Spheres of Might/Power Opinions

[Hicks]

I've never run or participated in a system using either or both of these sources, but I've heard nebulously good things about both of them. Does anyone have extended experience with these, as they balance against the standard classes or as the exclusive options for player characters? Information for playability, fun, and power-level are all appreciated.

[Blackhawk748]

I've ran a fair few games with SoP (haven't used Might) and its a solidly built system that rewards people making a Themed Caster. Can you munchkin it? Well, ya, but it doesn't get crazy cuz it really can't. I'd say that SoP casters peak out at the high end of Tier 3 but typically hang out around Tier 4.

All in all its a solid system that has a bit of a learning curve.

[JerichoPenumbra]

I've yet to have a chance to play in many Spheres games but I have all the material and make characters for fun, so take my take with a grain of salt (and maybe a hint of lime). I'll say right now I've never liked the tier system so I won't be making comparisons.

Spheres of Might changes "mundane" martials big time (not a bad thing IMO). The focus is towards making combat more cinematic, fun, and encourage others to do more than "I sit here and make a full attack" every round kind of scenario. It typically does this by focusing on Attack Actions, having carrier effects on them such as quasi-sneak attack or stacking bleed damage, allowing combos of combat manuevers to chain off one another like making a disarm attempt after succeeding on a bullrush, or utilizing new interactions for skills in combat. Combat is SoM will take roughly just as long or maybe slightly longer since the material encourages not just attacking but provides options that synergize if played with one other (i.e. someone specialized in debuffing an enemy paired with someone with bonuses attacking weakened enemies). IMO, since bleed damage (even if small) is possible at level one the tides of battles can turn easily, especially if they turn into conflicts of attrition but as a whole the system encourages tactical thinking and working together.

Spheres of Power simultaneously raises and lowers the power of magic as a whole. Raised, since many of the base spheres provide an ability that doesn't require the expenditure of spell points, as well as having most magic scale off of caster level rather than be a static benefit. Lowered, since most magical abilities are locked behind talents and tends to be better if you specialize in a few spheres rather than try to learn many different ones. Also since magic is talent based, there isn't the case of copying the perfect toolbox spell in town into your spellbook that will bypass obstacle X which IMO is the major advantage of traditional spellcasting. As Blackhawk alluded to, the system is designed so that individual elements can't really be munchkin'd, partially by having the most powerful talents locked in a separate section of the book that isn't available by default without GM permission. However, the system is one the rewards creativity via the Spellcrafting system which is locked behind one of the core feats. One of the base examples for Spellcrafting is essentially the Haste spell except it lasts 10 min/level. As for Themed Casters Drop Dead Studios have released some videos explaining what their system is and how it works. This video has links to the other 3 in its description.

Both systems are designed to allow them to work side by side with the "traditional" systems and as a whole I don't think it's likely that they'll completely outshine the other. Though personally I think they work best as full substitutions.

[Quarian Rex]

Gotta agree with much of what JerichoPenumbra said, except for this...

Both systems are designed to allow them to work side by side with the "traditional" systems and as a whole I don't think it's likely that they'll completely outshine the other. Though personally I think they work best as full substitutions.

I am a big fan of mixing the Spheres systems with Core. Spheres of Might comes off as an extension of Core as much as anything else, kind of like adding a bunch of new maneuvers with synergies that really seem like they should have been in the Core book already. It's a great option for those who want to provide slick options for martials but feel like Path of War went in a direction that they don't appreciate (for the record, I think PoW and SoM go together like PB&J).

Spheres of Power makes a great counter point to standard arcane magic in a game world. I tend to see SoP as the originating form of magic, where these earliest attempts to manipulate magic shape the user as well (permanently), painstakingly unlocking Spheres and Talents to gradually broaden your capabilities. This is my favorite kind of magic, magic that can actually be used. Continually. I have traditionally hated vancian magic. The idea of having a wizard who spends most of his time not casting his magic to make sure that he has it when he needs it makes me twitchy.

The odd thing here is that after actually having some play time with SoP I now have an actual appreciation for vancian spellcasting. This is not a criticism. Spending so much time working builds and never having enough talents to do all the things I need leaves me staring in wonder at standard spellcasters who can completely rebuild every magical capability and limitation with every spell. It seems like a natural evolution that would be appreciated in the game world as well.

[StSword]

I am a big fan of mixing the Spheres systems with Core. Spheres of Might comes off as an extension of Core as much as anything else, kind of like adding a bunch of new maneuvers with synergies that really seem like they should have been in the Core book already. It's a great option for those who want to provide slick options for martials but feel like Path of War went in a direction that they don't appreciate (for the record, I think PoW and SoM go together like PB&J).

The odd thing here is that after actually having some play time with SoP I now have an actual appreciation for vancian spellcasting. This is not a criticism. Spending so much time working builds and never having enough talents to do all the things I need leaves me staring in wonder at standard spellcasters who can completely rebuild every magical capability and limitation with every spell. It seems like a natural evolution that would be appreciated in the game world as well.

I happen to like path of war as well, any quirks of using both one should be aware of?

You might want to check out the Skybourne Players Guide by the makers of the spheres systems. In that setting, spheres of power is the traditional type of magic, and then the standard type evolved.

It also expands rituals, including feats to allow a spherecaster to take a ritual and memorize it as a spell like a wizard, although it costs spell points, so it's not something you're going to do willy nilly, but if there are some spells you just know you're going to need that day, well, you can do that, presuming you have access to the ritual.

[Quarian Rex]

I happen to like path of war as well, any quirks of using both one should be aware of?

Nothing crazy, just that each compliments the other regardless of which you want to focus on. SoM attacks get nothing but benefit from any boosts, counters, and stances that you can squeeze in, while PoW initiators can pick up expanded attack options that are always available regardless of maneuver readiness or recovery.

PB&J.

[Galacktic]

I happen to like path of war as well, any quirks of using both one should be aware of?

You might want to check out the Skybourne Players Guide by the makers of the spheres systems. In that setting, spheres of power is the traditional type of magic, and then the standard type evolved.

It also expands rituals, including feats to allow a spherecaster to take a ritual and memorize it as a spell like a wizard, although it costs spell points, so it's not something you're going to do willy nilly, but if there are some spells you just know you're going to need that day, well, you can do that, presuming you have access to the ritual.

With Path of War on the table, the big thing is to ban the Seize the Opportunity feat for Spheres of Might characters. It allowing attack actions for attacks of opportunity is mind blowingly powerful for SoM due to them being able to get their equivalent of a full attack off with it.

[Crake]

Can you munchkin it? Well, ya, but it doesn't get crazy cuz it really can't.

I'll have to disagree with this. I remember making a weather mage that could do something like hurricane winds within a 170ft radius. At level 1. So level 1 characters can literally go waltzing around tearing up entire villages with little to no recourse.

Using casting traditions + incanter to boost your CL up to 7 lets you get up to severity 4, severe weather talent gets you up to 5, and wind lord gets you up to 6, which is hurricane force winds. Since it costs no spell points if you concentrate, all you need is empowered abilities (+2CL at 0 spell points), overcharge (+2CL and become fatigued), incanter sphere spec (+1CL to weather) and deathful (+1CL while at or below 1/2hp), plus the above talents, easily attainable with the incanter's 4 starting talents. Hell, even dropping one or two of those boons and waiting until 2nd-4th level to be able to throw that around, while still tossing around category 5 (windstorm) winds is still pretty crazy.

