To Protect Nature (Advanced Talents in Review)

[SangoProduction]

Preamble: I've literally never even looked at these two spheres' advanced talents, save for one time. So I'll be as surprised as you are.

Post Review Analysis: Wow. Um. OK, surprise perhaps does not capture the magnitude of what I felt. Bewilderment, too, perhaps.
So yeah, Nature was kind of all over the place. Very strong, objectively. But probably well positioned for their levels. Except Wildfire, which is just kind of a campaign wrecker.
Protection sphere.... by the gods. Almost every single talent involves outright immunity of some kind. Which... OK. I guess that fits the theme. But wow. Did not expect that, given the relative tepidity of the base talents.

Spoiler: Ratings

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Warning: This rare rating is given to talents that have truly game-breaking potential. Or at the very least need very close inspection before being allowed.

Questionable: These talents have an outsized impact, and should be considered in context before being allowed.

Acceptable: This is your standard faire advanced talent tier. Worth looking at, but rarely is it going to cause the catastrophic downfall of your campaign.

Fluffy: These little to no functional difference to a character. These are also the safest to give out as reward talents. For example, if they beat the witch who eats children, they might manifest the ability to summon items made of gingerbread.

Unknown: For when I really just don't know where it would lie. It's probably needlessly complicated. Take a good look at it yourself. I'll try and provide a cliff notes version of the talent, along with potential pit falls.

Nature

Spoiler: Warning

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Earthquake (lvl 15): This is a Hard No, with no save, in a massive AoE to all ground-bound martial types. Granted. This is level 15, for 3 spell points, and lasts only 1 round. I think this is reasonable for that level. Perhaps even underpowered. But if your group is basically "lower level group with more stats," and you guys have fun that way (that's the majority of groups I've been in at that level)... this kind of forces the introduction of flight.

Wildfire (lvl 5): Not here because it will ruin combats or anything the such... Although a massive (unfriendly) AoE fire damage and ignite might be more than you have prepared... It's the fact that whenever it is used, the town your quest giver was from just up and dies. Even with spell casters (especially wizards, poor dudes), if every single object and creature catches fire... they can't put out the fires before they wreck the entire town. Unless they specifically have the Weather sphere. Or are high enough level to have control weather. And even then, there's the instantaneous fire damage. And fires that happen inside of homes.
The caster is then probably immediately divine-and-killed by every high level wizard whose work-in-progress books and research papers they incinerated. And probably sent to the nine hells for their wanton death and destruction.

Spoiler: Questionable

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Natural Ally (lvl 1): Generally a neat ability. Nothing horrible, especially for a daily... until you realize that it can also summon fey and magical beasts. Which can be terrifying. Also, it's almost inherently going to come down to "Well, there was this one thing in this one book. Can I have it? What do you mean you didn't know it could gate in a Solar at CR 3?"

Tsunami (lvl 15): This is Cyclone, if it was devastating. Massive area, decent damage, lifts and carries Huge creatures. Absolutely demolishes buildings. The works. Perfect for just ruining commoners' day.

Zoetic Geomancy (lvl 10): Is a huge elemental by level 10 really game changing? Perhaps not. Certainly not in combat. Unless you allow for earth glide cheese, which is just on you. But, just like Alteration sphere's elemental transformations, the movement options here can really screw over several of the typical aspects of exploration, dungeon delving, and puzzles. But it's level 10. I'm not sure how relevant that concern is at this level.

Spoiler: Acceptable

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Freezing Geyser (lvl 10): Legitimately, perhaps one of the only non-Destruction sphere, magic sphere effects that are primarily about damage, which are worth really considering... barring making your whole build around it. The damage is basically on par. The area's really good. And Entangle is a pretty nice effect. If you can a continual concentration down, you do also get to eventually encase them in ice as well. It is an unfriendly AoE, so your allies will need some sort of protection.

Materials Of Legend (lvl 10): Very neat to be able to extract especially legendary types of metal.

Peace And Love (lvl 1): A decently-sized, friendly AoE penalty to attacks...of -1 per 10 CL, -1. But as a totally free, passive effect. It is the epitome of "fiddly little bonus," that is so often used to characterize 3.5 / PF / 4e.

Persistent Fog Cloud (lvl 10): Permanent fog cloud. Takes it from Concentration ability, that is easily dispersed to, to a menace upon society. Oh, also just a persistent hinderance without needing any more concentration. And that's before getting into the advanced fogs. Honestly, it's probably fine, for level 10. But it is a notable step up in the power of of Fog Cloud.

