3PP Spotlight - Spheres of Power

Vancian magic.  A magic system modeled after a series of novels called Thy Dying Earth, by Jack Vance.  Gary Gygax was a fan of Vance’s writing, and when Gary designed Dungeons & Dragons, he used Vance’s depiction of magic as his default magic system.  Spells are grouped by level, from weakest (1^st level) to most powerful (9^th level).  You can study only so many spells per level per day.  And you forget them once you cast them, so you have to study them again day after day after day.  This magic system became such a sacred cow of D&D that it persists into the most modern versions of the game, including Pathfinder.

Players throughout the years have commented that, despite being a genetic marker for D&D and its descendants, it’s an odd design choice.  The Vancian magic system is rather restrictive in how it depicts spell casters, and doesn’t give much room for players to create magic-users from other literary traditions.  Elric didn’t use Vancian magic.  Gandalf didn’t either.  Neither did Merlin, or Harry Potter, or any other wizard other than those in The Dying Earth series.  Why are mages forced into such a narrow paradigm for magic?

Spheres of Power by Drop Dead Studios is an attempt to answer that question.  This 229-page book offers GMs and players a completely alternate magic system, replacing Vancian magic with a very versatile toolkit that allows you to create virtually any kind of magic-using character.  The book begins by explaining the core concepts of Spheres of Power, and how magic works in the system.  The next chapter details 20 of the eponymous spheres.  Chapter 3 presents us with 11 new base classes that utilize the SoP system.  Also included in this chapter are archetypes for converting core Pathfinder spellcasting classes to the Spheres of Power system, and a prestige class. 

It then moves on to discuss four advanced magic systems, listed as optional by the publisher, all of which gives ways for potent magic to be expressed in-game.  Next up are Player Options, which include spellcasting traditions, casting drawbacks and boons.  An entire chapter is dedicated to using magic items with Spheres of Power, and how magic items are affected by the system.  We conclude the publication with a chapter on how to use the book, and discusses using concepts built around the use of magic to create thematic, evocative campaigns with magic that helps to define the campaign world in specific ways.

What are the main differences that Spheres of Power offers us?  First, it eliminates the schools of magic from Dungeons & Dragons and its iterations (abjuration, necromancy, evocation, etc.) and re-groups magic effects into twenty thematic ‘spheres’: Alteration, conjuration, creation, dark, death, destruction, divination, enchantment, fate, illusion, life, light, mind, nature, protection, telekinesis, time, war, warp and weather.  Each sphere delivers what it promises on the label: Wanna call lightning from the sky? Weather sphere.  Get answers to unknowable truths?  Divination sphere.  Dominate people’s actions?  Mind sphere.  Almost any spell in D&D or Pathfinder can be expressed through the use of spheres.

Casters are classified into three groups.  High casters are primary magic-users.  Folks like wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids would be considered high casters in Spheres of Power.  Mid-casters are your hybrid types, who have a strong magical ability combined with other non-magic class abilities.  The bard and magus would be good examples.  Finally, low casters are classes that get minor magical powers, but it really just isn’t their main shtick.  Folks like paladins and rangers would be examples of low casters.

Magic is accessed by selecting a sphere.  Each sphere has a basic ability or two.  For example, the Time sphere grants the caster the ability the ability to use a limited version of either the haste or slow spell.  Once a sphere is chosen, you may choose additional talents within that sphere as you increase in level, or you can choose another sphere, granting you the base power of that sphere as well.  All casters begin with a minimum of 2 talents.  Talents are used to gain access to a sphere, and then to learn talents within that sphere.  Additional talents are gained at a fixed rate based upon your class’s classification of high, mid- or low caster.

Here’s where Spheres of Power really differentiates itself as a magic system: A talent can be used as many times as you want.  Until the cows come home.  Ad infinitum. No more ‘fire and forget’ spells a la Vancian magic.  If you want to use a Destructive Blast (base ability from the Destruction sphere) all day long, you can!  Now, you may be thinking that this is unbalanced and makes magic-users far too powerful, but the system is very well designed to make base talents useful, but not overly powerful.  If you want to add some oomph to your talents, Spheres of Power gives us a spell point pool.  Most talents require the caster to concentrate on the effect in order to keep it persistent.  But if you don’t want to concentrate on a talent, you can spend a spell point to give it a fixed duration, allowing the caster to use another talent without the first one expiring.

