Is this overpowered?

[SangoProduction]

So. Found a 3pp class (and yes, I'll stop you right there. I know) which has the following notable prerequisite, of needing to have 3 separate classes, with 2 of which being first level in some sort of casting.

Base attack bonus +5
Levels in three non-prestige classes, two of which must have the following abilities: the ability to cast 1st level spells from a single source, spherecasting CL 1st, essence pool of 3, or manifest 1st level powers.

Only the ones with casting 1st level spells or powers are not exclusive to having higher levels.

The clear intent is to have a martial character that splashes into 2 difference sources of casting. Let's not take any special cases, or half casters, or anything. Just playing it as straight to the obvious intent as possible.
So, let's say (Pathfinder) Fighter 4 / Sorcerer 1 / Psion 2. Sorcerer instead of Wizard, because it should probably be a reliable set of low level tools, rather than somehow attempting to have an underleveled tool for every situation.
Something like that.

OK, So, I've been building it up, what's the big deal?
Every 2 levels, he gains the class features of 3 levels of his classes per two levels, in the following pattern:
+1 level of lowest aligned class
+1 level of any 2 aligned class
+1 level of any 2 aligned class
+1 level of lowest aligned class.
repeat

for 10 levels. (that include full BAB and monk saves. Because 3pp.)

And I was like "5 levels of class features in 3? The hell?" But then I was thinking about it more and it's kinda like... OK, all 5 of those levels could go into his casting levels. Sorc / sorc & psion / sorc & psion.
So at level 10, he'd be effectively Fighter 4 / Sorc 4 / psion 5.
Is that actually overpowered? He'd definitely have a lot of powder in the keg, but it's not particularly potent compared to his peers.
He'd literally have the same psion caster level as a half caster in Spheres of Power at his level. His touch attacks are lightly advantaged with a +8 compared to +5 of a full caster.
But I am legitimately not thinking that is overpowered.

And from there, assuming they stick to it, and let it even out the bonuses, its dilutes further (from a true casting point of view - probably pretty good from a martial buffing themselves view).

But, even though PF fighter isn't a horrible class, let's say that you actually had a primary martial class that you actually wanted to progress. Would that change the calculus at all?
Say... Armorist 5 / Sorc 1 / Psion 1
And you level up Sorc / Armorist & Psion / Armorist & Psion
Gets you effectively Arm 7 / Sorc 2 / Psion 3 at level 10.
And you are actually getting the full class features, not just the spells, so that is notable.

I am still not actually convinced that that's op either. At least, not on its face. Armorist has good abilities (for what it is)... but you've got Sorc 2 and Psion 3 hanging awkwardly off to the side of the build. Granted, with much better base stats.
I wouldn't allow it in my game, because by leaving the gate open, there's undoubtedly going to be *some* silly, stupid combo out there (especially given even more 3pp classes). But it would be available in 2 levels anyway. Which isn't to say that those 2 levels aren't very notable. But they are coming from a low level class, in a 10+ level game.

hmm. Maybe...
Paladin 2 / Armorist 2 / Psychic Warrior 1.
Gets the +5 BAB as soon as possible. Of course, they are all half casters. And actually... I think that was the intent of this class - not to plop "full casters" on top of your martial, such that it evens out to a half caster, but to get a very wide casting base for your half casters.
Then you get to take it by level 5, rather than level 7. And net an extra 1 bonus level by level 10. (Class features as though level 13.)
I am somewhat concerned that I am not sure of the consequences of that. I very much imagine there's some sick combo out there. But yeah.

...OK. I'm just going to stop randomly reading silly things at 2 in the morning. It's now 5 and I am very tired from all of this utterly meaningless contemplation of a class that will literally never see play.

[ciopo]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean with the 3 in 2. As presented, assuming one goes for advancing the features of two base casters, isn't it basically a slighty different mystic theurge? With a bit of a delay on casting but also getting the "real" features?

Like... imagine that cleric 4/sorcerer 4 is a valid entry.. it's basically mystic theurge but with 5/6 casting advancement but what you gain in exchange is channel and bloodline, no?

Does not feel OP to me, you're still having the "problem" of theurge delay

Edit: and advancing "lowest aligned" is a hard saddle, because if you go let's say cleric 4/sorcerer 2/fighter 1, it would advance the fighter.

I think it's interesting and not overperforming at a glance

[Gnaeus]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean with the 3 in 2. As presented, assuming one goes for advancing the features of two base casters, isn't it basically a slighty different mystic theurge? With a bit of a delay on casting but also getting the "real" features?