We weren't even trying to break it honestly, but I think being able to throw around at-will hurricane force winds at level 1 is a bit TOOOO much, that's when we pretty much collectively decided spheres is too easy to break by accident.

[Biolink22]

I'll have to disagree with this. I remember making a weather mage that could do something like hurricane winds within a 170ft radius. At level 1. So level 1 characters can literally go waltzing around tearing up entire villages with little to no recourse.

Using casting traditions + incanter to boost your CL up to 7 lets you get up to severity 4, severe weather talent gets you up to 5, and wind lord gets you up to 6, which is hurricane force winds. Since it costs no spell points if you concentrate, all you need is empowered abilities (+2CL at 0 spell points), overcharge (+2CL and become fatigued), incanter sphere spec (+1CL to weather) and deathful (+1CL while at or below 1/2hp), plus the above talents, easily attainable with the incanter's 4 starting talents. Hell, even dropping one or two of those boons and waiting until 2nd-4th level to be able to throw that around, while still tossing around category 5 (windstorm) winds is still pretty crazy.

We weren't even trying to break it honestly, but I think being able to throw around at-will hurricane force winds at level 1 is a bit TOOOO much, that's when we pretty much collectively decided spheres is too easy to break by accident.

1. The Controlling the weather is always going to be super powerful that's a given. And you're investing quite a bit to just make hurricane winds good way to get your character murdered real quick while you're still in rusty dagger shank town.

2. Wind Lord is an Advanced Talent for a reason.

[JerichoPenumbra]

To be fair Crake, the weather sphere did get a bit of a rewrite in its expanded splat which made most of the "_______ Lord" talents advanced talents instead and has a small blurb about dealing with weather magic in a setting. Though a few grievances with your build 1) severe weather talent requires you to use a spell point so you can't do that continuously all day 2) 3 boons means having 6 drawbacks minimum to casting. You say it's too easy to break but the example you gave is you having to go out of your way to make it work.

Edit: half ninja'd

[TiaC]

I agree that SoP has problems with being level-appropriate due to rewarding specialists and punishing generalists. A character who spreads their talents across a half-dozen spheres can very easily end up needing to constantly spend spell points to get level-appropriate actions. CL scaling only goes so far, and it really doesn't help for a lot of spheres. So, they can easily end up like the kineticist, with a handful of unimpressive tricks and nothing that stands out. Going the other way, hyper-specializing in one sphere results in a character who is overpowered when their speciality applies and useless when it doesn't. These characters end up closer to mounted chargers, who drop foes in one hit on the right battlefield, but collapse in unfavorable conditions. Weather controllers can have amazing offensive and defensive abilities without even needing to spend actions, but put them inside and they're hopeless.

I also don't like the Advanced Magic approach. Putting a big "GM approval" label on material is only as good as the GM and doesn't add anything that wasn't already there. A GM with a good sense of balance will already ban options that are too strong and go easy on weak options. A GM with a poor sense of balance will ban weak options and allow overly strong ones either way. So it bugs me a bit to see people acting like Advanced Magic shouldn't be considered when looking at SoP's balance. Most of the other material in Advanced Magic is loose guidelines to homebrew with, which I don't like in things I paid money for, because I can homebrew without paying anyone money and the guidelines don't really make it easier. It also means that making a character who uses it requires tons of DM input, and I don't like to be the guy who pesters a DM for a dozen rulings before the game's even begun.

I'll use it as a DM, because it does work well for quickly-made characters that are built for one encounter and I'll let my players use it, but I can't see using it as a player.

[Crake]

2. Wind Lord is an Advanced Talent for a reason.

To be fair Crake, the weather sphere did get a bit of a rewrite in its expanded splat which made most of the "_______ Lord" talents advanced talents instead and has a small blurb about dealing with weather magic in a setting. Though a few grievances with your build 1) severe weather talent requires you to use a spell point so you can't do that continuously all day 2) 3 boons means having 6 drawbacks minimum to casting. You say it's too easy to break but the example you gave is you having to go out of your way to make it work.

Edit: half ninja'd

Well, it's not an advanced talent in the book i bought, and back when we came up with the build, it wasn't an advanced talent. And sure, severe weather requires a spellpoint, but even windstorm levels at will are mega strong, and I addressed the boons, saying that sure, having 3 boons specifically built toward it is rather rough, but the character in mind was based on windwaker, so extended casting (which counts as 2, conducting takes a while), magical signs (winds swirling around the character), focus casting (conductors baton), skilled casting (profession/perform (conducting)) and somatic casting (swinging around the baton) right away fit in perfectly, and boom, there's your 6 drawbacks.

But even so, those boons only really get you one extra weather category, and you can drop one or two (having to be at half HP is probably the first one I'd drop) and delay hurricane force winds, to level 2 or 3. And you'll never be in shank town, why? Because you blew shank town away.

Honestly, the main issue is that the build can exist at all, and at such a low level, meaning that you have to build a world around the fact that this person could exist, with barely any experience, they could just rock up one day. As a villain, this character could mow down town after town before they even have a chance to reasonably react (he could literally just walk into down and summon up hurricane force winds before anyone can really react, and at that point, he's practically untouchable, since hurricane force winds will blow away most enemies, and ranged attacks become literally impossible), and yeah, it's fixed kinda by making windlord an advanced talent, which makes it under the DM's perogative but that's basically the equivilent of saying "yeah, it's not broken, because the DM can just ban it", and we all know which fallacy that falls under.

Weather controllers can have amazing offensive and defensive abilities without even needing to spend actions, but put them inside and they're hopeless.

Weather mages actually function perfectly fine indoors (assuming you're in like a dungeon where the structure won't entirely be blown away as soon as you start your winds up, which would just make it outdoors anyway ), hurricane force winds throwing enemies into dungeon walls and completely blocking ranged attacks is still absolutely fine. The only time weather magic wouldn't apply is if you're in a place with fragile objects that you don't want to destroy, which sure, will come up once in a while, but not horribly often.

Most of the other material in Advanced Magic is loose guidelines to homebrew with, which I don't like in things I paid money for, because I can homebrew without paying anyone money and the guidelines don't really make it easier.

Oh yeah, don't even get me started on the spellcrafting guidelines. I have a blood mage who basically blows his entire spell point reserve at the start of the day casting this monstrosity:

Protection of Blood
Sphere: Protection
Cost: 7 spell points
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Target: 1 +1 per 2 caster levels (minimum 2) creatures
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
Prerequisites: Protection sphere (Armored Magic), Life sphere (Mass Healing, Revitalize)
Crafting Time: 5 days

A warmth washes over you as you are invigorated with energy, never having felt more alive, feeling your body pulse with each beat of your heart.

This spell infuses the blood of it's targets with incredible protective and regenerative magic, causing them to gain a +3 armor bonus, a +1 shield bonus and a +1 deflection bonus to AC. Each of these increases by 1 for every 5 caster levels. Additionally, recipients of this spell gain fast healing 1.

Made entirely within the bounds of the spellcrafting rules, oh, and yes, it was boosted to CL 6 (meaning it could affect 4 people, aka the entire party) and grant everyone a +4 armor bonus, a +2 shield bonus and a +2 deflection bonus, aka a +8 AC bonus (which was huge for the party monk who had absolutely no overlap with any of his gear), and fast healing 1.