Each sphere features an average of about 20 talents, each one allowing the caster to perform an additional magical effect in the sphere.  This provides a very wide array of abilities for the caster to choose.  The caster can choose to sample from as many spheres as they desire.  You can hyper-specialize in a single sphere or two, or you can sample from a dozen different spheres, it’s all up to your concept of the character.

The classes presented in Spheres of Power do a nice job of demonstrating the effectiveness of the system.  From the Armorist, who uses Spheres to summon magical weapons and armor to amplify his combat prowess, to the Incanter, a ‘build-your-own-caster’ who receives a metric crap-ton of talents, the classes are diverse, well-balanced and thematic.  11 such classes are presented, each with its own unique use of the Spheres system.

The Advanced Magic section is interesting in that it implies through its inclusion that the core Spheres talents really reflect the power of spells in core Pathfinder to around 5^th level spells.  Advanced magic offers us ways to extend the power of Spherecasting up to the traditional power of 9^th level spells.  This is good to know as a GM; if you want to run a low-magic game, the core Spheres of Power system would be perfect.  Advanced talents simply extend the SoP system (with a minimum 10^th level requirement) to include talents that emulate high-level spells in Pathfinder.  Rituals give Spherecasters a way to access spells from the core game, but at a greater casting time, typically not usable in combat.  Spellcrafting is a way to create new talents through the combination of different spheres and talents.  Incantations are similar to rituals, but serve more as a plot device, as a way to fill gaps in the character’s abilities and as a means of flavoring the campaign world.

The second main way that Spheres of Power differentiates itself and adds a great amount of customization for both players and GMs is the section on Casting Traditions.  These are like templates that you add to the Spheres of Power system, which alters the ways that the character accesses and wields magical power.  Each tradition brings a set of drawbacks and boons that constrain the application of spherecasting, giving it a particular theme.  For example, the Runist tradition makes casting take longer, requires hand gestures to use a talent, and requires a successful skill check to use a talent.  Thematically, think of a type of runic magic that requires the caster to inscribe a rune on a surface in order to draw forth a magical effect.  I see this as a really great fit for dwarven magic users!  There are 14 different traditions offered, with advice on how to create your own traditions. 

I have used Spheres of Power in my current Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign.  The group has an Armorist, an Incanter focused on the Fate and Life spheres and another Incanter focused on the Dark and Fate spheres, so the system is getting a good test-run.  From what I’ve seen so far through 6 levels of play, the Spheres of Power magic system is working very well.  Overall, it is less powerful than the core magic system of Pathfinder, but in my mind, this is a feature, not a bug.  Casters still fill an important role during combat, but don’t become so powerful that they eclipse other non-magical classes at mid- to high levels.  My players seem to enjoy the openness of the system; they can realize their character’s concept more easily, and the system gives them more versatility to customize their characters to their exact specifications. 

An added bonus (a huge benefit for me) is that Hero Lab files are available for purchase for Spheres of Power.  I have purchased and used these files, and they are great!  I can build characters quickly, and the files comply totally to the source document.  All classes, spheres, archetypes, prestige classes, feats, advanced magic rules and traditions are included in the files.  Furthermore, I have received great support from the Hero Lab community when developing content that uses the SoP system.  For example, I was able to successfully create an archetype for the Dragonrider class (Super Genius Games) that uses SoP; with some help from the HL community, it works great.  Well done, Hero Lab editors!

Conclusion: 

If I created a d20 fantasy RPG, Spheres of Power is the system I would choose as my core magic engine.  The beating heart of the system is 20 spheres, each with a base power.  Additional powers in each sphere can be added through talents.  It’s simple, it’s elegant, it’s balanced with respect to other classes in the game, and it’s thoroughly functional.  You can customize the power level of the system through advanced magic, sculpt the thematic feel of magic in your campaign world through traditions, and you can use the 11 new classes as a delivery vehicle for Sphere magic in your game.

