the sphere just scales very poorly, and yet it feels like the entire sphere was designed from 20th level and made backwards.

You know when you put it that way thats a legitimate point. Even from a worldbuilding perspective I don't think that this level of decimation should not be this easy to achieve.

This may require some rebuilding.

[YroPro]

spheresofpower.wikidot.com/ tempestarii

Rapid Weather
A tempestarii is an expert at manipulating weather, and can do so much more quickly than most. When using control weather to change the weather’s severity, the change happens by an additional level per round for every tempestarii level possessed; 2 steps at level 1, 3 steps at level 2, etc.

Instant Weather
At 5th level, when the tempestarii uses control weather to change the weather’s severity, the change happens immediately, no matter how many levels the severity is being changed.

[AlienFromBeyond]

Tempestarii is super broken and should have never been printed IMO, and I'm not sure anything can be done about it.

[YroPro]

I mean on one hand I agree, but it's SO cool!

It makes going straight weather feel great and not utterly gimped in combat.

[khadgar567]

For all my boiling rain builders you are forgetting we can littraly hit city with acid rain thanks to our newest feat so that cl 14 rain storm actualy hits lot and lot more than just 5d6 every turn if you pop one more spell point that rain storm hits 19d6 every turn.

[Arcueid]

For all my boiling rain builders you are forgetting we can littraly hit city with acid rain thanks to our newest feat so that cl 14 rain storm actualy hits lot and lot more than just 5d6 every turn if you pop one more spell point that rain storm hits 19d6 every turn.

While i don't doubt this sphere has more insanity, i'm not seeing any feat in this book, or previous books relating to acid rain in this sphere.

[khadgar567]

While i don't doubt this sphere has more insanity, i'm not seeing any feat in this book, or previous books relating to acid rain in this sphere.
okay that was a shroud feat but i think my point kinda stands its just one feat or option away from becoming a permanent addition to spheres of villainy supplement and we all know how powerful deific talents are and this might be cutting really close to that area

[Arcueid]

okay that was a shroud feat but i think my point kinda stands its just one feat or option away from becoming a permanent addition to spheres of villainy supplement and we all know how powerful deific talents are and this might be cutting really close to that area

I'd argue we're already there, boiling rain is actually achievable with some minor annoyance at 1st, second just makes it easier to do. And i haven't even included the use of any boons yet to just boost that early game CL to reach that 2nd level 6th severity, i only just showed what the sphere by itself could do.

As much as i sometimes gripe about the destruction sphere at least that sphere's primary issue is just CL abuse (because every point of CL translates into more damage if you spend a spell point, while other spheres work on tiers). Without abusing various sources of caster level though it remains fairly reasonable.
Weather doesn't care about your CL that much, its just exists to add to durations and area of effect.

[khadgar567]

I'd argue we're already there, boiling rain is actually achievable with some minor annoyance at 1st, second just makes it easier to do. And i haven't even included the use of any boons yet to just boost that early game CL to reach that 2nd level 6th severity, i only just showed what the sphere by itself could do.

As much as i sometimes gripe about the destruction sphere at least that sphere's primary issue is just CL abuse (because every point of CL translates into more damage if you spend a spell point, while other spheres work on tiers). Without abusing various sources of caster level though it remains fairly reasonable.
Weather doesn't care about your CL that much, its just exists to add to durations and area of effect.
doesn't care for caster level I think I am gonna disagree on there. With that much damage and control on 1st level characters hand means it might be too late to save the camping you build for months. you basically make the area you anchor un-siege able and in siege same time no one can get out or in 80ft of you or burned by thousand drops. I think we really need spheres of villainy book to balance the setting. normally my only gripe was I cant create unlimited blade works with the system but it becomes clear that some spheres might need nerfs just to keep it simple. spheres system meant to people as less crazy alternative spell casting system but considering current options my gut feeling says I might need to up my homebrew up several notches just to keep my content balanced as most overpowered options feel like a joke when a 2nd level uppity mage can beat my best efforts.

[YroPro]

Has rainfall for Severity 6/7 Flash flood/Great flood ever been quantified anywhere? Right now the amount seems to be totally GM fiat.

[Test Pattern]

I just came up with an idea how to balance out the sphere effects:

Boiling Lord/Cold Lord/Heat Lord/Rain Lord/snow lord/windlord.
When using control weather to create or ___, increase designate an area you may create an area of up to 80 ft in diameter in the affected area that increases by 1 additional severity level each round. This severity level can reach a severity of 1 level higher then normal

This ensures that the area of effect isn't as area affecting, speeds up ramp up for lower levels, but doesn't take away its general environmental effect.

Hows this?

Additional ideas could be adding a caster level pre-requisite to when it increases maximum severity.

[zlefin]

I'm afraid I don't have useful commentary; I skimmed through it, read a few subsections, but was not thorough. Overall I didn't like the feel of it. Several parts of it felt too weird/irregular, like too many special/obscure/oddly named weather kinds were chosen just to have interesting effects (like the volcano stuff, which barely even seems like weather)
and the balance/effects on some parts just seemed odd or nonsensical (like how do you dry yourself as a swift action if you have a personal raincloud, and why would it slow you down immensely, but be removable with a swift action? that doesn't match how being rained on works).

[YroPro]

I just came up with an idea how to balance out the sphere effects:

Boiling Lord/Cold Lord/Heat Lord/Rain Lord/snow lord/windlord.
When using control weather to create or ___, increase designate an area you may create an area of up to 80 ft in diameter in the affected area that increases by 1 additional severity level each round. This severity level can reach a severity of 1 level higher then normal




Now you can't make safe zones and your party hates you more than they do currently.

[Arcueid]

I just came up with an idea how to balance out the sphere effects:

Boiling Lord/Cold Lord/Heat Lord/Rain Lord/snow lord/windlord.
When using control weather to create or ___, increase designate an area you may create an area of up to 80 ft in diameter in the affected area that increases by 1 additional severity level each round. This severity level can reach a severity of 1 level higher then normal

This ensures that the area of effect isn't as area affecting, speeds up ramp up for lower levels, but doesn't take away its general environmental effect.

