[Drop Dead Studios] Spheres of Might Open Playtest

[The Blade Wolf]

I very much appreciate the fact that after I posted my thoughts, people here have been willing to put forwards their agreements to this issues and are actively discussing them right here. I am also very curious to hear that Drop Dead Studioes has their own forums where other discussions are also being held. Should I perhaps make a post on those forums in order to ensure that the largest amount of people can add their thoughts to the discussion?

[EldritchWeaver]

I very much appreciate the fact that after I posted my thoughts, people here have been willing to put forwards their agreements to this issues and are actively discussing them right here. I am also very curious to hear that Drop Dead Studioes has their own forums where other discussions are also being held. Should I perhaps make a post on those forums in order to ensure that the largest amount of people can add their thoughts to the discussion?

I'm not sure why you feel the need to ask for permission. If you think that the discussion benefits from your input, add your opinion there as well. It is unlikely to harm things. ;)

[The Blade Wolf]

It was less asking for permission, than seeing whenever or not others thought it was a good idea.

[NomGarret]

I would give a little bit of time before doing so, as the devs do frequent this forum as well and have asked that we limit having the same discussions with essentially the same people in multiple forums.

[The Blade Wolf]

That is true, so I will wait a day or two before taking my post over to their forums to see what the people there think of it.

[Saffron-sama]

I very much appreciate the fact that after I posted my thoughts, people here have been willing to put forwards their agreements to this issues and are actively discussing them right here. I am also very curious to hear that Drop Dead Studioes has their own forums where other discussions are also being held. Should I perhaps make a post on those forums in order to ensure that the largest amount of people can add their thoughts to the discussion?

Be warned their is a majorly vocal person on dds forum who seems to be listen to a lot. Since most of his post are pretty much "this is to much nerf it!". Be warned, I have seen him be just slightly hostile to a dev because he did not agree with him. One of the biggest reasons why I don't post on there.

[stack]

While I believe there is more to be said on the question of martial/caster disparity, design philosophy, and the current state of the project, at the moment I will just address the specific question of sever.

Limb loss is something that has generally not made much in the way of a presence in the 3.PF era. There are some oddball 3.5 spells, some optional death alternative suggestions (lose an eye, hand etc. by rolling on a table instead of character death), and probably a few others, but generally it isn't a major part of the system. This is reflected in regeneration being a high level spell that normally serves little to no mechanical function. Its the kind of misc. spell that exists for corner situations because a cleric can grab it the one time its needed. This touches on other design issues and the assumed presence of prepared casters in the way the game is structured, but that is a can of worms I prefer to not open at the moment.

So granting the ability to sever limbs is giving a nice thing to martials that casters mostly don't get. As for prerequisites, the team is in agreement that inflicting conditions that cannot be removed except by magic many levels in excess of what the players are assumed to have ready access to is a poor design choice. We are also not convinced that such abilities should have different requirements for GM and player use. While the monster section has 'monster talents', these are separate largely to reflect the nature of many monsters and the way they function rather than a fundamental balance disparity.

In short, I believe sever is a very poor poster child for the disparity issue discussion.

[Ssalarn]

Sever Limb is locked behind a BAB prerequisite of +11. Why? Because magic cannot restore a lost limb until 10th level in Spheres of Power. Now as brought up by other playtesters, it is also possible that it has this prerequisite to keep GM's from using this ability on players before they can afford to have their wounds restored.

Actually, I brought that up first, other playtesters just reiterated that it was the case. Keeping permanent conditions aligned to be within a level or two of the effects that can end them is a standard and wise practice.

This I feel is a cop-out; Just remove the BAB prerequisite, and add a sidebar telling GM's that NPC's of CR 9 or lower should not have Sever Limb. Infact, i would go as far as to say, that NPC's in general should NOT have access to Legendary Talents (there are ofcourse exceptions, but it should be the PC's running the show, not the NPC's).

This is a personal opinion not made using good design sense. You don't put arbitrary limitations on things because they'd be too strong if the GM used them, and you don't tell GMs how to run their world. If anything, the history of the game is that the bad guys usually have the legendary or epic tools before the good guys.

Of course, all of this is conversed at length on the DDS website forums; But I felt that this rant was relevant to the current conversation.

It was discussed at length on the forums, you're correct, and I was far from the only person to explain it to you.

So. This is going to be a bit of general impressions of Spheres of Might as a whole, as well as how it compares to Spheres of Power. Note that this is a less of a science and more of an art as it comes down to the differences in experience when constructing characters using the different systems. But hopefully, I can make my point come across well.