With Spheres of Power, I can shape magic into whatever form fits my concept of the game world.  It gives me a simple set of tools and a robust engine with which to create my perfect concept of magic, whatever that might be, and effectively execute the concept in my game.  This is a great book, one that changes the way that playing Pathfinder feels, in a positive way.  Adam Meyers, Owen K.C. Stephens, Thomas Keene and Ryan Ricks have produced a fantastic magic system which better allows GMs to create the magic that they want in their world.  The simplicity of the system, coupled with the vast customization options, make Spheres of Power a highly recommended replacement for the confining Vancian box offered by the Pathfinder RPG.  My rating: 10 out of 10!  This wonderful book is available from DriveThruRPG here. 

 
A copy of this review will be posted to DriveThruRPG, Amazon and Paizo.

Why my campaigns suck.

Happy Thanksgiving to any readers here in the USA.  My apologies for the late post; this was written last week, but it was on my work computer, and didn't have access to it until today.

Why my campaigns suck.

They all start out with such promise.  Intrepid first level adventurers, starting out on an epic journey, so fragile…a bad die roll and Poof!  New character time!  Each encounter is fraught with potential danger.  Each trap or hazard raises the tension because the possibility of death is very real.

But something happens in my games as the characters advance in level.  At first, it’s not even noticeable.  Levels 1-3 deliver challenging obstacles and opponents commensurate with the power level of the group.  Fights are tough.  Outcomes are not guaranteed.  The heroes normally win, but occasionally something goes wrong.  Like, ‘someone dies’ wrong.

But then we start entering in to the level 4-10 range.  It starts out innocently enough: The characters seem to find their groove.  They’ve got some cool weapons and armor now, some interesting class abilities, a few feats, maybe a magical ring or cloak.  Combat starts to seem a little less dangerous; foes just don’t seem to threaten the characters as much as they used to.  By 7^th level, combat is pretty routine.  The wizard has some very effective battlefield control spells, the melee characters are dishing out pretty impressive damage, and the healer has enough spells and powers to keep the characters in tip-top shape all the live-long day.  I start needing to adjust some of the adversaries, giving them an extra hit die here and an extra use of an ability there, but the result is the same.  By 10^th level, I’m wondering if the adventure writer screwed up the Challenge Rating for their monsters because my group is mowing them down like dandelions.

My Giantslayer group is now all 12^th level characters.  In our last session, I found myself wondering why we were going through the exercise of playing the combats out.  It was clear that the characters would win in spectacular fashion.  Just to be sure, I double-checked the Challenge Ratings for the four encounters the group faced:   Four stone giants (CR 12), a CR 11 haunt, a group of 2 fire giants and 4 rock trolls (CR 12) and an iron golem (CR 13).  With an APL of 12, these should have been easy (CR 11), average (CR 12) and challenging (CR 13).  They ripped through all encounters like shit through a goose.

This isn’t the first time this has happened in my campaigns either.  In Carrion Crown, the group took down the end-boss in less than 3 rounds.  He was a lich, CR 18.  My Savage Tide campaign ended at 14^th level because the opponents were just too weak to challenge the PCs any more.

I started doubting my skill as a GM.  Was I terrible at tactics?  Was I forgetting some key ability a monster possessed to make them a viable opponent?  Was the Pathfinder RPG broken at higher levels?  I needed to find out why the character power levels gradually outpaced the strength of the encounters they faced!

I started digging in to see if I could determine root causes for this issue, and if there were any solutions to the causes identified.  I’ll spare you the investigation narrative and just skip to my findings.

There is no substitute for experience

As a GM, I used experience points through all the iterations of the game, from 1^st edition right on up through 3.5.  Then along came the Pathfinder RPG Adventure Path, which quite conveniently told me what level the characters should be when starting and ending each chapter of the Adventure Path.  I leaped for joy!  One less thing I had to keep track of!  Out the door went XP, and I just told the players when to level based on the Adventure Path’s recommendations.  Easy peasy, right?

Wrong.  Stupidly, idiotically wrong.  In a classic example of ‘seeing only what I want to see’, I completely failed to notice the statement that appears in every Advancement Track section of every chapter of every adventure path:

“Anvil of Fire” is designed for four characters.

