Razor Wire Build (Spheres of Power)

[SangoProduction]

You know of "Razor wire" from anime such as Akame Ga Kill, Hellsing, Hunter x Hunter, and so on? Basically the manipulation of near-invisible wire with the ability to cut.
Well, there's a lot of really creative ways to take such a power concept. Obviously, the destructive aspect. The trap laying. Entangling. All that good stuff. Even sending up the opponent hundreds of feet in the air for a near-certainly fatal crash to the arena as in Yu Yu Hakusho.

But what if we stepped a little outside the convention, and said we can not only manipulate the macro-movements of the wire, but also the micro- such as how the wires vibrate. If Star Wars is anything to go on, that would be even better at cutting. But can imply a few more abilities. I think we can get a pretty good emulation of being a "Ninja."

Level 10, as always.

Class: Sage 10

Spoiler: Explanation

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As much as it's an overloaded, and frankly silly class, it is both aesthetically and mechanically perfect for this purpose.

We'll start as a Ki Blaster so that we can immediately start offending from close range with your strings. At level 8, we'll take Enhancer, and become even more dexterous, with a +8 to Dex and Wis by level 9. Very hard to hit and good to-hit bonus. Very ninja-y

Spoiler: Old explanation

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We'll start with Ki Convergent (taking Metal and Plant packages). Whenever you hit with Ki Strike, you get to Entangle or Magnetize. Entangle is obvious. Magnetize is you grabbing another weapon and also stabbing them with it from behind with your wires. "Why only metal?" Because that's what the mechanic says. You simply prefer to grab metal weapons.
(Alternatively you could take Water instead of Plant [which is mechanically superior], and the "Freeze" is you still entangling them in your wire. And the cold damage is because... you can siphon heat in a AC-like manner. Would be kinda stretching it, since there's not a lot of room for fluid in tiny strings, even with magical control... but... magic.)

Until level 8, when you get Ki Blaster, you can only use this in melee. That's a fine trade.
Infuser is also an acceptable choice, because manipulating the enemy is one of the functions available to most users, though your actual damage would then remain limited to melee.


(Well, Ki Convergent is kinda like... Ki Blaster, but worse in almost every way possible. But it was new and shiny, and was easy to justify. But...destruction sphere is even easier to justify, and immediately getting to close-range threads is very good. So I swapped out Soul Stitching for a talent in Life sphere. And Ki Wall for Mental Escalation.)

Spoiler: Esoteries

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Level 2: Phantom Strike (You ignore armor by having the threads go around it. It's a straightforward justification.)
Level 4: Ki Weapon: (Your strings are magically delic- I mean conductive. And thus wrapping them around a magical weapon transfers the magical effects.
Level 6: Flight (Spiderman / AoT)
Level 8: Mental Escalation (You enter a trance-like state of ultimate awareness.)
Level 10: Meteor Shower (Being able to even more effectively distribute wire and take out a crowd is almost mandatory by now.)

Spoiler: Casting Tradition

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Consciousness Linked: If you aren't directing the strings, they don't have their power.
Mental Focus: Takes active effort and attention to maintain control.
Somatic Casting: Once or twice make sense. Depends on which source you draw inspiration from. Some need flashier movements, but there's always *some* movement. We are taking it twice here, for mechanical reasons.
Substantial Magic: Any "magic" (aka, strings) you "create" can be targeted and demolished. Makes perfect sense.

Enhancement Specific:
Personal Magics: only can enhance yourself. This just seems appropriate for the type of weapon.

Illusion Specific:
Disappearance: Vibrate the strings precisely enough to mask your own sounds and even how light interacts with it.
Obscura Mage: Prevents us from using regular illusions and tricks, but lets us manipulate both Sight and Sound.
Personal Illusion: As Personal Magics.

Protection Specific:
Crystaline: Aegis become targetable, and identifiable in effect. Thematically and aesthetically fits. Ask your DM how it interacts (if at all) with Substantial Magic. Some would make it exclusive.
Shielding: Your Aegis must be actively used to intercept attacks.
Alternative Aegis (probably): +3 deflection bonus to AC isn't great. Kinda thematic. Not as much as Ablating Aegis, with your strands getting cut with each hit it blocks.
Second Skin: Only grant Aegis while unarmored.