Hows this?

Additional ideas could be adding a caster level pre-requisite to when it increases maximum severity.

80ft diameter is still a fairly large area for something that just continually does damage for minutes/hours/ect. And it doesn't fix the issue of low level characters getting severity 5/6 almost instantly.

This sphere has been broken from release and it was said from the start that it needed a rewrite. What needs to occur is rather than that is the sphere needs to have severity scaling differently.

Right now this is severity progression:

1, 2, 3 severity at 1st CL.
4th Severity at 7th
5th severity at 14th CL.
Then a general talent and a bunch of other talents that give an extra +2 letting you reach 7 severity by the end.


What it probably should be is modeled after other spheres:

1 severity at 1st
2 severity at 4th.
3 severity at 7th.
4 severity at 11th.
5 severity at 15th.
6 severity at 20th.
7 severity at 25th.


Now i know this isn't going to be the most popular progression, but let me explain my logic:
Every other sphere is specifically setup to take into account 25th CL, (full caster and a +5 staff). As it currently stands the weather sphere with a staff can be accessed at full power with a 1/2 caster and a +5 staff, and it doesn't use CL outside of determining severity/area otherwise everything is just severity for what actually occurs on effects.
Controlling weather in its baseline is a incredibly powerful thing, and by extension i don't believe you should be able to summon death at 2nd level, even in pathfinder control weather is a 14th level character thing (7th level spell), as such the full power of this sphere shouldn't unlock until then.
Full casters should have more power in this sphere than other casters, its the same thing as telekinesis. You need 25th CL to move colossal things.

I don't think any severity booster talents should exist, it should just be all CL, or if there is there should only be 1. Telekinesis only has the one that lets you go up a category, and i would argue its not a great comparison, because going up from a dagger to candleabra isn't the same and going from a light breeze to boiling rain for miles.

With the addition of mantles controlling weather can be left to a higher level thing, and the sphere gains lower level capability, and people using anything to boost their severity at least aren't jumping straight from 3rd to 4th at 1st level, they're jumping from 1st to 2nd.
And even at low levels fog/other effects still exist so even if its not all damage lower severity stuff isn't entirely worthless.

[EldritchWeaver]

Proposed new scheme

Makes sense to me from a first glance. But the bigger question is if we can get a rewrite. It would break how other spheres have been patched, who were having issues. I have my doubts that this can be attacked before an Ultimate Spheres is on the table (and even then it depends on how far you want to/can go with changes).

[stack]

80ft diameter is still a fairly large area for something that just continually does damage for minutes/hours/ect. And it doesn't fix the issue of low level characters getting severity 5/6 almost instantly.

This sphere has been broken from release and it was said from the start that it needed a rewrite. What needs to occur is rather than that is the sphere needs to have severity scaling differently.

Right now this is severity progression:

1, 2, 3 severity at 1st CL.
4th Severity at 7th
5th severity at 14th CL.
Then a general talent and a bunch of other talents that give an extra +2 letting you reach 7 severity by the end.


What it probably should be is modeled after other spheres:

1 severity at 1st
2 severity at 4th.
3 severity at 7th.
4 severity at 11th.
5 severity at 15th.
6 severity at 20th.
7 severity at 25th.


Now i know this isn't going to be the most popular progression, but let me explain my logic:
Every other sphere is specifically setup to take into account 25th CL, (full caster and a +5 staff). As it currently stands the weather sphere with a staff can be accessed at full power with a 1/2 caster and a +5 staff, and it doesn't use CL outside of determining severity/area otherwise everything is just severity for what actually occurs on effects.
Controlling weather in its baseline is a incredibly powerful thing, and by extension i don't believe you should be able to summon death at 2nd level, even in pathfinder control weather is a 14th level character thing (7th level spell), as such the full power of this sphere shouldn't unlock until then.
Full casters should have more power in this sphere than other casters, its the same thing as telekinesis. You need 25th CL to move colossal things.

I don't think any severity booster talents should exist, it should just be all CL, or if there is there should only be 1. Telekinesis only has the one that lets you go up a category, and i would argue its not a great comparison, because going up from a dagger to candleabra isn't the same and going from a light breeze to boiling rain for miles.

With the addition of mantles controlling weather can be left to a higher level thing, and the sphere gains lower level capability, and people using anything to boost their severity at least aren't jumping straight from 3rd to 4th at 1st level, they're jumping from 1st to 2nd.
And even at low levels fog/other effects still exist so even if its not all damage lower severity stuff isn't entirely worthless.

Precipitation is literally "none" at severity 1. Wind, heat, and cold have no mechanical effects until severity 3, and even then the heat and cold effects trigger once per hour. The low severities are there for fluff, aside from precipitation giving useful mists at 2 and 3. Your proposal essentially makes the entire sphere advanced.

[Test Pattern]

I dunno then maybe leave it as it is and write down some recommended alts for groups that want it that way?

It popped up for me at lower levels and was fine and if I needed to houserule it I would come up with something that works for me.

I guess it depends on what the actual issue with it is.

Is it too high damage at low levels?
Too high worldbuilding effect?

This will all depend on the individual group for instance.

[khadgar567]

I dunno then maybe leave it as it is and write down some recommended alts for groups that want it that way?

It popped up for me at lower levels and was fine and if I needed to houserule it I would come up with something that works for me.

I guess it depends on what the actual issue with it is.

Is it too high damage at low levels?
Too high worldbuilding effect?

This will all depend on the individual group for instance.
my bet is on to high world building effect since just able to make rain on command is powerful enough of as currently is you have basically say nope to any type of fire, like building is on fire pop a spell point, party teleported to desert pop a spell point and cancel any heat based fort saves heck you can act like god due ability to make rain on demand lot of ancient civilizations gonna worship the guy can stop volcanos and make rain via snapping his finger.

