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(If this is on the wrong board, please let me know; I am not overly acquainted with the structure here.)
As some of you know, Drop Dead Studios is producing a series of expansions for the Spheres of Power alternate magic system, each expanding upon a single sphere. I am the author of the release focused on the very fun but often misunderstood Destruction sphere. I would like to borrow some processing cycles from the mighty groupmind here to find issues, solicit suggestions, and generally improve the product to make my first release as good as it can be.
Destruction Handbook
Hold nothing (pertinent) back. Thanks for all your help.
Elemental Scion: streamlined method for accessing class abilities without spellpoint cost
Spellcrafting: DCs
Improved elemental blade feat: interplay with bound energy arsenal trick (too much damage?)
Bound Energy Arsenal Trick: interplay with improved elemental blade
Schedule: Original manuscript was to be due in March, but things have shifted a bit,m as expected given the number of people involved. As we want to release the best possible project, this will remain open for as long as it is needed.
I'll be happy to help as best I can. Do you want feedback done in-thread or over PM?
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I'll be happy to help as best I can. Do you want feedback done in-thread or over PM?
In thread or comments on the doc are preferable. It should be comment enabled, unless the folder settings override the doc settings.
Looks like this should have been in the 3rd party subforum, my apologies. I have flagged it.
I am basically in love with this. I will try and look this over today, though it may be hard as I am at work, but I'll see what I can think of. I do have to say, I love the fact that the Blast can now be Snaked, and the ability to have the increased amounts for your 2nd and 3rd favored energies makes me quite happy. Being able to add your weapons enhancement bonuses to the blast is also a nice touch. My goal one day is to find a way to be able to full round multiple blasts. Then I will finally be the party artillery like I've always wanted.
I'm actually a little annoyed I found about this here and not through the Patreon. What gives?
Previously we received playtest info through there first so we could have first crack at looking and commenting on what was coming.
I don't think this is at the playtest stage yet. The first two handbooks did that shortly before release. This one isn't supposed to come out until March-ish.
EDIT: Ninjad
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I'm actually a little annoyed I found about this here and not through the Patreon. What gives?
Previously we received playtest info through there first so we could have first crack at looking and commenting on what was coming.
Hmm, I thought the patreon folks had been informed about this. I also thought patreon folk already had access to it, so I guess I am out of the loop with exactly how the patreon was working.
Anyhow, concerns have been raised about the rapidity of the releases and the absence of an open Beta, which is what we are trying to address. I will mention your concern to Adam.
To the others, glad you like it. I look forward to having it picked apart.
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Less "will be" and more "currently is". XD Two handbooks (Nature and Telekinesis) are already out, with more on the way.
Yes, I'm working on getting them added to my SoP handbook the Orrery. Geomancer's is pretty much done, just started TK.
If a message was sent out through the Patreon I totally missed it then. Either way started putting some comments in and will try do more a little later. Destruction was one my group and myself felt really did need some expansion and more 'cool stuff' to do.
Also glad to see some of the Irhardt stuff found its way in.
Drowning Blast seems a bit strong. One could just spam it and leave anyone with a weak will save unable to act for the duration of combat.
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If a message was sent out through the Patreon I totally missed it then. Either way started putting some comments in and will try do more a little later. Destruction was one my group and myself felt really did need some expansion and more 'cool stuff' to do.
Also glad to see some of the Irhardt stuff found its way in.
I was originally going to reprint the WoP material for a chance for more people to see it, but I had concerns raised about some of the abilities being on the weak side. I liked all the names, though if there is going to be confusion I may need to change the ones that do different things now.
Drowning Blast seems a bit strong. One could just spam it and leave anyone with a weak will save unable to act for the duration of combat.
Hmm, that had a spell point cost originally, but the idea was that d4 nonlethal with a save helps balance it. I am open to the argument that nauseated and stronger inherently need costs though.
Nauseated is definitely one of those debuffs that I would argue always needs a cost.
