Spheres of Power (PFRPG)

Going back and rereading, you are correct. Huh. You're right. That IS unclear. A rewording would help a great deal here. Is it 1 sphere and 2 talents? Or 2 talents, one of which must be used to purchase a sphere?

This could be worded to be clearer.

I would also not mind a few character examples or perhaps a character creation example.

Why is the Daylight talent in Illusion with no equivalent in the Light Sphere?

Why is the Daylight talent in Illusion with no equivalent in the Light Sphere?

Isn't the base ability of the Light sphere replicating daylight? Let's compare.

As a standard action, you may cause one of your glow effects within Medium range to shed bright light for as long as you concentrate. This produces bright light for 30 ft +5 ft per 2 caster levels, and increasing the light level by one step to a maximum of normal for 30 ft +5 ft per 2 caster level beyond this. As a free action, you may spend a spell point to allow the creature or object to continue glowing brightly without concentration for 1 minute per caster level, or until the glow effect expires, whichever comes first. The bright light produced by this effect is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by daylight, but it may affect creatures with light blindness or other conditions.

You touch an object when you cast this spell, causing the object to shed bright light in a 60-foot radius. This illumination increases the light level for an additional 60 feet by one step (darkness becomes dim light, dim light becomes normal light, and normal light becomes bright light). Creatures that take penalties in bright light take them while within the 60-foot radius of this magical light. Despite its name, this spell is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by such light.

So, the only real difference between the two is that daylight lasts longer and has a wider area of effect. Taking the Lasting Light talent increases the duration of your boosted glow to 10 minutes/level, same as daylight. So, the area of effect is a bit smaller, but it's otherwise pretty much identical...and if advanced talents are on the table, there is a Daylight advanced talent that kind of makes regular daylight pretty small potatoes...since it creates an effect with a two mile radius (and goes for another five miles beyond that). Eesh!

I was specifically referring to the interaction with creatures that are damaged or destroyed by daylight.

The text of the Illusion talent Daylight indicates it affects creatures with light blindness or light sensitivity. Sounds to me like it counts as the sun essentially for such creatures while the Light sphere has no equivalent that does.

I did miss the advanced talent though... wow that's a lot of light.

remember that Spheres are also considered Talents.

So that two talents you get for becoming a spellcaster can be used in several ways.
You could take a Sphere and a Talent,
two Spheres
or if you have a class that provides an automatic sphere (Like the Elementalist) 2 talents within that sphere.

A Sphere Wizard would start with 4 talents. 2 from being a sphere caster and 2 more for being a wizard. He could learn 4 spheres, or 1 sphere with 3 talents or any other combination. The only restriction is you need to get a sphere before you can buy talents in it so that first Talent you get has to be spent on a sphere.

the relevant passage from the book is

Whenever a caster gains a magic talent, they may spend it in

one of two ways: to gain a new base sphere or to gain a talent
associated with a sphere they already possess.

I was specifically referring to the interaction with creatures that are damaged or destroyed by daylight.

The text of the Illusion talent Daylight indicates it affects creatures with light blindness or light sensitivity. Sounds to me like it counts as the sun essentially for such creatures while the Light sphere has no equivalent that does.

Erm...if you notice just above what I just quoted...

"The bright light produced by this effect is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by daylight, but it may affect creatures with light blindness or other conditions."

So...it doesn't need a talent to do it. It's a base, default ability of the Light sphere.

I did miss the advanced talent though... wow that's a lot of light.

Indeed!

remember that Spheres are also considered Talents.

So that two talents you get for becoming a spellcaster can be used in several ways.
You could take a Sphere and a Talent,
two Spheres
or if you have a class that provides an automatic sphere (Like the Elementalist) 2 talents within that sphere.

