The Creator of Spheres of Power Here: Ask Me Anything

[Vhaidara]

As a note about that, from what I've heard about WotR, they didn't actually consider Mythic when they wrote it. Everyone I've talked to who's run it has said that after a point (book 2 sounds about right) the entire thing turned into a complete cakewalk.

[Adam Meyers]

I had a thought I wanted to run by everyone.

Skybourne is consuming a lot of my attention lately (for obvious reasons), but I know people want to us to get moving with the Spheres of Power expansions: The Shifter's Handbook, the Blaster's Handbook, etc. We've got someone hired to work on the first one (The Shifter's Handbook), but these things always work better when there's a dedicated group we can let play with things and find what we haven't (as you all can attest to), not to mention the breathing room we have when there's a dedicated budget we can rely on when finding art and hiring writers.

What would you all think if we started a Spheres of Power patreon? We'd release a new handbook once a month, the group would get to vote on which handbook they want to see next as well as provide feedback for our ideas, which is always really helpful. Rewards would include getting a copy of the handbook early, obviously seeing everything really early as we work on it, and if you want, play with us in test games, as the more people I see play (the more people I run things through, the better it all gets).


@Mathias1313: From a player/GM perspective saying 'you can make a full-attack as a full-round action with a bludgeon' isn't a problem, and will probably appear as a class feature at some point. However, spheres are tied into so many rules involving casting times, concentration actions, so on and so forth, that it just got way too finicky.

@EldritchWeave: Because it's not based on caster level (except for duration), it works for front-line fighters who're planning to make a lot of attack rolls and have a lot of attack rolls made against them. Sometimes, a +1 isn't important; what is important is turning your allies misses into hits and your enemy's hits into misses. It's situational, but it's had it's uses.

Luei: I think we had a misunderstanding; if you are maintaining the effect via concentration, the attack you'd make as your standard action would be in addition to the bludgeon attack; in the circumstance you'd describe, you could attack with 4 daggers (which would have all the penalties and such for two-weapon fighting), then make an attack as a standard action at your full BAB.

Casting a spell with anything more than a swift action provokes an attack of opportunity, but maintaining an effect via concentration does not, so while the initial casting of telekinesis provokes, subsequent attacks do not. However, when maintaining an effect through concentration, any damage you take runs a risk of breaking your concentration.

Weapons do threaten (but use your maximum when making attacks of opportunity) and you could attempt maneuvers.

@TheEvilGM:

1. The obvious choice is to just treat caster level/2 as the spell level, but I like your idea of increasing the cost to affect people on the other side...

2. Hm... mythic rules for SoP are in the works, but off the top of my head, I'm not sure. I'd probably rule it the same way you did for now, until we've figured out something dedicated to sphere-craft.

3. I've heard similar things from people running mythic with core, but I'll admit my knowledge is limited; is the problem mythic, spheres, the interaction, or player skill at finding exploits?

[Scowling Dragon]

Patreons in my opinion tend to do worse then kickstarters. Money runs out, people get bored, there is less excitement.

Also the feeling of not knowing when the future product will come out, so delays feel even more frustrating.

I would recommend a patreon, but a well made segmented one.

Like Separate the writing process into segments EI:

First Draft, Second Draft, Third Draft, Images, and Final Product.

And only charge for those segments. Encourages to show work which gets People interested, you get feedback, and it mitigate frustration over delays because your only getting charged for things you get to use and playtest.

[Luei]

Luei:

Ooooooh, okay. That makes a lot more sense. Man, thanks for answering all my questions. Now I just really wanna experiment with the telekinesis rules.

@EldritchWeaver: You are way better at min-maxing than I am. I usually just go 100% into one class for most of my characters :P

[EldritchWeaver]

I had a thought I wanted to run by everyone.

Skybourne is consuming a lot of my attention lately (for obvious reasons), but I know people want to us to get moving with the Spheres of Power expansions: The Shifter's Handbook, the Blaster's Handbook, etc. We've got someone hired to work on the first one (The Shifter's Handbook), but these things always work better when there's a dedicated group we can let play with things and find what we haven't (as you all can attest to), not to mention the breathing room we have when there's a dedicated budget we can rely on when finding art and hiring writers.