The point being that Spheres of Might is significantly less satisfying than Spheres of Power. Because Spheres of Might is too concerned about making sure that each of the individual talents is equal to a feat when Spheres of Power has many, many talents that are worth significantly more than a feat.

I'd actually argue that outside of base spheres, each talent in Spheres of Power is worth significantly less than a feat. Most talents are minor building blocks that do nothing other than add a small tweak to the base sphere. Each martial talent is a complete ability that allows you to do something you couldn't before, building off of the abilities you got at base instead of needing to be pieced together. If you want to change the damage type of a deadly shot or brutal strike, you use a different weapon, you don't have to take three different talents.

For example, a level 9 character that I created had Draw Cut, Swift Slice and Slickened Grip from the Duelling Sphere, as well as Read Foe, Unlikely Feint, Master of Misdirection, Hand Slash from the Fencing Sphere. This gave me max ranks in Bluff and Sense Motive, as well as allowing me the ability to Feint effectively against non-human enemies. More importantly, however, it gave me a very solid routine off ‘Ready an action to attack an enemy with my sheathed weapon. Draw>Free Action Feint>Success = Swift Action Attack>Fatal-Thrust Feinted Enemy>Success = Free Disarm vs the target with -12? to CMD>Success = Attack for AoO’ in order to hit an enemy 3 times and disarm them for a standard action. Which is a pretty damn good routine.

Except, what if they were immune to bleed? Well, then I won’t be able to do both of the extra attacks, only one of them. What if they don’t have a weapon to disarm at all? Well, I don’t have an exploit to use so I guess I just Fatal-Strike them. What if I failed the Feint? Well, then I won’t get either of the extra attacks or the Fatal-Thrust.

Given that all of those abilities stack onto your attacks automatically and you get Bluff ranks for free, it's pretty hard to not have competitive feint checks. As to immunity to bleed, you're right, that can undermine Duelists a little. That's not evidence that SoM abilities are less powerful than SoP abilities though (lots of SoP spheres can be pretty useless in adverse circumstances), it's evidence that Duelist could use some tools to be useful against creatures immune to bleed, which is definitely I can be (and have been) working on.

So all those talents are rendered useless, and I needed to be an expert participator, or an adept with several ‘Extra combat Talent’ feats in order to be able to get that routine at that level. Not to mention it’s only useful against one target, not so great against multiple targets at once.

And fireballs aren't particularly useful against single targets either, but they take multiple talents to assemble in SoP. It's not like there aren't multi-target abilities available. Dueling and Fencing are both, well, Dueling and Fencing spheres, at their best against one target at a time.

What if I was using Spheres of Power, however? Well, let’s say I wanted to be a Mageknight focused on the Conjuration Sphere. Lingering Companion & Greater Summoning lets me summon by Companion for the entire day for the simple cost of 2 spell points. Boon Companion has me summoning a Companion at the same level as a full-caster would, and my 3 remaining talents is pretty flexible. Maybe I wanted a ranged supporter to my melee combat? Well, I could go Battle Creature twice and Quick Companion in order to make them pretty much as good at range as a normal fighter would, or maybe it could go the route of Magical Companion instead, and specialize in the Destruction Sphere, if I’m reading it right, it’ll only have 2 less talent than I do at that stage. Maybe I want a battle-buddy or a big beefy dude to draw enemy fire from me or my casters? Altered Size x2 and Armored Companion or Fortified Companion helps make it big and tough, whilst Powerful Companion can help increase its strength and damage...

You're making inequivalent comparisons here. Comparing Dueling to Conjuration is apples to oranges. A better comparison would be Beastmastery to Conjuration, since they're both minion master spheres.

And that’s just one sphere, for a low caster who is just as good at fighting as Fighter would be, maybe even better thanks to Stalwart and Resist Magic making the much better against deliberating effects, whilst Mystic Combat gives them much greater out of combat options. Spheres of Might spent a lot of talents on a pretty specific combination that works great when it actually works out, but there are so many ways to shut it down without even trying. Mindless Undead or Constructs and boom, all his talents are basically wasted. The Mage Knight? There likely isn’t any situation where an extra guy isn’t useful. The only way to stop it is to kill it or dismiss it, and the later just means he has to resummon it later. Killing it is easier than killing a player, but if the Mage Knight put that much focus on it, he’s not going to let his summon die easily either.