[AlienFromBeyond]

Your proposal essentially makes the entire sphere advanced.
Given the definition SoP has for advanced talents, the entire sphere should be advanced. That's the entire problem with it!

[Ironsides]

Maybe there could be a talent that added a benefit for severities 1, 2, and 3. I think the problem is that the lower severities of the weather sphere don’t do enough so people get focused on getting the higher severities as soon as possible. With the amount of damage the higher severities offers this makes balancing the entire sphere difficult. My solution: make the lower severities better.

I might have missed it but I think that there should be a talent that lets you fly by controlling the wind.

I really liked the alchemist archetype. Love the mad science theme it has.

[Archiplex]

Given the definition SoP has for advanced talents, the entire sphere should be advanced. That's the entire problem with it!


Makes sense to me from a first glance. But the bigger question is if we can get a rewrite. It would break how other spheres have been patched, who were having issues. I have my doubts that this can be attacked before an Ultimate Spheres is on the table (and even then it depends on how far you want to/can go with changes).

To throw in my own irrelevant 2 cents here; I sort of agree here.

The baseline for Weather Sphere is a ridiculously tough shell to crack- The sphere itself has to be very careful not to overlap with Nature sphere (And arguably a lot of it would have made sense as a sort of "subsphere" for Nature sphere or as advanced talents for it- but as Eldritch said, that completely shatters the current trend of handbooks and how they have been changed- with limited errata and mostly additions)

That said, at a glance even this handbook has a hard time playing with the base mechanisms presented by Weather sphere b/c they are unintuitive and difficult to handle. Most of the abilities presented in the handbook play off the newly presented talent trees (And I don't blame them- I like the method of using them and it'd be hellish to turn base weather sphere into something interesting).

I was going to suggest an array of different methods to use the tools but even then it would require rewriting old abilities(For one- damage based of CL rather than indirectly off CL such ass lightning/boiling water using intensity): One thing weather sphere could do to make itself very distinct and unique is copying the mechanism from the Lightning bolt effect- You create a large, passive effect around you, and as a move action once a turn, you can direct the energy from the weather to perform specific actions. Summon lightning bolts- hail ice shards, huge gusts of wind or heated flares of energy etc etc.

I don't know much further about how things work, but I don't think anyone should be afraid of a rewrite for how the core sphere works too- it would present many more opportunities than exist now, and hopefully could preserve what can currently be done with the base sphere in other ways. I know of very few people who hold Weather sphere to heart as it currently functions, anyhow- it's mostly
"that one sphere" that you sort of hope nobody runs. It's not bad- sure, but it's complicated and very "all or nothing" in it's approach, because nobody is going to use weather sphere just for the intensity 1-3 effects. Hell, with the talent investment required to pull some things off- I wouldn't doubt most people prefer not to use the sphere at all until they're level 7 so that they have access to the major components of the sphere.

[Test Pattern]

I dont agree. The creation sphere for instance is also potentially "Setting impacting". Everything impacts setting to a degree.

I think the only real issue is slightly wonky scaling and maybe too much of a AoE.

[EldritchWeaver]

I dont agree. The creation sphere for instance is also potentially "Setting impacting". Everything impacts setting to a degree.

I think the only real issue is slightly wonky scaling and maybe too much of a AoE.

The point of "setting impacting" is if the medieval model falls apart. Killing people with fireballs has certainly an impact, but it isn't particularly worse than employing a troop of archers. On the other hand, resurrection makes line of succession laws partially inapplicable. Or your death means that you automatically lose your possessions.

Still, if you are able to destroy swathes of territories by just flying around (get a low-level flight race like Atomies to able to use concentration while moving), this puts you into setting changing. Not even Destruction can do that, unless you combine it with a wide area effect (War sphere or the Midnight advanced talent).

[Test Pattern]

The point of "setting impacting" is if the medieval model falls apart. Killing people with fireballs has certainly an impact, but it isn't particularly worse than employing a troop of archers.

But I mentioned the creation sphere. The measure of hundreds of feet may apear large, but in practice its still tiny.

Even a 20th level Weather Mage is still only impacting only about a half mile diameter with the weather effect.
Which can mess stuff up for sure, but Its setting impact I think is pretty overstated.

I think the issue is more with the Lord Talents then the base scaling of the sphere. More specifically the bonus damage they allow to do scales off of Severity rather then caster level gating.

[EldritchWeaver]

But I mentioned the creation sphere. The measure of hundreds of feet may apear large, but in practice its still tiny.

Even a 20th level Weather Mage is still only impacting only about a half mile diameter with the weather effect.
Which can mess stuff up for sure, but Its setting impact I think is pretty overstated.

I think the issue is more with the Lord Talents then the base scaling of the sphere. More specifically the bonus damage they allow to do scales off of Severity rather then caster level gating.

Not sure what your exact problem with the creation sphere is. Can you give examples? Also, I'm not referring to a single stationary effect. Weather follows the caster, so if you have a flying caster, you can destroy swaths of land in a single day. Maybe only the neighbourhoud of a city in a single day, but that's a problem a kingdom would need to address. Let's see, my atomie would be able to cover 40 miles per day (which is what you can achieve with a horse) and has a CL5 and enough talents to bring ruination to the countryside (like in Arcuid's post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23546765&postcount=13)). That's a 600 ft. radius of destruction.

For simplicity, let's assume we go in a straight line and that moving between point A and point B does affect everything in the square spanned by the radius (so we actually can move at full speed without losing some edge area). So that's 40 miles times 1200 ft = 40 miles x 0.2272727 miles = ~9 square miles. Once per day.

