What spheres content to ban?

[SangoProduction]

Assuming you allow Spheres of Might/Power in the first place:
Are there any pieces of content that you specifically ban?

For me personally, I ban the Prodigy and Sage classes. They have both been hugely problematic in previous gameplay I've had with them, and just taking a good look at both reveals that being problematic is kind of core to the classes. (I mean Sage getting +20 to his stats by level (11?), functionally permanently, for pretty much free is on the lower end of what he can do... without even any funky readings of the rules.)

Outside of that, I don't think I really do bans. Outside of setting-/campaign-specific bans / encouragement.

But that's me. I want to know what you guys do.

[vasilidor]

Read the advanced talents. Some of them may be problematic for you.
Edit: The creation sphere can be really good at crowd control.

[Rynjin]

Nothing I've played with or ran for has come out as banworthy. Berserk/Guardian is a bit too efficient at making a character unkillable, but that's only something I'd really frown at if every character started taking a two-talent dip into those Spheres.

[Ramza00]

I like it but the 3rd Party Veilweaving Sphere (not part of the original Spheres but with a different publisher) needs to be eyeballed and approved on a conditional DM basis.

I like it, for I like encouraging multiclassing and dumpster diving, but sometimes it gives too much for free / uneven trades and sacrifices. Especially the 2nd tact on system the Sphereshaper, which exasperates its when combined with the first.

[icefractal]

Ki-Blaster Sage is quite strong; I might ban it depending on the group.

There are a few advanced talents that would depend on the campaign premise - Costly Creation doesn't work if striving for gold is supposed to be important, for example.

Outright broken, there's only one thing I can think of - Give Magic Life from Enhancement sphere. This one's ok if you're just using it for a short-duration living-spell-esque minion, but when given a little prep time, it lets you re-use every CL boost and achieve absurd numbers, plus if you get to pick the feats (ambiguous) it's just a straight-up better caster than you and could potentially loop to infinity.

Also, Technomancy sphere needs a limit to how many Sprites can be stacked into a single item, because right now it goes infinite and there's a talent that makes their effect stack, but that's third-party.

[Logalmier]

Lancer - hilariously overtuned, as well as extremely unfun for everyone except the lancer.

Barrage - ranged is already mechanically superior to melee, despite being far less risky. Ranged characters don’t need the ability to perform full attack+ as a standard action.

Steal Time - remove your opponent’s turn and get an additional standard action. Combine with Spell Strike for more absurdity. I genuinely don’t know who thought this was a good idea, probably the same person who wrote Lancer.

Transformation/Eternal Transformation feats - far too strong, and essentially condemn Alteration spherecasters to irrelevance. Why cast shapeshift when you can permanently poach the best traits via these feats?

Encompassing Light - permanent double size stacking is too easy when this + Glory are a 1 talent dip with drawbacks. The damage boost isn’t even the worst part, the worst part is now everyone suddenly has 20-30 ft of reach, and the positioning game is broken. Oh, you thought that Spheres was designed to encourage mobility? Enjoy provoking from everyone on the map every time you move.

Unseeing Teleport - more of a “this breaks fundamental game and worldbuilding assumptions” ban than a raw power ban. Giving level 1 characters the ability to teleport anywhere they want in a system with no good dimensional locks destroys campaigns and campaign worlds, both on a micro and macro level.

Most Divine talents - similar to above, this is more of a personal preference ban for me. I just don’t like every mystery being resolved by having the player flex into Divine [Plotpoint]. I never liked Detect Magic in base Pathfinder for similar reasons. Sure, I could cover my campaign world in lead and give every NPC with something to hide Obfuscation x2… or I could just ban Divine.

EDIT: oh yeah, and Heavy Swing is banned. Easily applied no-save stagger (daze on fail) is really oppressive, and far and away better than all the other exertions availible.

[icefractal]

Transformation/Eternal Transformation feats - far too strong, and essentially condemn Alteration spherecasters to irrelevance. Why cast shapeshift when you can permanently poach the best traits via these feats?On this one, I'm gonna comment - there's several reasons you'd want real Alteration over Transformation (and ET stacks with it):
* Alteration can do more than a single form.
* Alteration works on other people too.
* Transformation is locked at CL = HD with no way to boost it. A full Alteration caster can easily exceed that, which means better effects from many traits.

[Crake]

Read the advanced talents. Some of them may be problematic for you.
Edit: The creation sphere can be really good at crowd control.

