The Nexus & City of Seven Seraphs - A planar metropolis with a new veilweaving class

Alot of different veils that add to stealth and acrobatics but none of them stack, of particular note Cloak of Darkness and Darkwalker Hood both do insight to stealth and are in the same thematic set but don't work together.

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Originally Posted by calyst

Alot of different veils that add to stealth and acrobatics but none of them stack, of particular note Cloak of Darkness and Darkwalker Hood both do insight to stealth and are in the same thematic set but don't work together.

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yeah i see that to for class who's focus is darkness and stealth it feels like missing some omph to do its job maybe all bonuses stacking might help to give eclipse a power it needs.

For me the Darkwalker Hood felt like it should be perception as there was already a stealth one in that set, and the abilities it gives seem more perception related.

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Originally Posted by calyst

Alot of different veils that add to stealth and acrobatics but none of them stack, of particular note Cloak of Darkness and Darkwalker Hood both do insight to stealth and are in the same thematic set but don't work together.

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Darkwalker Hood is actually out of date in the playtest doc. Currently it grants a bonus to Perception and Sleight of Hand instead of Stealth. Thank you for the call-out though, that would have been a bad item to overlook since each set is expected to be entirely functional and compatible as a unit.

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Originally Posted by khadgar567

yeah i see that to for class who's focus is darkness and stealth it feels like missing some omph to do its job maybe all bonuses stacking might help to give eclipse a power it needs.

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As a general rule, veil bonuses not stacking is very intentional to preserve the basic framework of the game. Between gaining stealth as a class skill, the competence bonus from the shadow armor version of their occultation, the insight bonuses from one of the Stealth veils, and the eclipse's ability to obfuscate their presence with darkness, enigmas, and illusions, the eclipse shouldn't be having many issues related to their facility with Stealth.

The eclipse has further benefits in that their occultations can allow them to fight without actually being too near combat; even a 1st level eclipse can hide in a nook or cranny while channeling their attacks through their occultation and avoiding any direct danger. Basically, the eclipse has one of the most robust skill sets for participating in combat while minimizing risks that you're likely to see on a character outside of a full caster, and even then they'll have advantages in when they gain the abilities and how often they can use them.

Other Changes
I also wanted to mention that we made a few small tweaks to the Darklord capstone- there is no longer a penalty imposed for being in bright or normal light, you just don't get the bonus. The bonus type granted by Darklord has been changed to circumstance to allow it to stack with a broader array of abilities.

The Pooling Black veil now lowers the light level within its radius by 1 step in addition to its other effects.

Using Nothingness Shroud's bind ability now lowers the light level in a 30 foot radius around you for a number of rounds equal to 1 + 1/essence.

Using Void Countenance's bind ability now lowers the light level in the cone's area of effect by 1 step for a number of rounds equal to 1 + 1/essence.

I have one last massive testing packet to finish today for a job I'm trying to get, and then I need to get the Time Handbook playtest out for Drop Dead Studios (I'm already a few days late due to unanticipated delays like interviews and higher priority work requests from DDS), but after that I'll try and post a complete list of all the updates made between the time the last playtest documents were generated and now so anyone helping out with playtesting and reviews can quickly check to see if any of their notes have already been addressed.

I found a couple more minor edits. The Nexus and Eclipse docs are missing a Chakra Binds description. Radiant has one. Eclipse is also missing Chakra Bind (Body) in the table.

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Originally Posted by NomGarret

I found a couple more minor edits. The Nexus and Eclipse docs are missing a Chakra Binds description. Radiant has one. Eclipse is also missing Chakra Bind (Body) in the table.

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Updated accrdingly, thanks for the catch!

Making sure I'm reading these right. The special ability for Dark Intensity only applies to the bonus shape provided, and would not also apply to double shaping via Twin Veil, is that correct? So if I have Twin Veil (Feet) and two veils shaped to both feet and hands, I'd get the bonus effect for hands but not feet?

If you shape more weaponlike veils than you have hands to wield them, do you have to use the usual actions to stash and switch between them? For instance, if I have both Sable Shots and Ebon Stars, do I have to spend actions holstering one set before drawing the other?