[khadgar567]

Not sure what your exact problem with the creation sphere is. Can you give examples? Also, I'm not referring to a single stationary effect. Weather follows the caster, so if you have a flying caster, you can destroy swaths of land in a single day. Maybe only the neighbourhoud of a city in a single day, but that's a problem a kingdom would need to address. Let's see, my atomie would be able to cover 40 miles per day (which is what you can achieve with a horse) and has a CL5 and enough talents to bring ruination to the countryside (like in Arcuid's post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23546765&postcount=13)). That's a 600 ft. radius of destruction.

For simplicity, let's assume we go in a straight line and that moving between point A and point B does affect everything in the square spanned by the radius (so we actually can move at full speed without losing some edge area). So that's 40 miles times 1200 ft = 40 miles x 0.2272727 miles = ~9 square miles. Once per day.
you know we with couple more talents you can increase the area ten times via spheres of might beast mastery sphere can be used to teach horse two acrobatic talents one is run the package and other is legendary run talent now you are basically riding on the storm.

[Vaktaeru]

you know we with couple more talents you can increase the area ten times via spheres of might beast mastery sphere can be used to teach horse two acrobatic talents one is run the package and other is legendary run talent now you are basically riding on the storm.

And with this, ladies and gentlemen, Vinthor the Thunder God, Incanter 5/Conscript 2, was born. Seriously though, I've played a Weather focused character in an actual campaign before, and it is, quite frankly, obscene. Weather wasn't even really my whole schtick, I was a sniper that used storms as cover because I figured out a way to shoot through a hurricane (but that's a whole other rabbit hole of optimization). But the fact that I could negate every environmental challenge on the fly, threaten entire cities to ruinous hell if they didn't comply with our demands (we were evil), and automatically win every encounter where the enemy didn't have magical means of detection (which I then ruined as well by using invisibility and mind blank) just from this sphere alone badly skewed my group's perception of SoP as a whole - it took me months to convince them that the Weather sphere was really just a problem child and the system as a whole wasn't terribly unbalanced and handing out godlike powers like cheap cigars.

Sorry for the rambling run-on sentence, but I don't even touch this sphere anymore. I don't let my players touch it, and I strongly caution other GMs not to let anyone touch it either. The mantle and shroud stuff looks great to be honest, but the core sphere, while cool, just isn't fun to have in games because it takes the martial/caster disparity usually only present at high levels and makes it accessible to a level 2 incanter, at the same level of extremity.

The sphere needs a rebuild. I haven't quite figured out how yet, but I certainly plan on putting in the work to make a homebrewed one at least.

[khadgar567]

And with this, ladies and gentlemen, Vinthor the Thunder God, Incanter 5/Conscript 2, was born. Seriously though, I've played a Weather focused character in an actual campaign before, and it is, quite frankly, obscene. Weather wasn't even really my whole schtick, I was a sniper that used storms as cover because I figured out a way to shoot through a hurricane (but that's a whole other rabbit hole of optimization). But the fact that I could negate every environmental challenge on the fly, threaten entire cities to ruinous hell if they didn't comply with our demands (we were evil), and automatically win every encounter where the enemy didn't have magical means of detection (which I then ruined as well by using invisibility and mind blank) just from this sphere alone badly skewed my group's perception of SoP as a whole - it took me months to convince them that the Weather sphere was really just a problem child and the system as a whole wasn't terribly unbalanced and handing out godlike powers like cheap cigars.

Sorry for the rambling run-on sentence, but I don't even touch this sphere anymore. I don't let my players touch it, and I strongly caution other GMs not to let anyone touch it either. The mantle and shroud stuff looks great to be honest, but the core sphere, while cool, just isn't fun to have in games because it takes the martial/caster disparity usually only present at high levels and makes it accessible to a level 2 incanter, at the same level of extremity.

The sphere needs a rebuild. I haven't quite figured out how yet, but I certainly plan on putting in the work to make a homebrewed one at least.
welp, this is why the f we need spheres of villainy as a supplement to the system as far as this shows we might need rewrite some things.

[stack]

you know we with couple more talents you can increase the area ten times via spheres of might beast mastery sphere can be used to teach horse two acrobatic talents one is run the package and other is legendary run talent now you are basically riding on the storm.

Given the necessary ramp-up time, I don't think this makes things much worse. If you move faster than the weather worsens, you do no damage. Boiling lord requires severity 4 heat and precipitation, so even spending spell points that is several rounds of ramp time barring unusual conditions.

[EldritchWeaver]

Given the necessary ramp-up time, I don't think this makes things much worse. If you move faster than the weather worsens, you do no damage. Boiling lord requires severity 4 heat and precipitation, so even spending spell points that is several rounds of ramp time barring unusual conditions.

Assuming Heat and Precipitation 1, that divides the area by 3. But if we use the Tempestarii (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/tempestarii)prestige class, things get easier. Thanks to Rapid Weather, the change only needs 2 rounds when taking level 1 and merely 1 round with level 2. At this point you need to decide if there is a speed limit of change (meaning how far can you move to ensure that really everything is affected, even if the area of effect is merely passing through). I'm not sure where I would place it, but once you have level 5, you can really move at maximum speed. (BTW, casting a CL 40 (which isn't impossible to reach) Permanent Alteration/Animal Transformation with the base speed increase spellcrafted with Light's Incarnate Glow and Light Speed grants you 1000 ft. fly speed. That's what is reachable without much theorycrafting.) In addition, the affected area increases tremendously. Grand Weather provides 1000 ft. + 100 ft. per CL, which means at CL 11 (which is rather low for a sphere-focused character) we cover 2100 ft radius. With my provided example, that means we have 31.82 square miles per day. That's without using advanced talents. If we add Climate, we get even 320 square miles. That is the size of New York City, San Diego or Dallas.

[khadgar567]

I am ignoring the tempestarii because it has no purpose other than abusing Weather and shouldn't have been printed.
says the guy literally introduce Chekov's prestige class.

[Arcueid]

But I mentioned the creation sphere. The measure of hundreds of feet may apear large, but in practice its still tiny.

