Runesinger: Spheres 4e (Spheres in Review)

[SangoProduction]

Preamble: 4e had a lot of issues. Like the combat being so good that players focused inordinately on the combat, despite the RP being no more deficient than that of 3e and its kin.
Also, although there was a lot of differences in what different classes (or even different builds within the classes) could do... they still felt repetitive, due to having a predictable structure to what type of things you could find at a given level for a given class archetype. And so the feel of the classes was rather indistinct from one another.
And it definitely nerf batted the Illusion and Enchantment schools around a couple times. And then some.

But this is a Fighter Archetype that attempts to incorporate some of the push and pull of build and tactical decisions of 4e into the more open, much more successful, Spheres system. Let's see how it does.

Post-Review Analysis: Overall, a really solid archetype. Definitely gives the fighter a unique feel.

Spoiler: Ratings

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(1) Superb: You always want this if it's relevant to you. And it probably is.
(1.5) Really Good: Particularly useful bits of kit, but aren't quite must-haves. (Kept it decimal, because spreading out Good so far from Superb felt unrepresentative. But I needed a step between)
(2) Good: These make useful additions to the right builds. Among your first picks.
(3) Meh: Doesn't hurt to have. Wouldn't go out of your way for it.

(4) No: It technically has a use, but the cost to take simply doesn't outweigh the benefit.
(5) Never: There’s no non-trivial reason to pick it up, from its mechanics.
(6+) Harmful: Taking/using this is actively detrimental to your character.

<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
[Square brackets] indicate a reliance on the group (players or DM) or campaign you’re playing in, and how well it does in those select groups.

Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(?) Unrated: I choose not to rate it. Often because it is just so far out of my wheelhouse, or it’s far too ambiguous.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
(D) D***bag: Used for when your character wants to be a D***bag.

There's literally one unique class feature here, the Runes. The Proficiencies are traded for a martial tradition (4 talents, 2 of which being equipment sphere). And trades Armor Training and Armor Mastery for High Practitioner. Both of which are fantastic trades on their own.
And then you get 2 runes on top of it, and a fresh set of combat feats to pick from (including picking +1 rune for a feat).

So, onto the runes.

Basics: Each rune is a package of 2 abilities (attack and movement). Using either ability drains the rune, putting it on cool down for a minute. These are supernatural abilities.
Actions: Attack Abilities are special attack actions that can also be used in place of the attack at the end of a charge. It also must be declared before an attack roll is made, letting a miss waste it. (Therefore touch attacks are very much better. Same with Scatter attacks.)
Movement abilities are move actions.
Damage Dice: Attack abilities deal a number of dice equal to (class level+1) / 2. IE. Increases every odd level, like cantrip Destruction sphere. This is added on top of the normal attack (unless used in place of the attack, in the case of the charge, I presume).

I am rating the attack and movement abilities separately, because it's more easily comparable that way.

Spoiler: Runes (Attack)

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Pain (1): d8. Nonlethal. Plenty are immune. But implicitly useful. Also Fort save or be sickened for 1d4 rounds. No clause for nonlethal immunity negating the sickened, which is a great rider effect on its own.

Strength (1): d6. Same type as weapon. But then you get to free action combat maneuver. I am very much rating this as though you had a nice, reasonable chance of succeeding that CM, which might be unreasonable. But this is just so flexible with what it allows that it fits almost any specialization you wish to take. While still contributing damage. Typically you lose a bunch of that with CMs (unless you're an omega bull rush build).

Wind (1.5): d4, bludgeoning. Which has higher chance of suffering more Damage Reduction than (weapon damage type). But not hugely. Reflex save or be knocked down. More reliable than most trip attempts. And prone is a pretty crippling condition in melee that lasts indefinitely.

Flame (2): d8 fire damage. No ifs ands or buts. A common resistance/immunity. But still, just straightforward damage.

Cunning (2): D8. Same type as the weapon. Generally that's actually pretty good, because it's part of the attack. It's not double dipping on the DR, or any other resistances. But it's precision damage. There are a few immunities. But also gives -4 to hit for 1 round, no save.