I don't mind giving them an upgrade, when I originally designed them it was being on the careful side for balancing purposes. That said, some stuff in the document is coming across as perhaps a bit too much on the powerful side (I don't mind the changes you did to the Irhardt ones and feel free to use the same names, I'll probably update my own with some of the changes you did).
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I don't mind giving them an upgrade, when I originally designed them it was being on the careful side for balancing purposes. That said, some stuff in the document is coming across as perhaps a bit too much on the powerful side (I don't mind the changes you did to the Irhardt ones and feel free to use the same names, I'll probably update my own with some of the changes you did).
Okay, I'll add a note for all the Irhardt names to give credit. I thought that was an interesting setting that I may have to explore more if I ever have time to DM again.
As for power levels, before I started I had picked up the general impression that people found the destruction sphere weak and uninteresting, a perception I wanted to change. The tactics section at the end was a big part of the perception side of that effort.
As for drowning blast, I put the cost back in and bumped the die size back to d6. Also added a note to the adaptation section that conditions that deny a standard action should always incur a cost.
Sounds good and you have a point on destruction, my own group had the same impression. Perhaps the boosts and tricks are just what it needs. Eager to see the finished document and will keep giving it a look over when I can spare the time.
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Greater energy snake has gotten a number of comments, so will receive further editing for both clarification and to trim back its power.
The adaption section is something I am proud of, even if it needs some fine-tuning (I have more sympathy for those tasked with assigning race point and the like now).
The tether adept feat is mechanically largely taken from the lashing spinneretts veil from the forthcoming akashic mysteries from DSP. Ssalarn gave me the okay and credits will be included in the OGL. As a note, physical damage destructive blasts target touch AC anyhow, unlike the kineticist.
The admixture line was basically targeted to be spontaneous spellcrafting and should track relatively close with 1 and 2 complexity spellcrafts. You basically are paying a feat to spontaneously spellcraft a limited set of abilities. It may be my favorite idea from the book.
As for admixture and AOEs,darkness specifically calls out that the darkness is centered on an affected square, though I can emphasize that it is only on one square, you do not get to increase your darkness's area. Crystal blast does not stop line of sight/effect; the target is hindered and stuck to the floor but not completely encased unless using the cocoon advanced talent. Light targets a single creature, though I suppose using the cocoon advanced talent would block the light from escaping, good catch. I don't see a problem with it. As for mass enhancement and others,: first, you have to have the multitarget talent for the sphere to apply the additional effect to more than one target. If you have the multitarget talent and pay the SP to use it as normal, you can choose any number of targets you damage up to that cap to receive the additional effect. I do see where further clarification is needed though, especially for shapes with duration like energy sphere and wall. The need to spend SP or concentrate on many of the effects keeps it in check, but there are probably a few corner cases it works oddly.
Every sphere is getting a release (telekinetics and nature are already out). Darkness is being worked on, though I haven't seen an alpha yet. I have a couple side releases planned that I will certainly drop by here when they are ready to be seen, which won' be until well into next year.
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I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but as far as the Destructive Blade, I was wondering if it could be made as a touch attack (I saw somewhere that it was considered a normal attack). On one hand, I understand why not (as with a full BAB it could get ridiculous), but at the same time, I would consider it similar to the Kineticist ability, which has it vs touch ac (if it's an elemental blast).
If it's a bit too much, it could be ruled to a d4 damage, or that it's a d4 for a pure element weapon, and a d6 if used 's a weapon..
As it stands (while I love the theme of generating your own weapon), it'd be more worthwhile to simply do magus for a couple levels.
Take a look at the re-design that I put up this morning and tell me what you think.
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Read through the document again. I was wondering if there was any chance of the Destructive Blade from the Doom blade archetype being available as a talent or feat for other classes.
I did like the Hedgewitch archetype. It makes for a good speed build. Are there plans for unique Secrets for it?