Even a 20th level Weather Mage is still only impacting only about a half mile diameter with the weather effect.
Which can mess stuff up for sure, but Its setting impact I think is pretty overstated.

I think the issue is more with the Lord Talents then the base scaling of the sphere. More specifically the bonus damage they allow to do scales off of Severity rather then caster level gating.

I still don't see the issue with creation, it doesn't even have lasting impact without advanced talents and the sphere has very hard-placed caster level requirements (maxing out at minimum CL of 64 to make a furnished tavern).
The worst I've seen the creation sphere used for was a player who did readied actions to create walls just to impede enemy attacks.
Otherwise without advanced talents permanent creation isn't possible meaning the impact of the sphere is no greater than a fireball made by the destruction sphere.

And if this is based on advanced talents then that is a bit unfair to the system as advanced talents are supposed to be off limits except by DM approval, handled case by case because the whole point of those talents is they're meant to be completely unreasonable/unbalanced compared to the rest of spheres. Otherwise they hold alot of the 8th/9th level pathfinder spell equivalents.

As for weather the issue is 2 fold.
1. You're correct in that the Lord talents allow scaling faster than caster level should allow.
2. The sphere by itself scales way too little off of CL only have 2 increases (7th and 14th), when most spheres have increases at more/higher intervals. The most important being that it generally requires you to be a full caster to reach full power in a sphere (or a 3/4 caster with a staff).
The issue is that the sphere caps at 14th CL, and the lord talents (and severe weather talent) fill the gap to get to 7th severity, meaning a mageknight with a staff/traits/ect.. can reach max power in this sphere, a hedgewitch at 10th level with a trait/staff could reach that 14th CL needed for the sphere, and a 9th incanter is basically done with the sphere (which they were already causing destruction of armies at 1st/2nd with the sphere so i guess 9th is a good time to start causing the great flood).


I am ignoring the tempestarii because it has no purpose other than abusing Weather and shouldn't have been printed.

Tempestarii just adding a gas can to a city-sized fire. Yeah it made things worse, but all we really did was speed a small piece up.

Tempestarii just makes weather faster, does 2x damage to objects instead of half, and eventually acts as a maximized spell (so we basically just saved ourselves a few spell points). The most troublesome thing is that it boosts the range more, which we were already affecting unreasonably huge areas.

The base sphere's couple rounds of spin-up time isn't really much considering the weather effects can last hours, meaning it isn't instant, but its still going to kill everything.

As for the object damage its supposed to be handled case-by-case for a GM, so it wouldn't be hard to hit all the different energy types and destroy everything, considering stuff takes 1/2, but generally a GM is told to handle some objects differently, like wood potentially taking full to 2x damage from fire and such. So city destroying is still a thing.

[stack]

says the guy literally introduce Chekov's prestige class.

Since I have had1 prestige class printed and it was heavily modified prior to release (Hound, in Andrus), I do not know what you are referring to.

Edit: What does Checkov's prestige class even mean? You have to take a prerequisite at level 1, then take the class at the end of the campaign? Or does it give you special abilities as a subordinate officer while faking a Russian accent?

I guess you mean Schrodinger rather than Chekhov, but I am still lost as to how it applies since I don't recall having written anything that would trigger prestige class issues for which there weren't applicable prior examples.

[Arcueid]

Since I have had1 prestige class printed and it was heavily modified prior to release (Hound, in Andrus), I do not know what you are referring to.

Edit: What does Checkov's prestige class even mean? You have to take a prerequisite at level 1, then take the class at the end of the campaign? Or does it give you special abilities as a subordinate officer while faking a Russian accent?

I guess you mean Schrodinger rather than Chekhov, but I am still lost as to how it applies since I don't recall having written anything that would trigger prestige class issues for which there weren't applicable prior examples.

without getting too far off topic, i mostly thought they used Chekhov in the sense that now that its there its hard to ignore, and likely will be used when the weather sphere is involved (because if a DM is insane/inexperienced enough to allow the weather sphere in the first place, might as well double down on the apocalypse.)

[AlienFromBeyond]

says the guy literally introduce Chekov's prestige class.
I think you're getting a little confused there buddy.

[Ruethgar]

I would argue gladitorial is the one place it would be weaker because the 80ft safe zone gives them alot of room to kill you and be safe.

Read this and just had to respond, the safe zone is up to 80ft. So a 15ft radius around you for your party or a 2.5ft radius around for just you are entirely valid options and give them very little room to kill you and be safe.

Also, cursory reading through and I have to agree that Vog is OP.

[Jeff the Green]

So it turns out Warp will be the last sphere to get a handbook. And here I was assuming it'd be one of the first.

But to the matter at hand; the new Weather sphere stuff. Let's take a look!


