Dreamscarred Press Introduces: Akashic Mysteries

[Ssalarn]

On topic: I always houseruled that a Soulmeld with nothing invested that has not been used in 3 rounds fades out of sight (but are still detectable as being there to Detect Magic and the like). Active/Passive modes might work better, but I'll need to playtest it a bit.

I kind of like the idea of a veilweaver being able to empty his veils of Essence and them fading into invisibility or near invisibility. That might be the best way to go, and it reinforces this idea of veils becoming more solid and tangible as more and more energy is poured into them.

That sounds really cool. Also, I had some questions about the daevic. Aside from all that I've said before, I'm a bit worried by the daevic fluff. It feels too much like pact magic, which I understand is not really a concern for DSP since it's not one of their products, but I think it could be avoided completely if instead of "daevic" we head "devas". Their investment in a passion is so huge that they become akashic embodiments of that devotion. Also, I'm having a hard time justifying why they are so well trained in combat - maybe that could be addressed as well?

You realize that every time someone chimes in with a well reasoned bit of input on this it puts me another two days behind on actually getting an updated Daevic out, right?

In all seriousness though, this is something that I was already working on a bit, particularly because DSP is talking with Radiance House about doing a cross-product release for Occultist/veilweaver goodies. What I'm working on now is tweaking things a bit so that the Daevic's fluff changes the emphasis of his bond to be of a primarily physical nature; essentially he's now a host for a nascent daeva who lacks enough strength to actually maintain a physical form, so it latches on to the Daevic, feeding on his life energy, or Essence. The Passion Veils then, are actually the daeva's physical body lent form and substance by the Daevic.
The full BAB is reflective of the fact that the daeva are creatures of action, and they drive their hosts to challenge themselves so that they'll grow stronger and create a deeper pool of life energy for the daeva to feed on.

[Prime32]

Which of the following would be your preferred method for dealing with "disguising" veils:

Veilweavers have an "active" and "inactive" mode. Veils are only detectable via detect magic or similar means while the veilweaver inactive and cannot be sundered (though can still be affected by dispel or disjunction effects), but their abilities are suppressed until you spend a swift action to activate them. Deactivating them requires another swift action.

Veils are always on, but we provide a feat that allows you to disguise them as normal clothing.

Veils are always on, but we provide a magic item that allows you to disguise them as normal clothing. We potentially have greater versions of this item that also give your veils a nondetection ability, requiring true seeing or a more powerful effect to actually see and identify them.

Whatever way it works, I'd prefer the nondetection function to be built in from the start. How important "disguised as normal clothing" is depends on the setting and how the PC fluffs his veils in the first place.

Aside from all that I've said before, I'm a bit worried by the daevic fluff. It feels too much like pact magic, which I understand is not really a concern for DSP since it's not one of their products, but I think it could be avoided completely if instead of "daevic" we head "devas".

PF already has angels named astral/monadic/movanic devas, as well as divs which are based on devas...

[Shinken]

PF already has angels named astral/monadic/movanic devas, as well as divs which are based on devas...

That's going to be a problem with the daevic fluff anyway, then.

You realize that every time someone chimes in with a well reasoned bit of input on this it puts me another two days behind on actually getting an updated Daevic out, right?

In all seriousness though, this is something that I was already working on a bit, particularly because DSP is talking with Radiance House about doing a cross-product release for Occultist/veilweaver goodies. What I'm working on now is tweaking things a bit so that the Daevic's fluff changes the emphasis of his bond to be of a primarily physical nature; essentially he's now a host for a nascent daeva who lacks enough strength to actually maintain a physical form, so it latches on to the Daevic, feeding on his life energy, or Essence. The Passion Veils then, are actually the daeva's physical body lent form and substance by the Daevic.
The full BAB is reflective of the fact that the daeva are creatures of action, and they drive their hosts to challenge themselves so that they'll grow stronger and create a deeper pool of life energy for the daeva to feed on.

Ah, that sounds cool. The life force thing for bab works specially well for PF, where BAB and HD are tied to each other.

[PsyBomb]

About the Daeva-spawn...

I like the concept of variable bonuses, but what is the stat penalty on them? As it stands, you can get a Str/Con bonus on one guy. It is very unusual to see double-Physical or double-Mental.

[PsyBomb]

It's been long enough that I think the double-post is ok.

My live group more or less disbanded for the summer. I'm trying to get more testing done, but can't find people. If anyone is willing to DM (PbP here or Roll20) or else play dedicated Akashic characters, I'd be all kinds of down for it. Failing that, my contributions from here on out are going to be more math, proofreading, theory, and short simulations rather than actual game data.

[malonkey1]

It's been long enough that I think the double-post is ok.

My live group more or less disbanded for the summer. I'm trying to get more testing done, but can't find people. If anyone is willing to DM (PbP here or Roll20) or else play dedicated Akashic characters, I'd be all kinds of down for it. Failing that, my contributions from here on out are going to be more math, proofreading, theory, and short simulations rather than actual game data.

I'm game as a player. I've always wanted to try Roll20.

