Spheres of Might/Power Opinions

[Hicks]

I've never run or participated in a system using either or both of these sources, but I've heard nebulously good things about both of them. Does anyone have extended experience with these, as they balance against the standard classes or as the exclusive options for player characters? Information for playability, fun, and power-level are all appreciated.

[Blackhawk748]

I've ran a fair few games with SoP (haven't used Might) and its a solidly built system that rewards people making a Themed Caster. Can you munchkin it? Well, ya, but it doesn't get crazy cuz it really can't. I'd say that SoP casters peak out at the high end of Tier 3 but typically hang out around Tier 4.

All in all its a solid system that has a bit of a learning curve.

[JerichoPenumbra]

I've yet to have a chance to play in many Spheres games but I have all the material and make characters for fun, so take my take with a grain of salt (and maybe a hint of lime). I'll say right now I've never liked the tier system so I won't be making comparisons.

Spheres of Might changes "mundane" martials big time (not a bad thing IMO). The focus is towards making combat more cinematic, fun, and encourage others to do more than "I sit here and make a full attack" every round kind of scenario. It typically does this by focusing on Attack Actions, having carrier effects on them such as quasi-sneak attack or stacking bleed damage, allowing combos of combat manuevers to chain off one another like making a disarm attempt after succeeding on a bullrush, or utilizing new interactions for skills in combat. Combat is SoM will take roughly just as long or maybe slightly longer since the material encourages not just attacking but provides options that synergize if played with one other (i.e. someone specialized in debuffing an enemy paired with someone with bonuses attacking weakened enemies). IMO, since bleed damage (even if small) is possible at level one the tides of battles can turn easily, especially if they turn into conflicts of attrition but as a whole the system encourages tactical thinking and working together.

Spheres of Power simultaneously raises and lowers the power of magic as a whole. Raised, since many of the base spheres provide an ability that doesn't require the expenditure of spell points, as well as having most magic scale off of caster level rather than be a static benefit. Lowered, since most magical abilities are locked behind talents and tends to be better if you specialize in a few spheres rather than try to learn many different ones. Also since magic is talent based, there isn't the case of copying the perfect toolbox spell in town into your spellbook that will bypass obstacle X which IMO is the major advantage of traditional spellcasting. As Blackhawk alluded to, the system is designed so that individual elements can't really be munchkin'd, partially by having the most powerful talents locked in a separate section of the book that isn't available by default without GM permission. However, the system is one the rewards creativity via the Spellcrafting system which is locked behind one of the core feats. One of the base examples for Spellcrafting is essentially the Haste spell except it lasts 10 min/level. As for Themed Casters Drop Dead Studios have released some videos explaining what their system is and how it works. This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpaGkPuzi2Q) has links to the other 3 in its description.

Both systems are designed to allow them to work side by side with the "traditional" systems and as a whole I don't think it's likely that they'll completely outshine the other. Though personally I think they work best as full substitutions.

[Quarian Rex]

Gotta agree with much of what JerichoPenumbra said, except for this...



Both systems are designed to allow them to work side by side with the "traditional" systems and as a whole I don't think it's likely that they'll completely outshine the other. Though personally I think they work best as full substitutions.


I am a big fan of mixing the Spheres systems with Core. Spheres of Might comes off as an extension of Core as much as anything else, kind of like adding a bunch of new maneuvers with synergies that really seem like they should have been in the Core book already. It's a great option for those who want to provide slick options for martials but feel like Path of War went in a direction that they don't appreciate (for the record, I think PoW and SoM go together like PB&J).

Spheres of Power makes a great counter point to standard arcane magic in a game world. I tend to see SoP as the originating form of magic, where these earliest attempts to manipulate magic shape the user as well (permanently), painstakingly unlocking Spheres and Talents to gradually broaden your capabilities. This is my favorite kind of magic, magic that can actually be used. Continually. I have traditionally hated vancian magic. The idea of having a wizard who spends most of his time not casting his magic to make sure that he has it when he needs it makes me twitchy.

The odd thing here is that after actually having some play time with SoP I now have an actual appreciation for vancian spellcasting. This is not a criticism. Spending so much time working builds and never having enough talents to do all the things I need leaves me staring in wonder at standard spellcasters who can completely rebuild every magical capability and limitation with every spell. It seems like a natural evolution that would be appreciated in the game world as well.

[StSword]

I am a big fan of mixing the Spheres systems with Core. Spheres of Might comes off as an extension of Core as much as anything else, kind of like adding a bunch of new maneuvers with synergies that really seem like they should have been in the Core book already. It's a great option for those who want to provide slick options for martials but feel like Path of War went in a direction that they don't appreciate (for the record, I think PoW and SoM go together like PB&J).

The odd thing here is that after actually having some play time with SoP I now have an actual appreciation for vancian spellcasting. This is not a criticism. Spending so much time working builds and never having enough talents to do all the things I need leaves me staring in wonder at standard spellcasters who can completely rebuild every magical capability and limitation with every spell. It seems like a natural evolution that would be appreciated in the game world as well.

I happen to like path of war as well, any quirks of using both one should be aware of?

You might want to check out the Skybourne Players Guide by the makers of the spheres systems. In that setting, spheres of power is the traditional type of magic, and then the standard type evolved.

It also expands rituals, including feats to allow a spherecaster to take a ritual and memorize it as a spell like a wizard, although it costs spell points, so it's not something you're going to do willy nilly, but if there are some spells you just know you're going to need that day, well, you can do that, presuming you have access to the ritual.

[Quarian Rex]

I happen to like path of war as well, any quirks of using both one should be aware of?


Nothing crazy, just that each compliments the other regardless of which you want to focus on. SoM attacks get nothing but benefit from any boosts, counters, and stances that you can squeeze in, while PoW initiators can pick up expanded attack options that are always available regardless of maneuver readiness or recovery.

PB&J.

[Galacktic]

I happen to like path of war as well, any quirks of using both one should be aware of?

You might want to check out the Skybourne Players Guide by the makers of the spheres systems. In that setting, spheres of power is the traditional type of magic, and then the standard type evolved.

It also expands rituals, including feats to allow a spherecaster to take a ritual and memorize it as a spell like a wizard, although it costs spell points, so it's not something you're going to do willy nilly, but if there are some spells you just know you're going to need that day, well, you can do that, presuming you have access to the ritual.

With Path of War on the table, the big thing is to ban the Seize the Opportunity feat (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/path-of-war/feats/seize-the-opportunity-combat/) for Spheres of Might characters. It allowing attack actions for attacks of opportunity is mind blowingly powerful for SoM due to them being able to get their equivalent of a full attack off with it.

[Crake]

Can you munchkin it? Well, ya, but it doesn't get crazy cuz it really can't.

I'll have to disagree with this. I remember making a weather mage that could do something like hurricane winds within a 170ft radius. At level 1. So level 1 characters can literally go waltzing around tearing up entire villages with little to no recourse.

Using casting traditions + incanter to boost your CL up to 7 lets you get up to severity 4, severe weather talent gets you up to 5, and wind lord gets you up to 6, which is hurricane force winds. Since it costs no spell points if you concentrate, all you need is empowered abilities (+2CL at 0 spell points), overcharge (+2CL and become fatigued), incanter sphere spec (+1CL to weather) and deathful (+1CL while at or below 1/2hp), plus the above talents, easily attainable with the incanter's 4 starting talents. Hell, even dropping one or two of those boons and waiting until 2nd-4th level to be able to throw that around, while still tossing around category 5 (windstorm) winds is still pretty crazy.

We weren't even trying to break it honestly, but I think being able to throw around at-will hurricane force winds at level 1 is a bit TOOOO much, that's when we pretty much collectively decided spheres is too easy to break by accident.

[Biolink22]

I'll have to disagree with this. I remember making a weather mage that could do something like hurricane winds within a 170ft radius. At level 1. So level 1 characters can literally go waltzing around tearing up entire villages with little to no recourse.

Using casting traditions + incanter to boost your CL up to 7 lets you get up to severity 4, severe weather talent gets you up to 5, and wind lord gets you up to 6, which is hurricane force winds. Since it costs no spell points if you concentrate, all you need is empowered abilities (+2CL at 0 spell points), overcharge (+2CL and become fatigued), incanter sphere spec (+1CL to weather) and deathful (+1CL while at or below 1/2hp), plus the above talents, easily attainable with the incanter's 4 starting talents. Hell, even dropping one or two of those boons and waiting until 2nd-4th level to be able to throw that around, while still tossing around category 5 (windstorm) winds is still pretty crazy.

We weren't even trying to break it honestly, but I think being able to throw around at-will hurricane force winds at level 1 is a bit TOOOO much, that's when we pretty much collectively decided spheres is too easy to break by accident.

1. The Controlling the weather is always going to be super powerful that's a given. And you're investing quite a bit to just make hurricane winds good way to get your character murdered real quick while you're still in rusty dagger shank town.

2. Wind Lord is an Advanced Talent for a reason.

[JerichoPenumbra]

To be fair Crake, the weather sphere did get a bit of a rewrite in its expanded splat which made most of the "_______ Lord" talents advanced talents instead and has a small blurb about dealing with weather magic in a setting. Though a few grievances with your build 1) severe weather talent requires you to use a spell point so you can't do that continuously all day 2) 3 boons means having 6 drawbacks minimum to casting. You say it's too easy to break but the example you gave is you having to go out of your way to make it work.

Edit: half ninja'd

[TiaC]

I agree that SoP has problems with being level-appropriate due to rewarding specialists and punishing generalists. A character who spreads their talents across a half-dozen spheres can very easily end up needing to constantly spend spell points to get level-appropriate actions. CL scaling only goes so far, and it really doesn't help for a lot of spheres. So, they can easily end up like the kineticist, with a handful of unimpressive tricks and nothing that stands out. Going the other way, hyper-specializing in one sphere results in a character who is overpowered when their speciality applies and useless when it doesn't. These characters end up closer to mounted chargers, who drop foes in one hit on the right battlefield, but collapse in unfavorable conditions. Weather controllers can have amazing offensive and defensive abilities without even needing to spend actions, but put them inside and they're hopeless.

I also don't like the Advanced Magic approach. Putting a big "GM approval" label on material is only as good as the GM and doesn't add anything that wasn't already there. A GM with a good sense of balance will already ban options that are too strong and go easy on weak options. A GM with a poor sense of balance will ban weak options and allow overly strong ones either way. So it bugs me a bit to see people acting like Advanced Magic shouldn't be considered when looking at SoP's balance. Most of the other material in Advanced Magic is loose guidelines to homebrew with, which I don't like in things I paid money for, because I can homebrew without paying anyone money and the guidelines don't really make it easier. It also means that making a character who uses it requires tons of DM input, and I don't like to be the guy who pesters a DM for a dozen rulings before the game's even begun.

I'll use it as a DM, because it does work well for quickly-made characters that are built for one encounter and I'll let my players use it, but I can't see using it as a player.

[Crake]

2. Wind Lord is an Advanced Talent for a reason.


To be fair Crake, the weather sphere did get a bit of a rewrite in its expanded splat which made most of the "_______ Lord" talents advanced talents instead and has a small blurb about dealing with weather magic in a setting. Though a few grievances with your build 1) severe weather talent requires you to use a spell point so you can't do that continuously all day 2) 3 boons means having 6 drawbacks minimum to casting. You say it's too easy to break but the example you gave is you having to go out of your way to make it work.

Edit: half ninja'd

Well, it's not an advanced talent in the book i bought, and back when we came up with the build, it wasn't an advanced talent. And sure, severe weather requires a spellpoint, but even windstorm levels at will are mega strong, and I addressed the boons, saying that sure, having 3 boons specifically built toward it is rather rough, but the character in mind was based on windwaker, so extended casting (which counts as 2, conducting takes a while), magical signs (winds swirling around the character), focus casting (conductors baton), skilled casting (profession/perform (conducting)) and somatic casting (swinging around the baton) right away fit in perfectly, and boom, there's your 6 drawbacks.

But even so, those boons only really get you one extra weather category, and you can drop one or two (having to be at half HP is probably the first one I'd drop) and delay hurricane force winds, to level 2 or 3. And you'll never be in shank town, why? Because you blew shank town away.

Honestly, the main issue is that the build can exist at all, and at such a low level, meaning that you have to build a world around the fact that this person could exist, with barely any experience, they could just rock up one day. As a villain, this character could mow down town after town before they even have a chance to reasonably react (he could literally just walk into down and summon up hurricane force winds before anyone can really react, and at that point, he's practically untouchable, since hurricane force winds will blow away most enemies, and ranged attacks become literally impossible), and yeah, it's fixed kinda by making windlord an advanced talent, which makes it under the DM's perogative but that's basically the equivilent of saying "yeah, it's not broken, because the DM can just ban it", and we all know which fallacy that falls under.


Weather controllers can have amazing offensive and defensive abilities without even needing to spend actions, but put them inside and they're hopeless.

Weather mages actually function perfectly fine indoors (assuming you're in like a dungeon where the structure won't entirely be blown away as soon as you start your winds up, which would just make it outdoors anyway :smalltongue:), hurricane force winds throwing enemies into dungeon walls and completely blocking ranged attacks is still absolutely fine. The only time weather magic wouldn't apply is if you're in a place with fragile objects that you don't want to destroy, which sure, will come up once in a while, but not horribly often.


Most of the other material in Advanced Magic is loose guidelines to homebrew with, which I don't like in things I paid money for, because I can homebrew without paying anyone money and the guidelines don't really make it easier.

Oh yeah, don't even get me started on the spellcrafting guidelines. I have a blood mage who basically blows his entire spell point reserve at the start of the day casting this monstrosity:


Protection of Blood
Sphere: Protection
Cost: 7 spell points
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Target: 1 +1 per 2 caster levels (minimum 2) creatures
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
Prerequisites: Protection sphere (Armored Magic), Life sphere (Mass Healing, Revitalize)
Crafting Time: 5 days

A warmth washes over you as you are invigorated with energy, never having felt more alive, feeling your body pulse with each beat of your heart.

This spell infuses the blood of it's targets with incredible protective and regenerative magic, causing them to gain a +3 armor bonus, a +1 shield bonus and a +1 deflection bonus to AC. Each of these increases by 1 for every 5 caster levels. Additionally, recipients of this spell gain fast healing 1.

Made entirely within the bounds of the spellcrafting rules, oh, and yes, it was boosted to CL 6 (meaning it could affect 4 people, aka the entire party) and grant everyone a +4 armor bonus, a +2 shield bonus and a +2 deflection bonus, aka a +8 AC bonus (which was huge for the party monk who had absolutely no overlap with any of his gear), and fast healing 1.

He then used his one remaining power point to restore his fatigue (blood magic, of course he had overchannel), and his fast healing healed him up from having 1/4 health for deathful casting (again, of course he had this for a blood mage). He then spent the rest of the day popping off basic destruction magic blasts.

[Quarian Rex]

Honestly, the main issue is that the build can exist at all, and at such a low level, meaning that you have to build a world around the fact that this person could exist, with barely any experience, they could just rock up one day. As a villain, this character could mow down town after town before they even have a chance to reasonably react (he could literally just walk into down and summon up hurricane force winds before anyone can really react, and at that point, he's practically untouchable, since hurricane force winds will blow away most enemies, and ranged attacks become literally impossible), and yeah, it's fixed kinda by making windlord an advanced talent, which makes it under the DM's perogative but that's basically the equivilent of saying "yeah, it's not broken, because the DM can just ban it", and we all know which fallacy that falls under.

I really don't know why you or your DM would actually have a problem with this. You need to spend the majority of your character resources both to purchase and to actually cast (you have to already be at 0 SP and 1/2 HP and wind up fatigued), has to be maintained for 5 full rounds to have full effect, only effects those withing medium range, and can be outrun by anyone (you need to maintain concentration and so only have a single move action, everyone else can take two to get away from you).

For all that, considering that you have the time and opportunity to cast this (spend the extra rounds to spend the rest of your SP and stab yourself to 1/2 Hp, or just be walking around already in such a depleted state, a risk unto itself), what do you actually get? Functional immunity to archers? Yup. The ability to flatten entire villages? You can do some collateral damage to poorly made structures at the DMs discretion. Single-handedly defeat entire armies? You have about a 70% chance (less if they have a Str. over 11) to knock someone down and do 1-4d4 nonlethal damage to them. That is some massive crowd control. But... each round 1/3 to 1/2 of your opposition (depending on Str.) will be coming to stab you. Medium range isn't that much territory to cover. When they reach him the weather mage is already gimped (fatigued with no SP and is already at 1/2 HP), can't take any further actions to defend himself (has to maintain concentration on the hurricane), and has no allies to defend him (would have been affected by the hurricane as well). That sounds like an extremely high risk, high reward playstyle one that can't even be used around the party. Something that works like a charm till someone makes a good roll and the caster is screwed. Where is the problem?

From a villain perspective you have someone who leaves a trail of unconscious people and mild property damage. You know what that sounds like? That sounds like a plot hook. Even encountering this at 1st level it would play more like an X-Men episode where you have to deal with someone unleashing troublesome uncontrolled power rather that something that actually poses immediate danger.

This really strikes me as a situation where the player says, "I cast Hurricane!", and the DM throws up his hands and says, "You Win!", without anyone actually looking up what any of it really means.



Weather mages actually function perfectly fine indoors (assuming you're in like a dungeon where the structure won't entirely be blown away as soon as you start your winds up, which would just make it outdoors anyway :smalltongue:), hurricane force winds throwing enemies into dungeon walls and completely blocking ranged attacks is still absolutely fine. The only time weather magic wouldn't apply is if you're in a place with fragile objects that you don't want to destroy, which sure, will come up once in a while, but not horribly often.

See what I mentioned above, but you are even more vulnerable. 5 rounds of build-up, they can hear you coming from a mile away, you have to do it solo, and all enemies probably start withing charge distance (you have to really hope they fail their Str. check). Potent? Yes. A low level I Win Button? Not by a long shot.




Oh yeah, don't even get me started on the spellcrafting guidelines. I have a blood mage who basically blows his entire spell point reserve at the start of the day casting this monstrosity:


Protection of Blood
Sphere: Protection
Cost: 7 spell points
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Target: 1 +1 per 2 caster levels (minimum 2) creatures
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
Prerequisites: Protection sphere (Armored Magic), Life sphere (Mass Healing, Revitalize)
Crafting Time: 5 days

A warmth washes over you as you are invigorated with energy, never having felt more alive, feeling your body pulse with each beat of your heart.

This spell infuses the blood of it's targets with incredible protective and regenerative magic, causing them to gain a +3 armor bonus, a +1 shield bonus and a +1 deflection bonus to AC. Each of these increases by 1 for every 5 caster levels. Additionally, recipients of this spell gain fast healing 1.

Made entirely within the bounds of the spellcrafting rules, oh, and yes, it was boosted to CL 6 (meaning it could affect 4 people, aka the entire party) and grant everyone a +4 armor bonus, a +2 shield bonus and a +2 deflection bonus, aka a +8 AC bonus (which was huge for the party monk who had absolutely no overlap with any of his gear), and fast healing 1.

He then used his one remaining power point to restore his fatigue (blood magic, of course he had overchannel), and his fast healing healed him up from having 1/4 health for deathful casting (again, of course he had this for a blood mage). He then spent the rest of the day popping off basic destruction magic blasts.

You functionally spent your entire arcane reserve to give the party +2 to AC (everybody but the monk will already have armor and shield bonuses higher that what you are providing in all but the most deprived of situations) and fast healing 1 for a few hours (better hope you guessed which hours it will be needed). Again this is one of those things where I fail to see an actual problem. At low levels, where this would make the most difference, a second encounter at a different time of day would negate it's benefit completely. When you are high enough level to have the duration cover all encounters its benefits are no more than a nice quality of life perk. Either way it costs you most of your SP to do so. Again, I'm not seeing a problem here.

SoP doesn't let you do anything that can't already be done with standard spells and classes and leaves out a lot of the crazier things found in the expanded spell library. What it does do is allow a dedicated cast the opportunity to get there a little faster (and do it all day), but usually by being unable to do anything else and at pretty hefty cost. Easier to do limited cool things, harder to break the game with those cool things. Higher floor, lower ceiling.

As with any system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Just keep it all in context.

[Quarian Rex]

I'll use it as a DM, because it does work well for quickly-made characters that are built for one encounter and I'll let my players use it, but I can't see using it as a player.


I freely admit that actual spellcasting is far more versatile and situationally powerful in most circumstances. For a lot of people (myself included) the ability to just keep applying magic to their problems (even if it's the wrong magic for the problem. If your only tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail and all that...) without real limitation is just too tempting. Definitely comes down to player preference.

[Serafina]

The Weather Sphere is the thing that gets pointed out as broken/OP, but the only thing it does exceedingly well compared to normal magic is wide-scale destruction (and even then, it needs a fair bit of investment). That's a new problem for the GM to handle, but it won't really break combat.
And Advanced Talents require explicit GM-approval for a reason. If you don't want that stuff, the Weather Sphere will never be more powerful than Control Weather.


If you want to combine Spheres of Power with more traditional magic, there's a hack for that. Rituals (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/rituals) can emulate normal Spells - which can be highly useful for a campaign where you want players to use Spheres during combat, but still want them to occasionally have access to more unique magical effects.
You can also go further than that, and allow the Spell Dabbler (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/ritual-feats#toc4) and Spell Adept (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/ritual-feats#toc3) feat - now those Rituals can be prepared like conventional vancian spells, and be cast at the cost of spell points. I'd be really careful with that, especially with what Rituals you allow for that - it'll make Spherecasters vastly more versatile. But it can be a fun thing to do.


As for Spheres of Might - while most of it is designed around the Attack Action, for the very good reason that this allows characters to actually move, if a player wants to do more full-attacking (maybe because they have a class with features based around it), you still have Spheres that work well with that. Athletics, Barroom, Berserker, Guardian, Scout or Scoundrel are all good examples there.

[Blackhawk748]

I've played a Weather/Nature Sphere Witch and she was great, but you have to be smart with using Weather stuff as it all has a wind up to get the point where it all comes crashing down of a couple of rounds. Is it great once its rolling? Hell ya, but its a Spell Point glutton to get anything more than a whole lot of wind.

[exelsisxax]

They are awesome and I would accept them in any campaign I would consider running, alongside psionics and path of war.

[Ualaa]

Our group has the requirement that characters need to be build within Hero Lab, as a stacking checker so to speak.

We've had access to most of Path of War (through the Community Package), and have everything (HL) Spheres related. The Might stuff is newly released, and we haven't used it in games, but the Spheres of Power stuff we've been using extensively for at least a couple of years.

Spheres of Power has everything scale based on caster level, which lets you have an effect (say Improved Invisibility) at a much earlier level. Or Dimension Door or flight right from first level... but the effectiveness is based on caster level, not a binary +40 with invisibility active (instead a +1 bonus per caster level to the Stealth skill)...

So Spheres is both more powerful and less.

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The min/max players in the group take frequent drawbacks.
The drawback system has two facets, the first is general drawbacks which are part of your magical tradition (along with Boons) and help to duplicate a massive number of casting styles from books, cartoons, movies, or your imagination.

The second portion of the drawback system is taking limitations within a sphere (sphere specific drawbacks are taken when you first gain access).
Most spheres have a couple of drawbacks available, some seem to have only a single and a couple have three sphere specific drawbacks.
The limitations each get you a bonus talent, from within that sphere.

The system is good, in that your character starts off only able to Teleport themselves.
Over time, they can buy off the limitation of Personal Warp, and that allows them to Teleport either themselves or another target.
They could choose to go with the mass/group (forget whether it's mass teleport or group teleport) version, and take multiple targets next.
They have the option to add Unseen, to go to a location they haven't seen.
Basically, through drawbacks, their magic can get better over time, through buying off those drawbacks.

The part that kind of breaks, potentially anyway...
One of our players will be a caster.
He has healing ability, but cannot heal others.
He can teleport, but only himself.
He can do protection buffs, but not AoE effects and not on anyone but himself.
He can shapechange into a few forms, but again only himself.

If the group were an adventuring business, they may tell the caster to piss off.
What good is a buffer, teleporter, healer, etc, who cannot heal anyone but themselves?

A couple of the casters, have actually taken so many drawbacks, that they forget which ones they have, and then accidentally ignore them, since they have 15 drawbacks... too many to track.

So that's the min/max perspective.

If you were to build the traditions that your players can choose from...
Or if you build your own character, but don't go stupidly overboard...
Then the drawback system is a great tool.
Just don't take every drawback imaginable, and dip into ten spheres with 1-3 bonus talents per sphere, and so many sphere specific limitations that you cannot remember which ones you have...

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In relation to the Path of War characters, a min-max Spheres of Power caster isn't really a lot stronger, but they're also not a lot weaker, in terms of raw damage output.

The caster is more flexible, but that is the nature of magic vs martial.
Not the system per se.

It's worth noting, that I've allowed the players to choose between Spheres or Vancian casting... and not one of them has gone with Vancian since spheres has been an option.

I'd say that Vancian casting, especially as you gain levels, is stronger in what you can achieve.
But spheres is flexibility in what you can play; sure, less flexible than a Vancian caster once you've built your caster, but much more flexible in terms of what you can actually play.

I give the Spheres system a big thumbs up.

[SwordChucks]

My favorite aspect of SoP/SoM is that a player can say "I want to be able to do X." and can build toward that. You can take pretty much any sub-deity level character from media and make that character or use their coolest trick.

Add to that the fact that you can easily ask the devs questions and try it for free using the wiki and there's not much reason to not at least try it.

[Crake]

I really don't know why you or your DM would actually have a problem with this. You need to spend the majority of your character resources both to purchase and to actually cast (you have to already be at 0 SP and 1/2 HP and wind up fatigued), has to be maintained for 5 full rounds to have full effect, only effects those withing medium range, and can be outrun by anyone (you need to maintain concentration and so only have a single move action, everyone else can take two to get away from you).

For all that, considering that you have the time and opportunity to cast this (spend the extra rounds to spend the rest of your SP and stab yourself to 1/2 Hp, or just be walking around already in such a depleted state, a risk unto itself), what do you actually get? Functional immunity to archers? Yup. The ability to flatten entire villages? You can do some collateral damage to poorly made structures at the DMs discretion. Single-handedly defeat entire armies? You have about a 70% chance (less if they have a Str. over 11) to knock someone down and do 1-4d4 nonlethal damage to them. That is some massive crowd control. But... each round 1/3 to 1/2 of your opposition (depending on Str.) will be coming to stab you. Medium range isn't that much territory to cover. When they reach him the weather mage is already gimped (fatigued with no SP and is already at 1/2 HP), can't take any further actions to defend himself (has to maintain concentration on the hurricane), and has no allies to defend him (would have been affected by the hurricane as well). That sounds like an extremely high risk, high reward playstyle one that can't even be used around the party. Something that works like a charm till someone makes a good roll and the caster is screwed. Where is the problem?

From a villain perspective you have someone who leaves a trail of unconscious people and mild property damage. You know what that sounds like? That sounds like a plot hook. Even encountering this at 1st level it would play more like an X-Men episode where you have to deal with someone unleashing troublesome uncontrolled power rather that something that actually poses immediate danger.

