Using Spheres material in Eberron

[ZeroSpace9000]

I'm currently working on a campaign when I can, and one thing I want to do is use primarily Drop Dead Studio's Spheres of Power/Might supplements as the main 'gimmick'. There are, however, a couple of sticky points with doing this setup in Eberron, however. First, the Dragonmarks would need to be retooled, and just off-hand I'm thinking they grant magic sphere access, extra talents from those spheres, and caster level bonuses for said spheres. Any thoughts about this?

I also do wonder about broad changes to the world, like no Continual Flame to make (big) city lighting, no Magecraft to churn out masterwork goods, etc. Are there any other issues that I haven't sniffed out? Any way within SoP to address the above issues cleanly?

Thanks in advance.

[NomGarret]

Spellcrafting, incantations, and rituals should cover all the setting stuff that can’t otherwise be explained.

[Afgncaap5]

I've actually been working on this for a bit. I think the solution is to create a number of different Magic Traditions. The ones I have now are...

Kalashtar Psionics
Sulatar Faithful
Divine (with a number of different subgroups depending on the actual thing being worshipped)
Dragonmarked (with a number of different subgroups depending on which Dragonmark it is, and a few others that I'm working on that are based on the sub-guilds within the different houses)
Arcanix Standard (The basic accepted versions of "regular" wizardry and sorcery.)

I've not started mapping out things like Blood Of Vol or Thrane Pyromancy or any of the Druids (or how Eldeen Druids are different from Talenta Halfling Druids). I'm restricting some spheres based on which tradition it is (I only have Kalashtar, Druids, and House Medani Dragonmarked getting Divinations, for instance, though I might wanna change that...) and I'm similarly saying that a lot of rituals and spellcrafted spells and incantations are exclusive and/or only known by members of different groups.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Casting/Martial Traditions made for the setting are always a good start. I’m not really seeing why the Dragonmarks need changing though. Don’t they just give SLAs?

[ZeroSpace9000]

Dr_Dinosaur, this is true, however part of the idea of Sphere-ing up Eberron was to drop the standard Vancian casting for something less campaign-busting. Allowing Dragonmarks to do what they always do goes against that idea. As for Casting and Martial traditions, there are none, as the setting was released well before SoP was ever released. I would have to make them up whole cloth, like afgncaap5 stated he/she/they were doing.

[exelsisxax]

Dr_Dinosaur, this is true, however part of the idea of Sphere-ing up Eberron was to drop the standard Vancian casting for something less campaign-busting. Allowing Dragonmarks to do what they always do goes against that idea. As for Casting and Martial traditions, there are none, as the setting was released well before SoP was ever released. I would have to make them up whole cloth, like afgncaap5 stated he/she/they were doing.

I don't see how CLW or Shield 1/day are gamebreaking. If you wouldn't outright ban fullcasters there's nothing wrong with existing balance, you just need to update them to the PF versions.

You don't need to make up casting traditions for magic. The existing traditions and other toolboxes can already do what you want.

[Omnificer]

I'm currently working on a campaign when I can, and one thing I want to do is use primarily Drop Dead Studio's Spheres of Power/Might supplements as the main 'gimmick'. There are, however, a couple of sticky points with doing this setup in Eberron, however. First, the Dragonmarks would need to be retooled, and just off-hand I'm thinking they grant magic sphere access, extra talents from those spheres, and caster level bonuses for said spheres. Any thoughts about this?

I also do wonder about broad changes to the world, like no Continual Flame to make (big) city lighting, no Magecraft to churn out masterwork goods, etc. Are there any other issues that I haven't sniffed out? Any way within SoP to address the above issues cleanly?

Thanks in advance.

I've actually been working on the same thing. You can leave Dragonmark abilities as spell like abilities but one idea I was toying with was altering the Basic Magical Training and the Advanced Magical Training feats to sort of be a Least and Lesser Dragonmark feats. I'm not quite sure how to handle the CL yet. An advantage is that since the spheres don't always need spell points, a Dragonmarked service wouldn't be limited to only having a magical ability once a day.

