[Pathfinder] Spheres of Power

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Creighton
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[Pathfinder] Spheres of Power

Post by Creighton »

So in my never-ending interest in finding off the wall replacement systems for Pathfinder, I have been spending my holidays reading the Spheres of Power system. It is intended as a complete replacement of the Pathfinder Spellcasting system. It replaces spells with a series of at-will powers (divided among 20 'spheres') that you can invest your limited 'Spell Points' into for bigger effects.

On the whole I like the idea, and as I typically play E8 games, I like that it fits the advancement by feats paradigm better than the normal spellcasting system. I also like that it requires investment to be a master in any one area. You can't just run down to your local magic shop and all of a sudden be a master necromancer cause you were able to buy and learn a high level necromancy spell off of a scroll. It also seems to definitely be lower powered at higher levels than the typical d20 spellcasting.

Has any one here had any experience with the system in an actual game? Or are there any obvious shitting of the bed, rules wise, to make it terribad?

Edit - link to the rules http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/
Last edited by Creighton on Sun Jan 01, 2017 8:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Foxwarrior »

Well, it looks like you can max out one mind control power of your choice by 5th level (with a handful of Advanced Talents to look at once you hit 10th), so yes, it would have to be lower powered at higher levels than the typical d20 spellcasting because you can so easily hit the ceiling in any particular field of expertise you choose. Technically you could combine this with an E6 or E8 system, but the need for those mods kinda goes away if the casters stay in an E6-ish paradigm out to level 20 and the other characters are things like Ninjas and Gunslingers.

Well, hmm, flight at level 1 could be problematic.

Personally, I find that just a hint of the "run down to your local magic shop and all of a sudden be a master necromancer" mechanics works well in actual play: when provided with a diverse toolbox of spells to play with, players often come up with some pretty fun solutions to problems.
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Post by Creighton »

Where are you seeing flight at 1st level? It is caster level 5 in Alteration and Telekinesis (for a small creature, requires 8 for a medium creature in telekinesis). I have to admit to not really delving into the advanced talents yet.

It is true that the E8 (or E6) systems have a greatly reduced problem with the caster - martial disparity, but I do like the way this system will place casters onto the same feat advancement for power schedule as a martial.
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Post by Username17 »

"Hey Brain, I hear Metamagic delivers results that are usually underwhelming and disappointing, but sometimes can push the limits of what the game can handle with enough specialization."

Let's make the entire spellcasting system work like that!

The concept behind spheres is that you start with spells that are so emasculated that they might as well be free and then you line edit them with a series of passive and point costing abilities that replace their long list of restrictions with a series of increasingly superior parameters until you have real spells. And... that's where it falls completely on its face.

The first thing is that you are a god damn idiot if you don't dump all your talents into the same sphere until you have something dece. The second thing is that the breakpoints between a spell having an effect that is crap and a spell having an effect that is game breaking is pretty narrow and often the difference between having and not having just one or two edits - and the Sphere Wizard gets two edits every odd level.

So whatever you end up doing, by about fourth or fifth level you'll probably have a trick that's about equal to a 7th level spell. And in order to do that you will have had to ignore the other spheres you nominally get access to so the rest of your spells will be some bizarre and shitty cantrips that you can also choose to upgrade to crappy first level spells by using your power points that you could otherwise use to spam the 7th level spell equivalents in your specialist sphere.

Basically it has all the problems of every design-a-spell-on-the-fly system ever. There simply isn't a huge difference according to their parameters between creating a temporary table that is a minor roleplaying flourish and creating a temporary no-save birdcage around an enemy owlbear that fucking ends a major challenge.

Sure, you got a lot of the usual sorts of "We didn't actually read the book that closely when we made this" sorts of things. Like, as a Mind Specialist you can spend two power points for Powerful Charm: Fear, which then gives the frightened condition that usually ends combat on a successful save. That's right, you can force your opponent to flee at first level if they don't fail a save. And you can do it a couple times a day, so there's that.

But even if you do that sort of shenanigans and have a truly broken effect at first level, you're still a few levels from having something that's all that good. Our Powerful Fear Charm is Powerful Fear: One Humanoid at Close Range. You have to sink about two more levels worth of talents into it before it actually affects a group of monsters at medium range. And that means that you've got the fucking feat tree problem in spades - where branching out into a new sphere is fucking awful because while you've got your "one cool trick" by 3rd level, you have to invest 3-5 more levels to get a second trick that is equally worth spending power points on.

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Last edited by Username17 on Sun Jan 01, 2017 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Orca »

For 1st level flight, a shifter could take the elemental transformation talent under alteration, become an air elemental and fly that way. They get two such talents at first level so getting size alteration to make an effective (large) whirlwind sounds good. There are no obvious caster level limits restricting either from working at 1st level.

No idea whether that was the means Foxwarrior saw. I can easily believe there's more than one way to get flight fast.
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Post by Username17 »

By the way, the thing you want is Sleep if you're going to start at first level. You take Sleep and Expanded Charm at 1st level and then you have a close range Save or Lose that works on most things and only costs 1 power point. Then you can dump in your next couple of talents into getting longer range and multi target and medium range come online and then you're basically casting no-HD limit multi-target save-or-die for one power point from level 2.