What would you all think if we started a Spheres of Power patreon? We'd release a new handbook once a month, the group would get to vote on which handbook they want to see next as well as provide feedback for our ideas, which is always really helpful. Rewards would include getting a copy of the handbook early, obviously seeing everything really early as we work on it, and if you want, play with us in test games, as the more people I see play (the more people I run things through, the better it all gets).

How much would you ask for the patreon? Are there different levels? Test games sound interesting, but the question is, if you can accommodate for internationals like me (I'm in GMT +2 right now).

First Draft, Second Draft, Third Draft, Images, and Final Product.

And only charge for those segments. Encourages to show work which gets People interested, you get feedback, and it mitigate frustration over delays because your only getting charged for things you get to use and playtest.

Sounds interesting at least.

@EldritchWeave: Because it's not based on caster level (except for duration), it works for front-line fighters who're planning to make a lot of attack rolls and have a lot of attack rolls made against them. Sometimes, a +1 isn't important; what is important is turning your allies misses into hits and your enemy's hits into misses. It's situational, but it's had it's uses.

I think it's still bad. Assuming 4 attacks in one round, the probability is about 81% that you wasted the casting of tug of fate. And only for 0.000625% all 4 rolls are affected. In other words, using protection with the armored aegis - which scales similarly enough - is clearly better, because all attacks going against AC are hampered.

@EldritchWeaver: You are way better at min-maxing than I am. I usually just go 100% into one class for most of my characters :P

Among the blind the one-eyed is the king.

[TheEvilGM]

I had a thought I wanted to run by everyone.

@TheEvilGM:

1. The obvious choice is to just treat caster level/2 as the spell level, but I like your idea of increasing the cost to affect people on the other side...

2. Hm... mythic rules for SoP are in the works, but off the top of my head, I'm not sure. I'd probably rule it the same way you did for now, until we've figured out something dedicated to sphere-craft.

3. I've heard similar things from people running mythic with core, but I'll admit my knowledge is limited; is the problem mythic, spheres, the interaction, or player skill at finding exploits?

1. I like that idea too.
2. OK.
3. YES mythic, interaction, players looking to find exploits.

[TheEvilGM]

TheEvilGM;
3. another byproduct of SoP I am having to deal with I have a Thamaturge (who has only missed his forbidden lore role once, out of hundreds of tries) since he casts every spell, spell level = caster level. Most of his SoP feats and mythic abilities have been to increase save DC. at 9th level he has a running DC 27 for his 'energy sphere stone blast' that does 78 damage average. Add to that the easy focus boon. He casts it once, and moves the ball-of-doom around the room. He the destroys anything in 1 or 2 rounds.

I was corrected by one of my players.
"Tyler is maximizing his sphere, not taking the average."

makes sense using 'maximize' on a continuing spell, that keeps on giving.

[stack]

TheEvilGM - Energy sphere doesn't benefit from easy focus, it can be moved as a move action natively.

[TheEvilGM]

TheEvilGM - Energy sphere doesn't benefit from easy focus, it can be moved as a move action natively.

your right.
My Mythic Thaumaturge is using mythic points to quick cast a spell, move action to move the sphere, standard action to move (or something else)

[TheEvilGM]

another question from my rule lawyers.

armorist Bound Equipment.

One of the players says it only lasts as long as normal Summon Equipment, the Armorist just gets to resummon it for free.
It seems simpler to me for the bound equipment to just last until sleep.
The Armorist, of course wants his gear to just be there.
what is the intended usage?

[stack]

RAW, it is identical in duration since duration is not mentioned as being different, but there is little enough difference between having it here all the time and spending a move action every few minutes that I doubt it would hurt to let him keep it out.

[TheEvilGM]

How would you do a Mirror Image effect with SoP?

[Mehangel]

How would you do a Mirror Image effect with SoP?

Illusion Sphere + Complex Illusion Talent

[Tulya]

The mechanical effect is closest to Time Sphere - After Image talent. You might time-flavor Mirror Image functionality by calling the images temporal anomalies that are disrupted by damage.