Technically, the advanced talents are whitelist material, theyre banned by default and requite explicit DM approval to use.

[SangoProduction]

Technically, the advanced talents are whitelist material, theyre banned by default and requite explicit DM approval to use.

Yeah, that is kinda why I didn't mention them. Although I definitely thought I did, in that "They might be unlocked through gameplay" means. Guess I just thought it without typing it.

[DrMartin]

The thing i liked the most about "original recipe" SoP and SoM is that in two relatively small books you had everything you need to make *a lot* of character visions come to mind, and made playing casters less intimidating for new players. The two base books plus a short list of the 30-ish "best" or more interesting feats and the game is suddenly way more approachable, while still keeping true to its base "pillars" of meaningful character mechanical customization and tactical combat.

This is in my opinion something that got a bit lost with USoP - just the size of the book is intimidating.

So in this light, i ban all the handbooks, as they bring dumpster diving for the perfect combo back to the table - and the game works better, in my experience, without that. Talents or feats from handbook are now and again allowed or whitelisted, but it's the exception, not the rule.

[Coeruleum]

Of course Sage gets a +20 to his stats, since Spheres of Power/Might is balanced around eventually giving everyone a +20 to everything if you look closely at it. I like to call it Spheres of Jank. It can be fun, but it's also just jank, and Spheres of Power is basically just psionics with a different name especially with the option to actually be psychic/psionic rather than arcane or divine there, including if you want to completely emulate the 3.5e spell-to-power erudite and have some psychic or psionic ported arcane spells with arcane spell components. However, Spheres of Power always makes me wonder why anyone even goes arcane other than some of the base classes use it, since divine and psychic are essentially just superior depending on what you want to do if it isn't heavy on "you need arcane spellcasting of a certain level" feats. Maybe make your arcane spells not require any verbal or somatic components like a 3.5e warlock, but they still had arcane spell failure despite not requiring verbal or somatic components for most of their invocations. Arcane casting itself should be worth a drawback, and divine is probably somewhat of a drawback compared to psychic if you aren't making concentration checks all the time due to psychic qualifying you for Subtle Magic/Cunning Caster much sooner and being a prerequisite for much stronger things than divine casting usually is, but psychic is at least not strictly better than divine, just seemingly somewhat better for most builds who aren't tanky gishes or relying on taking the obviousness family of drawbacks plus not needing the psychic prerequisites. Divine has some good prerequisites too, at least better than arcane, but not as good as psychic since the whole idea of being psychic tends to heavily lean into innate abilities, the idea of gaining spiritual power from an ideal somewhat does, and the idea of being deliberately educated or trained does not at all. False Focus is nice but also not at all compatible with the Spheres of Power system itself since Spheres of Power makes you pay gold by the month or require ingesting specific substances if you use material components, not use material components with a set low value.

[SangoProduction]

Strange rant. Not sure what it has to do with banned content, in the context of Spheres being allowed.


The thing i liked the most about "original recipe" SoP and SoM is that in two relatively small books you had everything you need to make *a lot* of character visions come to mind, and made playing casters less intimidating for new players. The two base books plus a short list of the 30-ish "best" or more interesting feats and the game is suddenly way more approachable, while still keeping true to its base "pillars" of meaningful character mechanical customization and tactical combat.

This is in my opinion something that got a bit lost with USoP - just the size of the book is intimidating.

So in this light, i ban all the handbooks, as they bring dumpster diving for the perfect combo back to the table - and the game works better, in my experience, without that. Talents or feats from handbook are now and again allowed or whitelisted, but it's the exception, not the rule.

Very interesting take. Like legitimately. I like my options, personally. But that's a really rather interesting way of doing things, and I'd be down with going back to basics one of these days.

[Coeruleum]

Strange rant. Not sure what it has to do with banned content, in the context of Spheres being allowed.

TL;DR I consider all of Spheres to be Spheres of Jank so I don't feel like I could ban any Spheres content outright since it can all be abused rather easily or else is often a trap option.

[Sneak Dog]

Encompassing Light - permanent double size stacking is too easy when this + Glory are a 1 talent dip with drawbacks. The damage boost isn’t even the worst part, the worst part is now everyone suddenly has 20-30 ft of reach, and the positioning game is broken. Oh, you thought that Spheres was designed to encourage mobility? Enjoy provoking from everyone on the map every time you move.