With Beastmastery your companions can't be dismissed, and you can easily have a whole stable of creatures that offer you every movement mode under the sun or whatever array of abilities you want to take advantage of. Then you can stack them up with Warleader, Ex buffing that can turn all those animals into a finely coordinated army. Apples to Apples.

Spheres of Might is designed so each talent and sphere are equal to a feat... but that thinking is quite frankly, holding it back significantly, as their Spheres of Power talents, and especially the individual Spheres are worth SO much more than a single feat.

As I stated earlier, I don't think _any_ talent in Spheres of Power is worth a feat, except for the base spheres. Blast types? Martials don't need to buy those, they just need extra arms or ammunition. Form talents? All wasted if your companion can be removed from play (not terribly difficult). Darkness talents? Half of their benefits negated by racial abilities, the other half require you to take Meld talents so the sphere doesn't backfire on your group. Ghost Strikes? Tons of martial talents that cover things like Necrotic Feeding or Sickening, and the characters that use them are more likely to maximize their benefits. So on and so forth.

Spheres of Might gets... the ability to inflict piddling bleed damage, and the ability to disarm someone who is bleeding without provoking an AoO. Spheres of Power gets the ability to summon a companion who is as strong as the fighter at that stage. Spheres of Might gets... the ability to expand their martial focus (which takes a full minute to regain) in order to add +1 to their damage for one attack. Spheres of Power gets the ability to give their party the ability to see in the dark, or their fighter extra natural attacks, or a +10 bonus to disguise! Spheres of Might gets.... The ability to Dual-Wield. Spheres of Power gets the ability to create a fricking wall that the enemy has to get past, as well as the ability to give allies a +1 Deflection Bonus to AC for an entire hour.

Lots of false equivalencies there, which makes it hard to have a real conversation on the matter. Try making real and relevant comparisons. War to Warleader. Dueling to Destruction. Beastmastery to Conjuration and/or Death. Alchemy to Death, Destruction, or Life (it's a busy sphere). False equivalencies make it difficult for the design team to drill down through feedback and see if there's meaningful change that can be made. So far the only clear feedback I've been able to take away from nearly a page of feedback is that Dueling needs a way to deal with creature that are immune to bleed damage.

In summary: If Dead Drop Studios wants Spheres of Might to able to be equal to Spheres of Power in how easy it is to craft a character to cast/fight in the way that you want them to cast/fight without getting punished? They need to make the base Spheres (most, anyway), a lot more powerful, and to make the individual talents significantly stronger as well. It’ll help make the Drawbacks actually worth a single talent for one thing...

I disagree. A Sentinel is going to out-tank an Armorist any day of the week. An Armiger is going to be more versatile than a Destruction caster for most of his career. A Scholar with Salve and Panacea has at least as much raw healing in a party of 4 as a Soul Weaver, and can use that healing regardless of conditions since it's all Ex. A Fighter who wants to dip into a sphere like Shield or Guardian is going to advance his abilities as a tank significantly more completely and quickly than if he tries to dip into SoP for Protection abilities.

Melee already sucks compared to Magic in Pathfinder... please don’t make it even worse by releasing a Spheres of Might that is completely underwhelming compared to Spheres of Power.

Identifying why things are arguably worse is important. Martials don't struggle to deal damage, they've always been the best at that. What they lack is versatility, mobility, buffing, control, defenses, and long range transportation. We give them options for all of that, and those options are in many ways superior to their magical counterparts. Martial flight can't be countered or dispelled. Martial debuffs can generally only be healed by spells and effects tailored to the condition, or raw hit point healing.

Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power use asymmetric balance. It's not just slapping a bunch of talents that are copies of SoP with (Ex) tags on them, it's looking at what you want martials to do and making them good at it, giving them advantages that spellcasting doesn't have and their own way of doing things, which is very prevalent throughout Spheres of Might.