A Sphere Wizard would start with 4 talents. 2 from being a sphere caster and 2 more for being a wizard. He could learn 4 spheres, or 1 sphere with 3 talents or any other combination. The only restriction is you need to get a sphere before you can buy talents in it so that first Talent you get has to be spent on a sphere.

the relevant passage from the book is

Quote:

Whenever a caster gains a magic talent, they may spend it in

one of two ways: to gain a new base sphere or to gain a talent
associated with a sphere they already possess.

I did remember that part but a lot of people (including the person who posted the sample wizard on the 1st page of this thread) seemed to think the first sphere was automatic. I was trying to figure out where people were getting that idea from.

VanceMadrox wrote:

I was specifically referring to the interaction with creatures that are damaged or destroyed by daylight.

The text of the Illusion talent Daylight indicates it affects creatures with light blindness or light sensitivity. Sounds to me like it counts as the sun essentially for such creatures while the Light sphere has no equivalent that does.

Erm...if you notice just above what I just quoted...

"The bright light produced by this effect is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by daylight, but it may affect creatures with light blindness or other conditions."

So...it doesn't need a talent to do it. It's a base, default ability of the Light sphere.

Quote:

I did miss the advanced talent though... wow that's a lot of light.

Indeed!

OK that makes sense now, thanks!

I was vetting another product which made me look hard at feat trees and what they get you. Does anyone else wish that combat feats worked like this? Like every combat feat fell into a fighting style and scaled with BAB and were generally considered equal. Basically Path of War if it were less 'vancian'. Or just rewriting combat feats in general.

I was vetting another product which made me look hard at feat trees and what they get you. Does anyone else wish that combat feats worked like this? Like every combat feat fell into a fighting style and scaled with BAB and were generally considered equal. Basically Path of War if it were less 'vancian'. Or just rewriting combat feats in general.

you know that would be a really neat adjustment to the combat feats sytem. Maybe they should look into making a Spheres of Combat book

I'd love to see Spheres of Combat. I was slightly disappointed by the Skybourne announcement hoping that some kind of martial thing was down the pipeline.

'Spheres of Combat'. That is an intriguing idea.

And as for 1st level talents, a caster only gains the magic talents granted by their class +2 for their first level in a casting class.

Thus, as an armorist does not gain their first magic talent until 2nd level, a 1st level armorist would only have the two bonus magic talents, which could be spent on 2 spheres, or 1 sphere and 1 talent.

Anyone notice that Friday's 'This week in Paizo' email has Spheres of Power is the #1 third party download? Congratulations!

Later I can post the backbone of something similar I was trying to deal with. Long story short; It was like style feats where you had scaling buffs by being 'in' the style and talents that added benefits and talents that were 'strikes' where you get some kind of special attack that causes you to not be considered using that style anymore.

For example: You get into [Two weapon fighting style] as a move action, while in that style you get [Stance]=get two AoOs while in [Stance], and [Strike]=Attack with with offhand and primary hand as a standard action-lose[Stance]. Then whenever you get feat in that style you get either a new [Stance] or [Strike].

Just throwing things out there. a new martial system may be pointless soon though since Pathfinder Unchained is presenting some kind of feat-based Martial resource system. If that proves to be good third parties may latch on to supporting that.

I'd be totally game for Spheres of Combat. That sounds awesome.

Also, yes, congrats on being the top third party download!

As much as I love the idea of a martial system, I am quite attached to Path of War. As it is right now, I think PoW and Spheres play really well together. Both are really fun and interesting systems that provide a lot of players and options to the players.

Congratulations on getting that 1st place though! Very deserved!

Personally, I'd welcome it. Something designed intentionally to work with the Sphere system as it is already set up I think has a lot of potential and is most certainly something I'd happily fund given the chance.

Has anyone made up a good character sheet for Sphere casting?

I think character sheets are come up in the February update.

with the Foci drawback in caster traditions would it be permitted to have a different foci for each sphere that you know?

I was thinking a Talisman user who casts spells using different talismans that are attuned to specific spheres

That's an awesome idea!