He then used his one remaining power point to restore his fatigue (blood magic, of course he had overchannel), and his fast healing healed him up from having 1/4 health for deathful casting (again, of course he had this for a blood mage). He then spent the rest of the day popping off basic destruction magic blasts.

[Quarian Rex]

Honestly, the main issue is that the build can exist at all, and at such a low level, meaning that you have to build a world around the fact that this person could exist, with barely any experience, they could just rock up one day. As a villain, this character could mow down town after town before they even have a chance to reasonably react (he could literally just walk into down and summon up hurricane force winds before anyone can really react, and at that point, he's practically untouchable, since hurricane force winds will blow away most enemies, and ranged attacks become literally impossible), and yeah, it's fixed kinda by making windlord an advanced talent, which makes it under the DM's perogative but that's basically the equivilent of saying "yeah, it's not broken, because the DM can just ban it", and we all know which fallacy that falls under.

I really don't know why you or your DM would actually have a problem with this. You need to spend the majority of your character resources both to purchase and to actually cast (you have to already be at 0 SP and 1/2 HP and wind up fatigued), has to be maintained for 5 full rounds to have full effect, only effects those withing medium range, and can be outrun by anyone (you need to maintain concentration and so only have a single move action, everyone else can take two to get away from you).

For all that, considering that you have the time and opportunity to cast this (spend the extra rounds to spend the rest of your SP and stab yourself to 1/2 Hp, or just be walking around already in such a depleted state, a risk unto itself), what do you actually get? Functional immunity to archers? Yup. The ability to flatten entire villages? You can do some collateral damage to poorly made structures at the DMs discretion. Single-handedly defeat entire armies? You have about a 70% chance (less if they have a Str. over 11) to knock someone down and do 1-4d4 nonlethal damage to them. That is some massive crowd control. But... each round 1/3 to 1/2 of your opposition (depending on Str.) will be coming to stab you. Medium range isn't that much territory to cover. When they reach him the weather mage is already gimped (fatigued with no SP and is already at 1/2 HP), can't take any further actions to defend himself (has to maintain concentration on the hurricane), and has no allies to defend him (would have been affected by the hurricane as well). That sounds like an extremely high risk, high reward playstyle one that can't even be used around the party. Something that works like a charm till someone makes a good roll and the caster is screwed. Where is the problem?

From a villain perspective you have someone who leaves a trail of unconscious people and mild property damage. You know what that sounds like? That sounds like a plot hook. Even encountering this at 1st level it would play more like an X-Men episode where you have to deal with someone unleashing troublesome uncontrolled power rather that something that actually poses immediate danger.

This really strikes me as a situation where the player says, "I cast Hurricane!", and the DM throws up his hands and says, "You Win!", without anyone actually looking up what any of it really means.

Weather mages actually function perfectly fine indoors (assuming you're in like a dungeon where the structure won't entirely be blown away as soon as you start your winds up, which would just make it outdoors anyway ), hurricane force winds throwing enemies into dungeon walls and completely blocking ranged attacks is still absolutely fine. The only time weather magic wouldn't apply is if you're in a place with fragile objects that you don't want to destroy, which sure, will come up once in a while, but not horribly often.

See what I mentioned above, but you are even more vulnerable. 5 rounds of build-up, they can hear you coming from a mile away, you have to do it solo, and all enemies probably start withing charge distance (you have to really hope they fail their Str. check). Potent? Yes. A low level I Win Button? Not by a long shot.

Oh yeah, don't even get me started on the spellcrafting guidelines. I have a blood mage who basically blows his entire spell point reserve at the start of the day casting this monstrosity:

Protection of Blood
Sphere: Protection
Cost: 7 spell points
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Target: 1 +1 per 2 caster levels (minimum 2) creatures
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
Prerequisites: Protection sphere (Armored Magic), Life sphere (Mass Healing, Revitalize)
Crafting Time: 5 days

A warmth washes over you as you are invigorated with energy, never having felt more alive, feeling your body pulse with each beat of your heart.

This spell infuses the blood of it's targets with incredible protective and regenerative magic, causing them to gain a +3 armor bonus, a +1 shield bonus and a +1 deflection bonus to AC. Each of these increases by 1 for every 5 caster levels. Additionally, recipients of this spell gain fast healing 1.

Made entirely within the bounds of the spellcrafting rules, oh, and yes, it was boosted to CL 6 (meaning it could affect 4 people, aka the entire party) and grant everyone a +4 armor bonus, a +2 shield bonus and a +2 deflection bonus, aka a +8 AC bonus (which was huge for the party monk who had absolutely no overlap with any of his gear), and fast healing 1.

He then used his one remaining power point to restore his fatigue (blood magic, of course he had overchannel), and his fast healing healed him up from having 1/4 health for deathful casting (again, of course he had this for a blood mage). He then spent the rest of the day popping off basic destruction magic blasts.

You functionally spent your entire arcane reserve to give the party +2 to AC (everybody but the monk will already have armor and shield bonuses higher that what you are providing in all but the most deprived of situations) and fast healing 1 for a few hours (better hope you guessed which hours it will be needed). Again this is one of those things where I fail to see an actual problem. At low levels, where this would make the most difference, a second encounter at a different time of day would negate it's benefit completely. When you are high enough level to have the duration cover all encounters its benefits are no more than a nice quality of life perk. Either way it costs you most of your SP to do so. Again, I'm not seeing a problem here.

SoP doesn't let you do anything that can't already be done with standard spells and classes and leaves out a lot of the crazier things found in the expanded spell library. What it does do is allow a dedicated cast the opportunity to get there a little faster (and do it all day), but usually by being unable to do anything else and at pretty hefty cost. Easier to do limited cool things, harder to break the game with those cool things. Higher floor, lower ceiling.

As with any system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Just keep it all in context.

[Quarian Rex]

I'll use it as a DM, because it does work well for quickly-made characters that are built for one encounter and I'll let my players use it, but I can't see using it as a player.

I freely admit that actual spellcasting is far more versatile and situationally powerful in most circumstances. For a lot of people (myself included) the ability to just keep applying magic to their problems (even if it's the wrong magic for the problem. If your only tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail and all that...) without real limitation is just too tempting. Definitely comes down to player preference.

[Serafina]

The Weather Sphere is the thing that gets pointed out as broken/OP, but the only thing it does exceedingly well compared to normal magic is wide-scale destruction (and even then, it needs a fair bit of investment). That's a new problem for the GM to handle, but it won't really break combat.
And Advanced Talents require explicit GM-approval for a reason. If you don't want that stuff, the Weather Sphere will never be more powerful than Control Weather.


If you want to combine Spheres of Power with more traditional magic, there's a hack for that. Rituals can emulate normal Spells - which can be highly useful for a campaign where you want players to use Spheres during combat, but still want them to occasionally have access to more unique magical effects.
You can also go further than that, and allow the Spell Dabbler and Spell Adept feat - now those Rituals can be prepared like conventional vancian spells, and be cast at the cost of spell points. I'd be really careful with that, especially with what Rituals you allow for that - it'll make Spherecasters vastly more versatile. But it can be a fun thing to do.


As for Spheres of Might - while most of it is designed around the Attack Action, for the very good reason that this allows characters to actually move, if a player wants to do more full-attacking (maybe because they have a class with features based around it), you still have Spheres that work well with that. Athletics, Barroom, Berserker, Guardian, Scout or Scoundrel are all good examples there.

