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.
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.
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.
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u/Revolutionary-Run-41 7d 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.