StSword's page

This did a pretty good job of describing what's in it, but I thought I'd add some stuff for anyone on the fence.

It has sphere archetypes for all of the original Akashic classes and prestige classes.

Revisions of the veils to make them compatible with Spheres of Might talents.

An Akashic magic tradition so all your spherecasting can come from making constructs out of akasha.

No rituals or wild magic table, or akashic archetypes for Spheres classes, but I hope that isn't a dealbreaker for anyone.

I know this is a couple of years old. But, is the Player book not sold here?

Huh, it doesn't look like they do sell it here.

Doesn't seem to be at the Open Gaming Store either or the Rite Publishing website.

But drivethrurpg has it.

Odd.

I got a printed copy from a friend but can't seem to add a review. Can I post my review here in the comments?

Go right ahead. I've done that myself when I had the same issue.

I had just been thinking that it was a shame that the book didn't go into more depth, myself.

I would have loved a system for converting all the classes and prestige classes into voltaic style initiators.

Yes, thanks for the review, as someone who has noticed this book, the extra detail was most welcome.

I saw your comment about combat stamina.

Well I can't help you there, but I am aware of a book with limit break options that would be usable with this class.

Feats of Legend Limit Break has feats that are available to classes with martial flexibility when they are down to their last quarter of hit points or less.

Huh, so Necrobotany does the exact opposite of what I thought it would do, good to know.

I do love the concept though, I remembering really loving the stone zombies from the Scarred Lands I think, where the necromancers figured out how to combine animate dead with flesh to stone to make construct zombies.

Oh and by the by I love the crafting items out of normally intangible things, while I'm gushing. Just wish there was a way for equipment summoner types to get in on the fun.

And Ritualists are Men in Black types, that has all sort of fun ways to integrate them into a campaign. For example, a campaign with some Mythos touches to it, making Ritualists guardians of secrets that Player Character Races weren't meant to know.

Thanks for the info, I look forward to the day I've got some cash. :)

Well I've been waiting for some commentary about this one.

Anyone feel up to giving a little review?

I have to say I'm particularly intrigued by the spell hybrid feats and the ritualist and professor classes.

Fair enough.

But yes, I think you folks might want to consider expanding on the Spheres of Might material.

The first thing that springs to mind, or at least my mind, is how combat techniques change with the setting.

Outlaw weapons, and people start playing hardball with farming implements and bare hands and feet, etc.

So in a high tech setting like Starfinder there ought to be warriors taking advantage of their high tech weaponry and doing stuff with their monomolecular whips or jet powered knives that either wouldn't be possible or practical with lower tech weaponry.

How about a Armiger who keeps tinkering with personal bit of power armor?

Or a Commander of robots for something similar to the helmsman? Or a Helmsman who channels his combat talents through his mecha?

Or throw in some Champions material, like say a magic swordsman with a plasma sword, for example.

So I think there's definitely an unexplored niche there.

Ah yes, to the top of my wishlist with this.

I've enjoyed the previous books in this series and I like SoP and SoM, so that's a no brainer.

But since you're open to questions, how about a short rundown of the SoM love in this book? Talents, archetypes, feats?

It seems to me that a bit more detail on the classes might be helpful to anyone on the fence.

So four new classes.

The Channeler kind of reminds me of the dragonslayers of Fairy Tail.

They get spells, elemental blasts, elemental resistance and later immunity, and eat attacks of their element to heal themselves.

They have the four basic elements- earth, air, fire, water, and then, if my counting is right, 27 advanced elements.

At 19th level they can have a character master up to 10 of them.

At twentieth level the channeler can have two elements active at a time, so elemental blasts of fiery darkness or frozen love is a go.

The Kai is a spellcaster who casts cosmic magic through poses and specializes in casting spells as free actions, so it makes me think "tai chi magic."

The Maven is a master of a handful of spells, up to 6, that they can augment in all sorts of ways. A fireball could be cast as ice, force, acid, lightning, or heal people, or ignore anti-magic fields, etc, as an example.

