I need some characters to make.

[SangoProduction]

Well. Finally done with that stupid job at the mental hospital. Was going to be the death of me. Certainly nearly made it so on my last damned night. Then, on the way at, the end of a 16 hour shift, and see the other side of the street was absolutely littered with the remnants of a computer. Full sized desktop. Clearly it's already been hit once, and ruined someone's day. They didn't pick it up. So pulled over, and cleaned it up.

And now I'm annoyed and still have the adrenaline running.

I love making Spheres characters from stupid ideas. Always gives me joy to solve a difficult puzzle and perhaps give someone the joy of being able to play their absolutely stupid idea, in a mechanically sound way. (Even though you could literally homebrew it. But that's work.)

I could really use some stupid ideas right about now. lol.

[pabelfly]

Sir Bearington amuses me, so let's start with him:

Should be a bear of some sort. While intelligent, the bear cannot speak common.
Should have high-level disguise skill, preferably nonmagical
The bear should be capable in combat in some way

Optional: should have high-level bluff skill, preferably nonmagical



Second character - the giant anthropromorphic octopus from Savage Species with psionic abilities, teleportation that can be used in combat, and multiweapon fighting.

[thethird]

It's not really a silly idea but I have been playing final fantasy 7 lately and I would like your take on guardian forces.

How would you create a summon that by being there gives the character that summoned it more options? Like actually knowing more spheres/talents.

I have an idea but I would like to see what you think.

[SangoProduction]

Sir Bearington amuses me, so let's start with him:

Should be a bear of some sort. While intelligent, the bear cannot speak common.
Should have high-level disguise skill, preferably nonmagical
The bear should be capable in combat in some way

Optional: should have high-level bluff skill, preferably nonmagical



Second character - the giant anthropromorphic octopus from Savage Species with psionic abilities, teleportation that can be used in combat, and multiweapon fighting.

Sir Bearington, the Second:
First off, he's going to be Human. Then given Permanent Transformation (Animalistic Transformation), to take the shape of a bear, which lacks the capabilities of speech.
Then we're going to take the Bear sphere. (Yes really). This grants us the Bear Strength base talent, and we'll follow it up with some Bear Arms so that each of our arms are replaced with bear heads, turning this once-human into a bear hydra.
We'll round it off with some Angry Bear (rage), Beary Hairy (Natural armor), and Fursome Aura (because he can become a bear hydra for pete's sake). This should make him quite notably combative for only a grand total of 5 talents.
Now, you only mentioned Disguise, but I believe some Bluff and maybe even Diplomacy is called for. (And heck, let's throw in Intimidate.)

So, for the class, I recommend Eliciter. Straight Eliciter, with its powerful, scaling bonuses to Mind sphere and the additional skills I mentioned. This would also make you a Charisma-primary class, which improves your disguise, implicitly. Bear sphere largely does not scale with caster level, so being a mid-caster doesn't matter.
They can also now touch themselves for joy... the... OK, I'm actually leaving that in. But, the Joy Emotion grants Advantage to any d20 roll, including any of those skills. Love emotion functions as Charm Person, making them more amicable, and less likely to question you. As you would also expect of the Loyalty Emotion, but not mechanically at least.
Mind sphere also has Inspiration and Esteem, and Courage for even more bonuses to those skills. Circumstance, Competence, and Morale, respectively.
And if you are still not convinced in your ability, you can take Inception to literally create memories in your target from whole cloth.

-

The second one is actually remarkably easy.
First off, also human, but is morphic to octopodid creatures. So, Permanent Transformation. And surprisingly, I'm actually recommending the transformation to be Vermin Transformation, because it explicitly grants 8 legs. And... octopods are 8-feet. Unfortunately, it's also a "Hands: No" form.
But, with Improved Transformation, we can take traits. As a trait from Anthropomorphic, you can take Gift of Hands, which converts two of those limbs into proper arms. But before you do that, you take Extra Arms trait. Since the form has no arms to start with, you gain 2, then convert 2 from GoH. This takes 2 traits, which requires level 10 by feat. But still just 1 feat.
Then, taking Hybrid Transformation, you can maintain your original 2 arms. But given that your "hybrid" form....might count as having arms for the purpose of Extra Arms... You may have only 5 arms instead of 6 at the end of this. And these are all fully functional arms, capable of wielding weapons.
(And no, you couldn't have started off with Anthropomorphic Transformation, because its form has arms, and thus doesn't benefit from GoH, nor does it get the bonus arms from Extra Arms, and does have arms, which means you can't retain it as a Hybrid.)
All done with 3 feats.