This one already got nerfed in USoP. When you cast glow, you put a (light) talent on it. So you cast glow, and you spend a spell point to put encompassing light on it. It now does nothing until you make it glow bright. So this combo lets you spend 1 sp to glow for a glow for 1 minute per caster level, or 10 minutes per caster level with lingering glow. Still good, and fair to ban. But now it's more in line with alteration's size change.

Our group has nerfed lancer a lot, bans weather's control weather, sage and stupor monk. (And any 3rd party Spheres stuff.) After that, we've found Spheres to be more balanced than vanilla Pathfinder. Not a difficult feat, but one I'm happy with. Especially with how martials get cool tricks and casters are nudged to be thematic.
Characters are still looked at to make sure they're in line with the party's power level. It is still Pathfinder. Even if the balance is better and there's less ways to break things, there's plenty remaining.

[Kitsuneymg]

I haven’t banned anything yet. But I can say that lancer and barrage characters have both been asked to gentlemen’s agreement themselves off. Move action buffs (totems and alchemical coating) make barrage better than a full attack when it comes to damage. Inquisitor adds bane to that as well and it gets dumb, but ranged inquisitors were already really strong.

We do not play with vancian magic at all, so those ritual feats don’t matter. Otherwise we’d ban those.

The various new subsystems: sphere crafting, techniques, arista, oaths.

Most third party content. The list spheres classes are actually okay (reaper, necros, phantom thief, dragoon) with the exception of the full cl/full bab necros archetype.

We have a soft ban on minionmancy. It’s not that conjuration or leadership or beastmastery need to go for power reasons, but you can’t take five minutes for your round. We encourage one in/combat companion.

Sage is right out. It’s easily low tier 2 in a game system where tier 3 is hard to achieve.

Scholar is right out. I’m convinced the people who made this class has never played it in a real game. I’m also convinced they’ve barely played pathfinder. The doctor archetype especially removes the entire HP system from the game with trivial easy. I’m not even talking about boots of the earth we heal after every combat. I mean more like, past level 5, we will never take non temp-hp damage.

I don’t like how the prodigy does stupid stuff for combos, but it hasn’t been any more OP than any other flex caster. GMs may want to limit or ban flex casting.

Troubadour is out too. F**k this class. It’s absolute garbage and I will not put up with trying to deal with a player that’s 5 characters stapled together.

We limit energy enhancement (and any modal ability like this) so that it doesn’t stack with itself even when selecting different options. If you cast it a second time, the first options expires. I’m tempted to expand this to ammo too. Even if barrage is out, using the dual energy talent to apply two energy types to bow and two to ammo gets scary with full attacks.

Tenebrious spell. Dazing spell.


I don’t know how to fix lancer. I don’t care. Barrage should probably have limits about what damage applies to extra shots. If they were base weapon dice only like vital strike, then it would not be super broken. But even sniper gets dumb at high level.

I’d have to look at guardian, berserking, and resilient momentum together. Maybe just cap guardian at 3/bab without ability to raise that?

Casting needs to be redone in general to make save dc 10+1/2*msd instead of cl. This removes dumb CL shenanigans as a source of sage dc. This means half casters get to play to.

Sorry for word salad. It’s early

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Lancer sphere and Sage mostly. The rest is pretty well balanced (or underpowered. Looking at you, [cognition] talents) if the DM knows the system imo

Lancer is flat out superior to grapple and only gets more problematic from there. The authors are fairly unanimous over on discord that if Ultimate Spheres of Might ever happens, Lancer's getting turned into a single Wrestling talent allowing you to grapple normally by impaling someone like the 5pheres version.

Sage, as you said, is absurdly OP with basically no effort on the player's part (in fact it takes effort not to outclass your party) so it goes in the bin.

[SangoProduction]

Have to say, Kitsune, I am basically right there with you on most things. Notable exceptions being: barrage / lancer. Just haven't been issues in any of my games. And I dislike Grapple. But also haven't had people who tried to optimize them. (Lancer both needs and has less opportunity for optimization.)
I might also say that the Scholar deal may be a bit overstated. But I accept that I can quite possibly be wrong.
And I do allow vancian casting... because the players I run for just don't optimize so it's really not an issue, even if we got to high levels. I like having options open where possible.
And I think flex casting (so long as the player isn't slow with their choice of flex) isn't too problematic. But again, I don't really play with power gamers who are shuffling their talents every turn to have the 5 million damage in 3 turns combo.

[Rynjin]

Lancer is flat out superior to grapple and only gets more problematic from there. The authors are fairly unanimous over on discord that if Ultimate Spheres of Might ever happens, Lancer's getting turned into a single Wrestling talent allowing you to grapple normally by impaling someone like the 5pheres version.

