I think this was an amazing product for redesigning a character's upbringing and physiology. it opens up so many new avenues for designing a character from their race, culture, and more that is easy to work with for GMs. I know the groups I used this for during the playtest absolutely loved this compared to the standard base racial systems and the race builder options in Advanced Race Guide since they could effectively reskin those options to convey other ideas like a mage inspired from Ars Magica, a desert survivor, or some sort of horrible magic gone wrong in an easy to comprehend way that was easier to work with.

Dividing the potency of an effect into three categories really helps to prevent a character from having too much power from their upbringing, and having the talents be divided into three spheres really helps to develop an origin one has in mind. All of them seem to cover the basis that most racial effects, and anything that was deemed to really need a GM's attention was put in its own category of phenomenal talents. Most of the options for talents are balanced, and majority of them aren't so drastic as to break the game or feel like power creeping for characters in my experience of using this.

It feels like the disability segment tried to handle physical disabilities respectfully, but as with all things it can be exploited by some players. For some it might seem like the disabilities are basically a free way into getting super powers, but the alternative would be essentially disabilities being a crippling effect that most players wouldn't want to try to have on their character. I'd say try to keep an eye on this section if you want to avoid a player crippling themselves in order to get more power, but for those who don't mind then this should not be an issue.

This book does feel like it should primarily be used for building humanoid-like creatures as well. Making animal companions and familiars with this book tends to bring out pretty poor results and they aren't as fulfilling as their true counterpart. For some this could be an issue, for others you might be looking to work with it or tweak it a bit. But, making humanoid-like creatures for most of the party members works great.

For GMs interested in worldbuilding their own races, species, background, or other things that impact the backstory of a character, I would recommend giving this system a go. Your players may like it a lot with the freedom it offers and it helps keep the GM involved in the process of how a character fits into the setting and campaign.

Where to start...thankfully, the section about DMs not allowing players to use this supplement as being discriminitory against their origins was removed.

However, despite working with a consulting firm meant to avoid such issues, you can deliberately cripple yourself physically for superpowers. This is in addition to the new base class that attempts to mimic racial paragons of editions past, about becoming more powerful via accumulating physical traits normally associated with race, despite the book treating that word like taboo.

Furthermore, as is common with Matt Daley products, power creep is rampant. As a tool for DMs? It wasn't even initially intended as one and it somehow does a poorer job of the default Paizo race build even with its plentiful number of issues.

I would not reccomend this book for DMs or players looking to make new races or to respectfully handle disabillity in their games and it hurts to say that I've come to expect works like this from Dead Drop Studios when the author of this book and others I've reviewed is at the helm.

In another wonderful showing of "April Fools" content Drop Dead Studios makes another offering of humor mixed with some solid content ripe for 'reflavoring' if one wanted to apply catgirls to a more serious game setting. I was specially fond of the (Purring) type feats and their take on the Wraith archetype with the Matagot. Don't let the cover fool you, there is some good stuff in here.

Not only does this book feature horrifically overpowered general content, basic no-prerequisites feats that power creep the signature ability of a sphere's specific +5 or more CR template, it also tries to imply the very thoughtful and helpful guidelines for determining Magic Skill Bonus/Defense in order to prevent certain types of monster hitdie from being entirely uninteractble should not be used for no tangible reason.

The drow noble+++ the book offers sets poor precedent instead of just using racial hitdie to demonstrate a superior creautre on the species level.

Lastly, the pre-written monsters and templates are horrifically broken and would be nearly unusable as a DM due to how little a player can do to fight fairly, seemingly only here to give bad DMs plausible deniability for poor encounter design.

Amalgamate creature powercreeps the Mythic Agile template and then some. Antimemtic creature is just a spiteful jab at the only way players are supposed to learn how to use their abilities correctly.

The presented monsters are built so optimally using character levels and, to borrow an analogy from competitive card games, netdecked meta strategies, it would seem the horrically powerful and game-balance-busting options written by the author in books prior are encouraged if not required to beat these creatures. Which is sadly a trend for the Bestiaries penned by Matt Daley and published throgh Dead Drop Studios.

I was hoping for another book with the Quality of Beast Tamer's or Undead and Immortal Forlorn, but it seems I was mistaken.

Unlike Fiends of the Cosmos, I feel like Demons of the Abyss: Rank and File actually achieves the goals of what a Spheres-using Bestiary should look like. This gives DMs the tools they need to run their favorite monsters from the Abyss in a Spheres game without introducing headache or argument causers like bringing back the Sacred Cow that is Wish.

I eagerly look forward to more bestiaries in this format, and the latter half of this bestiary which I picked up today.

I hope this becomes the quality I can look forward to from DDS bestiaries, as I felt fiends from the cosmos was a harsh decline from Magical Beasts and Climactic Encounters and Undead and the Immortal Forlorn.

shit's busted but it's mythic so i guess it's fine

Look at that chonky feat. Improved Atavism is amazing at helping satisfy specific bloodline flavours. Each different option has some cool stuff that can fit in most builds, which often leads me to not even looking at what the abilities offer mechanically, and just picking stuff that I think fits my character and it typically works out fine. Improved Atavism is some great work.

