Castilonium's Guide to Spheres of Guile

[Castilonium]

Hi, Pathfinders! Spheres of Guile (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/431419/Spheres-of-Guile), the third and final addition to the Spheres systems by Drop Dead Studios, recently released! It focuses on expanding the uses of skills and granting characters loads of amazing out-of-combat utility. You don't need divination magic in order to be a peerless Sherlock Holmes anymore!

Here's the guide: Wits and Wiles: Castilonium’s Guide to Spheres of Guile (https://docs.google.com/document/d/12orVebNArSC8Hq78ewOegVeYVMBp0gFMccl_kHn43Tc/edit?usp=sharing)! It has 250+ pages of content, including helpful cheat sheets that organize and list what talents, skills, and feats synergize with the new mechanics in SoG. The Spheres Wiki (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) now has all of the rules-related info for SoG for your ease of reference.

{Scrubbed}

[Thealtruistorc]

Thank you so much for taking the time to organize this whole guide. This sort of consolidated review is incredibly valuable to designers, and your critiques will be informing any further changes through errata or revision of playtest material. Already, this guide has provided some wonderful points on how to clarify or adjust certain abilities.

[Ramza00]

Thanks, I skimmed this and in many ways it is easier to learn SoG via this than the original book. Thank You.

Edit: the SoG champion feats, I do not think they made the final book and are still in play test?

[Thealtruistorc]

Edit: the SoG champion feats, I do not think they made the final book and are still in play test?

That's correct. The champion feats from Legends of the Spheres are still in playtest

[Rynjin]

I need to look deeper into it but so far I'm pretty unimpressed by SoG. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong Spheres, but it seems like a lot of Talents are on par with the worst that Rogue Talents had to offer, to the point that I was looking at the Guile classes to see if maybe they got 2-3 times as many Talents as their Power and Might brethren, because I'm struggling to figure out why I would choose to take a talent like "Conversational Decorum" other than the fact that I'm forced to take a certain number of [Utility] talents.

I was expecting more impactful options rather than Rogue Talents and some things that are basically PART of the functionality of a Skill Unlock.

[Ramza00]

I need to look deeper into it but so far I'm pretty unimpressed by SoG. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong Spheres, but it seems like a lot of Talents are on par with the worst that Rogue Talents had to offer, to the point that I was looking at the Guile classes to see if maybe they got 2-3 times as many Talents as their Power and Might brethren, because I'm struggling to figure out why I would choose to take a talent like "Conversational Decorum" other than the fact that I'm forced to take a certain number of [Utility] talents.

I was expecting more impactful options rather than Rogue Talents and some things that are basically PART of the functionality of a Skill Unlock.

Maybe this is just how my various groups play, where we do odd feats at HD01/03/05 etc (like traditional pathfinder), but also allow two flaws like 3.5 unearthed arcana. Maybe getting those 2 extra feats for flavor drawbacks influence what I am about to say.

———

SoG talents the main ones not the utility ones are equivalent to feats or like you said rogue talents, Rynjin. The way I feel is 8th level character using the trained progression, you give up 2 feats (HD 1 and 5) and in return get 2 SoG Any Talents and 4 utility talents.

Furthermore add the trade talents for 2 more Vocation plus 1 more Any for any class, or 4 Vocation plus 2 Any. Lastly many of the races can trade those +2 to skills or +1 skill point per HD for a specific SoG Any talent.

So an 8th level character is sacrificing 2 feats and their class skills, and a small racial skill bonus and get in return 2 Any Talents, a specific Racial Any Talent, 4 utility talents, and 1 more Any plus 2 trades or 2 more Any plus 4 trades depending if they are a 2+ skill class or a 5+ skill class.

Seeing these spheres as equal to a feat is the point, but even if they are “weak feats” the same book also gives you extra free feats via various ways to trade.

Then again maybe the way I see this as a way to expand existing systems and classes, to make SoP, SoM, Vanican a little more skillful and I am not looking hard at the new SoG 5 classes.