We can then take the Shifter class, and take either the Shape or Graft Weapon, Bestial Traits, just so no one can try and disarm the arms we worked so hard to arm.
We can also take Accommodating Form to make the traits of the Improved Transformation not count against your max traits when using Alteration sphere. (Potentially letting you take yet more arms, if I understand this right. And even if it doesn't, you can then spend those traits on more tentacles. Which can't wield weapons, but seem appropriate.)
And lastly, the Multiattack Bestial Trait... which literally just grants the Multiattack feat. But that's for natural weapons. Multiweapon Fighting isn't actually a thing that made it into 3.5 or Pathfinder. But it is probably close enough.
...OH! Right. Yes. When Grafted (not Shaped...because reasons), the weapons count as natural attacks. So it does actually work. I forgot. Because those traits kinda suck, and have literally never seen any use in any of the years of play I've been in.

HOWEVER: Graft Weapon as a Shifter Bestial Trait is better than the real thing, because it's not a trait you apply to a form. It's just a "persists until removed" deal that takes 1 minute to graft. So it's actually infinitely better than the real trait it is based off of. And gets you the effects you want.

Oh, yes. And the magic tradition is Psionic, and take the Warp sphere. Personal Warp drawback. And quick warp. There's also a warp-attack specializing archetype. It sucks. Don't bother.


It's not really a silly idea but I have been playing final fantasy 7 lately and I would like your take on guardian forces.

How would you create a summon that by being there gives the character that summoned it more options? Like actually knowing more spheres/talents.

I have an idea but I would like to see what you think.

Have literally never played FF7. If it were like FFX, then I would say you just represent them by taking Destruction sphere talents. Or occasionally Life sphere for a few of those summons. They were essentially nothing more than fancy-looking spells.
But seems like FF7 actually gains abilities from the summons.
So... quickest and easiest thing I can come up with is having Conjuration sphere (the base sphere of which is uniquely able to be taken multiple times to gain multiple companions) and give all of your companions Mage Archetype, to give them magic talents.
You may then take the Mana sphere talent, Gift of Knowledge, in order to grant your companions, the talent, Gift of Knowledge. This lets them give you any magical talent they have.

This is a convoluted and costly way of just using what they could already do on their own, but it does let you do it yourself.

[pabelfly]

Sir Bearington, the Second:
First off, he's going to be Human. Then given Permanent Transformation (Animalistic Transformation), to take the shape of a bear, which lacks the capabilities of speech.
Then we're going to take the Bear sphere. (Yes really). This grants us the Bear Strength base talent, and we'll follow it up with some Bear Arms so that each of our arms are replaced with bear heads, turning this once-human into a bear hydra.
We'll round it off with some Angry Bear (rage), Beary Hairy (Natural armor), and Fursome Aura (because he can become a bear hydra for pete's sake). This should make him quite notably combative for only a grand total of 5 talents.
Now, you only mentioned Disguise, but I believe some Bluff and maybe even Diplomacy is called for. (And heck, let's throw in Intimidate.)

So, for the class, I recommend Eliciter. Straight Eliciter, with its powerful, scaling bonuses to Mind sphere and the additional skills I mentioned. This would also make you a Charisma-primary class, which improves your disguise, implicitly. Bear sphere largely does not scale with caster level, so being a mid-caster doesn't matter.
They can also now touch themselves for joy... the... OK, I'm actually leaving that in. But, the Joy Emotion grants Advantage to any d20 roll, including any of those skills. Love emotion functions as Charm Person, making them more amicable, and less likely to question you. As you would also expect of the Loyalty Emotion, but not mechanically at least.
Mind sphere also has Inspiration and Esteem, and Courage for even more bonuses to those skills. Circumstance, Competence, and Morale, respectively.
And if you are still not convinced in your ability, you can take Inception to literally create memories in your target from whole cloth.

-

The second one is actually remarkably easy.
First off, also human, but is morphic to octopodid creatures. So, Permanent Transformation. And surprisingly, I'm actually recommending the transformation to be Vermin Transformation, because it explicitly grants 8 legs. And... octopods are 8-feet. Unfortunately, it's also a "Hands: No" form.
But, with Improved Transformation, we can take traits. As a trait from Anthropomorphic, you can take Gift of Hands, which converts two of those limbs into proper arms. But before you do that, you take Extra Arms trait. Since the form has no arms to start with, you gain 2, then convert 2 from GoH. This takes 2 traits, which requires level 10 by feat. But still just 1 feat.
Then, taking Hybrid Transformation, you can maintain your original 2 arms. But given that your "hybrid" form....might count as having arms for the purpose of Extra Arms... You may have only 5 arms instead of 6 at the end of this. And these are all fully functional arms, capable of wielding weapons.
(And no, you couldn't have started off with Anthropomorphic Transformation, because its form has arms, and thus doesn't benefit from GoH, nor does it get the bonus arms from Extra Arms, and does have arms, which means you can't retain it as a Hybrid.)
All done with 3 feats.