Shouldn't be too hard, there's even an Associated Feat they can tag onto it. (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/hamatula-strike-combat)

[Logalmier]

This one already got nerfed in USoP. When you cast glow, you put a (light) talent on it. So you cast glow, and you spend a spell point to put encompassing light on it. It now does nothing until you make it glow bright. So this combo lets you spend 1 sp to glow for a glow for 1 minute per caster level, or 10 minutes per caster level with lingering glow. Still good, and fair to ban. But now it's more in line with alteration's size change.


Good to know, that change slipped by me.

I've considered banning (or at least nerfing) the interaction between Flexible Cover and tower shields, just because on paper move/immediate action total cover seems obnoxious at best, and a hard shut down for anything that hasn't invested in sub-move action mobility options at worst. It also leads to some weird rules areas (can you sunder a tower shield being used to give full cover to its wielder? I'd obviously allow it, but RAW I don't think you can - my reading is that sunder targets the wielder, not the item) But on the other hand, I've never actually seen it in play, and can imagine means to get around it. The issue is that most of these means are more available to PCs than NPCs, and also it just seems tedious to fight against. A neat gimmick for a single encounter, but not something you'd ever want to be part of the meta.

[Ramza00]

Can not believe I have not seen Bokor prestige class here. Perhaps it is so obvious to ban for it is purposefully against the spirit of Spheres.

Same thing with the 4 ritual feats. Consider the examples below

======



The Bokor half (the Chocolate)

A Wizard 8* / Incanter 1 / Bokor 10 / X 1 is a better Wizard or Theurge like class increasing total power and versatility when you consider the ritual feats which are kind of designed to be used with Bokor in a natural kind of way.

Consider the Bokor Prestige Class entry. Pretty much no matter what you can not entry the class prior to level 8
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 7 ranks, Spellcraft 7 ranks.
Feats: Advanced Magic Training.
Spells: 2nd level spells
Spheres: A sphere magic caster level of at least 5, and possession of at least 5 magic talents.
Since Advanced Magic Training gives 1/2 CL for every non sphere class, then 1 level of Sphere Class and 8 levels of Non Sphere Class gives you a magic caster level of 5. And if *Gift of Magic Trait counts towards the Caster Level prerequisite (debatable) then 6 levels of a non sphere level class would be enough with 1 level of a Sphere casting class class.

5 magic talents looks to be a mighty magic talent tax, but Incanter 1 gives you 2 magic talents from your casting tradition, +1 talent just because, +1 talent as a bonus magic talents and 5 Specialisation points. 3 specialisation points gives you a bonus magic talent and treats your caster level 1 higher for that talent’s family (sphere specialisation)

Thus one can easily enter Bokor with only 1 caster level loss and thus 8 levels in a non sphere class, or 6 levels if gift of magic talent works. 8 levels being the special breakpoints for many caster level classes like Wizard 8 or Cleric 8 when their 2nd domain power kicks in.

=====



Now rituals (the Peanut Butter).

There are 4 ritual feats, yet I am counting Adv Magic Training as a fifth ritual feat.
Feat 1: Advanced Magic Training. Technically not a ritual feat, but you are going to take it anyway. Treats your non sphere class levels as 1/2 CL levels. Furthermore your non sphere class levels improve your MSB and MSD in a 1 to 1 level. Lastly your drawbacks power your non sphere levels with how many spell points, so a Incanter 1/X 8 has 1 Spell Point from Class Levels, 9 Spell Points from HD if you have 5 Drawbacks, and Caster Ability Modifier. A full class Incanter 9 would have 9+9+CAM by contrast.
Feat 2: Spell Dabler, requires a Spherecaster. Now you can cast spells as rituals by sacrificing SP and a 15 minute time for each spell you prepare and other rules which these other feats eliminate. Not going to list the rules here except when point
Feat 3: Ritual Caster allows you to use scrolls and spell books without the similar Base Sphere. A feat tax, gotta respect those taxes in return with removing limits.
Feat 4: Ritual Master. You no longer use your Caster Level for Rituals (still use it for Spheres) you instead use your MSB which due to Advanced Magic Training is now your HD.
Feat 5: Spell Adept. Instead of using 15 mins for each Ritual Prepared you can now do all of them in an hour with the limit being 4 Rituals of Each Spell Level per that single hour. Thus the limit factor is Spell Points. Furthermore if you parse the text one can do this again after your expend some of your Rituals you have prepared. This 5th feat is the least necessary of the 5 feats in the feat chain. It is just less book keeping time if your DM tracks this to an insistent degree.

