SangoProduction
2021-02-22, 11:10 PM
Can you believe someone actually reviewed Eliciter without reviewing the Mind sphere? Yeah, me neither.
Mental manipulation is truly one of the more horrifying, or at least potentially horrifying, of the possible power sets. Even mundane manipulation is rarely seen in a kind light. I'm mostly going to ignore any horrifying implications.
Post-Review Analysis: Well. Damn. Aside from the redundant talents, this is one kick-ass sphere. The cloud talents in particular... I kinda dismissed them before now. I am dumb-founded by how the hell they found themselves in the game.
Full or Partial Caster: Full caster, 110%. In fact, you should be more than full caster. Everything relies on will saves, and most talents have notable scaling....mostly in terms of duration, but duration is kind of the core of the effect, in most of the cases.
Flex Talents: Intuit Knowledge lets you attempt a knowledge check you don't have.
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.
(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 well 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.
(G-S): Powerful talents that are almost, but not quite, universally useful or desirable.
(M-G): These are pretty reasonable talents of mediocre strength.
(N-M): It technically has a use, but the cost simply doesn't outweigh the benefit.
Base Sphere
Charm: You may cast any of your Charms with a Standard action, in close range, and it hits spell resistance.
Limited Targets:: You may only target your own creature type with Charms by default. But thankfully not subtype, so humans can still cast Charms on dwarves.
Lesser Charm: These can be cast at-will, but only targets any given creature once per day.
Greater Charm: Costs a spell point to cast, but otherwise have no restrictions on them.
Powerful Charm: These cost 2 spell points, and require the Powerful Charm talent before being available.
Suggestion (G-S): You make a suggestion as a Charm. Even if you only ever cast the Lesser version of this, it's incredibly impactful when used well, and you have an accepting DM.
Expanded Charm (S+): Unless you are only dipping into the sphere, this is a must-have.
Subtlety (<S>): If you are in a campaign where you care, even in the slightest, about whether people know you're casting mind magics on them...then this is also a must-have.
Powerful Charm (G): 2 spell points is a fair price for many of the good talents.
Mass Charm (G): Multiple targets with 1 charm. That's nice.
Ranged Mind (<G>): If you need more range, you need more range. Close is probably good enough for a lot of the uses.
Mental Backdoor (M): A spell point to apply a -2 to saves against your charms? Eh. I mean, at least it's not costing you an action.
I am breaking up the charm talents by their roles, because there are way too many that carry out many different functions, and having them all ranked against one another is truly like comparing apples and whale sharks.
Some Charm talents will show up multiple times because they can fill multiple roles, and will be judged for that role. A + is denoted by a charm for each additional role. (If a talent isn't in an additional role, it's probably because I felt that the secondary role was so incredibly minor it's not worth mentioning.)
Utterances+ (<S>, F): You can't force physicality from someone, like you can with Command, but this lasts for several minutes, and gets only 1 save. It does get an extra save if it's against the target's nature but... oof. A lot of damage can be done even within those bounds. And with Powerful Charm you can grant anyone your vocal Face skills, which is just so utterly unique - and given that you are probably an Eliciter and the designated face, you can let everyone enjoy the spotlight on occasion. Or maybe they can instead impose their voice on you, if you allow it...? I'm not sure, as the talent's really quite the word salad. (Ironically.)
Enthrall (G-S): Charm Person / Monster. Awesome. Only really usable out of combat due to the bonus to saves.
Amnesia (<G-S>): Pretty incredible, given that you care the slightest bit about not being remembered. The lesser charm is relatively useless, but maybe it'll give you the opportunity to make the guard forget you were there, so you hide again. Or make your npc forget you said that really stupid thing you just said.
Inception (G-S): Yeah... This definitely has uses. Like "reminding" someone that you were a childhood friend with Powerful Charm. Spreading rumors is also solidly useful.
Calm+ (G): The lesser charm lets you quickly diffuse basically any situation. Greater Charm lets you break up active fights, given Mass Charm.
Candor (<G>): Forcing truthfulness is always nice. At least...when in a campaign where truthfulness is not a given, and where the deceit isn't basically DM fiat.
Command+ (G): There are a lot of unspeakable ways you can ruin someone's life with this. So great for taking on political rivals. We all know nothing's off the table these days.
