SangoProduction
2022-05-11, 01:22 AM
What is Self-sufficient? Here, it's to mean, is the sphere one that you could take on its own without feeling particularly lacking as a character? Can you reliably make use of it through out most of your time adventuring, without feeling one-note?
For example, the Destruction sphere is particularly good at what it does, but if your only real interaction with the world is what flavor of fireball you throw at it... I wouldn't class it as self-sufficient.
Why does it matter? It doesn't. You can take whatever spheres you want.
Then why ask? Why not?
OK, so what are its obvious weaknesses? Interaction with the inanimate world. You can enthrall that door all you want, but it's still not going to open for you. Barring a good seduction roll. Oh darn. There's no seduction skill, oh well. Next turn.
The mind sphere has tools for dealing with mindless creatures, but nothing for doing anything to the inanimate.
(A willingness to animate the inanimate does work, but that is not within the Mind sphere , so shush.)
How often is that encountered? Within the core pillars of RPGs? Largely in exploration, which has, in my experience, been gaining less prominence over the years, as the focus has shifted to (largely preplanned) stories. You'll also occasionally encounter it in dungeons, though that tends to be where you ask your rogue to deal with it. And when you get locked in a cell. But a careful caster could then charm the prison guard and ruin that "perfectly good arc," that was actually incredibly cringe, and everyone thanks you for it.
Which does bring up the point about that weakness. Not everything in an encounter is inanimate. Unless it's a puzzle. And of the inanimate things you want to interact with, there tends to be something animate that you can interact with to then deal with it. Such in the form of an enemy guarding the important leaver that opens the trapdoor that leads to the princess's holding chambers, or of an animal in the woods, that you could ask directions from.
Anything else? Avoiding interaction. There is nothing in the Mind sphere that lets you just lessen the likelihood of interacting with NPCs, in the same way that an Invisibility or long range divination would, which makes it relatively weak at scouting, since if a scout alerts people to their presence (even if it's delayed), then that's going to largely harm the purpose of scouting.
Is there a way around this? Well, There's Amnesia, which can diffuse a failed scouting, if you use it quick enough before an alarm is called, or before enough are alarmed to overwhelm your Mass Charm. Add in Inception and you can even make a successful alarm call out to be a false alarm by someone who just wanted a hug.
But correcting the mistakes is more risky than avoiding them in the first place.
With all that said, scout tends to be a side-role. Something you do supplementary to a main role. And it's also not one that takes up an inordinate period of time. Not many people complain that the sneaky rogue gets to do his sneaky thing on his own every once in a while. As long as he's not going in an looting all the chests without telling anyone.
Well, what is this sphere even good for then? Quite literally everything else. There is no element of combat encounters where the the Mind sphere falls flat. At least, if you don't care about directly doing damage. And even there, it's not incapable, just inefficient...and generally ineffective. For example Hostility... sure it has an enemy damage another enemy, but the main deal is that they spent their turn not damaging you, or directing their damage in a mitigated way. (Such as at the closer tank rather than you.)
On the social side of things... it's as good as you could expect from a sphere literally called Mind. From pranks, to skill bonuses, to actual mind control and absolutely diabolical acts which ruins the lives of fictional make-believe characters, and that's the only way you will be able to live with the horrors you have inflicted.
So, is the sphere self-sufficient? Yes, a character could reasonably take only Mind sphere talents and not feel left out of pretty much any major part of the game, unless your game is unusually focused on exploring a landscape. (In which case, skills tend to be the answer to that anyway.) You can also reasonably do more than just a one-note rotation in each encounter.
This was pretty self-evident from your spheres in review. What was the point in this? Why are you asking me? Who even are you?
For example, the Destruction sphere is particularly good at what it does, but if your only real interaction with the world is what flavor of fireball you throw at it... I wouldn't class it as self-sufficient.
Why does it matter? It doesn't. You can take whatever spheres you want.
Then why ask? Why not?
OK, so what are its obvious weaknesses? Interaction with the inanimate world. You can enthrall that door all you want, but it's still not going to open for you. Barring a good seduction roll. Oh darn. There's no seduction skill, oh well. Next turn.
The mind sphere has tools for dealing with mindless creatures, but nothing for doing anything to the inanimate.
(A willingness to animate the inanimate does work, but that is not within the Mind sphere , so shush.)
How often is that encountered? Within the core pillars of RPGs? Largely in exploration, which has, in my experience, been gaining less prominence over the years, as the focus has shifted to (largely preplanned) stories. You'll also occasionally encounter it in dungeons, though that tends to be where you ask your rogue to deal with it. And when you get locked in a cell. But a careful caster could then charm the prison guard and ruin that "perfectly good arc," that was actually incredibly cringe, and everyone thanks you for it.
Which does bring up the point about that weakness. Not everything in an encounter is inanimate. Unless it's a puzzle. And of the inanimate things you want to interact with, there tends to be something animate that you can interact with to then deal with it. Such in the form of an enemy guarding the important leaver that opens the trapdoor that leads to the princess's holding chambers, or of an animal in the woods, that you could ask directions from.
Anything else? Avoiding interaction. There is nothing in the Mind sphere that lets you just lessen the likelihood of interacting with NPCs, in the same way that an Invisibility or long range divination would, which makes it relatively weak at scouting, since if a scout alerts people to their presence (even if it's delayed), then that's going to largely harm the purpose of scouting.
Is there a way around this? Well, There's Amnesia, which can diffuse a failed scouting, if you use it quick enough before an alarm is called, or before enough are alarmed to overwhelm your Mass Charm. Add in Inception and you can even make a successful alarm call out to be a false alarm by someone who just wanted a hug.
But correcting the mistakes is more risky than avoiding them in the first place.
With all that said, scout tends to be a side-role. Something you do supplementary to a main role. And it's also not one that takes up an inordinate period of time. Not many people complain that the sneaky rogue gets to do his sneaky thing on his own every once in a while. As long as he's not going in an looting all the chests without telling anyone.
Well, what is this sphere even good for then? Quite literally everything else. There is no element of combat encounters where the the Mind sphere falls flat. At least, if you don't care about directly doing damage. And even there, it's not incapable, just inefficient...and generally ineffective. For example Hostility... sure it has an enemy damage another enemy, but the main deal is that they spent their turn not damaging you, or directing their damage in a mitigated way. (Such as at the closer tank rather than you.)
On the social side of things... it's as good as you could expect from a sphere literally called Mind. From pranks, to skill bonuses, to actual mind control and absolutely diabolical acts which ruins the lives of fictional make-believe characters, and that's the only way you will be able to live with the horrors you have inflicted.
So, is the sphere self-sufficient? Yes, a character could reasonably take only Mind sphere talents and not feel left out of pretty much any major part of the game, unless your game is unusually focused on exploring a landscape. (In which case, skills tend to be the answer to that anyway.) You can also reasonably do more than just a one-note rotation in each encounter.
This was pretty self-evident from your spheres in review. What was the point in this? Why are you asking me? Who even are you?