Like... imagine that cleric 4/sorcerer 4 is a valid entry.. it's basically mystic theurge but with 5/6 casting advancement but what you gajn jn exchange is channel and bloodline, no?

Does not feel OP to me, you're still having the "problem" of theurge delay

Edit: and advancing "lowest aligned" is a hard saddle, because if you go let's say cleric 4/sorcerer 2/figther 1, it woukd advance the figther.

I think it's interesting and not overperforming at a glance

Agree with Ciopo, with a note...
Overpowered is not a thing in a vacuum. Overpowered compared with regular entry mystic theurge? Overpowered compared with druid/planar shepherd or wizard/incantrix? Overpowered compared with fighter?

[meschlum]

Let's forget about the BAB requirement for now and see how the class develops.

Adjusted requirements: level 5 (to map to BAB), three base classes.

I'll assume there are 'plain' theurge classes that advance two classes main features by 1/1 per level, entered at level 6 (with 3 levels in each class).

Options: 3/1/1 or 2/2/1 at level 5.

Level 6: 3/2/1 or 2/2/2. Equivalent to taking a level in your lowest class. No gain besides BAB, Saves, and HD. We're assuming Good BAB for all your classes, so you might be improving in HD and are getting better saves.
Level 7: 4/3/1, 3/3/2, 4/2/2 (only 3/3/2 possible if you started from 2/2/1). A boring theurge would have 4/4, so you're a bit behind on casting but ahead on your third class features.
Level 8: 5/4/1, 5/3/2, 4/4/2, 4/3/3 (only 4/4/2 and 4/3/3 possible from 2/2/1). Plain theurge is 5/5, so you're sacrificing your second class levels for your third.
Level 9: 5/4/2, 5/3/3, 4/4/3 (only 4/4/3 possible from 2/2/1). Plain theurge is 6/6, so you're falling behind on your first and second class, in exchange for 2-3 levels of the third.
Level 10: 5/4/3, 4/4/4 (only 4/4/4 possible from 2/2/1). Plain theurge is 7/7, you're 1-2 spell levels behind assuming full casting on your top two classes. In exchange, you get 3-4 levels of your third class. The synergy had better be excellent.
Level 11: 6/5/3, 6/4/4, 5/5/4 (only 5/5/4 possible from 2/2/1). Plain theurge is 8/8.
Level 12: 7/6/3, 7/5/4, 6/6/4, 6/5/5 (only 6/6/4 and 6/5/5 possible from 2/1/1). Plain theurge is 9/9. You're sacrificing 2+ levels from your primary class and 3+ levels from your secondary for 3-5 levels of your third class.
Level 13: 7/6/4, 7/5/5, 6/6/5 (only 6/6/5 possible from 2/1/1). Plain theurge is 10/10
Level 14: 7/6/5, 6/6/6 (only 6/6/6 possible from 2/1/1). Plain theurge is 11/11. Those 5-6 early levels of your third class had better be worth a lot.
Level 15: 8/7/5, 8/6/6, 7/7/6 (only 6/6/6 possible from 2/1/1). Assuming it's a 10 level PrC, this is the last level. Plain theurge is 12/12. You could to a mixed theurge (3/3 base, 4 theurge, 5 levels in tertiary class) and be one level behind, so this is better if you must have all three classes.

You're not going to be able to advance this early (barring a specialized mix of classes), but the main lesson that emerges is that you're significantly delaying the progress of your first two classes in order to get a few levels of the third. Since you get all the class features, the real decision is whether multiple classes have low level features that synergize very well together. Essentially, are there two classes for which you'd rather get their level 1-6 features rather than the level 8-15 features of your primary class?

From the perspective of creating a gish, this gives you good BAB and saves (a plus), but you need a very good selection of low level spells / powers to make up for missing all the high level benefits.

Naive Eldritch Knight: Wiz 5 / Fighter 1 / EK 1-9 gives you BAB = Level -3 and casting as level -2.

Fighter 4 / Wiz 2 / Cleric 1 / Class 1-8 gives you BAB = Level - 2 and casting as wiz / cleric 6-7 at level 15 (versus 13 as an EK). Are the tertiary casting and single point of BAB really worth it?

Edit: overall, in 10 levels, you get 5/5/5 or 6/5/4 levels. So your two primary classes are basically getting half casting in exchange for half advancement of your tertiary. Full casters hate half casting, especially over a 10 level PrC. So you really need to gish if you want to get anything out of it, and a half casting gish is... subpar.

[Rynjin]

My at a glance judgment on Trinity Angel and Trinity Knight has always been that they're pretty weak (and extremely annoying to bring online in the first place) overall.

