SangoProduction
2021-03-01, 03:03 AM
Yeah. Easily one of least favorite of the Spheres of Might. Aside from Leadership sphere, but that's for an entirely different reason.
I look forward with bated breath to the comments telling me about how it's not terrible. Or to seeing how good it actually is in my own review.
Post-Review Analysis: Nope. Not convinced. It's up to the commenters. Definitely feels like a sphere with exclusively the Sage class in mind. And the Sage has so many better things it could be doing with its time.
Full or Partial BAB: The bonus to-hit means relatively more when you're partial BAB vs full BAB. There are a couple talents that do lightly scale with BAB, although barely anything to write home about.
Flex Talents: ...I'm stretching hard, but...Launching Uppercut for when you need to get your team up to high ground, and are already a Bull Rush build.
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
Counter Punch (<G>): So here's the deal. You give up your standard action in order to maybe make an attack at some point in the future, against some random target (because it specifically says "next" rather than "any"). With a +2 bonus damage! Truly game breaking. Oh, but it also explicitly doesn't change your place in initiative. Cool. I mean, I unironically appreciate it, when it's ready action. And the choice of whether or not you get to attack is entirely in the hands of the enemy. And it's limited to exclusively light melee weapons (obviously with the intent of Unarmed Strikes). So, that's pretty bad. Even ignoring the opportunity cost of just using your standard action for literally anything else, like getting a half dozen attacks in with Barrage or what have you.
But maybe I'm being a bit harsh on it...no, not really. But, devil's advocate! So, the additional triggers are relatively broad, which means that it's not a complete and total crap shoot whether or not you get to attack. And you can strategically use it to prevent given actions. Although how many brutes would choose to not attack, just to avoid your attack? So yeah, it's semi-reliable (just delayed), given either a large set of enemies, or very simple enemies (which are common), and even has the anti-spell caster thing. And hitting a mage while they are casting is the easiest way to ruin their day, and you get not only your opportunity attack but your prepared attack.
There are quite a few quick spells which can basically be thrown away for the purposes of diverting your counter punch, although you'd still perhaps have your AoO for their next, real spell. (Granted, mages are rather uncommon enemies due to them requiring so much more effort to prepare than "pokey stick man hit hard.")
Plus it's not a strict loss, because it does count as an attack action, not merely an attack. So, yes, it doesn't allow for Special Attack Actions, but anything that triggers off an Attack Action like Dual Wielding sphere or Vital Strike would still apply....though they would also still apply if you used literally any other attack action.
And by a very liberal reading, there is no range limitation, effectively allowing for cross-planar teleportation to the next creature to fulfil your conditions, so that you can punch them in the face. But that reading is also highly dysfunctional, and probably results in a lost character after its first use. Or it might just be an extradimensional slap. Who knows. It also doesn't specify that it's a light weapon that you are necessarily wielding.
A still liberal, but less dysfunctional reading allows you to make the attack anywhere in your threatened area, as though you were making an AoO...as a standard action. Thus, it would have synergies with Guardian sphere's patrol package. This would make it less bad, compared to just completely losing out on your attack if they 5ft step away, since there are no reach light weapons (ignoring wrong-sized weapons).
Hair Trigger (<S+>): Relative to the absolute travesties of melee Boxing, this is 10x more effective at just...being reliable. Unfortunately, it requires a ranged weapon, which doesn't make it truly universal to all Boxing sphere builds. But it's perhaps the most powerful talent in the sphere. What with getting to have your targets be anyone in 120ft, as compared to the +5 ft of other talents. Difficult to control who you attack, but same deal with the base sphere.
Raging Bull (<S>): Depending on reading, this is either a very cool addition to counter punch, letting you get +15ft reach without real investment...or it's literally an override of Counter Punch, and loses literally any benefit from the rest of the sphere. The literal text implies the latter, and doesn't even benefit from charge multiplication.
Heavy Counter (S): The wording of Counter Punch is incredibly vague. So, theoretically, with this, and a liberal reading, you can have both a spear and your unarmed strike, and you'd get to choose between which ever one, as soon as a condition is fulfilled. Take the Equipment sphere Fast Draw, and one might even be able to justify getting your choice of Bow, Spear or Fist from the same Counter Punch. Of course...you could just attack normally, and you'd already have that choice, without spending so many talents, but...um... Uh... I mean it's like really cool man!