We can then take the Shifter class, and take either the Shape or Graft Weapon, Bestial Traits, just so no one can try and disarm the arms we worked so hard to arm.
We can also take Accommodating Form to make the traits of the Improved Transformation not count against your max traits when using Alteration sphere. (Potentially letting you take yet more arms, if I understand this right. And even if it doesn't, you can then spend those traits on more tentacles. Which can't wield weapons, but seem appropriate.)
And lastly, the Multiattack Bestial Trait... which literally just grants the Multiattack feat. But that's for natural weapons. Multiweapon Fighting isn't actually a thing that made it into 3.5 or Pathfinder. But it is probably close enough.
...OH! Right. Yes. When Grafted (not Shaped...because reasons), the weapons count as natural attacks. So it does actually work. I forgot. Because those traits kinda suck, and have literally never seen any use in any of the years of play I've been in.

HOWEVER: Graft Weapon as a Shifter Bestial Trait is better than the real thing, because it's not a trait you apply to a form. It's just a "persists until removed" deal that takes 1 minute to graft. So it's actually infinitely better than the real trait it is based off of. And gets you the effects you want.

Oh, yes. And the magic tradition is Psionic, and take the Warp sphere. Personal Warp drawback. And quick warp. There's also a warp-attack specializing archetype. It sucks. Don't bother.

Thanks for the response.

Should take the chance to look at Spheres if I ever get to play Pathfinder again.

[Seerow]

It's not really a silly idea but I have been playing final fantasy 7 lately and I would like your take on guardian forces.

How would you create a summon that by being there gives the character that summoned it more options? Like actually knowing more spheres/talents.

I have an idea but I would like to see what you think.

There's actually an Archetype custom built for this in Spheres; Pact Master Thaumaturge.


The short version of it is you get up to 3 Conjuration Companions that you are able to summon. You can only have one summoned at a time, while within range of the companion you get a bonus to caster level, and each companion has a mini progression of talents that you gain access to while they are summoned. So you can design your 3 GFs each one giving you access to different types of magic. Say Shiva giving you Nature(Water) for all the freeze fun there, Ifrit giving you Destruction (Fire) for blastiness, and Carbunkle giving you Life/Protection.

You can find more here: http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/pact-master






Anyway, a character idea I've been tinkering with for a while I'd like to see your take on: Gambit from X-Men.

[SangoProduction]

Updated.
Gambit is a popular X-Men character who has the ability to charge objects with kinetic energy, causing them to explode upon impact. He is also skilled in hand-to-hand combat and is often depicted using a deck of playing cards as his weapon of choice.

To create a character in the Spheres of Power system inspired by Gambit, one option could be to use the Destruction sphere to represent his explosive abilities, and the Athletics/ (Berserker or Dual Wielding) sphere to represent his hand-to-hand combat skills. I'd say he's more of a high level mage than a good-for-his-power-level fighter.
The Blast Trap shape talent is actually surprisingly pretty appropriate.
As for the deck of cards... just refluff the destructive blasts. The base blast shape works well, but any of them work, pretty much. Only thing i haven't seen was energy wall.

Additionally, the Fate sphere could be used to represent Gambit's luck-manipulating powers. And of course, the focus on the card. But that's a different type of cards, and doesn't actually....
Oh my god. I actually have a build that uses the 3pp spheres expansion that focuses on drawing your spells from a deck. It does not work for Gambit, but a Gambit-style character definitely could use this build. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?651025-Cursed-Archer-(Spheres)-Favorite-Character-Concept&p=25622828)

Overall, it's a rather... straight forward character. You're going to hit the walls of the concept very quick as you level, and then have to start picking talents outside of the concept... which always does feel like quite the shame. But, I think Destruction sphere does offer enough (very optional) depth that it can be extraneously explored for far longer than you'd expect. Or normally care to take talents for. I mean, just look at my Teemo (pre-USOP) Build (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?550492-Wanna-Be-Teemo-In-Pathfinder-Now-s-your-chance!), where the first 6 levels of Incanter were purely Destruction sphere talents.


