SangoProduction
2020-11-19, 02:41 PM
Got done with mid terms, and just going to cool down with some light, non-competitive mental activity. Like giving unironic ratings to a joke sphere.
As a note, Bear sphere is basically a miss match of all of the spheres into one thematic sphere, rather than an effective sphere at any single thing. So the ratings are probably going to be relatively poor if you're looking to do anything in specific, other than just be a bear.
For the purposes of ratings, I'm just assuming you're going hard on the sphere, taking as many talents as you can without dipping out too much.
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.
(I) Impossible: Can't be rated because it is just not defined enough to give a meaningful rating - it depends too much on DM ruling, or personal use. I'll just place it where I guess the average result would put it.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
Mechanics
Bear Spirit: As a swift action, channel the bear spirit for 1 minute / CL, gaining / doubling the effects of the Endurance feat. No cost to doing this other than the swift action. So for most intents and purposes, talents reliant on Bear Spirit, but don't cost spell points can be constantly active.
Bearacteristics: These talents can be activated while channeling the bear spirit. Non-instantaneous effects tend to simply last until the end of the current bear spirit.
Bear Strength(B): Gain + 1/2 CL to attack and damage. To a single attack for a spell point. Poor cost effectiveness.
Bear With Me (S): For a spell point, you can essentially give someone else all of the effects of basically all of your talents. That is kind of absurd.
Bear Form (G-S): Spell point to polymorph into a bear, with a bite and 2 claw attacks, some natural armor, and other minor benefits as you go through. Less effective than a true Alteration sphere polymorph, and less flexible. In fact, for the same 1 talent cost, you could take Alteration sphere, with the drawback so you can only shapeshift to the Animalistic Form, and you'd get more out of it, assuming the same caster level with both. But some Bear Sphere talents scale on based on the Bear sphere talents you take. Like Bear With Me or Bears Love Honey.
Hibernation (<G>): If you get your GM to also let you attempt to cure magical diseases and poisons as well, then this is cool. Not as good as a life sphere specialist...or even a dipper. But it's cool.
Bear Smell (B-G): Gain scent ability, or double range when already having the scent ability. Scent isn't overly great, but it is basically a constant effect.
Bear Speed (B-G): Essentially constant speed buff. Speed is bearly a good state, and this definitely takes its time to scale up...but it is something.
Bear Arms (S): Replace up to 2 hands (and presumably front paws) with bear heads which gain scaling (admittedly slowly) damage. No spell point cost, unless you want them to last for the entire Bear Spirit duration, so you can always have this as an option. Also, it is bloody horrifying.
Bearer of Bad News (S): As a Standard action for a spell point, force all targets within 30 ft to save or be confused for 2-5 rounds. Holy hell, that's a devastating disable that screws over entire groups of enemies.
Unbearable Rawr (<S>): This just straight up replaces a typical highly-rated feat in an intimidate build, while also escalating fear and opening the door to spending a spell point to improve the check by half caster level. Is it, alone, better than Gladiator sphere? Perhaps not, but it can work with it.
Beary Hairy (G-S): +1 Natural Armor and +2 Fire and Cold resistance, essentially permanently is impressive. You unfortunately do need to keep investing talents to scale it, but it's honestly not a bad choice.
Angry Bear (G-S): Rage for CL rounds as a free action for just a spell point. That's remarkably efficient. Especially if you get the Unchained rage version for temp hp rather than con.
Bears Love Honey (G-S): Grants talent-scaling healing, rather than Life sphere's CL-scaling healing...except you can scale Life sphere with talents. But here you are just getting the added healing as a side effect of another talent, rather than being the point of said talent.
Fursome Aura (G): Fear aura of 30 ft to make targets shaken while they remain in the area. Making the save grants immunity, and moving out removes the effect, but it's just a free debuff, which doesn't even take an action.
Grin and Bear It (G): If someone gives you something like The Fool motif from Fate sphere, this is a pretty big guarantee of not failing saves. Else, in the default case, it's really cost ineffective. But it does help when you really absolutely must not fail your save.
