Spheres of Power/ Treasures of the Spheres. Fabled Item Help. (PF)

[RegalKain]

Greetings, and a 1d6 of salutations.

So, I'm finally (After multiple years now) able to be a character in a game, and our DM expressed interest (We are heavily using the Spheres of Power/Might stuff.) in adding in Fabled items from the Title book. The problem, is the book itself and the website, give...a lackluster amount of information on building them. (Rather my DM didn't understand it, and frankly, I haven't looked into item creation in Spheres at all, so neither did I understand really the "limit" ) Is there a resource somewhere, either on this website (I generally trust GITP) or official that I can buy a PDF of that gives me a better break down (Mechanically) of making Fabled Items.


Alternatively- Does anyone have a good homebrew they've found on GITP, of a good FAbled Item/Legacy Item system, that would fit into Pathfinder fairly well. Thanks ahead of time, greatly appreciate any help, as I'd rather not have to build the entire system myself (A bit defeats the purpose of not having to DM for a change honestly.)

[Rednal]

Hello! Author of Treasures of the Spheres, here - if anyone has answers about stuff in that book, it's probably me.

So, Fabled Items are essentially scaling items that get more powerful as you go up in level. Having a thorough grounding in Spheres' crafting rules will help, because that's what Fabled Items are based on. As you get higher in level, they can develop new powers - this is basically just combining items, as you can already do with the normal crafting rules.

The guidelines are a little bit loose in order to allow flexibility within the system. Items like these should be made to follow a story, and if the limits are too tight, they won't be able to fit that purpose.

The best way to build them is to create each of their components separately. Let's go ahead and make a sample item to see how it works.

One of the players in our hypothetical game is very new to Pathfinder, and they really want to do well at social and diplomacy things. Unfortunately, they built a Fighter and dumped their Charisma because they're not very familiar with the game and didn't realize how much that would hurt them when they started trying to persuade people to do stuff. After some thought, the GM decides to give them an item that will boost their social skills throughout the game, transforming their growing reputation as a warrior into social power.

With this basis, the GM creates the physical design of the item (a stylish half-mask) and sets the Focuses of the item, which are essentially limits on who can use the thing. They decide that the item has the Chosen focus (because the character has been chosen by their deity), the Classy focus (the user must have a level in Fighter), and the Trained focus (they need to put ranks in Diplomacy to be able to use it). Out of character, the GM picked these just to make it really hard for anyone else to use the item because they didn't want anyone else in the party abusing its effects. They've already decided this will be a Relic item, with no level limit on its effects. (If it were a Curio or an Heirloom, it would stop growing in power at the levels explained in the rules for Fabled Items.)

Next, it's time for the GM to create the powers. Ordinarily, a Fabled Item will start with the effects of a marvelous item - that is, a magical effect usable X number of times per day, sort of like a reusable wand. However, the GM decides they don't actually want to do that for this simple sample item.

Instead, they give the item the effect of a charm (the items in Spheres that increase stats and other numbers). Looking at the Forge Charm feat to see how those work, they see that a charm can give a skill bonus at every level, so they apply that to the item as its basic effect. It now grants the wearer a competence bonus to Intimidate skill checks equal to their level. Since the character is Level 2 after a few sessions, this is a fearsome +2 bonus to Intimidate rolls.

At 5th level, the item unlocks a second type of power. The GM decides to give it the same effect as before, but this time it gives a boost to Diplomacy skill checks. The item offers both effects at the same time, so the Fighter character has a +5 bonus to both Diplomacy and Intimidate checks when they hit Level 5. The same thing happens again at 10th level for the third and final ability of the item, where the GM decides it grants a bonus to Bluff checks.

At this point, the item is basically done. All that's left is to give it a name and a little backstory. The item has the shape and effects for each level, and that's really all there is to creating it. You can even apply unique effects instead of using the normal crafting guidelines for Spheres of Power, although that may be best left to GMs who are experienced with crafting. You can change these effects to other types of bonuses, too. For example, maybe it starts as a belt that gives a +2 bonus to Strength checks, and ends up granting a +6 to all physical stats by the time it's done developing. Really, the easiest way to think of Fabled Items is a couple of other items put together, and which reach their full power as the user goes up in level.

Ultimately, Fabled Items allow you to mix and match effects to create a unique scaling item that provides both stronger powers and new powers as a character levels up. The samples in Treasures of the Spheres, and on the Spheres of Power Wiki, are meant as references so you can see what the item should look like when it's done.

I hope this explanation has helped you understand Fabled Items a little better. If you have further questions, I'm most active on the official Drop Dead Studios Discord server (link on the SoP Wiki), and you can ping me there for a quicker answer to any questions about my books.

[RegalKain]

That does help quite a lot actually, and I can certainly appreciate wanting to keep it open-ended. As a player (And a DM for base 3.5 for around a decade now.) I must say, I think having an example item (Or two) that is broken down to show how it's made, would go along way in making the system far more clear and concise. That said, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to respond and help me understand, I think I can work with that example and build on it with my own DM, and make a system for our table, so that build-a-bear (Item in this case) is a bit more straight forward, for those who are not inclined to learn the entire crafting system.

Thanks again, also thanks so much for writing the book, having Spheres equivalent feats has helped a ton with game cohesion. I'm off to deep-dive and learn the Spheres crafting system now. :)

[Rednal]

I'll see if I can throw together a little step-by-step process on the Spheres of Power Wiki. Treasures of the Spheres was already really long, so I was out of room for things like that, but the Wiki doesn't have any such constraints. ^^