----
Thank you guys for the assistance.

[Ramza00]

I am already making this as a character, and it is 75% done. And I do not think I am going to change it much
… yet

if you would humor me and just go wild with what you would do with such a concept?
aka help me see my character outside of themselves by a new fresh eyes?


A former grad student in a fantasy land, a grad student has become nihilistic and thus made a pact with the cosmos and summoned a shadowcat familiar. The cat once summoned answers the prayer with, “Yes nothing matters, so let’s us 🐈 'do good' with a mischievous cheshire smile 😼 “

The former grad student is a generic spellcaster
who can only cast cleric spells (so a spontaneous oracle in other words, generic is there so I can be Int and Arcane, but give up other goodies) and
then has multiclassed into doing spheres with generic spellcaster 5/sphere arcanist 1/sphere witch 1/
and is now a theurge with the bokor X prestige class

what talents / specific sphere drawbacks would you pick if these are your 6 spheres?

war
time
fate
destruction
mind
life

all 6 of these spheres have theme reasons, the grad student overdosed on worshiping / learning about the pathfinder monad as over-deity that exists yet god is unconscious, and thus is looking for direction in life. Thus the summon pact with the mischievous NG cat familiar with the shadow familiar template.

=====

Edit: I just realised while typing this out, I have created a manic pixietrickster dream cat. Something as a hook to allow the DM to semi-direct and control the goals of my character.

[SangoProduction]

I am already making this as a character, and it is 75% done. And I do not think I am going to change it much
… yet

if you would humor me and just go wild with what you would do with such a concept?
aka help me see my character outside of themselves by a new fresh eyes?


A former grad student in a fantasy land, a grad student has become nihilistic and thus made a pact with the cosmos and summoned a shadowcat familiar. The cat once summoned answers the prayer with, “Yes nothing matters, so let’s us 🐈 'do good' with a mischievous cheshire smile 😼 “

The former grad student is a generic spellcaster
who can only cast cleric spells (so a spontaneous oracle in other words, generic is there so I can be Int and Arcane, but give up other goodies) and
then has multiclassed into doing spheres with generic spellcaster 5/sphere arcanist 1/sphere witch 1/
and is now a theurge with the bokor X prestige class

what talents / specific sphere drawbacks would you pick if these are your 6 spheres?

war
time
fate
destruction
mind
life

all 6 of these spheres have theme reasons, the grad student overdosed on worshiping / learning about the pathfinder monad as over-deity that exists yet god is unconscious, and thus is looking for direction in life. Thus the summon pact with the mischievous NG cat familiar with the shadow familiar template.

=====

Edit: I just realised while typing this out, I have created a manic pixietrickster dream cat. Something as a hook to allow the DM to semi-direct and control the goals of my character.


If you're looking for my opinion, I would steer away from fate, as nihilism tends to be focused on the fact that the fate of things is out of your control, so it doesn't matter what you do. (You have a reason for it, but asked for the talents / drawbacks.)
But that can be put to a decidedly Good end. Realizing, for example, that "nothing matters" is equivalent to "everything matters, no matter how small or how seemingly meaningless". Or, "Nothing matters, so may as well have fun while you're here."
A mischief-loving fey-influenced character? I can work with that.

For Destruction sphere, I would definitely go with Epicenter (immune to your own blasts), and Energetic Response (AoO with Destructive blasts). "Haha. You thought closing on the mage was a good idea. Idiot." Selective Blast also works pretty much the exact same way as Epicenter...but...better.
Blast Trap and Energy Leap (Plus Knights Blast, to add flexibility) are great picks for this type of character. As are Retributive Blast and either (Sculpt Blast or Explosive Orb).
Alkali Blast (trip and fall), Alternyating Current (shock to force a 5-ft step), and Blinding Blast are all already in the ball park of a funny type of damage.

For Time sphere, Second Chance, Improved Slow, Eject, and Retry are recommended picks. Retry especially, on account of the nihilism thing. "It doesn't matter if I mess up, because I'll just do it again." The rest are in the realm of fey pranks. Could also take Steal Time and Age for the more... malevolent fey theme.

As for war... I always recommend the momentum talents. They are just so extremely efficiently impactful, without blasting big numbers of "Nerf Me" in the DM's face. But there's nothing that seems to be implicitly related. Maybe if I knew the goal you were attempting to get out of war sphere.

For Mind sphere, almost every charm talent has very... fey... potential. But I do especially recommend Confusion, Gestures, and Utterances. Enthrall, Sleep, and Command also are good fits.
Mental Archive, and Intuit Knowledge are just pretty much cheat codes for being a student.
You will want Expanded Charm to influence more than just humanoids.