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Originally Posted by NomGarret

Making sure I'm reading these right. The special ability for Dark Intensity only applies to the bonus shape provided, and would not also apply to double shaping via Twin Veil, is that correct? So if I have Twin Veil (Feet) and two veils shaped to both feet and hands, I'd get the bonus effect for hands but not feet?

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Correct. The benefits from Dark Intensity are specific to the slot you bind that specific veil in.

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If you shape more weaponlike veils than you have hands to wield them, do you have to use the usual actions to stash and switch between them? For instance, if I have both Sable Shots and Ebon Stars, do I have to spend actions holstering one set before drawing the other?

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I'm actually glad you brought this up because it drew my attention to another issue: during development of the nexus we wanted to try and condense as many of the individual weapon-like veil rules as possible. The eclipse veils were written assuming that this had already happened, and I only just caught that we had not made that final update in the appropriate places across all documents. The weapon-like veils rules now read as follows:

"Weapon-like Veils: Weapon-like veils are veils that can be wielded and used as a weapon, such as the Loyal Paladin’s Spear of Light or the Sword of Justice. These veils use the same damage dice and critical statistics as any weapon they are described as acting as. Veilweavers are always proficient with any weapon-like veil they shape. Veils that grant selectable weapon enhancements, such as the Reaper’s Scythe, may choose which weapon enhancements to use each time essence is invested. If a weapon-like veil is disarmed or otherwise removed or released from your grasp, it immediately dissipates and can be reformed as a free action on your next turn; this supersedes the limitations on previously published weapon-like veils, such as Loyal Paladin’s Spear of Light, which states that it requires a swift action to recover. "

I also clarified the Wrist bind of the Sword of Justice to accomodate this update as follows:

"Chakra Bind (Wrists): [D7, N8] Binding this veil to your Wrists chakra grants you all the benefits of binding it to your Hands chakra, and you may wield the Sword of Justice as a thrown weapon with a range increment of 10 ft. + 5 ft. per point of essence invested. When used as a thrown weapon the Sword of Justice does not dissipate for leaving your grasp and returns to you after the attack is resolved; if you no longer have a free hand after resolving an attack in this manner, the Sword of Justice dissipates as normal. Whenever you confirm a critical hit with your Sword of Justice, each enemy adjacent to the target of your attack takes 1d6 fire damage, plus an additional 1d6 fire damage per point of essence invested (Reflex half). "

This let us trim some text out of the nexus and normalize interactions. In the case of the eclipse with both Sable Shots and Ebon Flails you have two options:

1) Drop the currently wielded weapons and form the other pair (both free actions).

2) All of the paired veils allow you to form "up to" two of the specified weapons. So you also have the option of forming one flail and one hand crossbow.

Here's that change log list I promised earlier. This should cover the majority of changes made since the last update to the playtest docs. There might be a couple Radiant items missing since those were tracked in a different document I can't access at the moment, but I'll add those in when I catch them. I'll try and update this with any other changes you guys find between now and the release of the new classes.

