Spheres of Power (PFRPG)

Looking forward to it. Out of curiosity, are you planning on any future products that provide more talents for the spheres, or even creating new spheres? For example, I noticed that Mind is lacking in the memory alteration department, even in the Advanced Talents section...and I'm a little disappointed that Alteration can't grant the benefits of compression ala the squeeze spell or get some extra reach ala long arm without having to get enlarged. I'm also a bit disappointed in a lack of Construct Creature, Plant Creature, and Ooze Creature to go with Undead Creature in the Conjuration department...though maybe Ooze would be a bit much, I dunno...kind of want swarm versions to exist, but I guess that would be broken.

Speaking of Alteration, though, is there a particular reason the tentacle attack from the Tentacles talent isn't listed as being able to be granted a few times? Most creatures tend to have at least two tentacle attacks if not more, to my knowledge, so it seems like an odd restriction, especially since they are just a secondary natural attack...I mean, the Tentacles talent is still worth getting just for getting grab, but yeah, I just always imagine a creature having multiple tentacles.

Mind you, I still like Spheres of Power quite a bit (even if my DM is already houseruling the tentacles thing).

Oh, and I can't believe I forgot about this...I'd also really like a Deep/Greater Alteration talent that lets shapeshifts last for 10 minutes per level or more...1 minute/level is fine for a combat buff, but not so great for attempting an infiltration. You can admittedly kind of hold a shapeshift indefinitely via concentration, but I think most DMs would rule that you would likely be visibly distracted, possibly have difficulties carrying on conversations, have to move around slowly and carefully, etc., which would be kinda tricky. That's another thing my DM's already houseruled, but I think he and I would both be happy if it was an official talent.

Edit: And yeah, I know shifters get it, but it would be nice to be able to use alteration for infiltration and espionage without needing to be a shifter. Though being able to make your alterations permanent is certainly a possibility if advanced talents are allowed, but I'd like some middle ground, I suppose.

Come to think of that, since concentration plays a role in so many different talents, a sidebar on concentration might be worth putting in? Perhaps saying how easy or difficult it is to see that someone's concentrating, if they can use Bluff to hide the fact that they're really concentrating on something else, what sort of everyday activities someone might not be able to do while concentrating, whether concentrating as a move action or as a standard action, or if you have to make a concentration check to be able to do it, like, say, reading someone's mind while trying to focus on your chess game with them, maintain your form via concentration while trying to convince someone you're a hobgoblin who got sent over late, etc.?

Any update on the last chapters?

Nice update but I have questions/ concerns.

What's the DC for casting defensively? I guessed caster level + 10 but I could be wrong.

Any way your to cast touch spheres without provoking AoOs? I'm running a the talent that channels the destructive blast through a weapon and realize I'd have to cast defensively each time to pull it off. Same goes for other touch abilities since I don't see anything about holding charges.

Nice update but I have questions/ concerns.

What's the DC for casting defensively? I guessed caster level + 10 but I could be wrong.

It says on page 9 that when making Concentration checks, you treat the spell level as if it were equal to your caster level divided by two, but you can always lower your caster level to make a Concentration check easier. So, to cast defensively, it would be 15 + double your effective spell level, which would probably normally be your caster level (though given you always round down in Pathfinder, it might be slightly lower; for example, a caster level of 7/2 would be 3, which doubled would be 6...I think a lot of DMs would probably just make it 7, though).

Now that magic items have been added, I have a quick question:

With the exception of wands, all you need to make a magic item is the base sphere, correct? You don't need all the talents needed to create the effect? Just the sphere itself?

The Alteration talent "Additional Limbs" can grant an extra head, but is there anywhere where it's stated what the benefits of an extra head is? Aside from being able to grant yourself another bite attack, I suppose.

Out of curiosity, would it be possible to have a list of the errata you guys implemented? I noticed that Alteration Tentacle talent allows multiple tentacles now (thanks!), the Alteration talents now have land speeds, and that base Destruction deals bludgeoning damage now, as well as fixing a few errors, but I'm wondering what else I missed.

@Mcdt2: You gain a +4 racial bonus on Dexterity checks made to talk clearly while chewing your food?

So, is there any chance of getting a sphere's of power treatment for such classes as the summoner or Witch?

@TheDisgaean: Yeah, you only need the base sphere. There are other requirements that have been increased to make crafting more difficult, but if you meet them and want to play a dedicated crafter, you can do so by taking each base sphere and making items that replace the usually-required talents.

@Mcdt2: You can get an extra bite ore gore attack, you can survive a fight with a vorpal sword more easily... beyond that it would be up to the GM (I personally would allow you to make gore charges with both heads and whatever else the players could reasonably justify).

