Passing Love
almost 5 years ago – Sat, Feb 22, 2020 at 08:11:39 PM

To everyone who has seen or commented on the preview, thank you; please share the Spheres preview with anyone you think might be interested, as we really want to make this campaign and the spheres books the best they can be. It means a lot to us to see you talking about the project and sharing it with those you think would be interested.

It seems like February is the season for gaming kickstarters, whether it be us, Kobold Press's which just wrapped up, Monte Cook's (which certainly requires no help getting funded), and since we certainly hope that others will help pass our kickstarter along to bring it to more people's attention, today we'd like to share the favor and pass along some kickstarters you might be interested in, and that unlike Monte Cook's behemoth, could certainly use more love. 

Niwri's Marvelous Menagerie of the Multiverse

Soon to be entering its final 48 hours, Niwri's Marvelous Menagerie of the Multiverse is a campaign from Deep Dungeon Games that brings you more races, more sub-classes, and a lot of fantastic animals that not only might make good fights for players, but also the sorts of simple creatures that make a magical world come alive. 

From their project description: 

Niwri's Marvelous Menagerie of the Multiverse is not another collection of run-of-the-mill zombies, dragons, tentacle eye monsters, or savage beasts thirsty for an adventurer's blood. That type of monster manual would be cliche at this point; we want to provide better for your fantasy worlds than an ordinary monster book.

• These animals are inspired by fantasy and all will be fantastic in some way.
• They will all seem as if they could exist on earth or some alien planet.
• All of the animals will be usable in ANY fantasy role-playing game.

Advanced Occult Guide

This one isn't for 5e so perhaps it doesn't interest you, but Owen K. Stephens is running a kickstarter on behalf of Everyman Games to bring you a compilation of their Occult products for Starfinder, and if ANY of those words mean anything to you, this kickstarter is worth checking out. It's good work by good people, but for some reason hasn't gotten as much love as it probably deserves; if you or someone you know plays Starfinder, it is definitely worth checking out.

From their project description:

First and foremost, the Advanced Occult Guide is a compilation and expansion of Everybody Games's fan-favorite Occult Skill Guide produce series. As a result, the Advanced Occult Guide features content from the following products:

In addition to compiling popular Everybody Games content into one occultic tome, the Advanced Occult Guide will feature brand-new content that's designed to add an occult twist to any Starfinder RPG campaign or adventure.

First Stretch Goal Down!
almost 5 years ago – Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 10:34:22 PM

We’ve just crossed the threshold for our first stretch goal, which means an increase in page count and additional class options! Incidentally, increased page count and class options is also the next stretch goal, but I always prefer it when a stretch goal increases the quality of the main book rather than jumping immediately to other things.

Class Options

There has been some discussion in the comments section about the way classes and subclasses work in 5e, vs classes and archetypes in Pathfinder, which, of course, is where our system got its birth. I wanted to say that I completely understand that concern; we are most certainly doing our best to make sure that the end result of the Spheres conversion is something that doesn't just work IN 5e, but something that works WITH 5e, and the way you play your games at your particular table.

Preview Packet

As such, we have put together a Spheres Preview to show off two classes and four spheres (one class and two spheres per system), so that you can get a look at how the Spheres work and how they look in 5e. 

You can access the preview here, and feel free to share it around with anyone you know who might be interested.

Thank you all, and on to the next stretch goal!

Spheres Classes Explained
almost 5 years ago – Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 09:44:30 PM

In the spheres system, each player gains a lot of control over their character’s power, as they choose various spheres to reflect their character’s capabilities. Magic users also have the choice of a casting tradition, which determines the how’s and why’s of their magic. This means that, if you wanted to be a Jekyll and Hyde chemist, a berzerking warrior, an Avatar-style waterbender, a classic mad scientist, or a Pokémon-style minion summoner who specializes in gingerbread golems, it is your casting traditions and your sphere choices that would determine those builds.

Which begs the question: if a character’s choice of abilities is determined by sphere, and their magical flavor is determined by casting tradition (both of which would usually be determined by their class), then what, pray tell, does class mean in spheres?

First of all, one’s choice of class does not determine what spheres you can use; If you want to be a fighter, wizard, paladin, rogue, etc. and use spheres with that class, you absolutely can.

As for the new classes introduced in the Spheres books, rather than dictate flavor, these classes come in one of two varieties: either open-ended chassis you can use to explore the spheres as you desire, or a focused idea that take a set of spheres and uses them in very specialized ways.

Spheres of Power Classes

On the books right now are four magical classes for Spheres of Power: the incanter, the mageknight, the prodigy, and the shifter.

The Incanter is a pure user of the magical spheres; they gain more magic talents than any other class, and can either specialize in one sphere or grab a great many of them as you desire.

The mageknight is a martial combatant who uses magic to augment their martial abilities, much like the paladin or ranger.

The prodigy is a character who sits in the middle, doing a bit of everything, and indeed can often temporarily gain new powers or mimic those of others to adapt their skills to meet the situation at hand.

The shifter, however, is an example of a specialized class: while any Incanter or mageknight might take the Alteration sphere and transform themselves or their allies into various creatures, the shifter bends his whole power around this concept, gaining the ability to transform himself as a bonus action and gain more power from his various forms than other, less focused casters.

