Have you played in a game that used Drop Dead Studios' Spheres of Power system? I am keen to hear about peoples' experiences. I'm working on a fairly large set of magical traditions and custom rules for them, and I would like to hear if people have had some interesting experiences that could inspire or warn.
Have you played a game with it? Any quirks that caught you off guard?
Rise of the Runelords - Spheres of Power
My character theme was Cartomancer Witch utilizing Divination, Time, and Fate Spheres. One other player is focused on Life and Death playing a Soulweaver. The Bloodrager has just unlocked his casting and will be using Alteration and Enhancement.
My witch has been an insanely useful support character. I just got the Warp sphere but haven't used it yet. Time has allowed me to give the Slayer and Bloodrager Haste very early on. Divination, even with a very long cast time is great for room and corridor magic detection. My all time favorite, and lifesaver against Nualia was Fate. Word of Pain has been a great caster debuff and burning points for Echoing Word and Pain allowed me to turn a near TPK into a victory by throwing enough nonlethal damage at Nualia to knock her out. Divine Force is also a great area debuff for enemies.
The Soulweaver has possibly been the most powerful character by keeping zombies and skeletons as blockers and meat shields while occasionally killing enemies. Ranged Healing is very powerful and a great tool to kill pesky undead (Advanced Ghast, I'm looking at you).
The Bloodrager, well, large Falchion wielding Bloodrager definitely hurts enemies.
For traditions, the Traditional setup isn't liked by the DM, so he swaps the Material casting for either Magical Signs (I love that for themes, illusory Harrow cards in my case) or Focus.
That help you at all?
EDIT: Warnings... nothing that isn't easily apparent. Buffs gained at much lower levels can be very unbalancing (Haste at lvl. 3). So far, lower level has proven to be a big buff. Higher levels, I do not know.
Actually running a gestalt game with spheres as the only casting currently. One player elected to go with a rogue/barbarian build that only dipped in it slightly (for warp sphere) through feats while the other embraced it fully with a converted version of the maestro (Interjection Games) mixed with Witch (very buff/control/debuff based). I do have to say it's nice that their spells are changing every day, so I usually have a fair idea what they are capable of. That said...
I love this system, but I can say I've been caught off guard a time or two. I'll add that is nothing bad, just players using the system in creative ways. Others have been a bit more potent than would have been expected.
Simple example of that the maestro/witch concentrating on a simple partial haste from the time sphere turning the barbarian/rogue into a monstrous combatant with two swings at first level. This I saw coming admittedly as it's a pretty obvious use. Another was invisibility which as it is written can be quite good, though not as outright powerful as the regular version (uses perception vs stealth with a bonus based on caster level). The fact this can be taken extremely early with no limit outside of the talents is where they can catch a GM though.
Warp was also interesting. This one didn't kick in till second level for the rogue/barbarian but the pure mobility you get actually makes what could be issues for other characters a joke. Most obvious example was a pit trap they came across. Close ranged teleports on yourself or others at will made it surprisingly easy. Going down a steep cliff was as easy as finding spots where they could perch on the way down. The mobility it gives is truly kind of amazing.
The trickier things I didn't see coming necessarily was how good the protection sphere was. Ward isn't powerful (minor low hp wall), but they've used it to really good effect a few times (blocking a monster about to charge, creating a wall against debris during a storm, using it as readied action platform to catch a falling ally). Being able to do it at will is quite handy, though like many it does take concentration without the spell points.
He also used telekinesis to catch falling traps when they entered a rotted section of forest. Simple first level application, but saved them a lot of headaches.
The player is really good as he lets me know what he is looking at with later levels too. Here is from his sheet currently: Link
Some of which do seem quite potent, but I'd rather be aware of them than not haha.
*edit* I've also built a number of essentially cohorts for them to test out other spheres as the campaign has progressed. A healer that was focused almost utterly on healing was really good with it, easily capable of outhealing a similar leveled other character. Also a butler focused on using spell points for rerolls on allies/enemies was exceedingly effective and loved by the party. One of their favourites though is an ice mage blaster (oracle/bard) that mostly snared and slowed enemies (destruction mixed with some oracle revelations stacked in some really debilitating ways, usually forcing two saves on opponents vs slow/stagger if I remember right).
I'm going to be running e6, which looks like it will work better with SoP than with standard magic, since it is essentially feat-based. I will be disallowing access to some sphere effects just due to the setting and theme, including warp talents that use extradimensional spaces. I'm creating a game with zero planar aspects. I don't want travel to be trivial either, so teleportation stuff may be limited.
Maybe I'm better off just banning the warp sphere altogether.
Edit: Or maybe time and warp will be obscure, hard to find secrets that can be parceled out to players in tiny fragments as they uncover the writings of the lost arts.
Ran a short game with it and same some interesting ideas.
One player made his way through a dangerous Hallway but putting himself in a stone box, Creating a 2nd box right beside it, removing the wall between them and shuffling from one box to the next all the way down the hall. As the game progressed he decided to become a Box Specialist.