Hostility++ (B): Do I need to explain this? But command can do basically every social effect that you want out of this spell.
Read Mind (B): This is Candor, but worse, unless you care about the question asked being known only to you, and the interrogated one not even knowing they've been asked. Although Amnesia will help with the latter part, and being in a dark alleyway helps with the former.
Calm+ (G-S): Will save, or they lose any desire to fight. Arguably, they'd still automatically break out if acted aggressively towards. Arguably not. I'm assuming it does, even for greater/powerful charm. If it doesn't, this is S+ save or lose. Possibly C.
Fear (G-S): Even on a successful save vs a Greater Charm, they're still shaken. And on a failed save, this is a save or run away.
Paralyze (G-S): The only balancing factor is that they get a save every round. Even just a stun for 1 round / CL is save or lose, basically. But it is pretty well balanced out. Still powerful and pretty much a universal combat talent, but not broken.
Sleep+ (G-S): Staggered is pretty great once you get to the point where full round actions are needed. And forcing a target to lose its actions until another target uses its standard action to counter your standard action is generally a win. I probably wouldn't bother with Powerful Charm here.
Confusion (G-S): Lesser is pretty worthless, but Greater gives martial types a 50% chance to lose actions each round, and casters a 75% chance. For multiple minutes on a failed will save. That's pretty great.
Hostility++ (G): As a lesser charm, you can spend your action to force an enemy to use an action to hurt its allies. Neat. Powerful version is basically less versatile, more volatile Command...without the new saves every round. Greater makes for a solid disable vs casters.
Command+ (G): Lesser charm is giving up a standard to maybe take away a move action. Rarely good. Can prevent attacks for a round. The Greater and Powerful ones though? "The best ally is my enemy." A new save every round though. But clever use will cause massive disarray with even a round or two.
Gestures (N-M): Basically just worse Command. (Exception: Powerful Charm is a bit funky and neat.)
Cerebral Strike (N-M): It can't stat kill until Powerful Charm, the damage is really unimpressive, and debuffing a mental stat is...unimpressive, in the majority of cases.
Disrupt Focus (N-M): Oh no. You spend your action (and/or spell point) to potentially ruin a single action of theirs. Powerful Charm is needed before this is even worth considering, and that'd only be if you're reliably coming up against mages.
Courage+ (G-S): Lesser Charm basically lets you preemptively give a second Aid Other. Meh. But Greater Charm? Sure, a small bonus. But it's a small bonus to basically every d20 roll. Powerful Charm is pointless unless you're actively trying to stop fear.
Inspiration (G-S): Sure, one-time use, for relatively small bonus. But it's an immediate action, so you only use it when you need it. And for Greater Charm that can be up to a +8, with an average boost of +5.
Hostility++ (M-G): A solid martial-focused buff. Unfortunately it lasts for only a few rounds.
Mind Shield (<N-M>): Man, you've got to time your protection so damned near perfectly. Normally immunity to even a niche effect would be pretty great but the duration is just not with this one.
Esteem (N): a tiny bonus to a single check for the lesser, and greater and powerful versions are also time-gated. Why? Why in the ever living hell would someone think this is worth taking? OK, maybe I'd use it, if I was granted the talent for free, and knew I had some particular Face-skill check that I absolutely could not afford to miss. It's at least not terrible once you've got several levels in. But it is still single use, and I positively hate that. And that's on top of the spell points.
Recommend (N-) Literally just Courage but worse, in every possible way. And morale bonuses can't be stacked.
Sleep+ (G-S): It's a lot less likely for someone to be awakened outside of combat, and falling unconscious causes them to drop whatever they're holding, letting you take their stuff without contest. And it's less obviously magical than Fascinate, and has a longer duration.
Fascinate (G): Fascination is absolutely fascinating for stealth missions. Even more so when you you have Subtlety so they don't even realize they are fascinated. They just zonk out for a bit. Stealth missions are probably not particularly common, but fascination is still useful.
Mind Spy (G): Barring magic paranoia (which mind mages would probably start causing), this is basically perfect stealth, letting you spy through some unwitting servant. If combined with Project Thoughts, this allows for free, very quiet 2-way communication (or even silent, if using nonverbal senses). Compared with Shared Perception from Divination, that's saving you 2 spell points per cast, but casts an extra talent - but also penetrates barriers, and can be one-way while Shared Perception must be two-way.