Bearbaque (G): Basically the Nature sphere's elemental breath, but exclusively for fire. It's similarly got a cool down, but it can be refreshed for a spell point. Destruction sphere is almost always better. Granted, if you really want a fire-breathing bear, exchanging the spell point cost of Destruction's Sculpt Blast for a CD isn't the most absolutely horrible trade you could make. You just lose a lot of flexibility out of the choice.
Slumbear (G): Put a target to sleep for one minute, unless they take damage or woken up, or makes a will save. For a spell point. The healing is there just to lightly reduce the power of such a disable. If you wanted healing, you'd use Bears Love Honey. Or the life sphere.
Teddy Bear (B-G): Allows allies can spend standard actions to reroll will saving throws. It's neat, and doesn't cost you anything, and depending on the effect, may be the best use of their standard action.
Bear Scary (B-G): Ferocity isn't exactly a great ability.
Think Think Think (B-G): You normally don't get to reroll knowledge checks. But...10 minutes and a spell point... Eh. And a talent, yes. But point remains.
Ursine Blow (B): If it didn't require using Bear Strength (which itself takes a spell point) to even have a chance to use this...it'd still be pretty underwhelming, but prone is prone...on a single target for a spell point.
Grizzly Attitude (<B>): This is a dip talent for a face character. It's not a great talent and it's narrow, but it's acceptable. But face characters tend to not prefer intimidate for the long term consequences, and how easy diplomacy can be done.
Smarter than the Average Bear (B): Horrid cost effectiveness here. Absolutely remarkably bad. But hey, it's...uh... +3.5 on average to any skill check.
Bear Necessities (N-B): No cost, but it offers pathetic boosts to a narrow use of survival skill, which is already not difficult.
Paws and Reflect (N): Probably the funniest ability here. I mean, it's pretty bad...like...terribly bad. They have to miss you, and then you spend an action and spell point to attempt a check to force them to attempt to attack themselves. That's three degrees of failure, with a spell point cost, and maybe granting one mundane attack's worth of damage. But it's funny, so I'm boosting its rating to N.
A Step Too Fur (N): Very limited area of difficult terrain for 1 round....for a spell point. That's remarkably bad.
Ha ha.
As a note, Bear sphere is basically a miss match of all of the spheres into one thematic sphere, rather than an effective sphere at any single thing. So the ratings are probably going to be relatively poor if you're looking to do anything in specific, other than just be a bear.
For the purposes of ratings, I'm just assuming you're going hard on the sphere, taking as many talents as you can without dipping out too much.
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.
(I) Impossible: Can't be rated because it is just not defined enough to give a meaningful rating - it depends too much on DM ruling, or personal use. I'll just place it where I guess the average result would put it.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
Mechanics
Bear Spirit: As a swift action, channel the bear spirit for 1 minute / CL, gaining / doubling the effects of the Endurance feat. No cost to doing this other than the swift action. So for most intents and purposes, talents reliant on Bear Spirit, but don't cost spell points can be constantly active.
Bearacteristics: These talents can be activated while channeling the bear spirit. Non-instantaneous effects tend to simply last until the end of the current bear spirit.
Bear Strength(B): Gain + 1/2 CL to attack and damage. To a single attack for a spell point. Poor cost effectiveness.
Bear With Me (S): For a spell point, you can essentially give someone else all of the effects of basically all of your talents. That is kind of absurd.
Bear Form (G-S): Spell point to polymorph into a bear, with a bite and 2 claw attacks, some natural armor, and other minor benefits as you go through. Less effective than a true Alteration sphere polymorph, and less flexible. In fact, for the same 1 talent cost, you could take Alteration sphere, with the drawback so you can only shapeshift to the Animalistic Form, and you'd get more out of it, assuming the same caster level with both. But some Bear Sphere talents scale on based on the Bear sphere talents you take. Like Bear With Me or Bears Love Honey.
Hibernation (<G>): If you get your GM to also let you attempt to cure magical diseases and poisons as well, then this is cool. Not as good as a life sphere specialist...or even a dipper. But it's cool.
Bear Smell (B-G): Gain scent ability, or double range when already having the scent ability. Scent isn't overly great, but it is basically a constant effect.
