Pathfinder Spheres or Path of War actual experience

[sunrise.archive]

I like the rulesets and their thematic approach, but I've never played them. I'd like to hear from people who did give it a try -- not whether it's good or bad, I'll decide that for myself -- but how it plays, what are some obvious imbalances, how it feels to play a sphere caster, a sphere pratitioner, or an initiator, things like that. Specific and analytic, but not judgemental.

[Gnaeus]

Re PoW and the DSP version of incarna, akashic magic.

There are occasional imbalanced stuff, but generally better balanced than 3.pf in general. Like, there's no equivalent to the most broken powers, like planar binding. But there are some powers which are binary (Stare of the Ghaele is a constant gaze attack with essentially a high DC fear based slow effect, which tends to invalidate any encounter that isn't just immune to it) or stronger than core classes in weak specializations (like, if I want to make a blaster or a healer, I can make a better one with DSP than core). Every DSP class clusters between strong Tier 4 and weak Tier 2. Generally, like the ToB/incarna predecessors, high floor, low ceiling, but in most/all cases slightly higher on both than the 3,5 versions.

As for how they play, there's like a dozen DSP classes and they play differently. So like Mystic or Vizier play like a blasty sorcerer. Daevic is paladin but better. Guru (or the DSP dragon racial class) is monklike but better. Stalker is like rogue or slayer but better. Rajah is kind of bardish. Warlord is similar to warblade etc.

[Nizaris]

The main campaign I play in right now is a Spheres Campaign conversion of War of the Crown, before that was a Spheres conversion of Return of the Runelords. It definitely jumps martials up a bit, while it's certainly possible to make a bad martial still, fighting styles like TWF and ranged are a lot more practical at earlier levels and still give you more options other than just full-attacking every round. Casters have to be more tailored to a task, while you can still get some level of flexibility using Aracanists or other classes with flex talents, casters can't innately solve every situation by virtue of being a caster, but the trade off is you have a tool box that you can dip into more frequently and not have to worry about conserving spells / spell points to do anything.

There's still some game breaking combos, many are GM permission-locked under Advanced or Legendary talents, and the Sage well exists, but I find it much more enjoyable then playing a vanilla Pathfinder character.

[Seerow]

I've had the opportunity to play with both.

Spheres of Power is basically everything I traditionally want my caster types to be. It forces some degree of specialization, and acts as an overall nerf to casters, while making a number of previously high level only concepts viable straight from level 1. There's more to say about it, but that pretty much sums up what you need to know. If there's something thematically you want a caster to do, chances are a Spherecaster can do at least a minor version of it by level 1, and can do probably a half dozen or so high powered versions of various tricks by high level. You have some versatility, but far less than a normal caster, still more than a Spheres of Might character.



Spheres of Might is basically a straight power boost to most martials, in a way that people who like martial characters as they currently play will probably be happy with. You get Martial Focus to play with as a resource (basically start combat in focus. Expend focus for major effect, spend actions to regain focus. Some talents can give more options to regain focus easily).

Most talents focus on combat, and will feel very familiar. The main difference is most offensive spheres will key off an attack action, putting more emphasis on mobility and taking a single attack (or in the case of Dual Wield/Barrage mobility and taking a lot of attacks). There's a bunch of support for styles like throwing weapons, spears, heavy armor, combat maneuvers, etc that make normally unviable options usable. There are some places where I feel like the designers are still overly conservative, or intentionally weaken a martial talent when compared to the Casting talent counterpart, but overall it functions really well and allows characters to have some extra power, debuffing, and options, all without raising the overall power ceiling. Because in the end a Full Attack is usually going to be your highest damage potential option.

Also the Trap, Alchemy, Warleader, and Tech Spheres all are totally new areas to explore that traditional Pathfinder doesn't really support well at all. Beast Mastery and Leadership bring minionmancy to the mundane in a way that you previously only saw in the leadership feat that would immediately get banned for being OP. Shield and Guardian aren't offensive but making tanking viable in unoffensive ways (instead of "mind control", get things like boosting your allies AC, giving them Miss Chance/DR, threaten large areas and provoke when enemies attack someone who isn't you, or force enemies to take penalties for attacking someone who isn't you).

Basically there's a lot of toys that can be mixed and matched into some really neat things and provides a bunch of options PF doesn't support well while still feeling like PF.



Path of War by comparison supports a lot of the same under supported styles that Spheres does, but in a totally different way. I disagree with anyone who says it turns martials into casters, but the resource management aspect of an Initiator is definitely a different feel compared to a martial in traditional pathfinder. It is a system that will feel better to players who want to spend less time building characters, but have more crunchy bits to play with in combat. My experience is it handles high level play better than Spheres of Might. While Spheres of Might is a power boost, it is held back by the lack of level gating on most abilities. It relies on a critical mass of synergy to keep you relevant. While Path of War is constantly giving you new level appropriate abilities. So it's super easy to make a build that stays relevant and almost impossible to mess up.



I guess short version of what I'm trying to say is:
Want to nerf casters or prefer Themed Super Heroes to casters? Use Spheres of Power
Want in depth character building with extra options every level that you need to build synergy into to remain relevant, but still feel like traditional Pathfinder? Use Spheres of Might
Want easy to build characters that have a more interesting moment to moment choices in combat? Use Path of War

[Rynjin]

Spheres is basically "Pathfinder as it's meant to be played" IMO. Maximum flexibility of character building without going full points-based GURPS style game. And it tones down some of the dumber caster shenanigans.