Vision (I): An illusion that only your target can experience. Very talent efficient relative to the illusion sphere. But obviously, it's targeting a creature rather than being an active, present illusion. Which has up and down sides.
Project Thoughts (M): This does on thing, and one thing only - telepathy. Which is great. But it requires being within Close range of your target (at least at initial casting), if you fail to pick up Ranged Mind. And you must either hack a 2-way solution with Mind Spy, or pick up Powerful Charm. And you must concentrate on it for the entirety of the telepathy. Read Mind is also a 2-way communication hack, but takes more concentration and spell points.
-
Lure (C+): Huh. So... you can just tell everyone in long range to screw off for multiple days. Or everyone in mile/level range with an advanced talent. That's a "save or the entire adventure has no conflict."
Misdirect (C): OK, this isn't miles/level, but... you do basically stop anyone from being able to come into a 10 + 5/lvl ft radius of your target, if they don't roll a will save. This is a hard shut down of most melee creatures... who tend to have poor will saves.
Dispersion (G-S): Hide in Plain Sight, a small bonus to Stealth, plus will saves to forget that they are actually in the area. Powerful Charm lets you force the will save even when you are right in front of them.
Mental Archive (<G-S>,F): Assuming you're in a game where you actually need to investigate scenes, this lets you do that repeatedly, no matter how many times the scenes change, or how far away you are. Further, investigating a scene in person and from memory at the same time can let you spot differences. This is EXTREMELY campaign dependent, but opens whole new avenues of investigation. In a not so investigation-heavy campaign, you still can just jot down the scenes that your character experiences, and you'll be able to ask questions based on them. In a lot of campaigns...even that is not incredibly useful, except for letting your paranoid ramblings inspire the DM.
Intuit Knowledge (G): Cool. Knowledge is nice. Some say it is power. But most good people for knowledge checks are intelligence users, who likely have a lot of the knowledge skills already.
Polyglot (N-M): Slightly more restrictive Tongues.
Arcane Calculation (N-M, F): There aren't a whole lot of very useful things you can do with this. But it's fun to imagine your character doing this.
Rapid Processing (N-M, F): Extremely, extremely niche benefits. But reading 1,000 words as a non-action is pretty impressive. How that results in Research time only being reduced by half is beyond me. I certainly can't read 500 words in less than 6 seconds.
Parallel Cognition (N, F): No real mechanical benefit.
Vampire’s Guile (<S>): Are you grouped with someone who likes to inflict bleeds? Then great, you have +2 DC for all mind sphere abilities, and it costs you just a feat...and the blood sphere talent. Else, this is really, tragically useless, and not something you should go out of your way to achieve.
Minor Charm Special (G): If you have a mind talent with particularly useful Lesser effects, then you want this, plain and simple.
Deceptive Advisor (G): Any face build will love this. Oddly enough, it's the most effective when you most need it to be, due to the nonlinear difficulty scaling. (Going from -20 penalty to -10 is 3.3x as effective as skill focus.)
Silver Tongue (G): You get to reroll a face skill, with a bonus. Great for preventing natural 1s.
Implausible Deniability (G): Yeah. This feat is great if you wanted to play an Eliciter that focused on Illusions instead / as well. The actual direct effects of this feat is pretty much nil.
Hypnotic Darkness (M-G): If you tend to keep enemies in your darkness, and you also tend to like those charms, then this is like an additional Sphere Focus feat. But for 3 talents. And doesn't stack with the will-save-reducing darkness talent you picked up.
Backdoor Control (M): Largely unnecessary, as most things you give intelligence to already become friendly by default.
Pressure Point Proficiency (M): A rider effect to your unarmed strikes. But they are unarmed strikes. And it's not an incredibly dramatic effect. Probably best used by a support companion.
Pressure Point Pugilist (M): Second unarmed attack means a further penalty. Yay.
Mental Cloud (N-M): In most ways, it's worse than Mass Mind. In fact, there are very few advantages to speak of.
Fool’s Counterspell (N): Same as with the illusion sphere. Not many uses, and it's a niche among niches.