Hmm, good questions. As for opening up destructive blade, not sure. I kind of like it being special for the archetype, but if I could get the cost right it could be an option.
I haven't thought up any unique secrets, but it's a good idea. I'll see if I can conjure anything; if you have suggestions drop them here or on the doc. Thanks.
Figure I may as well ask this here to get more ideas on the concept. There is a third party feat with Spell Focus (Evocation) as a prerequisite. The feat states that "Spells and supernatural abilities you cast or use with the chosen descriptor inflict +1 damage per die rolled." Now, technically, Destruction Blast is not a spell. Nor, as far as I can see, is it considered Su. I had asked in a different thread, and they had said that, as SoP is a different casting style, in a way, that they think applying that affect would be fine. Im curious what others would think about that.
Spheres of Power is basically meant to be a replacement of normal spellcasting, and by necessity relies on many of the same rules. If you don't assume that abilities in spheres are basically equivalent to spells, you actually run into problems figuring out how they work.
So... yeah. Treat it as spells for the majority of purposes, I'd say, just keep in mind that they are a bit different in the end, so you may want to exercise some personal judgment.
For a feat like you described, I wouldn't see any problem at all.
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I probably would allow that feat, but any time you want to take something like that from normal casting and apply it to Spheres it is largely a DM call. That would basically give +25 damage (minimum, assuming full caster with +5 staff, no other traits, feats, items, etc) per blast for one damage type.
Ooh! How did I not notice this earlier? I am quite keen on Spheres of Power and happy to see it getting more support.
Thanks, all, for the opinions on it. I know, in the end, its a GM call, but I wanted to see if other people thought it seemed acceptable. I dont think the GM's I normally play with will care about that extra static damage. Time for me to build an Elementalist and a punch Magus using the SoP Magus conversion.
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I added a secret to take un-monk ki abilities, but I admit I am not well antiquated with the un-monk so this requires further review. Style feats is a great idea, I'll get that in when I get a chance.
edit - Style Secret: You gain a style feat for which you qualify. You may treat your entropic sage levels as monk levels and use it in place of your BAB for the purpose of qualifying for style feats.
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It seems that the schedule has to be shuffled for next months release. The destruction handbook is to be moved up. I apologize for the necessity and the short notice. There is still time for suggestions and comments for the next few days, until Christmas. You all have been a huge help and the comments and ideas I have received have made this a better product.
If there are serious concerns, I can push to hold the release off to have time to address them.
Good to see some more free from 3pp and congrats on the scheduling forward push too. ;)
Just saw the Blaster Armorist archetype, and oh my, do I enjoy that very much. That will probably end up being the go to archetype for me if I want to just deal damage from a range, and the visual for it is great. Time for me to build a certain nuclear crow from a certain bullet hell game....
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Sorry for neglecting this thread for a bit.
The snake form was partially inspired by the fire snake maneuver from Tome of Battle, though its current form has evolved significantly since then. The original idea was a selective AOE, but the selective blast talent made it somewhat redundant, leading to its current form as a feat improving energy sphere.
The blaster was something that I wanted to do, but couldn't really figure out how until several other things dropped into place. It shouldn't have been that hard, in retrospect, but in my defense this is something I do on lunch break rather than as a job. Look for arsenal tricks granting it blast shapes soon.
Open beta has been held open longer than expected, but official close will be Monday morning.
Great work! Just a couple thoughts:
1. Searing Blast: I was a little confused by this talent. Isn't taking this strictly worse than taking the Greater Blast Talent? The Greater Blast Talent increases damage by one die for *all* blasts, while this just seems to increase the damage die for your fire blasts... Am I missing something?
2. Greater Blast: Currently this is something you can take multiple times. FWIW, I'm not sure how comfortable I would be allowing this. Given the various ways in which players can go nova with things (e.g., with maximize, empower, quicken, a spell point to make it one damage die per lvl, and so on), shifting from a d6 to (say) a d12 might be potentially game-breaking. (I'm also not sure what the cap is here. Can you go to d20s? d100s? And what exactly is the progression?)