@Luthorne: The errata is extensive, and there's one more update coming which will add even more. We've tried to keep a change log up to date, but it's been sucking up too much time. That being said, this next update should be the final one so there shouldn't be any more coming after it.

@gharlane: There will be an upcoming expansion PDF with expanded player options, including the rest of the classes, favored class bonuses, and other things.

@gharlane: There will be an upcoming expansion PDF with expanded player options, including the rest of the classes, favored class bonuses, and other things.

In the meantime they've been fan-developed.

im not going back and reading 211 comments lol,,

do we have an eta on this? in print form

Any new insight into summoning? I'm still not a fan of the idea you have to spend a spell point just to use the only base feature of the sphere.

Based on Alteration you lose the ability to attack (costs a Standard action to maintain) unless you spend a Spell Point, but you can still shapeshift without spending. Maybe base summons can only take non-attack actions (so they can scout, look impressive, etc), 1 Spell Point to allow attacks for 1 minute per level bust still costing the summoner their Standard, 1 additional Spell Point to act independently, and can only have one summon in Attack Mode at a time.

The soul weaver has an ability on their table called Nexus Powers but there is no seperate bolded heading for it in the class desciption. Instead the Bound Nexus ability seems to include all the nexus powers in it. Also while the table seems to indicate that you gain a limited number of Nexus Powers, the text does not mention this. Instead it implys that you can use any of them when you are the appropriate level. So how do the Nexus Powers work?

The soul weaver has an ability on their table called Nexus Powers but there is no seperate bolded heading for it in the class desciption. Instead the Bound Nexus ability seems to include all the nexus powers in it. Also while the table seems to indicate that you gain a limited number of Nexus Powers, the text does not mention this. Instead it implys that you can use any of them when you are the appropriate level. So how do the Nexus Powers work?

My apologies, I figured out the Nexus Powers become available at those levels like deeds. Just a moment of unfiltered stupidity by me. The first part of my post still seems to be appropriate though.

Did anyone else notice that you can make (pretty much) the entire cast of Fairy Tail? Like... there is actually an Erza class. I thought that was cool :)

Hey, love the product, but I was wondering if there were plans for character sheets. The pdf I got through Drivethru RPG didn't have any. Thanks!

Did anyone else notice that you can make (pretty much) the entire cast of Fairy Tail? Like... there is actually an Erza class. I thought that was cool :)

not just Fairy Tail. This book gets a lot of mileage when it comes to bringing to life previously unplayable concepts.

What's in the box? wrote:

Did anyone else notice that you can make (pretty much) the entire cast of Fairy Tail? Like... there is actually an Erza class. I thought that was cool :)

not just Fairy Tail. This book gets a lot of mileage when it comes to bringing to life previously unplayable concepts.

For reals! I like that it also gives you playable lycanthropes from level 1 without all the weird skinwalker baggage, Zhentarim Skymages, and any number of other character types that are executable in a way they just haven't been in PF.

I know right. Sorry to come down on magic so much but normal casting but it is really hard to replicate a lot of concepts. Any time I try I come in with a ton of garbage that has nothing to do with the concept or have nothing to show for it but beyond suboptimal options.

With spheres its pretty easy to make whatever theme you want including vancian magic.

Hey I noticed that the hedge witch academic tradition has a secret that is useless. It says you can't take it if you have fetish, but right now there is no way of getting the secret without taking the tradition at creation. Is there a fix for this anywhere?

Is there any information on when the final chapters will be done? REally looking forward to it.

The final chapter was just written and is currently undergoing crowd review...

I know I take a long time to design, and a new baby in the mix has made things even worse, but I can now say with absolute certainty:

1: The final update will happen on the 23rd.
2: The printed books (barring unseen complications) Will arrive by Gencon.
3: Character sheets are done and will be included with the update on the 23rd.

I know I take a long time to design, and a new baby in the mix has made things even worse, but I can now say with absolute certainty:

1: The final update will happen on the 23rd.
2: The printed books (barring unseen complications) Will arrive by Gencon.
3: Character sheets are done and will be included with the update on the 23rd.

So tomorrow?

I'm really glad for the character sheets. I was afraid that I'd have to make a sheet for spheres.

So... it's the 24th... Got anymore of them updates?

The update gods are fickle and cruel... We must sacrifice someone to them!

/me votes for Cosmo :paranoid:

This is why one company who's board I frequent made it a policy to not post dates: waiting may be hard, but it's less annoying when no one's given you an exact time for you to be disappointed in them.

This is why one company who's board I frequent made it a policy to not post dates: waiting may be hard, but it's less annoying when no one's given you an exact time for you to be disappointed in them.

I can see that. I actively ignored the product yesterday because I didn't want to sit around refreshing everything all day. Now I'm Jonesing because I'm wondering what happened.

Having worked in production?

