I got in some playtesting yesterday with a group of characters using Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power. The six PCs, all level 7, were:
- Dwarven blacksmith
- Human sentinel
- Aasimar sage
- Halfling unchained rogue (bought in as an expert practitioner via feats)
- Human sphere druid (bought in as an adept practitioner via feats)
- Tiefling incanter (specialized in creation, destruction, and telekinesis)
The sentinel was killed almost immediately after improbably being hit with crits on both attacks of a full attack from a raging ogre barbarian. It would have obliterated any level 7 character, so it doesn’t say much about the class. Actually, the ogre chose to attack the sentinel rather than the rogue because the sentinel had challenged it so the class was working as intended.
The sentinel got replaced with a hobgoblin striker after that first combat.
- The blacksmith (specialized in berserking) was really effective. The Sharpen Weapons maintenance was a solid boost to the party’s damage, and Thunderous Blows made him extremely effective at sundering equipment on enemies without high CMDs. He totally chewed through a rogue who’d snuck up and shanked him by sundering the rogue’s rapier and leather armor. He hasn’t had a chance to use reforge yet, but the party has already found a weapon that’ll be a good candidate for it.
- The sage seems a little underwhelming so far. He had some good ways to use maneuvers, but so did the blacksmith, striker, and rogue, and his damage potential was notably lower than theirs. The healing was useful, though. I’ll need to do more playtesting to see, but right now I’m leaning towards thinking that the low BAB just causes more problems than it’s worth for the sage.
- Giving an unchained rogue a bunch of talents from the athletics and scoundrel spheres led to awesome mayhem. The combination of specializing in acrobatics and taking Scale Foe meant that she could potentially take 30-ft. flying leaps onto larger foes. The raging ogre that killed the sentinel went down to being sneak attacked by the rogue, who’d climbed on to it.
- The striker was likewise awesome (her highlight was impaling an annoying wizard/rogue, and then gore tossing him onto the ground to make him easier to blast with the incanter’s explosive orb). However, having to track both tension and combo rhythm makes the class a little fiddly - the player forgot to use both a couple of times. That will probably get better with more experience with the class, though.
- It’ll be nice to see what emerges from the skill-focused stuff. The striker, especially, is very mobile an has a good stealth score, but otherwise doesn’t have much to contribute out of combat. The sage’s healing and the blacksmith’s crafting and sundering (especially with sunder spell) give them a little more utility.
- Impale already has a long description, so I’m not sure about asking for additional verbiage, but it could use some clarification about how it interacts with miss chances and mirror image. The striker cornered a wizard who had blur and mirror image up and impaled him on her handaxe. At that point, should any subsequent attacks with the axe ignore miss chance and mirror image? The fluff of the ability suggests yes, since the axe is already stuck in the wizard. On the other hand, that might make impale too good against creatures with invisibility and so on.
- Does Confounding Tumble work against an enemy that a character starts adjacent to and then moves away from? The wording says “each enemy you pass adjacent to during your movement,” which led me to rule no, but a clarification might be useful.
- This may be intentional, but given how cheap +5 skill items are, characters using the Scoundrel sphere can get their effective CMBs much higher than anyone else’s. The unchained rogue had a +22 bonus with her focus dedicated to Scoundrel. In comparison, the sage’s CMB was +15.
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Wow, that's some small font.
I'm doing a thing where I'm making a 15th level "monk" with every class in my campaign setting, so had to make the behind the scenes stuff font 6 to prevent the doc being super long stats rather than the statblock which will actually be used, and I just cut and pasted the sage and striker from that doc into that one so they still have the tiny font as an artifact. I'll make it abit bigger.
I was looking at some math for the Striker, and with Alternative Unarmed Training, Improved Critical, Deadly Hand, Finesse Training, Heavy Arms Training, Launching Counter, and Set Up Strike (and 8 talents in Boxing + Open Hand) I can get above 140 DPR (against enemies that can fall) with a 10th level elite array character.
140 DPR is enough to 1-shot a typical CR 10 monster according to Monster Creation, and it is way more damage than typical martial characters are able to pull off.
