SangoProduction
2022-10-31, 04:42 PM
Preamble: This book is undoubtedly one of my favorite of Spheres books (outside of the basic Ultimate SoP). It comes in with all the creativity of a third party publisher, but has the restraint to keep from tearing down the house.
And the Card Caster tradition has created perhaps my favorite character concept. (Though actually playing with the tradition is undoubtedly going to be a PITA. Unless I get/make a custom deck application.) Looking at the associated Drawback feats (which promise to be interesting alterations rather than compensations for having the draw back in the first place) seems like the logical next step.
Post Review Analysis: Surprisingly, I am unimpressed. But 4 of them are actually pretty creative, and play with the concept in a neat way.
(1) Superb: You always want this if it's relevant to you. And it probably is.
(1.5) Really Good: Particularly useful bits of kit, but aren't quite must-haves.
(2) Good: These make useful additions to the right builds. Among your first picks.
(3) Meh: Doesn't hurt to have. Wouldn't go out of your way for it.
(4) No: It technically has a use, but the cost to take simply doesn't outweigh the benefit.
(5) Never: There’s no non-trivial reason to pick it up, from its mechanics.
(6+) Harmful: Taking/using this is actively detrimental to your character.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
[Square brackets] indicate a reliance on the group (players or DM) or campaign you’re playing in, and how well it does in those select groups.
Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(?) Unrated: I choose not to rate it. Often because it is just so far out of my wheelhouse, or it’s far too ambiguous.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
(D) D***bag: Used for when your character wants to be a D***bag.
For each Deck feat taken, gain one of the following manipulations.
Wild Card (1): Add 1 Wild Card to your deck. Can take multiple times. When played, you get to search (and then shuffle) your deck for your desired card.
Loaded Hand (1): Draw +2 cards at combat start. May be selected multiple times. Free, instant at combat start. Great.
Drawpower Enhancement (2): Once per round, draw 1 card, or draw 2 by shuffling one that you don't want into your deck... by spending a spell point. Still great.
Prize Card (2): Defeat enemy to get 1 card. But you defeated the enemy already. Comes online too late to really matter unless your DM likes swarmy fights.
Read the Cards (2) Basically worse Drawpower Enhancement. But it can be done [Deck Feat] times per round. For a spell point each. But you still get to *look at* your next card, and prepare your next turn without spell points.
Muligan (5): Lets you Mulligan your opening hand one time without reducing the hand size by 1. You know what else lets you do that? Increasing your hand size by 2 to start with. Literally no reason to pick this. Even if Loaded Hand can't be Mulligan'd.
Feats
Enhanced Play (1.5): Although I would normally say this is just a mitigation talent... it does actually do more than that, since normally metamagic feats increase the casting time on Spheres of Power. The fact that I forgot that that happens shows how often I use metamagic feats. Also, I don't figure Metamagic is actually a crucial part of the restrictions (and seemed strange that it was made so by baseline)
Hand Full of Counters (1.5): Improves your Counterspell Mastery by letting it be used (once per round) as a free action out of turn, for no cost (other than playing said card while it's in your hand).
Latent Energies (1.5): Now that's unique. You get to pack up your personal buffs into your deck, and save them for later. No expenditure of spell points to use the packed up buffs (though same action).
Flexible Targeting (2): Another mitigation talent. Lets you put 2 instead of 1 blast shape on your Destructive Blast cards. But it still remains interesting.
Card Shark (3): Gain an extra deck manipulation. While there are fantastic deck manipulations (for what they are)... they are just mitigation for taking the drawback in the first place. Rather light mitigation at that. If you wanted to mitigate the drawback... just don't take the drawback! Why is that so difficult?
Discard Match (4): Up to 1+CL bonus damage. Built up over the course of the match. Once per round. (In fact, on first attack, not even first hit, let alone if you don't make an attack.)
Burn The Deck (4): Swift action discard 1/4 CL cards from deck to reroll that many damage dice. Doesn't really do much.
Trap Card (C ?): I have literally no idea why you would wish to ready a card, since you can't do it outside of combat. Well, actually, you can do it for exactly one card per minute.
There is no timer on the cards, except for when you shuffle the cards back into your deck. Which happens at the end of combat, and when you empty your deck with Cooldown. Can theoretically be used to cheese the effects as basically some sort of Contingency+.
Heart of the Cards (F): It's flavorful, but I see very little reason to actually use Chance feats.
Fate's Deal (?): Word and Motif talents don't provoke when Card Casted. Do you normally use your spells like that when you would provoke?