And last but certainly not least is the Runesmith, a cleric like divine caster of middling attack bonus who can only cast their non-rune of symbol spells as runes or into spell completion items.

Runesmithing, available to non runecarvers with a feat, are kind of like an item creation feat, allowing one to make a rune on an object to hold a spell until triggered.

So the Runecarver is kind of like a runic cleric Batman, the runes they prepared being what's in their utility belt.

Okay, since there hasn't been any review or discussion about this product, I thought I'd get the ball rolling.

Apparently inspired by the Occultist class from pathfinder, this class also has items that they invest energy into.

The very major difference is that the Successor doesn't choose objects based on schools of magic, but rather on character types.

So the choices are cunning, faith, war, and magic.

Which means this is a chameleonic class along the lines of the taskshaper, radiance house occultist, the interjection games reaper, or legend summoning thaumaturge.

So how magical, roguelike, magical, or divine your character is going to be will vary with day to day as you choose to invest your mana, or keep it in reserve (at the cost of half efficiency) as situations come up.

Of course which legacy powers and heirlooms you choose will also limit your options, you're not going to be very good at emulating rogues if you don't have an heirloom of cunning. :)

This book also includes archetypes for other classes to get in on the fun, namely the slayer, war priest, arcanist, and brawler.

Also includes an archetype for the Successor, which is kind of a Successor as Shifter, instead of being a character with access to psychically charged heirlooms from a legacy of power, they are raised by wolves types who are infused with the power of nature which they can invest into their own bodies. And grow claws.

This book also includes feats, the bulk of them seem to be about combining heirlooms into dual legacy heirlooms for a pool of specialized mana that can be spent to increase a specific effect.

Also the folks at Lost Spheres seem to include at least one green lantern fan, since there is a feat chain that allows a Successor to use a ring for legacy powers that aren't generally available to rings, and feed items to the ring to enable the successor to manifest the destroyed items with the expenditure of mana.

For those of you who like me have a fondness for equipment makers like the Soulknife I imagine that is a nice bonus.

Is this the first in a series? do you need any other book to use this?

The other books in the series are-

Arcforge: Psibertech, covering psionicist stuff as the name implies.

Arcforge: Star*path which covers starfinder to pathfinder and vice versa conversion and includes Path of War archetypes for the Solarian, Envoy, Soldier, and Operative.

While the description is more informative than a lot of descriptions here, it did leave out something I felt people would want to know.

While also giving guidelines for converting from pathfinder to starfinder and vice versa, this also finishes the trilogy of books based on the subsystems of Dreamscarred Press- Path of War.

So if you've ever wanted a PoW archetype for the Solarian, Mechanic, Envoy, or Soldier, this is the book for you.

And I'm really digging the Robot Lord archetype for the Helmsman, which allows one to replace mecha with a mechanic's drone or exocortex.

I especially liked nano-metabolic interface and Resonant Musculature of the Goddess

I do wish Necrotic Scourge Augmentation had been written with the intent to include an option for those playing an undead character (thanks to third party material). But oh well.

Kudos for the aegis inspired power armor rules.

Only wish the rules had been in one book, because Arcforge really made me want an akashic iron man type archetype for the Helmsman.

Well more Mega-Man goodness would be good for me.

Have you considered something in the line of Bioshock? Perhaps something like an alchemical knight based on the Alpha Big Daddies or a kineticist/alchemist hybrid class inspired by Splicers?

How about a Madness Warrior based on American McGee's Alice? People who cloth and arm themselves with manifestations of their inner world?

So I got this, and noticed that the description is a little sparse on details here.

For those who haven't been following the Godhand thread where this was talked about, here's a rundown.

So this supplement for the Godhand base class includes a bloodline/specialty/domain equivalent- You choose the type of entity bound in your arm. Angel, demon, psychopomp, inevitable, lovecraftian elder deity, etc? All covered. I especially like the psychopomp and old one options.

