Warped Sense of Humor (Spheres in Review)

[SangoProduction]

Preamble: I think this is legitimately the final sphere. I don’t think particularly highly of it. I’ve used it precisely once… in a pirate game that never happened. Just… nothing particularly stood out as particularly noteworthy.
Let’s hope we can change that today.

Link (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mzUNBDZaAv3TbFcHYhGHba3YFuMdRv1VlS8i26HsPx4/edit?usp=sharing)

Post-Review Analysis:
Teleport talents are pretty boring and excessively expensive. Space talents tend towards “neat and useful.” While the real fun is in the feats, which … require a lot of investment to make work.

Flex Talents: Unseeing Teleport: When you are trapped.
Dimension Pierce: Ghost-touch.
Extradimensional Room: When you’re losing a dungeon fight.
Spacial Reach: When having your melees getting into normal reach is dangerous.

Full or Partial Caster: Up until CL 10, the majority of your teleportation comes from the base value. And with exception to the round/level talents (Fluctuate, Looped Space, Wormhole, and Recall), the duration is good enough even without much in the way of caster level.

But having a higher caster level does grant scaling. Generally slow scaling, though. So you don’t actually care all that much about boosting the caster level. Mass Teleport is probably the one exception, as CL 6 is needed to port your entire (standard) party. If that’s how you’re using it. You probably don’t need to port your entire team - just the ones that care about positioning.

[Kitsuneymg]

Emergency teleport is an immediate action. As I recall, immediate and swift action spells do not provoke, so no clause is needed.

I also used dimensional archer. Combined with quick teleport and the sniper sphere, you can spend a sp to teleport as a move action, reload a heavy crossbow or gun, and regain martial focus. You can then use your new vantage to snipe or barrage. So it’s useful for that. The penetrate cover works very good against barrier mages. Especially walls of force or protection sphere barriers. Granted, after I got improved precise shot, I used it a lot less.


Assuming I remember the rules right, the dreamscape stuff lets you craft you full 1,000 GP/day no matter what. Could have implications for a crafter focused character.


I agree with most of your post except I rate the base ability much higher. It removes a lot of low level issues (trapped bridges, chasms, hard to climb walls) from consideration at low levels. If you’re an archer, being able to get atop otherwise hard to reach areas (the rooftops in Sandpoint during book 1 of RotRL as an example) can make those early combats a lot easier.

Special mention for a magus using group/ranged teleport to chess master their party into position and send a volley of arrows at a target. Depending on group comp, putting the martial characters into flanking position can be better than another destructive blast. And with emergency teleport, you can even break LoS/LoW, charges, and full attacks. It’s got rules for reflex saves and the first attack in a pounce/full attac, but afaik, other save-based spells just fizzle if you’re not in the AoE/break LoS/LoE.

[icefractal]

Good review, and I agree with most of these, but there's a few that I don't ...

IMO, you're underselling Unseeing Teleport a little. I feel like "bypass walls" is one of teleportation's big selling points, especially when "save travel time" is off the table until 10th level advanced talents. And this is the talent which enables it, plus keeps darkness/fog from preventing your escape.

Segmented Warp is N--?
Sure, it's not a long distance, but with Unseeing Teleport you can poof to the other side of a wall, do something, and then poof away. No way for anyone to respond without a readied action, and it's hard to be ready for someone you can't see. Spheres has a few ways of sensing through walls which combine nicely with this.

Also, even for non-ambush usage, the ability to immediately retreat if you ported into a chasm or trap seems pretty great. It's what Recall should do but doesn't.

Imbued Teleport
You forget this one I think. Pretty nice for giving to people. Even worth giving to yourself, since it seems like it isn't casting to activate and wouldn't provoke.

Teleport Beacon, you laid out exactly the reasons it's good, and then ... I? Seems like a solid <G> at least. And if you can give it to other people (Bottled Spells, for example), then you can hand out escape routes to people you want to protect. Or if you have a means of communication, just port them to you when needed.

XD Storage at I/F?
Even leaving aside the fact that it's undetectable vs the very detectable Bag of Holding (which admittedly, won't matter in some campaigns) - take it twice, and take Quick Draw. Now you can pop things in/out as a free action, like a gigantic Glove of Storing.

Also a requirement for XD Torpor. Which I agree is great, but as a save-or-lose it's pretty lousy - they have to fail four saves to be stuck, and if they're above bloodied they get +10 to most of those.

Dreamspace is pretty great, IMO, although it depends on the campaign.
It gives you undetectable smuggling and guaranteed crafting (or Spellcrafting) that doesn't even take up your time. Plus it's just conceptually cool, although obviously YMMV on that.

