CraziFuzzy

I have, in all the years playing spheres, never seen anyone actually treat the sphere-specific drawbacks as a part of a casting tradition. They are always treated as what you describe - a way to half-dip into a sphere. It's certainly how I used them in every character I've ever played.

I find alignment useful for its original intended purpose - as a cue. Contrary to current trends, this hobby was not created for "actors," so needed prompts to help players play a role. Guidelines to help a player role-play someone they are not. It, of course, also works when treated as a true element of the world, where it is actually an energy force (like the way pathfinder mechanically treats it, or like a more multi-dimensional light-side/dark-side thing). The issue is when people take it and use it as an excuse for disruptive behavior without nuance, or unrealistically strict adherence to the letter of the alignments. Even with Callie's angelic nature, I try to make sure she is still "human" (small-h) and has varied responses that are not just based on strict Good, but can freely change with her moods or recent experiences. She does have bonuses to casting 'good' sphere effects, but I try to keep that limited to her alteration effects - so her Heavenborn trait is not so much a representation of how she's better at doing 'good', but better at channeling energies of her celestial ancestry.

Guess Nirvana doesn't warrant its own category (or inclusion) EDIT: Just saw the following post about it not being all-inclusive - just list of common groupings... except for "1" undead it seems.. :-)

I had hoped a year ago around the OGL kerfuffle that it would push DDS in that direction, but I haven't heard a peep from them about that since Paizo announced the ORC license. Right now, however, I don't think anyone is even afraid of WotC/Hasbro - they are unlikely to pay lawyers to go after the little guys when they can barely keep their lights on.

App count is a function of GM to Player ratio... And for pf1 of any sort, there just aren't enough people willing to GM games these days. It wasn't that many years ago where the pf1 add section could easily have 2-3 pages of active advertisements. Right now this is the ONLY active pf1 advertisement on either myth-weavers site. Pf1 is great - but it has never been 'easy' to GM. Spheres can make that a lot harder of a task as well. I much prefer to GM pf2, but at the same time - i really like spheres - so its a tough decision. I'd love for a dedicated spheres RPG that could divorce itself from the legacy problems of a 20+ year old game system, but that hasn't shown up yet.

Gotcha. I think the choices are about set - but needing to freshen up the math on a lot of the options from changes made (saves, bab, ac, etc).

I will continue to do mechanical tweaks indefinitely it seems, but the personality and history and general role and capabilities is pretty well set.

Oh yeah - since this game is allowing 3pp spheres content - I wanted to make sure everyone got the change to use my contribution if they choose:

Nah, I'm fine with how I'm going. Gestalt allows all the options. Really, the thing that i was struggling with is that the physical jump from Mundane to Magical is easy with the Alteration sphere, but getting gear to swap at the same time is more difficult. Honestly, what sort of makes the 'most' sense would be a fusion based conjuration path instead of alteration (there's a 3pp dual sphere feat that streamlines this, but it's prerequisite heavy). Ultimately, the desire for an equipment change was more for cinematic reasons than anything mechanical, so a simple extradimensional storage (x2) will handle an armor swap as a move action, and the shapeshift - makes for a full-round magical transition. The transition is not really all that important - this didn't start as a magical girl inspiration at all, it is just where the natural transition from the previous version of the character being conjuration heavy to gestalt allowing the dual nature to be in a single character, so thought alteration would make sense.

Oh yeah, I totally intend to. As is the nature of these gestalt games - i get a bit lost in the weeds on choice paralysis for mechanics - so need to just force myself to transition to narrative stuff first. How frustrating is it that the Henshin/Magical Girl classes on the Spheres wiki aren't actually Spheres classes!

Hilariously, I just went back to the wiki, and see this at the VERY bottom of the Trade Traditions page: I don't know if I didn't see it before, or if it was added.. but there we go...

Yeah, that's the rule for multiclassing - as once you've taken a trade tradition, it's assumed that class skills are ONLY from Guile mechanisms - so yeah, I guess it makes sense that in gestalt, that base assumption would still be there. So probably makes sense that the second class from Gestalt would at 'least' still count as a second trade tradition.

In my experience, one of the benefits of pbp is that more complex player turns are possible without hogging table time from other players, which is the reason many are against minion classes.

Obviously, I'm working up an app for your game, @Saberfan, but as I never got a change to enter a response into your poll here, I feel I should drop in my few cents. I generally am just a player lately, as time for GMing is a bit too limited. I don't know if I'd enjoy a game that mixed spheres and other content, or more importantly, still have Vancian casting mixed in with the spheres. I was really hoping that the license chaos last year would result in a truly spheres of power rpg, standalone. Technology/guns wise, I'm not entirely all that comfortable with, but mostly because I've just not really been that exposed to it in the TTRPG arena. Gestalt? I enjoy it, but sometimes find it takes away too many compromises - and I enjoy character weaknesses as much as strengths. Mythic? Never really played with it enough to form much opinion. Houserules? I've always enjoyed elephant in the room stuff, as a way of making martials seem more interesting - but Spheres of Might does that too. Additionally, anything that patches up the mundane crafting of the pathfinder system is a good thing. Spellcrafting? Never messed with this area of the spheres world. Custom Traditions? Depends on the game world. I will say that the one thing I don't see enough is a GM presenting a list of traditions that are present in their world for players to choose from - which is how I believe they were intended to be used - They should be for world building, not character building. that said, In a truly open multiverse 'world' such as yours, custom traditions absolutely makes sense. I think the one thing I'll also point out with spheres game offerings I notice - is the lack of 'low power' play. I obviously get that spheres offers so many new options you want to play with as many of them as you can, but I also prefer to grow the character organically more than build from scratch - if that makes sense. I know the slow game speed of PbP puts more emphasis on 'getting there' sooner, but a compromise in the level 3-5 range would probably be the ideal for me.

A little clarification/confirmation needed, as I'm looking to dip a toe into Spheres of Guile for the first time. There is no defined rule on how trading class skills for a trade tradition works with Gestalt - whether you trade the class skills from one class, or from both. The only precedent I can find is the way the spheres gestalt rules treat the similar thing for Spheres of Might, where you trade proficiencies for a martial tradition - in which case you trade BOTH class's proficiencies for the single martial tradition. I'm assuming the same would apply for Trade Traditions - trading away both class skill lists?