New morphologies, some of them limited to certain types of spirits or archetypes. Want a detachable arm, corrosive punches, or a rocket punch? This book has you covered.

Archetypes like the Alchemical Hand who mutated their hand through better chemistry.

The Contacted who are experimented on by incomprehensible entities- aliens, time travelers or the like, they came for some alien abductions, light cow tipping, and giving you a tentacle.

Dragon-Arms who have a mini-dragon for an arm. All the time, too, which surprised me.

Greenhands who are like the druidic variant of the Godhand, filling their arms with the power of green growing things instead of an angel or a demon.

A couple of new feats for Godhands. The stand out to me is the one that allows your arm to count as a holy symbol that makes holy water.

And last but not least, alternate racial favored class bonuses for eleven races.

If you still don't know if you want the book or not from the above, feel free to share whatever questions you have.

Interesting, thankies!

LRGG did an sufficient explanation of the two classes I thought I'd pipe in and mention that the school chosen will really change how the Swordsman plays.

A fencer style Swordsman with la Reine is going to play differently than an iaijutsu master of Saint Style.

Who will play differently than a battlefield control expert of the Doppelsoldner association.

Who is going to play differently than a swordsman who just grabs whatever sword like object is around to use Drunkard style, etc.

Schools basically play out as the class paths of the Swordsman, even though they are shared among multiple classes, although naturally some schools are more synergistic with certain classes.

Thought I'd mention it in case you weren't sufficiently pumped about the book. :)

Well I bought this with my birthday money, and since this has had no discussion I thought I'd share a review for anyone interested.

This is an unusual class concept wise. Feral living vampires basically.

Mechanically, it's a front line warrior with d8s and mid attack bonus who makes up for their lack of top tier full attack bonus with class features.

But the class features are a doozy. They get a touch attack to do attribute score damage and give themselves an equal enhancement bonus to the attribute in question.

So if you've ever wanted a character who could run around with attributes in the high twenties, you should definitely consider this class.

They store these enhancement bonuses indefinitely in "motes," gem like growths.

But bandyborn can also flare their motes, to gain a benefit til the end of their turn.

The default result is that their enhancement bonus doubles, but they have class features that give them other options. A clever way to avoid MAD for an attribute dependent class, I feel.

I figure when dealing with a high stat, the enhancement would be useful enough on its own, but with whatever stats aren't so great the other options are going to seem more attractive. Well except for Constitution, the healing option will be quite useful, hit points from temporary enhancement aren't treated as temporary hit points after all. So either that or be real friendly with the cleric.

For those who prefer a more spellcaster approach, there is the bandy priest, who flares motes to cast druid spells, and can make "spirit motes" by inflicting a negative level which give them some spell-like abilities and can be flared to gain spell resistance.

I do have to wonder about the wording of sap. It says that "sapping a creature more than once" doesn't do more ability score damage, but I have to wonder if the intent was that you couldn't drain a target of the same attribute instead of giving the character blanket immunity until they heal the damage. That would give a bandbyborn very little to do if the DM throws one tough foe rather than many weaker foes.

And as a good concept sometimes does, I can see a campaign being inspired to expand beyond what we've been given here.

Well congratulations, Starfinder isn't even my thing but this is a book you made me want, so another entry in my wishlist.

But it's always been ideas that attract me to pathfinder books, anyway.

Upon rereading I am cautious with "forbidden from living in urban environments or partaking in technological wonders.", that might deter it from certain campaigns.

Yes, I noticed that myself.

Also makes a couple of races odd choices for a Warden.

Androids are technological wonders all by themselves. :)

And Gargoyles, the folks who hang around pretending to be stone statues in cities.

If nothing else, I could certainly see an urban warden archetype started by gargoyles and androids who developed techniques based on their spiritual connection to technology and cities.

Review up.

If anyone has any question my review didn't cover, feel free to ask.

As is normal for the LRGG alternate path books, this has some interesting class concepts in it.