This really strikes me as a situation where the player says, "I cast Hurricane!", and the DM throws up his hands and says, "You Win!", without anyone actually looking up what any of it really means.

I think you underestimate hurricane force winds. 174mph winds. Look at the property damage that hurricanes in florida cause, and that's with modern construction techniquies, and in an area that's prone to hurricanes, so they (presumably) have some sort of fortification against it. A normal commoner's house in an area that's never had a hurricane before will most likely be completely destroyed. And that nonlethal damage? Did you forget that in pathfinder nonlethal damage becomes lethal after it passes the threshold of your normal maximum hp? A 3hp commoner will be dead pretty quickly.


See what I mentioned above, but you are even more vulnerable. 5 rounds of build-up, they can hear you coming from a mile away, you have to do it solo, and all enemies probably start withing charge distance (you have to really hope they fail their Str. check). Potent? Yes. A low level I Win Button? Not by a long shot.

Except you can spend those 5 rounds of wind up at the start of the dungeon and clear everyone out as you just concentrate and blast through, since nobody will be able to charge you, or shoot you while the winds are in effect.


You functionally spent your entire arcane reserve to give the party +2 to AC (everybody but the monk will already have armor and shield bonuses higher that what you are providing in all but the most deprived of situations) and fast healing 1 for a few hours (better hope you guessed which hours it will be needed). Again this is one of those things where I fail to see an actual problem. At low levels, where this would make the most difference, a second encounter at a different time of day would negate it's benefit completely. When you are high enough level to have the duration cover all encounters its benefits are no more than a nice quality of life perk. Either way it costs you most of your SP to do so. Again, I'm not seeing a problem here.

Except most of the party were spheres casters, and so didn't have shields, and light armor at best, so most of the party got something closer to +6 AC, there was only 1 party member who was wearing armor and carrying a shield who only got +2 AC. And 6 hours is a very large window of opportunity to go out adventuring, and since, y'know, we were adventurers, we usually picked the hours we were out adventuring, so it was effectively an all-day buff. But most importantly, while I had spent all of my SP to pull it off, I was then running around with an empowered destruction blast, getting +2CL from having no spell points remaining, so I was throwing around a 2d6 blast all day, which at level 1 is the equivilent of spending a spell point on every blast, and not needing to spend any spell points on healing at all, so instead of healing 1d8+1, or doing an extra 1d6 damage 7 times over the day, I was full healing the party for "free" and getting that extra 1d6 damage for free.


SoP doesn't let you do anything that can't already be done with standard spells and classes and leaves out a lot of the crazier things found in the expanded spell library. What it does do is allow a dedicated cast the opportunity to get there a little faster (and do it all day), but usually by being unable to do anything else and at pretty hefty cost. Easier to do limited cool things, harder to break the game with those cool things. Higher floor, lower ceiling.

As with any system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Just keep it all in context.

I don't have an issue with most of the stuff you can do in spheres, what our group mostly has an issue with is how early it can be done. All of the things I described can be done literally at 1st level, and when you think, in context, what that means of a 1st level character, which means it's within the potential capabilities of most of the population, how does one reasonably create a game world where these things can exist, where level 1 characters have access to effectively weapons of mass destruction.

And since it's so front loaded, you could take 1 level in something like the wind mage at any point during your career and have town-destroying capabilities, while having only a minor bump on the road down whatever you'd normally be doing. That wind mage is literally 1 sphere and 2 talents, one of which could be gotten by getting the sphere drawback focused weather, so with literally 3 feats, Basic Magical Training, Advanced Magical Training, and Extra magic talent, which any human could have by level 3, even people who haven't taken a single level in a casting class could pull it off.

[Mehangel]

That wind mage is literally 1 sphere and 2 talents, one of which could be gotten by getting the sphere drawback focused weather, so with literally 3 feats, Basic Magical Training, Advanced Magical Training, and Extra magic talent, which any human could have by level 3, even people who haven't taken a single level in a casting class could pull it off.

With your listed general drawbacks, you only get up to CL 6, which isn't enough to create Hurricane winds.

As others have brought up, Advanced talents explicitly require GM permission to use. To me it is equivalent to building characters with Mythic ranks or Technological equipment.

Having said that, the general drawbacks that grant CL bonuses are likely getting errata'd to be typed as competence bonuses to prevent stacking (only the highest bonus applies).

[JerichoPenumbra]

I think you underestimate hurricane force winds. 174mph winds. Look at the property damage that hurricanes in florida cause, and that's with modern construction techniquies, and in an area that's prone to hurricanes, so they (presumably) have some sort of fortification against it. A normal commoner's house in an area that's never had a hurricane before will most likely be completely destroyed. And that nonlethal damage? Did you forget that in pathfinder nonlethal damage becomes lethal after it passes the threshold of your normal maximum hp? A 3hp commoner will be dead pretty quickly.

Nitpick again, hurricane force winds in game can be 174 mph but can also be 75 mph or any number in between. Next, no one is arguing that hurricanes aren't destructive but trying to bring in real world parallels into a game system is a messy rabbit hole, though on that note medium range is smaller than most people realize. You've made it clear that you think the system is flawed. Nobody is trying to say it's perfect, but most of us are all trying to say it's fun.


I don't have an issue with most of the stuff you can do in spheres, what our group mostly has an issue with is how early it can be done.

Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's likely. Don't like it? Don't use it.


All of the things I described can be done literally at 1st level, and when you think, in context, what that means of a 1st level character, which means it's within the potential capabilities of most of the population, how does one reasonably create a game world where these things can exist, where level 1 characters have access to effectively weapons of mass destruction.

It is an interesting thought. I've been trying some world building after making spells with the craft system and it is difficult I admit. A simple mage (no 4+ drawback nonsense) at low levels can cast a spell that makes farms yield crops everyday. Trade relations, quality of life, markets, military; all of these things change when magic is involved. Mages become highly valued a sought after, people of power and prestige. On paper at least. But there will be the places not so nice where they will be treated as commodities at best and tools/targets at worst. Militaries would develop entire groups specialized in taking down certain mages, among other possibilities.

Magic becomes like having a college degree. Can you do a lot it? Yes, in theory. Does it guarantee you a place in the world? Nope.

[DrMartin]

Been playing Pathfinder almost exclusively with SoP for the last 3 years, and with SoM since it came out.

In the first campaign we treated casting tradition as a 100% player's tool and ended up with characters with very different degrees of effectiveness. Some with clearly over engineered character choices and drawbacks overload. It was not a serious issue balance wise in my game, but it could be, as some other posters detailed above, and the idea of magic in the world felt, rules-to-fluff-wise, a bit scattered and all over the place.

For the second campaign we went with book traditions only with possibility to customize lightly (add one drawback or a boon) and it worked really well. Next campaign had only custom tradition specific to the setting and again it worked really well.

One thing to pay attention to is that characters can have access to certain "milestone" abilities like fly or teleportation as early as level 1, and even weak, low level fly can get you past obstacles that would be impassable for a "normal" level 1 party. On the other hand the characters will not have access to certain magics if they don't explicitly pick up those spheres, so things like detect magic or status removal are not "just wait 24h for the cleric to memorize the right spell" kind of deal. So pay mind to this if you are playing a module that expects problems to be solved or enemies to be faced with specific spell loadouts.

Nothing but praise for Spheres of Might so far. Only downside I can see is that at times it does make martial characters' turns more complex and take longer than casters' turns - and for some players having a simple character that just goes round 1: charge round 2+: full attack is a feature and not a bug. That's not my group's case but I can see that being a possibility.

Overall a great addition to pathfinder in my experience.

[Crake]

With your listed general drawbacks, you only get up to CL 6, which isn't enough to create Hurricane winds.

As others have brought up, Advanced talents explicitly require GM permission to use. To me it is equivalent to building characters with Mythic ranks or Technological equipment.

Having said that, the general drawbacks that grant CL bonuses are likely getting errata'd to be typed as competence bonuses to prevent stacking (only the highest bonus applies).

Incanter made up the last +1CL difference with sphere specialization, and as I said, back then, wind lord wasn't considered an advanced talent, but likewise, saying you can just ban advanced talents isn't lending much credence toward the system. If the option is broken, why's it an option at all? When would a DM ever say yes?


Nitpick again, hurricane force winds in game can be 174 mph but can also be 75 mph or any number in between. Next, no one is arguing that hurricanes aren't destructive but trying to bring in real world parallels into a game system is a messy rabbit hole, though on that note medium range is smaller than most people realize. You've made it clear that you think the system is flawed. Nobody is trying to say it's perfect, but most of us are all trying to say it's fun.

You're right, I should have said up to 174mph, and medium range is still a decent area of affect hurricane force winds, definitely enough space to tear up multiple houses at once.


Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's likely. Don't like it? Don't use it.

Again, don't like it, don't use it isn't a good argument on the topic of whether the system is broken or not. "It's not broken becuase the DM can just ban it" is textbook oberoni.


It is an interesting thought. I've been trying some world building after making spells with the craft system and it is difficult I admit. A simple mage (no 4+ drawback nonsense) at low levels can cast a spell that makes farms yield crops everyday. Trade relations, quality of life, markets, military; all of these things change when magic is involved. Mages become highly valued a sought after, people of power and prestige. On paper at least. But there will be the places not so nice where they will be treated as commodities at best and tools/targets at worst. Militaries would develop entire groups specialized in taking down certain mages, among other possibilities.

Magic becomes like having a college degree. Can you do a lot it? Yes, in theory. Does it guarantee you a place in the world? Nope.

You say 4+ drawbacks is nonsense, but the standard "wizard" package (traditional casting) has 5 drawbacks, the sample blood magic one has 5, one of which is considered 2 drawbacks, so technically 6, so you act like 4+ drawbacks is gaming the system, yet both the wind mage and the blood mage I made had nothing beyond what would be appropriate for the character.

The system is just far too frontloaded, you can do too much which such little investment, and don't even get me started on the sorts of shenannigans you can get away with by using staves to basically get access to almost anything you want.

[Quarian Rex]

The part that kind of breaks, potentially anyway...
One of our players will be a caster.
He has healing ability, but cannot heal others.
He can teleport, but only himself.
He can do protection buffs, but not AoE effects and not on anyone but himself.
He can shapechange into a few forms, but again only himself.

If the group were an adventuring business, they may tell the caster to piss off.
What good is a buffer, teleporter, healer, etc, who cannot heal anyone but themselves?

I don't know, what good is a regenerating, teleporting, super-werewolf? I mean, who would want that on their team? I get the sentiment here but I really think that this sort of thing is just players not paying attention to character fluff.



I think you underestimate hurricane force winds. 174mph winds. Look at the property damage that hurricanes in florida cause, and that's with modern construction techniquies, and in an area that's prone to hurricanes, so they (presumably) have some sort of fortification against it. A normal commoner's house in an area that's never had a hurricane before will most likely be completely destroyed.

As JerichoPenumbra mentioned, that is a slippery slope. When looking at this kind of thing we have to stick to the given game mechanics and nothing else. Otherwise you might as well calculate the area of a Fireball and say that it fills 80% of the dungeon. That dips heavily into DM throwing his hands up and saying 'You Win!' territory.



And that nonlethal damage? Did you forget that in pathfinder nonlethal damage becomes lethal after it passes the threshold of your normal maximum hp? A 3hp commoner will be dead pretty quickly.

... to be fair, I completely forgot that. So, it is a more lethal option than I gave it credit for.



Except you can spend those 5 rounds of wind up at the start of the dungeon and clear everyone out as you just concentrate and blast through, since nobody will be able to charge you, or shoot you while the winds are in effect.

See the bolded part? That is not a thing. When you open the door and enter a room the winds start battering it (no line of effect before that). Once the opponents in that room are exposed to the hurricane force winds they get Str checks (DC 15 not something that can be further modified by the caster) or get knocked prone and rolled 1d4x10 feet suffering 1d4 non-lethal damage per 10 feet traveled. In a closed space like a room there may not be much room to get rolled and so there will be hard limits on the damage that can be applied (once they are pushed against the wall they can't roll any further and so can't take any more damage). Statistically, 30% of your human opponents will still be standing (more if their Str is better than 11) who still get to act, and they are not surprised (howling hurricanes negate stealth attempts I do believe). If a single one of them lands a hit you then need to make a DC 13 (7th level effect) + damage dealt (good luck making that with a 1st level MSB) or the spell drops. He is now alone (the party had to have been hanging back to not get caught in the hurricane), out of SP, and surrounded by people who want to get stabby.

High reward, yes. It seems like both you and your DM were forgetting about the high risk factor. Just remember this kind of thing when sharing playtesting anecdotes. The system isn't broken if you haven't been playing with all the rules.



Except most of the party were spheres casters, and so didn't have shields, and light armor at best, so most of the party got something closer to +6 AC, there was only 1 party member who was wearing armor and carrying a shield who only got +2 AC. And 6 hours is a very large window of opportunity to go out adventuring, and since, y'know, we were adventurers, we usually picked the hours we were out adventuring, so it was effectively an all-day buff.

I'm not saying that the effect didn't have any value to your party, just that the buff isn't as massive as you might think. The armor and shield bonuses are equivalent to leather lamellar and a heavy wooden shield. You saved them 67 gp each. Not exactly a game breaker. Even a Wizard in pajamas will make Armor and Shield spells a regular memorization and those will provide an additional +4 AC over what you are giving. This is a strong quality of life buff, don't get me wrong, but it is the equivalent of making sure that everyone has a minimum of medium armor starting equipment and gets a one point heal every round. Hardly something that will make or break an encounter.

As for the duration? Yup, it's good. One random encounter that catches you all with your pants down will have the rest of the party eyeing the armor shop the next time you are in town, looking for alternatives to relying on a single spell for their basic defensive needs though.



But most importantly, while I had spent all of my SP to pull it off, I was then running around with an empowered destruction blast, getting +2CL from having no spell points remaining, so I was throwing around a 2d6 blast all day, which at level 1 is the equivilent of spending a spell point on every blast, and not needing to spend any spell points on healing at all, so instead of healing 1d8+1, or doing an extra 1d6 damage 7 times over the day, I was full healing the party for "free" and getting that extra 1d6 damage for free.

Oh, I get ya. That is a great mix at 1st level. But looking at that from the other side of the table (the DMs side), you are only doing and extra 3 damage a round (on average) and because of Extended Casting you have to choose whether to do some damage or move. You can't do both. Everything's a trade off. Again, this really isn't anything that would require adjusting an encounter for.

You get to be a magical juggernaut, strengthening and healing your allies with the power of your blood for hours(!), and unleash magical offense with the equivalent damage of an (unbonused) greatsword! How can they let you get away with this?! Meanwhile the DM sees a temporary replacement for some starter equipment and a couple uses of Channel Energy, and a choice between getting out of harms way/into position and doing less damage than any of the martials. But behold the glory of Spheres of Power! There is no irony in that last sentence. I think that the ability to legitimately do something cool from a low level is vastly important to enjoying a magic based character. I just think that the Spheres system, even when min/maxed, does a pretty damn good job of making sure that nothing can actually get broken.



I don't have an issue with most of the stuff you can do in spheres, what our group mostly has an issue with is how early it can be done. All of the things I described can be done literally at 1st level, and when you think, in context, what that means of a 1st level character, which means it's within the potential capabilities of most of the population, how does one reasonably create a game world where these things can exist, where level 1 characters have access to effectively weapons of mass destruction.

As I've been saying above, just look at the rules given and play them straight, that solves most of your problems. If the DM says that you knocked a village to the ground (remember, just about everybody can outrun you due to the concentration required) and then declares that your abilities are OP then that is on him. The spell says that you knock people down and they take damage for how far they roll. That's it. Blame the spell for what it does, not what it doesn't do.

As has been noted, Weather tends to get the most flack for this sort of thing due to the relatively large AoEs. It is also the Sphere that is the most obvious and has the most buildup. You might be able to get a 'surprise' attack like this off a couple of times, but then word will spread. From then on any time the winds pick up in a weird way people will rush to see if there is someone standing in the middle of it and you will get to see how good your concentration checks are for a few rounds before you can do your thing. Again, this just sounds like plot hooks to me.




And since it's so front loaded, you could take 1 level in something like the wind mage at any point during your career and have town-destroying capabilities, while having only a minor bump on the road down whatever you'd normally be doing. That wind mage is literally 1 sphere and 2 talents, one of which could be gotten by getting the sphere drawback focused weather, so with literally 3 feats, Basic Magical Training, Advanced Magical Training, and Extra magic talent, which any human could have by level 3, even people who haven't taken a single level in a casting class could pull it off.

Yup, they could, with the same limitations and an even worse concentration check than you. Looks like you are discovering the basis of societies like the Hathrans, Red Wizards of Thay, or the entire world of Eberron. Magical proliferation makes things interesting. Now do you want to spread this arcane knowledge or surpress it to protect your own interests? Plot hooks, plot hooks as far as the eye can see...

[Crake]

As JerichoPenumbra mentioned, that is a slippery slope. When looking at this kind of thing we have to stick to the given game mechanics and nothing else. Otherwise you might as well calculate the area of a Fireball and say that it fills 80% of the dungeon. That dips heavily into DM throwing his hands up and saying 'You Win!' territory.


... to be fair, I completely forgot that. So, it is a more lethal option than I gave it credit for.


See the bolded part? That is not a thing. When you open the door and enter a room the winds start battering it (no line of effect before that). Once the opponents in that room are exposed to the hurricane force winds they get Str checks (DC 15 not something that can be further modified by the caster) or get knocked prone and rolled 1d4x10 feet suffering 1d4 non-lethal damage per 10 feet traveled. In a closed space like a room there may not be much room to get rolled and so there will be hard limits on the damage that can be applied (once they are pushed against the wall they can't roll any further and so can't take any more damage). Statistically, 30% of your human opponents will still be standing (more if their Str is better than 11) who still get to act, and they are not surprised (howling hurricanes negate stealth attempts I do believe). If a single one of them lands a hit you then need to make a DC 13 (7th level effect) + damage dealt (good luck making that with a 1st level MSB) or the spell drops. He is now alone (the party had to have been hanging back to not get caught in the hurricane), out of SP, and surrounded by people who want to get stabby.

High reward, yes. It seems like both you and your DM were forgetting about the high risk factor. Just remember this kind of thing when sharing playtesting anecdotes. The system isn't broken if you haven't been playing with all the rules.

Or you can have the winds swirling in a circle and have a safe eye in the middle where you and your party can safely all walk together? That's how we were envisioning it.


I'm not saying that the effect didn't have any value to your party, just that the buff isn't as massive as you might think. The armor and shield bonuses are equivalent to leather lamellar and a heavy wooden shield. You saved them 67 gp each. Not exactly a game breaker. Even a Wizard in pajamas will make Armor and Shield spells a regular memorization and those will provide an additional +4 AC over what you are giving. This is a strong quality of life buff, don't get me wrong, but it is the equivalent of making sure that everyone has a minimum of medium armor starting equipment and gets a one point heal every round. Hardly something that will make or break an encounter.

As for the duration? Yup, it's good. One random encounter that catches you all with your pants down will have the rest of the party eyeing the armor shop the next time you are in town, looking for alternatives to relying on a single spell for their basic defensive needs though.

Well, the game in question was based in a city, so "random encounters" weren't really a thing, we weren't running through wilderness or anything, so we would just pop it off before going to hunt a bounty, or go into the sewers to investigate, or before going into the crypts or whatever. Yeah, sure, a bit niche, but still, even just 6 hours of fast healing for the whole party is pretty huge.



Oh, I get ya. That is a great mix at 1st level. But looking at that from the other side of the table (the DMs side), you are only doing and extra 3 damage a round (on average) and because of Extended Casting you have to choose whether to do some damage or move. You can't do both. Everything's a trade off. Again, this really isn't anything that would require adjusting an encounter for.

My blood mage didn't actually have extended casting iirc, so that wasn't an issue.



You get to be a magical juggernaut, strengthening and healing your allies with the power of your blood for hours(!), and unleash magical offense with the equivalent damage of an (unbonused) greatsword! How can they let you get away with this?! Meanwhile the DM sees a temporary replacement for some starter equipment and a couple uses of Channel Energy, and a choice between getting out of harms way/into position and doing less damage than any of the martials. But behold the glory of Spheres of Power! There is no irony in that last sentence. I think that the ability to legitimately do something cool from a low level is vastly important to enjoying a magic based character. I just think that the Spheres system, even when min/maxed, does a pretty damn good job of making sure that nothing can actually get broken.

Yeah, sure it's the damage of an unbonused greatsword, but it's also VS touch AC, so it's likely going to be hitting more often, not to mention, I believe it was frost blast (chilling the blood in your veins), which comes with a neat carrier effect of fort save vs staggered for 1 round each time it hit, prettyyyy good.


As I've been saying above, just look at the rules given and play them straight, that solves most of your problems. If the DM says that you knocked a village to the ground (remember, just about everybody can outrun you due to the concentration required) and then declares that your abilities are OP then that is on him. The spell says that you knock people down and they take damage for how far they roll. That's it. Blame the spell for what it does, not what it doesn't do.

As has been noted, Weather tends to get the most flack for this sort of thing due to the relatively large AoEs. It is also the Sphere that is the most obvious and has the most buildup. You might be able to get a 'surprise' attack like this off a couple of times, but then word will spread. From then on any time the winds pick up in a weird way people will rush to see if there is someone standing in the middle of it and you will get to see how good your concentration checks are for a few rounds before you can do your thing. Again, this just sounds like plot hooks to me.

It can become quite hard to notice the wind picking up in the middle of the night as a hurricane walks through town, and sure, it sounds like a good plot hook, until you realise this "villain" is level 1. I just don't think people should have town destroying power at level 1. It's honestly not even an issue as a player, yeah, sure the DM can find a way to challenge you, I can imagine a dozen ways to achieve that, the issue comes from a world building perspective when you realise that this power is trivial to achieve. How do you handle the fact that with just a bit of effort, practically anyone could become a hurricane-level force of nature? It's not like with regular casting where you need to get to level 9 before you have access to control winds which can reach that level of power, a literal wind mage apprentice can pull that off. Now, I mean, if you want to have that as the baseline for the power in your setting, and you think you can derive the logical conclusions of such ease-of-access to that kind of power, by all means, but as a primary DM, and from seeing my friends trying to work it out, well... let's just say, your world is going to be far from traditional.


Yup, they could, with the same limitations and an even worse concentration check than you. Looks like you are discovering the basis of societies like the Hathrans, Red Wizards of Thay, or the entire world of Eberron. Magical proliferation makes things interesting. Now do you want to spread this arcane knowledge or surpress it to protect your own interests? Plot hooks, plot hooks as far as the eye can see...

It's not about the proliferation of magic, it's about the overwhelming power of base-level mages. Even if regular wizards were around every corner, a level 1 wizard can still only cast a handful of spells per day, with some fun/useful cantrips on the side, and none of the spells they cast are particularly powerful, compared to a level 1 character practically being able to cast a 5th level spell (control winds) at will. Sure, they even out when you get to around level 9ish, but that frontloaded power, in the hands of the majority of the populus radically changes the way a world looks.

[DrMartin]

You say 4+ drawbacks is nonsense, but the standard "wizard" package (traditional casting) has 5 drawbacks, the sample blood magic one has 5, one of which is considered 2 drawbacks, so technically 6, so you act like 4+ drawbacks is gaming the system, yet both the wind mage and the blood mage I made had nothing beyond what would be appropriate for the character.

This is a crafty way to compare things. Not all drawbacks are the same, and the sinergies and interations between them and especially the boon(s) that you pick will inform the end result. This is already true in vanilla Pathfinder and I think is even more true for a concept based system like SoP.

So far the "best" campaign we´ve had with SoP was using casting traditions dictated by the setting/GM, which is, incidentally, the way the book suggests using casting traditions in the first place.



The system is just far too frontloaded, you can do too much which such little investment, and don't even get me started on the sorts of shenannigans you can get away with by using staves to basically get access to almost anything you want.

Front loaded is a different way of saying "it makes your concept viable from level 1", which is one of the selling point of the system, and in my experience so far has been a great thing. If it´s *too* front loaded is a question for each table to answer.

Spheres of Power has its weaker spots and if bent around those can be broken, but I think that as a whole is not as brittle or easily breakable and abusable as you are describing. It is interesting though that at your table it seems to be like that, is good input to inform OP´s opinion.

The biggest issue at my table has been detect magic being a "rare" ability, which nobody else seems to mention :D

[Crake]

This is a crafty way to compare things. Not all drawbacks are the same, and the sinergies and interations between them and especially the boon(s) that you pick will inform the end result. This is already true in vanilla Pathfinder and I think is even more true for a concept based system like SoP.

So far the "best" campaign we´ve had with SoP was using casting traditions dictated by the setting/GM, which is, incidentally, the way the book suggests using casting traditions in the first place.

Usually we built casting traditions that matched what we were going for, I did describe the wind-mage casting tradition as an attempt to match wind-waker's for example, and same goes for my blood mage (I can't remember exactly, but it all fit in with the concept of a blood mage).


Front loaded is a different way of saying "it makes your concept viable from level 1", which is one of the selling point of the system, and in my experience so far has been a great thing. If it´s *too* front loaded is a question for each table to answer.

Spheres of Power has its weaker spots and if bent around those can be broken, but I think that as a whole is not as brittle or easily breakable and abusable as you are describing. It is interesting though that at your table it seems to be like that, is good input to inform OP´s opinion.

Again, if played within a gentleman's agreement, with everyone just agreeing not to go too far and break the game, great, fine, it's all good, but as a primary DM, I tend to look at these kinds of systems through the lens of "what does this mean for the world at large", and generally speaking, spheres means the world drastically changes. Whether that's in a way you like, or not, that's up to you, but we enjoy playing in a more traditional kind of setting, and spheres seems to be largely at odds with that.

[Serafina]

Again, the Weather Sphere is basically the only example people can name that takes things too far - and even then only if you go for really heavy optimization and allow advanced talents.
That really shouldn't have a lot of setting implications - it's about as much of an exploit as some low-level caster finding a large pile of onyx and a graveyard/battlefield and creating a ton of uncontrolled skeletons with it, or other such shenanigans. Sure, someone might occasionally do it - but most people aren't motivated by sheer destruction.
(And while the skeleton-case would require a specific lucky opportunity, the weather-case would actually require a ton of dedication and specific training, so it's arguably harder).


Aside from that - well, what are the setting implications?

For Non-casters/Spheres of Might users you could say they're mostly the same - but that's not quite true.
If legendary talents are on the table (which they are assumed to be), they can pull off much more impressive feats). This can include some abilities that interact with magic, such as spotting magical auras, piercing magical defenses, or the like.
But even without that, they'll have access to more skill points, and do other things such as rapidly identify creature weaknesses with the Scout-sphere, or get access to a host of alchemical items from the alchemy-sphere - they'll be able to do more things, and things they otherwise couldn't do.
That's in addition to generally being more competent combatants, and the lines between classes being more blurred - nothing stops a Rogue from picking up the Berserker- or Guardian-sphere if they really want to, for example.
But at the same time, you can also identify SoM users much more by their Martial Tradition/what spheres they use. So that's something to consider for your setting.