Path of War is meant as a huge pwoer buff to martial characters. It succeeds at this, it's fun, but it doesn't in many ways fix the fundamental flaws in the underpinnings of the class system like Spheres does.

[Kitsuneymg]

I’ve played a decent amount of PoW, a lot of SoP/SoM, and a few games where both were allowed, but only one where you could mix them.

Do not allow allow Seize the Opportunity to be taken by SoM characters.

Path of War utterly annihilates any semblance of uncertainty to the outcome of combats. We’ve taken down multiple encounters in the CR13-14 range with a 7th level party. If you’re okay with needing to develop your own rebalancing all over again, it’s a fun system that results in martial characters being able to one-round bosses nearly as well as the optimized wizard.

PoW allows you to mix disciplines easily enough as long as your GM doesn’t object, but you’re still stuck playing the flavors of characters they explicitly enable via class features and disciplines. There is a lot, but I’ve been stymied many times by the mental stat being chosen for you.

Spheres of Power is a massive restriction on flexibility. While it makes many subpar strategies better (blasting) it eliminates the “I always have the exact spell for this situation.” Even with flex casters.

Spheres of Might has some dumb edge cases(inquisitor barrage), but it’s usually going to result in less damage than full attacking, but more damage or riders when standard auctioning. The difference between SoM and PoW is that SoM will “spam” the same few core abilities with different riders.

Both systems allow you to mix and match, creating a character whose magic and martial style evolves the way you want. If particular note is that many/most classes allow the choice of mental stat to use as your practitioner/caster ability modifier.

SoM is generally going to fall into the tier 5 or tier 4 level. SoP is tier 4 or tier 3. Path of War is squarely in t3, but it does so much damage so easily that it may feel like the solution of “I hit it with a sword” ends up being a “nuke.” Riven Hourglass and being able to share its 9th level maneuver with the wizard will end your campaign.

My preferred game setup is to allow spheres with legendary talents, but advanced talents on a case by case basis, and to not have pathfinders vancian casting. I also use the original list of metamagic feats and not the expanded one introduced by author(s)of Treasures of the Spheres; Stunning Spell had no business being in sop. I will allow Spheres Origins if that’s what the players want and plan to allow the skill spheres. But am going to laugh at anyone wanting ultimate engineering or tech in general (including the sphere).

My current players consist of one pathfinder vet, two other-rpg vets, and two first time players. None have made the classic noob character that just doesn’t contribute at level 15, despite having a healer and a blaster wizard. The other three martials are effective enough and durable enough that most high level encounters can be played as-is and present an engaging challenge. Lower level encounters needed a plus-up because the aoe abilities the characters had were quite substantial.

Problems from SoP: warp at level 2 negates many low level traps. Barrage plus buffs ends encounters in a single attack. Scholar’s healing, doctor archetype especially, negates damage as a game mechanic. Metamagic from ToTS has no save DC trade off. Save DCs in general are higher than typical. Developer discord exists to get clarifications and RAI from the team that wrote it.

Problems from PoW. Too easy to negate effects/auto save. Too easy to deal damage that one shots supposed level appropriate monsters. Developers are basically gone and you’re stuck with places like GITPG to get rulings.

[sunrise.archive]

But there are some powers which are binary (Stare of the Ghaele is a constant gaze attack with essentially a high DC fear based slow effect, which tends to invalidate any encounter that isn't just immune to it)
The only way I see it as fun is in a one-on-one game, where the encounters are specifically tailored to that one PC.


if I want to make a blaster or a healer, I can make a better one with DSP than core
Is there a stronger Path of War healer than cleric or paladin?


There's still some game breaking combos, many are GM permission-locked under Advanced or Legendary talents
At least they acknowledge it, but what's the point?


Spheres of Power is basically everything I traditionally want my caster types to be. It forces some degree of specialization, and acts as an overall nerf to casters, while making a number of previously high level only concepts viable straight from level 1.
I like that. Very much.


Spheres of Might is basically a straight power boost to most martials, in a way that people who like martial characters as they currently play will probably be happy with.
Sounds good, one of the main reasons I'm so interested in it.


Want to nerf casters or prefer Themed Super Heroes to casters? Use Spheres of Power
Want in depth character building with extra options every level that you need to build synergy into to remain relevant, but still feel like traditional Pathfinder? Use Spheres of Might
Want easy to build characters that have a more interesting moment to moment choices in combat? Use Path of War
Feels like a GM's wet dream.

@Kitsuneymg
Ah, some practical downsides as well, it very useful to know.

[Ramza00]

I like the rulesets and their thematic approach, but I've never played them. I'd like to hear from people who did give it a try -- not whether it's good or bad, I'll decide that for myself -- but how it plays, what are some obvious imbalances, how it feels to play a sphere caster, a sphere pratitioner, or an initiator, things like that. Specific and analytic, but not judgemental.

(I am new to spheres so still have not played it)

This may be against the spirit of Spheres for it backports stronger Pathfinder Archetypes while also being a very Sphere-y combination.

But an inquisitor with these archetypes are possible.