Thanks to the preview I already know about the Beasts. Heck, I've already thought up two more possible expansions- A psionic equivalent, someone implanted with crystals to absorb psychic powers, and a blue mage trick of copying powers you see used.

But would anyone be kind enough to give a rundown of the Sagebeasts?

Not that they are the only other class that interests me, but that is the one that I really don't want to wait until I become unbroke enough to buy this to learn more about.

Well can't blame you, just looking at the names of the optional rules- universal spell combat, spellblade, magic knight, battle mages, cosmic magic, any of those, going by the names, could have been about magic enhanced combat along the lines of SoM, PoW, or Necromancer's Book of Martial Action 1&2's improved combat options.

Cool. Looks like another alternative to Path of War and Spheres of Might/Power.

I wouldn't say that.

While I'm sadly too too broke to buy this magnificent product right now, I did check out the preview on rpgnow which includes the optional rules.

Path of war and spheres of might are about enhancing the abilities of warriors, this book's alternate rules are about enhancing the martial power of spellcasters, which is a bit different.

That said, the optional rule "metamagic weapons" could be used to allow warriors to have essentially metaweapon feats, it's not like most metamagic feats have prerequisites non spellcasters can't meet in pathfinder.

So a fighter with bouncing arrows, monks beating up ghosts with ectoplasmic fist strikes, archers firing seeking arrows, etc.

While that sounds fun and gives warriors some help, I wouldn't call it a rival to SoM or PoW without adding a whole lot of metamagic feats.

Unless you mean a replacement as in adding more fighty classes with exotic abilities, which if Beasts are any indication this book does have covered.

Love Beasts by the way, I read about them and I just couldn't help but see lots of ways to expand it- Beasts who gain their powers by sorcerer like heritage, android Beasts whose powers are technomagical tinkering, alchemical beasts, racial paths/archetypes for Beasts who draw upon their kitsune/dhampir/skinwalker/elemental heritage, etc.

Huh, I was pretty close with the magical power for scholars option.

Good to know.

And thanks for pointing out that play test material, very informative, And makes me look forward to having the cash to buy it.

Really goit to say I love groundwork feats.

It's bugged me that prestige classes were often so spoecific back even before pathfinder was even a game system.

So the idea of opening up prestige classes so that an eldritch knight, for example, could be a shadow knight, or psionic knight, or akashic knight, or occult knight, or kinetic knight, whatever, depending on what the game includes appeals to me.

Of course coming up with all the groundwork feats and reworking the prestige classes is still work, but a lot less work than it would be otherwise.

You are very welcome.

And thank you for putting out a book that adds fun toys for a class that needs more fun toys.

Serious folks, if you are a kineticist fan I can't imagine not wanting to play with something in this book.

Okay I've given up on writing the review where it goes.

Lots of material here.

Three archetypes.

The kinetic answer to the arcane archer for aether. Imbue arrows, enhance arrow damage, shoot through people, and blow people up.

The second is for teiflings out to embrace their heritage. Hellfire, imp familiar, becoming more outsider like.

Lastly, air kineticists who use the wind itself as an instrument for bardic music.

Two new prestige classes.

The first is for fire kineticists who want to burn the undead with holy blue fire.

The second is for all your kinetic Gish needs. Aether users who can enhance their armor, shields, and melee weapons.

Sadly all these options are element specific- 1 air, 2 aether, 2 fire.

Especially disappointing since the next action is five more elements.

Crystal and time don't really need explanations.

Bone is one of my two faves in the book. Very packed with flavor.

Chaos is my other favorite. Chaos in the literal sense as well as transformation. Looks mighty fun.

Dream, obviously, is mental focused, so it looks like it would play quite differently.

New feats and talents as well. Kudos for including element appropriate notes for some universal talents.

So any comments about the Calculator?

Don't get me wrong, other stuff looks interesting too, but Number Man the class gives me a "gimme gimme gimme" response.

Also makes me picture the Slaughterhouse Nine as an adventurer group.