Gazelle Punch (G-S): Another talent dedicated to "hey, stop 5ft stepping away and negating my whole turn!" This one's pretty good, and comes bundled with the Counter Punch's standard action.
Shoulder Roll (<G-S>): Know what? If you have a ton of AoO, and you're reliably getting targeted in melee, then this is a great way to make use of your excess AoOs.
KO Focus (G): At first I thought it was just whenever you used Counter Punch. You have to deal damage with it. Which is incredibly unreliable. But it is at least an immediate action, which is better than even a swift action because it borrows from your next turn, not current turn.
Elongated Step (G): A stance that grants you 5 ft of range for your counter punch. And unlike Corkscrew Set Up, there's no chance to miss out on your "don't let them just 5 ft step away" deal. But it does take your swift action or martial focus like all stances.
Corkscrew Set Up (G): Wow. The devs spotted this weakness before I did. Now, you can also attempt to attack a target to stop it from just stepping out of range of your attack. You could just...attack on your turn and not have this issue, but it is what it is - a talent tax.
Prizefighter (G): Gains an Extra Trigger, and more potential triggers to choose from (relatively niche one, but still). Nice. No automatic retraining though.
Rope A Dope (M-G): Not sure why the "once per round" was specified, when it already takes an immediate action. But hey. A 1 round fatigue on a failed save if they attack you. Neat. More rounds as you get more BAB.
Extra Trigger (M-G): Less of an opportunity for your enemies to just completely negate your attack that round, without giving up serious tactical - oh, ok, they just had the mook soak your action. Well, at least you got to attack. Can't complain about that. Well, not when using this sphere. But explicit automatic retraining is nice.
Headfake (<M-G>): If you're finding yourself provoking attacks of opportunities a lot, this is -5 to hit, on average, which is better and more versatile than Mobility. Hardly the poster child of a great feat, but it is better than that. Might actually be useful as a dip for a caster.
Tight Guard (M): A conditional, non-stacking Dodge. But it can scale with BAB, so that's neat, once you've got a good several levels in.
Violent Pressure (N-M): Swift action shaken is normally pretty great. Shaken's like a golden standard debuff. What could possibly - Oh. One round duration. On a failed will save. Once a day.
Sucker Punch (N-M): Turn an AoO into a Counter Punch, at the cost of Martial Focus and staggered for 1 round. Borrowing from your future actions. Obviously this relies a hell of a lot on the Counter talents.
Dug In Blow (N-M): DR 2 is unimpressive. DR 2 that is conditional and lasts for less than 1 round, and demands you never move, is even less so. At least it scales at a rate of 1/3 BAB, which is the most BAB impressive scaling I've seen in all of the spheres. If this just triggered when you declared a Counter Punch, then this would obviously be much better.
Floating Butterfly (N): So, basically giving up any fringe benefits this sphere might provide, in the hopes of being slightly harder to hurt. You could...also...like...full defensive. Doesn't even use a talent.
Cross Counter (N-): In order to use this for a single attack, you must provoke an AoO, and they must take it, and you must spend an AoO and your martial focus. What in the hell is this? Clearly it's meant to be a means of defense, and not something you intentionally proc, but it doesn't even work for that purpose unless you hit. No. Especially with Headfake being literally in the same sphere...
Read the Rhythm (G): Strictly speaking, the bonus doesn't have horrible scaling, has a ...single minute's... duration and is very versatile...before it's used. But you can only use it once per day per target, and only one target at a time. Generally, this is insufficient for stealthing due to all the limitations applied to it. Literally half of the text is dedicated to the limitations placed on this relatively modest, out of the blue, talent. Someone was very scared of this talent's use. But it still has decent, largely face-based uses.
Shadow Boxing (M): Well, replacing Intimidate with Perform (dance) is certainly...niche, but it is effectively letting you turn Acrobatics into a charisma skill. If you're using Background Skills, this bumps up. And a 1 minute fascinate on a failed will save is neat.
Forceful Smash (G-S): Now, this is pretty neat. A great little Quarter Back talent, which has you tackling people away from those you want to protect. I love it.
Loopy Blow (<G-S>): 1 round confusion is pretty neat. Especially for countering casters. Forcing them to roll with advantage on confusion...holy hell. Now that's a reason to work battered into your build. Possibly C level, if you have reliable battered. The duration is literally 1 round, and requires the use of Counter Punch, and for the battered target to knowingly activate your counter punch. So maybe not. But I really like this talent. Of course... remember that Confusion affects roll at the beginning of the subject's turns, not in the middle. So it will affect their next turn, but not the one you just interrupted.
