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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9610328" data-attributes="member: 6790260">In brief?Dramatically less than what it can currently do, at least in the hands of any single caster.Having magic that can do lots of powerful things is fine. Having magic that lets any single character do lots of powerful things is less fine.Dreamscarred Press's Spheres of Power rules (for PF1e, I haven't used the 5e ones) are a beautiful example of how to preserve most of the interesting utility and diversity of magic, while very thoroughly rebalancing things so casters DO NOT rule the roost. TL;DR: The titular Spheres are sort of like Priest "spheres of influence" from 2nd edition. You must know the base sphere before you gain access to more powerful things with it. Further, you must invest Talents into those spheres in order to actually learn those more powerful things, and using the more advanced abilities costs Spell Points. Both talents and SP are limited resources, so most spellcasters need to specialize in order to be truly effective. However, zillions of specializations are possible and any single character might finish their 1-20 run with several distinct specialties, perhaps 5-7 (assuming a full-caster class with lots of talents, like Wizard or its pure-sphere equivalent, the Incanter).As a great example, the Light sphere is a surprisingly diverse and strong option, with a great variety of offense, buff, and debuff effects, and plenty of non-combat utility. Alteration (the equivalent of transformation spells in 3.x/PF1) is a powerful but expensive school in terms of both talents and SP, you get what you pay for. However, if you choose to play as the Shifter class, you naturally get Alteration sphere stuff (and ways to make it better/easier/cheaper), and you can take an archetype that gives you Light sphere powers as well, meaning you can specialize in just those two spheres and actually be a quite effective character, or you can start with a solid foundation of those spheres, and grow into new ones as you gain levels and thus more talents.Magic has plenty of flaws in the 3e/PF1e/5e structure. But its greatest flaw is being able to do so many powerful things all with a single character, and often all during a single day, or at least with 24 hours' notice.</blockquote>

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