[TheStranger]

My best guess is that this is somewhere between balanced and underpowered in most cases, but that there’s probably a combination of base classes out there that makes it broken. Like any theurge-type class, your biggest issues are action economy and delayed spell progression.

For a primary martial entry, you’re losing 2 points of BAB and higher-level class features in exchange for good saves, modest casting, and whatever lower-level class features you get from your casting class. That’s probably not a bad trade, all things considered. But also probably not as good as a dedicated gish that pushes one casting class and gets higher level spells. IMO, the boost here is more about martials being underpowered that this class being overpowered.

If you try to enter with a primary caster base dipping in a martial and second caster, you’re giving up spell progression in exchange for BAB and good saves, plus whatever class features you get. Probably a bad trade, but we already knew that losing caster levels on a tier 1 class isn’t optimal. And I don’t generally consider “it’s weak compared to Wizard 20” to mean a build is underpowered.

So my conclusion is that this probably moves most builds towards tier 3. For martials that’s a step up, for casters it’s a step down. Overall, it’s probably in the same ballpark as other gish or half-caster builds, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

That said, if I wanted to optimize this I’d look for base classes that get key class features early, synergize with each other, and have action economy advantages (Magus?). But no matter what you do, you lose a lot of caster levels, so you’d have a tough time being overpowered compared to a straight primary caster short of some combination of classes that opens up infinite loops or something.

Which doesn’t mean this class won’t get a DMG thrown at you. IME, at the table (as opposed to on the forums) builds that exploit combos to be unexpectedly powerful get called broken far more often than classes that are simply powerful in an expected way.

[Rebel7284]

The main advantage of something like this is the fact that it advances class features of multiple classes, instead of just casting, so similar to gestalt. While casting is usually the most relevant class feature, the ability to keep actual class features is unique and can create some fun builds. With that said, it's likely still not overpowered as it loses more casting than Mystic Theurge (if I am understanding the progression right), so you end up with a more flexible but less powerful character.

Some ideas of base classes with relevant class features:
- Druid : Best overall package of class features in the game as far as base classes go. Period.
- Duskblade : Full BAB helps qualification and is a fun way to actually get full attack channeling on something more caster-based while still having full BAB or close to it. Free quickens are nice too.
- Ardent : Actually getting Dominant Ideal ACF on a theurge!? Also if RAW Ardent progression is used where power access is based on manifester level instead of class level, Ardent becomes silly good, but that's true regardless of how you theurge ardent and is the main base of all the "can we get 3 or more progressions on this one character" sort of builds.
- Artificer : Do artificers count as spellcasters with their infusions? If yes, their class features are pretty amazing in a long campaign and having them in addition to a more active side, such as Druid, can be lots of fun.
- Factotum is incredible in gestalt with their extra actions and ability to add Int to everything, they probably don't qualify as casters, but if they do, great choice to look at.
- Dread Necromancer/Beguiler: Caster classes with fun class features, especially the dread necro, although nothing terribly overpowered.

Third dip:
- (Cloistered) Cleric 1: Nothing is stopping you from taking a third casting class too, there is a whole handbook on dipping cleric since the domains can give so many bonus feats and abilities. Probably best with Druid since you can then Divine Metamagic. Sadly loses BAB
- Spiritual Lion Totem Barbarian 1: Pounce is very very good if you do want to gish. Sadly rage doesn't play well with casting.
- Warblade/Crusader 1: Depending on when you dip, you could pick up second or even third level maneuvers which are pretty solid.
- Duskblade 1-3: even if you don't progress it, full BAB and possibly spell channeling is nifty
- Spellthief 1: Master Spellthief is a thing
- Paladin 2: Charisma to saves is very nice
- Wizard 1: Abrupt Jaunt is powerful enough to justify a Wizard dip.

Was there ever a ruling if racial paragon classes count as base or prestige classes or are they their own thing? They would be helpful here.

I know very little about pathfinder, having only played it once so I am sure I am missing good things from there (and indeed, pathfinder does seem better than 3.5 at actually giving classes relevant class features from what I recall)

[noob]

Can it progress base classes only or can it progress prcs too?
If the latter is possible it is obviously overpowered.

[SangoProduction]

Can it progress base classes only or can it progress prcs too?
If the latter is possible it is obviously overpowered.