Inheritor Sorcerer is perfect for helping achieve that level between Bloodrager and Sorcerer, where you do want to do some melee stuff, but still have most of your stuff focused on magic. Finally those sorcerer bloodlines that have to do with having weapons enchanted or natural weapons or the like finally can be used to an actual effectively-ish level, and again, the author was quite careful not to make it creep on anything in particular, making sure to make a note too about not allowing some of its abilities on a couple of the sorcerer bloodlines that might be overtuned in comparison to the others. Now some might say, "But sir, Full Caster and 3/4 BAB? That's far too much, this is overtuned!" And I definitely thought so at first too. But when you look over the Inheritor sorcerer again, as well as what the base Sorcerer tends to offer, it really isn't too much. Sorcerers I feel have always needed a bit of a hand, given their 2+Int skill ranks, lack of class skills, and a fair few bloodlines having rather mediocre abilities (and yes, I know of the few that are busted). Unlike most 3/4 BAB classes too, the sorcerer typically does not have a class skill method to boost their to-hit, such as studied target or magus arcanas. So after I realised that, and attempted to build one, yeah, it's a pretty fine class.

Definitely looking to more content from this author, they clearly seem to have an obvious level of care for the balance and health of the system by introducing neat flavourful options that aren't just bizarre minmax bait.

insert cat emoji here

Always excited to see stuff from the April Fools books, and this is probably my favourite so far. A smatter of horrid puns (perhaps some TOO overused, but you only have so many cats you can work with) belies a bunch of legitimately neat and balanced archetypes and talents. Matagot I particularly enjoy, having an extremely fun theme I'm sure many players have always wanted to have a go at (playing as a familiar), while actually making the Wraith class a bit more reasonable, and the Nyancaller archetype was a cool way of bringing in some base summoner evolution style stuff back into the mix. Lots of fun little things here and there, nothing particularly egregious, though I had slight concerns about the Purring feats making Bards less relevant, but it seemed to work out fine as feat costs. The little back page of 'Here's some non-meme names for these things' is great too when I try to seriously recommend the "Nyancaller" to a friend, hah.

A delightful addition to races that either dreadfully needed some additional love (such as Lizardfolks) or just some very fun variants for the more well known races (such as Ratfolk), this little apoc does a great job adding more options and variety to these unique races while not pushing too hard on making them particularly power-creepy, keeping everything basically in line for what you'd expect of other main stream races that have a lot of options and abilities. A fantastic job as always from the author.

A fun bestiary that expands on introducing spheres to NPCs to make both subsystems mesh together However, I feel this particular dropped the ball on including cookie-cutter meta PC options at every turn, rather than leveraging the unique strengths of evil outsiders of different varieties.

Most notable of all is the very first entry, a creature that can on a low-estimate swing for 12d6+324 twice a turn. I am not exagerating or expecting a critical hit. It simply attacks that hard due to exploiting infamous synergies from some of Paizo's most ill-regarded content.

On the other hand, the elemental chaos orb is an intrigueing and exciting enemy to face.

The Diabolist's Handbook contains a the typically expected gamut of fun new options, and has improved in terms of content that raises balance concerns since the last Matt Daley release. Feedback was still ignored regarding more egregious balance issues with new content and upgrades to old content. While I am excited to add this book to my collection, I advise DMs to carefully approve which options players take and the worldbuilding impact of NPCs with the options presented.

Still a great addition for any spheres-of enjoyers.

While the Alienist's Handbook contains a wide variety of fun and new content, it follows the same issues as typical handbooks penned by Matt Daley. Feedback was ignored regarding more egregious balance issues with new content and upgrades to old content. While I am excited to add this book to my collection, it does falter on how much content I have to very carefully approve compared to normal.

An excellent NPC codex giving wonderful DM tools from a wide and varied range of creatures of all CRs, going from low hitdie cultists and bandits to epic personas and villains. The variety of themes and organizations provides a stellar jumping off point for any aspiring DM, both for those wanting to use Spheres of Power and Might and for looking at how to structure factions for their own worldbuilding.

A must have.

I have to say this has been a super up lifting book i love their april fools books, keep them coming! i look forward to these every year!

Overall this is a pretty solid read if you're looking at adding additional character options to your game. It's well written and does a decent job at blending new ideas with current ones to provide both the sense of "this is it's own thing" while also being able to feel reassured that it's not coloring too far outside the lines.

To answer the every looming question every player or GM has when it comes to 3rd party supplements; How powerful is it?

As an entire package I'd say it's a perfect fit for tables that include the Advanced Player's Guide material in their pool of options. You'll find similarities with several feats and abilities that borrow from other classes, but it does so in a way that doesn't seem like it's only cherry picking the best parts from them. The "Errant" cause does lean more heavily into it's Champion Reaction than the other causes and is one of the key parts the entire concept is built around.

From a roleplay and class information standpoint I do believe there is room for additional detail. Although the primary core of the cause is to walk one's own path and be your own boss, I do believe it should still have some sort of code by which it exists to help keep some of its Champion roots and not just seem like a Fighter variant. "You have forsaken or given up such divine blessings and favors, instead seeking to harness your own determination and spirit in the face of diversity." How does this interact with Archetypes that may have strong divinity connections to Deities such as Cleric or Blessed One? How does this interact with skill feat choices such as Battle Prayer? Players and GM's for the moment may need to fill in the blanks themselves and come up with their own "code" by which the character lives by, draws power in belief from, and risks perhaps losing some of that power if their belief falters.

One suggestion for future revisions of the book would be to move the paragraph found the top of page 3 under the "New Feats'' header to a better spot where it stands out as it contains vital information that could be overlooked and give a false impression of power with some of the feats if the reader had missed it. Perhaps one of those slightly colorful sidebars you see in some rulebooks, or a more noticeable header to call attention to it.