It's also important to note that Spheres of Might has pretty specific goals. Martial enhancement systems like Path of War generate as much hate as love; you get the "too wuxia" crowd, people who just don't like certain concepts like martials "flying" by kicking the air like Sanji in One Piece or leaping from location to location like the Hulk, and so a whole section of the market that likes martials ends up missing out. That's why Spheres of Might divides those "extraordinary magic" abilities out into Legendary talents, so that whether the GM is running a gritty Conan-esque campaign or an over the top One Piece anime adventure, they have the tools to do so and establishing that paradigm is as easy as flicking a switch, just like Advanced Magic talents are used for gating spells that have significant narrative impact. If you want true parity to a dedicated spellcaster, you're going to want those Legendary talents, since some abilities like cutting a hole through reality or kick-flying are specifically on the "may stretch the limits of disbelief for your campaign world" side of the spectrum. With Legendary talents in play, a Sniper who wants to kill someone in a locked, windowless room warded against magic can do so from a mile away. A Berserker who wants to chase a teleporting lich retreating to its tomb on the other side of the world can do so without using magic. A Fencer who wants to lock down an area can hide and make Fatal Thrust enhanced attacks against any enemy within 50 ft. attacking from all different angles and essentially creating a martial control net.
Without Legendary talents, SoM characters still get extensive defensive abilities, numerous debuffs, lots of movement options, and access to additional auto-scaling skills, healing, AoE abilities, etc. They can still excel in their roles, they just don't have as much access to things like divination and teleportation (though several of the classes get non-sphere related options for emulating those effects). They're still solid options with significant potential for more flexibility than their non-SoM core line counterparts, they just don't get certain specific tools that are difficult to present without implying either magic or that reality can be broken if you hit it hard enough.

[Mehangel]

So granting the ability to sever limbs is giving a nice thing to martials that casters mostly don't get. As for prerequisites, the team is in agreement that inflicting conditions that cannot be removed except by magic many levels in excess of what the players are assumed to have ready access to is a poor design choice. We are also not convinced that such abilities should have different requirements for GM and player use. While the monster section has 'monster talents', these are separate largely to reflect the nature of many monsters and the way they function rather than a fundamental balance disparity.

1st, I know that there are dozens of conditions which casters can bestow upon martials, that martials have A) no means of removal, and B) no means of inflicting themselves.

2nd, If players are likely the ones most likely to use Legendary Talents, and if the talent has no balance issues at low levels, then why put a BAB requirement on it? As mentioned by other people on the other forum, 99% of all encounters where a PC may use Sever, it would have a similar effect if the player just outright killed the creature instead.

3rd, Limb loss is a reality in combat. It isn't legendary, and it is a common occurrence. You might aswell say no players can die before 10th level because we cannot raise the dead with spells until level X or Y. Putting a BAB requirement, especially a high one like +10, is sending a message that no-one loses a limb in battle unless they are fighting something with 10+ HD. This is ridiculous, because as we know it is commonly said that if real world people were given character stats, they wouldn't be higher than level 5. I mean, you are giving the same BAB prerequisite to maim someone as it is to outright kill someone (most instant-death Advanced Talents and Legendary Talents have a BAB prerequisite of +10 also).

4th, lets say that a GM does use Sever Limb against a player. How is that different from the GM killing off the player? Paying someone to cast regenerate costs less than a thousand gold, meanwhile the player could see about getting a prosthetic limb.

[Ssalarn]

Since it came up earlier, the DDS forums for Spheres of Might can be found here.

[Ssalarn]

1st, I know that there are dozens of conditions which casters can bestow upon martials, that martials have A) no means of removal, and B) no means of inflicting themselves.

2nd, If players are likely the ones most likely to use Legendary Talents, and if the talent has no balance issues at low levels, then why put a BAB requirement on it? As mentioned by other people on the other forum, 99% of all encounters where a PC may use Sever, it would have a similar effect if the player just outright killed the creature instead.

3rd, Limb loss is a reality in combat. It isn't legendary, and it is a common occurrence. You might aswell say no players can die before 10th level because we cannot raise the dead with spells until level X or Y. Putting a BAB requirement, especially a high one like +10, is sending a message that no-one loses a limb in battle unless they are fighting something with 10+ HD. This is ridiculous, because as we know it is commonly said that if real world people were given character stats, they wouldn't be higher than level 5. I mean, you are giving the same BAB prerequisite to maim someone as it is to outright kill someone (most instant-death Advanced Talents and Legendary Talents have a BAB prerequisite of +10 also).

4th, lets say that a GM does use Sever Limb against a player. How is that different from the GM killing off the player? Paying someone to cast regenerate costs less than a thousand gold, meanwhile the player could see about getting a prosthetic limb.

Sever has been discussed at length with you multiple times, and all of these questions have been answered. We simply don't have time in a day to chase you from forum to forum while you pursue your crusade to try and find someone somewhere who will jump on your bandwagon, which is part of why we ask in our playtest documents at the top of each section that you confine your feedback to a single forum. We will not be discussing this issue with you further at this time as it has been fully answered and elucidated upon. You can refer to the original thread, created specifically for you and to answer your questions, for our answers.