Okay I figured out why I was having such trouble coming up with archetypes for these guys- They're just so versatile, since there's about a gajillion spells.

Then it occurred to me- Stray spells already label themselves by their schools of magic, so with that in mind-

Archetypes for nonmagical classes-

Abjuration- Defenders, either of themselves or others

Conjuration- Equipment makers, good for warriors or skill monkeys, an archetype for healing spells to be a wolverine style regenerator, and of course combat teleportation is useful for skill monkeys or warriors both.

Divination- Combat clairvoyance for combat types, or pseudo-psychic for skill monkeys.

Enchantment- Enhanced leadership, or enhanced social skills for being the group face.

Evocation- Elemental warrior types

Illusion- Good for skill monkeys or warriors, making stuff out of shadow stuff doubly good for both.

Necromancy- Death Knights are popular for a reason.

Transmutation- Shapeshifting for the win

That's lot of options, although some of these seem more natural fits for some classes than others. But hey more power to anyone who wants to play a combat clairvoyant barbarian or necromantic warrior paladin. :)

I said some might be leery, not "What were you guys smoking?" :)

If you were okay with stealing the Stray King's thunder a little bit I could see stray spell archetypes based on enhancements-

Fighters with an archetype based on armor of the king or transmuted weapons, vigilantes or rogues based on fluid existence.

I could also see a magic hunter slayer or a magic smasher barbarian.

An interesting evocative race, although I think some GMs might be leery of a character that can provide access to a 3rd level spell at first level.

They forgot to give Stray Spells a favored class option for Stay King. Considering I imagine a lot of players will go for that option, it would have been really nice to include.

Since stray kings are casters who cast actual spells, a note of what should happen if a stray king decides to become a dragon disciple or something would have been helpful.

Now the obvious solution would be that prestige class adds to maximum spell level, maximum amount of spells known, and stray energy in addition to the obvious caster level, but author intentions would've been good to know.

And I presume a stray king would count as an arcane caster for mechanical effects.

There's also a good and bad aspect of interesting ideas like this- It leaves you wanting more. Which you have to make yourself or hope sales were good enough to warrant a sequel.

For example, just off the top of my head, I could see archetypes for wizard, arcanophages, and sorcerers, someone creative can probably come up with a lot more.

And how about stray spells in wordcaster games? What does a wordcaster Stray King look like mechanically?

I added my review, if anyone is still on the fence when it comes to buying this, hopefully my review will help you folks decide.

Well, okay, thank you, that is a good start.

What are the archetypes about?

From the names and characters they are based on my assumptions would be-

Future Warden- a precognitive warrior.

Crystal Lasher- manifesting a whip and doing all sorts of tricks with it

Servant of War- Battle dancer, perhaps with a side of protecting ones teammates

Harmonic Savant- Being able to befriend anyone?

So, this product has certainly got my attention.

What gets my attention most is the archetypes- So would anyone who has bought this and given it a perusal be kind enough to give a description?

I'd like to know if I should consider this a "must buy now" or another entry to my wishlist.

Bought this, and the Gyreblade description doesn't do it credit- it allows for fusing any two of the "classes that make or enhance weapons" with the explicit mention that it's requirements and class feature options should be expanded to include any other "makes or enhances its own weapons" classes in your game that they didn't include.

So kineticist/soulknife? Shadow blade/armorist? Or expanding it as suggested starseed/vital blade? Spirit warrior/ethermagus? Daeva/fiendbound marauder? Runeblade/shadow warrior?

Depending on what your individual game includes there's probably some combination that is interesting mechanically or thematically if those kind of classes are your thing.

While I'll definitely buy an expansion too, I think you need to give them time to fit it in their schedule, and you know, get someone to write the book, have it edited, get artwork, and all the other minutia of making a pdf.

I'm sure they appreciate your enthusiasm though. :)

Well there is the Magic Property morphology for magehands, but that's supposed to be magehand only.

Perhaps your GM will allow you to take it anyway.