Spheres of Power and Gestalt Builds

[Syrus Terrigan]

The thread title says it all, really. I have a high-powered gestalt game going, and we're trying to make the conversion to Spheres of Power during a short-term hiatus from gaming. There are obvious difficulties in such an effort, primarily involving the challenge level the game can provide; I would like to kick around a few ideas with you great thinkers out there, and see what we can drum up.

Issue One: Sphere Access
If we simply mashed everything together, as we normally would with the Vancian-magic classes, we would wind up with conditions wherein a wizard/cleric could have 10 spheres/talents at level one. While this isn't necessarily a problem, per se, it does lend itself to similar difficulties as we've experienced in D&D 4E -- decision tree complexity. I am trying to avoid the "Which option is best at this moment?" dilemma as much as is possible; paring down on the range of options will help my players *focus* their sphere/talent selections from the outset.

Issue Two: Spell Point Tracking and Sphere Access
A pure stacking of the wizard and cleric classes would clearly point to two separate spell point pools, and restrictions of which sphere abilities could use which pool. While this most closely parallels the Vancian system, this method, to my mind, is effectively rendered obsolete as spherecasting enables magical effects at-will. Additionally, the bookkeeping burden this would entail would almost certainly drag in-combat turn progressions to an even slower crawl (My group typically engages in decisively-argued indecision every time a spellcaster has an action in combat -- and most of them are casters.)

Issue Three: Class Features
In some cases (the alchemist class being the most obvious, as I have a witch/alchemist player), certain class features will obviously parallel (or be superceded by) sphere abilities. In the case of the alchemist, the bomb ability can be emulated with the following:

• Destruction sphere
• Explosive Orb talent
• Orb Expert feat

. . . and this can be attained at level one. And this trio of picks not only allows for endless "bombs" per day, but hits an even larger AoE. I have yet to find any other class features that run into this problem, but I'm sure they will crop up in the future.

And thus it follows: What do I do?

Proposal One
Just mash them up, as written, and watch the world burn (Spheres of Power).

Proposal Two
In light of the bokor prestige class, "cheat" by allowing both systems to exist. Let each player choose Vancian or Spheres for each character class in his/her build, but mandate, in the case of double-casters, that one class progress in spherecasting and the other in the traditional Vancian style.

Proposal Three
Have each player choose which class of the two is the "primary" class of the character, and use that class as the baseline for level advancement. Then, wherever class features are granted (or modified, per SoP) by the "secondary" class, add those features/gains to the character's abilities.

___________________

Have any of you tried to gestalt with SoP? What insights have you gained?

Thanks for reading!

[Grovestrider]

Gestalt with Spheres of Power doesn't really work very well.

I would personally recommend one of the following:

A) Players may only have ONE spherecasting class per Gestalt combination (i.e. you could be Mageknight 1/Incanter 5//Alchemist 1/Fighter 5, but you couldn't be Mageknight 1/Fighter 5//Incanter 1/Alchemist 5)

or

B) Players only get spell points from both classes (Talents are acquired from the highest granting spherecasting class)

or

C) Players only get talents from both classes (Spell Points are acquired from the highest granting spherecasting class)

[CalethosVB]

I'd say dual progression, because then the highest a mageknight's caster level is going to be will only ever be CL 10 unless pumped with items. The Spheres and abilities on the second side will have to match that side of the gestalt. You'll find you have a lot of weaker abilities and a lot of powerful abilities, but not all powerful abilities.

[Syrus Terrigan]

CalethosVB --

Yeah, the CL disparity was something with which I was wrestling -- paladin/sorcerer, for example. Though, of course, the Focus Sphere feature of the sorcerer implies the "Sphere CL" solution.

Grovestrider --

Limiting the players to one spherecasting class per combination would call for some serious revisions for the characters; while reasonable if established from the beginning, it is less so this far along. My players are pretty heavily invested in their class selections -- even taking away one would cause unwelcome upset.

So this is my tentative plan:

1) No matter how many spherecasting classes are selected, the 2 bonus talents for taking a spherecasting class are only gained once.
2) Talents will be gained at the highest-CL spherecasting class rate, supplemented by class features from the "weaker" spherecasting classes (see Ex. 1).
3) Spell points will be gained at the same rate as that of the highest-CL spherecasting class, and bonus spell points gained for casting ability modifier will be applied for each class.
4) Caster level per sphere will be determined by the CL of the class and level in which the sphere was taken (see Ex. 2).