Then you can branch out into no-save Fear effects and permanent ally creating Charms. And eventually the party will want you to spend a talent on getting immediate actions that give bonuses to their rolls after they've been made because why not. And that will keep you having powerful things to do that are pretty relevant until about 6th level. But then you have to start over from scratch with shit you are never going to use and that's a whole lot of suck.

Also your entire character is an Enchantment specialist to the point that they basically can't even do anything if the challenge of the day is an ooze. I mean, eventually you'll have Hill Giant minions, and they can do something about Grey Ooze. But you can't do shit.

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Post by hogarth »

FrankTrollman wrote:The second thing is that the breakpoints between a spell having an effect that is crap and a spell having an effect that is game breaking is pretty narrow and often the difference between having and not having just one or two edits - and the Sphere Wizard gets two edits every odd level.
I like how the Sphere Witch and Sphere Wizard are basically identical except the Sphere Witch also gets hexes for no reason.
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Post by Mask_De_H »

So how would you avoid the natural pitfalls of a design on the fly spellcasting system? Turn it to something effects based like HERO?
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Post by Wiseman »

Spellcrafting systems don't really work as part of a level-based system. Spells are leveled based on how useful they are in combat, and that's probably the best way to do it. I don't think there's a way for the rules to objectively judge how useful a spell is in combat and level it appropriately without breaking suspension of disbelief hard, as Franks wooden cage example proves.

I don't think it can ever work. The best thing to do is probably just work with your gaming group to create a new spell and compare it to existing spells.
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Post by Creighton »

Thanks for the replies guys.

I had looked elsewhere on the net and not found a single negative comment on the system, but it didn't take long for you guys to find some major holes. That's why I keep lurking here, the lack of fanboi and the reasonable analysis.

Cheers.
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Post by Username17 »

Casting spells on the fly doesn't play nicely with points based systems like HERO. If you want to calculate multiple parameters on a spell and you want to do it all in the middle of the action in a roleplaying game, be prepared to dig two graves! Your ability to calculate range and AoE and damage levels and shit are going to be killed by your need to get it the fuck over with during your turn, and your ability to get things done on the fly is going to die at the hands of having to calculate all that bullshit.

Going all the way back to Ars Magica and Cosmic Power Pools in Champions, the prospect of calculating level appropriate powers in the middle of the action just does not work. You're never going to get a set of math that outputs numbers solid enough to not break when people try to use them for weird shit while drunk, and by even trying you're virtually guaranteeing that your system will be too complex to use.

The simple fact is that you aren't going to be able to get results that are better than "have the MC eyeball it" so you should cut all the bullshit and do exactly that. If you want to have on-the-fly magic you do not want "effects based" and you do not want parameter calculations. You want results based and skip pretty directly to the negotiations part. So have a bunch of examples of a one-hit magic effect, a 2-hit magic effect, a 3-hit magic effect, and so on and so on. And then when someone does their magic and gets 4 hits or whatever, they can compare to the examples and make their case to the MC about what they want to do and how and the MC can give thumbs up or thumbs down.

On the fly magic necessarily requires a much more improv prompt inspired system. If you're counting squares and talking about how many pounds of iron you have to make, you've already fucked up. A spell at effect level X is required to remove an opponent with a save, and an effect at level Y is required to remove an opponent without a save. And yeah, that means that you can make a table and not a cage, and the answer is "Fuck you, that's why." And if you're even thinking about on-the-fly magic in an RPG and that answer isn't good enough, then you've already lost the game. Also, fuck you.

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Post by Chamomile »

What's the situation with spellcrafting that takes place during downtime? You still make your own spells, but in a fight you have to rely on things you've already concocted.
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Post by Username17 »

Chamomile wrote:What's the situation with spellcrafting that takes place during downtime? You still make your own spells, but in a fight you have to rely on things you've already concocted.
Systems where you write your own spells have a checkered history, obviously. Essentially it breaks down into a number of possible scenarios. The most obvious is the one where you haven't actually checked the possible outcomes of your spell creation system nearly as well as the players will and it turns out that Muto Auram is completely fucking broken and in all ways better than the ways you intended people to summon shit.

The next is the scenario in which people can personalize their spells' special effects and get results that are not practically different one from another but allow some form of creative outlet. This is the Champions scenario for the most part, and it's fine. But it's not much different from just letting players choose to learn foo ball instead of having to take fire ball.

And then there's the scenario in which people are being asked to come up with their own list of restrictions on their spells. This is basically "accounting for power" and involves tremendous discrepencies between players who can accurately predict the challenges of the next mission and those who cannot. Also it tends to reward players spending a longer time with the books figuring out breakpoints in range and area of effect and so on and so forth to squeeze out one more damage die or one less character point or whatever blood they can wring from that stone.

So basically I think that spell writing systems can work and work well if you're basically allowed to skin your Web as crawling vines or tendrils of mud, but it doesn't really work if you give people a point system that happens to output Web if you make all the same choices as the original authors.