Really I love how customizable casting traditions can be.

Some clarification please. If a Conjuration Sphere companion with the Magical Companion form is allowed a casting tradition, does it gain the bonus spell points or talents general and sphere specific drawbacks?

Also, if the caster has extra, magical companions do they all have to take the same tradition, or are they allowed separate traditions?

Within the Hedgewitch class, the chart indicates a class ability at 1st level called Magical Potency, but there's nothing else about it anywhere. Seems there was either a typo leaving it on the chart if it got axed, or an omission if it was supposed to be part of the class.

Just dawned on me that I can finally make characters based off of codex alera and do it justice. Thanks for making this awesome product!

An oddity I noted:

@Greylurker: Yes.

@Luthorne & RogueMetal: Thanks for pointing those out. We'll be doing a final edit with the update in February before going to print, and we want to make sure we catch all of those.

@TheDisgaean: A magical companion would gain all benefits of a casting tradition, yes. As to whether or not they need to have the same tradition as the caster, that would depend on the GM; to use the example of core Pathfinder, most extraplanars with spells are clerics regardless of whether they were summoned by an arcane or divine caster.

A few other corrections:

Page 25, Destruction Sphere:
Explosive Orb's last line says "Effected creatures..."
It should be Affected.

Page 74, Fey Adept:

The chart lists an ability as shadowshadowmark instead of just shadowmark.

Page 111, Sphere Paladin:
It says to use the druidic casting tradition for the feel. Probably should be Divine Petitioner like cleric.

Page 158: Illusion Drawbacks:
Personal Illusions says you may place your Illusions on yourself. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be may ONLY place your Illusion on yourself.

More if/when I find them

Does anyone else feel that the base talent of destruction is too strong?

1d6 Force feels too powerful
Generally force is far better than elemental blasts and those require a talent.

I think I'd make the base power not forced (though not sure if it should just be untyped damage or not) and make a talent to allow you to do force damage (and maybe reduce to d4s when you do).

Another thing I noticed:

Does anyone else feel that the base talent of destruction is too strong?

1d6 Force feels too powerful
Generally force is far better than elemental blasts and those require a talent.

I think I'd make the base power not forced (though not sure if it should just be untyped damage or not) and make a talent to allow you to do force damage (and maybe reduce to d4s when you do).

Its been mentioned before. The secondary effects that the elemental blasts do aren't powerful enough to be a real incentive to stray away from the force damage which is hard to resist. In my own overview I thought that destruction is the most broken and weakest sphere because of this because any full sphere caster would desire the sphere just to have a Warlock blast on top of whatever else they do.

There was talk about how changing the base damage to d4s would cause every other blast to have too much exception language. Personally I think things would be better off if the talents added dice like the life sphere. But the popular fix is to turn the main blast into d4s and type talents turn them into d6s.

Page 12, Alteration Sphere, Elemental Transformation:

You may also grant the following trait your forms should be something like In addition, you may grant the following traits to your forms.

Actually standardizing this language for all the talents may be a good idea.

But the popular fix is to turn the main blast into d4s and type talents turn them into d6s.

It would make less work if you changed the base blast to straight lethal damage instead of mucking about with die sizes.

Does anyone else feel that the base talent of destruction is too strong?

1d6 Force feels too powerful
Generally force is far better than elemental blasts and those require a talent.

I think I'd make the base power not forced (though not sure if it should just be untyped damage or not) and make a talent to allow you to do force damage (and maybe reduce to d4s when you do).

Yeah, that's a lot of at-will force damage. Add me to those who feel force should probably be a talent and the base be something more like the 3.5 Warlock's eldritch blast. Alternatively, lay it out like the nature sphere and have it give you one starting element.