* Plasma harvester looks good, but I won't lie and for a few seconds thought whenit talked about plasma, it meant "a component of blood" rather than "The fourth state of matter". Probably not a big deal, but worth mentioning.
* The archetype itself if a neat little mad scientist concept, using storms and other violent weather as a source of power. Kind of reminds me of a Technician in some ways, but not enough to step on toes.
* The Wendigo has a bit of a problem; it has two separate aura effects, but neither include any ways to make it more party friendly. While Famine Aura does at least give immunity if you activate it before heading out, but it can be an easy thing to forget Rime Rage has nothing to stop you from deep freezing your allies accidentally.
* Storm Herald's Tempest Seeker is a bit long, but I don't see a way to shorten it without taking into account the possibilities of already having things.
* The raging songs the Storm Herald has are interesting, but the 14th level one is unfinished. I'm sure you'll get that in place soon enough.
* The Vajrahasta (which has got to be hell on your autocorrect) is an interesting archetype. Way too often, "hurling lighting bolts" is just blaster spells, but this in an interesting take that keeps it more in the range of martial than caster (though it's also a caster, it does it closer to how a martial would rather than a caster, I mean. Or at least that's how it feels, at any rate.)
* I like the precedent the Sage set, in that "Class with few talents gets ability to get 3 more talents", though I agree that limiting them by type works better for the Barbarian/Bloodrager than it would have for the Sage.
* Vog sounded made up, but it is indeed a real thing, basically a volcanologically created smog TIL.
* I get the idea of mantles, but it feels weird that unlike similar effects like totems or wards, there is no automatic mantle you get for taking the sphere, a la Totem of War or Barrier.
* Shrouds are a neat idea, but I am sad there there's no shroud for aurora borealis, so it's impossible, regardless of time or geographical location, for it to be localized entirely in your kitchen.
* Why does Expansive Shroud say "You may select this talent multiple times" where there' only two possible increases? Why not "You may select this talent twice; the second time it increases its range to Long."?
*Interesting design choice in that all Mantles are all buffs while Shrouds are all debuffs. Makes it easier to tell at a glance which way you help the party.
*Climatic Shift is nuts, but seeing as you have to be at least 15th level to pull it off, it's not too overpowered.
*Fire Tornadoes is the 5th advance talent to require more than one sphere. This isn't particularly useful, but I felt like sharing.
*Fimbulvinter mentions a menhir, but what it describes is totally different from the wondrous item menhir described in earlier handbooks I'm pretty sure it was Nature, but I could be wrong about that).
*Why do Cumulative Nimbus and Mantled caster require a MSB as a prerequisite rather than caster level? I can't recall any other sphere thing ever using it as a prerequisite.
* I think that "Sphere-specific drawbacks that give bonus talents must be bought off with a feat rather than a talent" is a tad too much; especially since a magic talent is supposed to be worth a feat.
*I doubt that I would ever get a weapon enchanted with Howling (temporarily getting it via an arcane pool or the like? Sure. Permanently and for gp? Probably not.), but Windblast seems like it would be fun to play around with.



Hope that input helps!

(Quote changed to numbers instead of bullets so I can better answer them.)

I am working on coming up with a new name. That was pointed out in comments on the doc too.
Thanks!
Working on a fix for that.
Yeah... I'd like to simplify it. I may simply make it so if you have at least one you can take whatever.
Yep. Also probably moving the level 10 one earlier.
Thanks. And, yes, it was intended to feel more like a fighter than a caster. Half-casters are meant to supplement their fighting with casting, unlike mid-casters which tend to blend them.
I will admit that Sage didn't appeal to me much so I'm not super familiar with it, but yeah, I toyed with a couple different numbers and decided that, since it's limited to rounds rather than hours and it can only be used with a limited type of talent with situational benefit, three is probably the best choice.
My aunt lives on the Big Island of Hawai'i, so I'm fairly familiar with the effect right now.
The reasoning for that is that we don't want to make the base sphere more powerful. I'm already adding a new weather type you can modify, so a new base ability isn't a great idea.
Aurora is a core feat, actually. Attaches your glow to your control weather.
That's standard wording, but it's been ditched anyway in favor of using the same range as control weather
Glad that's noticeable; it was part of my design decision.
Yeah, most spheres have some sort of permanent ability around that level. By that point you're reaching deific power levels, so I'm fairly comfortable.
There's actually been some internal debate about that, which is why Volcano Lord is a feat (it will be moving). I've move more toward that being fine, so it will be an advanced talent now (once vog is pummeled with a nerf bat).
Menhir ≠ menhir. A mehir is a standing stone. This is a generic one and not magical except for what the ritual does to it.
As mentioned, counterspell feats use MSB. It's so they're available to low-casters as well. Since Mantles are meant to make weather viable for low casters and Cumulative Nimbus is meant to help low, mid, and high casters co-operate, it needs to be MSB instead of CL.
Kinda sorta. I discussed this with AJ Gibson, who wrote the War drawback. We agreed that it's best to not let you go from talent to feat so cavalierly.
What would make Howling more attractive to you?



Do you even Vajrayana Buddhism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana), bro?

Considering the point of the archetype is to impale with the Lancer sphere, you probably don't want the vajras to automatically return to your hand.

Indeed. The vajra is the weapon of a number of deific figures in subcontinent belief and also just the word for "lightning bolt". Vajrahasta basically means "lightning wielder".


Great job on all the buff/debuffs effects by the way, it's awesome that I can try to make my party hate me less while contributing lol.


It's weird that you can't use Dry Lighting to make...dry lightning. I'd expect it to let you use it with Aridity.

Please tell me Borne Aloft lets my crossbow focused Inquisitor ally shoot while flying without ranged penalties.

Also for the purpose of things like Rain Bomb, could you maybe put some more hard description towards heavy precipitation effects? As it is it's pretty GM fiat heavy atm.

Also the Self Mantle Feat is generally less Helpful than just getting +2 Spellpoints. Cause Hour/Lvl Duration

Under the Black Ice shroud, what's with the random flat footed mention?

Can you elaborate on Head in the Clouds?
Does that mean I can cast two at the same time? Or standard to make A, then next round Standard to Make B? But now A drops unless you have Easy Focus? Or does it exist solely to pair with Encompassing shroud to spend a point to make A/B, then concentrate each round to maintain them?

I really feel like there needs to be a way to apply multiple Mantles. Right now it's massively Spellpoint expensive to make your entire class theme party friendly.
Literally most teams want nothing to do with a weather ally because it's hard to protect them from it.




(Again, added numbers.)

Dry lightning is a phenomenon with low humidity, not none. However, I'm considering changing that since this is, y'know, magic.
Yes.
That's reasonable.
Fixed. It now increases the severity of weather for the purpose of triggering mantle effects.
When you use Acrobatics to move across a perilous surface you are flat-footed. I clarified.
Head in the Clouds needs to be rewritten. Thanks for pointing out that it's unclear.
I think that once you are able to make weather that's seriously detrimental to your teammates you should have enough SP. And remember that you get all of the relevant mantle effects you've purchased; you don't have to spend an SP for each.