For Life sphere, High on Vitality and Energizing Vitality both work from a "positive Nihilism" view. There isn't really anything particularly mischievous about the life sphere. I mean, Latent Healing and Adrenaline Surge are decent.

For Fate, if I had to take some shots, I would probably recommend the first 3 Consecration talents, assuming that your allies aren't too... not-your-alignment. Consequences kinda sucks. Like really sucks. Not gonna lie. But it feels appropriate for such a creature.
Freedom (word) also seems appropriate, as does Subvert Weapon (on account of "stop hitting yourself"... but it sucks mechanically).

[Ramza00]

So I am a little woozy today so I will be brief, if you want more info than me being brief I will gladly provide even more :smalltongue:, but I am under sharing for my brain is not good at editing at the moment.

themes including renaming things, and general idea

Will be level 8 to start so only 1 talent in each sphere at first, plus sphere drawbacks


War, aka Life is Strife sphere, where we find reasons to live, love, and fight. I am thinking momentum talents.
Time, for the ability to warp localized time, including retry and shift time. If I take personal time I do not know what my 3rd talent would be? Retroactive preparation or something else?
Fate aka the Luck sphere and also assigning rules that both sides must follow. I am thinking one of the 1 hour long motifs and perhaps Stricture. Stricture can be broken but I bet me and the DM can work out appropriate limits. Very Fey Like.
Destruction. Not for damage but the status control with living crystal entangle blast type. How the world traps us unless we seek liberation as theme?
DM will need to okay the final build but I am likely to get admixture and a second blast type with Destructive Curse. Will probably pick the staggered one. This will be “paid for” by Sphere Witch for PF allowed a second hex off a preselected list if you worship one of nine patrons. If the DM okays it I will be worshipping the Monad / The Condition of All and I will have some drawbacks with a HP curse to keep my familiar up every 24 hours and I will have to interplay with the familiar and their wishes.
Mind, the Life of the Mind and assigning meaning in this world with these people. Too many choices.
Life, once again two many choices. But here for Life still matters theme wise.


So I also have 3rd level Spontaneous Cleric spells of 4/2/1 spells known with 6 levels in the Generic Spellcaster. These will be mostly buffs and healing, and I am thinking luck theme, benediction, tyche touch, conviction etc. Not sure if I want Earthen Shield or the versatility of Bestow Curse. Will have a Vestment, Mnemonic plus Scrolls and the Life Sphere for Healing Status Effects.

Sphere Witch and Sphere Arcanist will allow 2 moldable talents which I can flex on the fly with Quick Study. Most of the time they will be stuck in even more awesome momentum or healing with Life. Perhaps sometime yet rarely I will use them with mind to get more charm choices.

=====




I am thinking the familiar cat is a Neutral Good Familiar which does not understand society and helps my depressed melancholic to get out of their head. There will be trickster cat energy, and also an urge to push boundaries.

Themes will be exploring positive nihilism for like you said if nothing matters than everything matters. Trying to cultivate 4 mindsets of

Loving-kindness and not Indifference.
Compassion and not Pity.
Sympathetic Joy for Others Joy / Struggles and not The Envies.
Equanimity and finding faith including being the fool, possessing an even mind / spirit when faced with realities transience for all things change and not succumb to The Jealousies.

In sum the cat is going to get the nerd outside and doing stuff, and doing good things just because, to engage in adventures. But also the flavor of playing two characters at once, the famous buddy cop where one is not spontaneous they are by the book, and the other is full of whimsy like they are a cowboy looking for trouble.

[daremetoidareyo]

make it rain furniture.

[Prime32]

"Mission Control". A character who can monitor and interact with the rest of the party while holed up in a secure location, and provide information on things they encounter (and possibly do things like scouting, unlocking doors, etc.). Can actively contribute to combat in some way on each turn (rather than just casting long-term buffs on the party beforehand), but showing up in person should not make their abilities any more effective or cost-efficient.

[vasilidor]

I made a bunch of cartoon characters into sphere characters. I felt it worked quite well.
A few fictional characters you could do:
Crocodile Dundee
Rurouni Kenshin
Ranma Saotome
Johnny 5
Conan the Barbarian (The really famous guy no one seems to get right)

[SangoProduction]

make it rain furniture.

Creation sphere. Just the base thing and levels. Divided Creation lets you make multiple at once, Larger Creation doubles the effective size you can make per level. (Range) talents lets you cast it from yet higher above.