[Blackhawk748]

I've played a Weather/Nature Sphere Witch and she was great, but you have to be smart with using Weather stuff as it all has a wind up to get the point where it all comes crashing down of a couple of rounds. Is it great once its rolling? Hell ya, but its a Spell Point glutton to get anything more than a whole lot of wind.

[exelsisxax]

They are awesome and I would accept them in any campaign I would consider running, alongside psionics and path of war.

[Ualaa]

Our group has the requirement that characters need to be build within Hero Lab, as a stacking checker so to speak.

We've had access to most of Path of War (through the Community Package), and have everything (HL) Spheres related. The Might stuff is newly released, and we haven't used it in games, but the Spheres of Power stuff we've been using extensively for at least a couple of years.

Spheres of Power has everything scale based on caster level, which lets you have an effect (say Improved Invisibility) at a much earlier level. Or Dimension Door or flight right from first level... but the effectiveness is based on caster level, not a binary +40 with invisibility active (instead a +1 bonus per caster level to the Stealth skill)...

So Spheres is both more powerful and less.

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The min/max players in the group take frequent drawbacks.
The drawback system has two facets, the first is general drawbacks which are part of your magical tradition (along with Boons) and help to duplicate a massive number of casting styles from books, cartoons, movies, or your imagination.

The second portion of the drawback system is taking limitations within a sphere (sphere specific drawbacks are taken when you first gain access).
Most spheres have a couple of drawbacks available, some seem to have only a single and a couple have three sphere specific drawbacks.
The limitations each get you a bonus talent, from within that sphere.

The system is good, in that your character starts off only able to Teleport themselves.
Over time, they can buy off the limitation of Personal Warp, and that allows them to Teleport either themselves or another target.
They could choose to go with the mass/group (forget whether it's mass teleport or group teleport) version, and take multiple targets next.
They have the option to add Unseen, to go to a location they haven't seen.
Basically, through drawbacks, their magic can get better over time, through buying off those drawbacks.

The part that kind of breaks, potentially anyway...
One of our players will be a caster.
He has healing ability, but cannot heal others.
He can teleport, but only himself.
He can do protection buffs, but not AoE effects and not on anyone but himself.
He can shapechange into a few forms, but again only himself.

If the group were an adventuring business, they may tell the caster to piss off.
What good is a buffer, teleporter, healer, etc, who cannot heal anyone but themselves?

A couple of the casters, have actually taken so many drawbacks, that they forget which ones they have, and then accidentally ignore them, since they have 15 drawbacks... too many to track.

So that's the min/max perspective.

If you were to build the traditions that your players can choose from...
Or if you build your own character, but don't go stupidly overboard...
Then the drawback system is a great tool.
Just don't take every drawback imaginable, and dip into ten spheres with 1-3 bonus talents per sphere, and so many sphere specific limitations that you cannot remember which ones you have...

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In relation to the Path of War characters, a min-max Spheres of Power caster isn't really a lot stronger, but they're also not a lot weaker, in terms of raw damage output.

The caster is more flexible, but that is the nature of magic vs martial.
Not the system per se.

It's worth noting, that I've allowed the players to choose between Spheres or Vancian casting... and not one of them has gone with Vancian since spheres has been an option.

I'd say that Vancian casting, especially as you gain levels, is stronger in what you can achieve.
But spheres is flexibility in what you can play; sure, less flexible than a Vancian caster once you've built your caster, but much more flexible in terms of what you can actually play.

I give the Spheres system a big thumbs up.

[SwordChucks]

My favorite aspect of SoP/SoM is that a player can say "I want to be able to do X." and can build toward that. You can take pretty much any sub-deity level character from media and make that character or use their coolest trick.

Add to that the fact that you can easily ask the devs questions and try it for free using the wiki and there's not much reason to not at least try it.

[Crake]

I really don't know why you or your DM would actually have a problem with this. You need to spend the majority of your character resources both to purchase and to actually cast (you have to already be at 0 SP and 1/2 HP and wind up fatigued), has to be maintained for 5 full rounds to have full effect, only effects those withing medium range, and can be outrun by anyone (you need to maintain concentration and so only have a single move action, everyone else can take two to get away from you).

For all that, considering that you have the time and opportunity to cast this (spend the extra rounds to spend the rest of your SP and stab yourself to 1/2 Hp, or just be walking around already in such a depleted state, a risk unto itself), what do you actually get? Functional immunity to archers? Yup. The ability to flatten entire villages? You can do some collateral damage to poorly made structures at the DMs discretion. Single-handedly defeat entire armies? You have about a 70% chance (less if they have a Str. over 11) to knock someone down and do 1-4d4 nonlethal damage to them. That is some massive crowd control. But... each round 1/3 to 1/2 of your opposition (depending on Str.) will be coming to stab you. Medium range isn't that much territory to cover. When they reach him the weather mage is already gimped (fatigued with no SP and is already at 1/2 HP), can't take any further actions to defend himself (has to maintain concentration on the hurricane), and has no allies to defend him (would have been affected by the hurricane as well). That sounds like an extremely high risk, high reward playstyle one that can't even be used around the party. Something that works like a charm till someone makes a good roll and the caster is screwed. Where is the problem?

From a villain perspective you have someone who leaves a trail of unconscious people and mild property damage. You know what that sounds like? That sounds like a plot hook. Even encountering this at 1st level it would play more like an X-Men episode where you have to deal with someone unleashing troublesome uncontrolled power rather that something that actually poses immediate danger.

This really strikes me as a situation where the player says, "I cast Hurricane!", and the DM throws up his hands and says, "You Win!", without anyone actually looking up what any of it really means.

I think you underestimate hurricane force winds. 174mph winds. Look at the property damage that hurricanes in florida cause, and that's with modern construction techniquies, and in an area that's prone to hurricanes, so they (presumably) have some sort of fortification against it. A normal commoner's house in an area that's never had a hurricane before will most likely be completely destroyed. And that nonlethal damage? Did you forget that in pathfinder nonlethal damage becomes lethal after it passes the threshold of your normal maximum hp? A 3hp commoner will be dead pretty quickly.

See what I mentioned above, but you are even more vulnerable. 5 rounds of build-up, they can hear you coming from a mile away, you have to do it solo, and all enemies probably start withing charge distance (you have to really hope they fail their Str. check). Potent? Yes. A low level I Win Button? Not by a long shot.

Except you can spend those 5 rounds of wind up at the start of the dungeon and clear everyone out as you just concentrate and blast through, since nobody will be able to charge you, or shoot you while the winds are in effect.

You functionally spent your entire arcane reserve to give the party +2 to AC (everybody but the monk will already have armor and shield bonuses higher that what you are providing in all but the most deprived of situations) and fast healing 1 for a few hours (better hope you guessed which hours it will be needed). Again this is one of those things where I fail to see an actual problem. At low levels, where this would make the most difference, a second encounter at a different time of day would negate it's benefit completely. When you are high enough level to have the duration cover all encounters its benefits are no more than a nice quality of life perk. Either way it costs you most of your SP to do so. Again, I'm not seeing a problem here.