My group has six characters.  I don’t get all six in attendance every game, but I normally have all six about half the time, and at least five players about 90% of the time.  My adventure, designed for four characters, has five to six characters, all of whom are told to level at the place indicated in the adventure.  This looked like a very viable suspect, so I threw some numbers into a spreadsheet to see how badly this affected the power curve.  And to my surprise, it only had a minor effect.  A group of six characters who receive equivalent XP for a group of four characters, remains at the same effective level until 7^th level.  After that, their effective level is only 1 higher than that of a group of four characters, right up to 20^th level.  

XP explained part of the problem, but really didn’t account for how easily my band of adventurers were tearing through the adventure path.  I made a quick note to start tracking XP, but I still lacked a satisfying root cause for the problem.  I continued to dig.

WizMart

I came across the section in the Core Rulebook that discussed Wealth by Level.  “Aha!” I said to myself (startling my cats in the process).  “My characters probably have too much gear!  This is why they are so overpowered!  Those bastards!”  Feeling like I was hot on the trail of my perpetrator, I carefully examined each player’s character sheet, adding up the value of their gear, and comparing it to the Wealth by Level chart.

No dice.  Without exception, every character was within the recommended value for their level.  This was not the culprit.  But somewhere in the red haze of my frustration, an observation bubbled to the surface of my frontal cortex.  Every character in the game had a +something cloak of resistance.  Everyone had a ring of protection.  They all had amulets of natural armor.  They all had belts of physical ability boost, and headbands of mental ability boost.  They all had magic armor and magic weapons that were the most expensive bonus they could afford, most of them around +3 or +4.  In short, they all had the most optimal gear loadout that money could buy.  Any item found that was sub-optimal was sold, and the earnings used to upgrade their gear to optimized status.

Well that’s what they’re supposed to do, I thought to myself.  Why wouldn’t you want to make your character as effective as they can be?  The game expects it, doesn’t it?

Yes, it does.  Why would I wear a Cloak of the Flail Snail if I can instead wear a cloak of resistance +2.  It just makes sense.  As a player, I want my character to be awesome.  In Pathfinder, gear makes you awesome.  Where is the disconnect here?  Does the game actually cause itself to be unbalanced at higher levels?

Unfortunately, the fault lies not in our game, but in ourselves.  Continuing my investigation, I turned to the Game Mastery Guide, hoping for some sage advise on what was going wrong in my games.  And lo!  I found what I believe to be the true root cause of my troubles:  WizMart.

The Game Mastery Guide has a neat little section about settlements, and offers a system where you can create a stat block for any settlement.  Each settlement is also assigned a Base Value (any magic item of lower value than the Base Value has a 75% chance of being available in the settlement), and a Purchase Limit (which is the most money a shop in the settlement can spend to purchase any single item from the PCs).  Lastly, each settlement stat block lists the number of minor, medium and major magic items that are available in the settlement at any given time.

Here was my smoking gun.  You see, I never really paid much attention to settlement stat blocks.  I really didn’t see any particular use for them.  When my characters had the opportunity, they would teleport to the nearest metropolis, and visit a conceptual shop which I shall call “WizMart”.  WizMart isn’t exactly a Magic Store.  Magic Stores are silly concepts that I eliminated years ago.  WizMart is more of a collective offering of all possible shops in a given settlement.  The thinking here is that somewhere in this massive city, the character will be able to find the item they are looking for.  Maybe it takes a day or two of searching, but they do eventually find someone that can sell them the +3 Ring of Protection they need to keep their character’s gear optimized.

Seeing the settlement section of the Game Mastery Guide opened my eyes to the real problem.  There should not be a WizMart.  Anywhere.  The GMG gives a baseline for how many and which magical items are available in any given settlement.  If the characters teleport to Janderhoff, instead of finding the exact item that optimizes their character to the n^th degree, they find a pre-selected list of magic items as dictated by settlement size. 