Argument about the base sphere

Look, I don't disagree that there are issues with the power of the base sphere. Fixing it is, however, well outside the purview of this project. I'm considering a few ways to tinker around the edges, such as making the X Lord talents advanced and GM advice, but I will not be rewriting beyond that. I would appreciate it if this topic not clog up the thread and prevent me from improving what I wrote.

[Arcueid]

Look, I don't disagree that there are issues with the power of the base sphere. Fixing it is, however, well outside the purview of this project. I'm considering a few ways to tinker around the edges, such as making the X Lord talents advanced and GM advice, but I will not be rewriting beyond that. I would appreciate it if this topic not clog up the thread and prevent me from improving what I wrote.

Making the Lord talents and the Severe Weather talent advanced talents would fix a lot with it. Beyond that i only suggested maybe scaling severity off CL differently (more intervals starting at 1 and later progression to 2 then 3, etc... , instead of 3 severity immediately and 2 more at 7 and 14th), which even in itself isn't rewriting the whole sphere, the rest of the framework is there its just changing a line to change what levels you unlock what severity.

Main reason a complete rewrite was even brought up was because it was something talked about by the original writers of spheres when it first came out and said it would need to occur when the handbook was made.

[Jeff the Green]

Read this and just had to respond, the safe zone is up to 80ft. So a 15ft radius around you for your party or a 2.5ft radius around for just you are entirely valid options and give them very little room to kill you and be safe.

Just noticed this and had to RAW quibble. You can't actually make a 2.5-ft-radius circle centered on you. All effects are centered on the corner of a square (or cube), so to include you you have to have a 5-ft-radius circle and include three other squares.

Yes, this is dumb.

No, I'm not going to try to fix how PF AoE works in a supplement.

[Test Pattern]

Look, I don't disagree that there are issues with the power of the base sphere. Fixing it is, however, well outside the purview of this project. I'm considering a few ways to tinker around the edges, such as making the X Lord talents advanced and GM advice, but I will not be rewriting beyond that. I would appreciate it if this topic not clog up the thread and prevent me from improving what I wrote.

Thats awesome.

[Mithril Leaf]

I don't actually have many complaints at all as this is more of what I wanted from the base sphere, generally sick as heck. I will say however that a few of the mantles feel somewhat weaker than the rest, I was hoping most would have a power level close to the wind ones.

[Jeff the Green]

I don't actually have many complaints at all as this is more of what I wanted from the base sphere, generally sick as heck. I will say however that a few of the mantles feel somewhat weaker than the rest, I was hoping most would have a power level close to the wind ones.

I'm glad to hear you're pleased. Which mantles do you think need to be improved?

[JMS]

I'm glad to hear you're pleased. Which mantles do you think need to be improved?

One option, as a feat maybe, would be counting as being in localized weather effects, for the purposes of mantles?
Maybe something like caster level in weather of 6, mantled caster for prerequisites and an effect of counting as having a weather effect constantly surrounding you of level caster level/3, round down? Let’s you benefit from mantles, even if you don’t want most of control weather. Gives the cool image of a mage being born aloft on winds of their own making more reliably.
Edit: alternately, a talent that gives a 15 foot? radius of long lasting, no concentration weather, at reduced power, but with better scaling for mantles and shrouds? Sort of like glow from Light.

[AlienFromBeyond]

One option, as a feat maybe, would be counting as being in localized weather effects, for the purposes of mantles?
Maybe something like caster level in weather of 6, mantled caster for prerequisites and an effect of counting as having a weather effect constantly surrounding you of level caster level/3, round down? Let’s you benefit from mantles, even if you don’t want most of control weather. Gives the cool image of a mage being born aloft on winds of their own making more reliably.
Have you not looked at the new version of Mantled Caster? It already does this.

[JMS]

Have you not looked at the new version of Mantled Caster? It already does this.
Oops. Maybe have an improved version, which has better certain scaling, Or would still love a small, melee boosting weather, like glow from light. Something like 15 ft. Radius area around caster, lasting for hours per level or similar?

[AlienFromBeyond]

Oops. Maybe have an improved version, which has better certain scaling?
I could have sworn it used to have scaling (I think it was count weather as 1 severity more per 5 MSB?) but it seems to be only +1 now, which puts the Raging Storm rage power back to being a better version of it basically, though for a bloodrager or skald I suppose you could stack both of them together.

[YroPro]

I'm glad to hear you're pleased. Which mantles do you think need to be improved?

Actually, overall the mantles seem good to me. Gelid seems significantly below Fluidity and Mist Form. DR/Bludgeoning is beaten by every natural attack except Talons, Stings, and Gore. So, almost all natural attacks. On the other hand I can see why since it's 5-9DR. It's just so often nothing at all. Maybe reduce the amount a bit but make it most likely to actually apply? Especially at the LOW levels. At level 1 it's either invalidating encounters or utterly useless.

The Storm Mantle effect is also significantly below the rest on usefulness. Deafen for 1 round is a Save vs 20% spell failure against a very, very, small percentage of enemies. It's nowhere as strong as the universally helpful -4 stats of the others, or as just cool and thematic as Winds rushing around.

Also, the Shrouds are immensely weaker than Mantles or Control weather very shortly into the game. You're looking at 13DPR save for half by level 20. Up from 3DPR save for half at level 1. That's just very minor and quite quickly irrelevant.

Also, how is Personal Thunderhead not a Storm based Shroud?

And thanks for looking into clarifying Severity 7 Precipitation!

[Jeff the Green]

Just a heads up because there's been a few comments on the document recently. The playtest has been moved to layout and no further changes will be made. I'm happy to answer questions in the AMA thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?561876-Drop-Dead-Studios-Ask-Me-Anything-3) or DDS Discord group.

[CactusAir]

The point of "setting impacting" is if the medieval model falls apart. Killing people with fireballs has certainly an impact, but it isn't particularly worse than employing a troop of archers. On the other hand, resurrection makes line of succession laws partially inapplicable. Or your death means that you automatically lose your possessions.

