The Gladiator Sphere's Bloodthirst allows you to make an attack as your boast. Can that be combined with Vital Strike? More broadly, if an ability says you make an attack, is that the same as being an attack action as defined in the Terminology section?
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The Gladiator Sphere's Bloodthirst allows you to make an attack as your boast. Can that be combined with Vital Strike? More broadly, if an ability says you make an attack, is that the same as being an attack action as defined in the Terminology section?
An attack action is a specific type of standard action, so you couldn't.
@Hexed: shove now it lets you move and hit, so as a full round action you can move to your opponent, do light damage, and do a maneuver. It was more game-friendly than the old version, we thought, and more balanced.
@Thunder_Jeffro: When it just triggers an attack it is not an attack action, so it can't be combined with vital strike or other attack-action-only things.
Design Manager
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The Gladiator Sphere's Bloodthirst allows you to make an attack as your boast. Can that be combined with Vital Strike? More broadly, if an ability says you make an attack, is that the same as being an attack action as defined in the Terminology section?
Generally it needs to say "attack action" if it's going to count as one, though this specific mechanic I'm not as certain about since I didn't write it and haven't used it in playtest. My reading of the ability would be no; the boast and the attack granted are made as an immediate action so they wouldn't be compatible with Vital Strike (though they could be triggered off of an attack that used Vital Strike). I've asked Stack to pop in and confirm when he has the chance since he wrote the sphere.
***EDIT***
And team was already on it, so consider that a confirmed "no".
An attack action is a specific type of standard action, so you couldn't.The Gladiator Sphere's Bloodthirst allows you to make an attack as your boast. Can that be combined with Vital Strike? More broadly, if an ability says you make an attack, is that the same as being an attack action as defined in the Terminology section?
@Thunder_Jeffro: When it just triggers an attack it is not an attack action, so it can't be combined with vital strike or other attack-action-only things.
Roger, thank you. I think with that I have the differences straight between attacks, attack actions, attacks of opportunity, and standard actions that grant attack like effects (such as Cleave).
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That is quite impressive to say the least. It does look like with spheres of power and spheres of Might, can definitely make an interesting campaign setting.
Thank you!
I've actually been using Spheres of Power (and lately Spheres of Might) as major campaign-building tools for quite a while now since it gives me that ability to customize casting and combat style traditions along regional, ethnic, and organizational lines. In one of our games orcs all use the the blood magic casting tradition unless they were specifically trained outside of orcish lands and a powerful empire comprised primarily of tieflings, dhampir, and fetchlings predominantly uses the Shadow-Wielder casting tradition. I've started working in martial traditions as being related to particular schools, dojos, and instructors in the cities the group travels through.
The Slip and Strike talent is pretty busted when you have the Grab ability, allowing you to loop attacks until you miss a significant number of times in a row, or run out of Attacks of Opportunity.
Easiest way to do this is with Druid 4 / Coiled Blade Fighter 2. You could also replace CBFighter with Conscript to exchange attack bonus/damage increases from Weapon Training and Fighter feats for a CMB / movement speed bonus from Fast Movement and Maneuver Training Specialization.
Play a human, maximize strength (18 PB + 2 Race), put all levelups in Strength.
Take the Maneuver Trained (+1 CMB) and Sharp Reflexes (+1 AOO) traits.
Only Required Feats: Muscular Reflexes (+Str number of AOO), Shaping Focus (treat Druid level as 4 higher for Wild Shape, max of Character Level). At higher levels, Powerful Shape is pretty great.
Talents: Wrestling Sphere, Slip and Strike, Iron Grip.
Items: Amulet of Mighty Fists +1
Spells: Bulls Strength (+4 Strength), Aspect of the Bear (+2 CMB)
Wild Shape into a Dire Tiger for Pounce, and 3 attacks with grab.