Dreamspace (I): haha. I'm not messing with this.
Mental manipulation is truly one of the more horrifying, or at least potentially horrifying, of the possible power sets. Even mundane manipulation is rarely seen in a kind light. I'm mostly going to ignore any horrifying implications.
Post-Review Analysis: Well. Damn. Aside from the redundant talents, this is one kick-ass sphere. The cloud talents in particular... I kinda dismissed them before now. I am dumb-founded by how the hell they found themselves in the game.
Full or Partial Caster: Full caster, 110%. In fact, you should be more than full caster. Everything relies on will saves, and most talents have notable scaling....mostly in terms of duration, but duration is kind of the core of the effect, in most of the cases.
Flex Talents: Intuit Knowledge lets you attempt a knowledge check you don't have.
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.
(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 well 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.
(G-S): Powerful talents that are almost, but not quite, universally useful or desirable.
(M-G): These are pretty reasonable talents of mediocre strength.
(N-M): It technically has a use, but the cost simply doesn't outweigh the benefit.
Base Sphere
Charm: You may cast any of your Charms with a Standard action, in close range, and it hits spell resistance.
Limited Targets:: You may only target your own creature type with Charms by default. But thankfully not subtype, so humans can still cast Charms on dwarves.
Lesser Charm: These can be cast at-will, but only targets any given creature once per day.
Greater Charm: Costs a spell point to cast, but otherwise have no restrictions on them.
Powerful Charm: These cost 2 spell points, and require the Powerful Charm talent before being available.
Suggestion (G-S): You make a suggestion as a Charm. Even if you only ever cast the Lesser version of this, it's incredibly impactful when used well, and you have an accepting DM.
Expanded Charm (S+): Unless you are only dipping into the sphere, this is a must-have.
Subtlety (<S>): If you are in a campaign where you care, even in the slightest, about whether people know you're casting mind magics on them...then this is also a must-have.
Powerful Charm (G): 2 spell points is a fair price for many of the good talents.
Mass Charm (G): Multiple targets with 1 charm. That's nice.
Ranged Mind (<G>): If you need more range, you need more range. Close is probably good enough for a lot of the uses.
Mental Backdoor (M): A spell point to apply a -2 to saves against your charms? Eh. I mean, at least it's not costing you an action.
I am breaking up the charm talents by their roles, because there are way too many that carry out many different functions, and having them all ranked against one another is truly like comparing apples and whale sharks.
Some Charm talents will show up multiple times because they can fill multiple roles, and will be judged for that role. A + is denoted by a charm for each additional role. (If a talent isn't in an additional role, it's probably because I felt that the secondary role was so incredibly minor it's not worth mentioning.)
Utterances+ (<S>, F): You can't force physicality from someone, like you can with Command, but this lasts for several minutes, and gets only 1 save. It does get an extra save if it's against the target's nature but... oof. A lot of damage can be done even within those bounds. And with Powerful Charm you can grant anyone your vocal Face skills, which is just so utterly unique - and given that you are probably an Eliciter and the designated face, you can let everyone enjoy the spotlight on occasion. Or maybe they can instead impose their voice on you, if you allow it...? I'm not sure, as the talent's really quite the word salad. (Ironically.)
Enthrall (G-S): Charm Person / Monster. Awesome. Only really usable out of combat due to the bonus to saves.
Amnesia (<G-S>): Pretty incredible, given that you care the slightest bit about not being remembered. The lesser charm is relatively useless, but maybe it'll give you the opportunity to make the guard forget you were there, so you hide again. Or make your npc forget you said that really stupid thing you just said.
Inception (G-S): Yeah... This definitely has uses. Like "reminding" someone that you were a childhood friend with Powerful Charm. Spreading rumors is also solidly useful.
Calm+ (G): The lesser charm lets you quickly diffuse basically any situation. Greater Charm lets you break up active fights, given Mass Charm.
Candor (<G>): Forcing truthfulness is always nice. At least...when in a campaign where truthfulness is not a given, and where the deceit isn't basically DM fiat.
Command+ (G): There are a lot of unspeakable ways you can ruin someone's life with this. So great for taking on political rivals. We all know nothing's off the table these days.