True, especially since psionics and vancian are both minimum rather than true requirements. This is why I come to these forums. Let me check.
Nope, must be non-prestige.
Trinity knights are required to study different disciplines to fuse into one specific trinity state. They must select three of their non-prestige classes as aligned classes upon entering this prestige class. At the indicated levels, a trinity knight must choose an aligned class they belonged to before adding the prestige class to advance. They gain all the class features for one additional level of their aligned class as if they had gained a level in it. They gain the class features of an additional level of their lowest aligned class as indicated on the table above. They still retain the hit dice, base attack bonus, saving throw bonuses, and skill ranks of the prestige class.

[stack]

How does spherecasting caster level stack when using this? If you can just stack your CL from multiple classes, it would be easy to grab two spherecasters and whatever else as a third class. I would probably cap the CL gains to a max of 1 per level.

[SangoProduction]

How does spherecasting caster level stack when using this? If you can just stack your CL from multiple classes, it would be easy to grab two spherecasters and whatever else as a third class. I would probably cap the CL gains to a max of 1 per level.

Spherecasting level must be 1 when entering the class. But you can start with 2 partial casters (say 0.75/lvl caster) at level 1. You could potentially get 2.25 CL per 2 levels, if you only take levels that allow you to exclusively progress your 2 sphere caster classes, after a probable 4ish levels of not progressing (and those 4 levels must include 2 non-spheres, casting classes). So after 16 levels (in a 10 level class), it will pay for its cost, CL wise. Plus it offers the opportunity of using the "Catch up on your CL" feats and traits. Although they care about character level.

[thethird]

I haven't yet found any combination in which it would be overpowered (and I've tried). For the most part it adds options, but doesn't do a lot to improve your action economy beyond be a gish, and for the most part gishing isn't overpowered.

Imho it works best if you think of it of a fast multiclassing, the thing is that when multiclassing for the most part what you care about is dipping and not really going all the way in. So you need classes that will be robust, complement each other, don't require a lot of extra actions, and preferably have some extra feat suport so you can progress the features to your character level. You also need to be a bit tricky when leveling to try and push more levels into whichever class you want to level the most. Note that most of the classes that you are going to bring into it are going to be T3, so you aren't going to break the tier system and still be T3.

Classes that I've found work well, Soulknife (works very well with the trinity knight, I am partial to living legend, which pushes you into int), Aegis (if going with the soulknife from before host of heroes is the way to go, alternatively ascendant gives you access to some funy abilities), Armorist (if going trinity angel I am partial to at least consider living weapon), Solarian (monadic sage are basically putty that you can get you variable talents).

My favorite sphere to work with is veilweaving, because honestly, veilweaving is very gish friendly.

For example, Soulknife (host of heroes) 2 / Aegis (living legend) 2 / Solarian (monadic sage) 1 as an entry point into trinity knight, for feats grab: student of the astral suit (+4 effective aegis lvls) and trinity warrior (setting your veilweaving sphere cl to your bab)

Path of the knight will make it so your soulknife progression is almost comparable to a normal soulknife. Grabbing fighter's blade down the line will just be gravy. So at this point you are pretty much a soulknife with some extra abilities.

Is soulknife overpowered? Is soulknife+ overpowered? Depends as to what you compare it to, but I wouldn't call it overpowered.

[noob]

I could see it being used to progress three sphere casting classes and since sphere caster level is stacked it could be interesting.
Overall you would be weaker than just a wiz/sorc/ultimate magus (or a sorc/ultimate magus or a wiz/ultimate magus since there is tricks to qualify while single classed) if you want a double progressing class for some reason.(especially since ultimate magus gives synergy abilities)

[Serafina]

Ahahaha you found Trinity Angel and Trinity Knight.
Yes.
Yes.
They are really really good if you build them right.

The primary thing to look for them is classes that help out other classes.
Spherecasting works extremely well there since, you know, Spherecasting CL just stacks there. Path of War is similar
But there are also several classes with class features that just work really well as passive features without being at full level, or that boost ability scores, CLs, or other things.


Here is an example build:
Base classes are Armiger (Antiquarian), Aegis (Ascendant), and Stalker (Vigilante). Entry happens at level 6 with Armiger 3 (with fractional BAB/Save progression, this can happen faster - in that case you can also do a lot more dips).
With 13 PrC levels you end up with Armiger 10, Aegis 8, and Stalker 7.

Now, you should be able to take Advanced Magical Training to have any level which doesn't progress Armiger (8 levels in total) count towards your Spherecaster caster level (and Aegis provides basic magical training), adding some CLs. Also, Aegis can take Psychic Synergy three times to add up to +6 to your CL (capped at HD). That gives you CL 20 for your Spherecasting!
And then Aegis (Ascendant) can pump some power points to boost your CL further, and can grab sphere talents quite quickly.