Divination Specific:
Limited Divination: Can only use (senses). It makes sense.
Hidden Magic: You don't detect magic, nor decipher magical text.

Spoiler: Martial Tradition

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(talent choices explained under talents)

[equipment sphere] Cloth Snake Puppetry
[equipment sphere] Finesse Fighting
Scout Sphere
Boxing Sphere

Scout sphere drawback: Hidden Eyes - exchange Scouting ability for +1/2 ranks in stealth to stealth checks. We're making a Ninja.

Talents:
5 "Style Talents" (Magic or combat)
5 combat talents. +4 (martial tradition, 2 being equipment sphere)
4 Protection talent. (Shared Aegis, +3 Aegis talents.)
3 (blast type) talents
3 Illusion talents (Suppression, Sensory, +1 talent)
3 Enhancement talents
2 magic talents (magic tradition)
2 Divination talents
1 Barrage talent

Averaging around 3 talents per level by level 10. Fairly sizeable allotment by any measure.

Spoiler: Combat Talents

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Equipment Sphere
Cloth Snake Puppetry: Let's you reach an extra 20 feet with strings, and use them basically as hands. This is perhaps the single most important talent to pick up to sell the theme.
Finesse Fighting: Unarmed strikes are light weapons. Not needed by level 8, but for the rest of the time, it's pretty nice to not need strength.

Boxing Sphere
Base sphere: Counter punch - The majority of depictions have these users being very reactive.
Cross Counter: Immediate action attack on being attacked, making it even harder to hit you. Very thematic. Also pretty strong with the 5d6 (+unarmed damage + blast type) on attack.
Terrifying Hook: Almost universally, opponents are shown to be taken aback when first encountering the string weapons.
Hair Trigger: Lets you actually use counter punch with your strings. (Actually, after a bit more scrutiny, this might not be RAW, as while the melee-touch is a light weapon, the same is not specified for the ranged version. It's certainly not what breaks Sage. Any reasonable DM would allow it.)

Scout Sphere
Active Camouflage: While moving and maintaining cover, become even stealthier, and snipe easier.
Hidden Focus: On using a move action to hide, regain martial focus.
Lurker: Special senses must make a perception check like normal senses.

Barrage sphere (level 8 and 10 talents and the Meteor Shower talent)
Base sphere: Special attack action: make 2 attacks at -2 penalty. (3 attacks from Meteor Shower)
Spinning Shot: Can add +1 attack, but must attack different targets. Again, these characters are shown to be good at dealing with crowds.
Close Combat Specialist: Do not provoke with ranged attacks. Despite being ostensibly ranged weapons, the strings are surprisingly efficient in close quarters.

That spent no Style talents.

Spoiler: Magic Talents

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Illusion sphere
Suppression: You mask your own presence by vibrating the strings around you in such a way as to destructively interfere with the sound and light waves that would reveal you.
Illusionary Sound: Enables you to to manipulate sound.
Lingering Illusions: Lets you not commit your concentration to it. You're just that good.

Protection Sphere 2 talents
Base Sphere: Barrier isn't worth much, but you at least aesthetically can bring up a barrier of strings.
Shared Aegis: If your allies are nearby, you can also protect them with the string-based aegii you put on yourself
Ablating: You practice parrying stuff. A cool 35% chance to deflect attacks for the next 10 hours is nice, if you don't have better miss chance.
Armored Magic: Wires are tough. Put it around yourself to be tougher. +5 Armor bonus and +3 shield bonus, which works with our AC Bonus feature.
Mystic Shell: It takes a lot of effort (even with magic) to untangle your threads.
Reflection: Yank the attack out of the air and send it back at them.

Destruction Sphere
Crystal Blast: reduce die size to d4, but entangle the target until they destroy the strings (literally better in every way compared to using Entangle option of Ki Convergent). Note that the item generated by Substantial Magic drawback is marginally easier to destroy than this effect.
Searing Blast: raise size to d8. Heat is just a measure of molecular movement. You can control that.
Stone blast: Pick up a stone with the strings and chuck it at them. Not magical. Still does the full magical damage.

