alright another question in order to convert current classes into sphere users do you need to take the archetype? or can you just replace the spell casting outright and give them a free sphere to use while leaving most of their non spell related class abilities unchanged
alright another question in order to convert current classes into sphere users do you need to take the archetype? or can you just replace the spell casting outright and give them a free sphere to use while leaving most of their non spell related class abilities unchanged
The base archetypes sphere cleric, sphere wizard, sphere magus, etc. do just that. They only change abilities directly related to spellcasting. for some of them this is just a few lines to replace spellcasting, others like magus have more abilities that need modified to work within the spheres of power system. I use the archetypes everyone I have used has been pretty good. I recommend as a GM you enforce some sort of casting tradition based on class rather than let your players make one up though.
alright another question in order to convert current classes into sphere users do you need to take the archetype? or can you just replace the spell casting outright and give them a free sphere to use while leaving most of their non spell related class abilities unchanged
The base archetypes sphere cleric, sphere wizard, sphere magus, etc. do just that. They only change abilities directly related to spellcasting. for some of them this is just a few lines to replace spellcasting, others like magus have more abilities that need modified to work within the spheres of power system. I use the archetypes everyone I have used has been pretty good. I recommend as a GM you enforce some sort of casting tradition based on class rather than let your players make one up though.
i was taking a look at some of them and one archetype in particular doesn't just replace spell casting, the summoner archetype seems to replace evolution points, evolutions as well as tie their edolon to the conjuration sphere meaning its no longer a permanent pet
Yeah, but that's the Summoner - and the Conjuration Sphere is basically the replacement for Eidolons. Mind you, it's pretty easy to get a permanently-called pet, especially for anyone specializing in that Sphere...
Yeah, but that's the Summoner - and the Conjuration Sphere is basically the replacement for Eidolons. Mind you, it's pretty easy to get a permanently-called pet, especially for anyone specializing in that Sphere...
but the conjuration sphere is just garbage compared to an edolon its fine for other classes who want a pet but for the summoner its worse than the unchained summoner
It is, however, better-balanced for Spheres in general, and just one of three ways to get a minion.
it loses out on many of the abilities an edolon gets with making it cost precious spell points to summon as well as still keeping the restrictions an edolon currently has thus making the summoner worse off than any other class that could specialize in conjuration it also loses its normal summoning capabilities
It does lose out on many specific Eidolon abilities, yes, but my experience has been that the replacements are pretty good as an alternative system. Bestial provides the various natural attacks, additional limbs are a thing, spellcasting (except more conjuration) can be learned, pouncing, ability scores, sneak attacks, utility... plus, the Sphere Summoner gets ten Magic Talents for Conjuration on top of the usual 15 for being a Mid-Caster, which is quite a bit more than most other Mid-Casters (and, indeed, some High Casters). That gives them room to invest extra in making a great companion or dip into other Spheres and take on a second role.
Also, two spell points to have a companion that can be present all day long - even being dismissed and returning - is a pretty low price. I've never even hesitated about this.
I really don't think it's as limited as you seem to think it is.
I agree with Rednal. The Summoner has a lot of room to leverage the Conjuration sphere heavily. Only equally dedicated full casters with bonus feats can equal them.
Regarding balance of Spheres Players vs. Vancian NPCs:
In Rise we found that in the early levels of the game, Spheres enabled us to adventure longer before needing to recover. It was nice and while it would have been good to swap loot to SoP, it was left alone. I remember burning through a few wands of CLW.
Around level 7 it felt that the power of Spheres and Vancian was close to even. Some instances cropped up involving complicated Vancian spells that resulted in much more powerful spell effects on how the GM ran it. (This is when we noticed that the sphere effects were worded much more clearly, especially Mind and Illusion.)
At high levels, Vancian reigns supreme for NPCs, Runeforge and Karzoug definitely hammered this home. Using Metamagic for NPCs can be mitigated better while burning SP on Quickens and more to get an equally powerful spell effect is sure to burn through all your SP in a few turns. Sure you might be able to use a 0 SP ability, but in tough battles that wont cut it.
It does lose out on many specific Eidolon abilities, yes, but my experience has been that the replacements are pretty good as an alternative system. Bestial provides the various natural attacks, additional limbs are a thing, spellcasting (except more conjuration) can be learned, pouncing, ability scores, sneak attacks, utility... plus, the Sphere Summoner gets ten Magic Talents for Conjuration on top of the usual 15 for being a Mid-Caster, which is quite a bit more than most other Mid-Casters (and, indeed, some High Casters). That gives them room to invest extra in making a great companion or dip into other Spheres and take on a second role.
Also, two spell points to have a companion that can be present all day long - even being dismissed and returning - is a pretty low price. I've never even hesitated about this.