And you also have 7 Stalker levels - and of course, Initiator levels add half your non-Initiator levels to your Initiator level, including for the purpose of grabbing maneuvers. So actually, you can grab maneuvers as a 13th-level Initiator - which is a pretty nice bonus.
And while Aegis burns 3 Customization points on boosting CL, there is a multiclass feat that provides four more levels for your customizations, so you have 16 points to play with there, as a 12th-level Aegis. Grab some Veils, Stalwart, Evasion, and other goodies.

And of course both PrCs have full BAB, good saves, and actually quite decent class features. And Trinity Warrior can fix up the scaling on another class feature, if needed (to our BAB, which ends up being +15).
So we end up with +15 BAB, two good saves, full spherecaster CL, a fair amount of talents, a fair amount of customization points, a fair amount of martial maneuvers. Now consider the potential explosive synergies that can happen between all that.



Edit: to what extent Trinity Angel/Knight count for Initiator levels and Advanced Magical Training is currently unclear, AFAIK.
Are they "Spherecasting classes" for example? Well, clearly not innately so! Should they thus count fully for the purposes of this? It would just be and extra CL or three (depending), but also it is not that much effort to count every level on which they progress Spherecasting, which is a fair compromise.
Likewise for Initiating.
If on the other hand you go "nope, they do not count at all" then - well then it becomes a lot harder to build like this.



Also TL;DR the Trinity PrCs are alright if you build them as they are meant to:
- boost stuff via Aegis levels
- or via Trinity Knight
- then just grab goodies
- and be kind with your group and don't break things via combinatorial explosion (=finding synergies that are too good)

[Serafina]

Like, it also very much needs to be highlighted how good the features of the PrCs are:

Trinity Angel gives you the following:
- Stalwart
- a 50 foot perfect flight speed that can be enhanced by enhancing your base speed
- it makes any Veils you shape more difficult to detect
- you can use one mental ability score in place of Strength, and another in place of Dexterity - the way it is written, either just for using weapons, or altogether (I generally go with the former interpretation because it is less busted).
- eliminate the need for food, water, air and breathing, and sleep
- turn Power Points, Spell Slots, and Spell Points into Essence for Veils
- constant free Silent Spell
- a 1/day capstone attack that lets you combine three attacks into one, e.g. letting a fireball also apply the effects of two other strikes, veils, or spells

Trinity Knight gives you the following:
- five (5) combat talents, blade skills, or maneuver progression levels (or full cavalier order progression if you want that for some reason) (also it can be up to 15 combat talents if you pick an Expert-progression class for Path of the Knight)
- Spell Strike but with powers, veils, spells, and supernatural abilities
- combining two swift actions into one as long as they are used to activate class features, a few times per day
- an attack action or martial strike that also lets you cast two powers, spells, or supernatural abilities (not maneuvers) at the same time

Like, that's just a lot.
And a lot of it kicks in early on - you can take two levels in each PrC (doable by level 9 or 10) and get mental ability scores in place of physical ones (just for weapons?) and permanent flight and stalwart, which is great!
For some combination of classes, just the progression alone would be great! Especially considering the chassis (the only weakness of which is 2+Int skill points). For others, all those goodies can make up for some lost stuff but also how much do you need that?

Since very little stops you from taking both PrCs other than a GM saying no for flavor reasons (if you fulfill the preqrequisite for one, you'll fulfill the prerequisite for the other, except for one likely useful feat), you can basically grab one of those feature packages and capstones, and then also goodies from the other one.

Getting 10 in one PrC and 6 in the other is quite feasible and gives you the best progression and features, though 10/5 allows more build freedom (if fractional BAB/save progression is not used) and still gives you the best stuff from Trinity Angel.


Don't get me wrong I absolutely love these two PrCs because they do allow you to do very fancy things. Very fancy Gishes, to be specific.
For example, I used them to build what is essentially a Warframe-user from the titular game, able to switch between a lot of weird unique abilities while fighting with different weapons - sounds like Aegis, Soublade or an adjacent class but this allowed for more of a Sphere-bent while also grabbing maneuvers, psi-powers, and veils for lots of custom packages.

[Rynjin]

Another big reason to say no is that once you start getting into 3rd party additions to something that is alread 3rd party, things are kinda silly. And doubly silly when this is a company trying to mesh classes and subsystems from not only their own material and Spheres, but also dipping into every single Dreamscarred subsystem as well.

Initiators and Spheres of Might characters shouldn't mix, and I don't allow my players to do so. Trinity Knight kinda futzes with that.