Attack Bonus: +13 (+5 BaB, +8 Strength, +1 AoMF, -1 Size)
Grapple Bonus: +23 (+5 BaB, +8 Strength, +2 Aspect of the Bear, +1 Size, +1 Trait, +2 Talent, +4 Grab)
Attacks of Opportunity per Round: 10 (1 base, 8 strength, 1 trait)
Attack Routine:
Pounce (+2 hit)
Make a bite attack (+15 to hit, 2d6+9 damage), make a free grapple on hit. Drop grapple as a free action to trigger Slip and Strike, make an opportunity with your Bite attack. Grapple on hit. Repeat until you miss, or run out of opportunity attacks.
Repeat with claw attacks, using Bite to make the AOO. Both Claw attacks have Grab, allowing you to have 2 additional chances to begin the loop each round.
For your final attack of the round, if the target somehow isn't dead, maintain the grapple so you can Rake for free at the beginning of the next turn.
This gets even stronger at higher levels when you get Huge Plant Shape at 12th level (Druid 8, Fighter 4) because you can turn into a Giant Fly Trap with 4 Bite Attacks with Grab, 15 foot reach, and +8 Strength from Plant Shape. Your CMB ends up being high enough to grapple an equal CR enemy on a roll of 2 or higher, and Fighter Feats + (Nearly) full BaB means your AB is really high as well.
What should be done?
Slip and Strike should be given a limit to the number of times it can be triggered in one round, or change how it triggers.
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(trimmed for space)
It's a nice trick, but the set up is so significant that I don't know that it's really a problem. You've got a few issues in the build (you can't benefit from both aspect of the bear and wildshape/beast shape at the same time, for example), and additional accuracy contributors are keying off of minute/level spells that you're not going to have many of since you dumped in heavy on Strength. Plus if you have to dump two 2nd level spells to take out a CR=APL opponent you're already significantly behind the curve from a resource expenditure perspective.
So looking at your actual accuracy against a non-speed bump foe like a CR 8 (average defenses AC 21, CMD 24) you've got about a 50% miss chance unless you're using bull's strength, which you'll only have about 2 of for a total of 8 minutes a day since you went so heavy on STR, and a 25% miss chance on your grapple attempts. Even with a pounce giving your first attack a +2 bonus that's still a 40% miss chance followed by a 25% miss chance, or 30%/15% while bull's strength is active, which is still only about a 60% chance of actually getting to use Slip and Strike while bull's strength is up and a 45% chance when it's down. You then need to repeat this process again on your AoO to try and make another AoO, this time without the benefits of charge on accuracy, which only has a 50% chance of success while bull's strength is active, and less than a 40% chance when it's not. And of course, all of that assumes that you can actually charge first and that there's no difficult terrain or other obstacles getting in the way and breaking your ability to charge and full attack.
There's other factors that can weigh in as well; you only have two uses of wildshape, and if you need to hit yourself with wands to keep bull's strength up once your two slots are expended that's going to distort your resources further; you'll basically have two 4 minute increments of having moderate success with that routine even with the wand to supplement unless you can get an ally to keep refreshing it on you, which means you're now pulling even more resources from other characters and likely introducing even more weaknesses and points of failure.
While you've found a neat trick here, it's definitely more of a trick than a game-breaking abuse. There are other core builds that can generate large numbers of AoOs with fewer points of failure and less stretching to stitch pieces together or reliance on limited resources, like Hunters who dedicate Teamwork feats towards options like Paired Opportunists, Broken Wing Gambit, Improved Feint Partner, etc. These builds aren't reliant on cumulative success to trigger attacks, don't require limited resources to pull off successfully, and can actually scale more aggressively.
I'd suggest trying to actually build this character and play it in an adventure; 6th level is actually the first level it all comes together and one of the most favorable levels for it, and even then it's got a bunch of limitations. As you level up beyond that point you're going to run into additional issues; if you want to try out your plant build, for example, you need to lose more BAB to druid levels which will negatively impact your CMB pacing even as enemy CMDs are already rapidly outpacing BAB progression. If you don't keep your druid levels up, you won't be able to keep pace with the ever increasing size of enemies you'll be encountering and the trick that you've put so much resource towards will be useless against an ever-growing swath of enemies.