If it could be put in a stone box, a stone box it would go. Boxes to stand on to reach high up places, Boxes to provide cover, boxes to drop on people from above.
The end narrative was that his Dwarf worked in Shipping at the guild hall.
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Edit: Or maybe time and warp will be obscure, hard to find secrets that can be parceled out to players in tiny fragments as they uncover the writings of the lost arts.
Have you ever played the game Saga Frontier? It was an RPG on the PlayStation that came out back in the 90s, and despite a few eccentricities it was one of my favorite games ever. I ask if you ever played it because I actually used it as inspiration for how I implemented spherecasting in my campaign. All spheres have to be taught by certain schools or trainers, spheres are diametrically opposed to each other so only very rare and obscure traditions can teach you how to use, for example, both Life and Death (Soul Weavers are automatically part of a tradition that knows that particular secret), and both Warp and Time magic are known and horded by exactly one specific being each, who the caster would need to learn about, locate, and either befriend or defeat to gain access to that sphere.
I wasn't running E6, but I did have a fairly specific selection of options available for characters to choose from- all martial classes used a homebrew system I wrote called [url=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2sv7a?Using-Path-of-War-as-a-general-fix-to#1]Spark of Battle[/i] that gives them access to a certain amount of Path of War style initiating, all casters other than fey and "monsters" (an in-game classification for certain specific playable races) used spherecasting, and the playable monstrous and fey races had access to veilweaving from Dreamscarred Press' Akashic Mysteries. We ran the campaign on a slow xp track with an intended cap of 10th level, and the party was able to start obtaining information on the entities who has mastered the Time and Warp spheres starting at 6th level, with both entities written up as CR 10 challenges.
I don't know how directly applicable this will be to Umbral Reaver's campaign, but DM Papa.DRB is running a SoP-only play-by-post right now. It may be interesting to watch.
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Edit: Or maybe time and warp will be obscure, hard to find secrets that can be parceled out to players in tiny fragments as they uncover the writings of the lost arts.Have you ever played the game Saga Frontier? It was an RPG on the PlayStation that came out back in the 90s, and despite a few eccentricities it was one of my favorite games ever. I ask if you ever played it because I actually used it as inspiration for how I implemented spherecasting in my campaign. All spheres have to be taught by certain schools or trainers, spheres are diametrically opposed to each other so only very rare and obscure traditions can teach you how to use, for example, both Life and Death (Soul Weavers are automatically part of a tradition that knows that particular secret), and both Warp and Time magic are known and horded by exactly one specific being each, who the caster would need to learn about, locate, and either befriend or defeat to gain access to that sphere.
I wasn't running E6, but I did have a fairly specific selection of options available for characters to choose from- all martial classes used a homebrew system I wrote called Spark of Battle[/i] that gives them access to a certain amount of Path of War style initiating, all casters other than fey and "monsters" (an in-game classification for certain specific playable races) used spherecasting, and the playable monstrous and fey races had access to veilweaving from Dreamscarred Press' Akashic Mysteries. We ran the campaign on a slow xp track with an intended cap of 10th level, and the party was able to start obtaining information on the entities who has mastered the Time and Warp spheres starting at 6th level, with both entities written up as CR 10 challenges.
Just noticed I screwed up my link to [url=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2sv7a?Using-Path-of-War-as-a-general-fix-to#1]Spark of Battle and it's too late to fix it in the original post, so.... Fixed, I guess.
Also, if there were any spheres I'd really see as potentially problematic, probably Conjuration. There's a way to abuse the free talent the critters get to have all day armies of critters, but it's pretty identifiable as an attempt to exploit the system.
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Recntly we just used the enormous flexibility of the spheres of powers system to run a star wars themed game. The lack of inherent flavor baggage allowed for such a simple theme to be used, as well as picking and choosing what powers were available and which ones were not. Turning Lightsaber Combat into a Sphere, whose basic ability was to consruct an artifact like saber, one with talents that would immdiately and intuitively allow for any lightsaber stunt imaginable. The game ran perfectly in tune with the theme expected, something that would have been impossible with any other "magic" system around.
I'm probably allowing conjuration with warnings attached, as I may end up with a small group of players. A conjurer can help fill out the roster. If I end up with a large group (depending on responses to invitations and so on), I'm considering banning not only conjuration, but also class features that add companions.
Conjuration isn't so bad if the player is quick at decisions in combat. I happen to be blessed with a quick thinking and decisive player that uses the Death Sphere to have multiple zombies.
Of course if you have a big group, all those companions do clutter things up a bit. Advanced Talents in Warp will probably be the biggest offenders of what you want to avoid, but in E6 I don't think the players will ever hit the caster level requirement for them.
*Thumbs Up* Good luck and have fun.
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I am writing a players' document for the players to use when making their characters.
It is now 22 pages long and includes 35+ magical traditions.
At this rate I'll end up with a full-fledged campaign guide.