Volcano (lvl 15): As far as level 15 spells... it's just a bit of damage. Maybe the prone condition. And some tiny bit of area denial. Oh, and poisonous fog that really only affects commoners at this level.

Phoenix Resurgence (lvl 1): If you are both not-dead, and below 1 hp, you can go to 0 hp, and gain [CL] temp hp, and deal damage, as an immediate action, once per hour. Basically it's a better Toughness, which might not actually protect you, if you go directly to dead.

Spoiler: Fluffy

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Cyclone (lvl 15): OK. Take a look at telekinesis at level 15. The fact that Telekinesis sphere exceeds the lifting capacity by 2 size categories without talents says something. This is obviously just a "douchebag" talent, wherein you release a strong gust of wind at a bunch of commoners. But among those talents, this is one of the least effective ways to just cause hapless mayhem. Granted, unlike Telekinesis, this has an indefinite upper limit to the number of passengers. While telekinesis... anyway, I've gone on at length about that sphere.

Eternal Steel (lvl 8): If this couldn't affect creatures, this would be a level 1 talent that just says "Hey, you equipment is immune to wear and tear. And nonmagical Rust Monsters." There are easier ways of getting greater regeneration on most playable characters (even Androids). So... idk.

Living Steel (lvl 5): Basically "Your equipment heals itself." Except that it also has a 5% chance of breaking enemy metal weapons... if they then fail a fortitude save. So it might happen say... once every 50 attacks they take from metal weapons. This is a level 1 fluff talent.

Rapid Growth (lvl 15): The epitome of fluff.

Whispering Elements (lvl 1): A fluffy message spell. But slower.

Protection

Spoiler: Warning

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True Protection (lvl 10): Yeah. No. Banned. You can specify one specific creature that a ward or aegis works against, at +10 caster level, while not affecting anyone else. If you thought Earth Glade cheese was bad...

Adaptation (lvl 10): Immunity to a damage type. Speaks for itself.

Antimagic Aura (lvl 10): Outright magic (and summoned creature) immunity. And can be an unfriendly Antimagic Field (like ... most are), if desired.

Complex Glyph (lvl 5): Normal Glyphs are Ward-traps. Which you can trigger by password, in order to get all your wards down instantly. Complex Glyph lets you do that with any other sphere effect, or counterspell. But it's less easy and reliable to trigger the effects you want, especially with the targeting, and duration reduction (though 5 round buffs on a buff bomb might be just fine, actually... and some durations are actually much, much shorter). So... well designed on that front. But there's inevitably going to be some interaction you didn't foresee, and you're going to have to ask your player to refrain from doing it again. (Like never using time sphere nonsense. Ever. Please.) And you will also inevitably get rules lawyers who will try and say "Well, he stepped within 35 feet of me, after I said the password, so akshually, he triggered them, take 500d6 damage."

Permanent Ward (lvl 10): Remember what I said about Complex Glyphs being well designed? Yeah, throw that out the window. But permanent wards are neat. You can literally have a house made of crystalized magic.

Spoiler: Questionable

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Spell Selectivity (lvl 10): Upgrades Antimagic Aura / Spell Ward to exclusively apply to one sphere. Or let all but that one sphere go through. Plus up to one per 5 levels. Screws over specialized casters - especially if your party has any foreknowledge whatsoever. All while possibly not even being a hinderance to yourself. In addition to the myriad of uses in just straight up shutting down casters of all types while minimally affecting your allies.

Spoiler: Acceptable

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Mobile Ward (lvl 5): A ward that is centered on and moves with you. Neat.

Planar Refuge (lvl 5): Immunity to harmful environmental effects (including lack of air, and time traits). Dunno what game you're running where that's particularly noteworthy. But it's neat. It's also probably the lowest level ability to so much as pretend to survive in the Plane of Fire. And most of the other innately hostile planes. Although Positive Energy might actually still kill, on account of not blocking "benefits."

Preserve Integrity (lvl 10): Immunity to ability harm.

Subtle (lvl 5): Protects from auto target abilities. (Basically magic traps.)

Undying (lvl 7) Immunity to negative energy, and energy drain.

Unplottable (lvl 15): Immune to all types of divination. Even see invisible. Which can be a real mind ****, when you're invisible. Everyone by this level can see invisible. But can't see you.