Now onto magic.
Generally, if Spheres of Power are the standard or only type of magic, spellcasters lose versatility - unless you count Rituals, and assume a lot of them have the Ritual Caster feat so they can cast those for which they don't possess the base sphere. But what does that loss of versatility look like? Let's take a look at your standard vancian class, beyond the very low levels.
Any vancian Bard can buff and heal and enchant. That's three spheres.
Any vancian Cleric can buff and heal and enchant and summon and deal some magical damage. That's four spheres.
Any vancian Druid can buff and heal and enchant and summon and deal some magical damage and interact with nature. That's five spheres.
Any vancian Wizard can buff and create and enchant and summon and deam magical damage and teleport and levitate and create illusions and.....yep at this point you see how this model breaks down.
For a lot of vancian spellcasters, you can actually neatly define their core competency.
This is really easy to replicate with Spheres - just take the right Spheres, and you get about the same effects. If people in your world assume a Bard can do those things, then they won't be able to tell the difference between a Spheres-Bard or a Vancian-Bard. There is however one exception:
Spheres are bad at recreating all the random flavorful magical effects, such as Summon Instrument.

Now you could give that Bard the Creation-sphere, but that'd do a pretty poor job due to limited duration, requiring craft-checks, and maybe you just want them to have the option to create an Instrument, not the whole versatility of the Creation-sphere.
Which brings us back to Rituals - there's basically no harm in creating a custom level 0 Ritual of Summon Instrument, and give it the Spheres of "Creation or Illusion" since an illusory instrument would do the job all the same. The same could be done for almost any other spell, especially for those that you want for flavor.
If you're worried about those magical effects that you can't replicate with Spheres - that's what Rituals are for.

So what differences are left now?
There's the stuff like Detect Magic being a base sphere (Divination) instead of a Cantrip everyone has.
There's once again that people will start classifying casters by what they're actually trained in - but then again, unless you're in combat, who cares if that Wizard needs six seconds or 30 minutes to pull out reality-warping magic? Those with the Ritual Caster feat and a large collection of rituals could easily have a status all on their own.
There's healing no longer being mostly the domain of clerical magic - the Life-sphere is open to anyone. That can have huge implications - then again it already was on shaky grounds, Bards and Witches could already cast Cure-spells and such.
There's probably a lot of other small differences, but a small differences isn't setting-altering by definition.


Bottom Line:
If you like, I think you can take a standard Pathfinder-setting (such as Golarion), swap Vancian Magic for Spherecasting, and with good use of Rituals leave the setting basically unchanged.
Most settings do already not run based off the full versatility spellcasters could have, and don't have them using their power to their fullest on a setting-level. Since the magic that mostly defines classes, and is used most frequently, can be done with both systems, that's no problem - and the remainder can be handled with rituals.

[DrMartin]

Again, if played within a gentleman's agreement, with everyone just agreeing not to go too far and break the game, great, fine, it's all good, but as a primary DM, I tend to look at these kinds of systems through the lens of "what does this mean for the world at large", and generally speaking, spheres means the world drastically changes. Whether that's in a way you like, or not, that's up to you, but we enjoy playing in a more traditional kind of setting, and spheres seems to be largely at odds with that.

maybe I am missing your point, but magic transforming the world is always the case with the "rules as physics" mindset - even with vancian magic. Even withouth going full-on tippyverse, pathfinder´s at will cantrips already are a shattering force for your default fantasy world.

[Crake]

maybe I am missing your point, but magic transforming the world is always the case with the "rules as physics" mindset - even with vancian magic. Even withouth going full-on tippyverse, pathfinder´s at will cantrips already are a shattering force for your default fantasy world.

While that's correct, it's a question of how radical that change is, and how far reaching the consequences become.


Again, the Weather Sphere is basically the only example people can name that takes things too far - and even then only if you go for really heavy optimization and allow advanced talents.
That really shouldn't have a lot of setting implications - it's about as much of an exploit as some low-level caster finding a large pile of onyx and a graveyard/battlefield and creating a ton of uncontrolled skeletons with it, or other such shenanigans. Sure, someone might occasionally do it - but most people aren't motivated by sheer destruction.
(And while the skeleton-case would require a specific lucky opportunity, the weather-case would actually require a ton of dedication and specific training, so it's arguably harder).

I'm not sure I really agree with this assessment. A level 1 healer at best can heal 9 points of damage with a cure light in vancian casting, wheras a level 1 spheres healer could get, without even focusing on any drawbacks/boons, get incanter 1, have life sphere spec, spend the human bonus feats on extra magical talent, for a total of 6 talents, get the life sphere, revitalize, and greater healing 4 times, to give fast healing 5 for 2 minutes, which would heal 100hp for a single spell point. Grab metamagic expert and replace one of those revitalize with extend spell, and for 2 spell points you can heal 240hp... At level 1. God forbid you get anything else that might boost your CL slightly either. The old 3.5 exalted feat stigmata comes to mind with a deathful magic healer dropping themselves to 1/4 hp to be able to heal people for 400hp. Imagine that, a level 1 pleb being able to full heal a level 20, 36 con barbarian?

Or hell, not even at level 1, you could be a level 10 fighter, and grab a level of incanter and boom, suddenly you have the capability to put yourself on healing steroids. Even if you say "oh, well, that's over 2-6 minutes, you could instead get 5 of the talents that increase your cure by 1d8, and whomp down an instantaneous 6d8+2hp cure, sure, not as impressive as the 100hp over 2 minutes, but 29 average hp instantaneously is pretty strong. Hell, with that you could ignore sphere spec and just get an extra bonus incanter feat at 1st level, for 7d8+1. Let's say you ignore the level and human bonus feats, and you could still walk away with 5d8+1 heals with just a single level of incanter. That actually reminds me of the knight character I made who could quite literally full heal herself in the middle of a fight, which totally put all the encounters out of whack.

I mean, come on guys, if that isn't far too much frontloading I don't know what is.

[Mehangel]

While that's correct, it's a question of how radical that change is, and how far reaching the consequences become.

And that is exactly why 1) Wind Lord is an advanced talent, and 2) Advanced talents explicitly require GM permission to take.


I'm not sure I really agree with this assessment. A level 1 healer at best can heal 9 points of damage with a cure light in vancian casting, wheras a level 1 spheres healer could get, without even focusing on any drawbacks/boons, get incanter 1, have life sphere spec, spend the human bonus feats on extra magical talent, for a total of 6 talents, get the life sphere, revitalize, and greater healing 4 times, to give fast healing 5 for 2 minutes, which would heal 100hp for a single spell point. Grab metamagic expert and replace one of those revitalize with extend spell, and for 2 spell points you can heal 240hp... At level 1. God forbid you get anything else that might boost your CL slightly either. The old 3.5 exalted feat stigmata comes to mind with a deathful magic healer dropping themselves to 1/4 hp to be able to heal people for 400hp. Imagine that, a level 1 pleb being able to full heal a level 20, 36 con barbarian?

Congratulations, you have just built a caster who can do nothing but heal. Guess what, that is a character concept that Spheres of Power allows for. I haven't looked at what is possible with the latest Oradin builds (including new content that expands the Heal skill unlock), but from what I understand such builds can also heal a massive amount of hit points at relatively no cost multiple times a day (and still contribute in other ways).

What is the old adage? It is better to prevent damage than to heal damage, and the best way to prevent damage is to deal damage.

Sure your character is optimized in one particular task (which they do ridiculously well), but in the greater scope of things is it any more broken than being super-optimized in Craft (underwater basket weaving)? Especially since within the SoM/SoP systems there are multiple ways to flat-out mitigate, if not deny magical healing.

[Crake]

And that is exactly why 1) Wind Lord is an advanced talent, and 2) Advanced talents explicitly require GM permission to take.

All well and good, as I've said a few times now, when the build was conceived (and in the spheres book I own) windlord is not an advanced talent.


Congratulations, you have just built a caster who can do nothing but heal. Guess what, that is a character concept that Spheres of Power allows for. I haven't looked at what is possible with the latest Oradin builds (including new content that expands the Heal skill unlock), but from what I understand such builds can also heal a massive amount of hit points at relatively no cost multiple times a day (and still contribute in other ways).

What is the old adage? It is better to prevent damage than to heal damage, and the best way to prevent damage is to deal damage.

Sure your character is optimized in one particular task (which they do ridiculously well), but in the greater scope of things is it any more broken than being super-optimized in Craft (underwater basket weaving)? Especially since within the SoM/SoP systems there are multiple ways to flat-out mitigate, if not deny magical healing.

Again, you're looking at it from a player's perspective, not a DM's perspective. I never said this mega healer was a character, but consider the implications of the fact that a level 1 cleric in a church can quite literally full heal a level 20 character. Consider also the fact that a familiar could achieve this, or a spheres summon, by using feats (god, don't get me started on the summoning sphere). Hell, even a level 1 rando human pleb without any casting classes can squeeze out Basic Magic Training, Advanced Magic Training, a casting tradition that includes limited regenerate and deathful magic, and still be able to squeeze out 30 points of healing at least once per day if they're at 1/4 or less, or 20 if they're at 1/2 or less. Slap on Regenerate drawback and for the low cost of two feats literally anyone can heal themselves for 60/40 hit points per point of int/wis/cha modifier. Fighters get plenty of feats, so they, for example, would have a very little opportunity cost to be able to full heal themselves multiple times over. Hell, since it's so easy, why wouldn't ever fighter learn how to heal themselves like that? They can do that without losing any of their fighter training after all?

I dunno, I think I've pretty clearly illustrated my point that spheres is far too frontloaded, in my experience the only time things don't get out of hand at early levels is when you quite literally restrict yourself to almost entirely using the system through feats, which just so happens to be how one of my rogues used it, focusing on warp and life (still ended up broken as hell, but it took until late game to reach that point, which is when vancian starts to reach equal levels of broken anyway, so no big deal), but any time we've built characters using the actual classes, it just absolute trashes over anything you could build without the system to the point where most encounters that aren't specifically tailored to include spheres opponents and spheres challenges become entirely steamrolled.

[Serafina]

As a GM, I'd just assume that most NPCs are not optimized like that.
You probably won't find a Level 1 Human Incanter with Life-Sphere Specialization in every town. You're likely to find a Spherecaster with the Lifesphere, but they're more likey to have invested into more practical things like Restore Health (to help with disease and poison) or Greater Restore (to help with ability damage and exhaustion). Sure, a Healer with a few more levels might have Revitalize if you assume your NPCs are optimized - but all that means is they can fully heal people? As in, they can do their job? I don't see how it's setting-breaking for a ~5th-level Healer character to be able to heal someone of simple hit point damage.

Now you keep talking about this from a DMs perspective.
But then you assume that any random human commoner could just have Basic Magic Training and a bunch of other optimization - at which point, how is that different than them having a few level in a spellcasting class?

You're still looking at this as if NPCs optimize, with full rule-knowledge, and with adventuring-goals in mind. But by the same logic, there should be no commoners, everyone should have levels in Druid or Wizard or Cleric, or maybe some really front-loaded build? How is that different from assuming they're using fully optimized feat/tradition/drawback loadouts?

Yes, a low-level Spheres-cleric is a lot more capable of healing up a high-level than a vancian Cleric. How often does that situation come up?
If you don't assume that Clerics are for some reason built around healing the one-in-a-million level 15+character, but instead want to heal the common folk of their actual ailments and only get super-efficient hitpoint healing at around level 5, how does that change?
Yes, the end-result is still that those Sphere-clerics are better at healing - but is restricted healing that important that it's setting-breaking?


As a DM you should look at NPCs by what function you want them to provide in the game, not what the most optimized build for them is.
If you need the NPC to be able to do this? Then they can do it! If they need an extra level, feat, or hidden unique suddenly-made-up ability for that? Well, then they get that!
If making up rules for NPCs doesn't feel right to you? Well then you should still first consider what an NPC should be able to do, then match their level and build to that.

Put simply - if you want a Healer NPC who can fully heal the party, then you have such an NPC.
If you don't - well, then the local Healers simply didn't invest much into Greater Healing or Revitalize because for the purpose of healing town guards, farmers and hunters, the amounts they can heal is already more than enough! Sure the Cleric the next town over can do it - but that doesn't help right now, does it?

You use the same approach for other NPCs. It doesn't matter if some specific build trick would make the NPC far better at their job and that'd break the game or setting - you don't want them to be that good at their job, so they aren't! Just like you don't give them 10 Levels in Wizard and 5 Mythic Ranks, you don't give them that specific build trick!


And Spheres of Power and Might are actually far better are providing a job-oriented toolbox than Vancian casting.
With Vancian casting, I can't have a Weather-based Villain until around level 12 or so, since Control Weather is such a high-level spell. And then it does a poor job, compared to what Spheres can do!
With Vancian casting, I can't provide my players with a convenient pocket-healer if I want to unless I make that NPC at least able to cast Heal - a 6th-level spell. Nor can I play around with diseases, curses or the like as easily at low levels, since the cures for those all demand spells out of reach at low levels.
With Vancian casting, I can't easily build a Ward Mage who sustains the magical barriers around an ancient shrine. Sure I can dig through the available Wall-spells and other stuff - but it's nowhere near as easy or elegant as the Protection-sphere, and far more level-restricted.
With Vancian casting, it's really boring to build Elemental-themed characters - how many good acid- or lighting-spells are there? But if I want a Mage to fight alongside that Black Dragon that makes acid geysers explode from the swamp, and makes acid raid, I can have that quickly and easily.


The stuff you've listed as detrimental to a DM can just as well be a positive.
Things being front-loaded and available at low-level can be a huge boon if you want such things to be available at low-level - sometimes, you want some things to be available early on as a DM too. And if you don't, you just don't put NPCs with them in the game.
Nevermind the ease with which you can build thematic NPCs, which Spheres make far easier.



As for player front-loading - at early levels, that's mostly handled by that character then only being good at one thing. Only being able to do one thing is boring! And often bad for adventuring - so most players won't do that, and if they do it it shouldn't be too hard as a DM.
At later levels - well, tons of healing from Revitalize is really no different than Cure Light Wounds spam. And basically all other effects I can think off are no more problematic than what a caster at that level could do.

[EldritchWeaver]

You might want to check out the Skybourne Players Guide by the makers of the spheres systems. In that setting, spheres of power is the traditional type of magic, and then the standard type evolved.

I can't remember having it been stated how the various casting systems relate to each other. Do you have a quote or a page number for this?


While that's correct, it's a question of how radical that change is, and how far reaching the consequences become.



I'm not sure I really agree with this assessment. A level 1 healer at best can heal 9 points of damage with a cure light in vancian casting, wheras a level 1 spheres healer could get, without even focusing on any drawbacks/boons, get incanter 1, have life sphere spec, spend the human bonus feats on extra magical talent, for a total of 6 talents, get the life sphere, revitalize, and greater healing 4 times, to give fast healing 5 for 2 minutes, which would heal 100hp for a single spell point. Grab metamagic expert and replace one of those revitalize with extend spell, and for 2 spell points you can heal 240hp... At level 1. God forbid you get anything else that might boost your CL slightly either. The old 3.5 exalted feat stigmata comes to mind with a deathful magic healer dropping themselves to 1/4 hp to be able to heal people for 400hp. Imagine that, a level 1 pleb being able to full heal a level 20, 36 con barbarian?

Or hell, not even at level 1, you could be a level 10 fighter, and grab a level of incanter and boom, suddenly you have the capability to put yourself on healing steroids. Even if you say "oh, well, that's over 2-6 minutes, you could instead get 5 of the talents that increase your cure by 1d8, and whomp down an instantaneous 6d8+2hp cure, sure, not as impressive as the 100hp over 2 minutes, but 29 average hp instantaneously is pretty strong. Hell, with that you could ignore sphere spec and just get an extra bonus incanter feat at 1st level, for 7d8+1. Let's say you ignore the level and human bonus feats, and you could still walk away with 5d8+1 heals with just a single level of incanter. That actually reminds me of the knight character I made who could quite literally full heal herself in the middle of a fight, which totally put all the encounters out of whack.

I mean, come on guys, if that isn't far too much frontloading I don't know what is.

You're missing two points: A level 1 character will not be able to take that much damage to get the potential fast healing. Basically, even with fast healing 5 you can down a level 1 character, in particular one, who has no armor proficiencies and meager 6 + Con hp. So this would help with out-of-combat healing, but for that you need revitalize 2x to extend the duration. (And drop to fast healing 4.) The second issue is that a level 20 character won't be able to run around with a level 1 character and can reasonably expect that the companion stays alive during fights, where even the lowest possible damage is enough to at least drop the companion into unconsciousness and that outcome requires enormous amount of luck. More likely are accidental one-hit kills. I suppose the barbarian could buy a conjuration companion magic item which heals him up on demand (or more likely something which grants fast healing directly).


Again, you're looking at it from a player's perspective, not a DM's perspective. I never said this mega healer was a character, but consider the implications of the fact that a level 1 cleric in a church can quite literally full heal a level 20 character. Consider also the fact that a familiar could achieve this, or a spheres summon, by using feats (god, don't get me started on the summoning sphere). Hell, even a level 1 rando human pleb without any casting classes can squeeze out Basic Magic Training, Advanced Magic Training, a casting tradition that includes limited regenerate and deathful magic, and still be able to squeeze out 30 points of healing at least once per day if they're at 1/4 or less, or 20 if they're at 1/2 or less. Slap on Regenerate drawback and for the low cost of two feats literally anyone can heal themselves for 60/40 hit points per point of int/wis/cha modifier. Fighters get plenty of feats, so they, for example, would have a very little opportunity cost to be able to full heal themselves multiple times over. Hell, since it's so easy, why wouldn't ever fighter learn how to heal themselves like that? They can do that without losing any of their fighter training after all?

I dunno, I think I've pretty clearly illustrated my point that spheres is far too frontloaded, in my experience the only time things don't get out of hand at early levels is when you quite literally restrict yourself to almost entirely using the system through feats, which just so happens to be how one of my rogues used it, focusing on warp and life (still ended up broken as hell, but it took until late game to reach that point, which is when vancian starts to reach equal levels of broken anyway, so no big deal), but any time we've built characters using the actual classes, it just absolute trashes over anything you could build without the system to the point where most encounters that aren't specifically tailored to include spheres opponents and spheres challenges become entirely steamrolled.

It's extending the number of encounters you can achieve per day without requiring rest, assuming you manage to survive the encounters, because fast healing will not stop you from being dropped. At beast it delays it for one turn. Keep in mind that your healing warriors have some opportunity costs to get access to this (you need at least 3 general feats, which means that humans can get it at level 3 and others at level 5 the earliest) and that with Destruction access and other at-will powers the casters will be able to keep up longer as well. Vancian casters will complain about not being able to cast anything after two or 3 encounters anyway, so this change balances things out. Also, what players can do, the GM can do, too, which increases the threat level of the encounters.


All well and good, as I've said a few times now, when the build was conceived (and in the spheres book I own) windlord is not an advanced talent.

True. It doesn't change the fact that the build now requires access to an advanced talent which makes the build somewhat outdated.

[Quarian Rex]

Or you can have the winds swirling in a circle and have a safe eye in the middle where you and your party can safely all walk together? That's how we were envisioning it.

Yup, Windlord does permit that, but then there are tactical considerations as to the size of the eye that you allow. Too big and most of a room will not be covered, negating your use of hurricane in the tight quarters of a dungeon. Too tight and a single bull-rush will edge a party member into the maelstrom and you are now doing the enemy's work for them.

Trade-offs and tactical considerations are a good thing. If your DM chooses not to pay attention to such things... then that is another issue.



Well, the game in question was based in a city, so "random encounters" weren't really a thing, we weren't running through wilderness or anything, so we would just pop it off before going to hunt a bounty, or go into the sewers to investigate, or before going into the crypts or whatever. Yeah, sure, a bit niche, but still, even just 6 hours of fast healing for the whole party is pretty huge.

What? You never once got jumped by assassins sent by a noble, or the thieves guild, or wererats, or anything? Urban encounter tables are a thing too ya know.



My blood mage didn't actually have extended casting iirc, so that wasn't an issue.

I was referring to this...


And sure, severe weather requires a spellpoint, but even windstorm levels at will are mega strong, and I addressed the boons, saying that sure, having 3 boons specifically built toward it is rather rough, but the character in mind was based on windwaker, so extended casting (which counts as 2, conducting takes a while), magical signs (winds swirling around the character), focus casting (conductors baton), skilled casting (profession/perform (conducting)) and somatic casting (swinging around the baton) right away fit in perfectly, and boom, there's your 6 drawbacks.

Where you stated otherwise.



Yeah, sure it's the damage of an unbonused greatsword, but it's also VS touch AC, so it's likely going to be hitting more often, not to mention, I believe it was frost blast (chilling the blood in your veins), which comes with a neat carrier effect of fort save vs staggered for 1 round each time it hit, prettyyyy good.

I hear ya, but the martials have stacked hit bonuses for Str focusing, two-handed damage bonuses, and associated support feats, while the opposition at 1st level isn't rocking enchanted fullplate or anything so the benefits of touch attacks at this point aren't as great as they will be later. Like I said, just keep things in perspective.



It can become quite hard to notice the wind picking up in the middle of the night as a hurricane walks through town,

When the wind goes from nothing to strong enough to blow away a chihuahua in 12 seconds that is not subtle, and is still takes you three more rounds to get to hurricane strength. That's plenty of time for people nearby to notice. The first couple times this happens I can see giving you the nod for the confusion aspect, but word will spread about the party walking in the middle of a hurricane and people will start paying attention. Or your DM isn't doing his job.



and sure, it sounds like a good plot hook, until you realise this "villain" is level 1. I just don't think people should have town destroying power at level 1.

But 'town destroying' is not part of the power. The power screws with ranged weapon attacks and knocks people down, rolling them away for damage. That. Is. It. If you DM decides that the entire village is reduced to matchsticks and that everyone in it stayed still and auto-died when exposed, then that is the DM adding power too it, and it appears that this is what you are judging it by. How different would it have been if, when you rolled into town like a horseman of the apocalypse, the DM played it straight and had everyone just close their doors and wait for you to go away (no line of effect)? What are you going to do? Go up to each door and break them down individually with your little wizard arms (but you can't because your standard action is taken up concentrating)? What if the door isn't locked and you can just open it? Then you have a farmer on the other side with a readied action to stab you in the face with a pitchfork and the only thing stopping him from doing it is a single DC 15 Str check to stay standing.

Again, your perception of this as being an overpowered town-wrecker is a result of your DM ignoring the limitations of the ability and deciding that it wrecks towns.



It's honestly not even an issue as a player, yeah, sure the DM can find a way to challenge you, I can imagine a dozen ways to achieve that, the issue comes from a world building perspective when you realise that this power is trivial to achieve. How do you handle the fact that with just a bit of effort, practically anyone could become a hurricane-level force of nature? It's not like with regular casting where you need to get to level 9 before you have access to control winds which can reach that level of power, a literal wind mage apprentice can pull that off. Now, I mean, if you want to have that as the baseline for the power in your setting, and you think you can derive the logical conclusions of such ease-of-access to that kind of power, by all means, but as a primary DM, and from seeing my friends trying to work it out, well... let's just say, your world is going to be far from traditional.

Your world has now discovered the basis of societal magic suppression. Whether it is the church seeking to 'burn the witch', the mages guild hunting druids, or the army hunting sorcerers (X-Men parallel anyone?) any group seen as responsible for such unrestrained acts of destruction will be held responsible by other groups, or perhaps hunted by their own traditions to avaoid pogroms from their opponents. And since the perpetrators are so low level they will have far fewer resources to defend themselves with than an equivalent mad wizard flinging Fireballs around town. Entire fantasy series are based around this very concept. There is a lot that can be done with this if the DM wants to give it even the slightest thought. Again, plot hooks as far as the eye can see...



It's not about the proliferation of magic, it's about the overwhelming power of base-level mages. Even if regular wizards were around every corner, a level 1 wizard can still only cast a handful of spells per day, with some fun/useful cantrips on the side, and none of the spells they cast are particularly powerful, compared to a level 1 character practically being able to cast a 5th level spell (control winds) at will. Sure, they even out when you get to around level 9ish, but that frontloaded power, in the hands of the majority of the populus radically changes the way a world looks.

And that 5th level spell far exceeds the capabilities of your 1st level weather mage, with massively increased range and area of effect, long duration, the ability to target it away from himself, and instant casting (no 5 round build-up). Its almost like it's a higher level effect. Weird, huh?




A level 1 healer at best can heal 9 points of damage with a cure light in vancian casting, wheras a level 1 spheres healer could get, without even focusing on any drawbacks/boons, get incanter 1, have life sphere spec, spend the human bonus feats on extra magical talent, for a total of 6 talents, get the life sphere, revitalize, and greater healing 4 times, to give fast healing 5 for 2 minutes, which would heal 100hp for a single spell point. Grab metamagic expert and replace one of those revitalize with extend spell, and for 2 spell points you can heal 240hp... At level 1.

As others have mentioned, this is a possible result of over specialization, and, as has also already been mentioned, so what? Totaling up potential healing amounts from fast healing can provide some big numbers. That is the nature of heal DoTs. How much of that is wasted? At 1st level, most. Compare that to a Cleric's Channel Energy. A 30' radius can fit, what? 110 or so? OMG! That is over 100d6 of healing! And he can do it 3+Cha times per day! At level 1! I'm trying to make a point here. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that it will have the effect that you seem to think that it will. Even in actual play the Cleric will probably have more of an impact in larger combats with his Channel Energy because he can keep more people in the fight and so maintain action economy advantage than your hyper-specialized super healer.

It just seems like you are getting stuck on the details and can't see the wider applications on the campaign world, and how they might not be as impactful as what is already there.




The stuff you've listed as detrimental to a DM can just as well be a positive.
Things being front-loaded and available at low-level can be a huge boon if you want such things to be available at low-level - sometimes, you want some things to be available early on as a DM too.

This is key. I've been looking into a lot of options to have casters get access to higher level effects at lower levels (largely with things from the Practical Enchanter (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/51242/The-Practical-Enchanter) like High Magic metamagic and Applied Spellcraft) so that lower level parties can have meaningfully epic encounters without having to have a BBEG three times their level (with all the other resources that entails) to pull it off. This kind of thing can be more of an advantage to the DM than a detriment.



As for player front-loading - at early levels, that's mostly handled by that character then only being good at one thing. Only being able to do one thing is boring! And often bad for adventuring - so most players won't do that, and if they do it it shouldn't be too hard as a DM.
At later levels - well, tons of healing from Revitalize is really no different than Cure Light Wounds spam. And basically all other effects I can think off are no more problematic than what a caster at that level could do.

QFT. There is always a price for overspecialization and the actual effects of that on the game world aren't usually much greater than currently available options.

[Gallowglass]

I agree with crake on the fact that in SoP your character comes front loaded. And in the hands of someone who is seeking to break the system, the possibility to break it is there. which, so what? That's true of optimization in every system.

But I don't think its a problem on the level he makes it out to be. I think he's being extremely hyperbolic.

But I think an important point to keep in mind is that your SoP caster is NOT going to be a direct replacement for your standard vancian caster. They fill different niches.

We had a game where we had some traditional casters (druid, wizard) and a SoP character with, I believe, warp and mind sphere talents (possibly time as well)

The SoP caster felt like, basically, someone playing a superhero character mixed in with the normal adventurers. He didn't have the broad general capabilities of the traditional casters, but what he did have was... well... a limited set of superpowers.