Spoiler: Old Nature Sphere Allocation

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Nature Sphere
Metal package: Metal Wire. Just makes sense.
Expanded Geomancy (Plant): Entangling with wire. Again, just makes sense.
Manipulate Nature: You weave yourself a safe little nest to rest in.
Deep Nature: Geomancy persists for 2 rounds after you stop concentrating. (This assumes that Ki Convergent counts as simply not maintaining concentration.)

Spoiler: Tangent on Magnetize

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I mean, you can hypothetically magnetize a Butchering Axe sized for large creatures, hitting 3 targets for 4d6 (+magic modifiers) each. But Ki Convergent says Magnetize only affects the damaged creature.
But... if you can hit 4 different things in a single Barrage, there are a couple of very lenient interpretations which would allow for the spending of like... 8 spell points in order to affect each of them with the magnetic bouncing 3 times on each barrage hit, totals 48d6 (+12*magic modifiers), +20d6 from Ki Gong . You lose out on the other 20d6 from hitting 4 targets with Ki Gong. This is beyond inefficient (at least at a baseline). But it can be pretty effective at clearing groups out, if you invest in a really good, big butchering axe. Depends on what your DM defines as being more overriding in its change to the limitations. Or if the bonus Pinball effect is actually a separate proc (that takes SP to trigger), and not covered by Sage's restriction. (Baseline magnetize actually loses you damage, while costing you spell points to use.)

Because you are CL 10, you can make Huge items half weight with Lighten (enhance), which lets it count as 1 size smaller, letting you instead Magnetize a Huge Butchering Axe for 6d6. And remember that Sage's Phantom Strike makes all attacks into touch attacks for the round. And that's before you start actually investing gold into the weapon. A CL booster for Enhancement would make it weightless, but wouldn't matter.

Shucks. This is going to force me to reconsider Metal package... again. I honestly think it's *just* Sage being Sage, especially with the benefit of . But I've got to give it an honest try.

Enhancement Sphere 2 talents
Base sphere: Adds up to +3 to any of your equipment for 10 minutes.
Deep Enhancement: Make that 100 minutes.
Greater Enhance Equipment: Make that +4 for 10 hours.
Enhance Focus: +7 to any skill of your choice for 100 minutes.
Energy Enhancement: Depending on interpretation adds from 1d6+5, up to 4d6 + 20 damage, elemental damage to attacks.

Life Sphere 1 talent
Base sphere: You literally control wires and threads and can sew wounds with them. That's pretty straight forward.

Divination Sphere 2 talent
Base sphere - traded out.
Tremorsense: You are feeling the vibrations of the strings connected to you. Like a spider.
Foreshadow: You can feel enemy actions before they happen.
Blindfolded Oracle: Fully focus on the strings, and they tell a tale all their own. (Blind sight, within close range - aka that of your strings.)

And that expends all of our magic and style talents, before using feats to get more.

Spoiler: Feats

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We have 5 feats (6 if human). I'd mostly just use them for getting to these talents quicker, or buy off drawbacks. But since it's supposed to be a full level 10 build, here are some lower-priority talents.

Feats for additional talents
Unhooded Sight (Divination): Your threads care not for the petty attempts of illusionists
Deeper Healing (Life): More healing.
Taste of Victory (Life): Send strands to friends and foes alike.
Sniper Sphere: Grants Precise Shot.
Unblockable (Sniper): Lets your strings evade protection. You are actively controlling them after all. They don't just take a straight path through a wind wall.

Spoiler: Magic items of note

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(Basically, stuff you might not otherwise know of or think about, which are useful for this character... which I happened to stumble by.)
Weapon ability: (Improved) Sniping. +5 or +10 competence to stealth for sniping, as a flat cost. And it's a bonus, not a penalty negation, so you can be better at sniping than hiding regularly. Place these on your gauntlets that you use to improve your unarmed strikes and go to town.


And... that's actually the only notable magic item that isn't already common knowledge. That I know of. Magic items are not my field of expertise.