Water (2): d6 cold. But applies a no-save entangle. For 1 round. I mean, it's better if you're ranged. Or simply trying to lock someone down.

Thunder (2): d6 sonic. Very rare resistance. Batters and deafens for 1 round.

Wood [2]: d6 piercing damage. Also does (practitioner modifier) bleed damage, stacking with all your other bleed. Which is great for damage...in the early levels. And that assumes you have substantial PM to scale it with.

Earth (2): d4 acid damage. Uncommon resistance. +1 damage per round per die, for an average of 2.5 rounds. So roughly the equivalent total damage to d8. But it's over time. Granted, if the duration rolls high, they may spend their entire round to remove it, which would be great.

Lightning [2]: d6 electricity. Uncommon resistance. +4 to hit metal / water. Drenching enemies in water is surprisingly easy. For mages that do that. And barring beasties, the hardest to hit targets are metal-armored. Or incorporeal. Overkill if you're using touch attacks already.

Smoke [3]: d8. untyped. But doesn't affect nonbreathers, or those protected from toxic gasses, or immune to poison. That's a huge portion of the monsters. But if you know you're generally fighting bad guys rather than monsters, then this can be relatively fine.

Light (3): No bonus damage. Instead, will save to blind for 1 round. An objectively bad trade. If this wasn't on top of your other sources of damage. Plus, for every 3d6 you give up, you gain an additional round of blinding. On a failed save. If you don't want more damage, this is a... fine pick to make.

Time (4): Unconditional advantage to hit. (Equivalent to +5 to hit...roughly.) Indirectly doubles chance to crit, and gets advantage on confirmation. But no bonus damage. Depends on if you really, desperately, want to try and crit fish. I see it as a bad move, statistically.

Glory (5): The Blacksmith's Thunderous Blows, but also ignores (level) hardness. But it's on a one minute cool down. You can't rapidly break through the environment, and sundering in combat is a very suboptimal play. And destroys loot, which you don't have the class features to fix.

Shadow (5): Stealth vs perception to target flat footed. But does no bonus damage. The attack portion is very much not Shadow rune's point.

Soul (6): d2 damage. In order to force a save to maybe, potentially, deal +1 damage per HD to the target. Just pick straight up damage. Don't go through this rick and roll.

Not going to lie, I was rather scared that the attack abilities would all be really bland and formulaic, getting the same ratings all throughout. Wasn't too much of the case, as they all feel relatively unique. Most are pretty nice / usable as well.

Spoiler: Runes (Movement)

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Shadow (1?): Full speed. Plus invisibility. With indefinite duration, so long as you end movement behind cover. Another reading is that you maintain the stealth bonus so long as you do not move from the cover you positioned behind at the end of the movement. Or something. The wording is really unclear. But even for super restrictive readings, which are probably the intent(?), you still near-guarantee a disengage, and potentially an attack from stealth. Or simply completely throw the enemy off your tracks.

Light (1): Full speed. Teleport. But you must be able to see the target location. Which includes peeking through a key hole. Or across a chasm. Or on top of a dragon.

Wind (1.5): Double speed. Flight with poor maneuverability. May only change horizontal direction once during movement.

Thunder (1.5): Full speed. Deafens and batters adjacent enemies for 1 round when moving through each square. It does stack nicely with Brutal Strike though. A lot of Exertions have elevated effects against battered targets, and this is a move action. As I've heard convincing arguments that Brutal Strike is good, then this otherwise inconsequential effect has to be as well. Possibly.

Glory (2): Double speed, towards a target. Normally that's reserved for a charge, which takes a full round action, and only if you can get close enough to charge, and in a straight line. Does moving around obstacles towards the target count? I would normally say so.

Earth [2]: Full speed. Burrows during the movement without leaving a passage. This is a dungeon delver's wet dream. Unless you misjudge the depth of a wall, and get stuck there for a minute.

Smoke (2): Full speed. Flight as a cloud of smoke. Mostly the same niche as Light movement. But it doesn't require full line of sight from your starting position.

