SangoProduction
2020-10-09, 04:16 PM
I am back on the grind to rate every single talent, class, and drawback in Spheres of Power in excruciating detail. Today will be featuring the Fate sphere.
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
Mechanics
Consecrations: Create a small aura around you which has a [consecration] talent's effect. They generally can last either rounds or minutes per level if you spend a spell point rather than concentrate.
Words: Single Target, close range effects typically with minutes per level duration, or instantaneous effect. Some are curses and others are buffs.
Motifs: Single target, hour / level buffs, and costs 1 spell point. Give very minor/niche passive effects, but can be discharged for useful ones. You may only have one instance of a single motif at a time on any given target.
Arcana: Motifs, but you can also tack on an Arcana's discharge effect to any other motif you have for no additional cost. But the discharge uses up both the motif and arcana at the same time. It's more flexible, but not necessarily more powerful.
Serendipity(N-B): A +1 luck bonus to attacks, skills, ability checks, and saving throws. Not the worst thing ever, but hardly worth the action or spell point to maintain.
Hallow (<G>): For one minute / CL, select an alignment your character has, and gain a minor sacred/profane bonus to Attack, AC, and saves vs those of the opposite alignment, as well as immunity to mind control from them. Pretty much exclusively useful in campaigns where you know the alignments of your foes. But when you do, it's pretty decent.
Echoing Word (<G>): Get a few more affected per action, which is great if you're throwing around curses, and you are high enough level where you can benefit. If your DM rules that, for any given Word that normally costs a spell point to use, you still only need 1 spell point (plus 1 from Echoing Word) to echo it, then it's amazing past level 4.
Resounding Word (<G>): If you often use curses and use maps where you can't regularly get into close range with enemies, or that's dangerous, then here's your solution.
Greater Serendipity (B-G): Now gives your bonus as a penalty on enemies. That's significantly better, although probably still not worth the action, and duration is too short for a spell point, and such minor effects. Plus you've still got to spend this extra talent for it.
Instill Fate (<B-G>): Essentially lets you hand out potions of your spells to allies and let them use it, boosting your personal action economy at the cost of theirs. Minutes/level tends to be enough of a pre-buff that you don't really need this. But maybe.
Bound Consecration (B): It's neat. I don't think it is worth a talent though.
Pair of Myths (N): Apply 2 motifs at once to a target for a spell point. Saves action economy...on hour/level buffs... I simply don't see a situation where you would want to cast any of them in combat to begin with. It does enable metamagic...although pathfinder metamagic is meh at best, and useless at worst. And few apply to motifs.
Shrieking Strike (??): Lets you apply words through touch, as well as let you try to cast on hitting with a weapon. Considering for most words, you just declare it and it happens, I don't see a point to this. This is just adding a chance to do nothing in a turn. If words needed ranged touch attacks, then you could maybe justify it as letting you hold the charge if you miss.
Divine Force (<G-S>): If you know you're fighting a particular alignment, then it's a pretty easy and flexible, if slightly random, AoE debuff that's friendly. It doesn't create an aura though, and it merely uses the AoE of a consecration. No spell point cost.
Divine Pressure (<G>): If you know you're fighting a particular alignment, then you can choose from 3 nice debuffs to apply when they start their turn in your aura. It only lasts while they remain in their aura, but the aura lasts for minute / level. Although it does cost a spell point.
Undo Harm (G): You grant 5+CL effective fast healing (stacking with real fast healing) to everyone in the area...even enemies, unless you spend an action point. But with clever positioning, it's not a problem as it only happens at the beginning of the target's turns. But enemy positioning can make use of it on your people awkward. How it's worse than real fast healing is that it only works on damage taken last round, requiring its use in combat. But...you know...2 spell points for an aura that lasts a round / level isn't...too bad when it can be so much effective HP saved. Especially against AoE encounters. You could even just pop it for free if everyone just took a fireball unexpectedly.
Reveal Alignment (<B>): Reveals the alignment of everyone in the consecration to everyone else. Maybe useful in social intrigue plots, to expose an evil...oh, they hid their alignment, and now look unambiguously Good. Yeah. Maybe not.