Disarming Jab (<G>): Assuming you're reliably fighting things that use items, which can be somewhat reliable, disarm can be a useful tactic. Those things also tend to be humanoids with much lower CMD per CR than most monsters.
Liver Shot (G): Fort save or sickened ... for 1 round. But still.
Jolt Counter (<G>): Flat footed is pretty neat. Enables sneak attack...even though you probably want more than 1 attack if you're using that. But if you're lucky, you're targeting an elven archer, and getting a substantial effective bonus to hit.
Terrifying Hook (G): As a rider effect, it's not bad. But if you're really wanting to make use of this, you'd probably want to actually invest into intimidate, and then it becomes a lot less enticing to use this sphere rather than Gladiator.
Launching Uppercut (M-G): On average, you will roll 10.5. So you can essentially just translate every point of bonus to your Bull Rush into 1/5 of ... oh. That's really not a lot. But it's a much, much more neat and fun way to Aid Other...a very...lackluster combat action... But I guess the main, real appeal is to actually affect an enemy and force them to save or go prone, if you both hit and succeed your bull rush. And potentially add a bit more fall damage if you can really pump up the CMB.
Knuckle Crusher (N-M): Very minor malus to enemy damage. Unless they are a natural attack spammer.
Dizzying Maul (I): As a Counter Talent? Pretty worthless. If you wanted to trip, you can just trip. You can even explicitly give up an attack in order to make a trip in an attack sequence. And skill checks are significantly easier than a save. As an additional trigger? I mean, it's be pretty reliable if another party member was an Open Hand user. I don't think said user would really have the actions open for Counter Punch though.
Clinch (N): I mean, a grapple-dedicated build might find it neat. Though that required them giving up their initial grapple on their turn to instead use Counter Punch, and then only gets the grapple on a successful Counter Punch. Not to mention the talents involved.
Haymaker (N): Initially thought it would be pretty neat, since countering casters is kinda the big deal for this sphere. But...wow. Look at that penalty. Wouldn't even be worth healing to get rid of it, so at least it will be there reliably, unless they just incidentally healed.
I look forward with bated breath to the comments telling me about how it's not terrible. Or to seeing how good it actually is in my own review.
Post-Review Analysis: Nope. Not convinced. It's up to the commenters. Definitely feels like a sphere with exclusively the Sage class in mind. And the Sage has so many better things it could be doing with its time.
Full or Partial BAB: The bonus to-hit means relatively more when you're partial BAB vs full BAB. There are a couple talents that do lightly scale with BAB, although barely anything to write home about.
Flex Talents: ...I'm stretching hard, but...Launching Uppercut for when you need to get your team up to high ground, and are already a Bull Rush build.
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
Counter Punch (<G>): So here's the deal. You give up your standard action in order to maybe make an attack at some point in the future, against some random target (because it specifically says "next" rather than "any"). With a +2 bonus damage! Truly game breaking. Oh, but it also explicitly doesn't change your place in initiative. Cool. I mean, I unironically appreciate it, when it's ready action. And the choice of whether or not you get to attack is entirely in the hands of the enemy. And it's limited to exclusively light melee weapons (obviously with the intent of Unarmed Strikes). So, that's pretty bad. Even ignoring the opportunity cost of just using your standard action for literally anything else, like getting a half dozen attacks in with Barrage or what have you.
But maybe I'm being a bit harsh on it...no, not really. But, devil's advocate! So, the additional triggers are relatively broad, which means that it's not a complete and total crap shoot whether or not you get to attack. And you can strategically use it to prevent given actions. Although how many brutes would choose to not attack, just to avoid your attack? So yeah, it's semi-reliable (just delayed), given either a large set of enemies, or very simple enemies (which are common), and even has the anti-spell caster thing. And hitting a mage while they are casting is the easiest way to ruin their day, and you get not only your opportunity attack but your prepared attack.
There are quite a few quick spells which can basically be thrown away for the purposes of diverting your counter punch, although you'd still perhaps have your AoO for their next, real spell. (Granted, mages are rather uncommon enemies due to them requiring so much more effort to prepare than "pokey stick man hit hard.")
