SangoProduction
2021-02-05, 10:57 PM
Do I have better things to do with my time? Yes. Do I want to do them? No.
They bore me half to death.
Post-Review Analysis: A cool sphere. Trades Destruction sphere's damage for more persistent penalties. Not positive it's always a great trade.
Full or Partial Caster: Full Caster. All the way. Some of these talents basically can't even pretend to be useful without several caster levels under their belt. The duration on the sphere tends to suck, and be heavily tied to CL.
Flex Talents: Taint Soul cuts healing recieved by your ghost strike target. Command Undead grants control over undead. Spectral Distortion turns the incoporeal corporeal.
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: These make useful additions to the right builds.
(M) Meh: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
- Special Ratings:
(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.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
Base Sphere
Ghost Strike: Make a melee touch or ranged touch attack out to medium range. It is a negative energy, death effect, with no effect on undead, constructs, or other creatures immune to such things. Ghost Strikes do not Stack with themselves, and are subject to spell resistance.
The effect that your Ghost Strike has depends on the (Ghost Strike) you use.
Exhausting Strike (M-G): A (Ghost Strike) which causes fatigue for 1 round / CL (fort negate). For a spell point, it instead exhausts for 1 minute / CL, and on save it's fatigued for 1 round.
These are both relatively useful effects. And the spell point version tries its hardest to make itself valuable. And a -3 to hit and AC on failed save is pretty good. But when you can do more than just that, ...eh.
Reanimate (I): Minionmancy. Short term minionmancy, by default. Capped at 2x your CL in summoned HD. Again, by default.
I generally don't allow nor get allowed any mob-y minionmancy. The occasional powerful summon, maybe. But... So I just don't have the experience with this to offer it a fair rating.
Mass Death Magic (S): This is a huge bloody cone out to close range for your ghost strikes. Save for being out of position, or caring about hitting allies, there is rarely a time where you can't hit all your enemies at once. Oh, and very cheap mass reanimate is useful.
Icy Grip (G): A lot of benefits. You can have your minions make the touch attack in place of you - multiple times if they fail and still have attacks - and with a spell point, you can effectively turn the Ghost Strike into a <Mass> Ghost Strike. Or absolutely guarantee your target catches your Strike. So, even with a slight bit of investment on reanimation, this becomes really quite good. So it's very flexible.
Killing Curse (I): This creates a "separate track problem"...where in you kill things in a manner completely unrelated to whatever your party is doing. Which is kinda... Not good. Not if you don't want your team mates to feel like they're helping. This is a really quite nice talent, ignoring that problem.
Corpse Bomb (M): Sacrifice a minion to grant your ghost strike AoE. But that minion cost you a spell point (without additional investment), and needed to survive getting into position. If you have partial focus on reanimation, then you can be more efficient, but I generally don't like this.
Cryptic Strike (M): You sacrifice your touch attack to enable you to make this a rider to a real attack. Eh? Sure, I guess. Doesn't really matter. But you've got medium range by default, so you don't really get the side benefit of also being a range upgrade.
Haunting Apparition (N): No.
Curse (S+): Sure, it may cost 2, and has no free options, but just on baseline, it's got an unnamed Sickened+ effect. That alone is worth it. And it's got a pseduo-confusion, baseline. And it's permanent. And it's got so damned much flexibility in one talent.
Spectral Distortion (<S>): Are you consistently facing incorporeal creatures? Well, with this, you'll have no reason to be 'fraid of no ghost!
Command Undead (<G-S>): You running an undead campaign, and want to do something other than kill it? Here's your man. Might want to be a charisma caster. The uh... implications though... Don't be a bard.
Sickening (G): Sickened is the golden standard debuff. Applies to everything at a reasonable level. Can spend an SP for nauseated which is pretty great. Rounds per level isn't impressive duration.
Bleeding Wounds (G): Even aside from doing Blood and Duelist spheres better than they can do themselves, this is just solid, persistent damage. Assuming they aren't healed, they take more than the average damage of Destruction sphere by your next round. Not bad. No disabling rider effect though, so even by your next round, it's 0.5 damage behind the average damage of a d8 blast type. That is very comparable. But the d8 blast types kinda suck. But this can keep going.
Inflict Disease (G): I have an entire post about this (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?569404-I-can-t-decide-which-disease-is-the-best-to-use).