"Mission Control". A character who can monitor and interact with the rest of the party while holed up in a secure location, and provide information on things they encounter (and possibly do things like scouting, unlocking doors, etc.). Can actively contribute to combat in some way on each turn (rather than just casting long-term buffs on the party beforehand), but showing up in person should not make their abilities any more effective or cost-efficient.

There are undoubtedly means by which to cast by using line of sight, rather than line of effect (Such as Sensory Overload talent in Divination sphere). Still doesn't solve the range deal (though (range) talents can, with investment...up to long range). I also just straight up don't recall them nor where I would find them.

But my number one feat for this purpose would be Ensouled Vision, available to the Soul Weaver, which allows them to expend a soul to gain a untouchable radar pet that flies faster than most party members can walk. Given the Alarm talent, these can quickly and easily start lasting 24 hours each. (They could also be augmented by Alarm, in order to emit... well, an alarm, which would make surprise attacks pretty difficult to pull off on your party.
Explanatory Illusion also lets you auto-proc illusions for what you detect with divinations, in order to mark them. Pretty useful if you don't have quick and convenient means of otherwise communicating with your team...which you should.
But before we get onto that, what divinations would you like to have?
Divine Treasure is pretty useful... if you have Penetrating Divinations, due to detecting hidden treasure. Detect Thoughts lets you (surprise) detect thoughts of those in the area, which also basically means you detect any non-mindless creature that fails its will save. But you do have to already see it (which shouldn't be a problem, but is thus not a real detection tool. Detect Secrets finds hidden doors and such (again, helps get treasure), but unless your DM leniently rules this includes traps, which it goes out of its way to skirt around, it's not super useful.

For sphere-based divinations: Divine Allegiance (War) is superb, because it lets you instantly tell who is on whose side. Fate Sphere's Detect Loyalties and Divine Alignment are also both pretty good for this purpose. Divine Undead/Unnaturals/Shapechanger/Faetouched are each type-specific detections, of which Undead is generally the most useful.
Ultravision is just a straight up bonus Perception check each round, with CL bonus. And this is as a (free) action - not passive. Amazing basically impossible to sneak up on now. Probably one of the more busted of the divinations when used as written outside of its original intent. But in fairness, it does still require a roll. And most DMs will only give you one bonus roll for [thing being perceived], because he's not actually going to let you roll every single bloody round. Especially when you get it going passively. That's obnoxious.

Now, for constant communication: Let's go with Shared Perception, a sense talent, which lasts an hour per CL, and grants the touched creatures the special sense to share perception with one another. Although it is specifically within long range, and stops working once you leave range. (Which is definitely long, but not infinite.) [And sense they all share perception with you, and you are perceiving what they perceive, they also perceive what everyone else sees. Incredibly useful.]
Prying Sight is the cheaper version, which only lets you see through their eyes as an action. You'd need a different means of communication. And would need to meet up more often to refresh it. But doesn't care about range once you've cast it.

Moving onto Mind sphere. It does not specify LoS nor LoE (though even the most gullible GMs will require knowing the target is there to attempt it), but it does require being in range. (So range talents can bring it potentially up to long range, at which point you have access to the entire arsenal of Mind sphere.)
You could make use of Mind Spy, which lets you link to a target and perceive through them. The Powerful Charm creates a link that lasts a week / CL. But the total amount of time spent perceiving through it is only 1 hour / level. This is the same as Shared Perception, but on account of not needing to be consecutive, and your ability to hop between each of your party members effectively means you multiply that by the size of your party, then multiply it again by how much time, on average, you spend not spying on them. So, if you are not able to consistently get back into range to refresh your castings a few times a day, this may be a choice to go with.
Then Project Thoughts lets you telepathically communicate with the target. One-way as a Message, for free. Or two-way for spell points. No defined duration, though you must concentrate for the duration. Add in (mass) talent to target your entire party... Not really an issue any more.

And for even longer-range effects, we can take a look at the Cloud Talents (still Mind sphere), The Lure talent can tell everyone in Long range to bugger off. Or in mile/level range with an advanced talent.
In a similar vein, we can look at the Weather sphere. It can affect a massive area (and in fact, is the origin sphere of the D(ouchebag) rating because the only purpose for some of the talents is to just city-bomb innocent peasants that can't fight back - and the rating hasn't been used sense), and still has (range) talents to center it up to long range. Add to these other effects, and you can well and truly stay very far away from the center of attention. Or conflict.

A reasonable DM would also probably allow you to try and Aid Another by providing tactical/strategic advice in combat, by sharing pertinent information.