Lightning (3): Full speed. Straight line. Doesn't provoke. Does (level) electric damage to creatures you pass through.

Cunning (3): Full speed. Entering a square lets allies 5 ft step as an immediate action. Neat. Decent. Makes flanking even easier than normal. Can also save allies by getting them that ever bit slightly further away. Not overly impressive though.

Strength (3): Full speed. Bullrush or Overrun on your way, without provoking. Doesn't say movement doesn't provoke. The first bull rush you attempt counts as a move action, letting you benefit from Brute sphere's rider effects for BR.

Flame (3): +20 to acrobatics to jump, counting as a running start. Which is worth +5 ft vertically. Or 20 ft horizontally, from the bonus alone. Which is somewhat unimpressive from a gameplay perspective.

Water (4): Full speed. Turns to water, and may flow along surfaces, or swim. No mention of AoOs or reduced damage while in this form. Much more limited than Smoke. But can swim. Light could do the same thing, unless it's really opaque water. In which case I'm not sure you want to be diving into it using a once per minute ability.

Pain (4): Full speed. Gain (level) DR for the movement. So... presumably wants you to provoke AoOs?

Time (4); Full speed. But before you end the turn, you can return to the start of your movement as a free action. It's like getting a ranged melee attack. Emphasis on one. You'll only get to do this once per combat.

Soul (4): Full speed. Allies and self gain (level) temp hp for 1 minute. Technically you can have that going indefinitely, by just using it on cool down. you certainly don't care for its attack. But 1 hp / level is very rarely all that meaningful to anyone. Giving it to everyone still... hard to imagine it to be meaningful.

Wood (?): I'm not bothering to rate this. Way too many variables. Can deal massive damage potentially, especially with a Crimson Dancer ally. They build up all their bleed stacks, and then you pop it with a move action, and then do your normal thing. (And they are still bleeding.)

Spoiler: Rune Feats

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Rune feats enhance how runes may be used. Runesingers may choose to gain rune feats in place of any combat feat granted by their class, or may use the feats granted to them for advancing in level.

Ancient Word (1+): Spend martial focus to double the attack's damage, +4 to any save DCs, and/or double the movement speed. Believe it or not, there's plenty of utility in a 60 foot teleport. Granted, you have to recover that focus somehow, or take a feat, and spend 1 hp / level for it. When rolling d6s that's about +1.75 damage per level on average. And 2.25 for d8s. So, a net positive trade. If you hit. Especially with AoE attacks. And of course the save DC boost is great.

Signature Technique (lvl 8) (1+): Pick 1 rune. So long as you have martial focus, it becomes active at the end of each turn. Very many uses. Wind is probably the most versatile with both of its abilities. Shadow is basically permanent invisibility. So on so forth.

Fletcher’s Mark (1): Get to use rune attacks with the Deadly Shot ability from Sniper sphere. Sniper sphere has really good debuffs (from a martial perspective). While the runes brings the very reasonable damage to the table. Now you're starting to emulate the destruction sphere! But with more potential for adding more rider effects and damage.

Sign of Devotion (1): Wow. Lots of really good feats. Now a rune doesn't turn off on use, and instead at the end of the turn in which it is used, letting you use both abilities. Strictly raw, that also allows the use of the movement twice. Or so on if you find more sources of actions. Like the Time Thief archetype for rogue.

Advanced Rune Invocation (lvl 16) (1.5): 1/day, swift action, martial focus, regain all your runes again. Sad that it's locked behind such a heavy level requirement, but I'm sure it's got a good reason.

Extra Rune (1.5): Gain one more rune. More options, and uses of your signature ability each combat. All-in-all, a very good thing.

Engraved Weapon (1.5): On using an energy attack rune, you shift all of your weapon damage to that of the rune (save for magic weapon abilities that have their own damage type). Reduces the different sources of damage reduction that can affect your attacks. But also keeps the damage type shifted for 1 minute (the cooldown of the attack). So you can hard target an enemy's elemental weakness. You know? Fighter really needed a lot of really awesome feats to spend their feats on.