He was capable of short range teleport pretty much all day, every day with the ability to extend that range or take other people a few times a day. He was capable of mind controlling one bad guy every combat if he wanted to spend his full time puppetting that guy which basically meant trading his attack sequence for a single action from the bad guy each turn. (Lots of charge attacks as standard actions to get movement and attack). And it mean that he had the ability to boost the party with a mass haste effect, way , way, way WAY earlier than a normal caster would. If he spent his actions concentrating on it.

And to trade off, he had to have some super-hero like quirks to make him work. He had to twirl his pocket-watch in front of people to mind control them, us the stopwatch buttons to activate his haste effects and he had to tap his alpenstock twice on the group to teleport.

Feels like a superhero to me.

A limited set of super powers. It worked fine, because the SoP caster did NOT also take the place of the other traditional casters. They still had the detect magic, the read magic, the blasting spells, etc. etc.

Normally, he spent each encounter choosing whether to give most of the rest of the party an additional attack by concentrating on haste (basically becoming a bard) or he took away one bad guy and turned them into an asset.

[Unavenger]

I recall a game I played where a character optimised to get something like 14d8 points of damage, in an area, at level 1. The system in general is fine, for the most part, but I always look at drawbacks with heavy scrutiny. One of the characters I saw had a drawback that did nothing but prevent his self-only ability from affecting creatures on the other side of a wall (think about that for a second). Others would gleefully take focus caster and witchmarked, which do literally nothing unless the DM is the type to steal your magic items or set your game in Salem. The drawback system, put simply, is ridiculous. Spheres in general? Well, I don't hate it, and it is fun to be able to build a lot more character archetypes than vancian can. But the execution is very, very shifty in places.

The oberoni-tastic talents that Crake mentioned are another thing I dislike. Telling the DM that they can ban something doesn't make it balanced. They're the DM, they can already ban whatever they like. I understand in Spheres of Might having a separate list for talents which throw your suspension of disbelief out of the window so that it's easier to curate the tone of the game, but SoP's "Just better, but the DM can ban them so it's fine" talents are a little obnoxious.

[Crake]

I was referring to this...

Where you stated otherwise.

I feel like I've stated my points already, and these posts are getting too long for me to honestly be able to coherently respond, but I'll just say this: Wind mage and blood mage are not the same character. Extended casting on the wind mage does not mean extended casting on the blood mage.

[Castilonium]

Having said that, the general drawbacks that grant CL bonuses are likely getting errata'd to be typed as competence bonuses to prevent stacking (only the highest bonus applies).

Quoting for visibility. This sounds like it'll fix some of the frontloading and shenanigans people are worried about. Thanks for the heads up.

[Mehangel]

The oberoni-tastic talents that Crake mentioned are another thing I dislike. Telling the DM that they can ban something doesn't make it balanced. They're the DM, they can already ban whatever they like. I understand in Spheres of Might having a separate list for talents which throw your suspension of disbelief out of the window so that it's easier to curate the tone of the game, but SoP's "Just better, but the DM can ban them so it's fine" talents are a little obnoxious.

Thing is, I don't see advanced talents as 'talents that a GM can ban', but rather as 'talents that by default are banned without GM explicit permission'. It might seem like a minor thing, but it really isn't a matter of the GM banning advanced talents, instead a matter of the GM allowing them to begin with.

[Crake]

Thing is, I don't see advanced talents as 'talents that a GM can ban', but rather as 'talents that by default are banned without GM explicit permission'. It might seem like a minor thing, but it really isn't a matter of the GM banning advanced talents, instead a matter of the GM allowing them to begin with.

That's irrelevant to the discussion though, because whether the DM allows them or not doesn't change the balance of them.

[Serafina]

Advanced Talents are specifically meant to be individually approved, precisely so that the GM can alter the system to the tone of the game.
And we're talking about individual approval - maybe you want a campaign with planeshifting, but no global-range teleportation, so you'll allow talents for the former, but not those for the latter. Maybe you're fine with most of the advanced Weather-sphere, but you dislike Volcano Lord since that doesn't strike you as a weather-related thing. Maybe you feel a talent just unbalances the game, so you don't approve it.
That's how it's supposed to work.

And yes, that does matter when you're discussing the balance of those talents.
Just take a look at, say, Costly Creation (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/advanced-talents#toc29). Obviously, magic that allows you to create gold and diamonds and other wealth out of thin air would utterly break the game, right? Being able to render Wealth-by-Level meaningless and get as many magic items as you want by 15th level is utterly broken, how could you ever publish something like that?
Because it's not meant to be used in most games.
This is for games where the plot will revolve around it, and where you put a limit on wealth-to-character-power via some rule system or other. Or for games where wealth matters very little with similar systems, and this just allows you to pump out adamantine walls because it fits. Or for games where it's a nearly-unique power because sometimes rare or unique magic can exist in a world.

Apply the same concept to a lot of the other advanced talents. Yes, some are overpowered - and that's okay because they're not for every game.
If your players have a problem with that? Spheres of Power very explicitly says that Advanced Talents are for individual approval, and are not available by default.



And yes, all that can be complicated - but such is the nature of magic. In my opinion it's vastly preferable to have that in a system, rather than have it hidden away - which Pathfinders core magic very much does. Some vancian spells need to be handled with the utmost care lest they break the game, others are just a fancier way of attacking or opening a door, and the GM is given very little guidance as to which is which. At least advanced talents come with a label of "be careful about these".

[arkangel111]

idk I think the question is moot... yes the game can have some difficulties at level 1... but pun pun is doable at level 1 yet asking why there isn't a billion kobold gods is laughed off by anyone that visits this site. when someone makes a game system they balance it out based on their vision, not the power gamey niche builders vision.
if you have the majority of citizens able to use magic most would probably focus on something useful. a farmer might have animal or plant focused a city dweller maybe stealth or something to help a craft, and a politician probably has something to help gather info secretly.
just because they could throw fireballs doesn't mean they will. Be realistic, what use would you have for creating a hurricane on demand unless you were an evil tyrant or an adventurer?
a farmer would not want to wipe out his crops, or destroy the city he plans to sell his crops at.
a thief might get some use out of picking treasures out of a ruined city in the aftermath, but then they'd have to spend the money to move or rebuild.
a politician might be able to leverage for some gain but how long before his overt use of power brings a team of assassins or adventurers after him?
all of this isn't even taking into account the impact causing hurricanes to appear in areas where they aren't meant to be, on the actual weather.

[Crake]

idk I think the question is moot... yes the game can have some difficulties at level 1... but pun pun is doable at level 1 yet asking why there isn't a billion kobold gods is laughed off by anyone that visits this site. when someone makes a game system they balance it out based on their vision, not the power gamey niche builders vision.

I think it's disingenuous to imply that these issues only occur through power gamey, niche builds, considering the majority of spheres-only characters that our table has built has had this issue, and we're far from a table of powergamers. Just building a character normally, picking things that are generally available, and even just sticking to core spheres (we played when it was first launched and there wasn't all this expanded materials available), these characters became hugely borked.


if you have the majority of citizens able to use magic most would probably focus on something useful. a farmer might have animal or plant focused a city dweller maybe stealth or something to help a craft, and a politician probably has something to help gather info secretly.
just because they could throw fireballs doesn't mean they will. Be realistic, what use would you have for creating a hurricane on demand unless you were an evil tyrant or an adventurer?

Or perhaps, y'know, a nature priest gone rogue, or a windwright on a ship who has a vendetta against a particular nation. Plenty of reasons someone might learn to control the winds, and then plenty of reasons for that person to suddenly go on a murderous rampage.


a farmer would not want to wipe out his crops, or destroy the city he plans to sell his crops at.
a thief might get some use out of picking treasures out of a ruined city in the aftermath, but then they'd have to spend the money to move or rebuild.

Moving isn't exactly hard if you're already a nomad, or if you're not a nomad... just don't destroy the town you live in? Travel elsewhere, destroy and loot THAT place, then come back home? Also farmers? Who needs those? Just a single person in a 2 child family unit needs to grab basic magical training for the nature domain to be able to sprout food from their potplants to feed the whole family right? Got a bigger family you need to feed? Just grab extra spell points with your second feat and now you can do it for a whole extended family


a politician might be able to leverage for some gain but how long before his overt use of power brings a team of assassins or adventurers after him?
all of this isn't even taking into account the impact causing hurricanes to appear in areas where they aren't meant to be, on the actual weather.

Or, you know, a rival nation can radicalize a lowly level 1 pleb, teach the some basic magic, and send them on a suicide mission to literally walk through all the enemy nation's farmland and shred their entire source of food up overnight (ironically made a bit moot as I describe later on, but it could be done in the same way to say, mining infrastructure, or disrupting trade lines by littering the roads with mass amounts of felled trees), moving from area to area and destroying it likely before word can reach any authorities, and a force can be mobilized to stop them. Doesn't even have to be with wind, you could do it with extreme heat or cold, or dangerous precipitation like hail. Maybe do a few plebs and spread them out if the farmland is particularly spread out or massive.

The issue is that these powers, which were once held in the hands of high level characters who are few and far between, are now in the hands of any level 1 pleb who chooses to make that his thing, so sure, maybe because it's so specialized the chances of that being the thing you do drop from maybe 5% to 0.01%, but the number of people who are high enough level to do the said thing have increased by a far more significant margin, so the chances of someone doing said thing are still significantly higher.

That's not even talking about the things that are highly in demand that suddenly become achievable at 1st level. Curing diseases, or healing people from life threatening injuries becomes something you can do with your two level 1 feats, even if you're just a commoner pleb. Also you mentioned farmers? Who needs those? Just a single person in a 2 child family unit needs to grab basic magical training for the nature domain to be able to sprout food from their potplants to feed the whole family right? Got a bigger family you need to feed? Just grab extra spell points with your second feat and now you can do it for a whole extended family.

Most of those magical feats normally required at least 5th level to achieve (remove disease is 3rd level spell, create food and water is a 3rd level spell), stone shape and wood shape are 2nd and 3rd level spells which the creation sphere can easily do at level 1, restoring ability drain, normally only achievable at 7th level and with an expensive material component, becomes doable at level 1 with no material cost. The fact is, removing the level barrier to these effects has much more far reaching implications beyond just the PCs, it affects the world as a whole.

[Serafina]

You're still assuming that getting these specifc talent/feat/tradition/drawback setups is a trivial thing to do

Yes, it can now be done at level 1. But so what? Levels are just an arbitrary designator for your game world. If you can say that one in a hundred NPCs reaches level 5, why can't you say that one in a hundred NPCs is able to learn those specifc setups?

You're already saying that most NPCs have levels in Commoner, Warrior, or Expert, despite PC classes being readily available with no prerequisites and being vastly superior. We're doing so under the premise that most people don't have have that certain something that's necessary to take levels in a PC class - why would they have that certain something that's necessary for a super-specific talent/feat/tradition/drawback setup?

You already said yourself that "it's so specialized the chances you specialize in this drops from 5% to 0.01%". Well - what's the difference to being high-level then? What's the difference to having a PC class? All those things are perfectly up to the GM already - just mechanics you use to represent the world.

You go on about a Commoner being able to grab the Nature Sphere, and make farming irrelevant. Well, that Commoner could have taken a level in Druid already, and cast Goodberry to feed everyone! Or access it via several feats or alternate racial traits, for that matter. Did those break your world too? Is no one in your world a farmer since everyone's a Druid for the Free Food?


The settings of D&D have always relied on access to magic, and PC abilities in general, being rare. The rarity was generally not tied to mechanics - because it makes no sense to write prerequisites purely with NPCs in mind! That'd just create unnecessary hassle for the players - and even for the GM, because GMs want to fudge such things anyway to fit their game.
Spheres of Power doesn't diverge from that at all. Talents are written with PCs in mind - what NPCs can do with it, and how easily they can do it, is a tertiary concern at best since that'll be under GM-control anyway, which is no different from any other D&D-magic.

[Crake]

You're still assuming that getting these specifc talent/feat/tradition/drawback setups is a trivial thing to do

Yes, it can now be done at level 1. But so what? Levels are just an arbitrary designator for your game world. If you can say that one in a hundred NPCs reaches level 5, why can't you say that one in a hundred NPCs is able to learn those specifc setups?

See that's the thing though. If one in a hundred NPCs reaches level 5, even then, only a small portion of those level 5 NPCs (probably again 1 in 100) will be able to do those things based on class choices. On the other hand, one in a hundred NPCs picking a feat, that trivializes whole swathes of a standard fantasy world, that's a significantly larger portion.

For every level 1 cleric who couldn't cast remove disease before, there is now a level 1 cleric who has the possibility of being able to do so. Considering by standard generation rules, there are 4 times as many level 1 clerics as there are level 5-6 clerics, or, in the case where a town doesn't have 5+ clerics, there are infinitely more level 1 clerics (any is infinitely more than none). So even if we take away the notion that every tom **** and harry can grab a feat to make their lives significantly easier, the casters that would already exist in the world are suddenly far more capable far earlier, and things that were once a problem in a small community due to level restrictions (like a small community not having a level 5 cleric to cast remove disease) are now no longer a problem, and yeah, sure you could say "not ever cleric will have that talent" except you then realise, a church dedicated to healing, like, say, anyone devoted to a god with the healing domain, can quite easily make a staff of life with the remove disease talent for a relatively trivial amount of money, and just pass that staff around to the next cleric when they run out of spell points. Hell, they could even pass it over to an allied church, or the city itself might have something like that in reserve to combat disease outbreaks. Likewise the city might have something similar for creating food, or just about anything else you can think of.

Also, I just re-read your first line, and I realise, you're acting like it's a whole big "setup". But... Getting literally a single feat, basic magical training, no traditions (since basic magical training doesn't allow for it), to get the nature sphere and boom you can feed your whole family? That's your definition of a "specific setup"? It's literally one feat. Removing disease is literally 2 feats, basic magical training, and extra talent, which comes with the free benefit of also being able to completely refresh yourself after a long day's work (fatigue) healing yourself after you get bit by a snake (cure ability damage), or saving someone from a potentially fatal wounds (healing 2d8+1 damage). There's no "specific setup" it's literally just a feat or two, anything special in the form of casting traditions or advanced talents.


You go on about a Commoner being able to grab the Nature Sphere, and make farming irrelevant. Well, that Commoner could have taken a level in Druid already, and cast Goodberry to feed everyone! Or access it via several feats or alternate racial traits, for that matter. Did those break your world too? Is no one in your world a farmer since everyone's a Druid for the Free Food?

But you see, a level 1 druid can't feed everyone with goodberry. A single goodberry doesn't feed you for a day, it feeds you for a meal, so you need 3 for a day's feed, and the spell on average makes 5. A level 1 druid with 12-18 wis will only make, on average, 10, which can feed 3 people, sure, at the expense of needing go through all the training and devout worship needed to become a druid, rather than casually learning a teensy bit of magic in the form of not even dedicating a whole class level.

On the other hand by the way, a level 1 spheres nature caster would have 4-6 spell points, CL2 for nature, and thus be able to feed 8-12 families (assuming the 2 children each eat as much as 1 adult), vs the regular druid being able feed maybe 3 people if they're lucky. Oh, and it's not like that's the exclusive use of their magic, that's before they even pick any other talents.

[Mehangel]

Also, I just re-read your first line, and I realise, you're acting like it's a whole big "setup". But... Getting literally a single feat, basic magical training, no traditions (since basic magical training doesn't allow for it), to get the nature sphere and boom you can feed your whole family? That's your definition of a "specific setup"? It's literally one feat. Removing disease is literally 2 feats, basic magical training, and extra talent, which comes with the free benefit of also being able to completely refresh yourself after a long day's work (fatigue) healing yourself after you get bit by a snake (cure ability damage), or saving someone from a potentially fatal wounds (healing 2d8+1 damage). There's no "specific setup" it's literally just a feat or two, anything special in the form of casting traditions or advanced talents.

You do realize that there are like a dozen or so traits that can grant spell-like abilities, many of which let you pick what spell you want. NPC's can gain traits via the Additional Traits feat. Take Magical Talent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/magic-traits/magical-talent/) for example, and choose purify food and drink, now 1/day you can make an 8 gallon pot of soup which should be enough to sustain your entire commoner family. Now some might say, that you need proper spoiled foodstuffs/water; Well, you do have an extra trait, so use it to gain one of the dozens of traits that grant bonuses to the Survival skill, and just take 10. Even if the commoner has an 8 Wisdom (most NPC coomoners according to statblocks I've seen have a Wisdom score of 10+; the beggar and village idiot have a Wisdom score of 9), they will still find enough unspoiled food to feed themselves (to say nothing of unspoiled food).

[Crake]

You do realize that there are like a dozen or so traits that can grant spell-like abilities, many of which let you pick what spell you want. NPC's can gain traits via the Additional Traits feat. Take Magical Talent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/magic-traits/magical-talent/) for example, and choose purify food and drink, now 1/day you can make an 8 gallon pot of soup which should be enough to sustain your entire commoner family. Now some might say, that you need proper spoiled foodstuffs/water;

Some might say?


Well, you do have an extra trait, so use it to gain one of the dozens of traits that grant bonuses to the Survival skill, and just take 10. Even if the commoner has an 8 Wisdom (most NPC coomoners according to statblocks I've seen have a Wisdom score of 10+; the beggar and village idiot have a Wisdom score of 9), they will still find enough unspoiled food to feed themselves (to say nothing of unspoiled food).

Yes, because using survival to hunt for food over the course of a day, risking random, wild encounters, or say, not being allowed to do that, because it's the king's land and that would be poaching? Vs a standard action to produce ready-to-cook food in the safety of your own home. So, hours of risky work... less than 6 seconds of risk-free casting, which then leaves you free to do quite literally anything else. Sustenance and shelter are the two main things you need to live. Shelter is a one time investment, it's sustenance that dominates the majority of a person's life, farming the land for food, protecting your crops, spending the time and effort. When all that is suddenly freed up, you have time and room for rapid advancement as a civilization, when food is no longer a scarcity, and you don't need to worry about whether or not you'll be able to make it through the winter, the tone and nature of a setting is drastically changed.

And all that time freed? Well, what do you know, maybe you could spend that time learning some more about magic?

[Mehangel]

Some might say?

Because, some GMs are more lenient than others when it comes to valid targets for the spell; Community Poop/Piss Pot soup anyone?


Yes, because using survival to hunt for food over the course of a day, risking random, wild encounters, or say, not being allowed to do that, because it's the king's land and that would be poaching? Vs a standard action to produce ready-to-cook food in the safety of your own home. So, hours of risky work... less than 6 seconds of risk-free casting, which then leaves you free to do quite literally anything else.

Actually, using the Survival skill doesn't need to be hunting, it could be used to gather edible roots, leaves, and berries. Of course, with purify food and drink even poison ivy may be edible, as casting it on a salad made from its leaves will remove its poison. So yeah, no need to trespass into the kings land or concern yourself too much with random encounters.


Sustenance and shelter are the two main things you need to live. Shelter is a one time investment, it's sustenance that dominates the majority of a person's life, farming the land for food, protecting your crops, spending the time and effort. When all that is suddenly freed up, you have time and room for rapid advancement as a civilization, when food is no longer a scarcity, and you don't need to worry about whether or not you'll be able to make it through the winter, the tone and nature of a setting is drastically changed.

The main point I was trying to make is that having commoners take Basic Magical Training for the Nature sphere doesn't really change their lifestyle anymore than having commoners take Additional Traits as a feat to give them spell-like abilities.

[Serafina]

You still seem to be utterly missing the point that the world isn't shaped by the powers that are available to PCs, or how easily they're available to PCs!
If I decide that all campaign starts at level 3, then that doesn't mean that suddenly all the NPCs are at least level 3.
If I decide that all the PCs get ~500 gold worth of extra starting equipment, then that doesn't mean that all NPCs are suddenly equally well-equipped.
If I decide that the the PCs and other heroic characters can recover all their hit points once per day with a one-hour long rest, that doesn't mean that this also applies to every town guard or common soldier.
And so on and so forth.

This isn't anything new. This is already how D&D/Pathfinder works.
Common NPCs don't get the same starting attributes as PCs do. They don't get the same classes. They don't even earn experience at the same rate.
Those aren't the actual physics of the universe - the rules aren't a simulation! That's just how we handle the game, because we want a world where most people only have pretty common abilities.
Spherecasting doesn't inherently change that. You're treating it like it does, but there's absolutely no reason to. Campaign worlds are already only as mundane as they are because we want them to be - changing the rules for PCs should have no impact on the NPCs.

Of course, if you do want a more magical world, then Spheres is actually pretty fantastic.
Look at Eberron with it's Dragonmarks as an example. Now, those are actually a pretty good example because Dragonmarks were written so that there's a explanation for how the world is more magical - but that missed the mark for how you actually use the rules during play: for the player characters. So their balance was always a bit off, in one direction or another.
If you want to do something like that with Spheres - well, then you can just always say that common NPCs have a weaker version of the same magic as PCs. Just like commoners have a weaker class for no reason! So that farmer who uses Plant-Geomancing only accelerates plant-growth, it's not instant.
And there's a lot of other opportunities, such as stonemasons using Forge from the Creation-sphere in their work, the frequent use of small animated objects for labor, or minor weather magics for weather stabilization but severe weather still being a threat just because there's so few people around that can affect it.

But if you don't want that - then you just don't do it! Then the farmers don't have Plant-Geomancing, the stonemasons don't use the Creation-Sphere, and so on. Or maybe those that do are so few and far in between that they're the equivalent to the local wise woman, or a master artisan, and don't change the overal world.
But pretending that different rules for PCs force you to change the world in any way is just silly.

[Morty]

I've never really looked into SoP, but I have looked into SoM. My impressions were mixed. It feels like it doesn't really scale upwards much, with the only new features on high levels being the "advanced" talents. And the avoidance of using any resource system means that it's just a lot of effects riding on regular attacks.

[EldritchWeaver]

I've never really looked into SoP, but I have looked into SoM. My impressions were mixed. It feels like it doesn't really scale upwards much, with the only new features on high levels being the "advanced" talents. And the avoidance of using any resource system means that it's just a lot of effects riding on regular attacks.

SoM does boost only to some extent martials, but the additional effects provide versatility which core martials lack. Also, there is one resource - martial focus - which is used instead of some kind of martial points, because martial points imply to run out of them during the day. This goes counter the design goal that martials only need a short breather to be at full peak again.

[DrMartin]

The issue is that these powers, which were once held in the hands of high level characters who are few and far between, are now in the hands of any level 1 pleb who chooses to make that his thing

Quoted the part around which, in my opinion, this discussion revolves.

This is not a given, matter-of-fact consequence, but rather one possible answer to a couple of questions for the GM: Does everyone have access to these skills? And if so, does that affect the society as a whole? the most common answer to this question in most fantasy setting is "no", either because magic is rare/really rare/prohibited/frown upon or because answering that question is beyond the scope of the given fiction.

And if the answer is No then you have many options to figure out the Why - if you even want to answer that. Maybe magic used to be commonplace, then became a bit too commonplace, then a huge world shattering disaster barely got averted, and now magic is forbidden - except in some hidden enclaves and societies, which still practice it in secrecy.

Or maybe the answer is a Yes, and then your plantlife-geomancing commoners are the first stone on which a post scarcity society is built. Meanwhile the rival nation conscripts all its able citizens to learn fire geomancy and uses them to jumpstart their own industrial revolution. Sounds like an adventure hook to me.

The point I am trying to make is that just because the system theoretically allows something to happen in the world, it doesn´t have to be so. It´s a conscious GM decision if it does, not an implicit consequence of using a different magic system. Unless you want it to be! As we said and agreed upon several times in this very topic, is not like the default magic system would survive such a scrutiny. Down this road lies what I remember happening to Jovian Chronicles back in the day, where what I percieved as the majority of the online community spent most of its time arguing that giant robots don´t make a lick of sense in the system and hence don´t have a place in the setting as well, nevermind them being *the* selling point of the whole game.

I think that Dnd, and Pathfinder by extension, are not designed to be fantasy world simulators, they are rather systems made to tell the story of a group of heroes in a fantasy world. Or at least this is the design goal that I see SoP aligning itself with. This happens to aligns with my current tastes in rpgs, so I am perfectly happy with the system as a whole. It requires players´and GM buy-in, but that is the secret ingredient to any fun game experience anyway.

In the games I GM I don´t even think of backdrops nps and setting elements in terms of levels and such things, reserving those mechanics for adventurers. A sage who has studied alchemy for all his life can become a master of his field without being a 15th level alchemist - he´s not an adventurer, he doesn´t play by those rules. He can totally have 1d4 hp and still be able to create a not!FrankensteinMonster. The world is not any less "realistic" or plausible as a result - it wasn´t to begin with, if one looks hard enough

[Gallowglass]

So Crake's experience is, his table used an early version of the rules and quickly broke it with what he calls basic builds. So that must be everyone's experience.

I believe that I could find 10 tables or 100 tables to every 1 of his tables that use the rules, enjoy then and don't have his experience.

Some people get a new game or new rules for a game and they are looking for "how can I break the game using these rules." Some people, on the other hand, look for "how can I use these rules to enhance the game."

Every single rule-set, no matter how well edited or well balanced can be broken. Just some far easier than others.

I agree with Crake, that this is a rule-set that's easy to break. I don't agree with, what I perceive is his point, that they are absolutely going to break. Or that its impossible to accept that reality won't break with these rules.

However, the OP asked for opinions and he certainly has elaborated on his opinion.

I wish others would concentrate on elaborating their opinions rather than attacking his. And I wish he'd not feel the need to defend his opinion to every post that confronts it. Because I generally find Crake's opinions and thoughts to be well worth reading and well-thought out. At least at first. But by the seventeenth post in any topic he starts descending into hyperbolic hell and loses all sense of reason to this outside reader. Which just escalates. And, you know, my experience -must- be everyone's experience.

For my opinion, I've never used Sphere of Might. Ive been in two games with SoP characters. In the first one I played an inquisitor and two other played SoP characters. The armor one and the mageknight one.

At low levels I felt outclassed and outpowered and overwhelmed. They had full BaB and seemingly endless magic. It was crazy and frustrating. But by level 5 or 6 I was easily keeping level with them or surpassing them with my base inquisitor powers. I was certainly more flexible than they were.

In the second, like I said, there was on SoP caster who meshed well with the party and felt like an x-man, not another wizard. However, I won't say everyone felt so at the table. I polled and the person who played the druid was annoyed by the SoP having all day 30' teleport powers which affected their enjoyment of the game.

So I would say be careful with it if you combine it with traditional casters rather than replacing casters and my mileage varied.

[DrMartin]

I've never really looked into SoP, but I have looked into SoM. My impressions were mixed. It feels like it doesn't really scale upwards much, with the only new features on high levels being the "advanced" talents. And the avoidance of using any resource system means that it's just a lot of effects riding on regular attacks.

I have only experience with SoM for levels 1 through 7 and it did scale pretty well. Some abilities scale when your BAB or skill ranks reach certain thresholds, and in general one gains in versatility more than in raw numbers - even if those increase as well, even if not so blatantly like the extra d6s from Path of War´s strikes for instance.