There's still work to figure out how to do the Greater Dragonmark and also how Dragonmark items would work out. For instance some give extra uses per day of the Dragonmark, so maybe they can give extra spell points only usable for Dragonmark abilities.

Now, as far as no Continual Flame, I think you're missing out on a whole aspect of the Spheres system. Incantations and Rituals, already mentioned earlier in the thread, I think are very appropriate for Eberron and how things like magewrights work. This is already how it basically works in 4th edition. Existing spells that are pretty much entirely utility are meant to be handled by things like rituals. And I'd certainly have the Dragonmarked Houses have a monopoly on the rituals that pertain to their businesses. Rituals and Incantations to me are the vehicle that things like raising the floating towers of Sharn would have involved and how the simple innkeeper blesses his beer to keep it fresh.

The example rituals and incantations in the Sphere books cover a lot of big things, but it would make sense for a ton very minor rituals and incantations to be around and a major part of how magewrights, adepts, and the druid farmer version of the npc working class caster work.

So the Continual Flame ritual would basically be this:
Sphere Light; Ritual Level 2
Casting Time 30 minutes
Components V, S, M (50gp of ruby dust)
Description This functions as the continual flame spell.

Or Magecraft:
Sphere (Enhancement or Divination, not sure which is best); Ritual Level 1
Casting Time 5 minutes
Components V, M (5gp of rare crafting supplies)
Description This functions as the Magecraft spell.

Other than that, I've been working on creating Martial traditions and Casting Traditions suitable for the different cultures. And new Equipment Disciplines for regions. Examples:
Valenar (Elf)
You gain proficiency with the elven branched spear, elven curveblade, longbow, falchion, scimitar, shortbow, two-bladed scimitar, and lance. In addition, whenever you make a ranged attack from atop a mount, you take only half the usual attack penalty.

Dar (Goblinoid)
You gain proficiency with the flail, heavy flail, dire flail, spiked chain, flailpole, double-chained kama, katana, kama, kusarigama, longbow, naginata, nodachi, tetsubo, and wakizashi.
I've chosen to interpret Goblinoids as having an eastern aesthetic, although not culture, including class options, which is why the katana and such are there too.


And then here is my Hobgoblin martial tradition:
Kech Shaarat/Bladebearers
Equipment: Dar (Equipment Discipline), Armor Training
You gain proficiency with the flail, heavy flail, dire flail, spiked chain, flailpole, double-chained kama, katana, kama, kusarigama, longbow, naginata, nodachi, tetsubo, and wakizashi.
Duelist sphere
Variable: Followers of the Dar way gain either the Berseker sphere or Draw Cut from the Duelist sphere.
Alternate Traditions: Barbarian, Gladiator, Dedicated Duelist, Pit Fighter, Phalanx Soldier, Pikeman, Weapon Master
Paizo Classes: Samurai, Cavalier (Big Cat mounts), Fighter, Slayer, Swashbuckler.

[ZeroSpace9000]

Here's the thing, exelsisxax. To focus on the Spheres material, I'm completely excising the standard magic system from the game. So in a way, I am banning fullcasters, as well as all other casters. It's not about the relative OP-ness of Shield or CLW, it's the fact they will no longer work with the setting as I'm going to run it.

[exelsisxax]

Here's the thing, exelsisxax. To focus on the Spheres material, I'm completely excising the standard magic system from the game. So in a way, I am banning fullcasters, as well as all other casters. It's not about the relative OP-ness of Shield or CLW, it's the fact they will no longer work with the setting as I'm going to run it.

This is where you are wrong. That is not an opinion, you simply believe a thing that is false. There is nothing about SoP mechanics that makes anything in eberron work differently. Spell slots don't exist in the setting, so cutting out vancian magic entirely makes no difference.

"SLAs don't exist anymore, so I have to change dragonmark mechanics" is nonsense. SLAs never existed in the setting. The dragonmarks do certain things, changing their emulating feats to use SoP mechanics does absolutely nothing to the setting. You cannot possibly justify changing dragonmark mechanics based on the entirely false premise that using SoP alters the eberron setting.