1. For some reason the new chapter's fonts aren't playing nice.
2. They just noticed some typos and really didn't want to release something only to update it two days later.
3. The images look fine in indesign and then come out in PDF looking like they're B&W, backwards and running at 30DPS.
4. It says everything is nice, but just freezes when they try to save or print the PDF and WHY ISN'T IT TELLING ME WHAT IS WRONG, THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, ARRRGGGGGHHHH OPEN THE WINDOW i'M THROWING THE COMPUTER OUT NOW!

That last actually happened once in an office where I worked.

There are gods, powerful, evil gods, who LOVE to make you miss deadline. Nelson Muntz in simpson's is one of their avatars, complete with the irritating laugh that you hear in your mind when InDesign crashes for the N+1 time.

Having worked in production?

1. For some reason the new chapter's fonts aren't playing nice.
2. They just noticed some typos and really didn't want to release something only to update it two days later.
3. The images look fine in indesign and then come out in PDF looking like they're B&W, backwards and running at 30DPS.
4. It says everything is nice, but just freezes when they try to save or print the PDF and WHY ISN'T IT TELLING ME WHAT IS WRONG, THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, ARRRGGGGGHHHH OPEN THE WINDOW i'M THROWING THE COMPUTER OUT NOW!

That last actually happened once in an office where I worked.

There are gods, powerful, evil gods, who LOVE to make you miss deadline. Nelson Muntz in simpson's is one of their avatars, complete with the irritating laugh that you hear in your mind when InDesign crashes for the N+1 time.

So it's like animating with vectors or programming. Or trying to paste something in Word.

Got my updated PDF complete with character sheets. Everything looks super sweet.

You know thinking on it, the Unchained Action system might work nicely along side Spheres. With Concentration on an Active spell costing 2 action, you would be able to maintain a concentration Sphere ability like alteration or conjuration and still do a little like making 1 attack a round.

Now that the final PDF is up I went ahead and put my review up.

I guess now we have the monster book to look forward to?

The prices on this keep changing as I click them to order or remove from my shopping cart. The hardcover alone zigs from $30 to $49.99 ($30 when I click on it, $49.99 when it's in the cart), and the softcover changes from $15 to $34.99.

Any idea what's up with this? I've noticed this has happened a few times with other things I've ordered (such as the Gothic Compendium from Lejendary Games, which went up $20 between adding it to my cart and completing checkout, prompting me to drop it from my order).

Even when the red price displays at the larger number, there's the exact same price in front of it, with a slash through it, as if the price display still thinks that there is supposed to be a sale price...

As for the product itself, it reminds me of the Elements of Magic system, by ENPublishing, back during 3.X, which itself reminded me of a much more fleshed out version of the Ars Magica system, which I loved a lot, since it was such more coherent than the 'random spells made up over thirty years by people with radically different design and balance assumptions' we've got now.

It should be noted for the record that they did make the change they were thinking of and now summoning your companion costs a spell point. I still think there should be some lesser option that can be used without spending anything.

The prices on this keep changing as I click them to order or remove from my shopping cart. The hardcover alone zigs from $30 to $49.99 ($30 when I click on it, $49.99 when it's in the cart), and the softcover changes from $15 to $34.99.

Any idea what's up with this? I've noticed this has happened a few times with other things I've ordered (such as the Gothic Compendium from Lejendary Games, which went up $20 between adding it to my cart and completing checkout, prompting me to drop it from my order).

Even when the red price displays at the larger number, there's the exact same price in front of it, with a slash through it, as if the price display still thinks that there is supposed to be a sale price...

As for the product itself, it reminds me of the Elements of Magic system, by ENPublishing, back during 3.X, which itself reminded me of a much more fleshed out version of the Ars Magica system, which I loved a lot, since it was such more coherent than the 'random spells made up over thirty years by people with radically different design and balance assumptions' we've got now.

I think they may have been changing the price because $49.99 and $34.99 are what I see on the page for the prices.

I think it has something to do with the hard copy discount the people who preordered the PDF got before the hard copies went on the list.

I've seen some publishers set up contests before to see how people are using their books. Hypothetically speaking, what would you think about a contest where you got to submit your favorite character or world builds done with SoP? Prizes could be something like a free hardcover copy of SoP, or a free copy of any of the other books we currently have in the works (Wizard's Academy, Skybourne, etc.)

I'd be interested! I converted my homebrew world to the spheres of power system (with some modifications). Amusingly I was building around ten npcs with the system just earlier today.

I've been fiddling around with Spheres of Power for a little bit, I definitely have some cool idea for implementing this in my homebrew setting.

A quick question about the Incanter, since it can buy sorcerer bloodlines and cleric domains, it can get abilities that affect it's spellcasting (healing domain, orc bloodline, etc.). Do these also affect the sphere abilities?