[SangoProduction]

I is short for "impossible". I simply lack anything relevant to draw on, but feel that there might be some use somewhere. Not that it's bad.
And unless they stand out for some particular reason, I don't bother with the [generic] talents. They are simple and straight forward, and once you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Oooooo. I see the issue. I didn't update my rating system after I moved over to Google Docs, and it still said that I was placing them where I guessed them to be. And I guess I am using it more as "Undecided" now, rather than the original intent.
Well, that's what I get for improvising ratings as the need arises.


Emergency teleport is an immediate action. As I recall, immediate and swift action spells do not provoke, so no clause is needed.
Oh. That's interesting. Didn't know that.



I also used dimensional archer. Combined with quick teleport and the sniper sphere, you can spend a sp to teleport as a move action, reload a heavy crossbow or gun, and regain martial focus. You can then use your new vantage to snipe or barrage. So it’s useful for that. The penetrate cover works very good against barrier mages. Especially walls of force or protection sphere barriers. Granted, after I got improved precise shot, I used it a lot less.
Fair enough. I'll update.



Assuming I remember the rules right, the dreamscape stuff lets you craft you full 1,000 GP/day no matter what. Could have implications for a crafter focused character.

It's just weird and strange. And most groups still have not been enlightened into accepting Spheres into their hearts... or at least their games. And having something excessively strange (to where how it is works is not obvious even to me) in "some fringe third party content" is a recipe for getting shot down.
But... I mean... Not like I am writing this purely with intention to use in the uninitiated groups. I should take the effort to try and understand it.


Special mention for a magus using group/ranged teleport to chess master their party into position and send a volley of arrows at a target. Depending on group comp, putting the martial characters into flanking position can be better than another destructive blast. And with emergency teleport, you can even break LoS/LoW, charges, and full attacks. It’s got rules for reflex saves and the first attack in a pounce/full attac, but afaik, other save-based spells just fizzle if you’re not in the AoE/break LoS/LoE.

The implication behind getting a bonus to AC / saves is that if you're simply responding to a spell or attack, then it has the chance to hit you - you just have an easier time avoiding it. But baiting full attacks is useful regardless, unless they can still reach someone else. (Worth a spell point useful? Depends on the lethality of the game, and that particular enemy.)


Good review, and I agree with most of these, but there's a few that I don't ...

IMO, you're underselling Unseeing Teleport a little. I feel like "bypass walls" is one of teleportation's big selling points, especially when "save travel time" is off the table until 10th level advanced talents. And this is the talent which enables it, plus keeps darkness/fog from preventing your escape.

Segmented Warp is N--?
Sure, it's not a long distance, but with Unseeing Teleport you can poof to the other side of a wall, do something, and then poof away. No way for anyone to respond without a readied action, and it's hard to be ready for someone you can't see. Spheres has a few ways of sensing through walls which combine nicely with this.

Also, even for non-ambush usage, the ability to immediately retreat if you ported into a chasm or trap seems pretty great. It's what Recall should do but doesn't.

Imbued Teleport
You forget this one I think. Pretty nice for giving to people. Even worth giving to yourself, since it seems like it isn't casting to activate and wouldn't provoke.

Teleport Beacon, you laid out exactly the reasons it's good, and then ... I? Seems like a solid <G> at least. And if you can give it to other people (Bottled Spells, for example), then you can hand out escape routes to people you want to protect. Or if you have a means of communication, just port them to you when needed.

XD Storage at I/F?
Even leaving aside the fact that it's undetectable vs the very detectable Bag of Holding (which admittedly, won't matter in some campaigns) - take it twice, and take Quick Draw. Now you can pop things in/out as a free action, like a gigantic Glove of Storing.

Also a requirement for XD Torpor. Which I agree is great, but as a save-or-lose it's pretty lousy - they have to fail four saves to be stuck, and if they're above bloodied they get +10 to most of those.

Dreamspace is pretty great, IMO, although it depends on the campaign.
It gives you undetectable smuggling and guaranteed crafting (or Spellcrafting) that doesn't even take up your time. Plus it's just conceptually cool, although obviously YMMV on that.

Fair enough. When combined with Segmented Warp, Unseeing Teleport does have some additional utility. But I don't think it's of extremely superior utility than is already taken into account.

I think I was in a bit of a sour mood when I rated Segmented Warp. To be fair, teleporting into a pit and immediately getting out is basically its sole advantage over any other action-reducing teleportation talent. And it was definitely worse than Recall in the rest of the situations, due to explicitly provoking on the second teleport.

Quick Draw (or Fast Draw) only lets you draw weapons as a free action, and explicitly forbids drawing other items with the feat / talent.

Hmm. I must have misread Torpor. If they need to fail 4 saves, that's pretty bad, and it really can just be a Pokemon belt.
You are correct. Good catch. Thanks a ton.