[ZeroSpace9000]

This is where you are wrong. That is not an opinion, you simply believe a thing that is false. There is nothing about SoP mechanics that makes anything in eberron work differently. Spell slots don't exist in the setting, so cutting out vancian magic entirely makes no difference.

"SLAs don't exist anymore, so I have to change dragonmark mechanics" is nonsense. SLAs never existed in the setting. The dragonmarks do certain things, changing their emulating feats to use SoP mechanics does absolutely nothing to the setting. You cannot possibly justify changing dragonmark mechanics based on the entirely false premise that using SoP alters the eberron setting.

Allow me to rephrase. Converting dragonmark mechanics to Spheres of Power is the whole point! If you want to offer advice to this end, fine. But if you're just going to say don't change it because it still works, I am going to ignore you.

[Ssalarn]

I'm currently working on a campaign when I can, and one thing I want to do is use primarily Drop Dead Studio's Spheres of Power/Might supplements as the main 'gimmick'. There are, however, a couple of sticky points with doing this setup in Eberron, however. First, the Dragonmarks would need to be retooled, and just off-hand I'm thinking they grant magic sphere access, extra talents from those spheres, and caster level bonuses for said spheres. Any thoughts about this?

I also do wonder about broad changes to the world, like no Continual Flame to make (big) city lighting, no Magecraft to churn out masterwork goods, etc. Are there any other issues that I haven't sniffed out? Any way within SoP to address the above issues cleanly?

Thanks in advance.

As has already been mentioned, spellcrafting, incantations, and rituals can take care of pretty much everything that isn't already covered by a base sphere ability. As far as dragonmarks go, most of them actually map really well to spheres, so giving them out along with a small spell pool based on the type of mark should cover a lot of it.

For example, a House Jorasco Least Mark of Healing could give the Life base sphere and a single spell point, granting you a caster level of 1, a Lesser Mark of Healing could give you an additional Life talent, add your CAM to your spell pool, and give you a caster level equal to half your total character levels (or HD), and a Greater Dragonmark could give you a third talent, a spell pool equal to 1/2 your character level + your CAM, and an effective caster level with the Life sphere equal to your total character level (or HD). Siberys marks would need a bit more retooling, since those would be more equivalent to granting you a limited number of uses with a big Advanced talent associated with the sphere.
Pretty much all of the houses should map easily to a specific sphere-
Cannith- Creation
Deneith- Protection
Ghallanda- Arguments could be made for both Creation and Warp
Jorasco- Life
Kundarak- Protection
Lyrandar- Weather
Medani- Divination
Orien- Warp
Phiarlan/Thuranni- Darkness (or Illusion or Divination)
Sivis- Illusion is a strong choice
Tharashk- Divination
Vadalis- Mind

Tharashk and Vadalis would also be good candidates for dragonmarks that grant a combat sphere instead of a magic sphere if you wanted to go that way, with Vadalis getting Beastmastery and Tharashk getting Scout.

[Afgncaap5]

Casting/Martial Traditions made for the setting are always a good start. I’m not really seeing why the Dragonmarks need changing though. Don’t they just give SLAs?

Dragonmarks *do* give SLAs, but as Keith Baker is fond of reminding us, this is the *least powerful* thing that they do. They're just the only thing that you can do with them that doesn't require magic items, magic locations, or particular scenarios. (Case in point: all Dragonmarks also give skill bonuses representing how the mark makes a member of the house supernaturally good at some things. House Orien gets a +2 to Survival, so they're likely the only ones who can operate the Orien Maze-O-Matic Labyrinth-Tracker 4000.)

like afgncaap5 stated he/she/they

Don't forget culturally ambiguous!

You don't need to make up casting traditions for magic. The existing traditions and other toolboxes can already do what you want.

We don't need to... we get to! Making our own magical traditions (and martial traditions) can help to get us an Eberron that looks a bit closer to the one in the Lore. Like, the Magewright class in 3.5 is okay, but Keith Baker talked about appreciating the 4e take on it, basically a caster who knew a lot of mundane rituals and incantations that were meant for their jobs. I think SoP and SoM can help with that: imagine a tradition of Monks who were actually more than "Monks, but they can use Longswords" thanks to a feat.