[thethird]

Another big reason to say no is that once you start getting into 3rd party additions to something that is alread 3rd party, things are kinda silly. And doubly silly when this is a company trying to mesh classes and subsystems from not only their own material and Spheres, but also dipping into every single Dreamscarred subsystem as well.

Initiators and Spheres of Might characters shouldn't mix, and I don't allow my players to do so. Trinity Knight kinda futzes with that.

I know that given that this is a post on an internet board this is your opinion. And you are entitled to your opinion. But I must say that I strongly disagree with it, specially given the way it's stated.

IMHO I feel like it is a worthy endeavor to try to build and integrate whatever came before in the game. I understand from a design point how many books approach the game as if CORE and that particular book were the only two things existing. But I feel the other end of the spectrum, looking at the interactions and seeing, hey how can we make it mechanicaly interesting to theurge systems is just plain joyful fun. My favorite, period, piece by dreamscarred press is the blurb at the beginning of psionics expanded: occult going into, we know psychic magic exist in pathfinder, we still feel psionics is a good idea, here is how you can make both unique and how you can mix them. Lost spheres publishing did a similar thing in book of beyond: liminal power (and I am also a big fan of that fluff blurb) and ideas of it can be seen in city of 7 seraphs were trinity knights/angels are coming from. Honestly go read the fluff in the book. It's lovely, it is clunky at spots, but it looks at things that came before, and says hey how can we get all of this to play together and work together in the same setting. Maybe that doesn't work for you, but it is still a commendable effort.

Why can't spheres and maneuvers exist in the same place? Does a martial having access to both have more fun options? Is it that bad? Is it going to beat a T1 caster doing shenanigans from core? Is there a problem with a publisher seeing what other publisher is doing and going hey, I want to do some of these too?

Again, you are entitled to an opinion, and certainly if you are the dm you are perfectly allowed to have a say on your players builds or allowed sources. I don't want to come out as confrontational but this is something I have a strong opinion with.

[Serafina]

Spheres (of Might) can represent general fighting capability, in the same sense that combat feats did - it is just something people do. It can also do other things, of course, but it does work well for that.

Whereas Path of War Maneuvers can very easily be more "Martial Arts" in the sense of "I studied at this martial arts school, learned these secret techniques, am known for doing these specific things".

This makes it very easy for both of them to co-exist, IMO.

Now, whether you want that in the game? It is a lot more work, I did warn of combinatorial explosions earlier. SoM is obviously not balanced for someone using Stances, Counters, and the few Move-Action Maneuvers to enhance what they do. PoW is not balanced for someone getting a lot of extra combat feats - which combat talents are, and even if a lot of them will not work with Strikes, some will.

But then again, 1PP Pathfinder isn't balanced for combining it with itself either. Nor is Spheres, necessarily, or any other system (there is a reason that Spheres has the Advanced Talents system, but even without it you can do some silly things that put out too much damage or such).
I'd generally recommend that players and GM keep an eye on "is this too much". Not in terms of how many options are used, but actual outcomes.


That being said, you can make a fun Trinity Build just with Spheres-classes, too.
For example:
Master of Many Styles Monk full BAB, Expert combat talent progression, and the multiple stances will work wonderfully with the next class
Disciple of the Monstrous Arts Reaper: full BAB, low caster, and Trinity Warrior really should be able to progress Bewitched Stance
Incanter: low BAB but this will just put you one level behind for PrC entry
To get an Essence Pool, just pick three Essence talents from the Veilweaving sphere (or one and then Extra Essence). It won't come from a class technically but also, if your GM allows this class this is the option without going into Akasha directly.
Entry would be at level 7.

With four levels of prestige class (two Angel, two Knight) you can end up with 4/4/3 for classes, for which I'd go Monk 4, Incanter 4, Reaper 3. At that point, you'll have a total of 9 combat talents (2 from tradition, 6 from Monk, 1 from Path of the Knight), 7 magic talents (2 from tradition, 5 from Incanter) and 3 blended talents (from Reaper). Also one Reaper Technique and two Incanter Bonus Feats.
You'd have a CL of 5, but if you snatch Advanced Magical Training this would go up by two to CL 7. Your BAB would be 10, and that would also be your CL for any spell you cast via a stance.
And you'd have snatched 50 foot perfect Flight and Stalwart (as long as you have Armored Aegis running), can use your casting stat to attack, and can Spellstrike with all your spells.

If we compare:
You have the same amount of talents as an Incanter, but your CL is only comparable for a few self-buffs. You do have better saves, BAB, and a lot more features though.

[Rynjin]

IWhy can't spheres and maneuvers exist in the same place? Does a martial having access to both have more fun options? Is it that bad? Is it going to beat a T1 caster doing shenanigans from core? Is there a problem with a publisher seeing what other publisher is doing and going hey, I want to do some of these too?