Manipulate Undeath (<M-G>): You want to kill undead? And specifically undead? You don't want to look at the nasty Destruction sphere, which can do the same thing, but with more damage, and disables? Do you also want to heal your undead? OK, you are very specific in your needs.
Fowl Infestation (<M>, F): If you're fighting archers, or casters will spell components, then this is a cool curse. It's obviously meant to be a usable parody, and it's kind of funny. Really cruel.
Bonerattle (M): Really nothing spectacular. No real damage. Basically forced 5 ft steps. Meh.
Lich Strike (N-M): Powerful effect, but given an impossibly short duration, 2 spell point cost, and a chance to break out each round. Compare that to Curse....or don't. Curse is probably a bit busted.
Drain (N-M): A single negative level means very little. And it costs a spell point. Eh. What do I care?
Weakening (N-M): This has value at high levels. But generally, exhausted is going to be much better than this. And you get that as part of the package.
Poltergeist (N-M): If you're running out of things to inflict them with, maybe just blast them?
Vampiric Strike(N): Spell point for same damage as free Destruction sphere, and you get a bit of temporary hit points.
Hunger (N): Nonlethal starvation damage that can't be stacked, and has no cantrip form.
Necrotic Feeding (N-, F): Huh. No.
Dispatch The Weak (G-S): Suddenly makes your base sphere much more useful, if you use Ghost Strike a lot.
Anemic Wounds (<G-S>): If you rely on your bleeding to do your damage, and enemy healing is reasonably common, then this makes your life so much simpler.
Plague Lord (G): Oh boy. Yeah, it's not kidding on the plague lord stuff.
Flexible Ghost Strike (G): I mean... not many shapes that better enough compared a close-range cone to be worth going out of your way for. But it's a means of flexibility if you've already got a bunch of investment in Destruction sphere.
Swift Demise (M): I mean... this is the equivalent of 2 Range talents for those 2 Time sphere uses. But range was one of the lesser worries.
Crimson Theurgy (N-M): Blood sphere just kinda sucks.
Undead Animal Companion (N-M, F): Not positive what actual benefit you get out of this is.
Lifebound Auspician (N): Serendipity kinda sucks... This doesn't really add anything to it...
Necrosis Feats (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?614879-The-best-Necrosis-feats)
They bore me half to death.
Post-Review Analysis: A cool sphere. Trades Destruction sphere's damage for more persistent penalties. Not positive it's always a great trade.
Full or Partial Caster: Full Caster. All the way. Some of these talents basically can't even pretend to be useful without several caster levels under their belt. The duration on the sphere tends to suck, and be heavily tied to CL.
Flex Talents: Taint Soul cuts healing recieved by your ghost strike target. Command Undead grants control over undead. Spectral Distortion turns the incoporeal corporeal.
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: These make useful additions to the right builds.
(M) Meh: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
- Special Ratings:
(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.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
Base Sphere
Ghost Strike: Make a melee touch or ranged touch attack out to medium range. It is a negative energy, death effect, with no effect on undead, constructs, or other creatures immune to such things. Ghost Strikes do not Stack with themselves, and are subject to spell resistance.
The effect that your Ghost Strike has depends on the (Ghost Strike) you use.
Exhausting Strike (M-G): A (Ghost Strike) which causes fatigue for 1 round / CL (fort negate). For a spell point, it instead exhausts for 1 minute / CL, and on save it's fatigued for 1 round.
These are both relatively useful effects. And the spell point version tries its hardest to make itself valuable. And a -3 to hit and AC on failed save is pretty good. But when you can do more than just that, ...eh.
Reanimate (I): Minionmancy. Short term minionmancy, by default. Capped at 2x your CL in summoned HD. Again, by default.
I generally don't allow nor get allowed any mob-y minionmancy. The occasional powerful summon, maybe. But... So I just don't have the experience with this to offer it a fair rating.
Mass Death Magic (S): This is a huge bloody cone out to close range for your ghost strikes. Save for being out of position, or caring about hitting allies, there is rarely a time where you can't hit all your enemies at once. Oh, and very cheap mass reanimate is useful.
Icy Grip (G): A lot of benefits. You can have your minions make the touch attack in place of you - multiple times if they fail and still have attacks - and with a spell point, you can effectively turn the Ghost Strike into a <Mass> Ghost Strike. Or absolutely guarantee your target catches your Strike. So, even with a slight bit of investment on reanimation, this becomes really quite good. So it's very flexible.