Uncial Script (lvl 4) (2): +2 dice and +1 DC to saving throws, per time this feat is taken, while you have martial focus. With explicit exception that spending martial focus in any way on the attack negates this. Basically gets the same damage as Ancient Word, without needing to spend martial focus. That's a great boon. But you then need to keep spending a feat every 4 levels to keep up with it. And the DC boost is lesser. And it has no effect on the movement. This is still probably a really solid

Double Stroke (2): I am still not too on board with using martial focus to spend another rune. But this is in addition to your dual attack, rather than an additional action. So it's probably fine enough.

Defender’s Sigil (lvl 4) (3): I'm none too fussed about getting to spend an immediate action and martial focus in place of an AoO in order to use an attack ability. I'd rather just make full use of each rune with Ancient word, instead.

Final Word (lvl 16) (?): On a confirmed crit, with martial focus, use an immediate action to use an attack rune. Note that martial focus used for an attack persists as "having martial focus" until the end of the attack. But still, you're probably going to get use out of this maybe once in an entire campaign, even if you ever get to level 16.

[Kitsuneymg]

The thing I absolutely hate about Runesinger isn’t anything the class itself does. It’s the fact coiled blade, which seems the more generic fighter for spheres, trades so many feats and armor training for its ****ty version of tension and this dude just loses armor training. Both get 20 talents. Runes are better than tension with no class support. Hell. 6 bonus feats are better than tension with no class support. No, conscript doesn’t count because it’s level don’t qualify you for fighter only feats, mostly advanced weapon training. It’s like they’ve gone out of their way to make it annoying play with cool 1st party alternate stuff and SoM.

So runesinger is just the default sphere fighter for me. Which means the fluff about runes and stuff just kinda gets in the way and feels vestigial on most characters. 9/10 if I’m making a fighter, I ignore them except for the occasional move action stuff. If I’m making someone who teleports and stabs with elements, magus 2/whatever does it better.

Anyway, sorry about that rant.

I am constantly going back and forth on Ancient Word vs Uncial Script. Not needing martial focus is great. Eventual +5 dc is nice. But, like, 5 feats vs 1 is not nice. Maybe if I played a game I knew was going to 20 or if we were doing a high level one shot? But then I see all the non attack action things you can do with focus, and it’s super nice to not need to recover it constantly.

I don’t think cunning’s “weakness” is as bad as you rate it. It doesn’t multiply on a crit, but it wouldn’t anyway because dice don’t. In pathfinder, there’s not a ton of stuff that is immune to precision damage. Only elementals and oozes by type and incorporeal (unless your weapon is ghost touch) and amorphous creatures. That’s a problem in some games, will never be encountered in others, and in the vast majority, you’ll have a rune option that is less useful for one set piece of a chapter. Just remember that immunity to crits is not immunity to precision unless it says it is. They are separate things that just get grouped together a lot. And that pathfinder revoked most immunity to crits by type anyway.


I had an old build idea for a game that never took off using PoW to make a “failed wizard”. It was an elemental flux, shattered mirror, riven hourglass myrmidon(?) that fluffed their maneuvers as the half remembered spells. Their daddy wanted them to be a big shot wizard. But they liked the blades too much. Anyway, I’ve long thought that a Runesinger/Impossible Warrior could pull off the same feeling, albeit with very different results. Runesinger/Impossible warrior seems like a pretty good foundation anyway. Heck, I may try scrapping my conscript idea for this game and trying RSIW again.

[SangoProduction]

The thing I absolutely hate about Runesinger isn’t anything the class itself does. It’s the fact coiled blade, which seems the more generic fighter for spheres, trades so many feats and armor training for its ****ty version of tension and this dude just loses armor training. Both get 20 talents. Runes are better than tension with no class support. Hell. 6 bonus feats are better than tension with no class support. No, conscript doesn’t count because it’s level don’t qualify you for fighter only feats, mostly advanced weapon training. It’s like they’ve gone out of their way to make it annoying play with cool 1st party alternate stuff and SoM.

