Character Creation Discussion Thread

[Mister Doctor]

Eh, alignment is so relative that I usually just arbitrarily assign my characters either TN, LN, or NG and let my gm decide if it fits or should be shifted in gameplay. Like, I can argue my way around a lot but ultimately the gm is the moral standard of the setting so it's mostly irrelevant.

[TheFred]

46 minutes ago, CraziFuzzy said:

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.

Yeah it's a bit ambiguous, because they're presented on the traditions page and some of the sample traditions include the Sphere-specific drawback, but that doesn't seem to preclude you from taking them anyway (and indeed many archetypes etc give you spheres with drawbacks).

At first, taking a pile of drawbacks to get a bunch of bonus talents in a sphere seemed slightly exploitative to me, but I think it's mostly built in. It's not like the spherecasters are tremendously flush with sphere talents, anyway. They also tightened things up a bit in USoP (previously, you could stack like four Enhancement sphere drawbacks easy-peasy) though some, like Motifs-only Fate or Protection for a bunch of aegis...es (aegides?) still feel like a bit more bang for your buck than is intended.

[DnD_Jedi]

13 hours ago, Rudra said:

with such crazy, wildly different, alien characters i wonder what kind of relationship the party will form, i havent read them all but alignment/personality wise there is an huge variety, going from Jedi knight(whos probably the goodest thing around) to a mildly sadistic vampire

Why thank you! I'm glad to see you think so highly of the Jedi. So many people on the internet these days seem to hate them for being 'stagnant' or 'arrogant'. 

14 hours ago, Illogictree said:

Especially the role of Casting Traditions (and Martial Traditions as well) - using them to define how magic works in the world. There are shades of this in how Rowan's magic works; literally all magic in her homeworld of Annwn works the way hers does.

That's something I did as well. I specifically chose the casting drawbacks that I feel fit Force Users, especially a non-Dark user, the best. No verbal or somantic components, but it requires great focus and emotional control to pull off correctly.

12 hours ago, Sundust said:

If that jedi is anything like Rey, Amara could start to find him exhausting. She might have to open an extradimensional room just to get stuff done. Throw a captive in there with some darkness and Sabine.

Okay, lets be real here, Rey is just... not a good example of the Jedi. I mean, even though she's repeating Luke's struggle with the dark side Arc, she just never stood out to be as having the calm composure that a Jedi is meant to have.

Please turn to one Obi-Wan Kenobi, or perhaps Plo Koon to see how I will strive to have Arcantos act in this RP.

1 hour ago, CraziFuzzy said:

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.

Hmmm, I admit, I had not considered it too much myself... but I will confess that one of the Spheres I hope/planned to potentially dabble into is the Enchantment Sphere... and I am specifically going to be picking up the drawbacks to limit to me to personal use and perhaps natural use as well. I'm a Jedi, I can't magically give other people extra speed or accuracy with their attacks. But I can channel the Force through myself to make me stronger and faster...

Maybe I should consider the flavour of the sphere-specific drawbacks more...

Edited February 3 by DnD_Jedi (see edit history)

[Phechan]

2 hours ago, CraziFuzzy said:

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 am unsure if I've succeeded at it, but this was certainly what I was attempting with each sphere-specific drawback I've added to my app. It felt like an opportunity to help visualise what a blizzard/winter spirit would be able to achieve through its magical will, like sending flurries of frost (scourging totem with cold damage) to harass and harangue a lost traveler "deserving" of ire, or the fact that a crystal aegis doesn't protect its bearer from incorporeal or light-based attacks, which most of Eosi's race would predominantly use, given their normally ethereal form. They're happy to grant the odd wanderer protection from bears or trolls or the like, but certainly not from the Aurori spirits themselves 😂

[Illogictree]

16 hours ago, TheFred said:

There is! Well, sort of: you can take both Tongue of Ages (no consecrations) and Sanctified (no words), and you've only got Motifs left. This is a pretty strong dip actually; if you throw Personal Fate into the mix then you get three whole Motifs for the low low price of one talent. Fate's probably one of the most dippable spheres (admittedly, there are lots of very dippable spheres) for this reason. I also just really like Motifs, personally.

Sorry I missed this! Thanks for advising me on this, I'll have to consider it. I did already fill in all my talents and feats, but if I was selected I would look at who else was in the game and see if I needed to adjust what I've picked.

 

I'm actually kind of surprised that my suggestion about casting traditions sparked so much discussion. I was considering for that hypothetical game even restricting certain Spheres to certain traditions, to differentiate the traditions further. (And yes, they would have included Sphere-specific drawbacks.) There would be two main magical traditions - one loosely inspired by Dark Souls' pyromancy, manipulating and generating fire; and the other would be powers drawn from entities that lurk in the outer darkness. I'm sure that gives at least a hint as to what the traditions might entail.