Except most of the party were spheres casters, and so didn't have shields, and light armor at best, so most of the party got something closer to +6 AC, there was only 1 party member who was wearing armor and carrying a shield who only got +2 AC. And 6 hours is a very large window of opportunity to go out adventuring, and since, y'know, we were adventurers, we usually picked the hours we were out adventuring, so it was effectively an all-day buff. But most importantly, while I had spent all of my SP to pull it off, I was then running around with an empowered destruction blast, getting +2CL from having no spell points remaining, so I was throwing around a 2d6 blast all day, which at level 1 is the equivilent of spending a spell point on every blast, and not needing to spend any spell points on healing at all, so instead of healing 1d8+1, or doing an extra 1d6 damage 7 times over the day, I was full healing the party for "free" and getting that extra 1d6 damage for free.

SoP doesn't let you do anything that can't already be done with standard spells and classes and leaves out a lot of the crazier things found in the expanded spell library. What it does do is allow a dedicated cast the opportunity to get there a little faster (and do it all day), but usually by being unable to do anything else and at pretty hefty cost. Easier to do limited cool things, harder to break the game with those cool things. Higher floor, lower ceiling.

As with any system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Just keep it all in context.

I don't have an issue with most of the stuff you can do in spheres, what our group mostly has an issue with is how early it can be done. All of the things I described can be done literally at 1st level, and when you think, in context, what that means of a 1st level character, which means it's within the potential capabilities of most of the population, how does one reasonably create a game world where these things can exist, where level 1 characters have access to effectively weapons of mass destruction.

And since it's so front loaded, you could take 1 level in something like the wind mage at any point during your career and have town-destroying capabilities, while having only a minor bump on the road down whatever you'd normally be doing. That wind mage is literally 1 sphere and 2 talents, one of which could be gotten by getting the sphere drawback focused weather, so with literally 3 feats, Basic Magical Training, Advanced Magical Training, and Extra magic talent, which any human could have by level 3, even people who haven't taken a single level in a casting class could pull it off.

[Mehangel]

That wind mage is literally 1 sphere and 2 talents, one of which could be gotten by getting the sphere drawback focused weather, so with literally 3 feats, Basic Magical Training, Advanced Magical Training, and Extra magic talent, which any human could have by level 3, even people who haven't taken a single level in a casting class could pull it off.

With your listed general drawbacks, you only get up to CL 6, which isn't enough to create Hurricane winds.

As others have brought up, Advanced talents explicitly require GM permission to use. To me it is equivalent to building characters with Mythic ranks or Technological equipment.

Having said that, the general drawbacks that grant CL bonuses are likely getting errata'd to be typed as competence bonuses to prevent stacking (only the highest bonus applies).

[JerichoPenumbra]

I think you underestimate hurricane force winds. 174mph winds. Look at the property damage that hurricanes in florida cause, and that's with modern construction techniquies, and in an area that's prone to hurricanes, so they (presumably) have some sort of fortification against it. A normal commoner's house in an area that's never had a hurricane before will most likely be completely destroyed. And that nonlethal damage? Did you forget that in pathfinder nonlethal damage becomes lethal after it passes the threshold of your normal maximum hp? A 3hp commoner will be dead pretty quickly.

Nitpick again, hurricane force winds in game can be 174 mph but can also be 75 mph or any number in between. Next, no one is arguing that hurricanes aren't destructive but trying to bring in real world parallels into a game system is a messy rabbit hole, though on that note medium range is smaller than most people realize. You've made it clear that you think the system is flawed. Nobody is trying to say it's perfect, but most of us are all trying to say it's fun.

I don't have an issue with most of the stuff you can do in spheres, what our group mostly has an issue with is how early it can be done.

Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's likely. Don't like it? Don't use it.

All of the things I described can be done literally at 1st level, and when you think, in context, what that means of a 1st level character, which means it's within the potential capabilities of most of the population, how does one reasonably create a game world where these things can exist, where level 1 characters have access to effectively weapons of mass destruction.

It is an interesting thought. I've been trying some world building after making spells with the craft system and it is difficult I admit. A simple mage (no 4+ drawback nonsense) at low levels can cast a spell that makes farms yield crops everyday. Trade relations, quality of life, markets, military; all of these things change when magic is involved. Mages become highly valued a sought after, people of power and prestige. On paper at least. But there will be the places not so nice where they will be treated as commodities at best and tools/targets at worst. Militaries would develop entire groups specialized in taking down certain mages, among other possibilities.

Magic becomes like having a college degree. Can you do a lot it? Yes, in theory. Does it guarantee you a place in the world? Nope.

[DrMartin]

Been playing Pathfinder almost exclusively with SoP for the last 3 years, and with SoM since it came out.

In the first campaign we treated casting tradition as a 100% player's tool and ended up with characters with very different degrees of effectiveness. Some with clearly over engineered character choices and drawbacks overload. It was not a serious issue balance wise in my game, but it could be, as some other posters detailed above, and the idea of magic in the world felt, rules-to-fluff-wise, a bit scattered and all over the place.

For the second campaign we went with book traditions only with possibility to customize lightly (add one drawback or a boon) and it worked really well. Next campaign had only custom tradition specific to the setting and again it worked really well.

One thing to pay attention to is that characters can have access to certain "milestone" abilities like fly or teleportation as early as level 1, and even weak, low level fly can get you past obstacles that would be impassable for a "normal" level 1 party. On the other hand the characters will not have access to certain magics if they don't explicitly pick up those spheres, so things like detect magic or status removal are not "just wait 24h for the cleric to memorize the right spell" kind of deal. So pay mind to this if you are playing a module that expects problems to be solved or enemies to be faced with specific spell loadouts.

Nothing but praise for Spheres of Might so far. Only downside I can see is that at times it does make martial characters' turns more complex and take longer than casters' turns - and for some players having a simple character that just goes round 1: charge round 2+: full attack is a feature and not a bug. That's not my group's case but I can see that being a possibility.

Overall a great addition to pathfinder in my experience.

[Crake]

With your listed general drawbacks, you only get up to CL 6, which isn't enough to create Hurricane winds.

As others have brought up, Advanced talents explicitly require GM permission to use. To me it is equivalent to building characters with Mythic ranks or Technological equipment.

Having said that, the general drawbacks that grant CL bonuses are likely getting errata'd to be typed as competence bonuses to prevent stacking (only the highest bonus applies).

Incanter made up the last +1CL difference with sphere specialization, and as I said, back then, wind lord wasn't considered an advanced talent, but likewise, saying you can just ban advanced talents isn't lending much credence toward the system. If the option is broken, why's it an option at all? When would a DM ever say yes?

Nitpick again, hurricane force winds in game can be 174 mph but can also be 75 mph or any number in between. Next, no one is arguing that hurricanes aren't destructive but trying to bring in real world parallels into a game system is a messy rabbit hole, though on that note medium range is smaller than most people realize. You've made it clear that you think the system is flawed. Nobody is trying to say it's perfect, but most of us are all trying to say it's fun.

You're right, I should have said up to 174mph, and medium range is still a decent area of affect hurricane force winds, definitely enough space to tear up multiple houses at once.

Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's likely. Don't like it? Don't use it.

Again, don't like it, don't use it isn't a good argument on the topic of whether the system is broken or not. "It's not broken becuase the DM can just ban it" is textbook oberoni.