So runesinger is just the default sphere fighter for me. Which means the fluff about runes and stuff just kinda gets in the way and feels vestigial on most characters. 9/10 if I’m making a fighter, I ignore them except for the occasional move action stuff. If I’m making someone who teleports and stabs with elements, magus 2/whatever does it better.

Anyway, sorry about that rant.

I am constantly going back and forth on Ancient Word vs Uncial Script. Not needing martial focus is great. Eventual +5 dc is nice. But, like, 5 feats vs 1 is not nice. Maybe if I played a game I knew was going to 20 or if we were doing a high level one shot? But then I see all the non attack action things you can do with focus, and it’s super nice to not need to recover it constantly.

I don’t think cunning’s “weakness” is as bad as you rate it. It doesn’t multiply on a crit, but it wouldn’t anyway because dice don’t. In pathfinder, there’s not a ton of stuff that is immune to precision damage. Only elementals and oozes by type and incorporeal (unless your weapon is ghost touch) and amorphous creatures. That’s a problem in some games, will never be encountered in others, and in the vast majority, you’ll have a rune option that is less useful for one set piece of a chapter. Just remember that immunity to crits is not immunity to precision unless it says it is. They are separate things that just get grouped together a lot. And that pathfinder revoked most immunity to crits by type anyway.


I had an old build idea for a game that never took off using PoW to make a “failed wizard”. It was an elemental flux, shattered mirror, riven hourglass myrmidon(?) that fluffed their maneuvers as the half remembered spells. Their daddy wanted them to be a big shot wizard. But they liked the blades too much. Anyway, I’ve long thought that a Runesinger/Impossible Warrior could pull off the same feeling, albeit with very different results. Runesinger/Impossible warrior seems like a pretty good foundation anyway. Heck, I may try scrapping my conscript idea for this game and trying RSIW again.

Ah, that's right. PF removed immunity for undead, constructs, and a lot of others. I'll bump it up.

[StSword]

The thing I absolutely hate about Runesinger isn’t anything the class itself does. It’s the fact coiled blade, which seems the more generic fighter for spheres, trades so many feats and armor training for its ****ty version of tension and this dude just loses armor training. Both get 20 talents. Runes are better than tension with no class support. Hell. 6 bonus feats are better than tension with no class support. No, conscript doesn’t count because it’s level don’t qualify you for fighter only feats, mostly advanced weapon training. It’s like they’ve gone out of their way to make it annoying play with cool 1st party alternate stuff and SoM.

The generic fighter for spheres is just a fighter.

They qualify for a martial tradition at first level, extra combat talent is a combat feat so they can buy it 11 times with those bonus feats, or trade out their leveling feats to gain Adept progression while keeping all those fighter feats.

But since it sounds like what you want is a fighter with expert progression, the Soldier seems pretty generic in concept to me. And there's got to be at least one conscript specialization you'd find worthwhile.

[A.J.Gibson]

I normally try avoid defending my work (especially given some of it's quality) but my love of math demands that I speak. Whenever people compare RS and CB, they seem to forget a bunch of things. The complete math (according to the wiki, which might be wrong):

Runesinger
+20 talents
+martial tradition
+2 runes
-proficiency with all martial weapons
-proficiency with medium armor, heavy armor, shields, and tower shields
-armor training
-armor mastery

Coiled Blade
+20 talents
+martial tradition
+tension feature
-armor training
-6 combat feats

In total, RS gives up 8 to 11 feats worth of features (depending on how you value proficiencies), while CB gives up 10. I'm assuming armor training is worth a feat per point, but they both give it up, so the comparison stays the same. Both then gain 20 talents and a martial tradition; RS gains 2 runes while CB gains tension. I'd say tension is probably worth 2 or 3 feats, so the archetypes end up pretty close to each other. It really comes down to how you value the proficiencies the fighter gives up for the RS: should they be worth what the fighter originally paid in the PF system, or the cost to gain them back in the SoM system?