[Serafina]

I've never really looked into SoP, but I have looked into SoM. My impressions were mixed. It feels like it doesn't really scale upwards much, with the only new features on high levels being the "advanced" talents. And the avoidance of using any resource system means that it's just a lot of effects riding on regular attacks.SoM scales mostly via the Vital Strike line (since it relies on attack actions), and by gaining more combat talents that often combine well with each other.
Though plenty of talents do auto-scale with higher BAB, too, such as the Barrage-Sphere offering more attacks, or the Fencing- or Sniper-Sphere offering more damage.

A traditional martial characer picks a combat style early in their career, and will then focus their entire build around it, gradually getting better at it.
A Path of War character will often get maneuvers that allow them to do completely new things - suddenly you can Haste yourself, or do ranged bull rushes, or teleport the targets of your attack.
A Spheres of Might character mostly does the former, and less the latter. You could always pick up a completely new Sphere - but mostly, you'll add to your existing capabilities. An Archer might add a combination of ranged feints and precision damage, a Grappler might grab movement modes and virtual size increases, a Tank-build would work on getting better at also defending against spells and just absorbing more damage. Sure, you could also grab shield parries as an archer, or the ability to smash terrain to pieces as a tank, or feints as a grappler - but then you'll have to carefully consider the trade-offs of doing so.

So in essence, if you're used to the scaling on traditional martial characters, SoM scales in pretty much the same way, character-build wise.
Sure, you don't get extra attacks outside of the Barrage or Dual Wield Spheres - but you do get extra damage so that works out, and you add capabilities via feats/combat talents in pretty much the same way, just with no level restrictions/prerequisites (outside of legendary talents). A few things that are available from feats aren't available from talents - but remember, you can take feats and talents can fulfill prerequisites, so you can still grab those things.


I've admittedly never played a SoM character that didn't also have SoP capabilities, but I did play characters where the martial capabilities were at the forefront and the casting was just there to add a few abilities.
I've played a low-level Paladin-ish character with the Guardian sphere (and the light sphere on the side), and was very happy that the tanking just worked. And I had a higher-level (10-14) Rogue-ish character (who used the Dark-sphere for stealth, mobility and loot-carrying) and was very happy with how the Duelist, Fencing and Scoundrel spheres allowed me to get the traditional sneak-attack feel, but also pull off dirty tricks, disarms or steals at the same time, which otherwise would have been nearly impossible to build. The raw numbers worked out pretty well too - +3D6 from Fencing, +1D8 from Vital Strike, +4 points of bleed damage were pretty alright on a character that wasn't optimized for damage (I wasn't using dual-wielding or barrage, or the spell attack feat).

[Omnificer]

What I like about SoP and SOM:

Very strong in building thematic concepts and even having great variety within those themes.
Drawbacks make this much more viable. A person who can teleport using the Warp sphere is very different from someone who can only teleport from shadow to shadow, or tree to tree, or fire to fire, or water to water using the Limited Teleport drawback.

Taking spheres and talents that match that limitation to Warp lets you expand it to a shadow thief, a fire sorcerer, a ranger, or a water mage. It's what you can't do that I think is a core strength of this system.

As mentioned earlier in this thread the system is quite front loaded, which can cause issues, but might be a necessary evil. Players want to be able to create a concept with a base effectiveness from the start. In Pathfinder, I often let players start at level 3 to let their concept have all of the base ingredients it needs and they'll probably wind up with a few abilities they don't care about at all.
To me, that's much less necessary with the Spheres. That isn't to say that a level 1 Spheres character is more powerful than a level 3 non-Spheres character, just that they can focus their efforts better. You'll truly be a fire mage with some wise Destruction and Nature choices in a way that an Elemental Bloodline sorcerer won't be.

Admittedly, things like the Windlord talent being discussed I would likely gate behind a level as well as Advanced talent.

The same is true with Spheres of Might. I want an unarmed brawler? Take talents from unarmed spheres without needing to be a monk because the talents themselves scale unarmed damage.
I can be a tank-like heavily armored brawler or a quick skirmisher based off talent choice. Need an animal companion and/or riding abilities? Take Beastmastery.

Now, keep in mind I haven't even discussed the classes. A lot of character concepts can be realized simply with the starting talents and drawbacks available, then you pick your class. No matter what class I pick, if I've taken Beastmastery, Dual Wielding, and Scout I'm on my way to a solid Drizzt clone.

What I dislike:

Talent bloat. Talents can be a bit like spells or feats in how they work. They also are like spells and feats that several supplementary books with even more of them have been released, all of which are supposed to but don't always balance well with the previously released item. You're trawling through a ton of features to slot into your build and much like legos, finding that right piece can be a pain.

I just backed the Ultimate Spheres of Power kickstarter and it's going to be a massive book. A massive book that is mainly focusing on having all of the talents and classes under one cover while leaving out a lot chunks of the useful subsystems like Incantations, Rituals, and Wild magic.

[Crake]

So Crake's experience is, his table used an early version of the rules and quickly broke it with what he calls basic builds. So that must be everyone's experience.

So far, there's only been one thing that I've mentioned that has been changed, and that's the windlord talent being changed into an advanced talent. Everything else still functions as it did in the past, and is equally as broken as it was before. And yes, they are basic builds.


Quoted the part around which, in my opinion, this discussion revolves.

This is not a given, matter-of-fact consequence, but rather one possible answer to a couple of questions for the GM: Does everyone have access to these skills? And if so, does that affect the society as a whole? the most common answer to this question in most fantasy setting is "no", either because magic is rare/really rare/prohibited/frown upon or because answering that question is beyond the scope of the given fiction.

It doesn't even need to be everyone. I mentioned, even if you use the standard NPC generation tools, there are a LOT more level 1 clerics than there are level 7+ clerics, and each level 1 cleric has the capability to have access to level 7+ vancian magic effects. You go to a temple of pelor for example (I don't know golarian gods), and need to be healed of some ability drain, or recover from some temporary neg levels from an encounter with some vampires, you don't have to wait around for the high priest to have some free spell slots, you can literally just talk to one of the level 1 basic cleric bois who most likely have a nice array of talents to cover various effects among them. Or if this was a place that only had, say, a 4th level cleric, two 2nd level clerics and four 1st level clerics, they previously didn't have the capability to remove ability drain, cure diseases/poisons, or recover temporary negative levels, now they have 7 different people who each have a decent chance of having picked at least one of those talents each.

[Mehangel]

It doesn't even need to be everyone. I mentioned, even if you use the standard NPC generation tools, there are a LOT more level 1 clerics than there are level 7+ clerics, and each level 1 cleric has the capability to have access to level 7+ vancian magic effects. You go to a temple of pelor for example (I don't know golarian gods), and need to be healed of some ability drain, or recover from some temporary neg levels from an encounter with some vampires, you don't have to wait around for the high priest to have some free spell slots, you can literally just talk to one of the level 1 basic cleric bois who most likely have a nice array of talents to cover various effects among them. Or if this was a place that only had, say, a 4th level cleric, two 2nd level clerics and four 1st level clerics, they previously didn't have the capability to remove ability drain, cure diseases/poisons, or recover temporary negative levels, now they have 7 different people who each have a decent chance of having picked at least one of those talents each.

I think you completely misunderstood DrMartin. Nothing says that NPCs are obligated to use the same magic system as the PCs. NPC clerics can continue using standard vancian spellcasting (after all they are just NPCs). Even if you do as a GM decide to give all NPC casters spherecasting, nothing says that you must give them multiple Life sphere talents (or even the base sphere for that matter). Instead spherecasting clerics of pelor could be given Fate, Protection, Divination, or Light sphere talents. Crisis averted, no longer will PCs be able to be instantly cured by any temple that they visit.

[Crake]

I think you completely misunderstood DrMartin. Nothing says that NPCs are obligated to use the same magic system as the PCs. NPC clerics can continue using standard vancian spellcasting (after all they are just NPCs). Even if you do as a GM decide to give all NPC casters spherecasting, nothing says that you must give them multiple Life sphere talents (or even the base sphere for that matter). Instead spherecasting clerics of pelor could be given Fate, Protection, Divination, or Light sphere talents. Crisis averted, no longer will PCs be able to be instantly cured by any temple that they visit.

Except that sphere clerics automatically get the life sphere if they channel positive energy.

[Mehangel]

Except that sphere clerics automatically get the life sphere if they channel positive energy.

Again who says that your priests of pelor must use the sphere cleric archetype (or even the cleric base class)? Why can't your clerics be covenant hedgewitches, positive energy channeling incanters, or soulweavers with the divine petitioner casting tradition?

[Crake]

Again who says that your priests of pelor must use the sphere cleric archetype (or even the cleric base class)? Why can't your clerics be covenant hedgewitches, positive energy channeling incanters, or soulweavers with the divine petitioner casting tradition?

Sure, but that's not the standard NPC generation mechanics, which is what I was talking about.

[Mehangel]

Sure, but that's not the standard NPC generation mechanics, which is what I was talking about.

So you want your NPC clerics to be sphere clerics, but you don't want them to be able to restore afflictions at low levels. That is fine. Just give them the limited restoration (cure only) sphere-specific drawback, spending all other magic talents on spheres other than Life. NPC clerics of slightly higher level can buy off the drawback to effectively gain lesser restoration (while still not further investing in the Life sphere). At mid levels when vancian spellcasting clerics would've gained remove disease or neutralize poison, you can give them the associated Life sphere talent. At later levels you can give them talents allowing the raising of the dead or the restoration of drained ability scores and levels.

Honestly, I can't help but think that you are making this more difficult than it actually is.

[Crake]

So you want your NPC clerics to be sphere clerics, but you don't want them to be able to restore afflictions at low levels. That is fine. Just give them the limited restoration (cure only) sphere-specific drawback, spending all other magic talents on spheres other than Life. NPC clerics of slightly higher level can buy off the drawback to effectively gain lesser restoration (while still not further investing in the Life sphere). At mid levels when vancian spellcasting clerics would've gained remove disease or neutralize poison, you can give them the associated Life sphere talent. At later levels you can give them talents allowing the raising of the dead or the restoration of drained ability scores and levels.

Honestly, I can't help but think that you are making this more difficult than it actually is.

My table has a term for intentionally making bad decisions for NPCs, we call it fat mall-cop syndrome. If you want to willfully make your NPCs into incompetent characters, despite the system you're using making them more than capable of being significantly better, that's fine, do what you want, but if you're gonna say that the system is fine because you can just make the NPCs poorly, that's not a good argument.

[Mehangel]

My table has a term for intentionally making bad decisions for NPCs, we call it fat mall-cop syndrome. If you want to willfully make your NPCs into incompetent characters, despite the system you're using making them more than capable of being significantly better, that's fine, do what you want, but if you're gonna say that the system is fine because you can just make the NPCs poorly, that's not a good argument.

How is making a cleric not a 1-trick-pony by having it invest in spheres other than Life, such as Fate (for Pro vs. Alignment), Protection (for Shield of Faith), Light (for Searing Light), etc an example of a 'fat mall-cop syndrome'?

I would think that by making sphere clerics nothing more than a walking healer's kit, you are hurting the competence of the NPC than helping.

[Ssalarn]

NPCs don't follow the same expectations as PCs. Characters with levels in a PC class are automatically exceptional; most NPCs are not expected to have levels in PC classes.

Trying to apply flawed in-world logic about "why wouldn't an NPC just do XYZ" ignores the fact that the game isn't built with the expectation that NPCs are built like PCs. And NPCs definitely don't know about drawbacks and hyper-optimization, as those are purely meta terms.

[Crake]

How is making a cleric not a 1-trick-pony by having it invest in spheres other than Life, such as Fate (for Pro vs. Alignment), Protection (for Shield of Faith), Light (for Searing Light), etc an example of a 'fat mall-cop syndrome'?

I would think that by making sphere clerics nothing more than a walking healer's kit, you are hurting the competence of the NPC than helping.

Considering they get life for free, and picking just a single life talent to do something a regulare 7th level cleric can do is far from being a 1 trick pony. Then the next guy again, can pick just a single, different, talent to do ANOTHER thing that a 5th level cleric could do, and then the NEXT guy.. and so on. A positive energy cleric gets life for free, plus a domain sphere, plus 2 additional talents, plus 2 feats to spend if they so chose to get more talents, picking up a single life talent beyond the base sphere is hardly what I would call a 1 trick pony, considering you have at minimum 2 other spheres you can pick, or at best, 4 if you spend both your level 1 feats on it, not including whatever you might get from your casting traditions.

Let's put it another way, to get restoration normally, a character would need to invest 7 character levels in a casting class capable of casting it normally. In spheres, you need to invest 2 feats at minimum, or at most, a single character level. If you can't see how that is insanely frontloaded, I don't think I can make it any clearer. What would normally take a lot of character investment suddenly becomes frivolously easy to accomplish if you so wanted to.

Also, let's look at those choices you made for an NPC (presumably a non-adventuring) cleric. Fate: Protection vs Alignment. Suuuper useful in day to day life... gonna come in super handy. Protection: Shield of faith. Again, gonna be useful every day... totally. And light? For searing light? Uhh, yeah ok. Now compare that to being able to cure disease, or heal someone's ability damage from being diseased, or poisoned by a snake, or literally just be able to heal a mortal wound that may have happened in a construction accident, or an animal attack. The cleric you described doesn't sound like the sort of cleric who spends his days in a temple but rather a crusader, which is fine, if that's what he's doing, but then he's not gonna be the one that townsfolk come to when looking for spellcasting services, when John Joe, the level 1 apprentice expert who literally just spent some feats to be a more contributing member of society can actually help them with their day-to-day ailments.

[digiman619]

Crake, with respect, for a man with a quote in his sig about how high optimization is often way more trouble than its worth, you seem to not be okay with people who don't "want to go down [that] rabbit hole" and who are "comfortable with just throwing a souped-up Orb of Fire Destructive Blast at the thing?"

[Crake]

Crake, with respect, for a man with a quote in his sig about how high optimization is often way more trouble than its worth, you seem to not be okay with people who don't "want to go down [that] rabbit hole" and who are "comfortable with just throwing a souped-up Orb of Fire Destructive Blast at the thing?"

What? My point is that you can easily achieve far higher level effects with little to no optimization involved whatsoever, just by picking core sphere abilities. I didn't realise picking 2 talents from the same sphere at first level was considered the height of optimization these days.

[MrSandman]

I really like Spheres of Power (I haven't tried Spheres of Might). The system allows you to create a working concept from level 1, rather than having to wait until high levels to actually get weather magic, or having to use weird combos/obscure classes, spells and feats to achieve what you want.

The system is versatile and allows for a lot of customisation, you can just ban entire spheres if they don't fit your setting and still have a working magic system.

Another thing I like is that it raises the bottom level of power for casters. No more wizards who can do three useful things/day at level 1. Now they can contribute far more.

Incidentally, I think this might be the core of the issue that's been discussed (how do you call it, higher ground, lower ceiling?). People used to low optimisation games might find the raise in power level too broken, while people used to high optimisation will probably find sphere casters lacking the versatility and power of vancian casters. This is a potential issue to think about.

What I really don't like about spheres is the sheer amount of talents and feats that get added to the game, especially with all their splat books. I would very much have a smaller amount of talents with broader application rather than the abundance of hyper-specialised talents there are now. But that's not really exclusive to the spheres system. The whole D&D/Pathfinder franchises have a tendency to produce an overabundance of options.

[DrMartin]

What? My point is that you can easily achieve far higher level effects with little to no optimization involved whatsoever, just by picking core sphere abilities. I didn't realise picking 2 talents from the same sphere at first level was considered the height of optimization these days.

this is true, and is definitely one of those bug or feature situations I think. Spheres of power removes several "level gates" from abilities, that one would expect from the base game. With Elemental transformation you can be flying from level 1. Any fey adept get a few rounds per day of True Sight starting level 5. This is a side effect of the possibility to enable many character concepts from the get go or at least as soon as possible. This did throw me off my GM horse a couple of times, but I still liked the system and decided to get back in the saddle.

I still can´t see, as a GM, how the example with the temple of pelor is an issue, though. If they made it past the encounter and have to deal with the after effects of poison, or ability damage, either healing is available or it is not. I see this more as a plot point to decide on than the result of a roll on a table - or even if I want to use the table, because even a GM as the right to deal with suprises and see where they take him from time to time :) , I can interpret that - a level 4 cleric under vancian rules would have no remove poison, so neither does this cleric under SoP rules, and now my players have to get clever.



What I really don't like about spheres is the sheer amount of talents and feats that get added to the game, especially with all their splat books. I would very much have a smaller amount of talents with broader application rather than the abundance of hyper-specialised talents there are now. But that's not really exclusive to the spheres system. The whole D&D/Pathfinder franchises have a tendency to produce an overabundance of options.

I agree - I really liked the basic book, as it offers a lot of creative options in a very compact form. Most talents are chunky, meaningful expansions of a character´s capabilities - a welcome change from the way pathfinder has evolved over the last years. It all becomes a bit too granular for my taste with all the expanded options in the handbooks. But a wealth of options is what a lot of people look for when playing pathfinder, so I still see their point

[darkdragoon]

So basically you're devoting an entire set of class features to be a wand of lessor vigor. I think that's more than fine for an NPC healer especially if their existence is to literally be a healbot that patches up the important characters.

[Crake]

this is true, and is definitely one of those bug or feature situations I think. Spheres of power removes several "level gates" from abilities, that one would expect from the base game. With Elemental transformation you can be flying from level 1. Any fey adept get a few rounds per day of True Sight starting level 5. This is a side effect of the possibility to enable many character concepts from the get go or at least as soon as possible. This did throw me off my GM horse a couple of times, but I still liked the system and decided to get back in the saddle.

For adventures it can all easily be worked around if you're making them from scratch, though I think many traditional modules can fall apart at the seams incredibly quickly. The issue, for me at least, has always been the campaign setting implications that arise from the system existing. People seem to underestimate the setting-wide impact of a single level 1 character being able to feed most of the people in a small village. If people suddenly don't need to spend all day working to survive, they begin to have far more time to spend working on other projects. Academia would flourish, and the average person would have far mor e time to learn different trades and crafts, and honestly, I think rather quickly, that kind of a society would boom, and the culture would spread like wildfire. All it takes is one benevolent caster who's willing to support others, and then teach that philosophy and spread it, and bam.


I still can´t see, as a GM, how the example with the temple of pelor is an issue, though. If they made it past the encounter and have to deal with the after effects of poison, or ability damage, either healing is available or it is not. I see this more as a plot point to decide on than the result of a roll on a table - or even if I want to use the table, because even a GM as the right to deal with suprises and see where they take him from time to time :) , I can interpret that - a level 4 cleric under vancian rules would have no remove poison, so neither does this cleric under SoP rules, and now my players have to get clever.

The impact is less about the gameplay perspective, but the world building perspective. If X is in demand (live saving/quality of life raising magic) and X is rather trivial to learn (can be achieved at level 1, potentially even with feats), then people will quickly move to meet that demand, so it would be reasonable to assume that any given town, unless INCREDIBLY tiny, would have these basic services available, simply because the people capable of performing these services would move to areas of higher demand to meet their supply. And of course, as the general life expectancy and qualify of life of the average person improves, so does their ability to learn and rise to meet that demand by learning the necessary skills to produce the services required. It's a self perpetuating system that only takes a small push to get started, so unless there's some incredibly powerful overseeing entity that's actively stopping it from happening, which could potentially be argued with gods, or some kind of strong impetus amongst the populace against the use of magic (this is actually what we ended up settling on, magic is widely hated due to a calamity that occured due to the overuse of magic, and the society that came before that calamity had actually reached that utopian state), it will happen in a setting's timeline, and likely rather early on.

That's honestly what I've been trying to say this whole time, the setting impact of the system is something that needs to be thought about, it just doesn't easily fit into a stereotypical setting unless you just ignore the logical outcomes of what you're doing.


So basically you're devoting an entire set of class features to be a wand of lessor vigor. I think that's more than fine for an NPC healer especially if their existence is to literally be a healbot that patches up the important characters.

I'm not even gonna bother addressing posts like these anymore, considering how much of a blatant strawman it is.

[ThatMoonGuy]

You know, just because the system can allow for something it doesn't quite mean that the world can do so too. Long ago I was making a lowish fa fast world where commerce enterprises where a big deal and they paying for protection for the caravans a rather big part of the a adventuring economy. That meant that things like teleport and flight where detrimental to the concept so I just barred them from existing by saying "yeah, those things just don't exist".

If you're the DM and think healers having a lot of Life talents is bad just give a reason for them not to have it. Maybe the teaching of the techniques is rare of maybe that's a magical tradition still in development. I'm sure you could find a very good reason for it as long as you're willing to distinguish between system availability and world availability.

As for my opinion on the system, I really like it and often use it, PoW and the Legendary classes from Legendary Games in every table I run. It fixes a lot of problems and builds that otherwise would be very hard to do, like the dedicated shield tanker that can buff the party or the teleporting swordman or a functional samurai when you use samurai spherelord whichisawesomeandeveryoneshouldread.

[EldritchWeaver]

The impact is less about the gameplay perspective, but the world building perspective. If X is in demand (live saving/quality of life raising magic) and X is rather trivial to learn (can be achieved at level 1, potentially even with feats), then people will quickly move to meet that demand, so it would be reasonable to assume that any given town, unless INCREDIBLY tiny, would have these basic services available, simply because the people capable of performing these services would move to areas of higher demand to meet their supply. And of course, as the general life expectancy and qualify of life of the average person improves, so does their ability to learn and rise to meet that demand by learning the necessary skills to produce the services required. It's a self perpetuating system that only takes a small push to get started, so unless there's some incredibly powerful overseeing entity that's actively stopping it from happening, which could potentially be argued with gods, or some kind of strong impetus amongst the populace against the use of magic (this is actually what we ended up settling on, magic is widely hated due to a calamity that occured due to the overuse of magic, and the society that came before that calamity had actually reached that utopian state), it will happen in a setting's timeline, and likely rather early on.

That's honestly what I've been trying to say this whole time, the setting impact of the system is something that needs to be thought about, it just doesn't easily fit into a stereotypical setting unless you just ignore the logical outcomes of what you're doing.

My problem with this statement is the implication that the Vancian magic as default fits perfectly the normal settings. But looking at the possibilities, this is simply incorrect. The tippyverse is a big example of the various ignored setting altering elements. Not sure if you plays 3.5 or PF, but both have resetting magic traps or other ways to produce magic items which provide food via magic. So having suddenly people who are not required in the farming economy and still get to eat is a thing with core magic as well. It might require higher level characters than with SoP to start this, but saying that no one will be willing to do the initial startup work is as much GM fiat as saying everyone employs magic.

[Mehangel]

That's honestly what I've been trying to say this whole time, the setting impact of the system is something that needs to be thought about, it just doesn't easily fit into a stereotypical setting unless you just ignore the logical outcomes of what you're doing.

Thing is, with any effort, a gm can make a Tippyverse world whether you use standard vancian spellcasting or spherecasting. I would hardly call this the fault of the magic systems. This is nothing new, and yet most settings are not treated as such.

You keep on bringing up that level 1 spherecasters can heal conditions normally gated for higher level characters. But poison and disease can be treated with the Heal skill, which may well likely be much more effective than the Life sphere. Ability drain and negative levels are hardly a common concern for most settlements, so by your own logic would probably be low priority talent-wise (if the NPC even has a say on what talents they gain).

As for surviving day-to-day, it has already been expressed that using the core system, any NPC with 1 rank in Survival or a 10 Wisdom score can simply take 10 on the check and be able to feed themselves. All without the need for magic.

[Crake]

My problem with this statement is the implication that the Vancian magic as default fits perfectly the normal settings. But looking at the possibilities, this is simply incorrect. The tippyverse is a big example of the various ignored setting altering elements. Not sure if you plays 3.5 or PF, but both have resetting magic traps or other ways to produce magic items which provide food via magic. So having suddenly people who are not required in the farming economy and still get to eat is a thing with core magic as well. It might require higher level characters than with SoP to start this, but saying that no one will be willing to do the initial startup work is as much GM fiat as saying everyone employs magic.

The thing is though, getting to the point where you can make such a thing is difficult, and it's not so easily perpetuated as knowledge is, plus a trap can be reset, people, generally, can't lose the knowledge of how to feed themselves with magic, kinda like, give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for the rest of his life. Plus, it means that the benevolent person to start the whole thing off needs to be higher up the food chain, and there's trending inverse correleation between people high up the food chain, and benvolence, not to mention the high personal investment cost to set that stuff up.

Now of course, vancian magic does have some strong implications on a setting (as does all magic really), and tippyverse is a good example of vancian gone wrong (or right, depending on your view), but generally speaking, with vancian magic, powerful magic is few and far between, and sure, a level 17 wizard could set up a massive teleportation network, but why? He's practically invulnerable at this point anyway, it would need to be out of pure benevolence, and then setting up the support infrastructure to prevent it from being destroyed is a HUGE investment which leaves him at risk from rivals. Most of the casters however, cannot produce anything meaningful with their magic since they're low level, let alone with little to no investment as spheres does.


You know, just because the system can allow for something it doesn't quite mean that the world can do so too. Long ago I was making a lowish fa fast world where commerce enterprises where a big deal and they paying for protection for the caravans a rather big part of the a adventuring economy. That meant that things like teleport and flight where detrimental to the concept so I just barred them from existing by saying "yeah, those things just don't exist".

If you're the DM and think healers having a lot of Life talents is bad just give a reason for them not to have it. Maybe the teaching of the techniques is rare of maybe that's a magical tradition still in development. I'm sure you could find a very good reason for it as long as you're willing to distinguish between system availability and world availability.

As for my opinion on the system, I really like it and often use it, PoW and the Legendary classes from Legendary Games in every table I run. It fixes a lot of problems and builds that otherwise would be very hard to do, like the dedicated shield tanker that can buff the party or the teleporting swordman or a functional samurai when you use samurai spherelord whichisawesomeandeveryoneshouldread.

Sorry, but "it's fine cause you can just change it" is just straight up oberoni.

[EldritchWeaver]

The thing is though, getting to the point where you can make such a thing is difficult, and it's not so easily perpetuated as knowledge is, plus a trap can be reset, people, generally, can't lose the knowledge of how to feed themselves with magic, kinda like, give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for the rest of his life. Plus, it means that the benevolent person to start the whole thing off needs to be higher up the food chain, and there's trending inverse correleation between people high up the food chain, and benvolence, not to mention the high personal investment cost to set that stuff up.

Not sure why employing spheres magic to feed people doesn't mean you lose knowledge of farming techniques. Also, there isn't need of benevolence. You don't need to require charity, simply saving up for the less expensive magic items works, too. Or granting people credit and expecting them to pay back over time with interest. Or become simply servants and pay off by working directly for the crafter/item financer.


Now of course, vancian magic does have some strong implications on a setting (as does all magic really), and tippyverse is a good example of vancian gone wrong (or right, depending on your view), but generally speaking, with vancian magic, powerful magic is few and far between, and sure, a level 17 wizard could set up a massive teleportation network, but why? He's practically invulnerable at this point anyway, it would need to be out of pure benevolence, and then setting up the support infrastructure to prevent it from being destroyed is a HUGE investment which leaves him at risk from rivals. Most of the casters however, cannot produce anything meaningful with their magic since they're low level, let alone with little to no investment as spheres does.