3. Advanced Talents: It doesn't seem like the "advanced talent" presented here are playing the same roles as the advanced talents presented in SoP.
In the original SoP book, the label "advanced talent" designated a talent that is potentially game-breaking, and/or is the kind of thing that can radically alter the feel or dynamics of the game (e.g., long-distance teleportation, resurrection, permanent polymorph, planar binding-like effects, magic-jar-like effects, and so on).
I.e., p.115: "Advanced Talents are magic talents that greatly alter what a sphere can do. With advanced talents, a Warp caster could traverse the world, a Creation caster could permanently turn enemies to stone, or a Life caster could raise his allies from the dead."
I love this, because it allows me, as DM, to just forbid the advanced talents, and only allow these kinds of effects to occur as rituals or incantations with expensive material components. And because the original SoP had a good feel for what kinds of magical effects tended to be game-breaking, I didn't have to go through and make a case-by-case judgment as to what to allow and what to forbid--I could safely forbid them all, and not worry about it.
In this book, "advanced talent" seems to be used in a different way. It seems to be used to designate that a talent has more prerequisites, such as a level or alignment requirement, than typical talents. This fits awkwardly with the earlier usage in a couple of respects:
- (a) The advanced talents in the original SoP didn't necessarily have any more prerequisite requirements than ordinary talents. For example, the Summoning advanced talent requires the Summoning sphere and being a 1st lvl caster. That's no more of a prerequisite than, say, the Earth Creature (form) talent, which isn't an advanced talent. The reason, I take it, that Summoning is an advanced talent wasn't because it had higher prerequisites, it was because allowing Planar-Binding-like abilities is potentially game-breaking.
- (b) Few of the "advanced talents" described in this volume seem to be potentially game-breaking or game-altering in the way that the advanced talents described in the initial SoP are. And many of these effects (like Penetrating Blast, Energy Cloud and Disintegrate) are things I would think most DMs would be fine with allowing players to have access to, since they don't seem to change the rules of the game in any substantial way.
- (c) And if we're taking "advanced talents" to mean "talents with pre-requisites", then the follow-up talents introduced earlier could be thought of as "advanced talents", since they require the pre-requisite of having chosen another talent ahead of time...
TLDR: One of the things I liked best about SoP was the easy "no advanced talents" ban it allowed me to employ without having to go through a bunch of options one-by-one to determine whether they're game breaking or not. It would be great to continue to be able to do that. So perhaps some of the things currently described as "advanced talents" that don't "greatly alter what a sphere can do" could be classified as regular talents with a lvl prerequisite instead of advanced talents?
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1. Great blast is +1 die, not die size.
2. Each time you take greater blast is effectively +3.5 damage (4.5 if using a d8 blast). A cap is planned, working out the numbers on it.
3. Advanced talents pretty much cover things that could be annoying or problematic. Bypassing immunity is a fundamental alteration to how a fairly important ability works, hence penetrating blast being advanced. Eliminating large blocks of matter (disintegrate) can be obnoxious, potentially. Empowering damage against certain alignment while bypassing resistances and adding new damage types to the game was a significant enough change that it seemed best to set is as advanced as well. Energy cloud has a large enough area and long enough duration, while also being mobile, that the level of damage it can deal to a setting (disintegrate + energy cloud inside the castle) should be placed under advanced as well.
Playtest is closed. Thank you all, I have had huge amounts of help and the final product is much improved for having done this.
If you hit multiple targets with the Energy Snake feat does it gain multiple squares of effect? Example if there were 4 goblins and I hit one goblin, then two, would I then be hitting 3 or 4 on the following?
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If you hit multiple targets with the Energy Snake feat does it gain multiple squares of effect? Example if there were 4 goblins and I hit one goblin, then two, would I then be hitting 3 or 4 on the following?
The increase happens for every target damaged, no cap on number of targets damaged per round.