[Thealtruistorc]

I need to look deeper into it but so far I'm pretty unimpressed by SoG. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong Spheres, but it seems like a lot of Talents are on par with the worst that Rogue Talents had to offer, to the point that I was looking at the Guile classes to see if maybe they got 2-3 times as many Talents as their Power and Might brethren, because I'm struggling to figure out why I would choose to take a talent like "Conversational Decorum" other than the fact that I'm forced to take a certain number of [Utility] talents.


The idea behind the Utility talents is that they are supposed to be an allotment of specifically out-of-combat options, elements that give players unique things to do in the contexts of social or exploration situations. Putting them in a separate pool allows these elements to actually be usable without compromising the combat abilities of the classes.

[Rynjin]

While getting extra talents is nice, I'd like for them to actually...do something. Like I'm sure there are gems buried in there but when one of the first Utility talents I see is something so immensely situational as Conversational Decorum, it doesn't give a good first impression.

And this isn't even really getting into the fact that the Utility talents aren't quite...extra. You get 10 and 10 on most characters, whereas eg. an Expert Practitioner would get 20 talents of their choice. So it's only "extra" compared to a Proficient Practitioner.

Based on the progression (10/10, 15/10 matching up to the 10, 15, or 20 progression Practitioners get) it seems like Utility talents are on their own valued at about half of a real talent, which begs the question of why they made a bunch of book filler which weren't worth spending a full talent on?

[Ramza00]

While getting extra talents is nice, I'd like for them to actually...do something. Like I'm sure there are gems buried in there but when one of the first Utility talents I see is something so immensely situational as Conversational Decorum, it doesn't give a good first impression.

And this isn't even really getting into the fact that the Utility talents aren't quite...extra. You get 10 and 10 on most characters, whereas eg. an Expert Practitioner would get 20 talents of their choice. So it's only "extra" compared to a Proficient Practitioner.

Based on the progression (10/10, 15/10 matching up to the 10, 15, or 20 progression Practitioners get) it seems like Utility talents are on their own valued at about half of a real talent, which begs the question of why they made a bunch of book filler which weren't worth spending a full talent on?

Why do “traits” exist when we have “feats” in Pathfinder? Seriously though the way I am personally vibing with the material and making a judgement / decision is via asking myself if this Utility Sphere worth a trait? Is this non-Utility Guile sphere worth a feat? Yes Utility and Guile are not literally traits and feats but that is how many units of value I am assigning them in my head and then building around it / shuffling my previous knowledge.

Consider this, these are all Utility Trade talents. Easy to get 2, 3, 4, or 5 via a trade tradition and multiclassing yet good enough to spend limited feats on.
Con Artist, utility, Int to Bluff, Bluff, Disguise, Know-Local, Linguistics are class skills for you
Medium, utility, Int to Diplomacy, Fly, Know-Arcana, Know-Planes, Know-Religion are class skills for you
Experimenter, utility, Int to Intimidate, Fly, Intimidate, Know-Engineering, Use Magic Device are class skills for you
Philosopher, utility, Int to Sense Motive, Know-History, Know-Nature, Know-Religion, Sense Motive are class skills for you
Occultist, utility, Int to Use Magic Device, Know-Dungeoneering, Know-Planes, Linguistics, Use Magic Device are class skills for you
Doctor, utility, Int to Heal, Heal, Knowledge Nature, Knowledge Religion, Spellcraft are class skills for you
Divergent Aptitude utility except this is an exceptional talent aka a legendary use that many DMs will not allow, X to Y, such as Int to Perception. This utility trait can be taken multiple times but remember since it is exceptional the DM may say no.
Clever Wordplay (Social Trait not a Sphere) use Int for one Cha based skill. Let’s see Disguise, Perform, and Handle Animal are 3 Cha skills with no Utility SoG equivalent. Handle Animal is rarely worth it and you only need 1 party member to be good at it. Thus a social trait for Disguise or 1 of the 9 types of Perform.