They're a bad idea to mix because they combine in ways that scale almost exponentially in power, and I don't want to balance the game around every martial character having access to damage that starts to even touch the feet of Mythic Vital Strike's levels of ridiculous.

You'll notice I didn't say Psionics, or Thunderscape, or any other 3rd party stuff here; I have a player playing a Taninim Draconic Exemplar with Spheres of Might abilities via the usual route (trading half your Feats for Adept progression).

But Path of War is in a league of its own when it comes to martial character power, and combining it with Spheres of Might, specifically, gets really wacky really fast with the way unique advantages like the stacking temp HP available in Spheres and the focus on Vital Strike synergy and Special Attack actions intersect with Boosts and Counters especially.

[thethird]

They're a bad idea to mix because they combine in ways that scale almost exponentially in power, and I don't want to balance the game around every martial character having access to damage that starts to even touch the feet of Mythic Vital Strike's levels of ridiculous.

You'll notice I didn't say Psionics, or Thunderscape, or any other 3rd party stuff here; I have a player playing a Taninim Draconic Exemplar with Spheres of Might abilities via the usual route (trading half your Feats for Adept progression).

But Path of War is in a league of its own when it comes to martial character power, and combining it with Spheres of Might, specifically, gets really wacky really fast with the way unique advantages like the stacking temp HP available in Spheres and the focus on Vital Strike synergy and Special Attack actions intersect with Boosts and Counters especially.

Yeah I noticed you didn't say psionics, what I am getting from what you are saying is casters getting powerful options is okay, but martials getting powerful options is ridiculous.

[Bucky]

I detect some sharp RAW cheese with the way Trinity Knight handles its virtual levels.

First, the three aligned classes don't need to be the same as the ones that qualified for the class. You can pick three spherecasting classes as aligned and take a one-level dip in something else just to qualify.

Second, the Aligned Class bonus levels count for gaining class features, but the "lowest aligned class" only counts your actual level in the class, so you can pick the same class all ten levels as long as it was your lowest going in.

Third, the Path of the Knight class can choose a class the Trinity Knight doesn't have. It can grab any class's proficiency or initiating and gets full progression of that one class feature from the fourth class on top of the aligned class levels. Further, unlike the aligned classes, Path of the Knight can advance a feature of a prestige class.

Fourth, it looks like Path of the Knight stacks by RAW with Aligned Class progression if you don't abuse the second point. If Warder is an Aligned Class, you can use Path of the Knight to make a Trinity Knight level count as a e.g. Warder for maneuvers, and at the same level of Trinity Knight gain the class features of a second additional level of Warder.

The fourth point can be extended by assorted other rules that make Trinity Knight levels count for some purpose as levels of a class it's also progressing, or as a smaller exploit make one Aligned Class count as another that's also being progressed on the same level (e.g. Channeling Scourge).

Finally, Trinity Strike bypasses the cast time for the attached spells/powers/abilities. The Trinity Knight could, for example, slap a corpse to instantly cast Raise Dead and Restoration.

[Rynjin]

Yeah I noticed you didn't say psionics, what I am getting from what you are saying is casters getting powerful options is okay, but martials getting powerful options is ridiculous.

If you think Psionics in any way makes casters more "powerful", this isn't really a conversation you should be engaging in TBH.

[Gnaeus]

If you think Psionics in any way makes casters more "powerful", this isn't really a conversation you should be engaging in TBH.

I think it depends a lot on what your table does with casters. Does vancian have a higher ceiling? Absolutely. But if you have already houseruled the most broken stuff or your players don't enjoy adventure via bound allies, I'd much rather play a DSP manifester class for blasting or healing than a wizard or cleric. We don't need to abstract the comparison, by the time you are mixing multiple third party sources you have hopefully already worked out a local solution to the part where the wizard beats up the DM and takes their lunch money.

[Rynjin]

I think it depends a lot on what your table does with casters. Does vancian have a higher ceiling? Absolutely. But if you have already houseruled the most broken stuff or your players don't enjoy adventure via bound allies, I'd much rather play a DSP manifester class for blasting or healing than a wizard or cleric. We don't need to abstract the comparison, by the time you are mixing multiple third party sources you have hopefully already worked out a local solution to the part where the wizard beats up the DM and takes their lunch money.

And I always prefer to play Spherecasters, but the fact remains that the ceiling for wackiness in both subsystems is way lower, outside of some very fringe weird stuff in Psionics that would likely be banned in the same way Wizard-centric shenanigans are.

