spheres of power character

[geekintheground]

hello playground!

i had this idea for a character, somewhere between WoW shaman and Last Airbender Avatar: you know a pure "master of the elements" type... so i looked at the weather and nature spheres. weather looks like fun, but nature... i guess it went over my head, i have no idea what direction to go with it.

so i have come to you, o mighty playground: what are some fun things to do with the nature sphere? (cheese of any variety allowed) are there any other spheres that might fit this concept? i have destruction as a back up offensive option.

[EldritchWeaver]

Nature suffers from talent bloat. USoP currently is overhauling Nature (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1exijIBTmS1e11QGAngcTwOO3XsQ668gpSiqTY7MbLyc/edit#) in that regard. Maybe the newer version helps?

[Lirya]

The entangle option from the plantlife package should work quite well. Add the grow plants talent and you can create the plants you need to entangle your opponent with as part of the same action you use to entangle them.

Similarly, the nauseating fog talent (requires water and plantlife packages) is pretty good. Combine with create water so you can create the fog anywhere.

Beyond that I would also suggest using playtest material for Ultimate Spheres of Power when it comes to the nature sphere.

[SangoProduction]

I tend to find that the nature sphere just generally is just a sphere that kinda fails in a lot of ways. It's got a lot of minor things to do. But that's just the thing. They are minor....unless you more heavily invest in one of the actions. But now, you also need an enabler so you won't be left without the talents you invested in. And now you have a really rather one-note character that really just does one thing, and can do some party tricks for the kids.

For just making a element-invoker, I'd go more along the lines of Telekinesis, Creation, and Conjuration route (with a bit of Destruction, if so desired), and just fluff it appropriately



As for the actual question of what to actually do with the nature sphere: There are a bunch of options. The simplest, and possibly most powerful, with the least investment possible: Trail Blaze, a fire talent. Guaranteed fatigue, possible exhaust. No duration, which means it is just regular fatigue, rather than a spell effect, meaning that a second cast always exhausts. Massive area too.

Compare that to Sap Conglutenation (part of the Tree-Pummel build), which only fatigue, doesn't stack, and can be removed....as a full round action, which is a terrible idea and no one should ever do that mid-combat to get rid of fatigue... but all the same.
However, the Pummel build also contains Spores, which lets your trees release spores...(magic, don't think about it)... and sicken for 1 to 6 rounds.
And you can also just do damage. Although, why would you, when there's the Destruction sphere?

Bury is cool, and combines nicely with Tremor...or at least, that's what's implied. Actually, you can hold your breath for multiple minutes. Some monsters can go hours or don't breathe at all. And it's worse than just casting Entangle, because although stuck in the ground, they are less entangled than being caught up in some vines.

Taking Earthlord (for the actual area of effect) and the expensive Melt Earth talent (2 spell points, woo)...actually does pretty decent damage, equivalent to spell pointed Destruction blast, but can happen multiple times while you concentrate, and then sticks to them for 1d3 rounds. Even worst-case scenario, that's 2 hits you get on them. So, that's actually fairly efficient, as far as raw damage to spell points goes. Of course, Destruction sphere actually allows you to modulate the damage, and grants crowd control...but still.
The Melt Earth method is also actually pretty low commitment as well, as far as nature sphere builds go, so long as enemies don't often fly. Although Earthlord does highly encourage just investing a lot more in to Earth talents, but that actually does make you slightly more well-rounded....as far as the Earth package goes

But, there's a bit of fun to be had taking Bury and Melt Earth together, if you also have the Easy Concentration boon, and actually bury them in your lava until they die. And what's better is that the longer they fail their check, the less likely they'll be able to make it in later rounds. (Obviously, you need to take Granulation so that you can make sand, unless you're specifically in a desert, but hey. That's just an extra 5 feet of radius to your effects.) Add in the Steam Geomancy feat (and the water package, sigh), and hilariously, your lava deals half cold damage.

Oxidation Ray lets you role play as a sunder build, without the feat investment, and still getting to keep the loot.

Freeze is also a surprisingly good part of the basic Water package. I mean, yes, it's pigeon pickings compared to Creation sphere, as far as quality of material (see my sig for a Deckard Cain build), but you can envelope a lot more people, at equal caster levels. Which also means more layers. And yes, the rest of the water package isn't worth a damn, and yes, it is a lot more confined to a specific role, compared to Creation sphere, but still!

Nauseating Fog, as someone else mentioned, is a very good disable.



For the remarkably bad uses:

There's also the also low (sphere talent) investment opportunity of Fire Wielder talent while also investing in to a butt ton of extra attacks. Of course, if you are actually able to optimize the number of attacks such that you beat Destruction sphere...you are probably going to get a book thrown at you for rolling 15 attack rolls. And they aren't touch attacks either.

If your game features guns, then taking Heat/Chill Metal makes them unusable. I mean...not sure you want to encourage people to start using wands over guns, but you do you boo.

.
Everything else is basically unremarkable. It's either so situational as to never truly be useful (unless you've got temporary talents which you can quickly swap in and out), or there are just plain better options.

[Serafina]

If you want a Master of the Elements, keep the Destruction Sphere in mind. There's a reason why the Elementalist (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/elementalist) class focusses on it - you can emulate a lot of what you want to do with an Avatar-style Elemental Bender, or a WoW-style Elemental Shaman using that Sphere.

90% of the attacks you see in AtLa? Those are Destruction-Blasts.
Just pick the right Blast Type for their element, and what they do to their target (knock down, entangle, etc.), and sometimes a Blast Shape for how they're used (as melee weapons, to form elemental walls, as various area effects, to shield against ranged weapons).

Sure, it can't do some utility-stuff, such as freezing water to form a bridge, or bend it to make you swim faster, create a underwater tunnel to ferry people across, or stuff like that. For that, you can try and use the Nature-Sphere - but that's secondary utility-stuff, and you shouldn't make that your main focus. It's really cool and stylish, yes - but probably defines you less than the flashy, offensive moves you can get from Destruction. Which sadly isn't helped by the less-focussed nature of the Nature-sphere.