Spoiler: Change Log

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• Added Extra Essence Capacity class feature to the Nexus class text (not just the table)
• Companion entry added to Akasha and Magic.
• Evil and necromancy added to the descriptors section of the Vanth’s Eyes veil.
• Cloak of Darkness added to the Shoulders entry of the Nexus veil list
• Eclipse entry added to Bracers of Oblivion veil
• Eclipse entry added to Ferryman’s Cloak
• Eclipse entry added to Mask of the Nosoi
• Eclipse entry added to Reaper’s Scythe
• Corrected Pit Fiend’s Shroud so that bind says “frightened instead of shaken” rather than “frightened instead of panicked”
• Eclipse entry added to Pit Fiend’s Shroud
• Eclipse entry added to Shackles of Perdition
• Eclipse entry added to Spore Wings
• Changed “ For each point of essence invested in this ability” to “ For each point of essence invested in this veil” in the Sword of Justice “Essence” entry.
• Added a “.” to the last sentence of the Sword of Justice Hands bind entry
• Gauntlets of the Void added to the Hands and Wrists entries of the Nexus veil list
• Grasping Black added to the Shoulders entry of the Nexus veil list
• Voidblade added to the Hands and Body entries of the Nexus veil list
• Added the following line to the end of the Tier 4 Hells convergence: “Devils summoned by this ability return to the Hells one hour after they are summoned, or when you dismiss them as a standard action.”
• Fixed copy/paste error in the Babau Skin veil’s flavor text. It now reads “A leathery layer of slime-coated flesh oozes with magic as it forms around your body.”
• Updated Mantle of Infernal Dukedom to have better scaling and remove redundant text.
• Added mind-affecting tag to Voice of the Janni and included the following line at the end of the bind entry: “, but works against all such creatures, including mindless elementals that would otherwise be immune”.
• Updated all instances of the “lawful” descriptor to “law”
• Added the law descriptor to the Breastplate of the Righteous and Iron Crown veils.
• Added “(perfect)” after the lucent’s fly speed entry
• Dark Intensity updated to refer to "up to two weapons" instead of "up two weapons"
• Added the chaos descriptor to the following veils: Balor’s Whip, Demon Lord’s Hunger, Dretch Flesh, Shahzada’s Dissolution, Spore Wings, Vrock’s Screech
• Updated the Halo of Holy Light veil’s bind to refer to “good-aligned” clerics instead of “good” clerics.
• Darkwalker Hood updated to grant bonuses to Perception and Sleight of Hand instead of Stealth.
• Darklord capstone updated- there is no longer a penalty imposed for being in bright or normal light, you just don't get the bonus. The bonus type granted by Darklord has been changed to circumstance to allow it to stack with a broader array of abilities.
  The Pooling Black veil now lowers the light level within its radius by 1 step in addition to its other effects.
• Using Nothingness Shroud's bind ability now lowers the light level in a 30 foot radius around you for a number of rounds equal to 1 + 1/essence.
• Using Void Countenance's bind ability now lowers the light level in the cone's area of effect by 1 step for a number of rounds equal to 1 + 1/essence.
• Weapon-like veils entry updated to read as follows: "Weapon-like Veils: Weapon-like veils are veils that can be wielded and used as a weapon, such as the Loyal Paladin’s Spear of Light or the Sword of Justice. These veils use the same damage dice and critical statistics as any weapon they are described as acting as. Veilweavers are always proficient with any weapon-like veil they shape. Veils that grant selectable weapon enhancements, such as the Reaper’s Scythe, may choose which weapon enhancements to use each time essence is invested. If a weapon-like veil is disarmed or otherwise removed or released from your grasp, it immediately dissipates and can be reformed as a free action on your next turn; this supersedes the limitations on previously published weapon-like veils, such as Loyal Paladin’s Spear of Light, which states that it requires a swift action to recover. "
• Sword of Justice wording adjusted to accommodate weapon-like veil updates.
• Priestess' Clasp of Rebirth updated to refer to the "reincarnate spell, rather than reincarnte veil.
• 1+veilweaving modifier per creature limitation added to Criniere of Warding's healing option.
• Radiant FCBs updated to correct copy/paste error.

Spoiler: Layout Errors Pending Correction

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• “transmute rock to mud” in the Shahzada’s Dissolution Shoulder bind lost its italicization
• “detect poison” in the first sentence of the Imp’s Eyes mechanics entry lost its italicization

I believe editing is largely complete at this point for the new akashic materials, and we're just waiting on some background graphics to finish being produced before we start moving them into layout. We'll have some announcements about upcoming products in the Co7S akashic line about that time.

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Originally Posted by Ssalarn

I'm glad you ended up pleasantly surprised! Out of curiosity, was there anything specific you can think of about the description that had turned you off initially?

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A bit late, but I figure I might as well get to this. It mostly just didn't read as something I'd enjoy. Using shadows to hinder your foes just isn't my kind of thing. Summoning shadow dragon mounts/weapons/clones and jumping around through shadows is a good deal more neat.

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Originally Posted by Biapolis

A bit late, but I figure I might as well get to this. It mostly just didn't read as something I'd enjoy. Using shadows to hinder your foes just isn't my kind of thing. Summoning shadow dragon mounts/weapons/clones and jumping around through shadows is a good deal more neat.