Spheres of Might Classes

On the Spheres of Might side, we also have four new classes: the conscript, the armiger, the scholar, and the craftsman

Like the Incanter, the conscript is a class perfect for creating a great variety of concepts; they can specialize in one or more martial spheres or branch out into many, becoming whatever you need them to be.

Like the prodigy, the armiger gains a broad knowledge of abilities, except the armiger ties different spheres to various weapons and pieces of equipment and changing what they can do as they switch between their many tools.

The scholar is a scientist, specializing in problem solving through alchemy, scouting, trap-making, and otherwise bending knowledge and the natural world to their whims.

The craftsman, however, is a specialist class; choosing between alchemy, traps, equipment, or mad tech super-gadgets, the craftsman learns to manipulate their chosen item in new and exciting ways that far outstrap the bounds or their less inventive kin, often not only increasing their own power, but also that of their allies through their subtle improvements.

We’ll keep bringing you more information on the spheres system and it’s various parts as the campaign goes along, but for right now, thank you all for backing, please share the campaign with your friends, and I can’t wait to unlock our first stretch goal!

Fully Funded!!
almost 5 years ago – Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 02:53:35 PM

Less than 24 hours from launch, and we now know that the 5E spheres conversion is definitely going through. Thank you to everyone who has come out to support our launch and help us make as big an opening splash as possible!

Now comes the steady march of stretch goals and our efforts to make these books as big and amazing as they can be.

Spheres Community

If any of you are new to the Spheres system and what we do here at Drop Dead Studios, the quickest way to introduce ourselves might be to instead introduce you to the rest of the spheres community. If you play Pathfinder or otherwise remember the 3.5 edition Dungeon and Dragons rule sets, you can find all sort of spheres-related information at the spheres fan wiki, and if you have questions you can always find help on our discord server. If you come in, say hi and we can answer any questions you might have!

Stretch Goals

Because of the nature of Kickstarter, it’s always important to figure out what is the minimum product you would feel happy releasing, how much will it cost to print, and then to make that your initial funding goal. This means that with something like Spheres, which has years of supplements and expansions under its belt, we have to pick and choose what parts of the system will be core to the conversion and which parts will be added later, if stretch goals let us increase the included page count.

Classes are especially difficult when it comes to system conversion, simply due to the rules changes that come along with the change. For example, in Pathfinder Spheres there were two classes that specialized in frontline magical fighting: the Armorist and the Mageknight. However, with the more rules-lite system that is 5E, would there be enough of a difference between the two to make having both worthwhile, or would it be better to just make the Armorist a specialization for the Mageknight?

For our initial write up of Spheres 5E, we budgeted page count and content for 4 classes for each system:

For Spheres of Power, the Mageknight, the Incanter, the Prodigy, and the Shifter.

For Spheres of Might, the Armiger, the Conscript, the Scholar, and the Craftsman (formerly Technician).

We’ll be introducing these classes to you in more detail later on, but for experienced Spheres players, know that many of the other classes (armorist, hedgewitch, blacksmith, etc.) would have their content transferred as specializations and options for the classes listed above.

Still though, there is so much more we could bring over, so our first set of stretch goals will be increasing that number of classes!

At $15,000, we’ll add an additional class to each book, bringing you the Elementalist and the Striker!

At $20,000, we’ll also be adding in the Soul Weaver and the Commander!

As previously mentioned, we will have more information for you on each of these classes later, but for now its time for celebratory pancakes with my kids; thank you all so, so much for helping us bring Spheres to an entirely new system and a whole bunch of new tables!

9 Hours, Almost 90% Funded!!
almost 5 years ago – Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 01:47:03 AM

At this time of writing, we are not even 10 hours into our campaign and have almost reached the initial funding goal!

We at Drop Dead Studios have run multiple Kickstarters and written many gaming books, but all of our previous work has been in Pathfinder, meaning there's potentially many of you - and indeed hopefully there will be many more of you before the end - who have never heard of us or the Spheres system before now. And to all of you, I want to say: Welcome! It is a pleasure and an honor to see you here and get the chance to bring something new to your table.

With us sitting so close to our initial funding goal, of course what people want to know is what you can expect from our first set of stretch goals. Yes, we will be introducing add-ons for you throughout this campaign, but as a designer the thing I'm most excited for is just getting the chance to increase the page count of both books; there is so much content that has already been written for the Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might systems, and the more this kickstarter gets funded, the more space we get to use when porting all that wonderful content to 5th edition for you. Therefore, I'm excited to announce that the first stretch goal: At $15,000, we will be adding an additional class to both Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might! 

We'll be delving more into the systems with you as the campaign goes on, including showing you what classes are already slated to be included in the books and which classes we'll be adding in via stretch goals, but here and now, before I sign off for the night, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who's followed our work for years and are excited to see us transition to 5e, and thank you to everyone who isn't familiar with our work already but nevertheless is excited to try out our system and see what it can do for your 5e game. It's built right into the nature of Kickstarter; these books could only exist because of your help and your support, and it means so much that you are here with us now, helping us bring these books to life.

Thank you,

Adam Meyers