Tug Fate (N): Spell point to affect a potential of 1 out of every 10 rolls. And you must either concentrate, or spend another spell point for just a 1 round/level duration. It's just too unreliable and too costly.
Consequences (N): Basically, you are bopping the raging berserker on the nose with a wet newspaper. It lasts for minutes/level, but it just does nothing, and there's no way to shield your allies from it. It makes for a neat thematic NPC spell though.
Stricture (C): Costs a spell point, but you could require everyone in the area to attack who you designate. The designated person is immune, but his buddies aren't. If you are isolated with another caster, you can force them to use their spell slots harmlessly. They have better will saves though.
Note: as a general rule, motif talents' passive effects are inconsequential, so I will only bring them up if they aren't. Also, this is the largest pool of just "Good" talents I've reviewed yet, in my estimation. Not a huge number of outliers, or even just plain boring/bad talents. At least, when taking the optimistic use of their situationality.
Fool (S): The passive is to take a penalty to saves, but roll twice on your saves. Beyond helping protect against bad rolls, even from level 1, this is a net positive on average, unless you needed greater than a 15 natural roll to succeed (in which case, you were probably screwed either way). The discharge lets you roll three times.
Wands (G-S): Half of Improved initiative that can be placed on the party, and lasts for hour/level, but it's discharge is fairly disappointing. Although benefiting from cover for a full round after charging face-first into the enemy is certain to cause confusion about where the hell the invisible wall that's blocking their attacks is coming from?
Strength (<G-S>): If you have a character in your party who can use CMB, they'll really thank you for it. I mean, it's basically an additional feat for the poor, poor martial types.
Tower (<G-S>): Unconditionally ignore some DR and hardness. Considering those are hard shut downs for natural attack builds, and substantially harms DPR of martials, and it's the passive ability, that's really nice. You can also just wreck weapons attacking you, if you discharge it... Because you want less loot, I guess.
Empress (G): Very minor boosts to your rolls as a passive. Then another big boost to one final roll with a discharge.
Cups (G): Discharge and roll a couple of d20s, and bank them for a minute per caster level. The small bonus to mental skills isn't bad either. As an arcana, the discharge can be tacked onto a motif.
Chariot (<G>): Discharge to ignore action prevention like Daze. If you see this sort of debuff often, then awesome. Else...well, it's obviously got no use.
Justice (G): Revenge, the motif. Discharge to redirect half the damage you would take to the enemy who caused the damage.
Emperor (<G>): Reduce penalties to certain rolls by a small amount, to a minimum of -1. This works optimally when you are doing self-debuffs (of at least-2) in exchange for some benefit, like ACP, power attack, dual wielding, barrage, etc, etc. So, if you've got someone doing that, or planning to do that, or willing to do that with a lower penalty, this can be good. The stacking would have to be pretty substantial to amount to a good effective bonus, but it's largely martial types who do this, so may as well help.
Hanged Man (G): Sacrifice one save to boost the other 2. In net, that is positive. But it's also very flexible in that you can effectively target your saves. Know your enemy is a dragon with fire and poison spells? Dump will and boost ref and fort. And the discharge effect negates the penalty (and bonus) and gives you a boost to the save in exchange for a small deal of hp. That's really nice.
Lovers (G): A bonus to saving throws based on allied adjacency. Awesome with npc companions who don't really "fight," like familiars and mounts. Also can discharge to transfer damage to a willing ally in range. Stacked with Justice, you can make it pretty hard to kill you with HP damage, but obviously transferring to an enemy is superior.
Moon (<G>): A bit too situational to pick as a talent, but nice to have as a scroll if you go into a situation knowing about mind-affecting nonsense.
Hermit (<G>): Place on anyone who doesn't have a use for their swift actions. Free AC, attack, or skill. That's not bad, unless you've got someone who really wanted to do an aid other build.
Devil (<G>): Once per round, free action approximate CR, as the passive. Genuinely kind of useful, if challenges aren't perfectly tailored to your party. The discharge is a minor, short-lived bonus to AC and attack.
Swords (<G>): Discharge to ignore concealment for a minute.
World (<G>): If you have someone who chronically takes 10, this is a neat, if small, buff. But it's this rating if you have an Alchemy sphere user on your team, as this does help them somewhat substantially.