Eberron discusses different martial traditions and flavors of magic and creatures, so if you want a mechanical representation of that that goes beyond "This Balor from Fernia looks way different from the Balor from Khyber", then why not homebrew a bit?

As has already been mentioned, spellcrafting, incantations, and rituals can take care of pretty much everything that isn't already covered by a base sphere ability. As far as dragonmarks go, most of them actually map really well to spheres, so giving them out along with a small spell pool based on the type of mark should cover a lot of it.

I agree that they do map well, at least initially; having said that, I think that the Spheres (usually) do a better job of representing mechanical concepts while the Dragonmarks tend to represent conceptual things. That's part of why I think a full-fledged tradition is called for: Orien should absolutely have access to the Warp sphere and all its joyous splendor, but I also think they should have the Creation sphere for summoning horses that people can ride for a few hours, or the Enhancement sphere for bringing carriages to life, not to mention the Divination sphere for Find The Path style scenarios (they get bonuses to Survival checks, after all). I could even see them competing with Vadalis via the Enhancement sphere to create magical horseshoes or something.

Now, I don't necessarily think that a dragonmark should give *entire* spheres after their core one... Orien's use of Divination or Enhancement feels like it'd be better as a Ritual or Incantation than as a Spell or Talent. But I *do* think the dragonmark should have access to them in some way. That kind of limited tradition for a world is, fortunately, suggested in the examples of the "How To Use This Book" part of the SoP book, complete with four traditions that represent knock-off versions of the elemental Benders from Avatar; a lot of them have some special talents that it's suggested they have access to via rituals or incantations, but not for talents; a bit of a departure for the regular rules of the book, but I'll take it.

However, I like where you're going with the feats... the Basic Magical Training (or whatever its called) feat is already a lot like your recommended Least Dragonmark feat. We could theoretically expand to the Advanced Magical Training feat to be the Lesser Dragonmark feat that opens up the "entire casting tradtion", such as it is. I'd let the Greater Dragonmark continue the trend, possibly expanding upon the Advanced Magical Training feat (though letting a player go from Low Caster to Mid Caster might be a bit too strong for this kind of concept.)

[Omnificer]

Divine (with a number of different subgroups depending on the actual thing being worshipped)

How are you doing your Divine traditions? The stock Divine Petitioner seems like the starting position, but the Aligned Combatant and Aligned Protection don't sit well with me when the priests might very well have alignments opposing their faith and the Spirits of the Past for the Valenar are true neutral.

I've toyed with some sort of new drawbacks based on followers of your faith vs enemies of your faith, but that gets hard to manage.

[digiman619]

How are you doing your Divine traditions? The stock Divine Petitioner seems like the starting position, but the Aligned Combatant and Aligned Protection don't sit well with me when the priests might very well have alignments opposing their faith and the Spirits of the Past for the Valenar are true neutral.

I've toyed with some sort of new drawbacks based on followers of your faith vs enemies of your faith, but that gets hard to manage.

Well, the Fate handbook talks about ways to do that, but it involves use of the alternate alignment rules from Ultimate Campaign.

[Omnificer]

Well, the Fate handbook talks about ways to do that, but it involves use of the alternate alignment rules from Ultimate Campaign.

Thank you for the help. I took a look at the Auspician's Handbook play test and found what you were talking about, although it mentioned the Unchained book as opposed to Ultimate Campaign. I had never really looked at that part of Unchained before so I appreciate the heads up.

The Loyalty approach is a more fleshed out version of the idea I was toying with and seems to fit my understanding of faith and divine magic in Eberron better than alignments by themselves. And three Loyalties makes it more workable than just the one church affiliation I was imagining.

It does make it a bit more difficult to decide when Aligned Protection is effective or not but that seems worth it for the Lawful Evil Archierophant of Sharn to be able to protect members of her congregation from devils.

[Afgncaap5]

How are you doing your Divine traditions? The stock Divine Petitioner seems like the starting position, but the Aligned Combatant and Aligned Protection don't sit well with me when the priests might very well have alignments opposing their faith and the Spirits of the Past for the Valenar are true neutral.