Example 1 -- Wizard/Cleric 3
Talents: 2 (spherecasting) + 2 (wizard 1) + 2 (cleric domains) + 1 (Life/Death for spontaneous casting) + 3 (wiz 2 & 3)
Spell Points: 3 (level) + Int mod + Wis mod
Caster Level: as both classes are High-Casters, +3 across the board.

Example 2 -- Witch/Alchemist 1
Talents: 2 (spheres) + 1 (witch) + 1 (patron) + Destruction (bombs, perhaps with Shape Focus (Explosive Orb) drawback?)
Spell Points: 1 + (2 x Int mod)
CL: +1 in this instance. Worth noting, however, is that, in the case of the alchemist, if the bombs class ability is replaced with Shape Focus (Explosive Orb) {which seems completely reasonable to me, since every character with the Destruction sphere would be able to "out-explode" every alchemist ever}, any alchemist character's CL with the Destruction sphere would be as a High-Caster (10d6 bombs).

[GM Rednal]

I've done this, and my ultimate decision was as follows:

>You get the talents and spell points from both classes. This is, broadly speaking, how gestalting in something like Wizard/Sorcerer would work.

>You use the higher CL progression unless the sphere is interacting with a class ability, in which case you use the CL of that class. If you somehow have two class abilities affecting it, you use the lower progression.

>As GM, I reserve the right to disallow certain combos at my discretion - for example, having a melee destructive blast added onto a full attack from a Full BAB class. In general, gestalt is meant to expand your options, not be used to break the math of the system and let your character be more powerful than they could normally be.

It's worked out pretty well so far. The system is fairly linear to begin with, and as long as you discourage stacking abilities, characters won't be too much stronger than usual - they'll just know more spells.

[Bardarok]

I have not tried this personally but I would suggest you consider SP, CL, and base talents per level similar to skill points, HP, and BAB.

So for the Casting, Spell Pool and Magic Talents categories of each archetype or class the player takes the better one but gets both of everything else (including bonus magic talents from domains, specialization, wild heard etc.)

[Syrus Terrigan]

Well, I've been doing some work in this field using Rednal's recommendations as the baseline, and . . . . Whew. That's a lot of work.

I used one of my own characters as the guinea pig, and it seems that I just overreacted to the nature of gestalt power with the "always on" of Spheres of Power. Two sets of class abilities restricted by action economy is not as overpowered as I feared.

Thanks for all the help, folks!

[GM Rednal]

You're welcome. ^^ Let us know if you have any more questions!

[Wraithguard]

Syrus, you discovered the key resource that keeps most things balanced with Spheres of Power. Action economy.

I would post what I have decided to do, but I think Rednal's is the same as mine. At least it seems like it.

Have fun buddy. =)

[Syrus Terrigan]

Y'know, I do have one more query, Rednal --

Do you keep the class "halves" separate, or lump-summed? As in -- do the spell points and talents go into one big pool, or do you just run each as a self-contained set of abilities? . . . Just to help me refine my understanding of how you've "solved" the matter.

[GM Rednal]

I usually lump them together into one pool. This is mostly because of the way that Spherecasting, on a fundamental level, is designed to work. XD Unlike Vancian magic, Spherecasters have access to their full talent list regardless of the classes they take, and similarly, get one big pool of spell points. They still progress in what they already have if they multiclass, so multiclassing is more about class options and doesn't restrict your magic's level-based growth. Action economy generally stops this from being a problem, the class interaction clause prevents numbers from going out of control, and the caveat of denying overpowered combos at my discretion cements the cap on issues. XD

That said, I think completely separating things (so each class has a self-contained spell pool, set of talents, etc.) is also a valid way of doing it. It's definitely more restrictive, but that's not always a bad thing - especially because Spheres of Power supports character ideas instead of trying to limit them. For example, if you split things up, you could have two casting traditions (one for each side), explaining it as two separate 'schools' of magic your character knows. This could be a great way of creating a Mystic Theurge-type character who's both arcane and divine.

There's no fundamentally right or wrong way to do this - only what works for your table and the types of characters you want to have.