Judgement (B-G): The sense motive passive is normally houseruled that way anyway, but swift action perception check is nice, if you are in the right campaign. Discharge to pinpoint invisible creatures is nice, but only until the end of your turn.
Pentacles (B-G): Discharge to attempt a d20 roll again. Arcana.
Sun (B-G): Advantage on all saves, no penalty...but only while below 50% hp. But discharge (while <50%) to succeed a save, and heal, and gain a hefty chunk of AC and saves for 1 round. Problem being is that 50% deal. It's not a situation you want to put yourself in, or stay in, to take advantage of it. So, probably not going to see a lot of use while active.
Hierophant (B): Discharge to transfer half the damage an ally takes to oneself. That has synergy with Undo Harm, but mostly it's just a way to save people from dying. Which is awesome, if your game is lethal enough. Most games are not, and Justice exists, which is this, but useful in more situations.
Magician (B): A generally useless passive, and a less than impressive discharge makes this very sad. You have more impressive motifs to pick from.
Star (B): Just don't provoke, 5head.
Temperance (N): Discharge to reroll just one save, and must take the second result. Literally just take the fool, and get that as a passive, but...better in literally every way.
The Wheel (N): Discharge for an average of +2 to roll per 10 levels. Or you could just get literally any other motif.
Enmity (S): Even on the average, you are staggering for 1 round, and then sickening for a minute. If you know you're fighting purely demons, and are lawful good, this probably jumps to Cheese category.
Align Object (<S>): Effectively get to apply alignment bane to a weapon. If you fight even remotely reliable enemy alignments, and you have martial types, this is a great word.
Villainy (<G-S>): Pats your paladin on the head and lets their smite affect anything you choose, and gives them an additional use every round against said target. Is it the best use of your time to concentrate on? Not on your life. Worth a spell point to make your paladin a bit less ****? Yeah. I mean, it's a paladin, give him a break.
Metaphysical Cloak (<G>): If you have an [opposite alignment] character in your group, but still want to use the AoE alignment-bane spells, then here you go. Make sure to tax him for it.
Exorcism (<G>): I like the thematics of this,letting you cleanse possessions and such, and then get the "demon" to tell you its name, and reason for possessing them - which is nice for plot hooks. It's -very- unlikely to come up, but maybe a scroll of it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Open/Close (<G>): Also known as the Knock spell, or the "Screw the rogue, I wanna do this!" spell. But if you don't have a rogue...go ahead. Probably better as a wand than an actual talent, but whatever.
Perfect (<G>): Intelligence is a great pick when you need skills, and they already have aid another going for them, (even better when you have an Alchemy sphere on your team), Wisdom's free action sense motives...are typically the house rule many go by, but the perception every round can be pretty amazing, and justify double rolls on perception checks (rather than literally rolling every 6 game seconds without cause), and Charisma is an intimidate build's wet dream. It's a bit costly for what it does though.
Freedom (B-G): Basically Freedom of Movement. But very, very short duration. And requires concentration, or yet another spell point. But FoM is pretty awesome. I do wish there was an advanced talent or feat that made its duration or cost more manageable.
Truth (B-G): Target cannot lie, but can explicitly say half-truths. The upside? You know if they make the save, and they know the effect of the spell.
Classify (<B-G>): In the most optimistic setting, where they comfortably speak a language you know, and it's something like a political intrigue campaign, then this is pretty good. In the vast majority of situations, this is going to be a waste of a talent and time.
Malice (B): Very minor ramping bonus that lasts as long as you concentrate or one minute per CL.
Bargain (B): Immediate action, spell point, delay HP-damaging attack / effect a couple rounds. Also delays any rider effects. Probably would have been better to take Justice motif and outright save them rather than this talent, merely delaying their death.
Borrow Trouble (B): Immediate action, spell point, force reroll a successful d20. But afterwards they gain +4 to same type of rolls until they succeed at one. That can be pretty well trivialized, letting you push through an important debuff, and then burn the buff with an intentionally easily minimized CL and DC effect that cost nothing. And causing a crit to miss is a bigger win than having their next attack definitely hit. Still nothing incredible, and is costly in both spell point and actions, but...it works.