But if you're looking to retain the illusory flavor... Beyond Illusion sphere, I couldn't really say. The mechanics of Mirror Image don't actually make sense. An attack passing through an image that doesn't respond at all to being struck might make its unreality immediately apparent to everyone present, allowing disbelief without a save, but that doesn't explain why the image is completely destroyed. It's not a shadow-infused figment with pseudo-substance, so... I don't know.

[TheEvilGM]

I have another question this time about Armorists.

The arsenal trick (p67): Hunter: (Requires Armorist 15) Add bane (+1) and defiant (+1)] says you have to be 15th level to take this.
Yet Table: Bound equipment (P 66) already shows defiant as a +1 bonus armor special ability.

So should Defiant not be on the list to start, or is defiant redundant under the hunter arsenal trick?
Under hunter you also have to spent an additional spell point to get defiant.

[Adam Meyers]

Thanks for the input, we'll consider all of it as we work this out.

A lot of the questions have been answered by other people, but to answer the latest one: Defiant being on the armorist's list is a typo, it should only be available through the Hunter arsenal trick.

[Ssalarn]

As a note about that, from what I've heard about WotR, they didn't actually consider Mythic when they wrote it. Everyone I've talked to who's run it has said that after a point (book 2 sounds about right) the entire thing turned into a complete cakewalk.

Mythic was actually written for the primary purpose of facilitating WotR. The problem came in playtesting when a very vocal group insisted that a mythic tier wasn't worth a level, and the design team listened and designed all monsters assuming a tier equaled 1/2 a level and downgraded the monsters based on that assumption.

RAW, it is identical in duration since duration is not mentioned as being different, but there is little enough difference between having it here all the time and spending a move action every few minutes that I doubt it would hurt to let him keep it out.

I assume that bound equipment can be kept indefinitely.

[Vhaidara]

Mythic was actually written for the primary purpose of facilitating WotR. The problem came in playtesting when a very vocal group insisted that a mythic tier wasn't worth a level, and the design team listened and designed all monsters assuming a tier equaled 1/2 a level and downgraded the monsters based on that assumption.

I actually fully understood that WotR was written for Mythic. My point was that, from what I heard, it wasn't written WELL for Mythic (as you mentioned)

[stack]

I was reading over the spellcrafting examples again as I hope to someday vastly expand that section of my guide. The golem armor spell intrigued me, not so much for its offensive uses but in that it opened my eyes to using it for making colossal mecha suits, jet packs, and various other things that are too cool to not consider.

Q4ish since no one is using the numbering:
Also, there was a same spell that showed destructive blast damage split between the two types used. Is this shown as an option, or is splitting the energy type considered to be the default? Obviously anytime you want to add crystal blast's rider you don't want half you dice to be d4s. I also noticed the destructive blast examples spend the spell point for d6/level damage, but I thought I understood from a previous question that doing so was optional at th time of casting rather than part of the spell, unless we had a misunderstanding.

[Rokku]

Apologies if this has been asked and answered already, but when using the Dancing Weapon talent, do you take nonproficiency penalties, size penalties, etc with the weapons you use as bludgeons?

[stack]

Apologies if this has been asked and answered already, but when using the Dancing Weapon talent, do you take nonproficiency penalties, size penalties, etc with the weapons you use as bludgeons?

"... You do not need to be proficient with the weapon to use it with Dancing Weapon, but considering how many feats there are that require you to be proficient with the weapon to take them, I'd stick to ones I was proficient with; use exclusively short swords or something so i could apply weapon focus to them, stuff like that."

I don't think you take size penalties either, having trouble finding a concise quote though. Read around here, where size limits on what an armorist can create are noted as not being given but where a GM could put reasonable restrictions, with silence about wielding the weapons of larger size as dancing weapons.

[Rokku]

Another question that might have already been answered because I can't get the thread search to work and it's Telekinesis-related 'cause I'm building a Telekinetic Warrior:

When I grab a grate in a wall with Telekinesis and pull, what happens? This is a place, I think, where having Telekinesis just have an effective Strength score instead of being based on object sizes would come in handy.

[stack]

Q5: Should an elementalist (geomancer) get knowledge (nature) as a class skill? Seems like a flavorful addition.