We are discussing making the +4 grab bonus not stack with Iron Grip the same way Improved/Greater Grapple don't though, since the purpose of talents like Iron Grip is to provide necessary math adjustments that you'd normally need Imp/Greater Grapple or Grab for, not to further escalate numbers unnecessarily.
Actually, the most favorable level for it is 12th level where its accuracy is enough to hit even more accurately, and its CMB is so high as to be an auto-succeed against equal CR targets. You lose a single point of BaB from getting Druid to 8, which is more than made up for the Strength increases from Plant Shape (+8 Strength from Huge Plant, versus the +4 of Large Animal). Shaping Focus makes 8 levels of Druid all you need, afterwards you go any levels of a full BaB class (most likely Conscript or Coiled Blade fighter).
Making Grab not stack with Iron Grip doesn't really solve the issue, it just reintroduces a feat tax. It also doesn't solve much because SoM already does so much to remove feat taxes, so this build has a ton of free feat slots.
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Actually, the most favorable level for it is 12th level where its accuracy is enough to hit even more accurately, and its CMB is so high as to be an auto-succeed against equal CR targets.
Easily hitting equal CR opponents doesn't mean you've got a broken build, it means you're performing as expected. Equal CR opponents are supposed to be speed bumps that consume a minimal amount of resources; if you're burning wildshape uses and multiple spells to reach your designated performance against CR=APL opponents you're actually burning more resource than necessary to achieve an excessive result, a common occurrence in the game. At 12th level you're also facing a much more significant number of opponents who are simply immune to your grab ability since it only works against creatures your size or smaller, which is why I indicated that 6 is more favorable; the size spread still favors the routine at that point.
Making Grab not stack with Iron Grip doesn't really solve the issue, it just reintroduces a feat tax. It also doesn't solve much because SoM already does so much to remove feat taxes, so this build has a ton of free feat slots.
Oh? What feats are suddenly taxes? Iron Grip doesn't stack with Imp/Greater Grapple either and you've already got quite a few necessary feats in the build. Aside from Muscular Reflexes, Shaping Focus, and Powerful Shape, you're going to need Natural Spell if you don't want to find yourself in a position where you've run out of resources to do your trick, and your saves are probably going to be anywhere from terrible (Reflex) to mediocre (Will) since you've gone so heavily on strength and the trick requires so much of your wealth to stay competitive.
There's also just the huge holes in the builds themselves. Sure, a giant flytrap sounds really impressive, but with that 10 ft. movement speed you better hope the enemies are feeding themselves to you. One CR = APL-3 archer could shred through the build's mediocre AC while laughing at the poor DCs of any control spells that try to lock him down, whittling away the flytrap character without ever being in any danger; if you have to pop out of wildshape or use a buff spell to boost your DCs that means a speed-bump minion just forced you into mandatory resource expenditure because of how narrow and situational your build is. Even the dire tiger with the more reliable pounce is going to need to spend feats and/or talents just to keep charging viable. This is one of the reasons I suggested looking at an actual character build instead of an out-of-context gimmick.
Just because you can do similar broken chains in Pathfinder doesn't mean we shouldn't try to root out broken chains in SoM.
Who established that it was broken? That's the thing that has been assumed, but not proven. "I can potentially use all of my AoOs in one round" is great and everything, but barbarians using Come and Get Me, Hunters with a couple different feat chains, reach tanks with Combat Patrol or Guardian sphere, and a variety of other builds can also generate large AoO chains with fewer points of failure. Even staying inside the same class or multiclass structure, is this better than what another druid could generate? How does the math compare to a Cave Druid/Conscript who wildshapes into a carnivorous crystal and uses Vital Strike and strong jaw for 32d6 vital strike attacks triggering into some AoO opportunities, or even just a full attacking Fighter with Muscular Reflexes, boosted reach, and some trip feats or traits?