Mercy (B): Will negates, spell point, target can't deal lethal damage for 1 round / CL. Terrible as an actual offensive curse. You may as well just save the spell point to heal. But as a way to allow your martials to deal nonlethal damage without penalty...it's definitely something. You could just spend this talent on a nonlethal destructive talent instead, and achieve basically the same outcome, without ever relying on spell points...unless you've just got something like an uber charger who simply keeps splatting people, without input from others. You could also just pay for him to have a +1 merciful sword, or something....instead of spending a talent and sp, and action on doing that.
Subvert Weapon (B): This could be funny. Probably mostly pointless, barring unusual circumstances like poison...or an uber charger who only has 2 modes: eating and one shotting everything.
Borrow Luck (N-B): Immediate action, spell point, reroll a failed d20. But then apply huge penalties until they fail again. And you still get the penalties even if the reroll fails. Could try and have them save against a cheap, harmless effect. But...just use The Fool motif.
Conjunction (N-B): Borrow luck, but rather than force you to fail later, your ally (or yourself) has chance of catching whatever disease the other caught. That's not social distancing!
Bless (N): Immediate action,spell point, target rolls a d20 with advantage, but must be used before they roll at all. That will get expensive ASAP. The Fool would better protect against nasty saves that you know just from having to roll that you never want to be affected.
Curse (N): Bless, but against enemies.
Axe You a Question (N): Insignificant damage and a short duration shaken, with save to negate, is a language-dependent fear effect. You just never get to actually use it, even if you wanted to. Which you wouldn't.
Pain (N): Literally just pick up a nonlethal blast from Destruction sphere. Take the drawbacks and you can even get it all fancy and stuff with one talent.
Harm (N--): Does about the same damage as a wet fart aimed in their general direction.
Ecumenicism (<S+>): Expands the range of potential enemies whom you can maximally affect with the alignment bane spells. Even better when your playing against both demons and devils, letting you be neutral good, and pivot to whichever side you need.
Endless Possibilities (G): A tiny bonus to a bunch of stuff, simply as a free side effect of a life sphere ability.
Sanctified Vigilance (G): Within your consecrations, you can rally. That's nice.
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
Mechanics
Consecrations: Create a small aura around you which has a [consecration] talent's effect. They generally can last either rounds or minutes per level if you spend a spell point rather than concentrate.
Words: Single Target, close range effects typically with minutes per level duration, or instantaneous effect. Some are curses and others are buffs.
Motifs: Single target, hour / level buffs, and costs 1 spell point. Give very minor/niche passive effects, but can be discharged for useful ones. You may only have one instance of a single motif at a time on any given target.
Arcana: Motifs, but you can also tack on an Arcana's discharge effect to any other motif you have for no additional cost. But the discharge uses up both the motif and arcana at the same time. It's more flexible, but not necessarily more powerful.
Serendipity(N-B): A +1 luck bonus to attacks, skills, ability checks, and saving throws. Not the worst thing ever, but hardly worth the action or spell point to maintain.
Hallow (<G>): For one minute / CL, select an alignment your character has, and gain a minor sacred/profane bonus to Attack, AC, and saves vs those of the opposite alignment, as well as immunity to mind control from them. Pretty much exclusively useful in campaigns where you know the alignments of your foes. But when you do, it's pretty decent.
Echoing Word (<G>): Get a few more affected per action, which is great if you're throwing around curses, and you are high enough level where you can benefit. If your DM rules that, for any given Word that normally costs a spell point to use, you still only need 1 spell point (plus 1 from Echoing Word) to echo it, then it's amazing past level 4.
Resounding Word (<G>): If you often use curses and use maps where you can't regularly get into close range with enemies, or that's dangerous, then here's your solution.
Greater Serendipity (B-G): Now gives your bonus as a penalty on enemies. That's significantly better, although probably still not worth the action, and duration is too short for a spell point, and such minor effects. Plus you've still got to spend this extra talent for it.
Instill Fate (<B-G>): Essentially lets you hand out potions of your spells to allies and let them use it, boosting your personal action economy at the cost of theirs. Minutes/level tends to be enough of a pre-buff that you don't really need this. But maybe.