[Yue Ryong]

Is there likely to be any chance of Spheres of Power hitting Print-on-Demand on DriveThru? Postage from the US is proving expensive for us Right-pondians.

[stack]

Q6:Do permanent caster level increases (incanter specialization, geomancer bonuses, etc) count toward qualifying for feats, advanced talents, etc?

Q(7)Also, can we have a rundown of the new classes/archetypes in Worlds of Power?

Edit - Q8
Enhancement, bestow intelligence: does the now intelligent object gain feats appropriate to its form? Awaken construct doesn't mention it, but it was my understanding based on the construct type description that non-intelligent constructs do not gain feats due to the lack of intelligence score, not anything inherent to the construct type. It would be interesting, for example, to use animate object and bestow intelligence to have a shield with the bodyguard and in harm's way feats.

[Cantroy]

OK, I'm a level 3 soul weaver in the current campaign, with the following talents:
Death
Life
Divination
Curse (Ghost Strike) *From the extra talent feat at level 3
Greater Healing
Bleeding Wounds

and I am going to hit level 4 as a Soul Weaver for the summoning ability.
Now, I simply cannot see yet why I shouldn't dip into Incanter for level 5, keep channeling and take Death as a Sphere Specialization, and then go right back to Soul Weaver... Let me get this part straight so that I understand how this would help:
I'd still get the full caster level, 3 talents out of this dip as an Incanter gets 2 and then Death Spec would give me Command Undead for "free". Yes, I give up the level 1 bonus feat, but it is WELL worth the trade, as I wouldn't get a bonus feat at all as a Soul Weaver. I'd still get the level 5 feat, so if I really wanted to, I could get 4 talents at level 5 this way??? AND still add to my channeling?

Wow, that is amazing if I have it right. And, I wouldn't even give much up for Soul Weaver. I could "finish" my death plans at level 5 and then go right into focusing on the Life talents. There HAS to be something I am not seeing here, and if there is, what is it?

Or heck, take incanter as level 4 and then SW as 5... no reason to wait is there?

[Lirya]

Incanter 1 dip is (almost?) always worth it for sphere classes.

[EldritchWeaver]

Incanter 1 dip is (almost?) always worth it for sphere classes.

On that note, I like multiclassing, so I'm unhappy that the Sphere Arcanist is highly resistant against multiclassing. (At least I couldn't think of making it work except dipping into other classes.) Or any other class for that matter. I've once read a Paladin-like class which got a Monk-like AC bonus (this was in a Tron-like setting). This unfortunately prevented usage of tools as the AC generating field destroyed objects. I mean, you couldn't use vehicles because it could be only disabled in one-round increments and for some reason, it couldn't stay deactivated longer for a round. Single-classed by mechanic...

[Vhaidara]

So, over lunch, I tossed together that basics of a sphere Occultist, from Occult Adventures. I need to make 2 new implements, and obviously clean up the language. Once I get home and do that, I'll be posting it to the homebrew section, but I wanted to see what people thought so far. I may end up doing the other occult classes.

Mesmerist would have REALLY strong overlap with Eliciter.
Spiritualist is basically a psychic unchained summoner, but designed to work that way.
Psychic is concerning because I've heard you can recharge phrenic pool, and class resources tend to get merged in with spell points.
Medium should be interesting, since that port would mostly be on the heirophant and archmage spirits. Bonus talents and upgrade to full caster with 2 chosen spheres? Arcane and divine lose what little divide they had when you port to spheres, so those two seem redundant. I might wait on that one until we get Mythic spheres.

Edit: and forgot the point of this.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...T1_vSL-5o/edit

[stack]

I figured fr a Dresden-verse wizard, so similar to the occultist, you mainly needed a slight variation on the focus casting drawback, requiring a different focus for each sphere.

You method makes the occultist a full caster, essentially, since having an implement for each sphere isn't too difficult given the limited number of talents you will know, which is a pretty big difference from the base class.

I've mostly ignored the psychic casters since the playtest, so I can't say too much in detail. Maybe have them only able to learn talents from spheres associated with their implements and require the implement as a focus?