And all of that is before discussing the real impact of the many save or lose spells casters already have available at that point. We've established that there's a powerful multiclass druid build that can leverage that talent with a dedicated build, expenditure of limited resources, and a fair bit of luck; we haven't actually established that anything is broken by it.
The issue here is you can produce a chain of AoO that doesn't end until you run out of AoO. As long as the combination exists the accuracy problem can be solved.
That seems to be pretty debatable. What we've seen on our end as designers is that a few people really want this build to be broken and have presented a few theoretical combinations that could make it deadly, every one of which we've seen has involved stacking a spell or item that doesn't actually stack to achieve that end result. When you start picking apart the things that are limited, situational, or non-stacking, the actual impact of the ability drops precipitously, and all the set-up involved leaves it looking like a more well-rounded single-class build is going to have much better average performance and fewer giant holes in their structure.
One example, be a Conscript with the +Sphere Caster specialization (4 points)
That shouldn't be a thing anymore. It wasn't supposed to be included in the playtest and should no longer be included in the document. It opened a Pandora's Box that we just don't want to dive down.
Beyond that, since the point still applies to e.g. Armorists who gain martial talents or Armigers who gain magic talents, each individual instance of grab from Alteration uses a separate trait; that means you can't even get grab until you've spent talents on Alteration, Tentacles, and either reached 5th level, taken Greater transformation, or gained a natural attack from another source you can apply the trait to. And you're once again burning through spell points for a minute/level benefit every time you use it and you don't even have the advantage the druid builds do of being able to easily get 3 or 4 instances of the grab ability; an Alteration sphere user who doesn't have a racial natural attack needs to be CL 20 with Greater Transformation before they can get 3 base grab attempts.
This problem should be solved, preferably by making Grab incompatible with Slip and Strike to prevent "infinite" loops.
I know you used quotations, but "infinite" is hyperbole outside of Mythic where it's expected that your enemies are going to have their own mythic interrupts available; you're limited by cumulative success chance and the limited pool of AoOs. AoOs are a resource, and one which the above build really dedicated itself to building; the above build needs to keep succeeding on successive attack rolls and grapple checks to keep using them, while another build, like a core-only Swashbuckler, could use a much smaller portion of the same resource to completely shut down the entire trick. Would it be better if a character spent a feat, trait, and build points to shore up a resource and then was arbitrarily prevented from using that resource?
That being said, Mythic is a thing and we're discussing making your request the case and breaking Slip and Strike away from the grab ability so we can move on to rolling out the hardcover. While mythic seems to be the only place so far that this option is truly problematic when examined within the actual context of the game, it does go against our design paradigm of opening up cinematic combat and encourages you to spam a single trick instead of using a more varied attack routine, so that is a fair reason to address it as an issue and apply an additional limitation for grab builds.
I've made the following suggestion for errata-
"Whenever a creature’s attempt to initiate or maintain a grapple or swallow whole attempt against you fails, or when you choose to release a grapple against an unpinned creature, you may make an attack of opportunity against them. Ending a grapple initiated with the grab universal monster ability does not grant you the same leverage as other uses of this ability and the attack granted for ending such a grapple can only be taken as a swift action instead of an attack of opportunity."
Hey, I had another question and want to make sure I have the accurate interpretation.
At 8th level, whenever a conscript makes a successful attack while using the deadly shot ability, he treats any weapon damage dice roll of 1 or 2 as 3.
When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the weapon’s damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision-based damage, and other damage bonuses. These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.
As a special attack action, you may make an attack with a ranged weapon. You may add any one (snipe) talent you know to this attack.
In addition, you may expend your martial focus to increase the damage dealt by the attack by 1d10, or 1d6 if the attack targets touch AC or is made with a scatter weapon. You must choose whether or not to use this ability before making your attack roll. These extra damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total. For every 4 points of base attack bonus you possess, you deal an additional 1d10 damage, or an additional 1d6 if the attack targets touch AC or is made with a scatter weapon.