Still, if you are able to destroy swathes of territories by just flying around (get a low-level flight race like Atomies to able to use concentration while moving), this puts you into setting changing. Not even Destruction can do that, unless you combine it with a wide area effect (War sphere or the Midnight advanced talent).

The medieval model has never fit D&D. Honestly the "Tolkein was medieval so D&D has to be Medieval" mindset needs to go die in a fire. (Tolkein wasn't even Medieval anyway)

Anyway, this is the studio that made the technician and is working on a tech sphere, so they're clearly not going for that. (Skybourne looks vaugely 17th+ century based on what little I've seen of it.)


The whole argument "but it could exist in the setting and therefore X" is stupid because if we accept that argument is valid, it has been true of every edition of D&D since AD&D. Spell have for decades been things that you could exploit wordings in to do silly nonsense - Wall of Iron and Flesh to Salt infinite money shenanigans come to mind immediately.

Man Elminster is an idiot for not using any of the 27374928392 exploits the internet came up with that could have let him solve all of Thay instantly. Oh, no wait, storyline and gameplay segregation is still a thing.


Yes the ability to drop boiling or acid rain on a significant area can be an issue, but honestly this is not a set of talents a character is probably going to want unless the game is "lol terrorism and extorting protection money from villages."

And if it is a thing you insist on happening in your world.... great! you've just created a society that watches the weather as obsessively as the people in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive. That's a fantastic lead in for world build and plot hooks.


Honestly, this objection just doesn't hold up if you actually put it in context. Either it's a weird trick that really isn't practical for 99.9% of the minority of people who use magic, or it's a thing that informs the setting and that's fine because people are adaptable. We adapted to atomic bombs and smartphones, which is honestly more 'omg esoteric powers' oomph that a lot of what D&D magic gives you.

[khadgar567]

The medieval model has never fit D&D. Honestly the "Tolkein was medieval so D&D has to be Medieval" mindset needs to go die in a fire. (Tolkein wasn't even Medieval anyway)

Anyway, this is the studio that made the technician and is working on a tech sphere, so they're clearly not going for that. (Skybourne looks vaugely 17th+ century based on what little I've seen of it.)


The whole argument "but it could exist in the setting and therefore X" is stupid because if we accept that argument is valid, it has been true of every edition of D&D since AD&D. Spell have for decades been things that you could exploit wordings in to do silly nonsense - Wall of Iron and Flesh to Salt infinite money shenanigans come to mind immediately.

Man Elminster is an idiot for not using any of the 27374928392 exploits the internet came up with that could have let him solve all of Thay instantly. Oh, no wait, storyline and gameplay segregation is still a thing.


Yes the ability to drop boiling or acid rain on a significant area can be an issue, but honestly this is not a set of talents a character is probably going to want unless the game is "lol terrorism and extorting protection money from villages."

And if it is a thing you insist on happening in your world.... great! you've just created a society that watches the weather as obsessively as the people in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive. That's a fantastic lead in for world build and plot hooks.


Honestly, this objection just doesn't hold up if you actually put it in context. Either it's a weird trick that really isn't practical for 99.9% of the minority of people who use magic, or it's a thing that informs the setting and that's fine because people are adaptable. We adapted to atomic bombs and smartphones, which is honestly more 'omg esoteric powers' oomph that a lot of what D&D magic gives you.
calm down will ya the whole middle ages based D&D actually comes from the period exclusive army combat model Gygax just write rules for its skirmish setting then popularity turned in that into a separate product line. and when you have things like spaceships and time traveling runelord dragons most of the common sense left building in creation. we have space marines and demon lords on the same setting and if you dig little deeper you can probably find smurf cult dedicated to aroden performing interesting rites at every blood moon.

[Manyasone]

...smurf cult dedicated to aroden performing interesting rites at every blood moon.
That's a blue moon, mate

[EldritchWeaver]

And if it is a thing you insist on happening in your world.... great! you've just created a society that watches the weather as obsessively as the people in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive. That's a fantastic lead in for world build and plot hooks.

And that is the very definition of setting defining abilities. Complaining that D&D isn't medieval is missing the point. There are certain default assumptions (somewhat similar to the real world, unless explicitly contradicted?), however you wish to call them, which don't hold water once the rules are applied as they are. Advanced talents are supposed to shield the GM from introducing things, which will contradict their setting fluff or make the game harder to run. Not everyone can deal with Emperor Tippy as a player.

[CactusAir]

And that is the very definition of setting defining abilities. Complaining that D&D isn't medieval is missing the point. There are certain default assumptions (somewhat similar to the real world, unless explicitly contradicted?), however you wish to call them, which don't hold water once the rules are applied as they are. Advanced talents are supposed to shield the GM from introducing things, which will contradict their setting fluff or make the game harder to run. Not everyone can deal with Emperor Tippy as a player.

Okay, but using that line of thinking, at least 15-20% of the 3.5/PF spell list is setting-defining in a way that makes the setting not medieval anymore.

Medieval stasis is a terrible trope and should be tossed out.

[AlienFromBeyond]

Okay, but using that line of thinking, at least 15-20% of the 3.5/PF spell list is setting-defining in a way that makes the setting not medieval anymore.
Yes, that's exactly the problem SoP tried to address with advanced talents (remember, it's intended to replace normal casting by default). Some of us really dislike that aspect of the 3.PF spell lists.

[Jeff the Green]

Also remember that the control weather base ability is considerably more versatile (and thus more impactful) than any 1st-party abilities. The closest analogues can't, for example, warm up an area in an arctic climate or dry up a monsoon. While I don't think that's a problem, necessarily, it does have a large setting impact and needs to be considered carefully by DMs who want a lower-magic world. That's why there's a short bit about making it an "advanced sphere", but only in very low-magic games. (Climate and Climatic Shift are already advanced and have the biggest impact.)