So every caster simply retreats to his demi-plane and never sticks his head out to do something like ruling a country, because that's a pasttime someone with effective invincibility and cosmic power would never consider. Also guarding the infrastructure is not a task the caster needs to himself, with WBLmancy you get enough guardians which make most enemies pause. Also, casters with their own infrastructure are less likely to attack the ones of their competition, as this merely invites them to strike back. In fact, I can see a general agreement not to target those circles or be attacked by everyone else. It makes quite a deterrent even for casters without ruling ambitions, if they are hunted by dozens or hundreds level 17+ casters.

[Gallowglass]

This is a rabbit hole we are never going to crawl out of at this point.

Crake, your argument (as far as I can parse it) is "when worldbuilding, SoP belays suspension of belief, because having access to powerful magic at low levels necessitates that that magic would change the world.' i.e. if a 1st level character can be built that generates hurricanes, then an arbitrary number of them would've popped up and devastated everything. If a 1st level character can heal all ills, then no sickness or death by accident/injury is believable" Because in the world, 1st level characters are really common and 7th level characters are really rare.

Yes. But the truth is adding ANY magic to a system breaks the system without you suspending your belief. SoP or Vancian.

Look, we've all been in games where we've gotten to, say, 11th level and looked around and though "well, shoot. our party could just destroy this army and take over this kingdom." And the only way the DM can stop that is by equipping the kingdom with an equal or greater leveled group of NPC adversaries. So as you go up level, each kingdom suddenly grows more powerful protectors.

So following your logic (i.e. power necessitates that is must be used or else its unbelievable) then you have to ask "why haven't other 11th level characters already done this?"

And then you have to ask "Why haven't all the 11th level characters wiped each other out by now?"

Following that logic leads to only one possible outcome. In a Vancian D&D world there are only two possible world orders. The one where the Clerics come out on top, destroy all arcane magic users and magic knowledge, fight among each other until the final alliance of Gods/Churches remain and now rule the world in authoritative order. And the one where the Wizards come out on top, destroy all divine magic users and magic knowledge, fight among each other until the final alliance of Wizards remain and now rule the world in authoritative order. Any other possible outcome is unbelievable once you are dealing with ANY number of people with 6th level spells and higher.

"But the outsider powers wouldn't allow that!" Well if so, then they wouldn't allow it no matter if the perpetrators start at 1st level or 16th level.

So the moment you play a game where the world build ISN'T one of those two, you are already suspending your disbelief. You just are.

Why is is -worse- to suspend your disbelief with a different system with more front loaded access to abilities? It honestly feels like your true problem is the same problem I've seen among my tables with people who are long time users of the Vancian system who object to SoP. Its different than what I'm used to. I'm used to access to these effects coming at higher levels and it bothers me that they are now available at lower levels.

But, if your suspension of disbelief lets you accept that certain powers among a small number of high level characters will NOT change the world but the same powers among a broader set of of lower level characters will, then I guess that's your line in the sand. Its as arbitrary as any other line in the sand.

Those of us with OTHER lines in the sand are not "wrong" just because we have a different arbitrary point of dis-coherence.

For what its worth though, I agree with you against all the posters who keep saying "its okay, the DM will fix it" or "then just don't allow it" are viable answers to this discussion. Of -course- that works in real life, but here on this board we are discussing the systems on their merits, not on how good a DM is.

[Sam C.]

Sorry, but "it's fine cause you can just change it" is just straight up oberoni.
This is an inappropriate citation of the Oberoni fallacy. The Oberoni fallacy specifically addresses game balance. However, ThatMoonGuy wasn't talking about game balance, he was talking about worldbuilding. Within the setting of that world, regardless of whatever game system was used to play in that world, long-range teleportation and flight do not exist. If you were to use core Pathfinder to play in that world, you would need to go through the spell list with a fine-toothed comb and ban every spell which would disrupt that world's logic. You would do this, not because those spells were inherently flawed, but because those spells simply do not fit within that world. The same effect can be achieved with spheres by simply disallowing a handful of options that are not allowed by default (put another way, advanced talents are a set of optional rules, and optional rules, by their very nature, are not subject to Oberoni). As the author of SoP himself stated:

While Spheres of Power covers a great many magical options and possibilities, not all of these are appropriate or necessary for any given setting. GMs are encouraged to disallow any option that would be damaging, undermining, or simply inappropriate for a particular game.
Is it Oberoni if "you can ban problematic rules" is itself part of the rules?

The point that a great many people here are trying to get at and you seem to be missing, is that just because the rules allow for something doesn't mean that thing fits the world, and if that thing doesn't fit in the world, then the system can and should be adjusted to fit the world. One of the big advantages of the Spheres system is that adjusting the system to fit the world is relatively easy.

As an aside, I once played in a game where we used the nature sphere quickly produce a large amount of food from a single tree. The GM let us do it, but he then told us that the tree died and the ground around it became barren because we rapidly depleted the nutrients of the soil.

[Serafina]

For what it's worth, we're not really saying "the GM will fix it" when it comes to low-level NPC power access.
At least to me, that's just part of suspension of disbelief.

As a GM, I build the world around what the story needs. As you said, if I need a world where 11th-level characters can't take over the kingdom, I'll do that somehow. If I want healing to be commonplace, then I'll pick some option - either there's lots of CLW wands, or Life-sphere clerics in every village, or something. If I don't want that, then those things are rare instead. The rules aren't a simulation that only allows one outcome, things get fudged anyway.
And as a player I know all that. As long as it's somewhat consistent within the same story, it's fine.

When the GM decides that most NPCs don't use Spheres of Power the same way PCs do?
That's not really "the GM will fix it", at least not to me.

[NomGarret]

I would say that Spheres of Power requires a number of world building considerations that are different from what DMs are accustomed to with Vancian casting. Personally, I think the system gives better tools and advice for making those considerations than standard does. Standard, however, benefits from many more years of experience and public consciousness in how to work with its eccentricities.

[ThatMoonGuy]

Sorry, but "it's fine cause you can just change it" is just straight up oberoni.

Well, there are rules for using firearms in Pathfinder so me saying you can't use them when we're playing in the Dragonlance setting is also Oberoni? And GURPS has rules that allow someone to play as King Ghidorah so I gues I'm supposed to let a player do that in my game about the Satsuma rebellion, right? I think I'll call the latter "The Last Ghidorai".

Snark aside, I think your perspective about the relation between worldbuilding and game system are the issue. The way you're going the system comes first and then the world gets adjusted according to it. So if it's possible for a kingdom to build a self reseting resurrection trap then it will. It's just logical, right? Well, yeah, but only if you build the world around the rules. But you don't need to do so and if you do you tie things so much that if you changed editions the setting would stop making any sense. Let's say I made a world in D&D 3.5e where there's a very powerful army that employs a frontline of spiked-chain bearing elites. They do so because the spiked chain gives a pretty big mechanical advantage to them and thus they're pretty good warriors. But if we move to Pathfinder, that edge is lost not because something internal to the world but something internal to the mechanics that represent that world - the game system. But nothing dictates that you have to tackle the situation like this. If your complaint was that Life sphere healed too much and made combat trivial the, yeah, that's a valid criticism of the system. But the effects that a certain rule has in the worldbuilding? That I don't see. You don't need to do things that way. If you don't like the idea that healers have access to life sphere then just make it so that they don't. Tie it to a rare magical tradition passed down from a certain bloodline or just say that they can't do it for whatever reason or no reason at all. Feats don't exist inside the game, not as a material fact at least. You can't go to a tavern and ask people there "who has weapon focus?" but you may ask "who here was trained in using a sword?".

The short version being, game system != game world, least there wouldn't be people trying to play Game of Thrones using D&D.

[TiaC]

Is it Oberoni if "you can ban problematic rules" is itself part of the rules?

Yes. Every RPG has that rule. From the CRB: "Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of "house rules" that they use in their games." Those words do not mean that Gate is not broken. The fact that Rule 0 exists is irrelevant to Oberoni. Also, I'm sure that if there was a thread asking what to do about high-level SoP play being limited, the posters in this thread who are defending SoP would advise using Advanced Magic. There have already been recommendations to use spellcrafting in this thread. You can't have it both ways, either it's a cool part of the system that you should use, or it's a bunch of poorly balanced material that should be avoided. I view designers who push off all the balancing on DMs as lazy.

[TheFamilarRaven]

.
Using casting traditions + incanter to boost your CL up to 7 lets you get up to severity 4, severe weather talent gets you up to 5, and wind lord gets you up to 6, which is hurricane force winds. Since it costs no spell points if you concentrate, all you need is empowered abilities (+2CL at 0 spell points), overcharge (+2CL and become fatigued), incanter sphere spec (+1CL to weather) and deathful (+1CL while at or below 1/2hp), plus the above talents, easily attainable with the incanter's 4 starting talents. Hell, even dropping one or two of those boons and waiting until 2nd-4th level to be able to throw that around, while still tossing around category 5 (windstorm) winds is still pretty crazy.


Apologies for nitpicking/perhaps beating a dead horse. But this build doesn't work. At least not exactly as you have written. For your boons, for Empowered Abilities you can't get the +2 bonus because the Severe Winds talent requires one spell point to use. Which means you need to make up the extra CL from Deathful casting, meaning you need to be at 1/4 your max HP to get Hurricane level winds assuming you're allowed to grab Wind Lord.

So basically, any stray AoE (easily obtainable in SoP) or magic missile that hits you is going to probably drop you because wind doesn't stop spells. Now it gets rapidly better, since by level 3 you no longer need Deathful Casting to do this trick, but any damage that you take will most likely break your concentration. And if you're out of spell points, you can't use Sever Winds anymore, so even if you recast the maximum severity drops by 1. Plus you aren't able to do anything else while controlling the weather except move since you didn't grab Easy Focus. And let's be real, Windstorm is nice but hardly game a game breaking effect. The first ogre you see is just gonna plow right through it and smack a fool.

As for destroying towns? Not possible at level 1. Last I checked, building are objects, and objects are explicitly immune to NL damage. The only severity level that explicitly says it destroys buildings is tornado, which is not available until level 8 at the earliest if you use Deathful casting. You might argue that this is not realistic, but that's RAW for you. So the idea that any apprentice Incanter can decimate whole villages doesn't hold up IMO.

The biggest threat would be to the population. But depending on the circumstance, they might be able to get indoors, flee the area, or stop your casting before the spell takes full effect. And if level 1 Incanters are walking around with the ability to summon up hurricanes at-will, then there are probably other Incanters walking around with the same power that can just cancel each other.

Granted, you mentioned that you played an earlier version of the system, so all of this may have been patched in later after you created this character.



Hell, even a level 1 rando human pleb without any casting classes can squeeze out Basic Magic Training, Advanced Magic Training, a casting tradition ...

Actually this isn't true. Basic Magic Training gives you an effective CL of 1, 1 spell point and access to a sphere. But in order to grab boons you need general drawbacks which explicitly can only be taken upon gaining your 1st level in a sphere casting class. So your rando pleb can do one neat trick once per day.



Fighters get plenty of feats, so they, for example, would have a very little opportunity cost to be able to full heal themselves multiple times over. Hell, since it's so easy, why wouldn't ever fighter learn how to heal themselves like that? They can do that without losing any of their fighter training after all?

Yeah, heaven forbid fighters get anything nice!

More seriously, your fighter probably isn't rocking many spell points, so the amount of times they can do is pretty limited, probably even 1/day. The amount healed might seem crazy for a 1 level investment. But considering that if you did that at level one, you'd be far worse off. You would heal far more HP than actually necessary at most levels, so you're actually wasting a ton of talents that could have been spent elsewhere.

A better argument would be to to say "look, I can do 7d8 vs Reflex for half in an AoE at level 1 as an Incanter for 1 spell point!" But even then, that has it's own consequences. And we could go back and forth all day whether or not those consequences balance out the sheer power of that much damage at such a low level.



I dunno, I think I've pretty clearly illustrated my point that spheres is far too frontloaded, in my experience the only time things don't get out of hand at early levels is when you quite literally restrict yourself to almost entirely using the system through feats, which just so happens to be how one of my rogues used it, focusing on warp and life (still ended up broken as hell, but it took until late game to reach that point, which is when vancian starts to reach equal levels of broken anyway, so no big deal), but any time we've built characters using the actual classes, it just absolute trashes over anything you could build without the system to the point where most encounters that aren't specifically tailored to include spheres opponents and spheres challenges become entirely steamrolled.

I agree with most of this. The system typically overpowers any encounter that only assumes the traditional classes and limitations. To the OP, I do find the system to itself to be quite enjoyable. To me, spell casters feel far more cinematic, and my players seem to be enjoying themselves as well. But it does drastically alter the base assumptions of the world and encounter design. And I despite the effort put in to make it compatible alongside the core classes and systems, I would recommend substituting core classes etc with sphere characters, because at low levels, they'll pretty much outshine any character not using the system.

[Ssalarn]

You can't have it both ways,

Of course you can. Spheres of Power is specifically presented as a toolbox, which is explained many times throughout the book. It has numerous tools like drawbacks, casting traditions, and more to allow players and GMs to craft a world that works the way they want it to, and frames the mechanics that way in each chapter where they're presented.

If I handed you a toolbox and a bundle of wood and you looked at me and said "You're lazy, this isn't a shelf" I'd tell you "Of course it isn't. It's a toolbox and a bundle of wood so you can build any of the 40 different pieces of furniture we included instructions for and probably whatever you else want. We can't promise it will be a perfect piece of furniture if you assemble it in a different way than we gave instructions for though." SoP is exactly the same.

Tangential, if you think there's any such thing as objective balance in 3.5 or Pathfinder, you're wrong. There's not. The game is built around a pile of imbalanced classes that were intended to fill various roles and then expanded with two decades of supporting materials. You can balance to a group's expectations. You can balance to a selected subset of material; that could be "core only" (though you still wouldn't have true balance because core isn't balanced to itself), you could balance to the exceptions at the far end of the system like wizards with hyper-optimized spell lists, pouncing two-hander barbarians, or smite-charging paladins. It really doesn't matter, whatever you balance to you won't be balanced to something else in this system. A good 3pp designer will understand that, choose their own selected balance points, and then provide context and guidance within their book on how to use it and integrate it into the game world. If you want a game that meets some objective standard of perfect balance, 3.X and Pathfinder are not the games you're looking for.

[Crake]

Actually this isn't true. Basic Magic Training gives you an effective CL of 1, 1 spell point and access to a sphere. But in order to grab boons you need general drawbacks which explicitly can only be taken upon gaining your 1st level in a sphere casting class. So your rando pleb can do one neat trick once per day.

About to have lunch, so I've only got time to really mention this: Advanced magical training allows you ("with GM permission" it says :smallsigh:) to take a casting tradition, and upgrades your spell points from 1 to your casting ability modifier, and also makes all of your non casting class levels count as half caster levels, so you'll get 1/2 a caster level every level (minimum 1 obv).

[TiaC]

Of course you can. Spheres of Power is specifically presented as a toolbox, which is explained many times throughout the book. It has numerous tools like drawbacks, casting traditions, and more to allow players and GMs to craft a world that works the way they want it to, and frames the mechanics that way in each chapter where they're presented.

If I handed you a toolbox and a bundle of wood and you looked at me and said "You're lazy, this isn't a shelf" I'd tell you "Of course it isn't. It's a toolbox and a bundle of wood so you can build any of the 40 different pieces of furniture we included instructions for and probably whatever you else want. We can't promise it will be a perfect piece of furniture if you assemble it in a different way than we gave instructions for though." SoP is exactly the same.
Which then means you can't claim that it's balanced, because the product has no balance. As I said, it's only as good as the GM. It doesn't give the GM any real help in determining what's appropriate. When I said that you can't have it both ways, I mean that you can't make a claim that the product is balanced if you ignore the toolbox content and tell people to play it that way, while also telling people that the product is complete if you use the toolbox content and tell people to play it that way. You can say "it's balanced as long as you stay in the shallows" or "It does a lot, but balance is questionable" but SoP does require a skilled GM to get both, and skilled GMs are the people who need it the least.


Tangential, if you think there's any such thing as objective balance in 3.5 or Pathfinder, you're wrong. There's not. The game is built around a pile of imbalanced classes that were intended to fill various roles and then expanded with two decades of supporting materials. You can balance to a group's expectations. You can balance to a selected subset of material; that could be "core only" (though you still wouldn't have true balance because core isn't balanced to itself), you could balance to the exceptions at the far end of the system like wizards with hyper-optimized spell lists, pouncing two-hander barbarians, or smite-charging paladins. It really doesn't matter, whatever you balance to you won't be balanced to something else in this system. A good 3pp designer will understand that, choose their own selected balance points, and then provide context and guidance within their book on how to use it and integrate it into the game world. If you want a game that meets some objective standard of perfect balance, 3.X and Pathfinder are not the games you're looking for.
See, this is just saying that because perfection is impossible, talking about improvement is wrong. Also, I was complaining about people saying SoP is balanced, so attacking me for talking about balance applies equally well to everyone saying SoP is balanced. Clearly there is no single gold standard of balance, but one product can be more balanced to whatever point it's aiming at than another. SoP does not do a particularly good job of this because it rewards specialization so much, such that if one player goes all in on a useful sphere and another spreads out, they won't really play the same game. Now, that's a really easy situation to end up in, it doesn't require one player to be a master optimizer or anything. SoP also pushes PF much closer to a point-buy system rather than a level-based one, and it's a lot harder to know what's appropriate in point-buy.

[Ssalarn]

No one's attacking anybody. I said that if you believe there's such a thing as objective balance you're wrong. That either applies to you or it doesn't.

And I disagree with your assertion that one person choosing to hyper-optimize is going to be playing a different game than someone who generalizes, at least not any moreso than a cavalier and a druid or any other selection of differently assembled classes are playing a different game. A generalist is going to have tricks and options that a specialist doesn't. Pathfinder is a game that rewards competent versatility as much as it rewards specialization; that's why wizards are considered such a powerful class. And most spheres, due to the structure of the system, are going to enable competence at the related task(s).

[TiaC]

No one's attacking anybody. I said that if you believe there's such a thing as objective balance you're wrong. That either applies to you or it doesn't.
Nice. First, "you're wrong" is an attack, just not a personal one. Second, the fact that you quoted me rather than every other person in the thread talking about balance is clearly targeting me.


And I disagree with your assertion that one person choosing to hyper-optimize is going to be playing a different game than someone who generalizes, at least not any moreso than a cavalier and a druid or any other selection of differently assembled classes are playing a different game. A generalist is going to have tricks and options that a specialist doesn't. Pathfinder is a game that rewards competent versatility as much as it rewards specialization; that's why wizards are considered such a powerful class. And most spheres, due to the structure of the system, are going to enable competence at the related task(s).

It's not hyper-optimization to say "I want to play a summoner" and just pick a bunch of conjuration talents. Meanwhile at higher levels, a sphere with two talents in it is rarely a decent use of a standard action in combat and almost every ability that has a significant out-of-combat effect is 3+ talents in. Also, given that defenders are constantly saying that it's so much more balanced than core, comparing a competent sperecaster and an incompetent one to a cavalier and a druid is admitting that it isn't. But, hey, thanks for the strawman. I'm not sure why I'm arguing with someone who makes money from the system.

[EldritchWeaver]

Nice. First, "you're wrong" is an attack, just not a personal one. Second, the fact that you quoted me rather than every other person in the thread talking about balance is clearly targeting me.

So you would prefer the wording "it is wrong to assume that objective balance exists"? If you still have problems with it, how would you want to have it worded then?


It's not hyper-optimization to say "I want to play a summoner" and just pick a bunch of conjuration talents. Meanwhile at higher levels, a sphere with two talents in it is rarely a decent use of a standard action in combat and almost every ability that has a significant out-of-combat effect is 3+ talents in. Also, given that defenders are constantly saying that it's so much more balanced than core, comparing a competent sperecaster and an incompetent one to a cavalier and a druid is admitting that it isn't. But, hey, thanks for the strawman. I'm not sure why I'm arguing with someone who makes money from the system.

Cavaliers are worse than incompetent spherecasters and optimized (sorry, but druids require also attention) druids can be better than competent spherecasters. That is because SoP adheres to a different point of balance than core (not sure if there is actually a particular point where all designers attempted to adhere to) and has an overall balance spread which is tighter than core. If you prefer this kind of setup then SoP is better balanced than core. If you are like Snowbluff, then core might be better for you.

[TiaC]

So you would prefer the wording "it is wrong to assume that objective balance exists"? If you still have problems with it, how would you want to have it worded then?
We're debating, attacks are fine. In fact, someone attacking another position is necessary for it to be a debate. I don't object to there being an attack, I object to him claiming to just be stating facts and not debating. Go ahead and attack my position, just be honest that you're doing that.


Cavaliers are worse than incompetent spherecasters and optimized (sorry, but druids require also attention) druids can be better than competent spherecasters. That is because SoP adheres to a different point of balance than core (not sure if there is actually a particular point where all designers attempted to adhere to) and has an overall balance spread which is tighter than core. If you prefer this kind of setup then SoP is better balanced than core. If you are like Snowbluff, then core might be better for you.
See, you are having a very different conversation than Ssalarn, because you are talking about balance as a thing that makes sense to talk about and he is saying it doesn't make sense to talk about balance.

With regards to the balance of SoP, I've been saying that the supporters of SoP seem perfectly fine with saying that Advanced Magic is unbalanced while both encouraging people to use it and saying that one of SoP's strengths is its balance. This doesn't hold together very well.

However, to address what you're actually saying, the Druid-Cavalier problem becomes clear at a relatively high level of optimization compared to most tables, while the generalist-specialist problem is pretty easy to stumble into. (You can stumble into a good druid, but as you note, it's not that impressive without optimization.) So while the extremes of competence gaps are greater in core, significant gaps are easier to stumble into in SoP.

There are other issues with SoP I could mention.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, it tends to produce superheroes more than wizards. Most SoP characters end up with a number of unique effects you can count on one hand. This doesn't mean they're bad characters, but it's a significant flavor concern for some people. (Related, there's an issue with reactive talents. Life is a good example, because ability drain on a party that can't cure it is crippling, but taking Restore Soul will feel like a waste if it never comes up. If these choices are made on level up like they are in SoP, then by taking Restore Soul the GM can feel they need to include ability drain, while the GM can feel that they can't use ability drain on parties that don't have Restore Soul.)

There's also the feat chain issue. At level one, taking Dodge is a fine choice, and it opens up a feat chain that needs it. When you've finished that chain at level 9 and the next feat you really want requires Mobility, taking it at level 9 to qualify for a feat at level 17 (that requires BAB 9) feels bad. Similarly, if you have a 10th-level incanter with 6 talents each in Life, Destruction and Illusion and you pick up Fate, you almost certainly won't use that until you've sunk a few more talents into it. So, you've just had a level where your casting didn't really improve. This is generally an issue with the spheres that don't care much about your CL.

[EldritchWeaver]

We're debating, attacks are fine. In fact, someone attacking another position is necessary for it to be a debate. I don't object to there being an attack, I object to him claiming to just be stating facts and not debating. Go ahead and attack my position, just be honest that you're doing that.

I'm now confused - didn't you complain about being personally attacked?


See, you are having a very different conversation than Ssalarn, because you are talking about balance as a thing that makes sense to talk about and he is saying it doesn't make sense to talk about balance.

I don't think Ssalarn and I actually differ. I think you misunderstand his position, which IMO is that there is no universal point to which you balance against everything else. You can have a very gritty survival game, where one small mistake can lead to a TPK, and you can have a high-fantasy game, where everyone is a demigod. But you can't have both of them at once, because something will not work. (Yes, Quertus will disagree, but you need buy-in from everyone to accept the shortcomings. Which in a game, where people are supposed to have roughly the same influence, automatically breaks an assumption.)


With regards to the balance of SoP, I've been saying that the supporters of SoP seem perfectly fine with saying that Advanced Magic is unbalanced while both encouraging people to use it and saying that one of SoP's strengths is its balance. This doesn't hold together very well.

I can't remember having seen anyone stating this in this thread or anywhere else. Maybe I remember wrongly? Can you point to one of these statements? Otherwise, advanced magic is defined as campaign-setting-changing, which implies that it likely is powerful (unfortunately, the fact that basic talents aren't allowed to have prereqs means that some "advanced" talents are only there because of a level cap (see Constellation in Light)). So simply saying, all advanced magic goes without any impact is the opposite of true. That doesn't necessarily mean the talents are unbalanced compared to what is possible in 1PP. Let's look at Hypervitalize. The effects are similar to the spell Ice Body and are available at a similar level. Ice Body isn't in core, but in Ultimate Magic, a book which is unlikely to be banned outside of core-only games. So if you have a game, which allows all 1PP magic and all advanced talents, you'll see that the possibilities are quite similar in both systems.


However, to address what you're actually saying, the Druid-Cavalier problem becomes clear at a relatively high level of optimization compared to most tables, while the generalist-specialist problem is pretty easy to stumble into. (You can stumble into a good druid, but as you note, it's not that impressive without optimization.) So while the extremes of competence gaps are greater in core, significant gaps are easier to stumble into in SoP.

I don't think you need a high-op game to get the relative power level of both apparent, the high-op for the druid is only necessary to compete with/surpass a competent spherecaster. Also SoP is designed with a higher floor in mind and get competent characters with little effort. That is a feature, not a bug. Does it cause problems if the encounters are designed with Paizo iconic optimization in mind? Yes, but even just using Paizo for PCs breaks those encounters if you exceed the expected optimization.


There are other issues with SoP I could mention.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, it tends to produce superheroes more than wizards. Most SoP characters end up with a number of unique effects you can count on one hand. This doesn't mean they're bad characters, but it's a significant flavor concern for some people. (Related, there's an issue with reactive talents. Life is a good example, because ability drain on a party that can't cure it is crippling, but taking Restore Soul will feel like a waste if it never comes up. If these choices are made on level up like they are in SoP, then by taking Restore Soul the GM can feel they need to include ability drain, while the GM can feel that they can't use ability drain on parties that don't have Restore Soul.)

There's also the feat chain issue. At level one, taking Dodge is a fine choice, and it opens up a feat chain that needs it. When you've finished that chain at level 9 and the next feat you really want requires Mobility, taking it at level 9 to qualify for a feat at level 17 (that requires BAB 9) feels bad. Similarly, if you have a 10th-level incanter with 6 talents each in Life, Destruction and Illusion and you pick up Fate, you almost certainly won't use that until you've sunk a few more talents into it. So, you've just had a level where your casting didn't really improve. This is generally an issue with the spheres that don't care much about your CL.

It is true, that early material produces characters which are more sorcerer-like in their flexibility, but newer stuff has options which provides up-to wizard-like flexibility. Taking Spell Dabbler/Spell Adept grants you the opportunity to cast like a wizard (but costs a lot of SP and thus you can't get as many spells as a true wizard of the same level). Inspired Surge allows you to get in particular the niche talents on demand, but you get a wild magic effect. Also, while ability drain is a very specific issue, given opportunity, players can get around hard requirements. In my game, instead of diving into a waterpool, they decided to drain it instead using extradimensional room as big bucket and then tunneled next to to pool using alter from creation to avoid traps. The problem with CL independent spheres is basically owed at least partially that low-casters need something to use. But if you are willing to take drawbacks, you can get at least more than basic functionality at level X and buy-off drawbacks at levels x+1 and upwards. So you can get around it somewhat.