=====


The Combination (both sides now)
So if I am reading this correctly a level 8 Wizard and 1 Incanter and 1 Bokor
Has a 9th level Wizard Spellcasting in 10 levels
Has a 8th level Wizard Class Abilities
Has a 10th level CL with Rituals
Has a 6 CL with the remaining Spheres 1+1+8/2
Has a 9 CL with one sphere due to Sphere Specialisation and Gift of Magic Trait.
Has 2 Incanter Spec Points remaining (like 2 Cleric Domains or Energy Admixture)
6 Magic Talents (1 Bokor, 1 Incanter Base, 1 Bonus Incanter, 1 Sphere Spec, 2 Casting Tradition)
20 Spell Points of 1+1+10+CAM which is easily 26 Int for +8 more Spell Points
20 Spell Points can be converted into 10 extra 5th level Rituals in addition to your 9th level Wizard Casting which would be throwing out at least 2 5th level Spells per day (1 Base, 2 Bonus Spells if Int is 28 else 1 Bonus Spell if Int is 20. Do not forget any Specialisation Slots and Arcane Bond if you do those as well.)


Yes this takes 5 Feats but I am not seeing the real downside for we are talking 2 High Level Spells for each Feat “Sacrificed” to the Feat Tax Gods.

Also the opportunity cost of not being an awesome 10th level Spherecaster who never adopted the perverse ways of vanican casting 😛🤣

[StSword]

20 Spell Points can be converted into 10 extra 5th level Rituals in addition to your 9th level Wizard Casting which would be throwing out at least 2 5th level Spells per day (1 Base, 2 Bonus Spells if Int is 28 else 1 Bonus Spell if Int is 20. Do not forget any Specialisation Slots and Arcane Bond if you do those as well.)

Spell Adept only allows you to prepare a maximum of four spells per level a day, so no, no 10 extra fifth level spells a day by preparing rituals.

[Ramza00]

Spell Adept only allows you to prepare a maximum of four spells per level a day, so no, no 10 extra fifth level spells a day by preparing rituals.

That may be the intent, and I am all for DMs to making house rules especially with 3rd party material. But looking at the text of the feats.




Spell Dabbler

You have learned to hold rituals in your memory to a minor degree.

Prerequisites: Casting class feature.

Benefit: You may choose one ritual per day. You may use up to the highest level you may cast. By spending 15 minutes preparing beforehand, you may cast this ritual once as a spellcaster at any point during that day. This may also be a lower-level ritual augmented by any metamagic feats you possess, so long as its effective level does not exceed that which you can cast. All drawbacks of your tradition still apply, and the spell may be augmented by any tradition boons you possess. Rather than a material cost, (unless the spell has costly material components already listed), you must spend a number of spell points at the time you prepare the ritual dependent on the level of the ritual in question: 0-2: 1 spell point, 3-5: 2 spell points, 6-8: 3 spell points, 9: 4 spell points.

Spell Adept

Your ability to use rituals has grown to great power.

Prerequisites: Spell Dabbler, casting class feature.

Benefit: When using your Spell Dabbler feat, you may increase the preparation time to 1 hour to prepare as many rituals as you desire, spending spell points for each prepared ritual. You cannot prepare more than 4 rituals of any individual level in this manner.

I do not see an actual limit of you can only prepare 4 5th level spells per day, or 4 4th level spells. I only see a limit tied to how many spells you can prepare in a single hour. Thus we have a similar but slightly different situation where a wizard or cleric keep some of their spell slots “unprepared” on purpose when they spend 1 hour to do preparations, in order to provide later day flexibility and thus can spend 15 minutes to 1 hour to prepare spells mid day.

[StSword]

That may be the intent, and I am all for DMs to making house rules especially with 3rd party material. But looking at the text of the feats.



I do not see an actual limit of you can only prepare 4 5th level spells per day, or 4 4th level spells. I only see a limit tied to how many spells you can prepare in a single hour. Thus we have a similar but slightly different situation where a wizard or cleric keep some of their spell slots “unprepared” on purpose when they spend 1 hour to do preparations, in order to provide later day flexibility and thus can spend 15 minutes to 1 hour to prepare spells mid day.

It's there in the text you quoted.

