A.J.Gibson's page

The handbook for the Protection sphere has also gone into playtest, here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dsup9yABZEx4p8_SSWSCcVzKoZtaYLmmHSQ1MUG 86iU/edit?usp=sharing

If nothing else, it's free swag!

Possible new spheres:

Null Magic

I made one of these for my home game. It included various extra tricks on top of a base 'dispel' ability. Spell resistance, the ability to heal when resisting hostile spells, attacks that drain spell points, destroying spells explosively and making casting more difficult for your enemies (or more unpredictable).

I made sure it wasn't a 'no fun allowed' list. Rather, it's to expand on the ordinary counterspell feat and make it a lot more varied and interesting.

I suspect that you'll be seeing things like this in the Protection handbook. Protection is basically abjuration, which is the school dispel magic falls into, and anti-magic field is already a protection ability. Currently, Protection is the only book that does not have a writer assigned, however.

I would also like to see a life sphere handbook, mostly just out of curiosity if they can make new talents that make one of the boring but practical elements of the game, the healer and his/her kit of magical band-aids, more exciting for someone to pick up. The other handbooks have been great for expanding how a sphere can be used, so I'd be interested to see the results.

The Life sphere book is going to be a mixed bag, since most of the basic stuff dealing with Life has been covered pretty thoroughly in the main book. There will be more invigorate-related talents, some talents for integrating the Heal skill into the Life sphere, talents relating to racial abilities, some 'adrenaline surge' related abilities, and some more positive energy manipulation abilities (for those who like to play undead-hunters). Archetypes (currently) include: a ranger that heals using the heal skill, a druid spirit healer with the soul weaver's bound nexus ability, an alchemist that makes drugs instead of bombs, an inquisitor undead-hunter, a brawler that is totally not a Wolverine rip-off, and a soul weaver that can turn healing abilities into mutating attacks.

Others have pretty much covered it, but I'll echo it here:

Spheres of Power let's you play magic the way you want. In my current group, I'm an arcane style caster who:
-does not need somatic components
-can heal
-is an effective blaster
In PF, this slaughters 3 sacred cows. The inability of PF (and D&D) to simply let people play the character they want (for 'tradition' reasons) borders on the incompetent. Add to that the innate imbalance of Vancian casting (quadratic power levels, extreme versatility) and you're left wondering what the designers were thinking.

Good to see some free battle-magey (majestically?) play-test stuff out there. ;)

It's only free until it goes to print ;)

Comments are welcome. I tend to err on the side of overpowered (since no one will say anything if its underpowered), so I won't get offended.