That sounds like a really fun contest! I would love to see it happen.

I do have kind of an idea for using Sphere magic for a Greek Odyssy setting. It feels like a better fit than the Vancian system

Although I am putting together a short Playtesting campaign first that I want to run for a few months to intro my group to the system. Really simple "PCs are part of a mage guild that accepts odd jobs from locals"

I have a setting hanging around where magic is heavily based on nature and biology and where if you're not a member of a race/species with a natural "magical" ability (not just spellcasting of spell-like ability but any monster ability that's particularly "fantastic") you have to either partially transform yourself or go "druid" and spend a lot of time face-down in the mud. Or find a source of ancient alien bio-fluid. Or turn to "dust magic" and control sand and dead things.

Why is the Destruction default attack a touch attack? The magical bludgeoning damage ignores armor?

I have a Question.
How do caster level boosters interact with Spheres of Power? Like the Orange Ioun Stone or magical knack?

How are people handling races/monsters that have innate spellcasting abilities? For two examples:

—» The notorious Lamia Matriarch, whose racial HD are treated as Sorcerer levels (with bonus access to the Cleric spell-list) and stack with any actual Sorcerer levels they take. My first inclination for taking this into the SoP system is to treat their racial HD as Sphere Sorcerer levels for caster-progression, then tack on the appropriate class-levels. Other opinions?
—» Racial spell-like abilities (drow, gnome, etc.). Simply leave them as they stand and treat them as racial perks? Or treat the race as gaining the Basic Magical Training feat and the attendant talent for the spehre most closely matching the desired effect? (E.g. a drow with the darkness SLA would instead gain the ‘Dark’ Base Sphere with 1 spell-point per day.)

The combination of racial SLA and HD spell-casting might get messy, so I’ll leave it alone right now. :-S

How are people handling races/monsters that have innate spellcasting abilities? For two examples:

—» The notorious Lamia Matriarch, whose racial HD are treated as Sorcerer levels (with bonus access to the Cleric spell-list) and stack with any actual Sorcerer levels they take. My first inclination for taking this into the SoP system is to treat their racial HD as Sphere Sorcerer levels for caster-progression, then tack on the appropriate class-levels. Other opinions?
—» Racial spell-like abilities (drow, gnome, etc.). Simply leave them as they stand and treat them as racial perks? Or treat the race as gaining the Basic Magical Training feat and the attendant talent for the spehre most closely matching the desired effect? (E.g. a drow with the darkness SLA would instead gain the ‘Dark’ Base Sphere with 1 spell-point per day.)

The combination of racial SLA and HD spell-casting might get messy, so I’ll leave it alone right now. :-S

So far I've only been using spheres alongside magic as opposed to replacing it so my policy has been to leave it alone. Even if I didn't I'd probably still leave it alone for simplicity sake.

Dang, I stepped away from checking the internet to get some intensive work done on Wizard's Academy, and when I come back and someone's already sent me a contest entry!

The reason I haven't announced anything else yet is I've been working out the details of how to do this as a contest; a world contest sounds awesome, but with worlds, traditions, spells, incantations, and everything else you can build in SoP, I've been trying to work out the logistics of what I'm looking for and what to do with it.

This is not an official announcement, but what I'm thinking of is a contest to create a PDF called 'Worlds of Power', featuring world ideas, casting traditions, incantations, spellcrafting, and NPCs created with the system; a database of ideas, concepts, and examples for anyone to use for SoP.

The contest would be for full-on worlds (up to 10,000 words max, including traditions, incantations, spells, NPCs, or whatever else they want to include), with the winner determined by general voting on the company facebook page.

The winner gets one free book of his choice; SoP hardcover, Wizard's Academy, or if they want they can hold onto it for a later date. In addition, the winner and any runners-up judged to be of sufficient quality (I'll be honest, the number will be determined by page count more than anything else) will have the chance to have their work bought for use in Worlds of Power; 2.5 cents per word, we reserve the right to cut the fat if a submission is a bit too heavy on unnecessary words.

Anyone is welcome to send in a partial-submission as well: A favorite NPC, their character's list of custom spellcraftings, or anything else they like from that above list. If we like it, it'll get put in the PDF as well at the same rates as above.

And to answer some people's questions:

@Iammars: cleric and sorcerer abilities do affect sphere effects; the conversion may require some fudging, but it should be fine.

@Silvercat: It's part of the long-standing tradition that spells only require a touch attack. If we changed it for the base ability, every talent would become an exception.

@Trace: I've personally just left everything racial as-written; while giving them a free magic talent would certainly work, officially if we were to change the races and everything else that remotely touched the old magic system, not only would the book have become quite unruly, but we might as well have developed our own D20 system at that point.