I think especially allowing a x3 crit multiplier to stack with Deadly Hand, the +2 accuracy from Equipment Sphere, and the damage dice increase from Heavy Arms Training should be considered for nerfing. There are some similarity with PoW Broken Blade where various unarmed damage increases that individually looked acceptable. However, when each of the factors in the damage calculation grows the end result grows exponentially due to them all being multiplied with each other.
I was doing a simple class DPR comparison recently. By level 8 many martial classes seem to be right above 100 to about 138 (in the case of the barbarian). Admittedly, my calculations didn't take nat 20s, nat 1s, or misses into account. (this definitely caused a skewed result for unchained rogues who were dual wielding, who are looking at something close to 180 on a full attack with average damage and no misses)
So here's a question - I was making a TWF crossbow user (because reasons) and figured the ability to stow and draw weapons as a Free action would be best to deal with reloading. I noted that you could pick two weapons for a single set to be wielded together for a sphere - that's really helpful by the way - and started wondering "Hey, what happens if I choose two of my customized weapons to be one-handed and then wield them simultaneously? Do I get to use both spheres at once?" Now I really want to know.
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So here's a question - I was making a TWF crossbow user (because reasons) and figured the ability to stow and draw weapons as a Free action would be best to deal with reloading. I noted that you could pick two weapons for a single set to be wielded together for a sphere - that's really helpful by the way - and started wondering "Hey, what happens if I choose two of my customized weapons to be one-handed and then wield them simultaneously? Do I get to use both spheres at once?" Now I really want to know.
The armiger may only gain talents from her active weapon set and may only have one set active at a time. If you have weapons from two different sets wielded at once, you choose which is active at the start of your turn.
So I just started poking around on this on behalf of a friend, and I have to admit, I am intrigued to see where this goes. Especially if there is some improv weapon (Ranged I hope? please?) and more crafting support within it later on. what really caught me so far is the Blacksmith (not my favorite craftsman class published, but ranks decently, a few gripes about it... still currently prefer the Artisan, but I may shortly be giving it a test in a gestalt to make a proper Dwarven Runesmith.), the Striker, along with the open hand, equipment, and shield spheres (such unarmed and shield support, neat tidbits for some of my favorites weapons including crossbows. YAAAAY!). this stuff on attack actions I'm not so hot on, but I see where some synergies can lie. the barrage sphere didn't hit for me yet, but I see a lot of possibilities overall. and i hear there's more spheres to come? I better keep a close eye on this.
hmm. also, is there anything for alchemical stuff planned? maybe splash weapon oriented? i hit a snag on a build plan with that recently...
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In a a bit of serendipity, Kingdom Death just released this badass and sexy weaponsmith fig.
So gonna use her for the smith class when it comes out :3
edit: If you want one hurry, they already sold all 500 of the collectors edition run, and are down to 300 for the encore.
He got those numbers because he didn't actually calculate DPR. He didn't calculate misses, so he's describing average damage assuming each attack lands.I was doing a simple class DPR comparison recently. By level 8 many martial classes seem to be right above 100 to about 138 (in the case of the barbarian). Admittedly, my calculations didn't take nat 20s, nat 1s, or misses into account. (this definitely caused a skewed result for unchained rogues who were dual wielding, who are looking at something close to 180 on a full attack with average damage and no misses)I don't know how you reached that high numbers, but using Elite Array + normal WBL I think only really maxed out natural attack builds or heavily buffed ones come anywhere close to this Striker. It is too much and some of these options need to be nerfed.
** spoiler omitted **...
oh yeah, I looked over my math again and remembered i had done the math over a 2 round span to better show oof how some classes with recharging abilities might have less longterm damage even if they can hit harder for 1 round. so yeah, half those numbers i mentioned if you are only talking 1 round. my bad.
In a a bit of serendipity, Kingdom Death just released this badass and sexy weaponsmith fig.
So gonna use her for the smith class when it comes out :3
edit: If you want one hurry, they already sold all 500 of the collectors edition run, and are down to 300 for the encore.
She does not look like she dressed for smithing or combat. Yay fantasy female armor?
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She does not look like she dressed for smithing or combat. Yay fantasy female armor?In a a bit of serendipity, Kingdom Death just released this badass and sexy weaponsmith fig.
So gonna use her for the smith class when it comes out :3
edit: If you want one hurry, they already sold all 500 of the collectors edition run, and are down to 300 for the encore.