Monster Tactician from Traditional Pathfinder's Monster Summoner’s Handbook
Sphere Inquisitor which gives you 15 Magic Talents + 2 Casting Talents instead of Spells
Soldier Of The Gods Inquiistor which gives you 15 Combat Talents + Martial Weapon Tradition (equal to 4 combat talents, but there are rules for this instead of free reign), you lose the Teamwork Feats and Solo Tactics
Still keep your Inquisition plus a few other goodies like Cunning Initiative and Bane / Greater Bane


Of course there are many combinations that give you 30+ Talents and abilities but this above gives you that plus Summon Monsters for Days. Also a Good Fort and Will plus 6+ Skill Points. Master of None besides bringing the Army

[icefractal]

On the feel of SoP vs standard casters -
The casting itself feels far more varied, the specific spells feel more similar.

Most Paizo casters are very similar in how they cast. Even the Psychic ones are only a bit different.
In SoP, casting traditions are much broader. You could:
* Replicate any existing casting style
* Instead of casting yourself, summon spirits who do the casting
* Do ritual magic with floor diagrams and lab apparatus and all
* Distill magical drugs, which you could hand out to others and they'd be fully usable
* Burn through your life-force for power

Also, in addition to the actual Rituals rules, there are naturally-emergent ways to "do a ritual" (spend extra time and enlist helpers to get a higher CL). Some of these exist in stock PF as well, but SoP has significantly more. Cool if you like emergent properties, which I do.

The downside - there are a lot less Sphere abilities than there are total spells. Of course many are more versatile, but ultimately you're going to repeat them more often.

Finally, in terms of "actually do, as a PC, stuff commonly attributed to mages", it works surprisingly well when all talents are included. Whether this is important, YMMV - I personally find it a major selling point, but some people actively dislike it. SoP splits the difference by putting most of that into Advanced Talents and saying "use at your own risk".

[Serafina]

For both SoM and SoP, I would highly recommend using Rituals to supplement what characters can do, unless you want to heavily alter what player characters are supposed to be capable of.

Rituals have long enough casting times, and are of limited enough availability (the GM needs to say they exist, you must find a written source, you need to know related base spheres or take extra feats) that they do not create the "every combat problem can be solved with the right spell" problem. But they do preserve a lot of the stuff that magic is used for out of combat.

I'd actually recommend doing away with the requirements to be a caster and have the necessary base spheres, mostly so that Spheres of Might characters can have access to such effects too. If you allow effects like Raise Dead, Scrying, Teleport, or Tongues into your game, they are no more broken on a martial character than a caster character.

Also to be clear, only allow the spell-equivalents of Rituals that you want in your game.
I'm saying "if your game features regular planar travel, just throw players Planeshift as a Ritual, problem solved" - don't force one of the players to use the Warp Sphere for it. If you need a solution for how to keep out incorporeal undead - you could try to do it via Spheres, but maybe just convert a spell for it and give it a three-hour casting time. And if a campaign assumes regular long-distance communication, maybe just adapt Sending or such.

[Gnaeus]

Is there a stronger Path of War healer than cleric or paladin?
.

My current character is a Shaman/Guru/rajah.

At Character Level 5, so the cleric is reasonably throwing out 3d6 channels and/or CSW with top slots.

I give temp hp when initiative is rolled
I heal the ally 6hp whenever an ally within 30 hits with an attack. (radiant dawn stance)
I heal Character Level +1 (6hp) on an ally within 30 whenever I use a maneuver. (Radiant Dawn style)
My pet, employing share veil on immaculate touch, heals 2d6+1 on a target within 15 feet, multiple times per day per target.
Every round, I use bolster to either give an entitled ally another attack (possibly triggering more healing), or let them reroll a failed save (Rajah) which lets me recover my maneuvers.
I can use maneuvers as immediate actions to counter damage against entitled allies.

As long as I use bolster at least every 3 rounds, I can do that forever. And my immaculate touch which I personally rarely use in combat covers all out of combat healing. Admittedly, I am benefited by having multiple allies that make attack rolls, but my heals in total are about equal to a healbot cleric, except not limited in rounds per day, with effective healing range of 15-30 feet, and I am also avoiding attacks on allies and giving allies extra attacks and also my rajah titles at the same time.

I'm pretty sure you can make a similar combo with a single classed zealot, getting radiant dawn with a trait and replacing the immaculate touch raccoon with zealot psionic healing. Honestly, any PoW character that can get Radiant Dawn maneuvers can function as a pretty solid healer if they get the right maneuvers and stances. The harder part is having an power that lets you cancel effects on allies in order to function as a status healer, but I know there are ways to do that with Zealot and Rajah, possibly others.

[Kitsuneymg]

(I am new to spheres so still have not played it)

This may be against the spirit of Spheres for it backports stronger Pathfinder Archetypes while also being a very Sphere-y combination.

But an inquisitor with these archetypes are possible.