Killing Curse (I): This creates a "separate track problem"...where in you kill things in a manner completely unrelated to whatever your party is doing. Which is kinda... Not good. Not if you don't want your team mates to feel like they're helping. This is a really quite nice talent, ignoring that problem.
Corpse Bomb (M): Sacrifice a minion to grant your ghost strike AoE. But that minion cost you a spell point (without additional investment), and needed to survive getting into position. If you have partial focus on reanimation, then you can be more efficient, but I generally don't like this.
Cryptic Strike (M): You sacrifice your touch attack to enable you to make this a rider to a real attack. Eh? Sure, I guess. Doesn't really matter. But you've got medium range by default, so you don't really get the side benefit of also being a range upgrade.
Haunting Apparition (N): No.
Curse (S+): Sure, it may cost 2, and has no free options, but just on baseline, it's got an unnamed Sickened+ effect. That alone is worth it. And it's got a pseduo-confusion, baseline. And it's permanent. And it's got so damned much flexibility in one talent.
Spectral Distortion (<S>): Are you consistently facing incorporeal creatures? Well, with this, you'll have no reason to be 'fraid of no ghost!
Command Undead (<G-S>): You running an undead campaign, and want to do something other than kill it? Here's your man. Might want to be a charisma caster. The uh... implications though... Don't be a bard.
Sickening (G): Sickened is the golden standard debuff. Applies to everything at a reasonable level. Can spend an SP for nauseated which is pretty great. Rounds per level isn't impressive duration.
Bleeding Wounds (G): Even aside from doing Blood and Duelist spheres better than they can do themselves, this is just solid, persistent damage. Assuming they aren't healed, they take more than the average damage of Destruction sphere by your next round. Not bad. No disabling rider effect though, so even by your next round, it's 0.5 damage behind the average damage of a d8 blast type. That is very comparable. But the d8 blast types kinda suck. But this can keep going.
Inflict Disease (G): I have an entire post about this (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?569404-I-can-t-decide-which-disease-is-the-best-to-use).
Manipulate Undeath (<M-G>): You want to kill undead? And specifically undead? You don't want to look at the nasty Destruction sphere, which can do the same thing, but with more damage, and disables? Do you also want to heal your undead? OK, you are very specific in your needs.
Fowl Infestation (<M>, F): If you're fighting archers, or casters will spell components, then this is a cool curse. It's obviously meant to be a usable parody, and it's kind of funny. Really cruel.
Bonerattle (M): Really nothing spectacular. No real damage. Basically forced 5 ft steps. Meh.
Lich Strike (N-M): Powerful effect, but given an impossibly short duration, 2 spell point cost, and a chance to break out each round. Compare that to Curse....or don't. Curse is probably a bit busted.
Drain (N-M): A single negative level means very little. And it costs a spell point. Eh. What do I care?
Weakening (N-M): This has value at high levels. But generally, exhausted is going to be much better than this. And you get that as part of the package.
Poltergeist (N-M): If you're running out of things to inflict them with, maybe just blast them?
Vampiric Strike(N): Spell point for same damage as free Destruction sphere, and you get a bit of temporary hit points.
Hunger (N): Nonlethal starvation damage that can't be stacked, and has no cantrip form.
Necrotic Feeding (N-, F): Huh. No.
Dispatch The Weak (G-S): Suddenly makes your base sphere much more useful, if you use Ghost Strike a lot.
Anemic Wounds (<G-S>): If you rely on your bleeding to do your damage, and enemy healing is reasonably common, then this makes your life so much simpler.
Plague Lord (G): Oh boy. Yeah, it's not kidding on the plague lord stuff.
Flexible Ghost Strike (G): I mean... not many shapes that better enough compared a close-range cone to be worth going out of your way for. But it's a means of flexibility if you've already got a bunch of investment in Destruction sphere.
Swift Demise (M): I mean... this is the equivalent of 2 Range talents for those 2 Time sphere uses. But range was one of the lesser worries.
Crimson Theurgy (N-M): Blood sphere just kinda sucks.
Undead Animal Companion (N-M, F): Not positive what actual benefit you get out of this is.
Lifebound Auspician (N): Serendipity kinda sucks... This doesn't really add anything to it...
Necrosis Feats (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?614879-The-best-Necrosis-feats)