True, though it's easy enough to paint the legs as pants which I was planning on doing anyway, thankfully the top isn't that bad. Like the skull apron though.
The apron is a nice touch, with all the little tools and stuff on it.
I've not seen it mentioned here; I just posted on the Preview 3 document . . . . And I hope I'm not making too much a fuss . . . .
Has anyone else noticed the potential implications of the feat-exchange rules? 'Cause if you want gish rules, they're . . . they're kinda already "out there".
1) Spheres of Power characters may exchange Low- or Mid-casting for the Proficient or Adept SoM progressions, respectively.
2) Characters may exchange their feat progression (in part, or in all) to gain a combat practitioner progression.
Therefore:
---> Characters may exchange a feat progression to get spherecasting??
I've already mapped out a conversion of the slayer class, and . . . . I'm so close to having a shell I've always wanted for a character, but it just seems too good to be true/valid/justifiable/whatever.
- full BAB
- 6 skill ranks/level
- +6d6 sneak attack
- 11 combat sphere talents (slayer talent -> rogue talent -> combat feat -> BCT/ECT feats)
- and Mid-casting??!!
And for the low, low price of seven feats over a 20-level progression??
Somebody please don't tell me where I'm reading this wrong . . . .
Unless there is language saying you can trade casting for feats like that, you can't. You could take the feats that give you spherecasting though.
In the spoilered content, I *did* indicate that I was going past RAW and questioning the possible implications.
While equivalency explicated is not the same as equivalency implied/suggested, the logical progression *is* supported in this case. There may be additional information that refutes the conclusion I have posited; as yet, I am unaware of such.
It does seem to me, though, that any such effort should be tempered similarly to the exchange for combat spheres: no bonus magic talents for gaining spherecasting. Does that seem reasonable?
I'm just hopping with excitement because we're a *hairsbreadth* from modular characters.
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its one way. You can trade in your casting for focusing on martial prowess, but cant trade in potential training you didnt do for magical powers.
Theyre equivalent the same way a 10 foot pole is equivalent to two 5 foot poles. Theyre roughly equal, but going one way takes a lot more effort than the other.
If I never hear the word "effort" with regards to Pathfinder rules again it will still be too soon.
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Saw that the Paragon was renamed Sentinel (good name change there) and that a few things were changed between the last version and this one. I'll list them below:
* Defender's Challenge - Non-challenged enemies no longer provoke for attacking you - this was a primary concern for me, especially with regards to dipping, so I'm glad to see this change.
* Sentinel's Reserve - Now grants BAB+WIS temporary HP instead of (2*BAB)+WIS temporary HP. I had nothing to say about it last time, but that was a rather obscene amount of health to gain and made it so Second Wind was used mostly for regaining Martial Focus rather than actually healing. Probably a good idea.
* Armored Evasion / Stalwart / Aegis - Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a stipulation about being able to use it while wielding a Heavy or Tower Shield before - you had to be wearing Medium or Heavy Armor. I like this change, nothing more to say really.
* Sentinel's Imposition - This is a new version of the line that got removed from Defender's Challenge. You used to take an AoO every time an enemy who you hadn't challenged attacked you - now, your challenged target provokes when they make an attack that doesn't include you as a target, and you don't get it until Level 4. This is exactly what I talked about during my review of the class, so you better believe I'm excited about this.
* Deathless Challenge - Now states that you add your WIS score to the amount of negative HP it takes to kill you, so it stacks better with other powers that increase that threshold (like the Deathless talent from the Berserking sphere). Good change.
If there are more changes, I'm not aware of them as my build only went up to Level 9. School interfered in further character building, sadly. All in all I like this version of the class much more than the older one and pretty much all the issues I had with balance have been addressed. Great work!
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its one way. You can trade in your casting for focusing on martial prowess, but cant trade in potential training you didnt do for magical powers. Theyre equivalent the same way a 10 foot pole is equivalent to two 5 foot poles. Theyre roughly equal, but going one way takes a lot more effort than the other.
I fail to see how this line of reasoning rules out its converse. Yes, that's how it's been done since forever. I understand that; as do you; so do we all, I think.