It is an interesting thought. I've been trying some world building after making spells with the craft system and it is difficult I admit. A simple mage (no 4+ drawback nonsense) at low levels can cast a spell that makes farms yield crops everyday. Trade relations, quality of life, markets, military; all of these things change when magic is involved. Mages become highly valued a sought after, people of power and prestige. On paper at least. But there will be the places not so nice where they will be treated as commodities at best and tools/targets at worst. Militaries would develop entire groups specialized in taking down certain mages, among other possibilities.

Magic becomes like having a college degree. Can you do a lot it? Yes, in theory. Does it guarantee you a place in the world? Nope.

You say 4+ drawbacks is nonsense, but the standard "wizard" package (traditional casting) has 5 drawbacks, the sample blood magic one has 5, one of which is considered 2 drawbacks, so technically 6, so you act like 4+ drawbacks is gaming the system, yet both the wind mage and the blood mage I made had nothing beyond what would be appropriate for the character.

The system is just far too frontloaded, you can do too much which such little investment, and don't even get me started on the sorts of shenannigans you can get away with by using staves to basically get access to almost anything you want.

[Quarian Rex]

The part that kind of breaks, potentially anyway...
One of our players will be a caster.
He has healing ability, but cannot heal others.
He can teleport, but only himself.
He can do protection buffs, but not AoE effects and not on anyone but himself.
He can shapechange into a few forms, but again only himself.

If the group were an adventuring business, they may tell the caster to piss off.
What good is a buffer, teleporter, healer, etc, who cannot heal anyone but themselves?

I don't know, what good is a regenerating, teleporting, super-werewolf? I mean, who would want that on their team? I get the sentiment here but I really think that this sort of thing is just players not paying attention to character fluff.

I think you underestimate hurricane force winds. 174mph winds. Look at the property damage that hurricanes in florida cause, and that's with modern construction techniquies, and in an area that's prone to hurricanes, so they (presumably) have some sort of fortification against it. A normal commoner's house in an area that's never had a hurricane before will most likely be completely destroyed.

As JerichoPenumbra mentioned, that is a slippery slope. When looking at this kind of thing we have to stick to the given game mechanics and nothing else. Otherwise you might as well calculate the area of a Fireball and say that it fills 80% of the dungeon. That dips heavily into DM throwing his hands up and saying 'You Win!' territory.

And that nonlethal damage? Did you forget that in pathfinder nonlethal damage becomes lethal after it passes the threshold of your normal maximum hp? A 3hp commoner will be dead pretty quickly.

... to be fair, I completely forgot that. So, it is a more lethal option than I gave it credit for.

Except you can spend those 5 rounds of wind up at the start of the dungeon and clear everyone out as you just concentrate and blast through, since nobody will be able to charge you, or shoot you while the winds are in effect.

See the bolded part? That is not a thing. When you open the door and enter a room the winds start battering it (no line of effect before that). Once the opponents in that room are exposed to the hurricane force winds they get Str checks (DC 15 not something that can be further modified by the caster) or get knocked prone and rolled 1d4x10 feet suffering 1d4 non-lethal damage per 10 feet traveled. In a closed space like a room there may not be much room to get rolled and so there will be hard limits on the damage that can be applied (once they are pushed against the wall they can't roll any further and so can't take any more damage). Statistically, 30% of your human opponents will still be standing (more if their Str is better than 11) who still get to act, and they are not surprised (howling hurricanes negate stealth attempts I do believe). If a single one of them lands a hit you then need to make a DC 13 (7th level effect) + damage dealt (good luck making that with a 1st level MSB) or the spell drops. He is now alone (the party had to have been hanging back to not get caught in the hurricane), out of SP, and surrounded by people who want to get stabby.

High reward, yes. It seems like both you and your DM were forgetting about the high risk factor. Just remember this kind of thing when sharing playtesting anecdotes. The system isn't broken if you haven't been playing with all the rules.

Except most of the party were spheres casters, and so didn't have shields, and light armor at best, so most of the party got something closer to +6 AC, there was only 1 party member who was wearing armor and carrying a shield who only got +2 AC. And 6 hours is a very large window of opportunity to go out adventuring, and since, y'know, we were adventurers, we usually picked the hours we were out adventuring, so it was effectively an all-day buff.

I'm not saying that the effect didn't have any value to your party, just that the buff isn't as massive as you might think. The armor and shield bonuses are equivalent to leather lamellar and a heavy wooden shield. You saved them 67 gp each. Not exactly a game breaker. Even a Wizard in pajamas will make Armor and Shield spells a regular memorization and those will provide an additional +4 AC over what you are giving. This is a strong quality of life buff, don't get me wrong, but it is the equivalent of making sure that everyone has a minimum of medium armor starting equipment and gets a one point heal every round. Hardly something that will make or break an encounter.

As for the duration? Yup, it's good. One random encounter that catches you all with your pants down will have the rest of the party eyeing the armor shop the next time you are in town, looking for alternatives to relying on a single spell for their basic defensive needs though.

But most importantly, while I had spent all of my SP to pull it off, I was then running around with an empowered destruction blast, getting +2CL from having no spell points remaining, so I was throwing around a 2d6 blast all day, which at level 1 is the equivilent of spending a spell point on every blast, and not needing to spend any spell points on healing at all, so instead of healing 1d8+1, or doing an extra 1d6 damage 7 times over the day, I was full healing the party for "free" and getting that extra 1d6 damage for free.

Oh, I get ya. That is a great mix at 1st level. But looking at that from the other side of the table (the DMs side), you are only doing and extra 3 damage a round (on average) and because of Extended Casting you have to choose whether to do some damage or move. You can't do both. Everything's a trade off. Again, this really isn't anything that would require adjusting an encounter for.

You get to be a magical juggernaut, strengthening and healing your allies with the power of your blood for hours(!), and unleash magical offense with the equivalent damage of an (unbonused) greatsword! How can they let you get away with this?! Meanwhile the DM sees a temporary replacement for some starter equipment and a couple uses of Channel Energy, and a choice between getting out of harms way/into position and doing less damage than any of the martials. But behold the glory of Spheres of Power! There is no irony in that last sentence. I think that the ability to legitimately do something cool from a low level is vastly important to enjoying a magic based character. I just think that the Spheres system, even when min/maxed, does a pretty damn good job of making sure that nothing can actually get broken.

I don't have an issue with most of the stuff you can do in spheres, what our group mostly has an issue with is how early it can be done. All of the things I described can be done literally at 1st level, and when you think, in context, what that means of a 1st level character, which means it's within the potential capabilities of most of the population, how does one reasonably create a game world where these things can exist, where level 1 characters have access to effectively weapons of mass destruction.

As I've been saying above, just look at the rules given and play them straight, that solves most of your problems. If the DM says that you knocked a village to the ground (remember, just about everybody can outrun you due to the concentration required) and then declares that your abilities are OP then that is on him. The spell says that you knock people down and they take damage for how far they roll. That's it. Blame the spell for what it does, not what it doesn't do.

As has been noted, Weather tends to get the most flack for this sort of thing due to the relatively large AoEs. It is also the Sphere that is the most obvious and has the most buildup. You might be able to get a 'surprise' attack like this off a couple of times, but then word will spread. From then on any time the winds pick up in a weird way people will rush to see if there is someone standing in the middle of it and you will get to see how good your concentration checks are for a few rounds before you can do your thing. Again, this just sounds like plot hooks to me.