Maybe RS comes out ahead, but the difference is only a feat or two across 20 levels. RS gives up 6 to 9 feats to gain a tradition and an expert progression, while CB gives up 10 to gain the same + tension.

Now look at Soldier:
+20 talents
+martial tradition
+skills points per level
+conscript sphere specialization
+conditioning
-proficiency with all martial weapons
-proficiency with medium armor, heavy armor, shields, and tower shields
-armor training
-5 combat feats
-bravery

Using the same math, we pay 13 to 16 feats worth of features (again, I rate the proficiencies as worth 3 to 6 feats, bravery is worth 1 feat in my mind) and in return we get 20 talents and a martial tradition, 2 extra skill points per level (worth 2 feats?), conditioning (4 feats?) and a conscript spec (7 feats). Solider ends up paying 0 to 3 feats for a tradition and expert progression.

[Kitsuneymg]

I normally try avoid defending my work (especially given some of it's quality) but my love of math demands that I speak. Whenever people compare RS and CB, they seem to forget a bunch of things. The complete math (according to the wiki, which might be wrong):

Runesinger
+20 talents
+martial tradition
+2 runes
-proficiency with all martial weapons
-proficiency with medium armor, heavy armor, shields, and tower shields
-armor training
-armor mastery

Coiled Blade
+20 talents
+martial tradition
+tension feature
-armor training
-6 combat feats

In total, RS gives up 8 to 11 feats worth of features (depending on how you value proficiencies), while CB gives up 10. I'm assuming armor training is worth a feat per point, but they both give it up, so the comparison stays the same. Both then gain 20 talents and a martial tradition; RS gains 2 runes while CB gains tension. I'd say tension is probably worth 2 or 3 feats, so the archetypes end up pretty close to each other. It really comes down to how you value the proficiencies the fighter gives up for the RS: should they be worth what the fighter originally paid in the PF system, or the cost to gain them back in the SoM system?

Maybe RS comes out ahead, but the difference is only a feat or two across 20 levels. RS gives up 6 to 9 feats to gain a tradition and an expert progression, while CB gives up 10 to gain the same + tension.

Now look at Soldier:
+20 talents
+martial tradition
+skills points per level
+conscript sphere specialization
+conditioning
-proficiency with all martial weapons
-proficiency with medium armor, heavy armor, shields, and tower shields
-armor training
-5 combat feats
-bravery

Using the same math, we pay 13 to 16 feats worth of features (again, I rate the proficiencies as worth 3 to 6 feats, bravery is worth 1 feat in my mind) and in return we get 20 talents and a martial tradition, 2 extra skill points per level (worth 2 feats?), conditioning (4 feats?) and a conscript spec (7 feats). Solider ends up paying 0 to 3 feats for a tradition and expert progression.

I consider all martial weapons and armor to be two, maybe three *talents* on anyone that already gets simple and light. Custom Training for 5 maritals (or the exotic you want to use, a ranged backup, and a melee backup, and a lol random) and armor training/unarmored training depending on build. Maybe three if you want tower or heavy shields. No one I’ve DMed for or played with has used more than two or three martial weapons on one character since 3.0 debuted. Oh. Except the armiger. He has 4. I think #4 as it’s own discipline proficiency as part of it.

To answer the question directly. They are worth what it takes to effectively buy them back in SoM. Which is 2-3 talents for most characters. Which I believe is 1-1.5 feats. Which puts the comparison at 6-6.5 vs 10. WotC and Paizo both overvalued full bab and all weapon proficiencies. The fact that SoM has a number of spheres make me want full BaB is a testament to its overall design.

Tension is nice. Sure. But without the ability to buy striker tension arts or other tension abilities somehow, it stays kinda low level feeling. My party’s Striker really only started getting notable use out of it after getting Rising Tension. Being able to use it all the time and having a reason to have it empty at the start of his turn really cranked up it’s impact on combat. A coiled blade will never get that as far as
I know.



Gonna just admit that I forgot soldier existed. Is there a reason sphere spec has a clause that allows it to still be replaced by archetypes, but conditioning doesn’t? Was it solely to prevent lore wardens and weapon masters from interacting with SoM outside of feat->talent trade?