Let’s create some available items as an example, using Janderhoff as our settlement.  The Inner Sea World Guide p. 194 lists Janderhoff’s population as 10,230 souls.  Going with that number, that classifies the settlement as a Large City according to p. 203 of the Game Mastery Guide.  Table 7-36: Settlement Statistics tells us that a Large City has a base value of 8,000 gp, meaning that any item worth that value or lower has a 75% chance of being available at any given time.  A Large City also has a Purchase Limit of 50,000 gp, so the players can sell items for that value or lower with little effort.  So far, that’s a pretty good deal for the characters.  Many of the Big 6 items in Pathfinder cost 8,000 gp or less: +2 armor and weapons, all possible potions, a ring of protection +2, any scroll up to level 7 spells, wands of up to 2^nd level spells, an amulet of mighty fists +1, Type III bags of holding, +2 belts and headbands of ability bumps, +2 cloaks of resistance and amulets of natural armor +2 would all be available for purchase in Janderhoff.  Now let’s use the rules in the GMG to generate the rest of the items.

Table 7-37: Available Magic Items tells us that a Large City will have 4d4 minor items, 3d4 medium items and 2d4 major items.  Rolling the dice gets us 10 minor items, 11 medium items and 5 major items.  Now we refer to Table 15-2: Random Magic Item Generation in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook (p. 461) to determine what kinds of items are available.  But after rolling the minor items, I realized that every one of them was worth less than 8,000 gp, and therefore are available 75% of the time.  No reason to detail these, so I move on to the medium items.  I roll Dwarven Plate armor, a +2 weapon, a potion of 2^nd level spell, a ring of evasion, a rod of negation, a rod of withering, 2 scrolls (all worth less than 8000 gp), a wand of 3^rd level spell and a Monk’s Robe.  Lastly, for major items I roll a level 3 potion (really, this is major?), a Staff of Abjuration, a Headband of Mental Prowess +4, a Darkskull, and an orange prism Ioun Stone.

In summary, Janderhoff has any magic item valued at 8000 gp or less (75% availability), plus the following:

·        Medium magic items:

1.      Dwarven plate armor

2.      +2 weapon (exact details to be determined)

3.      Ring of evasion

4.      Rod of negation

5.      Rod of withering

6.      Wand of 3^rd level spell (to be determined)

7.      Monk’s robe

·        Major magic items

1.      Staff of abjuration

2.      Headband of mental prowess +4

3.      Darkskull

4.      Orange prism Ioun stone

The GMG doesn’t offer guidance on how often the list changes, only that the GM can generate new items if the PCs visit the city again.  But in an urban campaign, we would probably want to know how often the list is updated, since the PCs live there.  After talking it over with the players in my Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign, we agreed that the list should be updated weekly, and that 1d4 minor items, 1d3 medium items and 1d2 major items would be removed and replaced with new results. 

That takes care of characters interested in buying gear, but what about if they want to sell it?  What if no one in the group wants to use the Codpiece of the Undulating Bowel?  What effect does the sale of magic items have on the system above?

My thinking here is that the merchant that purchases the Codpiece of the Undulating Bowel wants to resell it at a profit.  Provided that the sold item is valued at higher than the Base Value for the settlement, that item should now be recorded into the available magic items in the settlement.  If the item is a medium item, it will be added to the list of medium magical items available.  In our example, Janderhoff would now have 7 total medium items, out of a maximum of 12 (3d4).  Each time the PCs sell an item in a settlement, that item gets added to the inventory, even if it surpasses the listed maximum number of items for that settlement. 

But once the inventory of items has surpassed its maximum, new items don’t appear until the inventory is within its limits.  If Janderhoff currently has 15 medium items available (due to PC sales), new medium items don’t become available until the inventory reaches 12 items or fewer (in Janderhoff, items deplete at a rate of 1d3 items per week). 

Conclusion

I’m an idiot.

I spent eight years playing Pathfinder, blithely ignoring the settlement rules, and bemoaning how overpowered my PCs were.  I knew all along that something was wrong, but it took me this long to actually try and figure out what it is.  The rules for settlements and magic items are there to prevent characters from fully optimizing their gear, and also makes the use of less-than-optimal magic items more likely.  Your character might be more likely to hold onto that Periapt of Proof Against Poison if they can’t get their hands on a Headband of Alluring Charisma +4 at the local WizMart.

Don’t repeat my mistake!  Don’t watch your promising new campaign fall apart at higher levels due to WizMart!  Invest some game prep, and detail the items available in your local settlement.  Your players may grumble at first, but the game balance that ensues will more than compensate.  Don’t make your campaigns suck!