Plus it's not a strict loss, because it does count as an attack action, not merely an attack. So, yes, it doesn't allow for Special Attack Actions, but anything that triggers off an Attack Action like Dual Wielding sphere or Vital Strike would still apply....though they would also still apply if you used literally any other attack action.
And by a very liberal reading, there is no range limitation, effectively allowing for cross-planar teleportation to the next creature to fulfil your conditions, so that you can punch them in the face. But that reading is also highly dysfunctional, and probably results in a lost character after its first use. Or it might just be an extradimensional slap. Who knows. It also doesn't specify that it's a light weapon that you are necessarily wielding.
A still liberal, but less dysfunctional reading allows you to make the attack anywhere in your threatened area, as though you were making an AoO...as a standard action. Thus, it would have synergies with Guardian sphere's patrol package. This would make it less bad, compared to just completely losing out on your attack if they 5ft step away, since there are no reach light weapons (ignoring wrong-sized weapons).
Hair Trigger (<S+>): Relative to the absolute travesties of melee Boxing, this is 10x more effective at just...being reliable. Unfortunately, it requires a ranged weapon, which doesn't make it truly universal to all Boxing sphere builds. But it's perhaps the most powerful talent in the sphere. What with getting to have your targets be anyone in 120ft, as compared to the +5 ft of other talents. Difficult to control who you attack, but same deal with the base sphere.
Raging Bull (<S>): Depending on reading, this is either a very cool addition to counter punch, letting you get +15ft reach without real investment...or it's literally an override of Counter Punch, and loses literally any benefit from the rest of the sphere. The literal text implies the latter, and doesn't even benefit from charge multiplication.
Heavy Counter (S): The wording of Counter Punch is incredibly vague. So, theoretically, with this, and a liberal reading, you can have both a spear and your unarmed strike, and you'd get to choose between which ever one, as soon as a condition is fulfilled. Take the Equipment sphere Fast Draw, and one might even be able to justify getting your choice of Bow, Spear or Fist from the same Counter Punch. Of course...you could just attack normally, and you'd already have that choice, without spending so many talents, but...um... Uh... I mean it's like really cool man!
Gazelle Punch (G-S): Another talent dedicated to "hey, stop 5ft stepping away and negating my whole turn!" This one's pretty good, and comes bundled with the Counter Punch's standard action.
Shoulder Roll (<G-S>): Know what? If you have a ton of AoO, and you're reliably getting targeted in melee, then this is a great way to make use of your excess AoOs.
KO Focus (G): At first I thought it was just whenever you used Counter Punch. You have to deal damage with it. Which is incredibly unreliable. But it is at least an immediate action, which is better than even a swift action because it borrows from your next turn, not current turn.
Elongated Step (G): A stance that grants you 5 ft of range for your counter punch. And unlike Corkscrew Set Up, there's no chance to miss out on your "don't let them just 5 ft step away" deal. But it does take your swift action or martial focus like all stances.
Corkscrew Set Up (G): Wow. The devs spotted this weakness before I did. Now, you can also attempt to attack a target to stop it from just stepping out of range of your attack. You could just...attack on your turn and not have this issue, but it is what it is - a talent tax.
Prizefighter (G): Gains an Extra Trigger, and more potential triggers to choose from (relatively niche one, but still). Nice. No automatic retraining though.
Rope A Dope (M-G): Not sure why the "once per round" was specified, when it already takes an immediate action. But hey. A 1 round fatigue on a failed save if they attack you. Neat. More rounds as you get more BAB.
Extra Trigger (M-G): Less of an opportunity for your enemies to just completely negate your attack that round, without giving up serious tactical - oh, ok, they just had the mook soak your action. Well, at least you got to attack. Can't complain about that. Well, not when using this sphere. But explicit automatic retraining is nice.
Headfake (<M-G>): If you're finding yourself provoking attacks of opportunities a lot, this is -5 to hit, on average, which is better and more versatile than Mobility. Hardly the poster child of a great feat, but it is better than that. Might actually be useful as a dip for a caster.
Tight Guard (M): A conditional, non-stacking Dodge. But it can scale with BAB, so that's neat, once you've got a good several levels in.
Violent Pressure (N-M): Swift action shaken is normally pretty great. Shaken's like a golden standard debuff. What could possibly - Oh. One round duration. On a failed will save. Once a day.