Uncanny Accuracy lets your re-roll you increase your weapon damage dice (from say, a crossbow). Vital Strike dice are additional rolls for your weapon's damage dice and seem like they would be increased as well.
Do the bonus damage dice from Deadly Shot also benefit from this ability? They are not explicitly weapon damage dice, but it also seems weird that the ability specifies using deadly shot, and does not affect deadly shot dice. Deadly Shot also seems intended to be a Vital Strike equivalent that stacks with Vital Strike.
Appreciate your insight and help on this!
As an aside, I'm trying to build a single shot attacker that is as competitive as the absurd single shot Destruction caster one of my players put together.
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Hey, I had another question and want to make sure I have the accurate interpretation.
At 8th level, whenever a conscript makes a successful attack while using the deadly shot ability, he treats any weapon damage dice roll of 1 or 2 as 3.When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the weapon’s damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision-based damage, and other damage bonuses. These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.As a special attack action, you may make an attack with a ranged weapon. You may add any one (snipe) talent you know to this attack.
In addition, you may expend your martial focus to increase the damage dealt by the attack by 1d10, or 1d6 if the attack targets touch AC or is made with a scatter weapon. You must choose whether or not to use this ability before making your attack roll. These extra damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total. For every 4 points of base attack bonus you possess, you deal an additional 1d10 damage, or an additional 1d6 if the attack targets touch AC or is made with a scatter weapon.
Uncanny Accuracy lets your re-roll you increase your weapon damage dice (from say, a crossbow). Vital Strike dice are additional rolls for your weapon's damage dice and seem like they would be increased as well.
Do the bonus damage dice from Deadly Shot also benefit from this ability? They are not explicitly weapon damage dice, but it also seems weird that the ability specifies using deadly shot, and does not affect deadly shot dice. Deadly Shot also seems intended to be a Vital Strike equivalent that stacks with Vital Strike.
Appreciate your insight and help on this!
As an aside,...
Yes, the bonus damage dice from Deadly Shot are intended to benefit from Uncanny Accuracy as well.
Scholar and Blacksmith can be fun Snipers as well.
A scholar can take Cunning Attacker, Martial Study, and Trick Arrows while picking up the Sniper sphere, and grab a material imposition that gives a damage dealing explosive like Howling Herbology for a really impressive attack, though she'll need Great Focus to add the Sniper damage and the explosive damage at the same time. Still, for a 12th level scholar with a longbow that's an attack dealing something like 1d8+1d8+4d10+12d6+(any bonuses from enhancements, feats, etc.) and also potentially blinding the opponent.
Blacksmiths can use Thunderous Blows and the Sharpen Weapons maintenance for a really solid damage baseline; Thunderous Blows applies to ranged weapons and deals spill-over damage to the target, so the blacksmith in our group uses a heavy crossbow and aims for the flimsiest piece of gear the target is wearing.
Yes, the bonus damage dice from Deadly Shot are intended to benefit from Uncanny Accuracy as well.
Excellent. Good to know.
Scholar and Blacksmith can be fun Snipers as well.
A scholar can take Cunning Attacker, Martial Study, and Trick Arrows while picking up the Sniper sphere, and grab a material imposition that gives a damage dealing explosive like Howling Herbology for a really impressive attack, though she'll need Great Focus to add the Sniper damage and the explosive damage at the same time. Still, for a 12th level scholar with a longbow that's an attack dealing something like 1d8+1d8+4d10+12d6+(any bonuses from enhancements, feats, etc.) and also potentially blinding the opponent.Blacksmiths can use Thunderous Blows and the Sharpen Weapons maintenance for a really solid damage baseline; Thunderous Blows applies to ranged weapons and deals spill-over damage to the target, so the blacksmith in our group uses a heavy crossbow and aims for the flimsiest piece of gear the target is wearing.