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Gotchya. Was that more from the Kickstarter description then, or the description in the class itself? Just trying to dig through so I can see whether it was more of an issue we've already moved past or if there's still some text we can brush up to make the class more appealing at a glance.

Oh, no, definitely the kickstarter blurb. The stuff in the preview doc looks good.

As we wait for the Eclipse, Nexus, and Radiant to finish making their way through editing and layout before we make any other big announcements, I thought I'd share a link to the most recent Lost Spheres blog post where Christen teases some new art for Aphos, God of the Faith Devoured general bad guy and vampire deity from the City of Seven Seraphs whose name you might recognize from the Radiant's Circle of Six veil set.
If you haven't seen them yet and would like to check out the new akashic classes as part of the backer-only playtest, there's a preorder link at the bottom of the Aphos blog post; playtest assets are usually sent out within a week of placing a preorder.

I heard this book would be adding some Spheres support as well as Aegis support. I don't suppose, perhaps in my wildest dreams, that this book could give the Aegis some Sphere-based customizations?

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Originally Posted by Kaouse

I heard this book would be adding some Spheres support as well as Aegis support. I don't suppose, perhaps in my wildest dreams, that this book could give the Aegis some Sphere-based customizations?

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I hope its true caıuse i like to have aegis with magic as playable concept

khadgar567 and Kaouse,

We have reason to believe you both will be happy about something then.... ;)

After all, one our major missions is to prove how cool synthesizing content from other 3pp can be...

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Originally Posted by Lost_Spheres

khadgar567 and Kaouse,

We have reason to believe you both will be happy about something then.... ;)

After all, one our major missions is to prove how cool synthesizing content from other 3pp can be...

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halle freakin lujah that was the news i need to hear and its mage my freakin day

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Originally Posted by khadgar567

I hope its true caıuse i like to have aegis with magic as playable concept

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You should take a look at the "Host of Heroes" Archetype for the Aegis. Basically trns the Aegis into a Medium, and gives them limited access to spellcasting (up to 4th level @ level 18). It's all kinds of awesome.

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Originally Posted by Lost_Spheres

khadgar567 and Kaouse,

We have reason to believe you both will be happy about something then.... ;)

After all, one our major missions is to prove how cool synthesizing content from other 3pp can be...

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YAAAAASSSSSSSSS.

Aegis can already trade out proficiencies for a martial tradition, but native access to Spheres of Power would really cement the Aegis as the best class in the history of everything forever.

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Originally Posted by Kaouse

You should take a look at the "Host of Heroes" Archetype for the Aegis. Basically trns the Aegis into a Medium, and gives them limited access to spellcasting (up to 4th level @ level 18). It's all kinds of awesome.

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I meant ability to cast regular magic as modification but i take sphere casting any day of week instead of regular magic.

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Originally Posted by Kaouse

Aegis can already trade out proficiencies for a martial tradition, but native access to Spheres of Power would really cement the Aegis as the best class in the history of everything forever.

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If only Soulknives were so lucky...

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Originally Posted by Kaouse

YAAAAASSSSSSSSS.

Aegis can already trade out proficiencies for a martial tradition, but native access to Spheres of Power would really cement the Aegis as the best class in the history of everything forever.

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Don't quote me on this, but to your point, when Christen responded to whether there would be "spheres" support, I don't believe that was limited to just Spheres of Power. I know he is a fan of Spheres of Might also, and has talked previously about wanting to incorporate that as well, if possible. I'm really not sure what all is actually being included/supported at this point since the book will be fully functional as a standalone product, but I know that the considerations given to popular 3pp products have been extensively examined.

And yeah, it really does seem like the aegis' "hidden" class feature is a key that unlocks the door to every other subsystem :smalltongue:

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Originally Posted by digiman619

If only Soulknives were so lucky...

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I think Soulknives just kind of fall into a weird place. When I made the decision to introduce a much larger number of weapon-like veils, I knew as I did it that it meant the akashic classes would step on the soulknife's toes a bit more; that's actually a significant part of what informed numerous design decisions in AM, like the small number of weapon-like veils, weapon-like veils typically having a fixed list of weapon enhancements, the "shield" veils requiring an actual shield to kind of hang on, and even the vizier's veilshifting not auto-binding until high levels. During development on AM, Andreas stressed that he really wanted to make sure the soulknife didn't lose too much of its value compared to other classes that had the option to create their own weapons on demand, so that molded a surprising amount of what happened in AM.