I really don't think it's as limited as you seem to think it is.
edolons share item slots with their summoner so the fact that they lose out on abilities while still keeping it as an edolon while also not having it be permanent sets them back greatly
What benefits are you looking for items to provide? With talents, a conjured companion can appear with gear, acquire resistances to damage, improve their ability scores, and so on. They can even learn the Warp sphere's Extradimensional Storage talent to store other equipment in, allowing a Summoner to use those item slots for their own benefit instead of their Eidolon's.
What benefits are you looking for items to provide? With talents, a conjured companion can appear with gear, acquire resistances to damage, improve their ability scores, and so on. They can even learn the Warp sphere's Extradimensional Storage talent to store other equipment in, allowing a Summoner to use those item slots for their own benefit instead of their Eidolon's.
amulet of mighty fists would still eat up my neck slot, stat belts would eat my belt slot, i also want the immunities that edolons can get that the companion does not as well as fast healing 5 which the companion cant get, pounce, flight also comes to mind as well as no breath
They can get flight, pounce, and no breath fairly easily. Fast Healing 5 could be done by getting them a permanent Life effect, probably as a Rod they can hold. You can grab other talents for any ability scores you want to improve (which scale!), the Protection Sphere can give other defenses to them, and slapping an AoMF on them is easy if you're not being a natural attacker yourself (which a Summoner probably shouldn't be).
...
Still not really seeing what you're trying to do that can't be done.
while i was wrong that they couldn't get pounce(i missed that ability) and flight (it was under something other than flight or wings), the stats gained from size increase are half of what they should be.
what i most care about none of the spheres can grant immunity to fire,cold, acid, electricity or sonic which is what i want for my companion to have everything else is gravy
But you can pretty quickly get Energy Resistance 15+, or equip gear that leaves your magic talents open for other, more useful things. Immunity to elemental damage is nice, but significantly reducing it is often good enough, especially with the fairly easy recovery options.
But you can pretty quickly get Energy Resistance 15+, or equip gear that leaves your magic talents open for other, more useful things. Immunity to elemental damage is nice, but significantly reducing it is often good enough, especially with the fairly easy recovery options.
energy resist 20 wont do much against an 80-200dmg spell
But you can pretty quickly get Energy Resistance 15+, or equip gear that leaves your magic talents open for other, more useful things. Immunity to elemental damage is nice, but significantly reducing it is often good enough, especially with the fairly easy recovery options.
energy resist 20 wont do much against an 80-200dmg spell
It will resist 10-25% of damage. If full immunity is important to you will probably need to be a vanilla summoner, it is not recommended to take part of an archetype. Are you interested in Spheres as a GM or a player?
But you can pretty quickly get Energy Resistance 15+, or equip gear that leaves your magic talents open for other, more useful things. Immunity to elemental damage is nice, but significantly reducing it is often good enough, especially with the fairly easy recovery options.
energy resist 20 wont do much against an 80-200dmg spell
It will resist 10-25% of damage. If full immunity is important to you will probably need to be a vanilla summoner, it is not recommended to take part of an archetype. Are you interested in Spheres as a GM or a player?
player, i was looking at ways to get all day blasting which led me to SOP then i was theory crafting character ideas and one of them was a chained summoner with a destruction orb but with the spheres summoner i would A) lose my edolon and need to focus on the conjuring orb and B) not have my edolon be immune to my blasting which means i kill my own pet
Ooooooor you just take the Selective Blast talent and don't hit your Eidolon?
did and the people excluded would be the other front liners i would have around 10 caster levels in the destruction sphere meaning i can select 2 other party members to not get hit
Ooooooor you just take the Selective Blast talent and don't hit your Eidolon?
did and the people excluded would be the other front liners i would have around 10 caster levels in the destruction sphere meaning i can select 2 other party members to not get hit
You can also spend 1 SP to increase the number of protected allies to your casting ability modifier. Hopefully you should be able to exclude at least one of your three (two party members + pet) front liners from most blasts using normal methods and burn the extra spell point when it becomes unavoidable.
As to your earlier point about theorycrafting you will not be able to have such a wide array of powers with spheres as you can with vancian. That is kind of the point, many people consider vancian casters OP because of that unmatched versitility, spheres tried to balance that. You can have all day blasting and a powerful companion but you won't be able to have all those other utility spells which you mentioned with spheres.
Ooooooor you just take the Selective Blast talent and don't hit your Eidolon?
did and the people excluded would be the other front liners i would have around 10 caster levels in the destruction sphere meaning i can select 2 other party members to not get hit
You can also spend 1 SP to increase the number of protected allies to your casting ability modifier. Hopefully you should be able to exclude at least one of your three (two party members + pet) front liners from most blasts using normal methods and burn the extra spell point when it becomes unavoidable.