An example build below

Consider a Martial+Spiritualism Hedgewitch 2/Sphere Witch 1/Sphere Arcanist X, let’s aim for level 4 so we make that X into Arcanist 1 but future levels also go here.

You are getting X/2Arcanist+1WitchMoldable Talents you can redo via Quick Study
Spiritualism gives 4 times a day (later 6 times with the 15k Book of Secrets) flexible talents on top of that
Martial Hedgewitch gives you a Martial Tradition and 1 Combat Sphere. That is worth about 30 Skill Points for example Commando gives 2 Scout talents and Leadership Cohort and thus Perception plus Stealth 10 Ranks via Scout, and the base Leadership Cohort plus 1 Combat Talent is another 10 Ranks in Diplomacy. If your DM does not like leadership there is a similar Martial Tradition for Alchemy so that is 2 Alchemy talents and 10 ranks in that Craft or Heal, or go Sniper or Duelist.
6+ Skills for Hedgewitch 2 gives you Adroit development, 1 multi class means a total of 5 trade talents, 2 Any Sphere of Guile. The other alternative is 5 trade talents, 1 Any Sphere of Guile, plus a Utility Talent.
Racial Skill is another trade talent.


Now my Witchy Spellcaster has Int to Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Sense Motive, Heal, and Use Magic Device, 6 different skills that are normally wis or cha. Clever Wordplay the trait allows my Witchy Women to have Int to Disguise. And I still have 1 SoG Any Talent from my Trade Tradition and +1 more for a total of 2 with my Racial Any Guile Talent. I have not spent feats yet!

I am -1 CL behind but a trait fixes that for 3 spheres. Lots of versatility for a level 4 character via 2 moldable talents plus Spiritualism, Familiar, and 5 non flexible magic talents (2 base+1 hedgewitch+2 witch+0 arcanist.)

Yes this book is a big book of trait and feat equivalent. Some may not want a 300 page book that did that, but some people like this for it can make things more consistent (lowering the floor of a build), even if it does not increase total combat power.

[Rynjin]

Traits exist as a nice little bonus to get your character started at 1st level. There has never been a character I would consider taking 10 Traits on, and I especially wouldn't be taking Additional Traits 5 times to do so.

Getting to change the stat bonus of a skill is neat...but not that neat. And more to the point, it's not exactly exciting. It doesn't let me do anything NEW with a skill, it just adds some extra numbers. I don't come to Spheres for "more numbers", I come to Spheres because it makes building my character more interesting and it feels like every time you take a new Talent you get a new tool in your toolbox.

Most of the utility talents I've looked at are...not that.

[icefractal]

There are a few exciting ones I've seen in there, and there well may be more - there's just a lot of material to look at, so I've been making slow progress. Thanks very much for the guide, OP, it will definitely help!

But for example, Communication sphere has the Flawless Rapport (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/communication#toc40) exceptional talent, which is the party-wide all-day unlimited-range telepathy that I've always wished Mind sphere had. And the precursor talent, Veiled Dialog, is pretty good too, probably the easiest form of party-wide secret communication to acquire.

And there's probably more gems like this. In terms of the majority of the talents though, I haven't formed a strong opinion yet, because it's kinda tricky to evaluate - I think I'll need to at least half-build some test characters to get a better idea.

[Rynjin]

It's troubling to me that the only talents anybody has pointed out as being, well, exceptional are the Exceptional talents.

What are you supposed to do beforehand?

SoG feels like it would have made more sense as a rough expansion to the other systems than its own thing. I wouldn't mind getting some fiddly, niche social bonuses on my Conscript. But even in the heavily social-intrigue-based campaign we're running (the War for the Crown Adventure path), I do not see myself playing a dedicated Guile-ist or whatever they call the Guile characters.

[SangoProduction]

Well. Holy ****. Nice.

[Castilonium]

Glad people find my guide helpful :smallsmile:

SoG is currently undergoing heavy errata, and many talents are being changed. They've even been talking directly with me for my input based on stuff in my guide! So expect a lot of talents to change and mostly be buffed over the next few weeks.