[Elderand]

In legendary talents I have one issue. It feels like Vacuum slice is just a straight up better version of Vacuum cut. I fell like that need to be balanced somehow but I'm not sure how.

One way I feel SoM work better than SoP is that I feel....freer to dip in multiple talents, I always got the feeling in SoP that you had to specialize for a pshere to be really useful. With SoM I feel like the talents are more useful even with just a dip of a couple talent in each spheres so to speak.

[Ssalarn]

In legendary talents I have one issue. It feels like Vacuum slice is just a straight up better version of Vacuum cut. I fell like that need to be balanced somehow but I'm not sure how.

I think Vacuum Slice was maybe supposed to have Vacuum Cut as a prerequisite, because, yeah, it really is an upgrade to that basic ability, which is why it has a BAB gate on it where Vacuum Cut does not. I'll look into it and get it resolved.

One way I feel SoM work better than SoP is that I feel....freer to dip in multiple talents, I always got the feeling in SoP that you had to specialize for a pshere to be really useful. With SoM I feel like the talents are more useful even with just a dip of a couple talent in each spheres so to speak.

Very much intentional. While each SoP sphere is about advancing a particular ability or school of magic, the SoM spheres are about creating fighting and play styles for your characters. One of the early things we bandied about during development was that you should be able to put together any Soul Calibur fighter using 2 spheres (so Astaroth would be Brute/Berserker, Cervantes would be Dual-Wielding/Barrage, etc.). Getting to create custom combat styles is something that the system very much encourages, and is part of the fundamental difference between SoP talents and SoM talents. SoP talents build out a specific ability or set of abilities, whereas SoM talents build out your whole character. You can apply multiple spheres to the same attack routine (relatively hard to do in SoP), create whole character platforms that draw from a variety of spheres using complimentary conditions and triggers, etc.

[Mehangel]

Sever has been discussed at length with you multiple times, and all of these questions have been answered. We simply don't have time in a day to chase you from forum to forum while you pursue your crusade to try and find someone somewhere who will jump on your bandwagon, which is part of why we ask in our playtest documents at the top of each section that you confine your feedback to a single forum. We will not be discussing this issue with you further at this time as it has been fully answered and elucidated upon. You can refer to the original thread, created specifically for you and to answer your questions, for our answers.

TLDR; Martials can't have nice things or Martials cannot do things that Magic cannot outright counter or do better.

In all seriousness though, I didn't post on this forum to get a response from you Ssalarn, I posted here so show my support to The Blade Wolf, while also expanding on that Spheres of Might is not yet on the same leveled playing field as Spheres of Power.

EDIT: I also just wanted to say, that I love Spheres of Might. I just am not disillusioned into thinking that it removes the Caster/Martial disparity. Ofcourse, removing the Caster/Martial disparity wasn't really one of the design goals to begin with, so not much to complain about there.

[Elderand]

There is one thing that might be missing, as I'm not seeing it (maybe I just missed it) but there doesn't seem to be a way to gain any AC when not wearing armor like a monk would. I think that might be a good option to have.

[Mehangel]

There is one thing that might be missing, as I'm not seeing it (maybe I just missed it) but there doesn't seem to be a way to gain any AC when not wearing armor like a monk would. I think that might be a good option to have.

You aren't the first to request it (I think I have seen comments from 5-10 people requesting such, unfortunately some were made on forums so some may have been doubled up), the Dev's said they would talk about adding one (I personally hope for one in the Equipment sphere), but no word has been heard back on it.

[Ssalarn]

There is one thing that might be missing, as I'm not seeing it (maybe I just missed it) but there doesn't seem to be a way to gain any AC when not wearing armor like a monk would. I think that might be a good option to have.

Added to the playtest under the Equipment sphere-

Unarmored Training
When unarmored and unencumbered, you gain a +2 armor bonus to your AC. This bonus increases by +1 for every 2 points of base attack bonus you possess. Characters trained in the Acrobatics skill may instead choose to have the armor bonus increase by +1 for every 2 ranks in the Acrobatics skill they possess.
These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when you are flat-footed. You lose these bonuses when you are immobilized or helpless, when you wear any armor, when you carry a shield, or when you carry a medium or heavy load.