Monster Tactician from Traditional Pathfinder's Monster Summoner’s Handbook
Sphere Inquisitor which gives you 15 Magic Talents + 2 Casting Talents instead of Spells
Soldier Of The Gods Inquiistor which gives you 15 Combat Talents + Martial Weapon Tradition (equal to 4 combat talents, but there are rules for this instead of free reign), you lose the Teamwork Feats and Solo Tactics
Still keep your Inquisition plus a few other goodies like Cunning Initiative and Bane / Greater Bane


Of course there are many combinations that give you 30+ Talents and abilities but this above gives you that plus Summon Monsters for Days. Also a Good Fort and Will plus 6+ Skill Points. Master of None besides bringing the Army

Yeah. When I said spheres inquisitor with barrage, I specifically meant soldier of the gods and the one that gets studied target. The summon monster one was obviously broken (and since no pathfinder spells existed in our game, not available.). The main issue is the amount of bonus damage such a character added to each attack. It would be similar to a full attack archer, except I was able I use move actions to buff. Two levels into iron mage for wisdom to hit as well. It was frightfully effective.

[sunrise.archive]

I genuinely enjoy spheres of might - but that's mostly because they attempted to fix the biggest issue of 3.5/pf1e - the full-attack action. It makes martial combat so static and boring. SoM does a great job of making your standard attack action meaningful, so you can have varied interesting things to do with your move action, and combat just feels better.
That comes from a different site where a similar discussion is happening.


Most Paizo casters are very similar in how they cast. Even the Psychic ones are only a bit different.
In SoP, casting traditions are much broader. You could:
* Replicate any existing casting style
* Instead of casting yourself, summon spirits who do the casting
* Do ritual magic with floor diagrams and lab apparatus and all
* Distill magical drugs, which you could hand out to others and they'd be fully usable
* Burn through your life-force for power
I hope for that, one of the reasons spheres are so attractive for me.


Rituals have long enough casting times, and are of limited enough availability (the GM needs to say they exist, you must find a written source, you need to know related base spheres or take extra feats) that they do not create the "every combat problem can be solved with the right spell" problem. But they do preserve a lot of the stuff that magic is used for out of combat.
Now I've got the feeling that something like that happened in 4e, didn't it? Purely combat powers for class abilities, rituals for non-combat effects that anyone could use.

Nonetheless, I like the idea.


My current character is a Shaman/Guru/rajah.
That kinda falls outside of the thread's question, if I'm correct. It is specifically about Spheres and Path of War, not DSP stuff in general.

[Gnaeus]

That kinda falls outside of the thread's question, if I'm correct. It is specifically about Spheres and Path of War, not DSP stuff in general.

Doesn't matter. Rajah is an initiator/akashic class. It could have easily gotten immaculate touch via a feat and a familiar via 2 more. Radiant Dawn is a PoW discipline that uses akasha, like sleeping goddess and Zealot are path of war things that use psionics. So I disagree with your distinction but if it were meaningful it wouldn't apply here. A single class rajah could also outheal a cleric with exactly the same tools. Actually would heal better because it would be SAD focused on its prime stat, and it would have more essence without the shaman levels, which for this purpose are only contributing the familiar.

[vasilidor]

Currently running a Spheres game where I tossed the core magic system of pathfinder. Meaning spheres of power is the only available magic system. Currently level 4 and I have noticed no real overpowered stuff or under powered stuff. We do have a teleporting blood rager (short distances only at this point) That I feel compelled to keep an eye on.

[Endarire]

Spheres of Magic lets players do mid-to-high level stuff from level 1, but less often. Want to dominate that bugbear or ankheg? You potentially can, but you're likely to be (nearly) out of spell points the rest of the day at level 1ish. I agree it forces specialization in ways that not even a Sor does, but traditional casters (Sor/Wiz, etc.) tend to be more powerful than their spheres counterparts starting around level 10, when a Sor could learn dominate person and use the occasional item of teleport until he learned teleport as a spell known. (Paragon surge + Expanded Arcana makes this possible at L10 without anything else needed, at least on a short-term basis.) Sure, an Incanter10 can use the effect of dominate anything not immune from a lower level and has some at will abilities based on his spheres known, but a Sor can use a greater variety of things generally more often even without paragon surge.

As for Spheres of Martials, it's again specialized. Perhaps compared to PF martials like Rogue or Barbarian it's better balanced or more generous in the abilities that it gives, but I barely used it. (The Alchemy Sphere for healing was the most use I got from it because more heals = better!)

I haven't played to any notable degree with Path of War.

[Jack_Simth]

Like, there's no equivalent to the most broken powers, like planar binding.

It's two advanced talents of the conjuration sphere. No pevel gate or hd restrictions.

[Kitsuneymg]

It's two advanced talents of the conjuration sphere. No pevel gate or hd restrictions.

It’s one talent. The second is to remove all risk (assuming you’re smart enough to go ahead and take that 20) of the bound creature being able to harm you.

[Ramza00]

It's two advanced talents of the conjuration sphere. No pevel gate or hd restrictions.

HD restrictions is your caster level


[skips most of the text]...You may call multiple creatures with one use of this ability (up to 3 at once) but the Hit Dice of a single creature cannot exceed your MSB, while the combined Hit Dice of all creatures cannot exceed your caster level.

[Jack_Simth]

HD restrictions is your caster level

Ah, missed that.

Still: Available from level 1.

[AsuraKyoko]

Given that it's an advanced talent, it's with GM permission only. Which, honestly, is the best way to handle planar binding anyways. Depending on the type of game (and the setting), I could easily see that not being particularly problematic, even starting at level 1. Sure, it would require some GM adjudication, but could definitely be a fun game.