[thethird]

Thanks Castilonium for taking the time to do this. I really like your Zealot guide btw.

I'll need to diggest all the new conditions, but hopefully you listing them this way makes it easier to understand.

The artifice alloyed plating is quite unique, because if memory serves is the only published way to accomplish what it does. Cool spot on the stable shadow stuff.

I really like the subjective gravity of the body control. It's very cool, and it's a way to emulate gravity bondings from The Way of Kings that wasn't available before. I want to play around with it and gravity clips from the Tech sphere. Will see what comes out.

On the spellhacking sphere you talk about Repurpose Activated Item, that sounds pretty fun, but I am not able to find it on the wiki (which I am using as source). Maybe it's due to the continuous errata? That and flexible item repurposing sound like what I would like out of spellhacking, but what's in the wiki is rather... tame. But I got to give mishaps a second look, which is great. Note that at least on the wiki for the false activation says that the mishaps takes the form of an illusion of the [...] non illusory effects. So it might not work with silent image scrolls and stuff.

The subterfuge sphere seems interesting for a vigilante, which is a class that's going to use disguises continuously. Or well, for a troubador (from champions of spheres). Many guises with prestigious disguise will probably get you almost anywhere.

[Castilonium]

Thanks Castilonium for taking the time to do this. I really like your Zealot guide btw.
It fills me with joy to hear that!


On the spellhacking sphere you talk about Repurpose Activated Item, that sounds pretty fun, but I am not able to find it on the wiki (which I am using as source). Maybe it's due to the continuous errata? That and flexible item repurposing sound like what I would like out of spellhacking, but what's in the wiki is rather... tame. But I got to give mishaps a second look, which is great. Note that at least on the wiki for the false activation says that the mishaps takes the form of an illusion of the [...] non illusory effects. So it might not work with silent image scrolls and stuff.
Repurpose Activated Item and a few other things, like the Champion feats, are from the playtest for Legends of the Spheres, a kickstarter stretch goal for Spheres of Guile. You can find all of the playtest docs here: This link! (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lPffQPtwWg5-depzEwu9fg1u1JYxNR__aJpnkgilAbI/edit#)

The doc with Repurpose Activated Item is the Champion Talents (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PmlxQu9r3D2QnhXo7k8afBHMRKi6F-LpM7J02RsTSLw/edit#) doc.

[Rynjin]

Glad people find my guide helpful :smallsmile:

SoG is currently undergoing heavy errata, and many talents are being changed. They've even been talking directly with me for my input based on stuff in my guide! So expect a lot of talents to change and mostly be buffed over the next few weeks.

Noice. I'll be really interested to see what SoG is like when it's a finished product lol.

[Ramza00]

“Conflict of Wills” (exceptional talent, study sphere) plus “Shift Time. (time sphere, borrows your future action, and it is perfect for dipping since it does not improve via a caster level, just the action cost and 1 sp)

is incredible! http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/study#toc33

You literally “bully” an enemy into confusion, bullying which costs no resources besides action times and shift time allows you to start the action cycle via 1 sp and losing the next rounds swift action. Bullying that gains notions whenever someone makes any Int, Wis, or Cha skill check that is successful against the bully target. (Lots of these take action time or are “reactive”)

Now add “collaborative understanding” from the same study sphere and your whole party does the bullying. http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/study#toc9

———

Edit

Deduce Positioning the (theory) is 1 star in the rating, and I agree it is 1 star by itself but it can quickly grow into something useful.