This is great advice. I'm running an E8 game so I was trying to make comparisons at levels 1, 4, and 8. The conscript could keep up Sniping with Head Shot at levels 1 and 4, but starts to lag a bit at the higher end. I'm going to have to take a closer look at both of these, because the raw damage boost from Thunderous Blows or a Flashbang seem to be exactly what a Sniper needs if they're going to be playing the BOOM! headshot game.
I'm also incredibly amused by the idea of the Scholar likely winning the single shot challenge, but needing Great Focus means they aren't able to pull it off every round.
Actually, a couple more random questions while I'm here.
Does the Champion of the Spheres book currently in development have archetypes for Mageknight and Armorist to gain Might talents? What do those currently look like right now?
You mentioned using both Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power in the same game. What has been your experience with Spherecasters in your parties using all day effects? I guess by that I mean, does the party burn spell points and call a quick end to the adventuring day when they tap out? Do they try to keep going and stretch their points out and do significantly more than 4-5 encounters? How often do Might characters get to take advantage of their "all day" nature versus a Spherecasters "all day + resource management" mechanic?
For Champions of the Spheres are you guys working on a "generic" gish class similar to the Conscript or the Incanter?
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For Champions of the Spheres are you guys working on a "generic" gish class similar to the Conscript or the Incanter?Not really, as the concept wasn't as enjoyable to us as it could have been. I'd say the prodigy's the closest, and that's not very generic at all.
Ah a pitty. I think the generic classes are well done. I have a party with three conscripts which are very different from each other and one incanter, it made me think about the old unearthed arcana generic classes. Still if I felt the need to do such a thing a hedgewitch would get me 80% there if I homebrewed some more martial traditions.
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Actually, a couple more random questions while I'm here.Does the Champion of the Spheres book currently in development have archetypes for Mageknight and Armorist to gain Might talents? What do those currently look like right now?
Yes. They're both pretty straightforward, essentially just granting a martial tradition (or one of the new unified traditions that combine martial and magic themes and talents) and the ability to spend their talents on either martial or magic talents.
You mentioned using both Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power in the same game. What has been your experience with Spherecasters in your parties using all day effects? I guess by that I mean, does the party burn spell points and call a quick end to the adventuring day when they tap out? Do they try to keep going and stretch their points out and do significantly more than 4-5 encounters? How often do Might characters get to take advantage of their "all day" nature versus a Spherecasters "all day + resource management" mechanic?
So, ever since we've started using Spheres of Power at my tables we've seen a big uptick in the casters going along with longer work days. The fact that SoP casters have scaling at-will options tends to mean that we see less incentive for them to spend limited resources on fights that don't specifically call for it, and even when they run down they're usually not falling so far behind that they'll force a halt to the day. The fact that more of the Spheres of Might characters can contribute to things like healing and buffing also means that the whole party can be contributing to resources in a way that helps reduce some of the pressure on the casters, so we're typically finding that the whole party is generally on the same page about when/if to end a given adventuring day, rather than having some percentage of the party mandating an end because they can't contribute meaningfully anymore.
For Champions of the Spheres are you guys working on a "generic" gish class similar to the Conscript or the Incanter?
As Ehn said, we don't really have anything "generic" like the Conscript and Incanter, but we do have like a dozen or so archetypes and tons of class options, so there's a lot of ways to get that gish character. Realistically, while the Prodigy isn't "generic", it is a pretty straightforward blending of the two sphere systems without a lot of class specific fluff other than "I'm really good at blending magic and martial techniques", so it does fit that niche very well.
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For those of you interested, here's the change log for the SoM errata. It contains just about everything aside from small changes discussed in the chat.
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Also, anyone who still hasn't picked up Spheres of Might can get the .pdf 17% off on DriveThruRPG as part of their Black Friday week sale, along with other DDS books like Spheres of Power and The Luchador.
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I think unarmored aegis being removed was a copy edit issue, it should be in there. I'll add it to the errata list.