[Ramza00]

Ah, missed that.

Still: Available from level 1.

Honestly Sphere Leadership for most things I think will be better, even at level 1.



So Sphere Leadership is front loaded where ...

you can summon NPC classes that for the first 3 HD are 1 to 1 with your Diplomacy Ranks, and normal Diplomacy Ranks are equal to your Hit Die.
At 4 diplomacy ranks you NPC class does not advance, and every 4 diplomacy ranks your NPC class does not advance (8/12/16/20)
But on the 1/2/3 and every 4 diplomacy ranks after that your Leadership cohort does advance in NPC classes. Thus at diplomacy rank 7 you have a 6 HD cohort, at diplomacy rank 11 you have a 9 HD cohort, diplomacy rank 15 you have a 12 HD cohort, and diplomacy rank 19 you have a 15 HD cohort
These NPC classes are weaker than any PC class, by design, and while CR is an imperfect system the Leadership sphere thinks "Cohorts are considered to have a CR equal to their Hit Dice - 2 for purposes that require it." I want to underline that the NPC Classes really stink and are pretty much just giving you Monstrous Humanoid HD with +1 BAB, d10, 4+ Skills, 2 Good Saves, and the "Proficient Sphere of Might" Combat Talents which is +1 combat talent ever 2 HD.
Your Leadership sphere is powered by Diplomacy Ranks and the base sphere gives you 5 ranks and each additional Leadership sphere gives you 5 more ranks at the maximum of your HD. Thus 1 base and 3 additional combat talents are needed to fully power a 20th level character with 20 ranks in Diplomacy. (more on this later)


So yeah Leadership gives you bodies that serve just like that Conjuration advanced talent "Call Planar Creature."

Leadership is front loaded, and Call Planar Creature is back loaded.

=====

But leadership has 4 additional things that makes it superior in most cases. 4 things that are synergistic an add to one another.

1)
One needs to actually read the whole Sphere and not just glance at the Leadership Sphere. This is because you can have a total amount of Hit Dice of Cohorts equal to your Diplomacy Ranks (split among any amount of cohorts) while the Table lists the maximum Hit Dice for any specific Diplomacy Ranks. Thus a character with 20th Diplomacy Ranks and is 20th level can have Cohort A with 15 HDthe max and Cohort B with 5 HD, or one can make Cohort A and B equal 10 HD each at level 20.

The basic talent Greater Recruitment (cohort) changes all this. It allows you additional HD pool equal to your Diplomacy Ranks each time you take this basic Leadership combat talent. Thus take it once and your 20 Rank 20th level Character has 40 HD pool to recruit cohorts from. You can take the Greater Recruitment up to 3 times and thus have a total of 80 HD pool at 20 Diplomacy Ranks. Or 40 HD pool at 10 Diplomacy Ranks, etc, etc.

2)
Martial Traditions. There are several Martial Traditions that give you a Leadership talent for free.

Let’s focus on the Commando one for now. Commando gives you Rogues Weapon Training including Short Sword, Rapier, Sword Cane, various knives and knife adjacent blades, boot blade, hand crossbow, whip, garrote, sap. In sum various direct and sneaky weapons, oh also a bonus to hiding weapons on ones person with sleight of hand as well.

You also get Leadership (cohort) sphere for free, and 2 more talents in the Scout or Equipment sphere, aka the things that can give you Stealth ranks for free (Scout Sphere base), and Perception ranks for free (Scout Sphere: Greater Senses) in effect 20 skill ranks plus Leadership basic for your Martial Weapon Profiency and opportunity costs of not selecting a different tradition.

3)
Conscript is a base class for Spheres of Might and it is like a Fighter but better. Full BAB, d10 HD, Good Fort and Reflex, 4 + Skills, 10 Bonus Feats (combat or teamwork), 20 Base Combat Talents and 10 Bonus Talents (30 Total Combat Talents), so on and so on.

We want just 1 level of this Base Class which gives us the following. 1 Base Combat Talent, 1 Bonus Combat Talent, and 1 Bonus Feat. But we are going to swap all the bonus feats (this one and all future ones) for 5 Conscript Specialization Points.

3 Conscript Specialization Points are going to be used on the Leadership Specialization. Now you get +1 Diplomacy Rank above your normal HD. In addition you get Thus a HD 5 character has 6 Ranks in Diplomacy, which in turn means your Leadership Cohorts are more advanced and anything else that uses Diplomacy.

Now you have 2 Conscript Specialization Points left so grab Squadron Commander, Berserker Sphere (Barbarian Training), Guardian Sphere (Cavalier Training), a Teamwork Feat, Finesse Fighting, Gear Training (all Martial Weapons not just your Martial Tradition), Fencing Sphere (Swashbcuker Training), a Good Will Save, and several other goodies I am also going to skip over for I am going long.

So 1 level Dip into Conscript grabs you 2 Combat Talents, plus a Leadership Combat Talent, Diplomacy Boost, a Martial Tradition and 2 remaining Specialization Points. Thou shall not lose Caster Levels but in this case it just makes sense for a Martial or Caster class, be 1 level behind but your cohorts are 1 level ahead and you can grab 3 Greater Recruitments with the 2 Combat Talents plus the bonus Leadership Talent. Now a 5 HD PC can have 24 HD of cohorts to play with as meat shields. (x4 on the 5+1 Diplomacy Ranks.)