So I am a little woozy today so I will be brief, if you want more info than me being brief I will gladly provide even more :smalltongue:, but I am under sharing for my brain is not good at editing at the moment.

themes including renaming things, and general idea

Will be level 8 to start so only 1 talent in each sphere at first, plus sphere drawbacks


War, aka Life is Strife sphere, where we find reasons to live, love, and fight. I am thinking momentum talents.
Time, for the ability to warp localized time, including retry and shift time. If I take personal time I do not know what my 3rd talent would be? Retroactive preparation or something else?
Fate aka the Luck sphere and also assigning rules that both sides must follow. I am thinking one of the 1 hour long motifs and perhaps Stricture. Stricture can be broken but I bet me and the DM can work out appropriate limits. Very Fey Like.
Destruction. Not for damage but the status control with living crystal entangle blast type. How the world traps us unless we seek liberation as theme?
DM will need to okay the final build but I am likely to get admixture and a second blast type with Destructive Curse. Will probably pick the staggered one. This will be “paid for” by Sphere Witch for PF allowed a second hex off a preselected list if you worship one of nine patrons. If the DM okays it I will be worshipping the Monad / The Condition of All and I will have some drawbacks with a HP curse to keep my familiar up every 24 hours and I will have to interplay with the familiar and their wishes.
Mind, the Life of the Mind and assigning meaning in this world with these people. Too many choices.
Life, once again two many choices. But here for Life still matters theme wise.


So I also have 3rd level Spontaneous Cleric spells of 4/2/1 spells known with 6 levels in the Generic Spellcaster. These will be mostly buffs and healing, and I am thinking luck theme, benediction, tyche touch, conviction etc. Not sure if I want Earthen Shield or the versatility of Bestow Curse. Will have a Vestment, Mnemonic plus Scrolls and the Life Sphere for Healing Status Effects.

Sphere Witch and Sphere Arcanist will allow 2 moldable talents which I can flex on the fly with Quick Study. Most of the time they will be stuck in even more awesome momentum or healing with Life. Perhaps sometime yet rarely I will use them with mind to get more charm choices.

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I am thinking the familiar cat is a Neutral Good Familiar which does not understand society and helps my depressed melancholic to get out of their head. There will be trickster cat energy, and also an urge to push boundaries.

Themes will be exploring positive nihilism for like you said if nothing matters than everything matters. Trying to cultivate 4 mindsets of

Loving-kindness and not Indifference.
Compassion and not Pity.
Sympathetic Joy for Others Joy / Struggles and not The Envies.
Equanimity and finding faith including being the fool, possessing an even mind / spirit when faced with realities transience for all things change and not succumb to The Jealousies.

In sum the cat is going to get the nerd outside and doing stuff, and doing good things just because, to engage in adventures. But also the flavor of playing two characters at once, the famous buddy cop where one is not spontaneous they are by the book, and the other is full of whimsy like they are a cowboy looking for trouble.

I'm honestly not particularly sure what I can add to this.

[YelrisRevalin]

I'm not too familiar with Spheres stuff specifically so I dunno how feasible this is, but I've got an idea to throw into the ring.

A "Squad Leader" build is something I've been vaguely toying with for a while now. Ideally they'd be:

A pure martial, or as close to it as possible.

Have as many cohorts/followers/etc as possible that are:
not being compelled to fight through supernatural means, are either able to fight with arms and armor or can provide support to a fighting force, and are primarily humanoids.

And bonus points if the build is easily fluffed in a military or mercenary context.

[Seerow]

I'm not too familiar with Spheres stuff specifically so I dunno how feasible this is, but I've got an idea to throw into the ring.

A "Squad Leader" build is something I've been vaguely toying with for a while now. Ideally they'd be:

A pure martial, or as close to it as possible.

Have as many cohorts/followers/etc as possible that are:
not being compelled to fight through supernatural means, are either able to fight with arms and armor or can provide support to a fighting force, and are primarily humanoids.

And bonus points if the build is easily fluffed in a military or mercenary context.

Leadership Sphere. Cohort package followed by Squad talent, so instead of a single cohort you get a full squad of soldiers whose capabilities scale with your level. This is basically having ~20 elite troops under your command. You could technically break this up if you want pure numbers and have one squad per HD of cohort you could normally have. So if you'd rather have like 300 mooks in the form of 15 squads instead of 1 awesome squad, you could... but I would not recommend it.