And since it's so front loaded, you could take 1 level in something like the wind mage at any point during your career and have town-destroying capabilities, while having only a minor bump on the road down whatever you'd normally be doing. That wind mage is literally 1 sphere and 2 talents, one of which could be gotten by getting the sphere drawback focused weather, so with literally 3 feats, Basic Magical Training, Advanced Magical Training, and Extra magic talent, which any human could have by level 3, even people who haven't taken a single level in a casting class could pull it off.

Yup, they could, with the same limitations and an even worse concentration check than you. Looks like you are discovering the basis of societies like the Hathrans, Red Wizards of Thay, or the entire world of Eberron. Magical proliferation makes things interesting. Now do you want to spread this arcane knowledge or surpress it to protect your own interests? Plot hooks, plot hooks as far as the eye can see...

[Crake]

As JerichoPenumbra mentioned, that is a slippery slope. When looking at this kind of thing we have to stick to the given game mechanics and nothing else. Otherwise you might as well calculate the area of a Fireball and say that it fills 80% of the dungeon. That dips heavily into DM throwing his hands up and saying 'You Win!' territory.


... to be fair, I completely forgot that. So, it is a more lethal option than I gave it credit for.


See the bolded part? That is not a thing. When you open the door and enter a room the winds start battering it (no line of effect before that). Once the opponents in that room are exposed to the hurricane force winds they get Str checks (DC 15 not something that can be further modified by the caster) or get knocked prone and rolled 1d4x10 feet suffering 1d4 non-lethal damage per 10 feet traveled. In a closed space like a room there may not be much room to get rolled and so there will be hard limits on the damage that can be applied (once they are pushed against the wall they can't roll any further and so can't take any more damage). Statistically, 30% of your human opponents will still be standing (more if their Str is better than 11) who still get to act, and they are not surprised (howling hurricanes negate stealth attempts I do believe). If a single one of them lands a hit you then need to make a DC 13 (7th level effect) + damage dealt (good luck making that with a 1st level MSB) or the spell drops. He is now alone (the party had to have been hanging back to not get caught in the hurricane), out of SP, and surrounded by people who want to get stabby.

High reward, yes. It seems like both you and your DM were forgetting about the high risk factor. Just remember this kind of thing when sharing playtesting anecdotes. The system isn't broken if you haven't been playing with all the rules.

Or you can have the winds swirling in a circle and have a safe eye in the middle where you and your party can safely all walk together? That's how we were envisioning it.

I'm not saying that the effect didn't have any value to your party, just that the buff isn't as massive as you might think. The armor and shield bonuses are equivalent to leather lamellar and a heavy wooden shield. You saved them 67 gp each. Not exactly a game breaker. Even a Wizard in pajamas will make Armor and Shield spells a regular memorization and those will provide an additional +4 AC over what you are giving. This is a strong quality of life buff, don't get me wrong, but it is the equivalent of making sure that everyone has a minimum of medium armor starting equipment and gets a one point heal every round. Hardly something that will make or break an encounter.

As for the duration? Yup, it's good. One random encounter that catches you all with your pants down will have the rest of the party eyeing the armor shop the next time you are in town, looking for alternatives to relying on a single spell for their basic defensive needs though.

Well, the game in question was based in a city, so "random encounters" weren't really a thing, we weren't running through wilderness or anything, so we would just pop it off before going to hunt a bounty, or go into the sewers to investigate, or before going into the crypts or whatever. Yeah, sure, a bit niche, but still, even just 6 hours of fast healing for the whole party is pretty huge.

Oh, I get ya. That is a great mix at 1st level. But looking at that from the other side of the table (the DMs side), you are only doing and extra 3 damage a round (on average) and because of Extended Casting you have to choose whether to do some damage or move. You can't do both. Everything's a trade off. Again, this really isn't anything that would require adjusting an encounter for.

My blood mage didn't actually have extended casting iirc, so that wasn't an issue.

You get to be a magical juggernaut, strengthening and healing your allies with the power of your blood for hours(!), and unleash magical offense with the equivalent damage of an (unbonused) greatsword! How can they let you get away with this?! Meanwhile the DM sees a temporary replacement for some starter equipment and a couple uses of Channel Energy, and a choice between getting out of harms way/into position and doing less damage than any of the martials. But behold the glory of Spheres of Power! There is no irony in that last sentence. I think that the ability to legitimately do something cool from a low level is vastly important to enjoying a magic based character. I just think that the Spheres system, even when min/maxed, does a pretty damn good job of making sure that nothing can actually get broken.

Yeah, sure it's the damage of an unbonused greatsword, but it's also VS touch AC, so it's likely going to be hitting more often, not to mention, I believe it was frost blast (chilling the blood in your veins), which comes with a neat carrier effect of fort save vs staggered for 1 round each time it hit, prettyyyy good.

As I've been saying above, just look at the rules given and play them straight, that solves most of your problems. If the DM says that you knocked a village to the ground (remember, just about everybody can outrun you due to the concentration required) and then declares that your abilities are OP then that is on him. The spell says that you knock people down and they take damage for how far they roll. That's it. Blame the spell for what it does, not what it doesn't do.

As has been noted, Weather tends to get the most flack for this sort of thing due to the relatively large AoEs. It is also the Sphere that is the most obvious and has the most buildup. You might be able to get a 'surprise' attack like this off a couple of times, but then word will spread. From then on any time the winds pick up in a weird way people will rush to see if there is someone standing in the middle of it and you will get to see how good your concentration checks are for a few rounds before you can do your thing. Again, this just sounds like plot hooks to me.

It can become quite hard to notice the wind picking up in the middle of the night as a hurricane walks through town, and sure, it sounds like a good plot hook, until you realise this "villain" is level 1. I just don't think people should have town destroying power at level 1. It's honestly not even an issue as a player, yeah, sure the DM can find a way to challenge you, I can imagine a dozen ways to achieve that, the issue comes from a world building perspective when you realise that this power is trivial to achieve. How do you handle the fact that with just a bit of effort, practically anyone could become a hurricane-level force of nature? It's not like with regular casting where you need to get to level 9 before you have access to control winds which can reach that level of power, a literal wind mage apprentice can pull that off. Now, I mean, if you want to have that as the baseline for the power in your setting, and you think you can derive the logical conclusions of such ease-of-access to that kind of power, by all means, but as a primary DM, and from seeing my friends trying to work it out, well... let's just say, your world is going to be far from traditional.

Yup, they could, with the same limitations and an even worse concentration check than you. Looks like you are discovering the basis of societies like the Hathrans, Red Wizards of Thay, or the entire world of Eberron. Magical proliferation makes things interesting. Now do you want to spread this arcane knowledge or surpress it to protect your own interests? Plot hooks, plot hooks as far as the eye can see...

It's not about the proliferation of magic, it's about the overwhelming power of base-level mages. Even if regular wizards were around every corner, a level 1 wizard can still only cast a handful of spells per day, with some fun/useful cantrips on the side, and none of the spells they cast are particularly powerful, compared to a level 1 character practically being able to cast a 5th level spell (control winds) at will. Sure, they even out when you get to around level 9ish, but that frontloaded power, in the hands of the majority of the populus radically changes the way a world looks.

[DrMartin]

You say 4+ drawbacks is nonsense, but the standard "wizard" package (traditional casting) has 5 drawbacks, the sample blood magic one has 5, one of which is considered 2 drawbacks, so technically 6, so you act like 4+ drawbacks is gaming the system, yet both the wind mage and the blood mage I made had nothing beyond what would be appropriate for the character.