[Elderand]

Added to the playtest under the Equipment sphere-

Unarmored Training
When unarmored and unencumbered, you gain a +2 armor bonus to your AC. This bonus increases by +1 for every 2 points of base attack bonus you possess. Characters trained in the Acrobatics skill may instead choose to have the armor bonus increase by +1 for every 2 ranks in the Acrobatics skill they possess.
These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when you are flat-footed. You lose these bonuses when you are immobilized or helpless, when you wear any armor, when you carry a shield, or when you carry a medium or heavy load.

Sounds good, at first 1 point per 2 bab or acrobatics seemed a bit much, but since it replaces both armor and shield I think it's good number wise.

[Ssalarn]

Sounds good, at first 1 point per 2 bab or acrobatics seemed a bit much, but since it replaces both armor and shield I think it's good number wise.

Yeah, you don't add a mental ability modifier to it, and assuming I did my math right it should give a bit more protection than a level appropriate chain shirt by itself from about 8th level on, but not as good as a chain shirt and buckler. We may end up adjusting the numbers as needed if the scaling really does end up seeming too high, maybe drop the starting bonus from 2 to 1 and/or swap from a 1/2 scaling to 1/3, but this should get the ball rolling for everyone who wants the option.

[Mehangel]

Added to the playtest under the Equipment sphere-

Unarmored Training
When unarmored and unencumbered, you gain a +2 armor bonus to your AC. This bonus increases by +1 for every 2 points of base attack bonus you possess. Characters trained in the Acrobatics skill may instead choose to have the armor bonus increase by +1 for every 2 ranks in the Acrobatics skill they possess.
These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when you are flat-footed. You lose these bonuses when you are immobilized or helpless, when you wear any armor, when you carry a shield, or when you carry a medium or heavy load.

I really like how it is currently implemented. It requires either that the player invests into a skill or be martial (i.e. High BAB class) to utilize it. In short, two thumbs up.

[The Blade Wolf]

I am going to take the time and leave a post addressing what has been said after my post, especially in regards to responses directed at me. However, I cannot help but notice that so far, the only member of the Spheres of Might team seems to have missed a significant point of my post.

Ssalarn, you took a significant amount of time to disregard a lot of my statements as 'inequivalent comparisons' and ' false equivalencies'. However, if I may direction your attention to a portion at the beginning of my post:

Note that this is a less of a science and more of an art

The point of the post wasn't to be exact, percise comparisions. The point of the post wasn't to compare War to Warleader. Dueling to Destruction. Sentinel to Armorist. An Armiger compared to a Destruction Caster. The point was to discuss the feel of power between Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might. If you crunch the numbers, perhaps you are right about the situations in which Spheres of Might is superior to Spheres of Power... but Spheres of Power feels powerful from the very start. Spheres of Might feels... decent, at level 9 or so.

[Elderand]

The point of the post wasn't to be exact, percise comparisions. The point of the post wasn't to compare War to Warleader. Dueling to Destruction. Sentinel to Armorist. An Armiger compared to a Destruction Caster. The point was to discuss the feel of power between Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might. If you crunch the numbers, perhaps you are right about the situations in which Spheres of Might is superior to Spheres of Power... but Spheres of Power feels powerful from the very start. Spheres of Might feels... decent, at level 9 or so.

The problem with that is....it's just a feeling....and it's just your feeling.

Me I never felt like sphere of power was powerful from the start, in fact, for almost all spheres I felt like they were very underwhelming unless you invested heavily in them.

So maybe your post wasn't about making real comparaison and just discuss your feelings, but when it come to a playtest, it's vastly more useful to make actual comparaison.

[The Blade Wolf]

The problem with that is....it's just a feeling....and it's just your feeling.

Me I never felt like sphere of power was powerful from the start, in fact, for almost all spheres I felt like they were very underwhelming unless you invested heavily in them.

So maybe your post wasn't about making real comparison and just discuss your feelings, but when it come to a playtest, it's vastly more useful to make actual comparison.

Question. If that feeling is just my feeling. Why is it that after I posted here about my express displeasure with how Spheres of Power feeling significantly more powerful than Spheres of Might, a significant amount of people chimed in to say that they agreed with that sentiment?

Also, playtesting is exactly that: testing how it is to play. The definition of play is to engage in an activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. Therefore, when playtesting material such as Spheres of Might, it is significantly important to judge its ability to bring enjoyment to those using it, and in its current form, it is significantly falling short. Especially when compared to it's older brother, Spheres of Power.