I don’t actually value bravery itself. But having it to trade out for archetypes is what it’s useful for. Armor training is similar.

[A.J.Gibson]

I consider all martial weapons and armor to be two, maybe three *talents* on anyone that already gets simple and light. Custom Training for 5 maritals (or the exotic you want to use, a ranged backup, and a melee backup, and a lol random) and armor training/unarmored training depending on build. Maybe three if you want tower or heavy shields. No one I’ve DMed for or played with has used more than two or three martial weapons on one character since 3.0 debuted. Oh. Except the armiger. He has 4. I think #4 as it’s own discipline proficiency as part of it.

To answer the question directly. They are worth what it takes to effectively buy them back in SoM. Which is 2-3 talents for most characters. Which I believe is 1-1.5 feats. Which puts the comparison at 6-6.5 vs 10. WotC and Paizo both overvalued full bab and all weapon proficiencies. The fact that SoM has a number of spheres make me want full BaB is a testament to its overall design.

Tension is nice. Sure. But without the ability to buy striker tension arts or other tension abilities somehow, it stays kinda low level feeling. My party’s Striker really only started getting notable use out of it after getting Rising Tension. Being able to use it all the time and having a reason to have it empty at the start of his turn really cranked up it’s impact on combat. A coiled blade will never get that as far as
I know.



Gonna just admit that I forgot soldier existed. Is there a reason sphere spec has a clause that allows it to still be replaced by archetypes, but conditioning doesn’t? Was it solely to prevent lore wardens and weapon masters from interacting with SoM outside of feat->talent trade?

I don’t actually value bravery itself. But having it to trade out for archetypes is what it’s useful for. Armor training is similar.

Can't really comment on Coiled Blade, or Soldier, though in the latter case it was written in a later book, and later books tend to be more obsessed with interoperability.

Generally speaking, it's best to use what a class paid for something rather than how much it would cost to replace it, as doing the latter would make the resulting archetype less competitive with other archetypes that do the form and use the trade to get things actually worth what the original class paid for it.

Also, proficiency with martial weapons is considered to be worth about 2 feats by SoM: you can trade it for a tradition (with 4 talents), after all.
There is a better way to measure power of the runesinger, however. The runescripter has the same chassis as the runesinger:


Runescripter (Conscript Archetype)

Skills
The runescripter adds Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (dungeoneering) (Int), Knowledge (engineering) (Int), and Ride (Dex) to their class skill list. The runescripter removes Knowledge (local) (Int) and Perception (Wis) from their class skill list. The runescripter does not get to choose 3 additional class skills.
The runescripter only gains 2 skill points per level.
This alters skills.

Saving Throws
The runescripter has poor reflex saves.
This alters saving throws.

Combat Training
The runescripter gains one martial talent per class level only.

Runes
At 1st level, the runescripter gains 2 runes as a runesinger fighter. Levels in runescripter and runesinger do not stack for the purpose of runes.

Bravery
At 2nd level, the runescripter gains the fighter's bravery class feature as a fighter of equal level. This stacks with any fighter levels the runescripter possesses.

Weapon Training
At 5th level, the runescripter gains the fighter's weapon training feature of a fighter of equal level, including the same increases at 9th, 13th, and 17th level. This stacks with any fighter levels the runescripter possesses. The runescripter may qualify for advance weapon techniques if their level is high enough.

Weapon Mastery
At 20th level, the runescripter gains the weapon mastery feature of a 20th level fighter.


This actually looks like a bit of nerf to me (though it's a little more front loaded), so I figure runesinger is okay.

[astrerouge]

Where is the runecripter conscript from? i do not see it on the wiki

[A.J.Gibson]

Where is the runecripter conscript from? i do not see it on the wiki

I wrote it just now to make a point: people say runesinger is pushed, but a conscript reduced to the same chassis would be a bit of downgrade, so even if the archetype is very good, the resulting chassis is not.

I would never write an archetype that granted bravery :D