Hostility++ (B): Do I need to explain this? But command can do basically every social effect that you want out of this spell.
Read Mind (B): This is Candor, but worse, unless you care about the question asked being known only to you, and the interrogated one not even knowing they've been asked. Although Amnesia will help with the latter part, and being in a dark alleyway helps with the former.
Calm+ (G-S): Will save, or they lose any desire to fight. Arguably, they'd still automatically break out if acted aggressively towards. Arguably not. I'm assuming it does, even for greater/powerful charm. If it doesn't, this is S+ save or lose. Possibly C.
Fear (G-S): Even on a successful save vs a Greater Charm, they're still shaken. And on a failed save, this is a save or run away.
Paralyze (G-S): The only balancing factor is that they get a save every round. Even just a stun for 1 round / CL is save or lose, basically. But it is pretty well balanced out. Still powerful and pretty much a universal combat talent, but not broken.
Sleep+ (G-S): Staggered is pretty great once you get to the point where full round actions are needed. And forcing a target to lose its actions until another target uses its standard action to counter your standard action is generally a win. I probably wouldn't bother with Powerful Charm here.
Confusion (G-S): Lesser is pretty worthless, but Greater gives martial types a 50% chance to lose actions each round, and casters a 75% chance. For multiple minutes on a failed will save. That's pretty great.
Hostility++ (G): As a lesser charm, you can spend your action to force an enemy to use an action to hurt its allies. Neat. Powerful version is basically less versatile, more volatile Command...without the new saves every round. Greater makes for a solid disable vs casters.
Command+ (G): Lesser charm is giving up a standard to maybe take away a move action. Rarely good. Can prevent attacks for a round. The Greater and Powerful ones though? "The best ally is my enemy." A new save every round though. But clever use will cause massive disarray with even a round or two.
Gestures (N-M): Basically just worse Command. (Exception: Powerful Charm is a bit funky and neat.)
Cerebral Strike (N-M): It can't stat kill until Powerful Charm, the damage is really unimpressive, and debuffing a mental stat is...unimpressive, in the majority of cases.
Disrupt Focus (N-M): Oh no. You spend your action (and/or spell point) to potentially ruin a single action of theirs. Powerful Charm is needed before this is even worth considering, and that'd only be if you're reliably coming up against mages.
Courage+ (G-S): Lesser Charm basically lets you preemptively give a second Aid Other. Meh. But Greater Charm? Sure, a small bonus. But it's a small bonus to basically every d20 roll. Powerful Charm is pointless unless you're actively trying to stop fear.
Inspiration (G-S): Sure, one-time use, for relatively small bonus. But it's an immediate action, so you only use it when you need it. And for Greater Charm that can be up to a +8, with an average boost of +5.
Hostility++ (M-G): A solid martial-focused buff. Unfortunately it lasts for only a few rounds.
Mind Shield (<N-M>): Man, you've got to time your protection so damned near perfectly. Normally immunity to even a niche effect would be pretty great but the duration is just not with this one.
Esteem (N): a tiny bonus to a single check for the lesser, and greater and powerful versions are also time-gated. Why? Why in the ever living hell would someone think this is worth taking? OK, maybe I'd use it, if I was granted the talent for free, and knew I had some particular Face-skill check that I absolutely could not afford to miss. It's at least not terrible once you've got several levels in. But it is still single use, and I positively hate that. And that's on top of the spell points.
Recommend (N-) Literally just Courage but worse, in every possible way. And morale bonuses can't be stacked.
Sleep+ (G-S): It's a lot less likely for someone to be awakened outside of combat, and falling unconscious causes them to drop whatever they're holding, letting you take their stuff without contest. And it's less obviously magical than Fascinate, and has a longer duration.
Fascinate (G): Fascination is absolutely fascinating for stealth missions. Even more so when you you have Subtlety so they don't even realize they are fascinated. They just zonk out for a bit. Stealth missions are probably not particularly common, but fascination is still useful.
Mind Spy (G): Barring magic paranoia (which mind mages would probably start causing), this is basically perfect stealth, letting you spy through some unwitting servant. If combined with Project Thoughts, this allows for free, very quiet 2-way communication (or even silent, if using nonverbal senses). Compared with Shared Perception from Divination, that's saving you 2 spell points per cast, but casts an extra talent - but also penetrates barriers, and can be one-way while Shared Perception must be two-way.
