Spheres of Power; Tradition Workshop

[Greylurker]

one of the neat things about the new Spheres of Power book is the ability to create spell casting traditions. They have a very open ended system for this and I figured it might be a good idea to have a thread where we could exchange ideas.

To start off with I offer

Spirit Summoners
Spirit Sumoners do not work magic on their own, instead they call on spirits or Jinn to cast spells on their behalf. To call a Spirit you must loudly invoke their name and bargain for their aid, if the Spirit accepts the bargain it manifests and works the magic you have requested. The spirit remains manifested for as long as the spell lasts. Because the Mage is not casting the spell himself much of the burden of maintaining it is carried by the spirit. Spirits however are capricious and willful so sometimes the magic does not always work as the summoner intended. Most Spirit Summoners begin with the Conjuration Sphere to call on their most powerful Spirit.
While Spirit Summoners maintain friendly relations with their spirits, Spirit Tamers follow a similar tradition of magic but use forbidden rituals to enslave spirits to their will and force them to work magic. Tamers use the same drawbacks given here but use Intimidate instead of Diplomacy. Summoners gain 1 bonus Spell Point +1 more every 3 levels.

Drawbacks: Magical Signs (Manifested Spirit), Skilled Casting (Diplomacy or Intimidate), Verbal Casting, Wild Magic

Bonus: Easy Focus

[Trace Coburn]

Re-posted from here:

Trace Coburn wrote:

Related to Adam B. 135’s thread, and based on Drop Dead Studios’ Spheres of Power system, but posted separately to avoid thread-jacking the effort to convert the canon classes to sphere-casting. ;-)

Now, as a metre-stick: this is meant for an E10-style, relatively low-magic setting inspired by Mazes and Minotaurs and Sean K Reynolds’ The New Argonauts. Magical healing isn’t particularly common, and permanent magic items rare, usually recovered relics or gifts from the Gods; stat-boosting items like the Big 6 won’t be a big thing. The primary Corinthian arcane classes are the Elementalist (below) and the Corinthian sorcerer(ess) (the latter of which I would gladly accept help in converting to SoP!).

How does it look? Will it dominate a low-magic campaign, will is be a drag on the party, or is it just blasty enough to be useful without overshadowing martial characters like Talented Fighters?

==========================

CASTER TRADITION: CORINTHIAN ELEMENTALISM

Corinthian academia holds that everything in the world is composed of four elements: air, earth, fire, and water. Through intensive study, Corinthian elementalists learn how to unlock and manipulate the various mixes of these metaphysical energies that lie within all things, letting them plumb the mysteries of the universe, craft and shape works of mundane utility or wondrous might — or wreak horrific destruction upon their enemies. The warrior-mages of Corinthian society, they can be found throughout the region, either fighting fiercely for their chosen causes or wresting the lost magical secrets of fallen civilisations from the tombs and ruins that hold them.

Spheres: Conjuration, Creation, Destruction, Divination, Enhancement, Protection, Telekinesis, Weather

Drawbacks: Draining Casting (general), Elongated Summoning (Conjuration), Energy Focus (see below/Destruction sphere), Focus Casting (general), Hidden Magic (Divination), Protected Soul (Protection), Somatic Casting (2, general), Verbal Casting (general)
[Note: all general drawbacks must be taken! Improvement in spell-points advancement already incorporated into class outline.]

Boons: None

The ‘Energy Focus’ drawback is modified to require an Elementalist to pick one of the classic elements for their blasts and more-or-less stick with it, rather than using the base force damage (which falls outside the Corinthian worldview).

How does that look? <.< >.>

And as noted in the original post/thread, help with shifting the Hellenic Sorcerer(ess) over to SoP would be more than welcome! ;-)

[VanceMadrox]

Dwarven Stonesingers

When one thinks of Magic Users dwarves are not the race that first comes to mind yet dwarves have a deep connection to the earth has a magic all of its own. Stonesingers can shape the world around them simply with the power of their voice.

Drawbacks:
General: Skilled Casting (Perform: Singing), Verbal Casting
Sphere Specific: Material Focus: Stone (Creation), Energy Focus: Stone Blast (Destruction), Limited Telekinesis: Stone (Telekinesis)

Boons: Empowered Abilities

[Greylurker]

This is one I have been working on for my own setting. I'm putting an adventure around the idea of it's introduction. Up until this point Magic is very rare and out of the reach of most people however. The adventure revolves around a criminal Alchemist who is creating Mana-Dust an Addictive Drug that can grant people magic.

Quote:

Tradition - Mana Dust User
Description: Mana Dust is a relatively new creation of the unscrupulous Alchemist Razel Malcura. Made from ground down mana crystals and mixed with various narcotics she and the Nightmare Syndicate have created a substance that can grant anyone the ability to use magic. Mana Dust is highly addictive and dangerous, not only does it drain and sicken those who use it but it also unhinges the mind as the tainted mana errodes their sanity.

Spellcasting: Using Dust Magic is deceptively easy. You simply inhale and handful of dust and unleash mana along with a desire of what you want to achieve. Mana Dust is hard on the system however, not only is it addictive but it also puts a great deal of stress on the body. The Mana flooding through the users system is generally more than their bodies can handle. Bruising, lesions, blood shot eyes discolored skin are all signs of a Dust user. Dust users have a difficult time manipulating others with complex magics but thier own bodies are easily mutable with the tainted mana coursing through their system.