This is a crafty way to compare things. Not all drawbacks are the same, and the sinergies and interations between them and especially the boon(s) that you pick will inform the end result. This is already true in vanilla Pathfinder and I think is even more true for a concept based system like SoP.

So far the "best" campaign we´ve had with SoP was using casting traditions dictated by the setting/GM, which is, incidentally, the way the book suggests using casting traditions in the first place.

The system is just far too frontloaded, you can do too much which such little investment, and don't even get me started on the sorts of shenannigans you can get away with by using staves to basically get access to almost anything you want.

Front loaded is a different way of saying "it makes your concept viable from level 1", which is one of the selling point of the system, and in my experience so far has been a great thing. If it´s *too* front loaded is a question for each table to answer.

Spheres of Power has its weaker spots and if bent around those can be broken, but I think that as a whole is not as brittle or easily breakable and abusable as you are describing. It is interesting though that at your table it seems to be like that, is good input to inform OP´s opinion.

The biggest issue at my table has been detect magic being a "rare" ability, which nobody else seems to mention :D

[Crake]

This is a crafty way to compare things. Not all drawbacks are the same, and the sinergies and interations between them and especially the boon(s) that you pick will inform the end result. This is already true in vanilla Pathfinder and I think is even more true for a concept based system like SoP.

So far the "best" campaign we´ve had with SoP was using casting traditions dictated by the setting/GM, which is, incidentally, the way the book suggests using casting traditions in the first place.

Usually we built casting traditions that matched what we were going for, I did describe the wind-mage casting tradition as an attempt to match wind-waker's for example, and same goes for my blood mage (I can't remember exactly, but it all fit in with the concept of a blood mage).

Front loaded is a different way of saying "it makes your concept viable from level 1", which is one of the selling point of the system, and in my experience so far has been a great thing. If it´s *too* front loaded is a question for each table to answer.

Spheres of Power has its weaker spots and if bent around those can be broken, but I think that as a whole is not as brittle or easily breakable and abusable as you are describing. It is interesting though that at your table it seems to be like that, is good input to inform OP´s opinion.

Again, if played within a gentleman's agreement, with everyone just agreeing not to go too far and break the game, great, fine, it's all good, but as a primary DM, I tend to look at these kinds of systems through the lens of "what does this mean for the world at large", and generally speaking, spheres means the world drastically changes. Whether that's in a way you like, or not, that's up to you, but we enjoy playing in a more traditional kind of setting, and spheres seems to be largely at odds with that.

[Serafina]

Again, the Weather Sphere is basically the only example people can name that takes things too far - and even then only if you go for really heavy optimization and allow advanced talents.
That really shouldn't have a lot of setting implications - it's about as much of an exploit as some low-level caster finding a large pile of onyx and a graveyard/battlefield and creating a ton of uncontrolled skeletons with it, or other such shenanigans. Sure, someone might occasionally do it - but most people aren't motivated by sheer destruction.
(And while the skeleton-case would require a specific lucky opportunity, the weather-case would actually require a ton of dedication and specific training, so it's arguably harder).


Aside from that - well, what are the setting implications?

For Non-casters/Spheres of Might users you could say they're mostly the same - but that's not quite true.
If legendary talents are on the table (which they are assumed to be), they can pull off much more impressive feats). This can include some abilities that interact with magic, such as spotting magical auras, piercing magical defenses, or the like.
But even without that, they'll have access to more skill points, and do other things such as rapidly identify creature weaknesses with the Scout-sphere, or get access to a host of alchemical items from the alchemy-sphere - they'll be able to do more things, and things they otherwise couldn't do.
That's in addition to generally being more competent combatants, and the lines between classes being more blurred - nothing stops a Rogue from picking up the Berserker- or Guardian-sphere if they really want to, for example.
But at the same time, you can also identify SoM users much more by their Martial Tradition/what spheres they use. So that's something to consider for your setting.

Now onto magic.
Generally, if Spheres of Power are the standard or only type of magic, spellcasters lose versatility - unless you count Rituals, and assume a lot of them have the Ritual Caster feat so they can cast those for which they don't possess the base sphere. But what does that loss of versatility look like? Let's take a look at your standard vancian class, beyond the very low levels.
Any vancian Bard can buff and heal and enchant. That's three spheres.
Any vancian Cleric can buff and heal and enchant and summon and deal some magical damage. That's four spheres.
Any vancian Druid can buff and heal and enchant and summon and deal some magical damage and interact with nature. That's five spheres.
Any vancian Wizard can buff and create and enchant and summon and deam magical damage and teleport and levitate and create illusions and.....yep at this point you see how this model breaks down.
For a lot of vancian spellcasters, you can actually neatly define their core competency.
This is really easy to replicate with Spheres - just take the right Spheres, and you get about the same effects. If people in your world assume a Bard can do those things, then they won't be able to tell the difference between a Spheres-Bard or a Vancian-Bard. There is however one exception:
Spheres are bad at recreating all the random flavorful magical effects, such as Summon Instrument.

Now you could give that Bard the Creation-sphere, but that'd do a pretty poor job due to limited duration, requiring craft-checks, and maybe you just want them to have the option to create an Instrument, not the whole versatility of the Creation-sphere.
Which brings us back to Rituals - there's basically no harm in creating a custom level 0 Ritual of Summon Instrument, and give it the Spheres of "Creation or Illusion" since an illusory instrument would do the job all the same. The same could be done for almost any other spell, especially for those that you want for flavor.
If you're worried about those magical effects that you can't replicate with Spheres - that's what Rituals are for.

So what differences are left now?
There's the stuff like Detect Magic being a base sphere (Divination) instead of a Cantrip everyone has.
There's once again that people will start classifying casters by what they're actually trained in - but then again, unless you're in combat, who cares if that Wizard needs six seconds or 30 minutes to pull out reality-warping magic? Those with the Ritual Caster feat and a large collection of rituals could easily have a status all on their own.
There's healing no longer being mostly the domain of clerical magic - the Life-sphere is open to anyone. That can have huge implications - then again it already was on shaky grounds, Bards and Witches could already cast Cure-spells and such.
There's probably a lot of other small differences, but a small differences isn't setting-altering by definition.


Bottom Line:
If you like, I think you can take a standard Pathfinder-setting (such as Golarion), swap Vancian Magic for Spherecasting, and with good use of Rituals leave the setting basically unchanged.
Most settings do already not run based off the full versatility spellcasters could have, and don't have them using their power to their fullest on a setting-level. Since the magic that mostly defines classes, and is used most frequently, can be done with both systems, that's no problem - and the remainder can be handled with rituals.

[DrMartin]

Again, if played within a gentleman's agreement, with everyone just agreeing not to go too far and break the game, great, fine, it's all good, but as a primary DM, I tend to look at these kinds of systems through the lens of "what does this mean for the world at large", and generally speaking, spheres means the world drastically changes. Whether that's in a way you like, or not, that's up to you, but we enjoy playing in a more traditional kind of setting, and spheres seems to be largely at odds with that.

maybe I am missing your point, but magic transforming the world is always the case with the "rules as physics" mindset - even with vancian magic. Even withouth going full-on tippyverse, pathfinder´s at will cantrips already are a shattering force for your default fantasy world.