If you go Squadron Commander for those 2 remaining Combat Specializations you can have a squadron of yourself and 4 other people at Diplomacy Rank 5 if you take the Squadron Commander feat (War Sphere) or Troop Commander (Warleader.) Take an additional feat for Battlefield Tactics and you can sacrifice your actions to give actions to your PC friends or your NPC cohorts, like give a standard action to friend A, a move action to friend b, and a swift action to friend c.

4)
The Legendary Talent (aka requires DM's permission just like Advanced Talents) Advanced Cohorts

Advanced Cohorts uses CR to determine the maximum abilities of your creatures. I do not like how the paragraphs are written so let me rephrase them in everyday language. Find a Monster CR and double it. That is how many Diplomacy Ranks it takes to recruit.

You can recruit creatures from any monster manual or any humanoid race. The base recruitment is the CR of the monster and double that, with your Diplomacy Ranks must being twice the CR or higher else it does not work. Thus a Player with 8 Diplomacy Ranks can recruit a Hound Archon (CR 4), the good doggy outsider bruiser who is humanoid or can change shape into small, medium, or larger dog. 6 HD of outsider with 6 BAB and some spell like abilities (greater teleport at will), and some good defensive abilities both AC, resistances, damage reduction, etc.
Advancement can be on PC levels where PC levels are +1 CR (and thus take 2 diplomacy ranks) or NPC levels which take 1 Diplomacy Rank for whatever is on the see table. Thus NPC levels are 4 Diplomacy ranks for every 3 NPC HD in the +1/+1/+1/+0 pattern explained above.
Recruitment Maxs are based on two principles CR and HD. You can not have a max more than the base monster+cr from pc levels x2+npc levels x1 than your diplomacy ranks. For example the Hound Archon with 1 level of Conscript and 1 level of Warrior now is Diplomacy Ranks of 11, or the Hound Archon can be 3 levels of Warrior for the same 11 Diplomacy Ranks.
But beside the Recruitment Max based off Diplomacy Ranks and CR your cohort is still taking HD from your recruitment pool. Thus a Hound Archon Base+1 Conscript level+1 Warrior level is taking 8 HD of recruitment pool, and a Hound Archon Base+3 Warrior levels is taking 9 HD of recruitment pool.
Note most of the Pathfinder Improved Familiars are CR 2 and thus take 4 Diplomacy Ranks and then you can add PC or NPC levels on top of them. Thus it is quite easy to have flying, invisibility allies which do not contribute to combat except when it is key to do so. Give these cohorts to your allies and everyone can have a flying improved familiar like creatures to help them out and your party will not be resentful when you give them a minion to play with on their initiative thus slowing combat down in an equilateral way.
Advanced Cohorts allow you to grab sphere spellcasters, or vanican spellcasters, psionics, akashic, path of war, etc without grabbing any of the other advanced talents of the leadership sphere. You do not need to grab advanced talent Magic Cohort to have a sphere spellcaster cohort, yet you would need to grab Magic Cohort if you want to advance your cohort by the Mage NPC class (int), Acolyte (wis), or Pact-bound (cha) but why would you for they only advance +1.5 Caster level for every 4 ranks of diplomacy and 3 NPC HD. In most but not all cases PC levels will be better unless you just want base HD to be higher but it is crummy d6 HD.
Advanced Cohort can’t be taken until Diplomacy 5 ranks but that is not a big deal with Conscript 1 level dip allowing PCs of 4th level to recruit CR 2 monsters right out the gate.



So 1600 words later you can see Leadership Sphere mostly pays for itself with a 1 level dip into Conscript, and a Martial Tradition. That is the base sphere and a cohort pool of your PC’s (HD+1)*4 of NPC classes. Take a 1 level Feat with Advanced Cohort and now you are creating customizable useful characters that do not scale as much as 3.5 or Pathfinder Leadership, but you actually have way more customizability than 3.5 and PF leadership even if they are still weaker. Do you want 3 levels into Path of War / Psionic’s Aegis yes you can allowing you to grab Student of the Astral Suit being a 7th level Aegis with 10 Customization Points, 3rd level maneuvers, and the flexibility of a 7th level Aegis (can be melee, or scout, or wings of cover shield with crusader shield chakra bind.) Want to grab 1 level of Vitalist from Dreamscarred Psionics allowing your cohort to re-adjust healing on the fly including fast healing the cohort provides via the racial HD why yes you can. Cohorts are weaker than party members but action advantage is king.

And you do not have to pay your cohorts due to the leadership sphere making this a roleplay with an assumption you get extra wealth and the cohorts get their fair share to just be happy with being in the party, yet you pay for any specialized equipment you want to make them more powerful.



In sum I like it, it is both weaker and more powerful than 3.5 and PF Leadership depending on whether your DM allows the Legendary Talent Advanced Cohort. But even if your DM does not allow that Advanced Talent spellcasters may want to consider a 1 level dip into Conscript to recruit some mercenary meat shields, or to summon the dead as undead, so on and so on.