[thethird]

If you think Psionics in any way makes casters more "powerful", this isn't really a conversation you should be engaging in TBH.

TBH you are right. I shouldn't be engaging and derailing the thread.

To summarize. I didn't say more, you are moving the goalpost of the argument. Let me rephrase, casters (who already have powerful options) getting powerful options (that aren't out of the box synergistic) is okay. Martials (who don't already have many powerful options) getting powerful options (which can be synergistic in stances, counters and boosts, as you pointed out) is ridiculous.

Is up to that point clearer? Does that represent more what you tried to say? (It's honestly what I am getting)

My followup point to this, which I made on the first post. Are martials (after getting those synergistic powerful options) comparable to casters power wise? The answer, from my point of view, is resoundely no. Casters have stronger powerful options in core than the power level of path of war + spheres of might martials.

I think you agree with that given your last response. But to be sure, do you?

Why is that then a problem? Why is it a (ridiculous) problem that a martial has powerful options that are still less powerful than what a caster is getting in core?


I detect some sharp RAW cheese with the way Trinity Knight handles its virtual levels.

First, the three aligned classes don't need to be the same as the ones that qualified for the class. You can pick three spherecasting classes as aligned and take a one-level dip in something else just to qualify.

Second, the Aligned Class bonus levels count for gaining class features, but the "lowest aligned class" only counts your actual level in the class, so you can pick the same class all ten levels as long as it was your lowest going in.

Third, the Path of the Knight class can choose a class the Trinity Knight doesn't have. It can grab any class's proficiency or initiating and gets full progression of that one class feature from the fourth class on top of the aligned class levels. Further, unlike the aligned classes, Path of the Knight can advance a feature of a prestige class.

Fourth, it looks like Path of the Knight stacks by RAW with Aligned Class progression if you don't abuse the second point. If Warder is an Aligned Class, you can use Path of the Knight to make a Trinity Knight level count as a e.g. Warder for maneuvers, and at the same level of Trinity Knight gain the class features of a second additional level of Warder.

The fourth point can be extended by assorted other rules that make Trinity Knight levels count for some purpose as levels of a class it's also progressing, or as a smaller exploit make one Aligned Class count as another that's also being progressed on the same level (e.g. Channeling Scourge).

Finally, Trinity Strike bypasses the cast time for the attached spells/powers/abilities. The Trinity Knight could, for example, slap a corpse to instantly cast Raise Dead and Restoration.

First is technically correct (the best kind of correct) but honest, if your plan for class progression is taking a dip of several classes just to qualify for trinity knight you are probably pulling something fancy and not very powerful.

Second, lowest aligned class isn't defined, you can interpret it that way. Or you can interpret it on a more reasonable manner.

Third this is correct, although probably won't fly at tables.

Fourth, same comment as the third. This kind of abuse has been there since people found ways to qualify for ultimate magus with straight spontaneous divination wizard. You can argue for that cheese. But ultimately trinity knight levels count for progression of a class feature, how many trinity knight levels do you have? Remember you argued you didn't gain levels in your aligned classes on the second point.

Trinity strike yes. It bypasses casting time per raw, and probably shouldn't.

[Rynjin]

Why is that then a problem? Why is it a (ridiculous) problem that a martial has powerful options that are still less powerful than what a caster is getting in core?

Because there can be effects that are less powerful than peak T0 caster shenanigans that are still disruptive to gameplay. Being unkillable and capable of killing any monster in the bestiary in one standard action falls into that category. Not that complicated.

This is not some "gotcha" here, where you can point to "Well a Wizard can do more powerful things, why aren't you banning that?"

I am. I do not like disruptive things in my game. I have a pretty high threshold for shenanigans, but I draw the line where I would need to get in an escalating arms race with my players to present any sort of challenge.

My players don't do things like abuse Simulacrum, so I trust them to use material, even 3rd party material, largely with a blank check. I just need to be able to read it and understand it. In return, I restrict a bit what elements can be mixed and matched. Path of War Feat options (eg. Deadly Agility?) always welcome, on any character. Path of War on its own? Perfectly kosher. As is Psionics, Spheres, Akasha, Final Fantasy d20, Thunderscape, Genius Classes, and pretty much anything else out there except Godlings (I hate them), and most of those mix up just fine, including Spheres and Psionics; there is actually a Spheres-capable Soulknife and Aegis that I believe came out of the same book as Trinity Angel.

I limit exactly one thing: pick Spheres of Might or Path of War, not both. Because mixing the two causes very unfun scenarios to happen, particularly in the context of Gestalt (which my current campaign is).