(to recap) Deduce Positioning is good against enemies who want to surprise you, use concealment, invisibility, and other ways to grant the flat-footed condition.
the problem is with theories you have to be aware of a target to begin a theory as an immediate action.
(counter arguments begin now), theories affect groups of characters. So for example a group of ninja tried to kill you while being invisible, notice one and your theory can apply to all of them. Likewise theories last indefinitely but only one at a time, thus if you are in a dungeon with multiple rooms you may want to keep up the theory going so you noticing one enemy that uses invisibility or concealment now applies to future rooms making them easier.
theories are normally only your pc, but an additional talent Collaborative Understanding fixes that. Now if you have the best eyes or special senses of the group, everyone can now not be flat footed and better available to fight the invisible enemies.
one can not use an immediate action when one is flat-footed. Some players such as myself like being able to layer an immediate action defense in the first round / surprise round of combat. Can not do that if one is flat-footed. This is why Defensive Strategist the pathfinder religion trait is so sought after. If you are going to take Defensive Strategist anyway consider doing Deduce Positioning and Collaborative Understanding not to help yourself but to help your party.
you already mentioned it in its own section, but to repeat aptitude feats improve things, yes this 1 talent is now several talents and a feat, but I think Societal Aptitude is great. Read the room and learn people’s motivations, fail knowledge checks and know how to fix this via the nearest library, etc.


So to recap I think the Deduce Positioning is 1 star, but it can be a seed for something more if one was already building in that direction. I see it as a yes-and in a larger chain, if you are already taking defensive strategist trait one can ask do I want to take 2 more talents to help my allies out or should I let them handle their own business.

[Castilonium]

Just a heads up for everyone keeping an eye on SoG! The authors have an errata doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sHuan3kyHzCydXt6OYKqsBlLf_jMfzC39_ygma4yjlw/edit) that anyone can view and make suggestions to. You can see what is currently in the pipeline for errata, and there's quite a lot! There was some more stuff that got removed from the doc because it's already been finalized and put into the next version of the PDF, whenever that comes out. If you have suggestions on anything SoG related or just notice some editing mistakes, I recommend voicing them! You can also do so in the SoG channels in the DDS discord (https://discord.gg/Zyf9aEMG).

Once a new version of the PDF with the errata is released, I will update my guide to reflect it.

[CactusAir]

So, your guide has the text:


Q: Are the new mechanics and talents in Spheres of Guile only usable by SoG classes?
A: Nope! Anyone can use them. Anyone can get a trade tradition, and other spheres classes can trade up to half their talents for skill talents with GM permission. Anyone can use the new skill uses.


Where can I find the rule about about "trading up to half your talents for skill talents"? I have been looking through the SoP wikidot, and haven't seen it. If you have the book page number, I can also go actually download the PDF (I kickstarted, but have been lazy about actually redeeming those DTRPG codes)

[Ramza00]

So, your guide has the text:




Where can I find the rule about about "trading up to half your talents for skill talents"? I have been looking through the SoP wikidot, and haven't seen it. If you have the book page number, I can also go actually download the PDF (I kickstarted, but have been lazy about actually redeeming those DTRPG codes)

It is Legends of the Spheres, which was a SoG stretch goal to make a "Champions" book that better blended SoG, SoP and SoM.

So while the "main book" has been released, the stretch goal stuff is still in development / playtest.

Here is the link to the playtest.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lPffQPtwWg5-depzEwu9fg1u1JYxNR__aJpnkgilAbI/edit

Notice the link I gave is a link to 9 LoS links (Introduction is what you want, Archetypes, Champion Talents, Champion Feats, Champion Sphere-Specific Drawbacks, Organizations, and 3 new classes)

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: thread re-opened.

[Castilonium]

Sphere of Guile is in its final round of errata. After this, the main book probably won't get any more updates or corrections! It's our last chance for feedback! So if you see a class, talent, or anything else that you think should be changed, I strongly recommend saying so either in the DDS discord's playtest channel or the errata google doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sHuan3kyHzCydXt6OYKqsBlLf_jMfzC39_ygma4yjlw/edit). The authors have been very receptive to many suggestions over the months.

My guide has been fully updated for the latest version of the SoG PDF. The Spheres wiki isn't fully updated yet, so bear that in mind.

[SangoProduction]

Alright you guys! Everyone who actually paid attention get in here! We need your input.