As to your earlier point about theorycrafting you will not be able to have such a wide array of powers with spheres as you can with vancian. That is kind of the point, many people consider vancian casters OP because of that unmatched versitility, spheres tried to balance that. You can have all day blasting and a powerful companion but you won't be able to have all those other utility spells which you mentioned with spheres.
the original spells were a conversion of a sorc to a elementalist then i had a thought of using summoner because at the time i thought all the conversion would do is replace spells so i could focus on blasting with the sphere and then have a big pet that could help the front line but i lose my pet and would be forced to focus on the conjuration sphere
does add an extra 1d6, or does it bump the die size?
Greater Blast
The damage of your destructive blast increases by one die. You may take this talent an additional time at 5th caster level and every 5 caster levels thereafter; the effects stack.
"Every Spherecaster gains two Magic Talents (spells known) the first time they get the Casting class feature." This line is from the How to Build a Spherecaster page.
If we go to an actual Spherecasting class, the Armorist in this case, we see the following line. "(Note: All casters gain 2 bonus talents and may select a casting tradition the first time they gain the casting class feature.)"
"Every Spherecaster gains two Magic Talents (spells known) the first time they get the Casting class feature." This line is from the How to Build a Spherecaster page.
If we go to an actual Spherecasting class, the Armorist in this case, we see the following line. "(Note: All casters gain 2 bonus talents and may select a casting tradition the first time they gain the casting class feature.)"
is there a way to get energy blade talent to be permanent? what is the earth package ability quoted in the earth warrior archetype for the elementalist?
what i'm thinking of actually making is a elementalist earth warrior with a dip into sorc i rolled in order of highest to lowest 18,17,16,14,14,14 and was thinking a stat array of 16,17,14,14,14,18 does that look alright?
is there a way to get energy blade talent to be permanent? what is the earth package ability quoted in the earth warrior archetype for the elementalist?
what i'm thinking of actually making is a elementalist earth warrior with a dip into sorc i rolled in order of highest to lowest 18,17,16,14,14,14 and was thinking a stat array of 16,17,14,14,14,18 does that look alright?
Not sure about the answer to some of your questions, but if you're looking for "permanent blade of destruction type effect", you can go with the Doomblade archetype for Mageknight to get a sword made of the blast of your choice. Otherwise, the Improved Energy Blade feat lets you use the Energy Blade talent as a swift action, which makes the "destruction sword" effect a bit easier. I don't think there is a way to make it permanent though.
Earth package probably refers to the Nature sphere. It's divided into different elemental themed packages.
is there a way to get energy blade talent to be permanent? what is the earth package ability quoted in the earth warrior archetype for the elementalist?
what i'm thinking of actually making is a elementalist earth warrior with a dip into sorc i rolled in order of highest to lowest 18,17,16,14,14,14 and was thinking a stat array of 16,17,14,14,14,18 does that look alright?
Not sure about the answer to some of your questions, but if you're looking for "permanent blade of destruction type effect", you can go with the Doomblade archetype for Mageknight to get a sword made of the blast of your choice. Otherwise, the Improved Energy Blade feat lets you use the Energy Blade talent as a swift action, which makes the "destruction sword" effect a bit easier. I don't think there is a way to make it permanent though.
Earth package probably refers to the Nature sphere. It's divided into different elemental themed packages.
ah so its just all the earth effects also improved energy blade is neat my original idea was that i used the staff as the handle and used energy blade to make a scythe made out of black granite so i could benefit from from my staffs enhancement bonus when blasting but still have a cool thematic weapon for my character
or would there be a way to make a scythe into a staff for my casting?
So, I feel like that depends on your GM. Spheres of Power makes the following note:
Creativity and Custom Magic Items wrote:
When creating a custom magic item, the rules explained above are guidelines, and not hard rules. A sword could be enchanted as a wand, a rod could grant ring-like benefits to its holder, or a necklace could hold gemstones that have each been enchanted with potion-like single-use magical effects. In many ways, each item creation feat maps less to a particular type of item, and more to a particular type of enchantment: a caster with Craft Magical Arms and Armor could create a magical frying pan, but it would need to be enchanted as a weapon unless he possessed another item-creation feat.
Likewise, while the above rules are designed to help determine an item’s price and powers, in reality the scope of what a magic item can do is limited only by the crafter’s imagination. Magic items are at their best when they are unique, wondrous, and personalized, which can mean creating new abilities beyond the scope of the basic spheres. The GM is the final arbiter for determining an item’s final market price, and may adjust a price higher, lower, or even disallow any item or option if it becomes unbalancing or disruptive.
So I would see no problem in adding the "Second Sphere" staff ability to a weapon in order to have the weapon serve as a staff. You'd just have to track your weapons enhancement and your caster level enhancement separately.
There is precedent for it, the wiki has a "staff" that is actually a sword.
Hidden Blade wrote:
Aura moderate, Illusion; CL 10th
Slot none; Price 49,000 gp; Weight 5 lbs.
Description
This +3 glamered longsword also functions as a +3 illusion staff.
Construction Requirements
Craft Magical Weapons and Armor, Craft Staff, Craft Rod, Illusion Sphere, masterwork longsword; Cost 24,500 gp