Vision (I): An illusion that only your target can experience. Very talent efficient relative to the illusion sphere. But obviously, it's targeting a creature rather than being an active, present illusion. Which has up and down sides.
Project Thoughts (M): This does on thing, and one thing only - telepathy. Which is great. But it requires being within Close range of your target (at least at initial casting), if you fail to pick up Ranged Mind. And you must either hack a 2-way solution with Mind Spy, or pick up Powerful Charm. And you must concentrate on it for the entirety of the telepathy. Read Mind is also a 2-way communication hack, but takes more concentration and spell points.
-
Lure (C+): Huh. So... you can just tell everyone in long range to screw off for multiple days. Or everyone in mile/level range with an advanced talent. That's a "save or the entire adventure has no conflict."
Misdirect (C): OK, this isn't miles/level, but... you do basically stop anyone from being able to come into a 10 + 5/lvl ft radius of your target, if they don't roll a will save. This is a hard shut down of most melee creatures... who tend to have poor will saves.
Dispersion (G-S): Hide in Plain Sight, a small bonus to Stealth, plus will saves to forget that they are actually in the area. Powerful Charm lets you force the will save even when you are right in front of them.
Mental Archive (<G-S>,F): Assuming you're in a game where you actually need to investigate scenes, this lets you do that repeatedly, no matter how many times the scenes change, or how far away you are. Further, investigating a scene in person and from memory at the same time can let you spot differences. This is EXTREMELY campaign dependent, but opens whole new avenues of investigation. In a not so investigation-heavy campaign, you still can just jot down the scenes that your character experiences, and you'll be able to ask questions based on them. In a lot of campaigns...even that is not incredibly useful, except for letting your paranoid ramblings inspire the DM.
Intuit Knowledge (G): Cool. Knowledge is nice. Some say it is power. But most good people for knowledge checks are intelligence users, who likely have a lot of the knowledge skills already.
Polyglot (N-M): Slightly more restrictive Tongues.
Arcane Calculation (N-M, F): There aren't a whole lot of very useful things you can do with this. But it's fun to imagine your character doing this.
Rapid Processing (N-M, F): Extremely, extremely niche benefits. But reading 1,000 words as a non-action is pretty impressive. How that results in Research time only being reduced by half is beyond me. I certainly can't read 500 words in less than 6 seconds.
Parallel Cognition (N, F): No real mechanical benefit.
Vampire’s Guile (<S>): Are you grouped with someone who likes to inflict bleeds? Then great, you have +2 DC for all mind sphere abilities, and it costs you just a feat...and the blood sphere talent. Else, this is really, tragically useless, and not something you should go out of your way to achieve.
Minor Charm Special (G): If you have a mind talent with particularly useful Lesser effects, then you want this, plain and simple.
Deceptive Advisor (G): Any face build will love this. Oddly enough, it's the most effective when you most need it to be, due to the nonlinear difficulty scaling. (Going from -20 penalty to -10 is 3.3x as effective as skill focus.)
Silver Tongue (G): You get to reroll a face skill, with a bonus. Great for preventing natural 1s.
Implausible Deniability (G): Yeah. This feat is great if you wanted to play an Eliciter that focused on Illusions instead / as well. The actual direct effects of this feat is pretty much nil.
Hypnotic Darkness (M-G): If you tend to keep enemies in your darkness, and you also tend to like those charms, then this is like an additional Sphere Focus feat. But for 3 talents. And doesn't stack with the will-save-reducing darkness talent you picked up.
Backdoor Control (M): Largely unnecessary, as most things you give intelligence to already become friendly by default.
Pressure Point Proficiency (M): A rider effect to your unarmed strikes. But they are unarmed strikes. And it's not an incredibly dramatic effect. Probably best used by a support companion.
Pressure Point Pugilist (M): Second unarmed attack means a further penalty. Yay.
Mental Cloud (N-M): In most ways, it's worse than Mass Mind. In fact, there are very few advantages to speak of.
Fool’s Counterspell (N): Same as with the illusion sphere. Not many uses, and it's a niche among niches.
Dreamspace (I): haha. I'm not messing with this.