Developed Field (?): I hate the idea of MtG-style mana cards. They suck. But this really fits in well with using metamagic. And there are some nice, and expensive, metamagic feats.
And the Card Caster tradition has created perhaps my favorite character concept. (Though actually playing with the tradition is undoubtedly going to be a PITA. Unless I get/make a custom deck application.) Looking at the associated Drawback feats (which promise to be interesting alterations rather than compensations for having the draw back in the first place) seems like the logical next step.
Post Review Analysis: Surprisingly, I am unimpressed. But 4 of them are actually pretty creative, and play with the concept in a neat way.
(1) Superb: You always want this if it's relevant to you. And it probably is.
(1.5) Really Good: Particularly useful bits of kit, but aren't quite must-haves.
(2) Good: These make useful additions to the right builds. Among your first picks.
(3) Meh: Doesn't hurt to have. Wouldn't go out of your way for it.
(4) No: It technically has a use, but the cost to take simply doesn't outweigh the benefit.
(5) Never: There’s no non-trivial reason to pick it up, from its mechanics.
(6+) Harmful: Taking/using this is actively detrimental to your character.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
[Square brackets] indicate a reliance on the group (players or DM) or campaign you’re playing in, and how well it does in those select groups.
Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(?) Unrated: I choose not to rate it. Often because it is just so far out of my wheelhouse, or it’s far too ambiguous.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
(D) D***bag: Used for when your character wants to be a D***bag.
For each Deck feat taken, gain one of the following manipulations.
Wild Card (1): Add 1 Wild Card to your deck. Can take multiple times. When played, you get to search (and then shuffle) your deck for your desired card.
Loaded Hand (1): Draw +2 cards at combat start. May be selected multiple times. Free, instant at combat start. Great.
Drawpower Enhancement (2): Once per round, draw 1 card, or draw 2 by shuffling one that you don't want into your deck... by spending a spell point. Still great.
Prize Card (2): Defeat enemy to get 1 card. But you defeated the enemy already. Comes online too late to really matter unless your DM likes swarmy fights.
Read the Cards (2) Basically worse Drawpower Enhancement. But it can be done [Deck Feat] times per round. For a spell point each. But you still get to *look at* your next card, and prepare your next turn without spell points.
Muligan (5): Lets you Mulligan your opening hand one time without reducing the hand size by 1. You know what else lets you do that? Increasing your hand size by 2 to start with. Literally no reason to pick this. Even if Loaded Hand can't be Mulligan'd.
Feats
Enhanced Play (1.5): Although I would normally say this is just a mitigation talent... it does actually do more than that, since normally metamagic feats increase the casting time on Spheres of Power. The fact that I forgot that that happens shows how often I use metamagic feats. Also, I don't figure Metamagic is actually a crucial part of the restrictions (and seemed strange that it was made so by baseline)
Hand Full of Counters (1.5): Improves your Counterspell Mastery by letting it be used (once per round) as a free action out of turn, for no cost (other than playing said card while it's in your hand).
Latent Energies (1.5): Now that's unique. You get to pack up your personal buffs into your deck, and save them for later. No expenditure of spell points to use the packed up buffs (though same action).
Flexible Targeting (2): Another mitigation talent. Lets you put 2 instead of 1 blast shape on your Destructive Blast cards. But it still remains interesting.
Card Shark (3): Gain an extra deck manipulation. While there are fantastic deck manipulations (for what they are)... they are just mitigation for taking the drawback in the first place. Rather light mitigation at that. If you wanted to mitigate the drawback... just don't take the drawback! Why is that so difficult?
Discard Match (4): Up to 1+CL bonus damage. Built up over the course of the match. Once per round. (In fact, on first attack, not even first hit, let alone if you don't make an attack.)
Burn The Deck (4): Swift action discard 1/4 CL cards from deck to reroll that many damage dice. Doesn't really do much.
Trap Card (C ?): I have literally no idea why you would wish to ready a card, since you can't do it outside of combat. Well, actually, you can do it for exactly one card per minute.
There is no timer on the cards, except for when you shuffle the cards back into your deck. Which happens at the end of combat, and when you empty your deck with Cooldown. Can theoretically be used to cheese the effects as basically some sort of Contingency+.
Heart of the Cards (F): It's flavorful, but I see very little reason to actually use Chance feats.
Fate's Deal (?): Word and Motif talents don't provoke when Card Casted. Do you normally use your spells like that when you would provoke?
Developed Field (?): I hate the idea of MtG-style mana cards. They suck. But this really fits in well with using metamagic. And there are some nice, and expensive, metamagic feats.