Then take the Follower Package, and get the Crew talent, this lets you dip into the Spheres ship rules for crews, which are similar but distinct from the Squad rules. This gives you a scaling number of small crews, which are intended to man a ship, but have rules to be used as a squad to fight as well. You get 1 + 1 per 5 ranks, so you have another ~20-100 troops here.

Last, take Form Army. This lets you form an army under the Kingdom rules with an army level equal to your level -2, which is honestly really impressive at higher levels. An ACR18 army is 2000 10th level characters, or 100 18th level characters, depending on the army size you're looking at.



Also while we're looking at just raw number of things to command on a battlefield, the Animal Sphere is surprisingly good. A handful of talents easily gets you an animal companion, a familiar, and a bunch of assorted animals with a total HD equal to a multiplier of your level (multiplier varying based on how much you're willing to invest in more animals)



Also if your whole thing is leading men, make sure to check out the Squadron feats. This lets you choose a small number of individuals (usually you're going to want to pick your party members and cohorts since it affects like 3-7 people as opposed to hundreds) to treat as a Squadron/Troop and get special benefits with that troop.


Also make sure to check out the Warleader sphere, it's definitely worth dipping for at least one Tactic and Shout that you are interested in.

[Ramza00]

I'm honestly not particularly sure what I can add to this.

Well thank you for what you have done so far :smallsmile:

[SangoProduction]

Leadership Sphere. Cohort package followed by Squad talent, so instead of a single cohort you get a full squad of soldiers whose capabilities scale with your level. This is basically having ~20 elite troops under your command. You could technically break this up if you want pure numbers and have one squad per HD of cohort you could normally have. So if you'd rather have like 300 mooks in the form of 15 squads instead of 1 awesome squad, you could... but I would not recommend it.

Then take the Follower Package, and get the Crew talent, this lets you dip into the Spheres ship rules for crews, which are similar but distinct from the Squad rules. This gives you a scaling number of small crews, which are intended to man a ship, but have rules to be used as a squad to fight as well. You get 1 + 1 per 5 ranks, so you have another ~20-100 troops here.

Last, take Form Army. This lets you form an army under the Kingdom rules with an army level equal to your level -2, which is honestly really impressive at higher levels. An ACR18 army is 2000 10th level characters, or 100 18th level characters, depending on the army size you're looking at.



Also while we're looking at just raw number of things to command on a battlefield, the Animal Sphere is surprisingly good. A handful of talents easily gets you an animal companion, a familiar, and a bunch of assorted animals with a total HD equal to a multiplier of your level (multiplier varying based on how much you're willing to invest in more animals)



Also if your whole thing is leading men, make sure to check out the Squadron feats. This lets you choose a small number of individuals (usually you're going to want to pick your party members and cohorts since it affects like 3-7 people as opposed to hundreds) to treat as a Squadron/Troop and get special benefits with that troop.


Also make sure to check out the Warleader sphere, it's definitely worth dipping for at least one Tactic and Shout that you are interested in.

Thank you for picking up the slack. I had completely wiped the Leaderships sphere from my mind.

Oh. Update on the Mission Controller. You could play as a Wraith class with the Disembodied archetype. This technically is not the same as being super far away, But you are effectively removed from play while passively possessing allies. (Whether or not you can still cast and otherwise act is still up in the air, to my knowledge. But point remains.)

[Yawg]

Oh, not a very noticeable thing, but I was thinking of an unpredictable caster, something like the Eladrin. Each day he wakes up with his magic associated with his season's personality.

[SangoProduction]

Oh, not a very noticeable thing, but I was thinking of an unpredictable caster, something like the Eladrin. Each day he wakes up with his magic associated with his season's personality.

Believe it or not, I already have a character build focused around that concept, if a bit less precisely. The Cursed Archer (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?651025-Cursed-Archer-(Spheres)-Favorite-Character-Concept&p=25622828). It was actually used by one of my unironically favorite characters of the year. It's a very fun restriction. (At least once you get over the hurdles of actually managing the card draw aspect of it.)

But it isn't totally the same as what you asked for. It's about as close as you can get with the published material, but it's exceptionally easy to homebrew a feat.

Seasonality
Prerequisites: Card Casting tradition drawback
Benefit: Choose two seasons, or other themes. These season each have their own deck of talents, and must each meet any prerequisites without regarding the other deck. When you would gain a talent from levels in your class, you instead add different talents each of your seasons' decks.
Each day when you regain your spell points, roll 1d2. For that day, you only have access to the associated season's deck.
Every 7 levels, you may add one season, and an associated deck. It has the same size and restrictions as the other decks as noted above. You also change the die you roll so as to randomly select your deck each day as appropriate.