Sucker Punch (N-M): Turn an AoO into a Counter Punch, at the cost of Martial Focus and staggered for 1 round. Borrowing from your future actions. Obviously this relies a hell of a lot on the Counter talents.
Dug In Blow (N-M): DR 2 is unimpressive. DR 2 that is conditional and lasts for less than 1 round, and demands you never move, is even less so. At least it scales at a rate of 1/3 BAB, which is the most BAB impressive scaling I've seen in all of the spheres. If this just triggered when you declared a Counter Punch, then this would obviously be much better.
Floating Butterfly (N): So, basically giving up any fringe benefits this sphere might provide, in the hopes of being slightly harder to hurt. You could...also...like...full defensive. Doesn't even use a talent.
Cross Counter (N-): In order to use this for a single attack, you must provoke an AoO, and they must take it, and you must spend an AoO and your martial focus. What in the hell is this? Clearly it's meant to be a means of defense, and not something you intentionally proc, but it doesn't even work for that purpose unless you hit. No. Especially with Headfake being literally in the same sphere...
Read the Rhythm (G): Strictly speaking, the bonus doesn't have horrible scaling, has a ...single minute's... duration and is very versatile...before it's used. But you can only use it once per day per target, and only one target at a time. Generally, this is insufficient for stealthing due to all the limitations applied to it. Literally half of the text is dedicated to the limitations placed on this relatively modest, out of the blue, talent. Someone was very scared of this talent's use. But it still has decent, largely face-based uses.
Shadow Boxing (M): Well, replacing Intimidate with Perform (dance) is certainly...niche, but it is effectively letting you turn Acrobatics into a charisma skill. If you're using Background Skills, this bumps up. And a 1 minute fascinate on a failed will save is neat.
Forceful Smash (G-S): Now, this is pretty neat. A great little Quarter Back talent, which has you tackling people away from those you want to protect. I love it.
Loopy Blow (<G-S>): 1 round confusion is pretty neat. Especially for countering casters. Forcing them to roll with advantage on confusion...holy hell. Now that's a reason to work battered into your build. Possibly C level, if you have reliable battered. The duration is literally 1 round, and requires the use of Counter Punch, and for the battered target to knowingly activate your counter punch. So maybe not. But I really like this talent. Of course... remember that Confusion affects roll at the beginning of the subject's turns, not in the middle. So it will affect their next turn, but not the one you just interrupted.
Disarming Jab (<G>): Assuming you're reliably fighting things that use items, which can be somewhat reliable, disarm can be a useful tactic. Those things also tend to be humanoids with much lower CMD per CR than most monsters.
Liver Shot (G): Fort save or sickened ... for 1 round. But still.
Jolt Counter (<G>): Flat footed is pretty neat. Enables sneak attack...even though you probably want more than 1 attack if you're using that. But if you're lucky, you're targeting an elven archer, and getting a substantial effective bonus to hit.
Terrifying Hook (G): As a rider effect, it's not bad. But if you're really wanting to make use of this, you'd probably want to actually invest into intimidate, and then it becomes a lot less enticing to use this sphere rather than Gladiator.
Launching Uppercut (M-G): On average, you will roll 10.5. So you can essentially just translate every point of bonus to your Bull Rush into 1/5 of ... oh. That's really not a lot. But it's a much, much more neat and fun way to Aid Other...a very...lackluster combat action... But I guess the main, real appeal is to actually affect an enemy and force them to save or go prone, if you both hit and succeed your bull rush. And potentially add a bit more fall damage if you can really pump up the CMB.
Knuckle Crusher (N-M): Very minor malus to enemy damage. Unless they are a natural attack spammer.
Dizzying Maul (I): As a Counter Talent? Pretty worthless. If you wanted to trip, you can just trip. You can even explicitly give up an attack in order to make a trip in an attack sequence. And skill checks are significantly easier than a save. As an additional trigger? I mean, it's be pretty reliable if another party member was an Open Hand user. I don't think said user would really have the actions open for Counter Punch though.
Clinch (N): I mean, a grapple-dedicated build might find it neat. Though that required them giving up their initial grapple on their turn to instead use Counter Punch, and then only gets the grapple on a successful Counter Punch. Not to mention the talents involved.
Haymaker (N): Initially thought it would be pretty neat, since countering casters is kinda the big deal for this sphere. But...wow. Look at that penalty. Wouldn't even be worth healing to get rid of it, so at least it will be there reliably, unless they just incidentally healed.