Spell Dabbler- "You may choose one ritual per day." Which means that Spell Dabbler can only be used once a day, using spell dabbler and then trying to prepare another ritual later in the day breaks the rules of the feat.

Spell Adept "When using your Spell Dabbler feat."

So since Spell Dabbler is only usable once a day, Spell Adept is only usable once a day.

[Ramza00]

It's there in the text you quoted.

Spell Dabbler- "You may choose one ritual per day." Which means that Spell Dabbler can only be used once a day, using spell dabbler and then trying to prepare another ritual later in the day breaks the rules of the feat.

Spell Adept "When using your Spell Dabbler feat."

So since Spell Dabbler is only usable once a day, Spell Adept is only usable once a day.

I hear your argument, I see it, I disagree with how to parse it.

But zooming out, we are in a thread about sphere content to “ban” or you would change if you are DM. I agree with you in spirit of what a DM should do, we are disagreeing on what the text means. (So I am dropping this on my end.)

[Kitsuneymg]

Can not believe I have not seen Bokor prestige class here. Perhaps it is so obvious to ban for it is purposefully against the spirit of Spheres.

Same thing with the 4 ritual feats. Consider the examples below


I mean. I usually ban vancian casting in spheres games. So like, bokor does nothing. I also thought I mentioned the ritual feats. But yeah, it’s all in the bin.


As for scholar. I ran with one in my party through giant slayer. Didn’t really bother buying defensive items. Just face tanked all the giants with temp hp. As a con/wis dwarf inquisitor, I rarely took actual damage and had more than my HP in doctor granted temp hp. And this is without trying to optimize the heal checks. It’s a ludicrous amount of temp hp they generate.


Barrage was an issue because I had move action buffs that lasted the combat. Full attack was better in theory, but but I hit more on barrage thanks to penalty reducers. And I did more damage per shot thanks to alchemical coating and move action totems. Inquisitors are scary when ranged in spheres.

Rather than try to nerf barrage, you just need to make sure that your party is okay with ranged delete buttons. A dragon and the bbeg dropped in one barrage and that’s when I swapped to sniper. Which was cool when piercing shot or headshot worked out. But was otherwise merely enough to drop a giant/round.

[Kitsuneymg]

Good to know, that change slipped by me.

I've considered banning (or at least nerfing) the interaction between Flexible Cover and tower shields, just because on paper move/immediate action total cover seems obnoxious at best, and a hard shut down for anything that hasn't invested in sub-move action mobility options at worst. It also leads to some weird rules areas (can you sunder a tower shield being used to give full cover to its wielder? I'd obviously allow it, but RAW I don't think you can - my reading is that sunder targets the wielder, not the item) But on the other hand, I've never actually seen it in play, and can imagine means to get around it. The issue is that most of these means are more available to PCs than NPCs, and also it just seems tedious to fight against. A neat gimmick for a single encounter, but not something you'd ever want to be part of the meta.

This is why you use glory. Every 5 rounds cast normal light. It lasts 10. As a swift, glow brightly (for free) and apply encompassing light. I may be misreading it though. But it seems to be the intent.

[AmberVael]

(or underpowered. Looking at you, [cognition] talents)

In retrospect, cognition talents suffered a lot from being a thematic concept before being a specific mechanical concept. I still love the idea of cognition talents, but putting useful mechanics to them proved difficult - at least if I didn't want to just grab the boring and low hanging fruit.

[Sneak Dog]

This is why you use glory. Every 5 rounds cast normal light. It lasts 10. As a swift, glow brightly (for free) and apply encompassing light. I may be misreading it though. But it seems to be the intent.

As I understand it, you'd be spending a spell point every 5 rounds. Because you specify the spell you're casting when you cast it / you apply a light talent on a glow (normal light). Not when you make it glow brightly.

[AmberVael]

This is why you use glory. Every 5 rounds cast normal light. It lasts 10. As a swift, glow brightly (for free) and apply encompassing light. I may be misreading it though. But it seems to be the intent.

You won't need to spend a spell point to maintain the bright light, but you will to use Encompassing Light in the first place since it itself costs a spell point to use.