[Mehangel]

The problem with that is....it's just a feeling....and it's just your feeling.

He isn't alone in feeling that Spheres of Power is superior to Spheres of Might.

[dude123nice]

The point of the post wasn't to be exact, percise comparisions. The point of the post wasn't to compare War to Warleader. Dueling to Destruction. Sentinel to Armorist. An Armiger compared to a Destruction Caster. The point was to discuss the feel of power between Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might. If you crunch the numbers, perhaps you are right about the situations in which Spheres of Might is superior to Spheres of Power... but Spheres of Power feels powerful from the very start. Spheres of Might feels... decent, at level 9 or so.

Perhaps allowing SoM classes and archetypes to give more talents than their SoP counterparts would help. I've noticed that, in most cases, the numbers of tallents granted are pretty close if comparing corresponding classes and archetypes.

[The Blade Wolf]

Perhaps allowing SoM classes and archetypes to give more talents than their SoP counterparts would help. I've noticed that, in most cases, the numbers of tallents granted are pretty close if comparing corresponding classes and archetypes.

That, or reworking the individual talents to feel and likely be more powerful than they are now at the moment.

[Ssalarn]

Question. If that feeling is just my feeling. Why is it that after I posted here about my express displeasure with how Spheres of Power feeling significantly more powerful than Spheres of Might, a significant amount of people chimed in to say that they agreed with that sentiment?

There's always going to be people who want more. That's how more books get sold. Our job is to make sure that the end product is well-balanced, well-tested, and appeals to the target audience. We've got a lot of people who enjoy Spheres of Might and for many for many of them, boosting power levels outside of the games expected parameters would not be an enjoyable prospect. We've got three people here who feel like it could be more powerful, 3 people over on another forum who think it's just right, and a dozen people on another forum who think it's both too powerful and too weak simultaneously. Looking at that from an outside source, that's generally a pretty good indicator that's close to where it should be, especially when that feedback is based on loose impressions instead of gameplay.

Also, playtesting is exactly that: testing how it is to play. The definition of play is to engage in an activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. Therefore, when playtesting material such as Spheres of Might, it is significantly important to judge its ability to bring enjoyment to those using it, and in its current form, it is significantly falling short.

In your opinion, which is valid, but far from the only opinion we need to take into consideration. We've got multiple forums where we take in feedback, GMs from about a dozen games sending in weekly playtest reports, and we've run games at conventions. Feedback in general is overwhelmingly positive.

Especially when compared to it's older brother, Spheres of Power.

Spheres of Power is a horse of a different color. As others have noted in this very thread, many people are actually of the opinion that Spheres of Might has a leg up on things like allowing you to effectively do what you want to do more quickly, and is far more favorable to mixing and matching spheres.

I'm sorry if you felt that I was dismissive in my response to you. That was not my intent. I attempted to give you the clearest answers possible. The fact that I noted that those comparisons were false equivalencies was because they are. Vague feedback like that actually isn't all that helpful. I can't do anything about "Conjuration is cooler than Dueling", because it's an opinion, and it's not even one everyone shares. As you may have noticed, I did give concrete answers to the actual actionable things you brought up. "Dueling is too easily shut down by creatures that are immune to bleed" - Awesome, I'm on it and I'll have a talent up by the end of the week. "A lot of people want an Unarmored Combatant talent" - Cool, I literally wrote that up on the spot since we'd been telling we'd work on it and none of our discussions ever went anywhere. I even argued with Adam about it, insisted people wanted it, and got it pushed out right away.

As we note in our playtest feedback guidelines "'This ability sucks' in response to a single talent is not helpful feedback, and commentary that has no helpful feedback will be closed so that it doesn't clutter out relevant feedback or slow down load times for other playtesters. Try alternative phrasings like 'I see that this talent allows me to replace a Charisma-based skill I see as being one of the few good reasons to invest in my Charisma stat. Could you please provide more options that make Charisma worthwhile?' or 'I don’t know that I would take this talent; can you explain to my why it would be worthwhile?'"