Moving on to City of 7 Seraphs, I knew that psionics would be supported, but also that the soulknife was not going to be part of the core class line-up in the book. Since Lost Spheres is also a different company, it meant that that niche was no longer entirely reserved and we could push into that territory a bit more with new weapons and abilities. I've still tried to preserve those original limitations to one degree or another, but it is true that in Co7S there are 6 supported classes that can all whip up a new and different magic weapon on at least a daily basis, not to mention the archetypes and other options that open those weapon-like veils up to other classes. While the soulknife still has things like blade skills and psychic strikes, we've kind of overlapped heavily with his main schtick of being able to create his own custom weapons. The fact that there's also going to be spheres support, with SoP including the Armorist, means that while the soulknife may still get archetype and feat support somewhere in the product line, it doesn't have the uniqueness of concept that the aegis still kind of has to make it a priority class for support.

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Originally Posted by Ssalarn

I think Soulknives just kind of fall into a weird place. When I made the decision to introduce a much larger number of weapon-like veils, I knew as I did it that it meant the akashic classes would step on the soulknife's toes a bit more; that's actually a significant part of what informed numerous design decisions in AM, like the small number of weapon-like veils, weapon-like veils typically having a fixed list of weapon enhancements, the "shield" veils requiring an actual shield to kind of hang on, and even the vizier's veilshifting not auto-binding until high levels. During development on AM, Andreas stressed that he really wanted to make sure the soulknife didn't lose too much of its value compared to other classes that had the option to create their own weapons on demand, so that molded a surprising amount of what happened in AM.

Moving on to City of 7 Seraphs, I knew that psionics would be supported, but also that the soulknife was not going to be part of the core class line-up in the book. Since Lost Spheres is also a different company, it meant that that niche was no longer entirely reserved and we could push into that territory a bit more with new weapons and abilities. I've still tried to preserve those original limitations to one degree or another, but it is true that in Co7S there are 6 supported classes that can all whip up a new and different magic weapon on at least a daily basis, not to mention the archetypes and other options that open those weapon-like veils up to other classes. While the soulknife still has things like blade skills and psychic strikes, we've kind of overlapped heavily with his main schtick of being able to create his own custom weapons. The fact that there's also going to be spheres support, with SoP including the Armorist, means that while the soulknife may still get archetype and feat support somewhere in the product line, it doesn't have the uniqueness of concept that the aegis still kind of has to make it a priority class for support.

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While I'm in no position to tell you how to design stuff, saying that the Soulknife doesn't have the "uniqueness of concept" is kind of like saying Dungeons and Dragons doesn't have "uniqueness of concept" because Hackmaster exists. Especially since the Aegis started off as an alternate Soulknife (The Soul Bastion; pg 11 of High Psionics: Soulknives by Dreamscarred Press in 2007; two years before Pathfinder even existed). I mean, by your own admission, you broke previous guidelines and took the soulknife's shtick.

Maybe it's just sour grapes, but the Soulknife getting shafted and not getting an Akashic archetype still bugs me, and here's the new akashic thing coming out and takes his gimmick. All I'm saying is that if the Soulknife doesn't get a spheres archetype (preferably one SoM and one SoP, but one Champion (both) will do), I will be miffed. And you don't want to annoy people on the internet. They are so calm normally.

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Originally Posted by digiman619

While I'm in no position to tell you how to design stuff, saying that the Soulknife doesn't have the "uniqueness of concept" is kind of like saying Dungeons and Dragons doesn't have "uniqueness of concept" because Hackmaster exists.