Bound Consecration (B): It's neat. I don't think it is worth a talent though.
Pair of Myths (N): Apply 2 motifs at once to a target for a spell point. Saves action economy...on hour/level buffs... I simply don't see a situation where you would want to cast any of them in combat to begin with. It does enable metamagic...although pathfinder metamagic is meh at best, and useless at worst. And few apply to motifs.
Shrieking Strike (??): Lets you apply words through touch, as well as let you try to cast on hitting with a weapon. Considering for most words, you just declare it and it happens, I don't see a point to this. This is just adding a chance to do nothing in a turn. If words needed ranged touch attacks, then you could maybe justify it as letting you hold the charge if you miss.
Divine Force (<G-S>): If you know you're fighting a particular alignment, then it's a pretty easy and flexible, if slightly random, AoE debuff that's friendly. It doesn't create an aura though, and it merely uses the AoE of a consecration. No spell point cost.
Divine Pressure (<G>): If you know you're fighting a particular alignment, then you can choose from 3 nice debuffs to apply when they start their turn in your aura. It only lasts while they remain in their aura, but the aura lasts for minute / level. Although it does cost a spell point.
Undo Harm (G): You grant 5+CL effective fast healing (stacking with real fast healing) to everyone in the area...even enemies, unless you spend an action point. But with clever positioning, it's not a problem as it only happens at the beginning of the target's turns. But enemy positioning can make use of it on your people awkward. How it's worse than real fast healing is that it only works on damage taken last round, requiring its use in combat. But...you know...2 spell points for an aura that lasts a round / level isn't...too bad when it can be so much effective HP saved. Especially against AoE encounters. You could even just pop it for free if everyone just took a fireball unexpectedly.
Reveal Alignment (<B>): Reveals the alignment of everyone in the consecration to everyone else. Maybe useful in social intrigue plots, to expose an evil...oh, they hid their alignment, and now look unambiguously Good. Yeah. Maybe not.
Tug Fate (N): Spell point to affect a potential of 1 out of every 10 rolls. And you must either concentrate, or spend another spell point for just a 1 round/level duration. It's just too unreliable and too costly.
Consequences (N): Basically, you are bopping the raging berserker on the nose with a wet newspaper. It lasts for minutes/level, but it just does nothing, and there's no way to shield your allies from it. It makes for a neat thematic NPC spell though.
Stricture (C): Costs a spell point, but you could require everyone in the area to attack who you designate. The designated person is immune, but his buddies aren't. If you are isolated with another caster, you can force them to use their spell slots harmlessly. They have better will saves though.
Note: as a general rule, motif talents' passive effects are inconsequential, so I will only bring them up if they aren't. Also, this is the largest pool of just "Good" talents I've reviewed yet, in my estimation. Not a huge number of outliers, or even just plain boring/bad talents. At least, when taking the optimistic use of their situationality.
Fool (S): The passive is to take a penalty to saves, but roll twice on your saves. Beyond helping protect against bad rolls, even from level 1, this is a net positive on average, unless you needed greater than a 15 natural roll to succeed (in which case, you were probably screwed either way). The discharge lets you roll three times.
Wands (G-S): Half of Improved initiative that can be placed on the party, and lasts for hour/level, but it's discharge is fairly disappointing. Although benefiting from cover for a full round after charging face-first into the enemy is certain to cause confusion about where the hell the invisible wall that's blocking their attacks is coming from?
Strength (<G-S>): If you have a character in your party who can use CMB, they'll really thank you for it. I mean, it's basically an additional feat for the poor, poor martial types.
Tower (<G-S>): Unconditionally ignore some DR and hardness. Considering those are hard shut downs for natural attack builds, and substantially harms DPR of martials, and it's the passive ability, that's really nice. You can also just wreck weapons attacking you, if you discharge it... Because you want less loot, I guess.
Empress (G): Very minor boosts to your rolls as a passive. Then another big boost to one final roll with a discharge.
Cups (G): Discharge and roll a couple of d20s, and bank them for a minute per caster level. The small bonus to mental skills isn't bad either. As an arcana, the discharge can be tacked onto a motif.