[QuadraticGish]

Of course Sage gets a +20 to his stats, since Spheres of Power/Might is balanced around eventually giving everyone a +20 to everything if you look closely at it. I like to call it Spheres of Jank. It can be fun, but it's also just jank, and Spheres of Power is basically just psionics with a different name especially with the option to actually be psychic/psionic rather than arcane or divine there, including if you want to completely emulate the 3.5e spell-to-power erudite and have some psychic or psionic ported arcane spells with arcane spell components. However, Spheres of Power always makes me wonder why anyone even goes arcane other than some of the base classes use it, since divine and psychic are essentially just superior depending on what you want to do if it isn't heavy on "you need arcane spellcasting of a certain level" feats. Maybe make your arcane spells not require any verbal or somatic components like a 3.5e warlock, but they still had arcane spell failure despite not requiring verbal or somatic components for most of their invocations. Arcane casting itself should be worth a drawback, and divine is probably somewhat of a drawback compared to psychic if you aren't making concentration checks all the time due to psychic qualifying you for Subtle Magic/Cunning Caster much sooner and being a prerequisite for much stronger things than divine casting usually is, but psychic is at least not strictly better than divine, just seemingly somewhat better for most builds who aren't tanky gishes or relying on taking the obviousness family of drawbacks plus not needing the psychic prerequisites. Divine has some good prerequisites too, at least better than arcane, but not as good as psychic since the whole idea of being psychic tends to heavily lean into innate abilities, the idea of gaining spiritual power from an ideal somewhat does, and the idea of being deliberately educated or trained does not at all. False Focus is nice but also not at all compatible with the Spheres of Power system itself since Spheres of Power makes you pay gold by the month or require ingesting specific substances if you use material components, not use material components with a set low value.

The way that I run SoP is that the divide between Arcane/Divine pretty much is only reflected in the Casting Tradition and no where else. On it's own, it pretty much means nothing other than the source of what you use for magic. Aside from that, I nail down Sage's blasty ability with its not destructive blast. I also end up allowing the old Improved Energy Strike, with the caveat that you can't stack it with another strike talent. It's not much, but I usually end up running the most 'out there' games within my groups when I do run. Though, they do have access to quite a large amount of material.

[vasilidor]

I figured that the Sage class is balanced by the fact that it is essentially a 1/2 caster and fighter.

[SangoProduction]

I figured that the Sage class is balanced by the fact that it is essentially a 1/2 caster and fighter.

It's not "actually" a half caster.
I explain it better here https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?622521-Sage-is-OP-(Spheres-in-Review)

[vasilidor]

OK, so maybe I am wrong about Sages. But really they are only OP in campaigns in which 9th level spells are restricted, with several spells in the core being removed. Like Gate, Wish and Time Stop. If you would allow those spells, then Sages should be no problem.
Quick edit: I think some of these spells are more problematic than the sages abilities. Like almost all of them.

[Kitsuneymg]

OK, so maybe I am wrong about Sages. But really they are only OP in campaigns in which 9th level spells are restricted, with several spells in the core being removed. Like Gate, Wish and Time Stop. If you would allow those spells, then Sages should be no problem.
Quick edit: I think some of these spells are more problematic than the sages abilities. Like almost all of them.

Yes. Sage 17 is not as big of a problem at 17th level as the wizard spell list. I wholeheartedly agree with that.

Too bad sages also exist as level 1 characters too.

[vasilidor]

I think a sage would be on par with most tier 1 casters on level 1. Could be wrong though.

[Sneak Dog]

OK, so maybe I am wrong about Sages. But really they are only OP in campaigns in which 9th level spells are restricted, with several spells in the core being removed. Like Gate, Wish and Time Stop. If you would allow those spells, then Sages should be no problem.
Quick edit: I think some of these spells are more problematic than the sages abilities. Like almost all of them.

So in the spirit of this thread, I'd expect to see those spells at the top of most ban lists just like I expect to see sage. Thought those spells would only be on ban lists of people reaching high enough level to get those spells, whereas a sage can be used at level 1.

You don't have to ban anything. But if you're going to ban things, these are probably at the top of the list.

[DrMartin]

and in keeping to the actual topic of the thread, those spells aren't spheres content either.

To actually add something to the discussion. anyone has thoughts on the Wraith class? in my current game it's banned for lore reasons, but also mechanically, i am a bit unsure.

Aside from the incorporeability at first level which sidesteps whole categories of challenges, which at any given table with healthy communication between players and gm can be planned around, it offers a lot of stuff that is quite out of line from the scope abilities that classes grant in spheres.