If it were untyped damage wouldn't it be as good as force damage? I've been somewhat shaky on some damage type rules, like if simply untyped magic damage would be subject to DR or be able to hit ghosts. I'm just not sure what actually does resist it. In the Kineticist class in the Occult Adventures playtest all the non-elemental damage was blunt, slashing or piercing which made me much more comfortable because I don't readily know where untyped magic damage works. I'm sure I tried to look it up at some point but it feels unintuitive, like logically it should work like force damage but force damage bypasses a lot of things compared to elemental or typed damage.

Wouldn't it be easier if each blast type talent allowed you to spend an additional spell point for a more severe secondary effect? Like if cold could entangle. It would be more words to type but I think it would be a more meaningful shift than nerfing the main blast since my problem is less that force blasts are too good and more that elemental blasts are too weak by comparison even with their secondary effects.

I don't see it mentioned too often, but whichever sphere (conjuration?) Gives you "eidolon" summoned creatures.

In my game a player decided to specialize in that (a few other spheres were taken, but not really specialized in) and his summoned creatures are just absolutely wrecking! The free scaling weapons they wield don't help either since his wealth is invested elsewhere.

I'm going to look over the Sphere more closely so I can give more constructive feed back than a "woah."

Note:I'm the GM

Something of a wording issue:

actually the idea of base Destruction doing Bashing, Slashing or Peircing (caster's choice) damage isn't a bad one. "I wave my hand and cut you with blades of magic" I think works just fine and it makes the base effect no more powerful than a regular ranged weapon. Then you just make Force a Talent along with the rest. Probably doesn't need a secondary effect since Force has the "can hit incorporeal and fears no resistances" benefit.

I started a workshop thread for Casting traditions if anyone wants to exchange ideas

I would like to offer a potential solution for Luthorn's movement issue. A simply sentence added within the text to the effect that if no new movement type is allowed by the new form that land movement is allowed by default or some other such language.

And I agree with Grey Lurker's interpretation of how the Destruction issue can be resolved. I would like to add that perhaps it is a simple ray that does piercing damage (perhaps immune to DR that affects piercing?) Otherwise, make it like green lantern's ring, whatever form the caster desires and use the appropriate damage type from its mimicked weapon.

We're playing with upping the cost of summoning a creature (1 spell point to summon, 1 to tie it off, and possibly 1 more for the daily permanency); we've found summoners universally love the Conjuration sphere, but it is quite a bit of power to throw around at-will.

As for destruction, We've heard the concerns and are addressing it, our current thought being along the lines as Greylurker's comment above; make the base magic form physical, with the elements and/or force available as talents.

Otherwise, make it like green lantern's ring, whatever form the caster desires and use the appropriate damage type from its mimicked weapon.

Foot of Gork

Actually I don't see the summoning as that big of a problem. It cuts into your action economy unless you use spell points which makes you a target. While the durations of the spell point lingering effect could be adjusted having to concentrate at will for your companion is an obstacle. But then again its not one of the things I really playtested.

My player had two permanent dudes with long spears running around while he shot force blasts and laughed.

Maybe the spell point needs to only keep the monster 1 round per level.

And maybe a restriction to only having one monster at a time. Maybe spend a spell point to have two while concentrating as a full-round action, I'm not good at this stuff.

Should the Personal Illusion drawback be added to the Monastic casting tradition?

The Runist casting tradition lists Profession [Calligraphy] but should probably be Craft [Calligraphy]

For low and mid casters the charts list their caster level at Level 1 as 0 (1).

My best guess is that their Caster Level is really 0 but when they use sphere effects treat it as 1. Is this correct?

Without a minimum caster level of one lots of Talents are useless. (0 radius fireball anyone?)

@VanceMardox: Yeah, that's how it works. If your caster level is 0, it is treated as if it was effectively 1.

I just wanted to let people know that we're planning to do the final big update to this PDF this month, which includes the last two chapters and makes several updates in both editing and content. If all goes well it should happen within the week.

Glad to hear it!

Sounds fantastic! Thank you Drop Dead studio!