Bear Speed (B-G): Essentially constant speed buff. Speed is bearly a good state, and this definitely takes its time to scale up...but it is something.
Bear Arms (S): Replace up to 2 hands (and presumably front paws) with bear heads which gain scaling (admittedly slowly) damage. No spell point cost, unless you want them to last for the entire Bear Spirit duration, so you can always have this as an option. Also, it is bloody horrifying.
Bearer of Bad News (S): As a Standard action for a spell point, force all targets within 30 ft to save or be confused for 2-5 rounds. Holy hell, that's a devastating disable that screws over entire groups of enemies.
Unbearable Rawr (<S>): This just straight up replaces a typical highly-rated feat in an intimidate build, while also escalating fear and opening the door to spending a spell point to improve the check by half caster level. Is it, alone, better than Gladiator sphere? Perhaps not, but it can work with it.
Beary Hairy (G-S): +1 Natural Armor and +2 Fire and Cold resistance, essentially permanently is impressive. You unfortunately do need to keep investing talents to scale it, but it's honestly not a bad choice.
Angry Bear (G-S): Rage for CL rounds as a free action for just a spell point. That's remarkably efficient. Especially if you get the Unchained rage version for temp hp rather than con.
Bears Love Honey (G-S): Grants talent-scaling healing, rather than Life sphere's CL-scaling healing...except you can scale Life sphere with talents. But here you are just getting the added healing as a side effect of another talent, rather than being the point of said talent.
Fursome Aura (G): Fear aura of 30 ft to make targets shaken while they remain in the area. Making the save grants immunity, and moving out removes the effect, but it's just a free debuff, which doesn't even take an action.
Grin and Bear It (G): If someone gives you something like The Fool motif from Fate sphere, this is a pretty big guarantee of not failing saves. Else, in the default case, it's really cost ineffective. But it does help when you really absolutely must not fail your save.
Bearbaque (G): Basically the Nature sphere's elemental breath, but exclusively for fire. It's similarly got a cool down, but it can be refreshed for a spell point. Destruction sphere is almost always better. Granted, if you really want a fire-breathing bear, exchanging the spell point cost of Destruction's Sculpt Blast for a CD isn't the most absolutely horrible trade you could make. You just lose a lot of flexibility out of the choice.
Slumbear (G): Put a target to sleep for one minute, unless they take damage or woken up, or makes a will save. For a spell point. The healing is there just to lightly reduce the power of such a disable. If you wanted healing, you'd use Bears Love Honey. Or the life sphere.
Teddy Bear (B-G): Allows allies can spend standard actions to reroll will saving throws. It's neat, and doesn't cost you anything, and depending on the effect, may be the best use of their standard action.
Bear Scary (B-G): Ferocity isn't exactly a great ability.
Think Think Think (B-G): You normally don't get to reroll knowledge checks. But...10 minutes and a spell point... Eh. And a talent, yes. But point remains.
Ursine Blow (B): If it didn't require using Bear Strength (which itself takes a spell point) to even have a chance to use this...it'd still be pretty underwhelming, but prone is prone...on a single target for a spell point.
Grizzly Attitude (<B>): This is a dip talent for a face character. It's not a great talent and it's narrow, but it's acceptable. But face characters tend to not prefer intimidate for the long term consequences, and how easy diplomacy can be done.
Smarter than the Average Bear (B): Horrid cost effectiveness here. Absolutely remarkably bad. But hey, it's...uh... +3.5 on average to any skill check.
Bear Necessities (N-B): No cost, but it offers pathetic boosts to a narrow use of survival skill, which is already not difficult.
Paws and Reflect (N): Probably the funniest ability here. I mean, it's pretty bad...like...terribly bad. They have to miss you, and then you spend an action and spell point to attempt a check to force them to attempt to attack themselves. That's three degrees of failure, with a spell point cost, and maybe granting one mundane attack's worth of damage. But it's funny, so I'm boosting its rating to N.
A Step Too Fur (N): Very limited area of difficult terrain for 1 round....for a spell point. That's remarkably bad.
Ha ha.