You can also just do the Base Companion Sphere (with no advanced talents) and recruit magic companions at the same time, and the magic companions do Bottled Spells Casting Tradition Drawback and Boons where they bottle up their magic and then give it to your Leadership Cohorts as potions, magic gowns they wear, etc to do big bruiser things. Why yes I have a Fairy Godmother Companion Spheres (Base not Advanced) and that Fairy Godmother turns my cohorts into Cinder-Fella bruisers who are like Shazam but for only 24 hours. And when the clock strikes midnight the Fairy Godmother magic disappears until I re-summoned them again. All without using an Advanced Talent.

[QuadraticGish]

A lot of people have already said my own opinions, so I'll just add a bit to that. PoW and SoM are pretty much straight upgrades to martials for mechanically and fun in my own experience. For the most part, there's no problem mixing the two and I feel it generally comes down to player preference on how things go. In my experiences when mixing, it comes down to choosing which system you want to act as support. PoW as support, typically ends with leveraging boosts and counts with strikes only being taken for utility cases while Vital Strike ends up becoming the bread and butter. In case of Spheres acting as support, you probably see passive talents, free action, or swift actions being taken up a lot more while the majority of someone's maneuvers ends up as strikes and counters.

As with everyone has said about SoP, it's pretty much giving up depth for power through specialization. Unfortunately, not all spheres were created equal. Telekinesis, Weather, Geomancy are the stand outs in either being really weak even with investment, or in the case of weather, going way off the charts with investment after being really weak. Something I didn't actually see mentioned much was that a lot of SoP classes... to put bluntly I find boring as hell. A lot of them aren't bad or hell are even pretty good in a lot of cases mechanically but they feel underwhelming to look at and read a lot of times in my opinion.

If going all three(without gestalt, the only way I can think of pulling this off is playing low-caster high-bab class like Mage Knight and taking the Spark of Inspiration feat unless using Trinity Knight) you do get someone with a lot of tricks and not enough actions to play them all out. Which while highly complex to plan I do find highly satisfying in that and in play.

[Kitsuneymg]

A lot of people have already said my own opinions, so I'll just add a bit to that. PoW and SoM are pretty much straight upgrades to martials for mechanically and fun in my own experience. For the most part, there's no problem mixing the two and I feel it generally comes down to player preference on how things go. In my experiences when mixing, it comes down to choosing which system you want to act as support. PoW as support, typically ends with leveraging boosts and counts with strikes only being taken for utility cases while Vital Strike ends up becoming the bread and butter. In case of Spheres acting as support, you probably see passive talents, free action, or swift actions being taken up a lot more while the majority of someone's maneuvers ends up as strikes and counters.

As with everyone has said about SoP, it's pretty much giving up depth for power through specialization. Unfortunately, not all spheres were created equal. Telekinesis, Weather, Geomancy are the stand outs in either being really weak even with investment, or in the case of weather, going way off the charts with investment after being really weak. Something I didn't actually see mentioned much was that a lot of SoP classes... to put bluntly I find boring as hell. A lot of them aren't bad or hell are even pretty good in a lot of cases mechanically but they feel underwhelming to look at and read a lot of times in my opinion.

If going all three(without gestalt, the only way I can think of pulling this off is playing low-caster high-bab class like Mage Knight and taking the Spark of Inspiration feat unless using Trinity Knight) you do get someone with a lot of tricks and not enough actions to play them all out. Which while highly complex to plan I do find highly satisfying in that and in play.

Just play a champion class and use martial training 1-6. Or be a gish PoW build, but give up 1/2 your feats to become adept practitioner too. Imo both are better than trinity knight.

I think that with the blanket “reducing casting by 1 spell/level” equates to “lose sp at these levels” from one of the sphere splat books, that you can soldier of the gods, sphere inquisitor and warpath follower all at once.

Edit:
If an archetype includes diminished spellcasting, the archetype loses the magical talents at 2nd, 8th, 14th, and 20th levels.

[Ramza00]

So adding to what Kitsuneymg said but in table form.

Inquisitor with

Soldier Of The Gods (combat talents), no teamwork feats or solo tactics
Sphere Inquisitor (magic talents), no traditional Vancian divine spells
Warpath Follower Inquisitor (path of war maneuvers, weapon focus in one weapon) no judgement, second judgement, third judgement, and true judgement, 1 fewer spells per spell level using the archetype rules
You still have the following Inquisitor Class Features if you want to take more archetypes. Inquisition / 1 Domain, Monster Lore, Stern Gaze, Cunning Initiative, Detect Alignment, Track, Bane, Detect Lies, Stalwart, Greater Bane, Exploit Weakness, Slayer

http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/archetype-rules
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/path-of-war/classes/martial-class-templates/warpath-follower-template/
http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/sphere-inquisitor
http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/soldier-of-the-gods
https://aonprd.com/ClassDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Inquisitor




Level

BAB

Combat Talents

Magic Talents

Caster Level
Maneuver Level
Adv. Study
Maneuver Known
Maneuver Ready
Maneuver Stance