[ThatMoonGuy]

I find it weird when people say that every advanced talent is game breaking when some of them are basically just conversions of certain spells that, while game breaking, are part of core. Hence, they are not more game or world breaking than the equivalent spell themselves. Take Summoning, for one. It's basically Planar Ally and Planar Binding rolled into one but with maximum HD tied to your CL. Sure, there are some shenanigans you can do to summon a 7 HD Outsider at level 1 but it does incur all the risks that summoning a thing more powerful than you usually does. Do not call upon that which you cannot put down, y'all. Back on track, a lot of people ban Planar Ally/Binding but a lot don't. If that is true then it is not different from banning Summoning or allowing it.

Other Advanced Talents are less game or game world breaking, like Extreme Range from the Destruction sphere which has a lot of drawbacks and isn't considered very good in general. And if we go to Spheres of Might, we get Legendary Talents that are really damn bad, like Vacuum Cut (I may have gotten the name wrong) which makes your melee attack hit at close range. With reduced damage. At the cost of your martial focus. There's a Iaijutsu Technique from the Legendary Samurai that does next to the same but can be spammed and is still not broken. There are quite a few Advanced/Legendary Talents that are like this, effectively underwhelming. If that premise is acceptable then the conclusion is that not all advanced/Legendary Talents are problematic, just a few, and banning them is not different from banning certain things like Venomfire and Divine Geometry. Or the fact that some spells are broken makes the whole Vanciam system invalid?

[TiaC]

I'm now confused - didn't you complain about being personally attacked?
No, I described what he was doing as attacking, and pointed out that the position he was attacking was one shared by many people in the thread. Because when you quote someone, and disagree with them, you are attacking their position. I only mention personal attacks when I say that isn't what he's doing.


I don't think Ssalarn and I actually differ. I think you misunderstand his position, which IMO is that there is no universal point to which you balance against everything else. You can have a very gritty survival game, where one small mistake can lead to a TPK, and you can have a high-fantasy game, where everyone is a demigod. But you can't have both of them at once, because something will not work. (Yes, Quertus will disagree, but you need buy-in from everyone to accept the shortcomings. Which in a game, where people are supposed to have roughly the same influence, automatically breaks an assumption.)
So, the point of a level-based system is that designers should strive to have characters of the same level be roughly equal. I agree that existing material isn't great at this, but it's definitely gotten better. Saying that material of different power levels already exists is a non-sequiter to me saying that SoP doesn't have great internal balance. If I was saying that SoP was too strong or too weak in comparison to other options, pointing out that other options aren't balanced would be a gotcha, but I'm saying it's too strong or too weak in comparison to itself. Now, if you mean that you can't tell what sort of game your material will be used for, then we're back to discussions about balance being pointless, because every option is simultaneously too string and too weak for the games you are designing it for.


I can't remember having seen anyone stating this in this thread or anywhere else. Maybe I remember wrongly? Can you point to one of these statements? Otherwise, advanced magic is defined as campaign-setting-changing, which implies that it likely is powerful (unfortunately, the fact that basic talents aren't allowed to have prereqs means that some "advanced" talents are only there because of a level cap (see Constellation in Light)). So simply saying, all advanced magic goes without any impact is the opposite of true. That doesn't necessarily mean the talents are unbalanced compared to what is possible in 1PP. Let's look at Hypervitalize. The effects are similar to the spell Ice Body and are available at a similar level. Ice Body isn't in core, but in Ultimate Magic, a book which is unlikely to be banned outside of core-only games. So if you have a game, which allows all 1PP magic and all advanced talents, you'll see that the possibilities are quite similar in both systems.
JerichoPenumbra started out talking about how great the spellcrafting system is, and then as soon as the question of balance came up, he was one of the first to go "well, that's an advanced talent". Obviously, once the topic becomes the balance of SoP, no one's talking about advanced magic anymore. I'm not comparing it to what's available in 1PP, nor saying that advanced magic is broken. I'm saying that spheres has a chapter that is widely used (people recommend it) but which is considered immune to balance criticism.



I don't think you need a high-op game to get the relative power level of both apparent, the high-op for the druid is only necessary to compete with/surpass a competent spherecaster. Also SoP is designed with a higher floor in mind and get competent characters with little effort. That is a feature, not a bug. Does it cause problems if the encounters are designed with Paizo iconic optimization in mind? Yes, but even just using Paizo for PCs breaks those encounters if you exceed the expected optimization.
What does this have to do with anything I said? I'm talking about the vast number of players who don't spend time on the forums, or hours reading books and saying that it's very easy to make a competent spherecaster, so you can accidentally make a much more powerful character, while with a Druid you need to actually know what you're doing.



It is true, that early material produces characters which are more sorcerer-like in their flexibility, but newer stuff has options which provides up-to wizard-like flexibility. Taking Spell Dabbler/Spell Adept grants you the opportunity to cast like a wizard (but costs a lot of SP and thus you can't get as many spells as a true wizard of the same level). Inspired Surge allows you to get in particular the niche talents on demand, but you get a wild magic effect. Also, while ability drain is a very specific issue, given opportunity, players can get around hard requirements. In my game, instead of diving into a waterpool, they decided to drain it instead using extradimensional room as big bucket and then tunneled next to to pool using alter from creation to avoid traps. The problem with CL independent spheres is basically owed at least partially that low-casters need something to use. But if you are willing to take drawbacks, you can get at least more than basic functionality at level X and buy-off drawbacks at levels x+1 and upwards. So you can get around it somewhat.
Ah, dumpster-diving to the rescue again. Also, that sounds very powerful. The issue with CL independent spheres, and some of the CL-dependent ones, is that no matter what level you take them at, they give you an effect that replicates a 1st level spell. The complete lack of level-gating was a bad idea, because it means that enough talents, and your third-level character is pulling out the equivalent of a 6th-level spell, or enough spheres and your 10th level character is throwing out 2nd-level equivalent effects like a bad theurge. At first level, a feat that gives you a first level spell all day is great, at 11th, it's awful. You are drawing from the same pool of available talents at the same rate from 1st to 20th (absent advanced talents), but the effectiveness of a new sphere just gets worse with level.

[The Kool]

The short version being, game system != game world

I'll be honest, I've done a lot of skimming of the walls of text, but I just wanted to highlight this quote right here. I'll elaborate on it a bit, because I've heard this get touched on and danced around, and people are arguing from various assumptions of where this point lies, when it comes to worldbuilding (this post has nothing to do with balance, merely with how a given system affects worldbuilding).

Just because an option is available by the rules does not mean it is 'available' to all characters, player or otherwise.The obvious here is when a DM restricts options from a player ("no, you can't use guns because they don't exist in this world"). But how often have you had a party of adventurers out and about run into the first ever gun-wielder (or other new thing) they've seen? They may not have even had the option to be one, may have never seen one before, but here it is. Does that mean everyone in the world could be one, and armies have no reason not to pick up firearms and start blasting other armies to pieces? No, even though it's an option that someone has taken. Just because the option can be taken does not mean it can be taken by everyone. You will also find this in cases where a class is available to a PC but no NPCs have it. Perhaps they are strange or new, such as an oriental character in a western setting. The existence of an option does not inherently make that option prevalent.

But let's argue for a moment that you, the DM, have decided that spherecasting is the primary (or only) magic in your world. Okay, now it's prevalent. In the same way that most NPCs will never take a level of Cleric, most NPCs will never pick up a sphere. The vast majority of those who do will likely have some defining drawback or tradition that severely limits what they can do, though. As much as it's terrible to say in a balance discussion, it is central to worldbuilding to say "The DM will decide what limits apply", because worldbuilding is being done by the DM regardless. It is in fact central to the entire discussion of casting traditions that they exist to flavor magic and the world, and the DM will work with the character to figure out what is appropriate. Sure, you can create a high-magic system where everyone takes unfiltered options and is really good at one or two things, even as early as level 1, and there's an NPC in every town who can do X thing. But that's not the standard assumption, just as it's not with Vancian magic.

[Crake]

I'll be honest, I've done a lot of skimming of the walls of text, but I just wanted to highlight this quote right here. I'll elaborate on it a bit, because I've heard this get touched on and danced around, and people are arguing from various assumptions of where this point lies, when it comes to worldbuilding (this post has nothing to do with balance, merely with how a given system affects worldbuilding).

Just because an option is available by the rules does not mean it is 'available' to all characters, player or otherwise.The obvious here is when a DM restricts options from a player ("no, you can't use guns because they don't exist in this world"). But how often have you had a party of adventurers out and about run into the first ever gun-wielder (or other new thing) they've seen? They may not have even had the option to be one, may have never seen one before, but here it is. Does that mean everyone in the world could be one, and armies have no reason not to pick up firearms and start blasting other armies to pieces? No, even though it's an option that someone has taken. Just because the option can be taken does not mean it can be taken by everyone. You will also find this in cases where a class is available to a PC but no NPCs have it. Perhaps they are strange or new, such as an oriental character in a western setting. The existence of an option does not inherently make that option prevalent.

But let's argue for a moment that you, the DM, have decided that spherecasting is the primary (or only) magic in your world. Okay, now it's prevalent. In the same way that most NPCs will never take a level of Cleric, most NPCs will never pick up a sphere. The vast majority of those who do will likely have some defining drawback or tradition that severely limits what they can do, though. As much as it's terrible to say in a balance discussion, it is central to worldbuilding to say "The DM will decide what limits apply", because worldbuilding is being done by the DM regardless. It is in fact central to the entire discussion of casting traditions that they exist to flavor magic and the world, and the DM will work with the character to figure out what is appropriate. Sure, you can create a high-magic system where everyone takes unfiltered options and is really good at one or two things, even as early as level 1, and there's an NPC in every town who can do X thing. But that's not the standard assumption, just as it's not with Vancian magic.

I think what you're not taking into account though is that worlds evolve over time. It's fine to say that "right now in the setting, guns aren't popular or widespread", but from the invention of the first gun, to it becoming a widespread and popular thing shouldn't be more than a few decades at the least.

Likewise with spheres, the world evolves. Retraining rules exist, and all they really require is that you have a person capable of teaching available. If a person with the nature sphere offers to teach farmers how to grow their crops instantly with magic, utilizing the retraining rules available in pathfinder, so those commoners can replace their skill focus (profession(farmer)) feat into basic magical training (nature sphere), why wouldn't they jump at the opportunity? It's fine to say that "sure, a commoner won't necessarily have the skills to learn this on their own" but then you realise, that once one commoner has been taught how to do this, he can then use the retraining rules to teach ANOTHER commoner, and so-on etc etc.

Now normally you can't use the retraining rules to easily retrain a whole class level, so a commoner cannot be retrained into an incanter for example, but because spheres can be easily utilized via nothing but feats, it is possible to quite easily train commoners to be self-sufficient with "minor" magical ability, and then the knowledge is easily perpetuated, because that commoner can now easily train the next and so on. At this point, the only thing stopping it is the DM saying "no, I don't wanna."

Also, many world builders use "rules as physics" as their approach, which means that game systems very much equal game world.

[The Kool]

You've slipped back into the mindset of "the rule is there so clearly everyone can use it" with retraining. Can a commoner take that much time out of his life? Does he have the potential to be a teacher (a real consideration not represented by the rules)? Do all commoners have sufficient talent to pick up a sphere? Will they all take the caster seriously, or shoo him away in favor of what they know works? If your your answer to all of these is "the rules don't limit that, so yes" then go right ahead with your rules as physics, I would love to see what kind of world that becomes. But it's not the majority of worlds out there, and isn't the default assumption, and probably shouldn't be for good reason that when you take things to extremes, the capabilities of the game system as a world simulator really break down.

Also, Nikola Tesla was inventing stuff 100 years ago that we're only just now trying to figure out, despite our world's rate of rapid invention. Leonardo Da Vinci was inventing things 500 years ago that didn't see use until relatively modern times. Rockets saw no real innovation or mass use for about 500 years after they first showed up. The existence of a thing does not mean it will be accepted or rolled out right away, and even though many innovations begin to see public use within a few decades, the DM is picking a specific point in time for his world to be in. I certainly hope he's not following all advancements out to their logical conclusions and waiting until his simulated world is in a stable, unchanging state. If so, we're playing Starfinder, right?

[Crake]

You've slipped back into the mindset of "the rule is there so clearly everyone can use it" with retraining.

Well, let's take a look at some of these questions then, shall we?


Can a commoner take that much time out of his life?

This comes down to the benevolence of the teacher in question, I mean, the nature caster could quite easily just boost all of the farmer's crops and boom, he's now weeks ahead and he most certainly has free time.


Does he have the potential to be a teacher (a real consideration not represented by the rules)?

This one is definitely a valid question, and sure, some might not be good teachers, but others will be. You just need to hit a critical mass and it becomes self perpetuating.


Do all commoners have sufficient talent to pick up a sphere?

This one's easy to answer: almost definitely yes. Basic magical training has no ability score prerequisites, though even if it required 10 or 11 in at least one mental stat, the chances of a commoner being unable to meet that requirement is pretty low. This indicates that there is almost no real innate talent required to learn spherecasting. Having high mental ability scores is a plus, in that it ups your DC and gives you more spell points (when you get levels in a casting class, or advanced magica training anyway), but it's not necessary.


Will they all take the caster seriously, or shoo him away in favor of what they know works?

This one's much the same as the teacher question. Some may not, but you just need to hit a critical mass for it to become a cultural hit. Also, growing their crops right in front of their eyes probably would help. It's not like a "here's a thing that will help in the long run" or "I can teach you something that MIGHT help", it's quite clear and obvious. Caster walks up to the crops, casts some magic, and boom crops instantly sprout fruit.


If your your answer to all of these is "the rules don't limit that, so yes" then go right ahead with your rules as physics, I would love to see what kind of world that becomes. But it's not the majority of worlds out there, and isn't the default assumption, and probably shouldn't be for good reason that when you take things to extremes, the capabilities of the game system as a world simulator really break down.

I can't say whether or not it's the majority of worlds or not, and I doubt you have the statistics to back up that claim honestly. And taking things to the extreme is quite literally how things happen in the real world too, just look at nukes. They are examples of "physics exploits" so to speak.


Also, Nikola Tesla was inventing stuff 100 years ago that we're only just now trying to figure out, despite our world's rate of rapid invention.

Actually this is just a common misconception propagated by inspirational idealists from my understanding, unless you can point to something definitive (nobody who's ever talked about tesla to me before has been able to point to anything specific).


Leonardo Da Vinci was inventing things 500 years ago that didn't see use until relatively modern times.

As far as I'm aware, most of his inventions didn't actually function as designed. Now of course, if he had the magic to quite literally fabricate his designs in a moment, he could have quite easily reiterated on his inventions until he developed some very incredible things. His concepts may have only seen recent use, because technology was finally able to realise them, but his designs certainly weren't functional.


Rockets saw no real innovation or mass use for about 500 years after they first showed up.

Not particularly an expert on rockets, so no comment.


The existence of a thing does not mean it will be accepted or rolled out right away, and even though many innovations begin to see public use within a few decades, the DM is picking a specific point in time for his world to be in. I certainly hope he's not following all advancements out to their logical conclusions and waiting until his simulated world is in a stable, unchanging state. If so, we're playing Starfinder, right?

While this is all quite true, agriculture is the first thing a civilization works on collectively and perfects, because being able to streamline agriculture means the populace is more freely able to diversify their capabilities, and specialize, and as we all know, specialization is far more efficient than generalization in economics. And if perfecting agriculture is one of the first things that a culture would want to perfect, it would only make sense that they would quickly adopt such magic into the core of their society. Any cultures that rejected such an option would quickly be surpassed by the superior cultures who were able to spend much more time innovating in other areas, and so it would quickly become the default state of the setting. You would have to be playing at the quite literal birth of civilization for this to not be the logical outcome of having such magic be so easily attainable.

[The Kool]

I can't say whether or not it's the majority of worlds or not, and I doubt you have the statistics to back up that claim honestly. And taking things to the extreme is quite literally how things happen in the real world too, just look at nukes. They are examples of "physics exploits" so to speak.

Touche, I don't know, I'm going based on limited personal experience and observation.


Actually this is just a common misconception propagated by inspirational idealists from my understanding, unless you can point to something definitive (nobody who's ever talked about tesla to me before has been able to point to anything specific).

I was under the understanding that he had functional wireless transmission of energy, but I could be wrong.


As far as I'm aware, most of his inventions didn't actually function as designed. Now of course, if he had the magic to quite literally fabricate his designs in a moment, he could have quite easily reiterated on his inventions until he developed some very incredible things. His concepts may have only seen recent use, because technology was finally able to realise them, but his designs certainly weren't functional.

Hahahaha yeah that's because (to my understanding) he intentionally sabatoged his own schematics in dumb and fairly obvious ways, like gears working counter to each other, so that they wouldn't be functional when the military tried to build them. Other things like flying machines worked as designed but he simply didn't have the materials science available to him at the time, so I'll grant that better materials would lead to better tech. I'm actually a huge fan of clockwork/steam/elemental-powered elements in a D&D/PF setting.


While this is all quite true, agriculture is the first thing a civilization works on collectively and perfects, because being able to streamline agriculture means the populace is more freely able to diversify their capabilities, and specialize, and as we all know, specialization is far more efficient than generalization in economics. And if perfecting agriculture is one of the first things that a culture would want to perfect, it would only make sense that they would quickly adopt such magic into the core of their society. Any cultures that rejected such an option would quickly be surpassed by the superior cultures who were able to spend much more time innovating in other areas, and so it would quickly become the default state of the setting. You would have to be playing at the quite literal birth of civilization for this to not be the logical outcome of having such magic be so easily attainable.

Hmmm, I'll give you that one. Agricultural adaptations would catch on pretty quick. Actually a lot of adaptations would catch on pretty quick, but the net result is that you'd have a society mostly sticking to the same paradigms for a generation or two with a different set of tools, before new applications and innovations start to take hold. Following the old paradigms with new tools means that you'd still have farmers, there'd probably just be fewer of them and with bigger farms, using tractors magic for their farming. The farmers would still exist, still work the fields, still need people to transport the goods to market, etc. Food would likely be cheap and plentiful in this country.

[Mehangel]

Likewise with spheres, the world evolves. Retraining rules exist, and all they really require is that you have a person capable of teaching available. If a person with the nature sphere offers to teach farmers how to grow their crops instantly with magic, utilizing the retraining rules available in pathfinder, so those commoners can replace their skill focus (profession(farmer)) feat into basic magical training (nature sphere), why wouldn't they jump at the opportunity? It's fine to say that "sure, a commoner won't necessarily have the skills to learn this on their own" but then you realise, that once one commoner has been taught how to do this, he can then use the retraining rules to teach ANOTHER commoner, and so-on etc etc.

As I have pointed out multiple times, most commoners don't need to grow crops to feed themselves (they can just take 10 on Survival checks). Instead, they probably grow crops to pay taxes on the land or home (usually as a form of insurance or for protection).

Which brings up the Nature sphere.
1st) The base Nature sphere does not grow edible plants on its own, but only causes existing plants to spontaneously produce fruit.
2nd) The base Nature sphere ability only produces enough food (at CL 1) to feed 3 people for a single day, which is likely a severely inefficient way to earn money compared to the selling whole fields of crops.

So honestly, I am having a hard time believing that farmers would "trade out" Profession (farmer) for Basic Magical Training.

[Crake]

As I have pointed out multiple times, most commoners don't need to grow crops to feed themselves (they can just take 10 on Survival checks). Instead, they probably grow crops to pay taxes on the land or home (usually as a form of insurance or for protection).

Which brings up the Nature sphere.
1st) The base Nature sphere does not grow edible plants on its own, but only causes existing plants to spontaneously produce fruit.
2nd) The base Nature sphere ability only produces enough food (at CL 1) to feed 3 people for a single day, which is likely a severely inefficient way to earn money compared to the selling whole fields of crops.

So honestly, I am having a hard time believing that farmers would "trade out" Profession (farmer) for Basic Magical Training.

They wouldn't be trading out their skill points in profession (farmer), they would be traiding out the +3 bonus from skill focus for the ability to guarantee food on the table every day for their whole family. And keep in mind, most families had to work the field together to be able to make sure there was food on the table at the end of the day, this is one person, working for 6 seconds each day. Also, they could triple that yield by getting extra spell points with their human bonus feat, trading out alertness or whatever else level 1 commoners normally get with their bonus feat. So now suddenly they're producing enough crops daily to feed 3 families, which they can either save up, or use to pay taxes, or whatever else, while they also have quite literally the rest of the day, along with all their family members, to do anything else that's useful to their culture and society.

Also, two points: one, using survival to hunt for food is dangerous, and it takes a long time. Commoners just don't go hunting, because one wolf will kill them easily, and they will have little to no recourse. Two: A single person making 1 crop per day (ignoring for now the idea of letting you make multiple per day with extra spell points), each crop feeding 3 people (or 2 adults and 2 children), from a small garden as opposed to a vast crop field. This person is now self sufficient, with guaranteed food on the table, as opposed to crops which are vulnerable to damage as they grow, or blight, or pests, same goes for food storage, pests can get in and eat them, the stores can become diseased or mouldy. Sure the nature sphere caster can't use his food to pay taxes, but he also has a) a much smaller land to pay taxes on, and b) literally all day to take up some other profession that's in demand to pay his taxes.


Hmmm, I'll give you that one. Agricultural adaptations would catch on pretty quick. Actually a lot of adaptations would catch on pretty quick, but the net result is that you'd have a society mostly sticking to the same paradigms for a generation or two with a different set of tools, before new applications and innovations start to take hold. Following the old paradigms with new tools means that you'd still have farmers, there'd probably just be fewer of them and with bigger farms, using tractors magic for their farming. The farmers would still exist, still work the fields, still need people to transport the goods to market, etc. Food would likely be cheap and plentiful in this country.

Oh, most definitely farmers would still exist, I never doubted that, but as you said, they would be incredibly capable farmers, and food would never be an issue for the people. It may well even go so far as to become a basic provided utility by the government as part of the taxes that the citizens pay, while the farmers are paid by the government at a reduced rate in exchange for protection and the free use of the land, though I'm sure there's a million different ways that could evolve, but the point is: When the basic sustenance of a culture becomes something that can be taken for granted, there is really only one path that society can take: Extremely rapid advancement. When the people of the society are not forced to pursue entire days of work to ensure their survival, they are free to pursue other avenues of academia, science, a profession of some kind, spiritual learning, or martial training. The people of these societies would likely quickly become highly specialized, and honestly would likely evolve into a caste system, which may drive a wedge between groups, and form subcultures, which may well even lead to a degredation of such a society, but others may still thrive, and advance, likely the ones that utilize a strong core use of magic in their development. Mechanical engineers who specialize in the creation domain can quickly play around with and test various inventions, while civil engineers can easily repair any issues with similar means. The culture's army will be superior due to the soldiers being easily fed, and with just a little warp magic, militaries will have incredible force projection as their armies will be able to each carry with them weeks, if not months worth of food supplies, and.. well, I'm going off a bit, but you get the idea

Basically, such a world would advanced early, and advance rapidly without some kind of external force to prevent it. I actually mentioned a few pages back how we ended up working it out for the setting, the first era advanced incredibly rapidly and eventually made three utopian societies, who eventually became at odds with one another, and the war that they started basically caused a world-wide calamity, and the cultures growing from the ashes of that calamity are thusly highly reluctant toward magic, in many places it could become quite an outright death sentance by mobs with pitchforks and torches. There are forces in the background who are trying to slowly trend a culture shift away from such sentiment (actually one of my characters is a major driving force behind it), but in the meantime, change will be slow.

[Mehangel]

Also, two points: one, using survival to hunt for food is dangerous, and it takes a long time. Commoners just don't go hunting, because one wolf will kill them easily, and they will have little to no recourse.
Where did I say that the commoner must hunt? Survival checks do not need to be hunting checks. Besides, NPCs as far as I can tell are not subject to "random encounters", otherwise such encounters would also happen regularly on the farm, killing the farmers "easily" as you so adequately put it. Or are we giving NPCs special treatment, in which case, I believe you don't have a leg to stand on.


Two: A single person making 1 crop per day (ignoring for now the idea of letting you make multiple per day with extra spell points), each crop feeding 3 people (or 2 adults and 2 children), from a small garden as opposed to a vast crop field. This person is now self sufficient, with guaranteed food on the table, as opposed to crops which are vulnerable to damage as they grow, or blight, or pests, same goes for food storage, pests can get in and eat them, the stores can become diseased or mouldy. Sure the nature sphere caster can't use his food to pay taxes, but he also has a) a much smaller land to pay taxes on, and b) literally all day to take up some other profession that's in demand to pay his taxes.
Making Survival checks is also a guaranteed source of food, that as you gain levels can also feed multiple families. Also, using the nature sphere isn't "guaranteed" as you put it, because it REQUIRES a crop to begin with. If the crop is dead, due to blights or pests (something that might've been avoided with a slightly higher Profession (farmer) check), you don't have a valid target for the Nature sphere effect.

[Crake]

Where did I say that the commoner must hunt? Survival checks do not need to be hunting checks. Besides, NPCs as far as I can tell are not subject to "random encounters", otherwise such encounters would also happen regularly on the farm, killing the farmers "easily" as you so adequately put it. Or are we giving NPCs special treatment, in which case, I believe you don't have a leg to stand on.

"Hunting". Whether you be hunting for deer, rabbits, or gathering edibles, you still need to go out, and "hunt". And NPCs aren't subject to random encounters because they aren't PCs, and essentially "aren't loaded" while away from the PCs, but if you think encounters don't happen on farms (they do), or that farm encounters are anywhere near as frequent as wilderness encounters (they aren't), then you're just being willfully ignorant. Not to mention the random encounter table in wilderness differs wildly from cultivated land quite obviously.

Essentially what you're advocating for is hunter-gatherer society, vs agriculture. Not a great position to hold.


Making Survival checks is also a guaranteed source of food, that as you gain levels can also feed multiple families. Also, using the nature sphere isn't "guaranteed" as you put it, because it REQUIRES a crop to begin with. If the crop is dead, due to blights or pests (something that might've been avoided with a slightly higher Profession (farmer) check), you don't have a valid target for the Nature sphere effect.

Except survival isn't guaranteed. Ultimate wilderness states that seasonal/environmental changes can change the availability of food to the point where a level 1 character with average wisdom could not actually reliably feed himself plus his family. And a single tree/few fruiting bushes/plants are far more easier to care for compared to an entire crop/daily harvest. Also, I mean, the nature sphere doesn't even necessarily require cultivated foods, you could have berry bushes, or fruit trees in the local region and just pick whatever you feel like for the day. Or just go to your neighbour's tree and use your magic on theirs to harvest.

You're essentially trying to argue that 8 hours of hunting and gathering in the wilderness (which is also not feasible for larger groups/towns/cities, as the resources would become scarce quite quickly, as opposed to the magic which creates instantly renewable sources of food) is somehow functionally equivilent to 6 seconds of magic that then allow you to contribute something useful to society. It's really not a good argument, and you've done little to convince me at all of your stance.