I've toyed with some sort of new drawbacks based on followers of your faith vs enemies of your faith, but that gets hard to manage.

Honestly haven't had a lot of time to delve into that, but I'll start with saying that digiman's note about the Fate handbook has a lot of good material for that kind of issue. Having said that, a few things I have in my notes about it (but cleaned up and made less stream-of-conscious-y than my notes...)

-This kind of thing can be handled on a case-by-case basis. The default Divine Petitioner rules absolutely work well for the purposes of general NPCs, so if you've got a number of low-level Clerics acting as a kind of church police above and beyond the regular Adepts, Experts, and Commoners that make up the rest of the church body, sphere effects that worry about alignment can still make sense.

-This is easier to manage in my particular Eberron than for other people's Eberrons, but I've got a weird drawback-ish thing saying "If your god doesn't want you to damage that person, you don't damage that person." It's less bookkeeping than saying "enemies of the faith" vs. "allies of the faith", and it allows for those great cinematic moments where the true villainy of a given church member can be revealed. If your paladin of The Sovereign Host suddenly learns that the misgivings they've been feeling toward Friar Antoine have been justified, and sees proof that Friar Antoine is running a slave camp in Q'Barra to mine dragonshards, then you can have that great moment where suddenly your paladin's smiting attack *will* work; it couldn't before because there was none of the proof that Aureon requires for true justice.

Now, this would admittedly tricky for some people because it borders on direct involvement from deities, something that Eberron barely ever incorporates. However, for a player of a divine character, it can truly be a satisfying thing (especially if you've previously had a person's destructive blast just "not work" on someone, later to learn that they were secretly working for said deity covertly.)

-This naturally raises more questions of the nature of the divine powers wielded by villains who worship good deities. I tend to answer this in a few ways: 1) Eberron's canon material points out that many Cults of the Dragon Below actually have people tricked into thinking that they're serving a "standard" deity while they're actually in the thrall of some demon, villainous creature, or thing-that-should-not-be. You also get instances of people worshiping the Silver Flame who get their power from Bel Shalor instead. This kind of option is plenty viable. 2) In certain cases, the deity may be "holding out hope" for a particularly noteworthy disciple; if a deity is particularly big on redemption and second chances, they may still legitimately be of the same faith, but redeemable. If this happens, I recommend their being more cases where the deity intercedes and prevents the character's powers from working for whatever reason, prompting either contemplation about the meaning of it from the villain or stubborn refusal to see the situation as it is. 3) Why, that was actually a Changeling sorcerer just pretending and emulating Friar Antoine's divine magic through sinister, vile magic! He must've been keeping this ruse up for YEARS! Ah-hahahahahahahaha! #WellMet #Huzzah #Victory

-I also have a note about a "Rite of Excommunication." While not truly rooted in RL excommunication roots, it's basically a magical ritual and/or incantation. If used, then when you join a faith it's assumed that you adopt a virtual alignment of "Good (Olladra)" or something. Then when you're discovered to be villainous, this ritual or incantation could change your alignment to "Negative-Good (Olladra)". This is *super* persnickety, and I don't recommend it, but it's in my notes anyway so I thought I'd mention it.

And again, I've not really formalized anything for this yet, so this is all just general musings.

[Omnificer]

snip

Thanks for taking the time to write all that out. I am one of those people who don't want direct involvement of deities in Eberron, like you mentioned, but I do think that there should be little bits of divine intervention as a reward for the players playing the faithful. That helps differentiate it from just being arcane casting without a somatic component. Instead of a drawback stating that divine intervention can and will occur however, I think I'll just leave that as a bit of unwritten DM narrative power. So, using something like the Loyalty system, a Silver Flame priest can be confident that he can use Aligned Combatant and Protection on a Lycanthrope, until the day it doesn't work.

Beyond the Aligned drawbacks some of the talents are easier to pick. Blood of Vol gets the Deathful Magic boon, Cultists maybe get Addictive casting, perhaps Path of Light gets Mental Focus and/or Skilled Casting (Perform: Dancing). Skilled Casting can be rough at early levels in situations where you can't take 10 and I would definitely leave up to the players on if they want to use it.