Chariot (<G>): Discharge to ignore action prevention like Daze. If you see this sort of debuff often, then awesome. Else...well, it's obviously got no use.
Justice (G): Revenge, the motif. Discharge to redirect half the damage you would take to the enemy who caused the damage.
Emperor (<G>): Reduce penalties to certain rolls by a small amount, to a minimum of -1. This works optimally when you are doing self-debuffs (of at least-2) in exchange for some benefit, like ACP, power attack, dual wielding, barrage, etc, etc. So, if you've got someone doing that, or planning to do that, or willing to do that with a lower penalty, this can be good. The stacking would have to be pretty substantial to amount to a good effective bonus, but it's largely martial types who do this, so may as well help.
Hanged Man (G): Sacrifice one save to boost the other 2. In net, that is positive. But it's also very flexible in that you can effectively target your saves. Know your enemy is a dragon with fire and poison spells? Dump will and boost ref and fort. And the discharge effect negates the penalty (and bonus) and gives you a boost to the save in exchange for a small deal of hp. That's really nice.
Lovers (G): A bonus to saving throws based on allied adjacency. Awesome with npc companions who don't really "fight," like familiars and mounts. Also can discharge to transfer damage to a willing ally in range. Stacked with Justice, you can make it pretty hard to kill you with HP damage, but obviously transferring to an enemy is superior.
Moon (<G>): A bit too situational to pick as a talent, but nice to have as a scroll if you go into a situation knowing about mind-affecting nonsense.
Hermit (<G>): Place on anyone who doesn't have a use for their swift actions. Free AC, attack, or skill. That's not bad, unless you've got someone who really wanted to do an aid other build.
Devil (<G>): Once per round, free action approximate CR, as the passive. Genuinely kind of useful, if challenges aren't perfectly tailored to your party. The discharge is a minor, short-lived bonus to AC and attack.
Swords (<G>): Discharge to ignore concealment for a minute.
World (<G>): If you have someone who chronically takes 10, this is a neat, if small, buff. But it's this rating if you have an Alchemy sphere user on your team, as this does help them somewhat substantially.
Judgement (B-G): The sense motive passive is normally houseruled that way anyway, but swift action perception check is nice, if you are in the right campaign. Discharge to pinpoint invisible creatures is nice, but only until the end of your turn.
Pentacles (B-G): Discharge to attempt a d20 roll again. Arcana.
Sun (B-G): Advantage on all saves, no penalty...but only while below 50% hp. But discharge (while <50%) to succeed a save, and heal, and gain a hefty chunk of AC and saves for 1 round. Problem being is that 50% deal. It's not a situation you want to put yourself in, or stay in, to take advantage of it. So, probably not going to see a lot of use while active.
Hierophant (B): Discharge to transfer half the damage an ally takes to oneself. That has synergy with Undo Harm, but mostly it's just a way to save people from dying. Which is awesome, if your game is lethal enough. Most games are not, and Justice exists, which is this, but useful in more situations.
Magician (B): A generally useless passive, and a less than impressive discharge makes this very sad. You have more impressive motifs to pick from.
Star (B): Just don't provoke, 5head.
Temperance (N): Discharge to reroll just one save, and must take the second result. Literally just take the fool, and get that as a passive, but...better in literally every way.
The Wheel (N): Discharge for an average of +2 to roll per 10 levels. Or you could just get literally any other motif.
Enmity (S): Even on the average, you are staggering for 1 round, and then sickening for a minute. If you know you're fighting purely demons, and are lawful good, this probably jumps to Cheese category.
Align Object (<S>): Effectively get to apply alignment bane to a weapon. If you fight even remotely reliable enemy alignments, and you have martial types, this is a great word.
Villainy (<G-S>): Pats your paladin on the head and lets their smite affect anything you choose, and gives them an additional use every round against said target. Is it the best use of your time to concentrate on? Not on your life. Worth a spell point to make your paladin a bit less ****? Yeah. I mean, it's a paladin, give him a break.
Metaphysical Cloak (<G>): If you have an [opposite alignment] character in your group, but still want to use the AoE alignment-bane spells, then here you go. Make sure to tax him for it.