I assume unarmored aegis is an old name for the striker art that is in the current version, called Unarmored Striker. The unarmored training talent that it grants won't stack with the striker's Con bonus to AC, will it?
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This section on page 10 leads to some complications:
Any time you would gain an associated feat, you may instead choose to gain the sphere or talent it is associated with. You must still meet the prerequisites for a talent gained this way, such as possessing the base sphere.
The skirmishing scout archetype grants the Improved Unarmed Strike feat under the Tactical Eyes feature that replaces the Bare Knuckles feature (which gave them their choice of Boxing, Brute, or Open Hand as a bonus sphere). Improved Unarmed Strike is the associated feat for the Boxing sphere, Brute sphere, Open Hand sphere, and Wrestling sphere. Can the character trade the feat for just one of them? all of them? Maybe the intent is for the skirmishing scout to only have the feat and not have any of those spheres until he spends a talent for it, but the rules allow you to trade.
On a related note, if a character gets Point Blank Shot but not Rapid Shot, should they able to trade that for the Barrage sphere?
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This section on page 10 leads to some complications:
Any time you would gain an associated feat, you may instead choose to gain the sphere or talent it is associated with. You must still meet the prerequisites for a talent gained this way, such as possessing the base sphere.The skirmishing scout archetype grants the Improved Unarmed Strike feat under the Tactical Eyes feature that replaces the Bare Knuckles feature (which gave them their choice of Boxing, Brute, or Open Hand as a bonus sphere). Improved Unarmed Strike is the associated feat for the Boxing sphere, Brute sphere, Open Hand sphere, and Wrestling sphere. Can the character trade the feat for just one of them? all of them? Maybe the intent is for the skirmishing scout to only have the feat and not have any of those spheres until he spends a talent for it, but the rules allow you to trade.
On a related note, if a character gets Point Blank Shot but not Rapid Shot, should they able to trade that for the Barrage sphere?
I'd personally say that if you get one of the spheres which has IUS as an associated feat, you should be able to trade out IUS for another combat feat.
Why'd they get rid of the Adroit Guardian?
That is quite impressive to say the least. It does look like with spheres of power and spheres of Might, can definitely make an interesting campaign setting.
Thank you!
I've actually been using Spheres of Power (and lately Spheres of Might) as major campaign-building tools for quite a while now since it gives me that ability to customize casting and combat style traditions along regional, ethnic, and organizational lines. In one of our games orcs all use the the blood magic casting tradition unless they were specifically trained outside of orcish lands and a powerful empire comprised primarily of tieflings, dhampir, and fetchlings predominantly uses the Shadow-Wielder casting tradition. I've started working in martial traditions as being related to particular schools, dojos, and instructors in the cities the group travels through.
I've been building up a Sphere campaign that I hope to run later this year. One of the main features is an Orc Horde that I've been using the traditions to really flesh out. It gives the whle thing a very distinctive feel. The Warriors use what I call Bloodscar Savagery, which is kind of an Armored Berserker fighting style, while the spellcasters are what I am calling Rot Shamen, who's magic works by pulling bugs out of their cold clamy flesh and throwing them at targets. A major tactic so far is to use the Alteration Sphere on the Warriors to make these Orc-Bug hybrid berserkers. Visually they throw a bug at the warrior, it burrows in and the warrior transforms.
MAde an extra couple of Martial traditions to be available to my players. The one I like most is an underworld dueling style. Two guys tied at the writes and a single knife. Little unarmed, little bit rogue weapons, lots of bleeding and disarming.
Alright, I'm back with another rules question. I'm trying to clarify the intent behind some of the abilities of the Gladiator Sphere.
Several of the abilities from the sphere represent a target of "your demoralization". Does this mean that multiple creatures using the Gladiator sphere can't take advantage of each others demoralized targets? Is this the intention? My understanding of demoralizing is that a target can't be demoralized by multiple targets at the same time.