But I find it odd that the phrasing you've used there seems explicitly self-defeating. Trading "training you didn't[sic] do" for training you otherwise wouldn't have is a null statement -- you only train for abilities you gain. Or are feats granted in the same fashion as divine spells? "Poof!"
Or is that the hitch on which this whole stance of "one way only" is towed along? That combat is a trained range of abilities, and magic "just happens"?
And if going from magic --> martial is a process far more demanding in the reverse:
1) Why would anyone want to make the first exchange (magic --> martial) at all?*
2) If the implication is that magic is far stronger than martial capability, why wouldn't the loss of casting yield an even greater return in martial capability than those tentative rules indicate? Wouldn't that logically follow?**
Now -- please do understand that I'm not trying to suggest that we get Vancian access; however, the organic nature of the SoP system well curtails the potential for abuse, inherently. Perhaps not sufficiently, mind you, but there are very real limits to what one can get hold of, even with Mid-casting.
It's just out of arm's reach . . . . And you wouldn't even have to be bothered with the vigilante class . . . . I'm convinced that a little bit of work and insight would break this wide open.
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* - There are plenty of reasons. But . . . .
** - Even though the combat spheres (as I have read them so far) are amazingly strong (Guardian rolling Toughness, Combat Reflexes, Combat Patrol, and a limited challenge ability all into one base sphere, particularly), I think the real tough part comes in when we consider the scope of application readily available to the two sets of abilities. In very general terms, martial combat is conducted within one range increment, while magical combat has a range that well exceeds that first range increment. I would like to see a great deal more parity between the two; SoM appears to be making solid moves in that direction -- but it doesn't preclude the advent of interchangeability between the two "styles".
And, lastly --
Please understand that I am not trying to be offensive. I want to understand why this limitation has been in place for so long; and why we should remain convinced it should remain that way.
Thanks for reading, all!! :)
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Popping in to give my opinion about the Kickstarter survey (classes vs. monsters).
Count me in the camp that says changing the packages after the fact constitutes a breach in the original agreement, and is therefore bad form.
That said, I fully support the project moving forward, and expect to be dazzled by the final product. Best!
The [sic] *was* for the absence of the apostrophe, nothing more. I'm an English teacher's kid. :) Apologies for any misuse.
And:
I generally agree with your assessment of the consequences of the feats-for-magic exchange, just to make that clear. As we've both noted, the scope of magic's applications is the real rub of this whole idea. And though fraught with difficulty in terms of balance, I, for one, will be chasing that elusive dream of total modularity. Been kicking around some ideas on that point, even --radical ideas. But the time for hashing through them will come later.
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Saw that the Paragon was renamed Sentinel (good name change there) and that a few things were changed between the last version and this one. I'll list them below:
* Defender's Challenge - Non-challenged enemies no longer provoke for attacking you - this was a primary concern for me, especially with regards to dipping, so I'm glad to see this change.
* Sentinel's Reserve - Now grants BAB+WIS temporary HP instead of (2*BAB)+WIS temporary HP. I had nothing to say about it last time, but that was a rather obscene amount of health to gain and made it so Second Wind was used mostly for regaining Martial Focus rather than actually healing. Probably a good idea.
* Armored Evasion / Stalwart / Aegis - Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a stipulation about being able to use it while wielding a Heavy or Tower Shield before - you had to be wearing Medium or Heavy Armor. I like this change, nothing more to say really.
* Sentinel's Imposition - This is a new version of the line that got removed from Defender's Challenge. You used to take an AoO every time an enemy who you hadn't challenged attacked you - now, your challenged target provokes when they make an attack that doesn't include you as a target, and you don't get it until Level 4. This is exactly what I talked about during my review of the class, so you better believe I'm excited about this.
* Deathless Challenge - Now states that you add your WIS score to the amount of negative HP it takes to kill you, so it stacks better with other powers that increase that threshold (like the Deathless talent from the Berserking sphere). Good change.
If there are more changes, I'm not aware of them as my build only went up to Level 9. School interfered in further character building, sadly. All in all I like this version of the class much more than the older one and pretty much all the issues I had with balance have been addressed. Great work!
We have been taking all commentary we find as seriously as possible, and the Sentinel is now a far more defensive class, which I believe better fits our design goals; I'm glad you liked the changes!