To try to expand on this a bit better: A Fey Adept gets some cool perks when using illusion magic, but a non-fey adept getting a few talents in illusion and [shadowstuff] creation would be able to do a lot of the same tricks, without crazy workarounds.

a Striker is good at punching, but you can make a good punching character with almost any fighting class, if you take the right spheres. Classes geared toward a single sphere of concept tend to expand and build synergies with sphere abilities. Wraith on the other hand has its own gimmick of incorporeality + possession, which another character would have a very hard time to emulate. Seems to me it somehow swims against the current of the rest of the system.

Thoughts?

[Sneak Dog]

and in keeping to the actual topic of the thread, those spells aren't spheres content either.

To actually add something to the discussion. anyone has thoughts on the Wraith class? in my current game it's banned for lore reasons, but also mechanically, i am a bit unsure.

Aside from the incorporeability at first level which sidesteps whole categories of challenges, which at any given table with healthy communication between players and gm can be planned around, it offers a lot of stuff that is quite out of line from the scope abilities that classes grant in spheres.

To try to expand on this a bit better: A Fey Adept gets some cool perks when using illusion magic, but a non-fey adept getting a few talents in illusion and [shadowstuff] creation would be able to do a lot of the same tricks, without crazy workarounds.

a Striker is good at punching, but you can make a good punching character with almost any fighting class, if you take the right spheres. Classes geared toward a single sphere of concept tend to expand and build synergies with sphere abilities. Wraith on the other hand has its own gimmick of incorporeality + possession, which another character would have a very hard time to emulate. Seems to me it somehow swims against the current of the rest of the system.

Thoughts?

Wraith is weird. It can break things, but if the player holds back a little or takes the matagot archetype (which is awesome by the way), it should be fine. A striker is a very good class, but I wouldn't call it broken. Spheres is fun in that most martial classes can go for most martial spheres. And combos between spheres are encouraged.

In essence I consider playing with Spheres and no vancian casting to be more balanced than base Pathfinder, but still Pathfinder: If you try hard enough you'll find a way to make a broken op character. So ban the blatant outliers and after creation make sure that the characters are roughly balanced with eachother.

[StSword]

With the Warp talent Unseeing Teleport and a spellpoint, at first level a spherecaster can teleport 110 feet without line of sight.

And it takes a few levels but Obscure Passage from the Darkness sphere can put a crawlspace through wood at level one, stone starting at caster level 3, and iron and steel at level 5.

So I don't think "Doors? Who needs doors?" is a particularly unique ability of the Wraith.

But while possession can be emulated with a few talents from Mind, possession from intangibility is definitely an improvement, no question.

Whether that requires banning, well I've never seen it at play so I couldn't tell you.

[SangoProduction]

You know? Wraith, on pure mechanics, is probably ban worthy. I will not even try and defend it on those grounds. And on more than one occasion I did have to pull the player aside and say that I'm going to have to nerf the class, because it's getting silly...without even trying. Which again, is not a good sign.

But it isn't overpowered just for the sake of being overpowered. It's well and truly unique, allowing one to play concepts like familiars, intelligent items, and ghosts, without needing to get into the weeds about changing the race, and having some other funky rules.
I really like it, personally.

[Ramza00]

Once again I am going to do a response that is not saying flat out ban, but the DM should be “mindful” of

And that is oath points which are 3.5 flaws but different, but a DM should be mindful in much the same way as flaws.

There are some really nice benefits such as giving advanced magic training (plus the 2 starting casting talents) for 1 oath point, or a +10 weapon from levels 04 to 17 for 3 oath points.

Some oath points are debilitating, some are not. Like does a traditional pathfinder Druid really care they can not use wood and tech stuff (1 point), or instead the druid has a secret “former life” and uses a hat of disguise or other shape change magic (1 point) to hide their birth identity's name and their birth's identity face? In return (requires only 1 oath point for Magical Gleaning) the Druid has basic time magic, war magic, etc anything that is an easy splash sphere that does not require high caster level?

Links to a thread that lists good splash spheres https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?641235-Best-Magic-Spheres-(Spheres-in-Review)

So yeah not an outright ban but something a DM should keep an eye on for it is getting something for almost free / your character can build around.

[vasilidor]

For low level stuff, especially when considering damage output, ask the following question:
How does this compare to a 20 strength Barbarian wielding a great sword?
And since the Wealthy Parents character trait is a thing, for ranged characters this would be:
How does this compare to an archer with a 20 dexterity and a 16 strength with a Composite +3 strength bow?
For abilities like Ethereal forms or flight, ask at what level you would be OK with the party getting them. If the answer to that question is not level 1, disallow feats, classes, talents & races that would grant them at level 1.