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As a freelancer, I generally fulfill the requests of my publishers. The exact leeway I have in what I produce varies; sometimes the requests are very specific and sometimes I get some wiggle room to innovate some original solutions and ideas. One of the reasons I didn't do an akashic archetype for the soulknife in AM was actually that I was under the impression at the time that there was going to be an akashic archetype for it in Psionics Augmented: Soulknives, though that ultimately didn't happen. By the time I knew it wasn't happening, I was already largely out of the design phase with AM and trying to get it pushed through development. Since then, the soulknife has really become less and less appealing to design for; there's other classes in popular systems that do what the soulknife does plus some, like Drop Dead Studio's Armorist, which can have both spherecasting and martial talents added to a chassis, as well as a significant number of core classes that can do a majority of what the soulknife does plus a bunch of other things. Since I never know as a freelancer what's going to blow up into the next big thing and what is going to kind of languish in obscurity, when I do have design leeway I generally want to focus as much of that word count on ideas that are going to be accessible to the widest number of players. For example, a feat/spell/talent/veil is going to support more characters than a blade skill, so if I have 150 words to work with, it's going to make more sense to choose an option that supports 3+ classes than an option that only supports one.

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Especially since the Aegis started off as an alternate Soulknife (The Soul Bastion; pg 11 of High Psionics: Soulknives by Dreamscarred Press in 2007; two years before Pathfinder even existed). I mean, by your own admission, you broke previous guidelines and took the soulknife's shtick.

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And yet the aegis is supported in more products than the soulknife pretty consistently because of its broader modular nature. I think "makes weapons" is such a narrow schtick that it's hard not to kind of trample on that with any item creation/enhancement gimmick class or build, usually with resource left over to do something totally different as well. And I definitely didn't take the soulknife's schtick, that was overlapped many times over before I even started writing. DSP didn't want to compete with their own materials at the time I was working on AM (though there are a ton of options now that do that both from DSP and the wider market), but when I'm writing for Lost Spheres and I know that our books are going to support materials from DDS (which offers the armiger, armorist, artisan, blacksmith etc.), and core (with numerous weapon creation options across numerous classes), it doesn't make sense for me to protect something that's outside of our mission statement and has already been overlapped by numerous other options. Given that there's so many options out there that have some kind of weapon creation/enhancement gimmick, it really felt better to offer the akashic weapons (which have been super well-received) than to not explore that territory in favor of a class that's already got a bunch of other classes and archetypes (in core and 3pp) overlapping the weapon creation gimmick.

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Maybe it's just sour grapes, but the Soulknife getting shafted and not getting an Akashic archetype still bugs me, and here's the new akashic thing coming out and takes his gimmick. All I'm saying is that if the Soulknife doesn't get a spheres archetype (preferably one SoM and one SoP, but one Champion (both) will do), I will be miffed. And you don't want to annoy people on the internet. They are so calm normally.

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The limitations I was working with before are largely all still in place, with the exception that there are now more veils that can be used as weapons which created an important thematic building block for the classes they're associated with. They're still specific to a limited number of enhancements in most cases, they use character resource that can't be used elsewhere, etc. I've continued to preserve the soulknife as much as I can while still meeting the needs of the people paying me and the general inclinations of the market. If you happen to be one of DSP's Patreon backers, I'd strongly encourage using their voting system to push them towards offering more soulknife support; by and large publishers are going to make the products that there are demand for.

If I were going to do an akashic soulknife archetype (and no one has currently contracted me to do so), I'd probably remove their "build your own weapon" component and give them a single slot that can be used for any weapon-like veil with scaling binds and the ability to veilshift into any other weapon-like veil with increasing efficiency.
The original idea I'd had was actually moving away from the weapon association entirely and focusing on the soulknife's other abilities, like building up their ability to manifest solid objects and expand them into more of a Green Lantern type who can reshape a veil or veils into platforms and other physical objects to give them more of a distinct niche that isn't overlapped by veilweavers, DDS's Armorist, paladins, magii, magus (mindblades), anyone with the instant weapon spell, characters who can cast create armaments and enhance their own weapons, characters casting force sword, etc. I think broadening the soulknife's niche would be something that would go a long ways towards justifying dedicating page count to it.

If any publisher is interested in supporting the soulknife, I'm more than happy to provide the material, but up to this point that just hasn't been the case.

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Originally Posted by digiman619

While I'm in no position to tell you how to design stuff, saying that the Soulknife doesn't have the "uniqueness of concept" is kind of like saying Dungeons and Dragons doesn't have "uniqueness of concept" because Hackmaster exists. Especially since the Aegis started off as an alternate Soulknife (The Soul Bastion; pg 11 of High Psionics: Soulknives by Dreamscarred Press in 2007; two years before Pathfinder even existed). I mean, by your own admission, you broke previous guidelines and took the soulknife's shtick.