[Afgncaap5]

but I do think that there should be little bits of divine intervention as a reward for the players playing the faithful. That helps differentiate it from just being arcane casting without a somatic component. Instead of a drawback stating that divine intervention can and will occur however, I think I'll just leave that as a bit of unwritten DM narrative power.

Sounds good. Eberron (and, I feel, a lot of other settings) can benefit from story-based hints of DM alterations to the mechanics in the event of revealing certain plot elements or introducing reasonable complications. It helps the world be more "magical" and "wondrous", just so long as players never feel like their feat slots or spells selections are being nullified in total.

Beyond the Aligned drawbacks some of the talents are easier to pick. Blood of Vol gets the Deathful Magic boon, Cultists maybe get Addictive casting, perhaps Path of Light gets Mental Focus and/or Skilled Casting (Perform: Dancing). Skilled Casting can be rough at early levels in situations where you can't take 10 and I would definitely leave up to the players on if they want to use it.

I really like the flavor of Mental Focus or Skilled Casting for Path of Light, but I could also see baseline Divine Petitioner working for them in the event of, say, Khorvairian faithful who started worshiping after meeting some Kalashtar and learning about the Path of Light's outlook. Not as powerful, perhaps, but it still gets the job done.

[Omnificer]

One thing Eberron has are all the Druidic Initiate feats and something I'm considering is casting traditions that have a similar result since the feats as is don't work with the Spheres.

The normal Druidic tradition has these Drawbacks: Verbal Casting, Prepared Caster, Animal Shaman (Mind)

The Druidic casting tradition is fine as is, but I am looking at expanding Druidic magic to be distinct from Divine, sort of how 4th had Primal magic. It involves taking some of the things unique to the Druid class and making them part of the casting tradition, namely the non-metal armor restriction and the spontaneous castings of Summon Nature's Ally. I'm also trying to figure out whether a Drawback that forbids the Death sphere (or any sphere really) is worth a drawback. Maybe worded as, Drawback: Select a Sphere, you are forbidden from taking that Sphere or talents in that Sphere. This may not be selected multiple times.

I made a new Drawback, Druidic Armor:
Forged metal functions as a dampener of druidic magic and when a druid is wearing a set of metal armor they receive a failure chance equal to the Arcane spell failure chance of the armor. This cannot be reduced in the same manner as ASF or bought off with a talent.
I'm waffling between keeping the ASF or using the Druid's 24 hours can't cast spells limit.

I'm also planning on allowing any Druidic sub-tradition to cast Conjuration talents spontaneously and allowing the Druidic traditions to take the Beastmastery sphere from Spheres of Might as if it were a magic sphere. Not sure if those would count as Boons, and the Spontaneous Casting might be a half boon at best.

All of this kind of flows into this base Eberron Druidic Tradition:
Druidic
A Druid gains +1 spell point, +1 per 1.5 levels gained in a spellcasting class.
Drawbacks: Druidic Armor, Verbal Casting, Prepared Caster, Forbidden (Death), Animal Shaman (Mind)
Boons: None
May spontaneously cast from the Conjuration sphere with Bestial archetype. May treat the Beastmastery sphere as a magic sphere for spending talents.

Then we have for comparison the Ashbound Initiate tradition.
Drawbacks: Somatic Casting (2), Verbal Casting, Prepared Caster, Forbidden (Death), Animal Shaman (Mind)
Boon: Wild Will
The Ashbound reject armor pretty much entirely, which is represented by having Somatic Casting (2) instead of Druidic Armor. They also favor animals which is reflected by the Wild Will Boon, possibly with an option for Bound Creature.

This is in contrast to the Nightbringer Initiate tradition.
Drawbacks: Druidic Armor, Verbal Casting, Prepared Caster, Animal Shaman (Mind), Monster Tamer (Beastmastery, Vermin)
Boon: Deathful Magic
The Nightbringers are not Forbidden from the Death sphere. They can tame Vermin with the Beastmastery fear. They have the Deathful Magic boon. In addition when using Conjuration they would take the Vermin base form and/or Undead type and/or Shadow Creature form and not the Bestial Archetype.