Your opinions and feelings matter, insomuch as anyone's feelings and opinions matter, but opinions and feelings aren't actionable. That's compounded when the examples you use to justify those opinions aren't even equivalent. If you're legitimately looking for an improvement of some kind to be made, you need to be able to communicate to me some kind of direction I can look in. You don't think it's "cool" enough? what would you consider cool? I can't promise we'll do that thing, but I can promise that you'll get a complete answer from me about why we are or are not going to do that thing. Clear comparisons also help us figure out what you're maybe trying to say but can't get across. Comparing War to Warleader or Beastmastery to Conjuration means that I at least have a concrete point of comparison where I can say "Okay, he likes this similar thing, but not this other, similar thing. What makes these things different that I can maybe address?" That's why constructive, equivalent, criticism for a playtest is so important. We already know that 540 people like the idea we proposed, and that's more than most 3pp books get, so we aren't changing that. All I know based on your feedback is that you don't think it's cool enough. Do you have a natural predisposition to hate martials? Do you have unrealistic expectations for what this book is doing? Do we already have answers to your needs and you just don't know about them? I don't know these things, and I can't intuit them based on what you've given me so far.

Perhaps allowing SoM classes and archetypes to give more talents than their SoP counterparts would help. I've noticed that, in most cases, the numbers of tallents granted are pretty close if comparing corresponding classes and archetypes.

Honestly we haven't seen much evidence that any of the SoM options are performing behind expectations. We've actually done more nerfing than buffing in that regard, removing, downgrading, or breaking up options that were too over the top or too powerful. There's also a reason that the martial characters have slightly lower talent progressions in a few instances; if I want to use any of the Warp talents, I have to have the base sphere. They don't do anything on their own. But right out the gate, every Might sphere is building on an existing option. I'm not enabling someone to damage someone with a lance, I'm adding on to what they can do with it. Each sphere builds off an existing capability, and expands that ability outward. If I want to do two things in Spheres of Power, I need two base spheres. If I want to get better at each of those two things, I need to spend two more talents, so on and so forth. Everything in Spheres of Might, however, falls back to a few basic things: attack actions, swift/immediate actions, move actions, and having or expending martial focus. I can build multiple spheres onto each of those actions; If I want to be a speedster who's all over the battlefield, I can accomplish that a few different ways through spheres like Athletics, Dual Wielding, Scout, etc. Most of those can even be used together, allowing me to create a multi-sphere build that naturally fuses spheres together. If I want to be Mad Martigan or the Dread Pirate Roberts, I can take Athletics, Dual Wielding, Dueling, Fencing, each one in whole or in part, and get to that build with each talent I take adding towards that goal. I don't need all four spheres, but if I take them all they aren't competing against each other like SoP spheres would be, they're building on each other and complimenting each other.

[Lirya]

As I stated earlier, I don't think _any_ talent in Spheres of Power is worth a feat

I cannot imagine building an Incanter in SoM without taking Extra Magic Talent at least 10 times, so I would disagree with this statement. Then again, I would also load up on Extra Combat Talent when making a Conscript.

For the most part, SoM is in my opinion in a fairly good place balance wise. I do think it could use more legendary talents that provide legendary skill use or utility options that are not easily replicated by magic. I posted a list of ideas in the suggest a Legendary Talent tread over at the dds forum a while ago, but apart from the I Will Hear & I Will Come guardian talents most of it seems to have been forgotten?

[Ssalarn]

I cannot imagine building an Incanter in SoM without taking Extra Magic Talent at least 10 times, so I would disagree with this statement. Then again, I would also load up on Extra Combat Talent when making a Conscript.

For the most part, SoM is in my opinion in a fairly good place balance wise. I do think it could use more legendary talents that provide legendary skill use or utility options that are not easily replicated by magic. I posted a list of ideas in the suggest a Legendary Talent tread over at the dds forum a while ago, but apart from the I Will Hear & I Will Come guardian talents most of it seems to have been forgotten?

I haven't been on Legendaries much lately, beyond tidying up the ones that are there, but I'll try and hit that thread up tomorrow and see what kind of space we have in Legendary Talents.

[Manyasone]

If I may interject a maybe unpopular opinion. I think it is wrong to add talents to by pass certain immunities. Why? It will rapidly become ridiculous and it also 'punishes' creatures/NPC who may have invested in said immunity. The bleed mechanic being the popular one and i am fan of it, does not translate well. Of course you could create 'bleed spirit' to affect undead or constructs. But it would feel wrong. If i, as a player, would face an enemy that is immune to large part of my build? I'd feel annoyed, yes, but unless all enemies suddenly develop immunities, i'd live with it. After all, there is the rest of the party. You can't do everything to everyone. And for some things you need hammers instead of needles.
Which also reminds me. Ssalarn, will some Spheres become more efficient with certain types of physical damage?