01 —— —— —— —— 1st —— 3 known 3 (1) Stance 1
02 1 1 00=01-1 1 1st —— 4 known 3 (1) Stance 1
03 2 2 01=02-1 2 1st —— 5 known 3 (1) Stance 1
04 3 3 02=03-1 3 2nd —— 6 known 4 (2) Stance 2
05 —— —— —— —— 2nd 3rd 6 known 4 (2) Stance 2
06 4 4 03=04-1 4 2nd 3rd 6 known 4 (2) Stance 2
07 5 5 04=05-1 5 3rd 4th 7 known 4 (2) Stance 3
08 6 6 04=06-2 6 3rd 4th 7 known 4 (2) Stance 3
09 —— —— —— —— 4th 5th 8 known 4 (2) Stance 3
10 7 7 05=07-2 7 4th 5th 8 known 5 (3) Stance 3
11 8 8 06=08-2 8 5th 6th 9 known 5 (3) Stance 4
12 9 9 07=09-2 9 5th 6th 9 known 5 (3) Stance 4
13 —— —— —— —— 6th 7th 10 known 5 (3) Stance 5
14 10 10 07=10-3 10 6th 7th 11 known 5 (3) Stance 5
15 11 11 08=11-3 11 6th 8th 11 known 6 (4) Stance 5
16 12 12 09=12-3 12 6th 8th 12 known 6 (4) Stance 5
17 —— —— —— —— 6th 9th 13 known 6 (4) Stance 5
18 13 13 10=13-3 13 6th 9th 14 known 6 (4) Stance 5
19 14 14 11=14-3 14 6th 9th 14 known 6 (4) Stance 5
20 15 15 11=15-4 15 6th 9th 15 known 7 (5) Stance 5


Level

BAB

Combat Talents

Magic Talents

Caster Level
Maneuver Level
Adv. Study
Maneuver Known
Maneuver Ready
Maneuver Stance


In sum at level 8 you can have

Martial Tradition,
Casting Tradition,
BAB 6,
6 Combat Talents,
4 Magic Talents,
7 Maneuvers Known with the highest being 3rd level (2x3rd, 3x2nd, 3x1st due to Maneuver Swapping at level 4, 6, 8),
3 Stances (3rd, 1st, 1st)

2 Feats greatly help your power,
Advanced Study in your HD05 feat (retrained at HD07, HD09, HD11, etc) allows you to have 2 maneuvers at the same progression a Zealot or Rajah would get them, thus 4th level maneuvers at HD07.
Extra Granted Maneuver means at HD08 you have 2 Maneuvers you get to pick at the start of combat, plus 1 extra random maneuver and 1 maneuver in reserve not granted which you get at the end of your combat turn. At the end of turn 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc you refresh your maneuvers and you get 2 maneuvers which you pick, 1 random, and 1 you get at the end of your combat turn on rounds 3, 5, 7, 9, etc. No action is required to do this, it is like the Crusader Recovery Method but better.

Thus with 2 feats you are close to a full Path of War class with maneuvers (but 3/4th BAB but does that really matter?), d8 Hit Points, Good Fort and Will, 6+ Skill Points, and enough magic talents to do some enhancement buffing plus out of combat skill enhancement, and 6 combat talents plus Martial Tradition to allow you some versatility.

A master of none but something far better than standard pathfinder tier 4 or 5 classes, this is easily tier 3 but not tier 2 or 1.

[Kitsuneymg]

Thus with 2 feats you are close to a full Path of War class with maneuvers (but 3/4th BAB but does that really matter?), d8 Hit Points, Good Fort and Will, 6+ Skill Points, and enough magic talents to do some enhancement buffing plus out of combat skill enhancement, and 6 combat talents plus Martial Tradition to allow you some versatility.

A master of none but something far better than standard pathfinder tier 4 or 5 classes, this is easily tier 3 but not tier 2 or 1.

IMO, 3/4 bab doesn’t matter much. Bane makes up for it against hard targets. Additionally, community minded and empower is a great combo for 3 rounds of +4 to hit. I think there’s a golden lion boost that is very similar.

[StSword]

I imagine only playtesters have any actual experience with it, but for the record the sphere's third sibling, spheres of guile, for skill monkeys types was kickstarted, so that's something to keep a look out for.

Also, for those looking for another experience with Path of War there is Lost Sphere's Lost Paths: Voltaic.

They are meant to be a somewhat weaker path of war option, they spend stamina points to power their maneuvers, and learn maneuvers in a eureka fashion instead of formal study called sparking. Includes the option of making this available to everyone with a combat stamina pool, takes a special feat, or just make it available to everyone for free for a Wuxia style game.

By Eureka I mean players using this option can learn a new maneuver or boost when they score a natural 20, or learn a counter when their opponent scores a natural 1 instead of learning automatically with leveling. Although it has an option for that too.

Akashics, casters, and manifesters take penalties to the roll to learn using the sparking method, and to their total limit, so partial caster types are the only ones likely to get much benefit from this system so as to level the playing field a little bit because magic types already have cool toys to play with.

[vasilidor]

Spheres of guile is shaping well, I think.

[Gnaeus]

It's two advanced talents of the conjuration sphere. No pevel gate or hd restrictions.

Probably so. My post made clear I was addressing the PoW part, not the spheres part which I have skimmed but never persuaded my group to use. The only way I know to do that with PoW is to have a crafting mystic (or in all DSP, crafting vizier) making scrolls or other items of those spells.

[Prime32]

Throwing in a link to Pathminder (https://pathminder.github.io/base-classes/), which has a PoW-centric collection of "pre-archetyped classes intended to better fit an average power level than the unarchetyped versions", for easier reference. Sometimes the same class is listed multiple times with different sets of archetypes applied.