I'm going to be running RoRL again (my last attempt got in to book 2 before the group fell apart), one of my players suggested using Spheres of Power in place of the normal spellcasting system.
Of my players 1 (the one suggesting SoP) is experienced with PF, the other 3 have little to no experience with tabeltop RPGs, other than me recently having run the beginners box adventure for them.
While I know the basic concept of SoP and it seems appealing to me, I have no idea if this would be a good match for new players or how much work it would be to convert the enemy spellcasters over.
Advice?
I am playing in a group that is 4/6 the way through the AP and has been using SoP on the player end the whole time. The GM hasn't really changed a lot of enemies over though he has changed a few.
I have run many casters in 3.5 using the normal magic system but I find the Spheres of Power system to be very intuitive and once you start using it, it gets even easier.
Two bits of advice:
1. Find out what the players want to do with their magic powered characters and show them the respective spheres, talents, and for big goals; the advanced talents. Take it slow and remember to check out Traditions and what works with the GM. (Personally we drop the Material Casting and sub for Focus or Signs)
2. Forget swapping over ALL the enemies. Swap over some to provide unique fights. Anyways, most of them will just be speed bumps of varying height for your heroes.
(I normally GM and I originally got SoP for our group so I am used as a sounding board for ideas and also function as the group's rules mediator.)
I haven't had the opportunity to try myself, but I should think that Spheres would be easier for new players to learn on. The idea of "you can do this thing, and get better at it" is far more intuitive than "here's a list of 1327 spells, you can pick 3 from a segment of a subsection of the list".
Hmmm ... the players are interested in continuing to use the characters from the Beginner's Box adventure (aka the pregens) since it's also set in Sandpoint, do the SoP archetypes for Core casters work well enough or should I steer them toward replacing them with SoP classes?