Also I'm going to say something here as one of the authors; if you see a thread in the preview docs has 3+ comments, please try to comment on a different part of the content you're attempting to comment about. Once something gets to 4+ comments, there's a much smaller chance of it being looked at due to the difficulty in following something. For issues that you feel strongly about that you feel will take longer than 1-2 sentences to get across, I'd honestly recommend that you post about it either here or at Giant in the Playground. Hell, drop me an email if you think it's something VERY important at ehnjaminjolly@gmail.com with the comment line SoM (or spheres of might) commentary, as I welcome all comments you have.
Google docs is great for a lot of things, but it's not great for long comment chains, and I want to let you all know the most efficient way to get into contact with myself and the others. I've already received quite a few helpful emails from others that have been instrumental in changing things. Also please either post or email me about your playtest experience; I'm already following a playtest or two, but any information you can give to help Team SoM further refine things is always appreciated.
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2.)The implication is not that magic is stronger or more difficult than martial training...
It takes a lot less talents to gain some useful magical abilities than it is to get a useful martial ability, and that magical ability is usually more applicable in more situations.
These two things are mutually exclusive.
If you ask me, the issue isn't one of "training" or "flavor" - there's as much justification for a bard with no spells as there is a fighter with spells. Actually, since the Bard has 0 spell-less archetypes and the fighter has 1 casting archetype, there's more precedent for a casting fighter. The issue is that trading spells for martial talents is as easy as saying "Trade X spell levels for Y progression" - since spells are generally considered to be stronger than martial talents this is a step down and doesn't need to be fine-tuned for balance that much. On the other hand, what class feature do Fighters, Cavaliers, Rogues, Monks, Slayers, Swashbucklers, etc share that's either stronger than or on-par with spells? There's no easy trade of martial class features to spells. Developing such a system is certainly possible, but it would take time to develop and would ultimately take up much more space in the book. As much as I'd like to see this system made I'd rather not have it if it means taking word count away from all the other cool stuff this book promises to deliver. That's my take.
Oh, I'm not pushing for its inclusion in the SoM book, Lunias; the content they've already mapped out should take precedence.
Besides, you and Baval are both exactly right -- finding a "right way" to execute any such rules content would be a huge job. Besides -- there are enough classes for everybody to build characters in the vein of their choosing.
EDIT: For the record -- more classes, fewer monsters. We can build the baddies.
Do we even need a section for monsters now though? Just trade feats for martial talents.
Yes, we unlocked guidelines for converting monsters to Spheres of Might back at the $12,000 mark. The $26,000 stretchgoal simply adds an example monster for each Challenge Rating (eg, Rhinos using the Lancer sphere). Since this doesn't add anything that we couldn't convert ourselves using the guidelines they're giving us, it's understandable why many would want to get the two extra classes included in this book instead. :)
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Popping in to give my opinion about the Kickstarter survey (classes vs. monsters).
Count me in the camp that says changing the packages after the fact constitutes a breach in the original agreement, and is therefore bad form.
That said, I fully support the project moving forward, and expect to be dazzled by the final product. Best!
I would only find it an issue if something in the base pledge changed or something with a paid add-on. This was just for a free stretch goal, which is just an optional bonus the project creator has elected to give to the backers.
If page count/cost is an issue, I would just make the monsters a free PDF download for backers and include the classes with the book. Best case scenario would be for enough money come in through the BackerKit to make this all moot.
I don't know, a lot of the classes don't really seem to tread on anything we already have from Paizo. The Blacksmith, Technician, Scholar and Troubadour (I suppose you could argue the Medium covered this but I personally don't think it was done very well) are all relatively unexplored territory. All in all, it'll come down to what classes they choose to cut.
I personally think the classes would be a better use of pagecount. Mostly because it'll be easy to convert monsters using the system they're giving us anyway but also because backers could simply share their own monster conversions with the community to get a similar number of prestatted monsters of varying Challenge Ratings to use on the fly.
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Any chance of sniping sphere working with ray attacks?
Attack actions and spells don't generally play nice, as both usually require a standard action. The base of the sniper sphere uses attack actions, as do most other spheres. Some side talents might apply depending on wording, though I haven't checked that one in detail recently myself to be sure.