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Post by hogarth »

FrankTrollman wrote:By the way, the thing you want is Sleep if you're going to start at first level. You take Sleep and Expanded Charm at 1st level and then you have a close range Save or Lose that works on most things and only costs 1 power point.
You could also take Anarchic Transformation and Ranged Alteration to turn an enemy at Close range into a form with no limbs and 10' move speed for zero power points. Orb Transformation is another no-limbs alternative (with a faster move speed, but no ability to speak).
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

That's depressing, because I do like the system a lot. Everything I like doesn't work in reality...
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Post by Username17 »

hogarth wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:By the way, the thing you want is Sleep if you're going to start at first level. You take Sleep and Expanded Charm at 1st level and then you have a close range Save or Lose that works on most things and only costs 1 power point.
You could also take Anarchic Transformation and Ranged Alteration to turn an enemy at Close range into a form with no limbs and 10' move speed for zero power points. Orb Transformation is another no-limbs alternative (with a faster move speed, but no ability to speak).
I see you fell for the Alteration trap. Possibly in an attempt to be more reminiscent of the shittiest parts of 3.5, the Alteration sphere is a morass of weird inheritance clauses. So while Anarchic Form doesn't say it costs anything, it still inherits the costs for targeting and duration from the base shapeshifting. Which is to say it costs a power point to make someone turn into a space slug on a failed fort save if they aren't a willing target, and it costs a second power point if you want the effect to have a duration other than Concentration.

But that is a valid save or lose if you happen to have taken the Alteration Sphere instead of the Mind Sphere.

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Post by hogarth »

FrankTrollman wrote:
hogarth wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:By the way, the thing you want is Sleep if you're going to start at first level. You take Sleep and Expanded Charm at 1st level and then you have a close range Save or Lose that works on most things and only costs 1 power point.
You could also take Anarchic Transformation and Ranged Alteration to turn an enemy at Close range into a form with no limbs and 10' move speed for zero power points. Orb Transformation is another no-limbs alternative (with a faster move speed, but no ability to speak).
I see you fell for the Alteration trap. Possibly in an attempt to be more reminiscent of the shittiest parts of 3.5, the Alteration sphere is a morass of weird inheritance clauses. So while Anarchic Form doesn't say it costs anything, it still inherits the costs for targeting and duration from the base shapeshifting. Which is to say it costs a power point to make someone turn into a space slug on a failed fort save if they aren't a willing target, and it costs a second power point if you want the effect to have a duration other than Concentration.

But that is a valid save or lose if you happen to have taken the Alteration Sphere instead of the Mind Sphere.
I missed the power point against unwilling targets. You can extend the duration to concentration + two rounds with Lingering Transformation, though (in a game where most fights probably don't last much longer than two rounds anyways).
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Post by hogarth »

After looking at the rules some more, I think I can sum up my reaction this way: I never thought I'd see a magic system that made Pathfinder's "Words of Power" look good.

If I'm playing in a campaign that will go up to level 10 (say), I'll probably have ~12 magic effects to pick from. In that case, what's the point of filling up the list of effects with bullshit like "you get a bonus on Escape Artist checks" or "if there happens to be a tree nearby, you can make it hit someone in the head"? At least in "Words of Power", they were smart enough to realise that "you can pay extra resources to turn your Firebolt into a Fireball" isn't something you should have to waste one of your permanent choices on; it already has a cost every time you use it, so what's the point of having to pay twice?
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Post by VladtheLad »

I necro this thread!
I have been reading Spheres of Power lately and though I find it interesting I haven't really made up my mind about it.
FrankTrollman wrote: Sure, you got a lot of the usual sorts of "We didn't actually read the book that closely when we made this" sorts of things. Like, as a Mind Specialist you can spend two power points for Powerful Charm: Fear, which then gives the frightened condition that usually ends combat on a successful save. That's right, you can force your opponent to flee at first level if they don't fail a save. And you can do it a couple times a day, so there's that.
It lasts only one round on a successful save. Its anecdotal but in my experience this isn't enough.
FrankTrollman wrote: But even if you do that sort of shenanigans and have a truly broken effect at first level, you're still a few levels from having something that's all that good. Our Powerful Fear Charm is Powerful Fear: One Humanoid at Close Range. You have to sink about two more levels worth of talents into it before it actually affects a group of monsters at medium range. And that means that you've got the fucking feat tree problem in spades - where branching out into a new sphere is fucking awful because while you've got your "one cool trick" by 3rd level, you have to invest 3-5 more levels to get a second trick that is equally worth spending power points on.

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A 3rd level incanter or wizard will have 7 casting talents at minimum. It takes 3 talents for the powerful fear effect and then you have 4 more to spend on other stuff. Its not great, but not really that bad either.


I think the problem with the spheres system is that its not worth it to play a well rounded generalist and that at higher level you don't get enough talents.
I could see a semi exponential progression working better. Instead of having around 2 initial+2 talents at every level at maximum, 2 initial+ (1 half your level in talents at every level rounded up), with maybe some level based limit on how many talents you can put in a sphere.
The problem with this is that now at high levels you will have a shitload of essentially feat like rule parts to manage.
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