[Mehangel]

You're essentially trying to argue that 8 hours of hunting and gathering in the wilderness (which is also not feasible for larger groups/towns/cities, as the resources would become scarce quite quickly, as opposed to the magic which creates instantly renewable sources of food) is somehow functionally equivilent to 6 seconds of magic that then allow you to contribute something useful to society. It's really not a good argument, and you've done little to convince me at all of your stance.

While you are essentially saying that using Spheres of Power must invariably alter the world because "Retraining" exists in Pathfinder as an optional ruleset (found outside the Core Rulebook). Except that if commoners have unfettered access to those rules, why wouldn't EVERY commoner retrain as a core vancian druid (a process that takes merely 3 days). Not only does the farmer double their skill points, but they now gain a free animal companion to help out on the farm, increased hit points, and level 0 spells (including purify food and drink). Depending upon the NPC's stat-array, they may even gain level 1 spells such as goodberry (The Pig Farmer commoner stat-block has a Wisdom score of 11). It's really not a good argument, and you've done little to convince me at all of your stance.

[Ssalarn]

Also, given that defenders are constantly saying that it's so much more balanced than core, comparing a competent sperecaster and an incompetent one to a cavalier and a druid is admitting that it isn't.

EldritchWeaver said most of what I would have said, but...

I never said anything about incompetent spherecasters. That's you projecting an opinion you haven't proven. I said a diversely arrayed spherecaster isn't going to be playing a different game from a specialized one anymore than a cavalier and druid are playing different games, which is true. The difference is that you assumed that the specialist represents the druid when I assumed they represented the cavalier.

A cavalier can output more damage than any other character in the core hardcover line. They're capable of quadruple (quintuple? I'd need to double-check the builds) damage charges that they can trigger twice a round along with attacks from their animal companion while multiplying challenge damage, STR x1.5, and their mount's STR. That's also a fairly straightforward build requiring little system mastery.

Conversely, the druid is capable of similar, if slightly lower, amounts of damage but has a base of spells to manipulate how they interact with the world. The druid is the sphere generalist. The fact that the druid is considered more powerful is my point, just as I noted with the wizard in my earlier post. Power in Pathfinder is almost always gauged by the size of your bag of tricks, not how good you are at one single trick. Someone who goes full in to a sphere is going to have a great trick, but they're going to struggle when that trick doesn't include the answer to their current obstacle. Spheres at least is more forgiving in how you use your abilities and doesn't punish you as harshly for bad mistakes, giving it a bit of a leg up on core as far as internal balance goes.



I'm not sure why I'm arguing with someone who makes money from the system.

You'll have a hard time in this forum then. GitP is the birthplace of almost every great 3pp product. Most of the people in this thread have written or playtested something for Spheres of Power (and many other 1pp and 3pp products), though none of them that I'm aware of, myself included, wrote for the original book. That makes them, IMO, the people who know the system better than most anyone, because they've spent the most time immersed in it. That also makes them the people best qualified to defend it.

But sure, feel free to actually attack my integrity and that of many of the other people in this thread by association after arguing so fiercely about how you were attacked (then backtracking to saying the position was attacked, then trying to parlay your recharacterization of the thing you were arguing into an attack on my, and thus others' in this thread, integrity).

[NomGarret]

Lengthy discussions of fantasy agriculture notwithstanding, I’m glad to see a thread where people who don’t like it share their criticisms. I’m a fan, myself, but a lot of discussions are made up of supporters. It’s hard to tell how rose-tinted our glasses are getting sometimes.

So let me ask: what are 3-5 relatively minor changes to the system you would make and if they were made would it change your opinion of the system as a whole?

[Gallowglass]

While you are essentially saying that using Spheres of Power must invariably alter the world because "Retraining" exists in Pathfinder as an optional ruleset (found outside the Core Rulebook). Except that if commoners have unfettered access to those rules, why wouldn't EVERY commoner retrain as a core vancian druid (a process that takes merely 3 days). Not only does the farmer double their skill points, but they now gain a free animal companion to help out on the farm, increased hit points, and level 0 spells (including purify food and drink). Depending upon the NPC's stat-array, they may even gain level 1 spells such as goodberry (The Pig Farmer commoner stat-block has a Wisdom score of 11). It's really not a good argument, and you've done little to convince me at all of your stance.

^This

Remove SoP/SoM from this discussion entirely and go down the same foxhole. In the standard Vancian world, the existence of Commoners or anyone without PC class levels make no sense. Not if you accept the notion that every NPC has the ability to take class levels, no one wouldn't logically do so. 1st level ANY PC class > 1st level ANY NPC class. Even with 8-10 in your primary stat!

Your farmer is objectively going to be better off as a druid or ranger (or fighter or anything) than as a commoner with skill focus(profession: farming). Bearing in mind that he could still take that feat with his 1st level feats, even if he didn't he's objectively going to be better off. And if his goal is to make money/provide for his family, adventuring for that sweet, sweet WBL is ridiculously superior to scraping by on the profession and craft rules.

And even if he wanted to remain a farmer, well he can still do so with just ranking in profession: farmer even without that skill focus bonus. And only be moderately less successful.

So this idea that SoP/SoM change that equation is facially, provably, untrue. Yes it changes the math, but it doesn't create this logical conundrum.

Yes, the low level moderately optimized nature sphere represents an upgrade in providing for your base familial needs and a relatively low-cost trade off in your overall ability to earn bank with profession checks.

So does being a 1st level druid, 1st level fighter or 1st level samurai.

The existence of traditional structures like farmers in a vancian world is already ridiculous. Assume you start with noble landowners. Well to defend themselves from the inevitable 11st level adventuring party, they need to be 12th level themselves, or have 12th level guards, viziers, advisors, protectors. What else would they do with those 12th level abilities? Well, if they want their kingdom to be more powerful, then they've already solved all the traditional problems like famine, plague, raiders and whatnot. With their small number of necessary high level casters vs a large number of necessary low level casters

But you accept it. Why? Because you need a relatable world structure to establish the game in. Because that's the game you've been playing since you were 11 years old. It's just "how it goes" and you don't go down the same logical foxholes as you do when you bring in a new system or change the rules.

But you don't get to state "the very existence of this new system destroys the sense of realism" when the sense of realism has been a long-dead casualty from the beginning of time.

That first level commoner farmer doesn't take the nature sphere feat for the same reason he doesn't take 1st level druid. Because he exists to service the story and the world for the PCs. As a farmer. Against the logical. Because the story/world needed a farmer.

But, you know, it might be fun to run a world where the standard socio-economic structures have all collapsed and every single person exists as an adventurer. journeying from dungeon to dungeon through the abandoned ghost towns, empty overgrown fields, and abandoned way-stations and roadside inns. Everyone makes due with create water, goodberry and create food spells. Camping in the ruins of once great castles. Every group of goblins that attack you have a few class levels making YOU their random encounter.... the only form of trade exists in hastily erected communal markets where adventures go to sell loot they don't want to buy loot they do. A few alchemists and wizards do side work as item crafters, but no one makes alchemical items or standard equipment to sell because its a bad economic trade off of effort to cost. So no one gets to buy backpacks or shovels anymore, everything has to be scrounged or built by the party. "hey who took ranks in craft: arms and armor?" Eventually the DM starts enforcing the lack of raw materials or ability to buy raw materials. "I really need some new chain mail. I guess we better adventure to the lost mines of Moria to get some ore." "Why bother? Someone is bound to drop some elven chain one of these days. It makes more sense to grind out the random encounters."

[Felyndiira]

Traditional Pathfinder/DnD assumes that adventurers are exceptional. Sure, in a meta sense, any character in the game can just take 1 level of sorcerer, but IC most people don't have that option; when a player takes a level of sorcerer, he isn't doing some light reading and can cast magic missile all of a sudden. It represents them awakening some ancient special lineage that grants them innate power.

Spheres is the same. Sure, an adventurer may be able to game the system to get hurricanes at level 1, but said adventurer can be considered a genius with a gift for that magic, not the norm for sphere mages. Normal peasants can't just go to a year of magic college and learn that same thing; they also don't have the aptitude to train in combat or the faith to be blessed by gods, which is why they become peasants.

Remember: when you optimize for a powerset, it doesn't mean that anyone can gain that powerset and you are just going through cheap mage college to learn it. It means that you are now playing the gifted, 1/1000000 genius with special aptitude for that powerset.

[Gallowglass]

when a player takes a level of sorcerer, he isn't doing some light reading and can cast magic missile all of a sudden.

I agree with everything you said. I just pedantically want to point out that when a player takes a level of sorcerer, he ISN'T doing some light reading, he just wakes up one day and realized his great grandfather was an orc or a dragon or a ghost or a plant-monster and now he CAN cast magic missile all of the sudden. In fact he's a walking talking wand of magic missiles.

Which is why wizards hate them. Oh so much.

[Serafina]

By the same logic, you can assume that Spheres of Power aren't accessible to most NPCs.
Maybe they do need special challenging training, unique blessings, exceptional abilities, hidden knowledge, or any of the same reasons that's used to say that a Commoner isn't a Druid instead.
(And yes, this then can't just go for sphercasting classes, but for feats like basic magical training etc. too).

Sure, the SoP rules don't say so - but that's because it's actually kinda silly to provide one unique answer to what should be a story-driven answer tailired to your campaign. Demanding that the rules answer your rule-needs is one thing - demanding that they also answer all your storytelling-needs is another!

[EldritchWeaver]

So, the point of a level-based system is that designers should strive to have characters of the same level be roughly equal. I agree that existing material isn't great at this, but it's definitely gotten better. Saying that material of different power levels already exists is a non-sequiter to me saying that SoP doesn't have great internal balance. If I was saying that SoP was too strong or too weak in comparison to other options, pointing out that other options aren't balanced would be a gotcha, but I'm saying it's too strong or too weak in comparison to itself. Now, if you mean that you can't tell what sort of game your material will be used for, then we're back to discussions about balance being pointless, because every option is simultaneously too string and too weak for the games you are designing it for.

I can't tell how you jumped from my general point to me saying that SoP has no great internal balance. Please quote where I stated or implied something like that. I also don't see where you get that SoP doesn't try to have internal balance (my experience in playtesting is different). If you argue about the basic and advanced talents, then basic talents are the ones which provide the overall balance point and advanced talents are allowed to shift it, because it is GM purview to allow them in the first place. That is made clear from the beginning so claiming that this isn't known to writers is simply false.


What does this have to do with anything I said? I'm talking about the vast number of players who don't spend time on the forums, or hours reading books and saying that it's very easy to make a competent spherecaster, so you can accidentally make a much more powerful character, while with a Druid you need to actually know what you're doing.

Being able to get useful characters without spending time fora or other places is a good thing. That in 1PP it is easy to make crappy characters is a problem, which spheres only makes it easier to see, but spheres doesn't exceed the balance range in core, in fact it is tighter than core. Can this lead to problems? Yes. But you have those problems with any group where casual players and powergamers intermix, regardless of system. Only the degree differs.


Ah, dumpster-diving to the rescue again. Also, that sounds very powerful. The issue with CL independent spheres, and some of the CL-dependent ones, is that no matter what level you take them at, they give you an effect that replicates a 1st level spell. The complete lack of level-gating was a bad idea, because it means that enough talents, and your third-level character is pulling out the equivalent of a 6th-level spell, or enough spheres and your 10th level character is throwing out 2nd-level equivalent effects like a bad theurge. At first level, a feat that gives you a first level spell all day is great, at 11th, it's awful. You are drawing from the same pool of available talents at the same rate from 1st to 20th (absent advanced talents), but the effectiveness of a new sphere just gets worse with level.

Which spheres are we talking about specifically? Life for example scales heavily by taking more talents and with a feat you can get even high-casting CL for at least a subset of the effects. Conjuration outside of base duration and Companion HDs scales only with more talents (but you can boost the Companion HD with a talent). Divination has only duration scaling. Other effects you get by extra talents. War scales with CL, but has a number of stuff where even the base effect remains useful at level 20.

If we talk about CL scaling spheres, then let's look at Destruction as simple example. The DC scales with CL, the damage scales with CL, so a CL 20 Destruction caster with only the base talent can deal 10d6 bludgeoning magical damage with a DC of 20 + CAM. You can upgrade with a spell point this to 20d6 damage, or if you take Gather Energy, then spending a move action serves the same. With other talents you can get different damage types, which provide possibly rider effects. Or you change the blast shape. Explosive Orb allows you to fireball people, only that you can choose the damage type among those you know. There is also Admixture, which allows you to combine two damage types and their riders in one attack (for spell points or a move action). One talent grants you the ability to circumvent energy resistance. Another one allows you to spare at least ally from friendly fire damage. And so on. All in all, I don't see your issues.

[Crake]

While you are essentially saying that using Spheres of Power must invariably alter the world because "Retraining" exists in Pathfinder as an optional ruleset (found outside the Core Rulebook). Except that if commoners have unfettered access to those rules, why wouldn't EVERY commoner retrain as a core vancian druid (a process that takes merely 3 days). Not only does the farmer double their skill points, but they now gain a free animal companion to help out on the farm, increased hit points, and level 0 spells (including purify food and drink). Depending upon the NPC's stat-array, they may even gain level 1 spells such as goodberry (The Pig Farmer commoner stat-block has a Wisdom score of 11). It's really not a good argument, and you've done little to convince me at all of your stance.

Except a) retraining a class level takes 7 days, not 3 days, and b) being an actual proper druid takes exceptional devotion to nature and c) because a level 1 vancian druid can't do nearly as well with plants as a commoner with basic magical training for the nature sphere, so the payoff is negligent, not to mention significantly more difficult to convince a commoner to go through with because you can't actually show anything useful happening. Saying "look at my magical companion" the farmer will just turn to his farmdog and say "yeah, my boy's pretty magical too, he's my best friend". Then you say "Look, I can make some berries that will feed you as if they were a meal" and the commoner says "Yeah, but I got more than 1 mouth to feed", etc etc.

You've mentioned purify food and drink a couple of times like it's actually used in some way other than... purifying food and drink, so I'm not sure why you bring that up.

On the other hand, you can see my post replying to TheKool on all the reasons why being able to train a single, simple feat, with no ability score requirements makes it something quite nearly anyone could take up, for a significant boost in farming yield compared to a level 1 druid being able to do quite literally nothing to boost any sort of yeild.


Lengthy discussions of fantasy agriculture notwithstanding, I’m glad to see a thread where people who don’t like it share their criticisms. I’m a fan, myself, but a lot of discussions are made up of supporters. It’s hard to tell how rose-tinted our glasses are getting sometimes.

So let me ask: what are 3-5 relatively minor changes to the system you would make and if they were made would it change your opinion of the system as a whole?

Honestly, I have very little issue with the system itself, I love how easy it is to make powerful characters, and realise a strong character concept really early, but I think that's in part an issue. If you've got everything from the get-go, you have very little to look forward to as you advance. Another issue I have is how front-loaded some of the spheres can be. Life gets you cure light wounds and lesser restoration with the base sphere, nature and weather get you a WHOLE bunch of stuff, conjuration gets you an eidolon, and so on. Magic being frontloaded like that isnt really that much of an issue, because when everyone's got it, it's just baseline for balance, the issue is that most people I see just grab spheres and plonk it into their worlds without thinking, and that has, in my experience, caused many seams to break in my suspension of disbelief, when magic is so easily available to learn.

I don't think there's any changes that you can make to fix that, I would probably say it's more a feature than a bug, the DM needs to decide how to handle it. You can manage it by making the casting traditions prohibitively expensive, or self-harming, you can use the setting to influence how the magic, but it needs to be something that's thought about rather than just haphazardly thrown into a setting.

[digiman619]

Except a) retraining a class level takes 7 days, not 3 days,
"If you are retraining a level in an NPC class (adept, aristocrat, commoner, or expert) to a level in any other class, the training takes only 3 days." (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/more-character-options/retraining/)

and b) being an actual proper druid takes exceptional devotion to nature
You're complaining about the rules, not fluff.

and c) because a level 1 vancian druid can't do nearly as well with plants as a commoner with basic magical training for the nature sphere, so the payoff is negligent, not to mention significantly more difficult to convince a commoner to go through with because you can't actually show anything useful happening. Saying "look at my magical companion" the farmer will just turn to his farmdog and say "yeah, my boy's pretty magical too, he's my best friend". Then you say "Look, I can make some berries that will feed you as if they were a meal" and the commoner says "Yeah, but I got more than 1 mouth to feed", etc etc.
You're clearly sidestepping. Remember when Gallowglass said this?

Remove SoP/SoM from this discussion entirely and go down the same foxhole.
This is what they're saying. You're complaining that SoP destroys worldbuilding because Commoners would use it while conveniently ignoring that if they had access to PC materials, they would never have been Commoners on the first place.

[Crake]

[url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/more-character-options/retraining/]"If you are retraining a level in an NPC class (adept, aristocrat, commoner, or expert) to a level in any other class, the training takes only 3 days."

Sure, I missed that part.


You're complaining about the rules, not fluff.

Druid's code of conduct is rules last I checked?


You're clearly sidestepping. Remember when Gallowglass said this?

He said it about the nature sphere and I refuted it, based on the fact that the nature sphere produces a clear and obvious effect that's easily learnable (just a single feat) and has immediate benefits, vs a level 1 vancian druid that isn't easily learnable (class level is more of a change compared to feat), doesn't have immediate benefits (none of the 1st level druid spells provides a substantial increase to quality of life bar MAYBE goodberry, but it's not an obvious effect that you can easily display to convince a commoner), and besides, the nature sphere just does a significantly better job in the process, and provides an instantaneous effect, meaning the food can be harvested and saved, vs goodberry that only lasts a day at best.


This is what they're saying. You're complaining that SoP destroys worldbuilding because Commoners would use it while conveniently ignoring that if they had access to PC materials, they would never have been Commoners on the first place.

Feats are not "PC materials". Anyone can take a feat, commoners included. I believe there is a feat called magical training from faerun that's regional specific, it lets you cast some cantrips, and practically everyone from that region, commoners included, have that feat. It would be like that, only far more widespread, because basic magical training gives you so much more benefit and utility.

[TiaC]

You'll have a hard time in this forum then. GitP is the birthplace of almost every great 3pp product. Most of the people in this thread have written or playtested something for Spheres of Power (and many other 1pp and 3pp products), though none of them that I'm aware of, myself included, wrote for the original book. That makes them, IMO, the people who know the system better than most anyone, because they've spent the most time immersed in it. That also makes them the people best qualified to defend it.

But sure, feel free to actually attack my integrity and that of many of the other people in this thread by association after arguing so fiercely about how you were attacked (then backtracking to saying the position was attacked, then trying to parlay your recharacterization of the thing you were arguing into an attack on my, and thus others' in this thread, integrity).
In an argument, attacking someone's position is attacking them. What annoyed me is the passive aggressive (at least to my reading) post saying that you ware just stating objective facts and and problem I had with that was just my own failing. That's when I became annoyed with you. And yes, then I attacked you. See, admitting that is easy. You might try it. I shouldn't have said that about you, so I'm sorry.

You spend half of this post making assumptions about my motives and the other half complaining that I made an assumption about yours.

Now, I think I'm done for a while, because this is a hobby and I shouldn't be engaging with it in ways that I don't enjoy. Keep writing books you like, I hope you continue to enjoy doing it. I'll probably see you later and discuss things other than balance, because I can probably agree with you that people spend too much time talking about balance to the exclusion of other considerations. (I know tone doesn't come through that well in text, but I'm not trying to be sarcastic or snide. I really don't wish you any ill.)

[Mehangel]

Druid's code of conduct is rules last I checked? Unlike the paladin, the druid doesn't actually possess a mechanical "code of conduct", unless you are referencing the 'wear no metal armor' prohibition, which is really easy for your average commoner to do.


He said it about the nature sphere and I refuted it, based on the fact that the nature sphere produces a clear and obvious effect that's easily learnable (just a single feat) and has immediate benefits, vs a level 1 vancian druid that isn't easily learnable (class level is more of a change compared to feat)...
Did you forget already that it takes 3 days (without a trainer) to retrain a commoner level into a druid level, but retraining a feat requires 5 days AND a trainer who possesses the feat (or 10 days w/out a trainer, but requires additional GM permission).

Did you know that no spherecasting class can actually possess the Basic Magical Training feat? So unless your NPC comes across the rare PC who decided to dip into the system with feats only, they are looking at becoming self-taught for the cost of 100 gp (at level 1). That means that the commoner with a Profession (farmer) bonus of +7 (1 rank, class skill, skill focus, Wisdom 11), taking 10 on their weekly income check will need to save 12.5 weeks (roughly 3 months) worth of work before they can even consider retraining (not including taxes, etc).

Meanwhile, retraining into a druid costs only 30 gp (at level 1). Using the same commoner as before, it would take only 3.75 weeks (roughly 1 month) worth of work (not including taxes, etc).

Even if you claim that I am misinterpreting the NPC retraining rules, and that they too require a druid trainer, it would still take a mere 6 days of training, costing 60 gp (and 7.5 weeks of earnings, roughly 2 months). And it would STILL be significantly less effort, and less costly than retraining the feat.


...doesn't have immediate benefits (none of the 1st level druid spells provides a substantial increase to quality of life bar MAYBE goodberry, but it's not an obvious effect that you can easily display to convince a commoner), and besides, the nature sphere just does a significantly better job in the process, and provides an instantaneous effect, meaning the food can be harvested and saved, vs goodberry that only lasts a day at best.


You've mentioned purify food and drink a couple of times like it's actually used in some way other than... purifying food and drink, so I'm not sure why you bring that up.


You mentioned a couple times about the inadequacy of food storage, and how sometimes for one reason or another, food spoils. Well, purify food and drink is literally a level 0 spell that can be done AT-WILL. That means that the entire crop of blighted, damaged, spoiled, food (stored or unstored) is now good for consumption, as you spend a mere hour casting the spell 600 times, cleansing 600 1-ft cubes of foodstuffs (be it wheat, corn, grain , etc).

Do you know another level 0 spell that the same now level 1 druid can prepare and thus cast AT-WILL (in addition to purify food and drink)? Create Water. Now your farmer no longer need concern himself with any drought, as he can spend a mere hour watering his crops with 600 castings of the spell, creating 1,200 gallons of water.

Are you really going to tell me that a commoner wouldn't see the merits of retraining into the druid class? And this is just spells, I have not even touched on the agricultural benefits of wild empathy as a farmer, which range from making your livestock actually fight for you, or work without needing to be pushed through whips.

[Felyndiira]

Since the rest are addressed already, I want to point out that this is absolutely not true:


c) because a level 1 vancian druid can't do nearly as well with plants as a commoner with basic magical training for the nature sphere, so the payoff is negligent

Let's break down the two individual points:


Saying "look at my magical companion" the farmer will just turn to his farmdog and say "yeah, my boy's pretty magical too, he's my best friend".
Here's an issue - in a world where becoming a level 1 druid is that easy, people will know that a 2HD animal companion that you can buff with Magic Fang performs differently than a basic farmdog. The farmer-druid would rightly point out that his dog took down two wolves last night, and he just healed off the dog's wounds.

Assuming it's a dog in the first place, because you are a druid - why not get a wolf to watch over your sheep instead? That's visually more effective than a common guard dog.


Then you say "Look, I can make some berries that will feed you as if they were a meal" and the commoner says "Yeah, but I got more than 1 mouth to feed", etc etc.
A single Goodberry casting feeds 2 people on average. A level 1 druid can cast it once a day, or twice a day with just 12 wisdom. That's a significant amount of food that you've just saved over a year given PHB food prices. Heck, why would you remain a farmer if you could just feed yourself on goodberries and retrain your farming profession to something that makes more money?

A family? No worries, your wife/husband is now a druid too, and your goodberries can now feed two kids. Have your wolves babysit them while both of you spend some time every now and then to plug and play different skills with retraining, futuristic style, until you find one that pays well enough.

A druid also offers such things as guidance and purify food and water, and is generally beneficial for the former farmer's survival overall. Of course I would pay the minuscule amounts to have a loyal and powerful wolf companion and never have to worry about feeding myself again, if I am a commoner with just 11 wisdom.

The retraining rules are supposed to be a convenience for PCs to use, not a commonality in the world. Feats are equalized as a convenience to the players, not "everyone can easily learn the Additional Traits feat to sudden be adopted by Aasimars and gain super lying powers". Otherwise, everyone would have PC levels and warriors won't exist anymore, the setting turns into a weird transhumanist tale, and you always converge to the Tippyverse. Suspension of disbelief on that level is necessary for Pathfinder to actually function, Spheres or not.

[Ssalarn]

I shouldn't have said that about you, so I'm sorry.


It's easy for people to talk past each other and escalate to taking offense when none was intended. As you say, the internet doesn't convey tone. I too apologize for my part in making this conversation less friendly.

[darkdragoon]

Likewise with spheres, the world evolves. Retraining rules exist, and all they really require is that you have a person capable of teaching available. If a person with the nature sphere offers to teach farmers how to grow their crops instantly with magic, utilizing the retraining rules available in pathfinder, so those commoners can replace their skill focus (profession(farmer)) feat into basic magical training (nature sphere), why wouldn't they jump at the opportunity? It's fine to say that "sure, a commoner won't necessarily have the skills to learn this on their own" but then you realise, that once one commoner has been taught how to do this, he can then use the retraining rules to teach ANOTHER commoner, and so-on etc etc.

Now normally you can't use the retraining rules to easily retrain a whole class level, so a commoner cannot be retrained into an incanter for example, but because spheres can be easily utilized via nothing but feats, it is possible to quite easily train commoners to be self-sufficient with "minor" magical ability, and then the knowledge is easily perpetuated, because that commoner can now easily train the next and so on. At this point, the only thing stopping it is the DM saying "no, I don't wanna."

Also, many world builders use "rules as physics" as their approach, which means that game systems very much equal game world.


The base 3.x world has a lot of weird assumptions, which have been satirized ad nauseam.

A Life Sphere healbot does not upset a verisimilitude that already handwaves level 1 wands capable of restoring several hundreds worth of HP.

[Morty]

I don't know how it works in practice, but I do appreciate the existence of the scholar class. D&D has always had a weird blind spot for skilful and smart characters who aren't thieves.

[digiman619]

Did you know that no spherecasting class can actually possess the Basic Magical Training feat? So unless your NPC comes across the rare PC who decided to dip into the system with feats only
While I agree with this entire post, I felt the need to nitpick that technically there is another source you could learn the Nature sphere from other than "PC who only dipped into SoP with feats". A gnome that traded out Fey Magic for Arcane Engineer (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/alternate-racial-traits#toc39) to take the Nature sphere. Assuming that they a) didn't trade it out for the Illusion or Creation spheres and 2) didn't take a speherecasting class.

Though if we really want to be nitpicky, even finding someone with the Basic Magical Training feat with the Nature sphere isn't enough. Nature has several packages and you only get the one you choose, so someone with the fire package would be useless for the "learn by feat" plan. Unless you find someone with the Basic Magical Training (Nature; plantlife package) feat, it's a no go. Unless you are want to argue that someone with Skill Focus(Knowledge: Arcana) can help you train into Skill Focus (Knowledge: Local)