[Davkas]

Games where the GM pre-constructs casting traditions for setting reasons will often end up leaning more into picking sphere-specific drawbacks for flavor than games where every player's building their own individual custom one, if only because there's less incentive to minmax them - though often with those drawbacks things get a little blurry between minmaxing and going for flavor anyway, since what you're willing to sacrifice and what bonus talents you want to start off with right away is often as much a matter of flavor as mechanics.

e.g. I knew I was going to get Energy Focus on Olympia, because I wanted her to be able to bubble people in snowglobe-looking glass spheres (mechanically just using Crystal Blast), but I didn't go for Shape Focus because I'd rather spend the talent on Energy Strike now than spend two talents later if/when I want another blast shape. (particularly since Olympia only gets magic talents on one side of her gestalt, so I'd either be taking two levels to do it or spending my feat that level)

Side note: for the spheres restricted to traditions thing, the High Magic Handbook talks a bit about doing stuff like that - if you haven't already you might want to consider looking at the Variant Rules page on the wiki for the stuff that comes from it, especially the Distinct Magic Types and Sphere Fields sections. (I had fun messing around with those in a game that used elemental-focused magic traditions.)

[Escheton]

This was another great exploration into spheres. And I'll likely take some things with me for future builds. But I came onto this thread too late to have anything presentable by Feb 1.
For those that will be playing: enjoy.

[Ratpigeon]

Good luck all :)

[Saberfan]

I am now two days late on my selections, but the sheer quality and quantity of submissions under consideration more or less necessitated that. When all was said and done, I had spent over 27 hours of my weekend since Friday working on various things to help with selecting the final party. There were many things done during this process: mixing and matching parties, playtesting them against one of my typical combat encounters, envisioning how the party members might interact with each other and the world, and more. Suffice it to say, it was a long road to tread, but we're finally here now at the finale and I'm ready to post my selections.

There is one thing I'd like to say before I declare the final party, however. This recruitment was filled with exceptional characters all around and most of them would have been easy selections for this game, so those not selected should not feel like their creations were somehow less than any other. You all put a lot of time, energy, and love into your creations and it would be wrong of me to not acknowledge that here for everyone to see. I appreciate each and every one of you for creating such amazing characters for this humble GM to read over and enjoy.

With all that said, I'd like to announce my selections for Spheres of the Multiverse. If this is not a planar adventuring party, I don't know what is!

@AdellRazh, with the living fairytale Spark and her illusory companion Lusinga la Veritas!

@Mister Doctor, with the paracausal hivemind entity GETE and its Ancillary puppet soldiers!

@Ratpigeon, with the twilight knight of the stars Danika Yvaine and her luminous companion Mote!

@Phechan, with the incarnate spirit of the frozen northlands Eosi!

@Davkas, with the elegant and deadly clockwork dancer Olympia Lovelace!

@Rudra, with the totally-not-cursed living hellblade Biara!

I will open the discussions forum for those who have been selected. You may make any small tweaks you need in order to fit the party, discuss possible past adventures together that you can include in your backstory, figure out who the lucky(?) wielder of the game's resident transforming weapon character will be, etc.

Edit: Just sent out invitations to those who were selected. If you were selected and haven't received one, let me know and I will send another.

Edited February 5 by Saberfan (see edit history)

[Greathackster]

Congratulations guys, have fun! Keep Edgtha in mind for the future, or feel free to use her as an NPC.

[Illogictree]

Have fun everyone!

[DnD_Jedi]

Indeed, congratulations to those who made it in. I'm not surprised I didn't make it, playing a Jedi in what is a rather fantasy-focused game was a long-shot in the first place. But I wish all those who made it a long, fruitful game.

[Ulysses Dare]

Congratulations to those selected.

[TheFred]

Aww, man... I knew I should have written up my third concept!

But hey, this was a heavily oversubscribed game with a lot of good apps, congrats to those who made it and hope it goes well. 🙂

[Sundust]

6 hours ago, TheFred said:

Aww, man... I knew I should have written up my third concept!

But hey, this was a heavily oversubscribed game with a lot of good apps, congrats to those who made it and hope it goes well. 🙂

Yeah, I immediately started regretting what I did with Amara, too - probably should've gone a lot simpler...

 

Spheres is the best mechanic I've seen yet. Every Spheres game I see gets loads of apps. It's so great to have a spellcaster not run out of spells, not have to deal with having prepared wrong spells, and to be able to multiclass casting classes (having caster level stack like BAB) - oh and have martials that have decend spellcasting, too! In just about every other game, a wizard just feels like... A rather lackluster crossbowman.

Edited February 6 by Sundust (see edit history)