Maybe it's just sour grapes, but the Soulknife getting shafted and not getting an Akashic archetype still bugs me, and here's the new akashic thing coming out and takes his gimmick. All I'm saying is that if the Soulknife doesn't get a spheres archetype (preferably one SoM and one SoP, but one Champion (both) will do), I will be miffed. And you don't want to annoy people on the internet. They are so calm normally.

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Digiman,

Firstly, we love soulknives! We are glad you do too. And we really appreciate the feedback. While most of our preliminary design work is done, we will take along look at soulknife and make sure its Co7S options as good as they can be. That said, as a designers (and publishers) we do try to tackle shortages where we see them, and we totally agree with you about soulknife! Lost Spheres already did do some prestige class work (including one that would allow it to merge with a veil weapon) and a mythic path designed to work with soulknife a year or so ago in Book of Beyond series. Until Co7S hit development it was one of the psionic classes we'd done content for actually. Don't rule out Spheres cross-over though... (see below) Still, I'd love to see a sea of new blade skills, archetypes and such for it out there and now that I see a bit more demand for it, maybe we will come back to it.

All of that said, the major thrust of the book is actually an interconnective setting piece and most of our mechanics are story driven. The three new akashic classes exist to address some specific story points around the City's unique supernature. So does our re-examining of Aegis. But a lot of other mechanical options are built into story and setting organizations. For instance, the Blackblades are a Parity focused on Destruction. They are also quite found of Blades. So if there were to be some sort of Destruction focused Blade archetype... that might be more in a section like that Organization's... as a totally random example. ;)

@Sslarn, Lost_Spheres: Thanks for your replies. I am looking forward to the finished product. I was just venting about how it seems the Soulknife gets the short end of the stick. I'm just being an angry fanboy, you're doing great as far as I see.

With the mention of bridging between systems, is there a Psionic/Initiator theurge PrC?

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Originally Posted by The Shadowmind

With the mention of bridging between systems, is there a Psionic/Initiator theurge PrC?

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Um, there already is one...

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Originally Posted by digiman619

Um, there already is one...

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So there is. Not sure how I missed it, but thank you.

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Originally Posted by digiman619

@Sslarn, Lost_Spheres: Thanks for your replies. I am looking forward to the finished product. I was just venting about how it seems the Soulknife gets the short end of the stick. I'm just being an angry fanboy, you're doing great as far as I see.

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We definitely appreciate the response :smallsmile:

It looks like Christen will be including some soulknife support in Co7S, and I'll keep your input in mind for future projects (though I've already written the next handbook in the series and there are only 3 archetypes in it, none of which are for the soulknife, so it might be a bit before I, personally, have the opportunity to get some akashic soulknife support added).

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Originally Posted by Ssalarn

If I were going to do an akashic soulknife archetype (and no one has currently contracted me to do so), I'd probably remove their "build your own weapon" component and give them a single slot that can be used for any weapon-like veil with scaling binds and the ability to veilshift into any other weapon-like veil with increasing efficiency.
The original idea I'd had was actually moving away from the weapon association entirely and focusing on the soulknife's other abilities, like building up their ability to manifest solid objects and expand them into more of a Green Lantern type who can reshape a veil or veils into platforms and other physical objects to give them more of a distinct niche that isn't overlapped by veilweavers, DDS's Armorist, paladins, magii, magus (mindblades), anyone with the instant weapon spell, characters who can cast create armaments and enhance their own weapons, characters casting force sword, etc. I think broadening the soulknife's niche would be something that would go a long ways towards justifying dedicating page count to it.

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This is definitely the kind of route I would take as well. Even just a single blade skill that gives you Shape Veil with a weapon-like veil and have it count as your mind blade for everything else would be useful, as the soulknife now actually has quite a few very good and interesting blade skills to play with, and applying them to a veil could be fun.

Green Lantern inspiration for a full-on akashic/unchained soulknife is definitely intriguing as well.