Since the effects are based off of suffering from demoralization, I'm assuming that a Warleader could use Rallying Speech to suppress the shaken condition and protect their compatriots from Gladiators as well.
In general, the word "your" in that context means "only abilities used by you".
For example, the Daunting talent reads that targets of your demoralization can provoke attacks of opportunity from you. That effect does not extend to your allies (and, at any rate, probably shouldn't - that could be abused to get so many extra attacks from a group).
I think you're absolutely right. What I'm curious about is if that's what intended. If I have two giants that are both super intimidating whichever one does the intimidating gets all the benefits. If the first giant demoralizes an enemy fighter, and the enemy fighter attacks giant #2, Giant #2 doesn't get to use Daunting.
I mean, Daunting and Coward's Bane are really the only talents affected by this now that I'm looking at it again. It just means for my encounter building that only one opponent should really have Daunting or Coward's Bane. Because if you have a group of monsters that have those talents, one creature could potentially hit the entire party with Strike Fear and now no other creature can benefit from their talents until the shaken effect expires.
I was mainly curious if it was a conscious choice to have it only work for the originators effect. The more I think about it, I'm a little surprised it doesn't work against "targets suffering from a fear effect". If the Gladiator sphere is partially about "talents that take advantage of your opponents fear" it's a little disappointing that a dragon can't use their frightful presence to take advantage of Coward's Bane or Daunting.
My problem with granting options against "demoralized foes" is that "demoralized" isn't a condition. Demoralizing someone is an action that can be taken with the Intimidate skill that causes the shaken condition (by default).
I'm assuming that a creature "under the effects of/suffering from your demoralization" is a creature that you, the Gladiator user, have specifically used the Intimidation skill on to cause the shaken effect. That does however mean it doesn't play nicely with other forms of being really scary.
I mean, I think that a Magus that cloaks the field in darkness (Fearful Darkness) and then strikes at their fearful opponents (with Coward's Bane) or an Antipaladin who strikes their opponent with Nether Blasts to make their opponents falter and leave openings (Daunting) are both pretty cool concepts. But those characters didn't demoralize their opponents, they just caused the exact same condition at the end of the day.
I'm a GM making new Spheres capable monsters in this scenario. I know I can make the change super quick and easy. But when I see that specific wording, it makes me wonder if the design team saw this as a specific issue or if it cropped up during playtesting. I just kind of want to know if it's written that way because they were building the "Intimidate-user" sphere and it seemed common sense or if they had somebody during playtesting throw the Gladiator Sphere on everyone in the party, someone used Form of the Dragon III, and now everyone in the party is stomping the enemy with free counter attacks and rerolls.
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The main author for Gladiator here.
I would have multiple demoralizations overlap. If two Gladiator sphere users both had Daunting and both affected the same target with Strike Fear, I would have both gain Daunting's benefit.
As for other sources of shaken, the concern is caster's getting to overshadow the combat sphere users. I could see there being an ability that would let some characters combine it though (nice examples by the way).
Fun observation: using only Spheres of Might and the Core Pathfinder hardcover, I can build a 5th level Human Scholar that has maxed out ranks in 28 Skills, 1d6 Sneak Attack, 3 "Cure Moderate Wounds" a day, an at-will temporary blindness, a practically at will targeted Greater Dispel Magic, and the ability to use healers kits to remove conditions and ability damage.
As a downside, I am really squishy. Reeeeeally squishy.
The main author for Gladiator here.
I would have multiple demoralizations overlap. If two Gladiator sphere users both had Daunting and both affected the same target with Strike Fear, I would have both gain Daunting's benefit.
As for other sources of shaken, the concern is caster's getting to overshadow the combat sphere users. I could see there being an ability that would let some characters combine it though (nice examples by the way).
Stack, thanks for responding. I really do appreciate the clarification. I guess I'll keep an eye out for a future Gladiator Handbook and I'll homebrew a feat in the meantime for my gishes. :)