Exorcism (<G>): I like the thematics of this,letting you cleanse possessions and such, and then get the "demon" to tell you its name, and reason for possessing them - which is nice for plot hooks. It's -very- unlikely to come up, but maybe a scroll of it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Open/Close (<G>): Also known as the Knock spell, or the "Screw the rogue, I wanna do this!" spell. But if you don't have a rogue...go ahead. Probably better as a wand than an actual talent, but whatever.
Perfect (<G>): Intelligence is a great pick when you need skills, and they already have aid another going for them, (even better when you have an Alchemy sphere on your team), Wisdom's free action sense motives...are typically the house rule many go by, but the perception every round can be pretty amazing, and justify double rolls on perception checks (rather than literally rolling every 6 game seconds without cause), and Charisma is an intimidate build's wet dream. It's a bit costly for what it does though.
Freedom (B-G): Basically Freedom of Movement. But very, very short duration. And requires concentration, or yet another spell point. But FoM is pretty awesome. I do wish there was an advanced talent or feat that made its duration or cost more manageable.
Truth (B-G): Target cannot lie, but can explicitly say half-truths. The upside? You know if they make the save, and they know the effect of the spell.
Classify (<B-G>): In the most optimistic setting, where they comfortably speak a language you know, and it's something like a political intrigue campaign, then this is pretty good. In the vast majority of situations, this is going to be a waste of a talent and time.
Malice (B): Very minor ramping bonus that lasts as long as you concentrate or one minute per CL.
Bargain (B): Immediate action, spell point, delay HP-damaging attack / effect a couple rounds. Also delays any rider effects. Probably would have been better to take Justice motif and outright save them rather than this talent, merely delaying their death.
Borrow Trouble (B): Immediate action, spell point, force reroll a successful d20. But afterwards they gain +4 to same type of rolls until they succeed at one. That can be pretty well trivialized, letting you push through an important debuff, and then burn the buff with an intentionally easily minimized CL and DC effect that cost nothing. And causing a crit to miss is a bigger win than having their next attack definitely hit. Still nothing incredible, and is costly in both spell point and actions, but...it works.
Mercy (B): Will negates, spell point, target can't deal lethal damage for 1 round / CL. Terrible as an actual offensive curse. You may as well just save the spell point to heal. But as a way to allow your martials to deal nonlethal damage without penalty...it's definitely something. You could just spend this talent on a nonlethal destructive talent instead, and achieve basically the same outcome, without ever relying on spell points...unless you've just got something like an uber charger who simply keeps splatting people, without input from others. You could also just pay for him to have a +1 merciful sword, or something....instead of spending a talent and sp, and action on doing that.
Subvert Weapon (B): This could be funny. Probably mostly pointless, barring unusual circumstances like poison...or an uber charger who only has 2 modes: eating and one shotting everything.
Borrow Luck (N-B): Immediate action, spell point, reroll a failed d20. But then apply huge penalties until they fail again. And you still get the penalties even if the reroll fails. Could try and have them save against a cheap, harmless effect. But...just use The Fool motif.
Conjunction (N-B): Borrow luck, but rather than force you to fail later, your ally (or yourself) has chance of catching whatever disease the other caught. That's not social distancing!
Bless (N): Immediate action,spell point, target rolls a d20 with advantage, but must be used before they roll at all. That will get expensive ASAP. The Fool would better protect against nasty saves that you know just from having to roll that you never want to be affected.
Curse (N): Bless, but against enemies.
Axe You a Question (N): Insignificant damage and a short duration shaken, with save to negate, is a language-dependent fear effect. You just never get to actually use it, even if you wanted to. Which you wouldn't.
Pain (N): Literally just pick up a nonlethal blast from Destruction sphere. Take the drawbacks and you can even get it all fancy and stuff with one talent.
Harm (N--): Does about the same damage as a wet fart aimed in their general direction.
Ecumenicism (<S+>): Expands the range of potential enemies whom you can maximally affect with the alignment bane spells. Even better when your playing against both demons and devils, letting you be neutral good, and pivot to whichever side you need.
Endless Possibilities (G): A tiny bonus to a bunch of stuff, simply as a free side effect of a life sphere ability.
Sanctified Vigilance (G): Within your consecrations, you can rally. That's nice.