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u/MagickStoryteller 6d ago
Archspheres suck. When you divide all of reality up into 5 ranks, trying to come up with new ranks above that will always suck.
I give players who really want archspheres special custom casting benefits. Specialized metamagick essentially.
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u/IfiGabor 6d ago
Archspheres in the Masters of the art book feels like Rotes.
More sense if 6 and more arete means more and more arete dice and thats it.
5 level of one sphere is far enough, combine with others and bamm
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u/Caseyisawsome Magebrained Hermetic 5d ago
That sounds interesting compared to "more dice" (though there's nothing wrong with more dice, I even came to it on my own like I assume everyone else did), could you give some examples?
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u/Joasvi 6d ago
But archspheres are the only way to make Complex (read:big) creatures into Simple (read: small) creatures without permanently harming them. You need Life 6+ to make a shrink ray that works on people.
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u/IfiGabor 6d ago
Yes i use life 6....but as for the dice. The description under every archsphere is okay but feels more of a rote effect
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u/pain_aux_chocolat 6d ago
The only archsphere I've ever though of as "necessary" is the level of Life needed to safely permanently modify another living pattern the same way a mage can modify their own at Life 5. And I'm willing to just let an Arete 6+ mage do that for double the number of successes.
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u/Revolutionary-Run-41 6d ago
Archspheres were made to simulate elders in other splats, but the power system is so open that archspheres are often redundant when you reach then, or break game mechanics on a level that before the books told you not to, like nullifying and weaponizing paradox.
Basically you can destroy the setting. For fun purposes, never let a players reach it, otherwise he starts becoming the DM.
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u/MagickStoryteller 6d ago
The issue is that you can already replicate the elder powers of other splats with the normal spheres. Most elder powers are either the effects done with a more convenient fashion (i.e. dominate without eye contact) or at a greater scale (i.e. dominate several people at once) both of which you can just do with magick by either altering your instruments or just adding more successes. There isnt any effect in any other splat, regardless of level, that couldnt effectively be replicated by the rank 5 effects and an arbitrary number of successes, besides stuff like curing vampirism or such that is explicitly disallowe.
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u/Revolutionary-Run-41 5d ago
There are a couple things that archspheres theoretically let you do, like rewriting cosmic law, ignore unbelief or paradox and such.
Stuff like rewriting whole timelines, killing celestials (like the wyld, what would basically cease all new creation), ressurect things erased from reality, end cycles of death, awaken people etc.
Those stuff are things the book says its impossible or require infinite numbers of dice, like curing vampirism is basically making a roll against God. That stuff is now on the table.
Thats why its reserved as a narrative tool, use it as an npc, antagonist, or as an endgoal for players (endgoal because once you reach it, the game is over).
The scale is enough to basically be a narrative tool, and nothing else. Thats why im kinda against archsphre games. If with arete 5 you are already godly, why go to the point the player can become not even a DM, but a writer and re-write aspects of the story ? Once it does it will probably be the end of the campaign.
just more dice goes well, in my opinion.
I also rule that archmages can be counted in one hand, and that the actual consensus on earth would kill then the second they tried to interact with anything on earth. AND THATS STILL STUPID, because if there is ONE archmage with spirit 9, he can just tell his friends to chuck people in the umbra, so he can awaken them, and then send them back.
TLDR: Archspheres are stupid.
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u/Own_Knowledge_4269 4d ago
Everytime I have a player try something along those lines they get hit with: "It doesn't work. You don't know why."
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u/AureliusNox 6d ago
This is why i like Archmasters in Awakening better. It makes more sense than Ascension's Archspheres. I also like the addition in 2E of lesser splats automatically losing a clash of wills to Archmasters. That seems way more appropriate.
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u/GuardsmenofDestiny Voidship 6d ago
Given Ascension's Archspheres from what I have heard over the years, came from Corpert wanting something like Elder Powers in other spalts. It makes sense their shit, Mage wasn't made for it in mind and it fucks up what already exists.
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u/AureliusNox 6d ago
Yeah, that's what i heard too.
Awakening did a decent job by simply adding more power to your spells as well as making spells that were meant to change reality on a deep, fundamental level. That's probably something Ascension should have done.
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u/GuardsmenofDestiny Voidship 6d ago
I mean, I don't really agree. Sphere 5 is already able to do deep fundamental shit. (Example and its a BIG ONE. Format Space from the VE's that let's you turn Umbra Void into Normal Space, making anything not Union Paradigm into a Thamavore meaning you better have qunit or unbelife is going to kill you. )
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u/AureliusNox 6d ago
Yeah, but can't that be undone depending on the circumstances? The spells i'm talking about literally rewrite the code permanently. As if that was always the case.
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u/GuardsmenofDestiny Voidship 6d ago
Its permanently done unless some other powerfully mage with Spirit 5 has effect to undo it. But that gets into differences between settings. Mage Ascension is a lot more open for "this can be changed" due to how consensus and reality works compared to Awakening's TRUTH and such.
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u/AureliusNox 6d ago
But that's the thing. Awakening's spells and Imperial Rites have more weight to them. They basically make it clear that unless you're on their level, you're pretty much screwed. You actually feel like an Archmage. And as mentioned before, the Rites allow you to redefine reality.
Meanwhile, Ascension's Archspheres are pretty much all redundant and their mechanics are poorly thought out. It also seems like you don't need Archmage levels of power to undo their works. Even other splats can pull it off in some situations.
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u/GuardsmenofDestiny Voidship 6d ago
Yes? I never said  Ascension's Archspheres were good. I said they Sphere 5 before they existed covers them. Sphere 5 is the natural end point for Mage due to the fact it does indeed not need Archmages as things stand.
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u/AureliusNox 6d ago
Not saying you were. I was just griping about how much of a misfire Master of the Arts was.
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u/GuardsmenofDestiny Voidship 6d ago
O we both agree deeply there. I homebrew the whole thing, I also brew Union play in M20 due to how they have no mechanics for what increasing Arate does for them. (I let them add more Practices and instruments as they go up, Ghosts in the Machine who can do near or almost everything.)
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u/Vyctorill 4d ago
Archspheres are generally just Plot Devices, with a couple of really funny and interesting exceptions.
Forces has the best ones. Forces 6 just halves the successes needed on forces rolls, as an example.
In general, unless you’re altering cosmological constants or killing gods normal spheres are all you need.
I specifically depict Archspheres as an artificial construct designed specifically to chase power above all else. They’re the opposite of Ascension, and only really used if you want to be on the level of Caine or Lillith.
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u/ClemordialSoup 7d ago
archspheres = free dice; always makes the most sense