Drawbacks: Addictive Casting, Draining Casting, Material Casting, Wild Magic, Lycanthropic (Alteration), Regeneration(Life), Personal Magics (Enhancement), Protected Soul (Protection), Personal Time (Time)

Boons: Overcharge (Requiers a double douse of Dust), Fortified Casting

Classes: This Magic tradition is primarily used by non-spellcasting classes who take the Basic Magical Training feat or Rogues with the Magical training talent. Mana dust has been known to awaken Spontainious Casters to their power, repeated use of Mana Dust unlocking untapped potential in them for magic. Sorcerers and Bloodragers make up the bulk of these Dust using mages, but other Spontaineous spell casters are not uncommon.

New Alchemical Item: Mana Dust (Craft DC: 30)
Type: Inhaled
Addiction: Moderate (DC: 25)
Cost: 20 gp per full dose

Description: Mana dust is an inhaled narcotic. A Full Dose is worth 20gp but Mana Dust spellcasters tend to inhale smaller amounts for spellcasting (about 1sp/Caster level worth every time they cast a spell). They can take a full Dose for the normal benefits and penalties if they wish.

Effect: Immidiate: Regain 1d3 Spell Points
Effect: 1 Hour; +1 Caster Level
Effect: after 1 hour: Sickened
1d4 Wisdom Damage;
Note: Any Spellcaster who uses a Magic Tradition other than Mana Dust, cannot regain Spell Points Normally until the Wisdom Damage has fully healed. If a regular Spellcaster gets addicted to Mana Dust he gains a 10% wild magic chance as his mind and mana becomes more and more unstable

Campaign wise a lot of Dust users are going to be thugs and thieves using the Basic Magical Training feats. Either lashing out with destructive magic or mutating themselves with various personal magics. With Fortified Casting I can make most of them Con based casters which will help emphasize that these are amatures with no clue what they are doing. One or two big bads are going to be actual Sorcerers or Bloodragers. The idea is that in a world where Magic is rare but generally looked on positivly, but then this Syndicate is suddenly mass producing destructive half insane criminal mages.

and of course the Evil Alchemist behind it all has her own plans

I also wanted to make the Dust useable by normal spellcasters but I still want to make certain they understand it is a dangerous addictive drug.

[Abrir]

there is a show called RWBY that replaces spell components with different colored dust. Each color a different element.

if you want to make them dangerous, add backfire probabilities to it.

When using (mana)dust make a spellcraft/perform/profession/craft(spell) check DC 15+spells CL(1-25) or DC 5+(5*CL)
failure the spell backfires deals 1d4 or 1d6 half sonic, half psionic cl=to spell's, with a radius of 5ft per 5 CL minimum. Fort. save attempted spell's DC or deafens(+20% spell failure chance), will save for half dmg.

this would allow it be dangerous to cast increasingly powered high level spells, using any of the mental stats, and can create Kamikaze casters/familiars.
5-50 gp a dose

Additional options options

1. using elemental dust as in RWBY as a spell(focus) components, mostly changes the dmg type of a spell as elemental metamagic feat
100gp a dose

2. 1 dose of meta concentrate type can be use as a Metaspell focus supplying the spell with psudo higher spell slot
high concintraded dose 500-1,000gp, 5,000gp, 10,000 gp each dose
spells of 7th higher lvl spells have increasing tolerance to metadust concintrates
*using Metadust still requires the feat
OR
dust can be consumed as above but using normal dust price doses. +1, 1 or 5 dose; +2, 25 doses; +3, 15 or 50 doses
100gp per dose

4. Dust can increase CL of a spell up to 5 CL(this is instead of highten, and intesified metamagic uses of meta dust)

...thx for the thought exersize.

[Greylurker]

RWBY Dust is more of a catalyst though.
I'm going for a sort of Magic Steroid/Cocain.

RWBY's system could translate really well into Spheres of Power though. Material Casting, Foci (Weapon) maybe Somatic casting. Certainly one to consider.

[Umbral Reaver]

I recently wrote 35 or so traditions for my game. I could post them here, although most of them aren't particularly fancy.

[Baval]

I just let my players (and my DM lets me) make their own casting traditions and flavor it how they want.

Some are trained from schools that all cast like that, some developed their own tradition, some were just born casting that way and thats how magic works for them.

Its a really good system, and honestly doesnt effect the balance of power very much even if you let your players run wild with it.

Also, you can use the drawbacks in interesting ways. One of my players took the "addictive magic" drawback, but instead of being addicted to the casting hes addicted to the effects; more specifically hes a transmutation specialist and doesnt feel comfortable going into battle unless hes got crab claws and a set of horns or whatever. Its mechanically fitting, since if he spends a spellpoint to augment himself he feels confident (mechanically the addiction effects are suppressed) but if he doesnt he feels weak and doesnt perform to his best (and thus suffers the addiction penalties as a sort of anxiety). Each time he uses his morphs to solve his problems it just reinforces his self image that his base form is mostly useless (aka: he makes another save against addiction)

[JonathonWilder]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I recently wrote 35 or so traditions for my game. I could post them here, although most of them aren't particularly fancy.

I am interested

[Rashagar]

I remember creating a "paladin" character whose magical powers were derived from the malevolent spirit that had generations ago been bound to his ancestral family suit of armour.

It was a little similar to your spirit caller idea but instead of magical signs I had it so that it was fueled by his life force (can't remember the exact details, it could have been that it required a sacrifice of blood as part of it's dealings or it might have been simply feeding on him at every transaction without his knowing). I wanted the bound spirit to be as fickle and unpredictable as possible, constantly trying to warp the "paladin's" intentions to evil results, but also to reward the "paladin" character for relying on it too regularly.

I know I went for Skilled (diplomacy), Focus, Painful, and wild casting drawbacks with the Empowered boon, but not sure if I had others thrown in there, there were a few iterations of the idea and unfortunately I never actually got to use him. There's a ridiculous back log of character concepts he's now been relegated to, but maybe some day...