[Ssalarn]

It's been long enough that I think the double-post is ok.

My live group more or less disbanded for the summer. I'm trying to get more testing done, but can't find people. If anyone is willing to DM (PbP here or Roll20) or else play dedicated Akashic characters, I'd be all kinds of down for it. Failing that, my contributions from here on out are going to be more math, proofreading, theory, and short simulations rather than actual game data.

I may have one or two people who'd be interested in as well. There's a couple local players who weren't able to get seats at one of the playtest groups, I'll see if they'd be interested in a PBP.


So, taking in to account all of the feedback on the Daevic and a few points Shinken brought up, I think we've finally got a fully fleshed working version of the new Daevic, which I'm going to try and get out tonight along with the shivaat, the daeva spawn race. I should note, shivaat is supposed to be an entirely made up name with a nod to Shiva, from whom a lot of the race's inspiration was drawn. I did a little research and I don't think that there's any other meaning to that word, but if someone is aware of it having meaning beyond what we're giving it, let me know. The only problem with dipping into cultures that aren't yours is the fact that you don't know what you don't know.

[stack]

I'd be up for a test game.

[Jigawatts]

Shivaat, are they going to be a multi-armed race? I played a Codru-Ji in a Star Wars campaign several years ago and really enjoyed it (dual-wielding heavy blaster rifles was a lot of fun). Unfortunately D&D/PF has never had a 4 armed PC race (that I can think of), maybe you can remedy that Ssalarn.

[PsyBomb]

Shivaat, are they going to be a 4 armed race? I played a Codru-Ji in a Star Wars campaign several years ago and really enjoyed it (dual-wielding heavy blaster rifles was a lot of fun). Unfortunately D&D/PF has never had a 4 armed PC race, maybe you can remedy that Ssalarn.

Thri-Kreen immediately jump to mind, as does another species of Snakefolk (can't remember the name, I think it was some kind of demon playable through Monster PC rules). Having spare arms is a Really Big Deal^tm, powerful enough that Alchemists spend a CHAIN of ability selections on it.

[Ssalarn]

The basic idea is that is that the Shivaat are actually infused with akasha and can force temporary mutations, controlling their flesh like a veil for things like growing an extra pair of arms or even an additional face. They won't really support dual-wielding greatswords, but you could two-hand a longsword or bastard sword while wielding a shield and drawing a potion, at least for a number of rounds per day equal to your Essence pool.

Working on trying to finish the formatting on the Daevic changes right now. I need to learn how to use the offline work mode on google docs because for some reason everything goes to hell whenever I try to import any other type of document over.

[stack]

Why was the crafting time reduction removed from the crafter vizier? I rather liked that feature. It makes crafting while adventuring much more viable, though high cost items still require downtime.

[Ssalarn]

Why was the crafting time reduction removed from the crafter vizier? I rather liked that feature. It makes crafting while adventuring much more viable, though high cost items still require downtime.

It was brought to my attention that the reduction in cost also reduced the crafting time, as did, potentially, the boosted skill check, effectively allowing the Vizier to triple dip for reduced craft times.

[Psyren]

Been a while since my last round of feedback, I'll see if I can fire up the current versions and give my thoughts again.

In all seriousness though, this is something that I was already working on a bit, particularly because DSP is talking with Radiance House about doing a cross-product release for Occultist/veilweaver goodies.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!

[stack]

Is there a cost reduction other than at 17? Because losing the time reduction hurts for a long time before then. Cutting the time in half by boosting the dc is a bigger deal. Still, I'm not sure how problematic it is, a 40,000 gp item would still take 12 days for a level 16 vizier, a very long time when adventuring at the 'teleport everywhere' stage of the game. A 20,000 gp would only take 2 days, or 8 while adventuring, not exactly inconsequential.

[Ssalarn]

The new Daevic is up and available through the link in the OP, though I wasn't able to fix a major error with the Desire passion so that has been temporarily removed from the document. For some reason this document has just been a royal pain in the butt to get edited and formatted, so if you see any major errors in the formatting, layout, etc. please let me know so I can get them corrected. Shivaat will be another day or two while I address some balance issues that were pointed out with the abilities (as was noted in this thread not too long ago, extra limbs can be... difficult to balance properly).

[PsyBomb]

The new Daevic is up and available through the link in the OP, though I wasn't able to fix a major error with the Desire passion so that has been temporarily removed from the document. For some reason this document has just been a royal pain in the butt to get edited and formatted, so if you see any major errors in the formatting, layout, etc. please let me know so I can get them corrected. Shivaat will be another day or two while I address some balance issues that were pointed out with the abilities (as was noted in this thread not too long ago, extra limbs can be... difficult to balance properly).

Ok, now. Let's see the new update...

I think I tentatively like this system, and the fluff of it. Just gotta make sure a couple of things are clarified.

Are you able to individually invest in Passion veils? If so, does it stack with the Passion essence? If both of these are true, can it stack past the normal limit (IE upwards of 7 in passion plus 4 in veil for 11 invested?)

For the every-odd-level bonuses, do they all stack with themselves? AC and HP clearly do, but can I pick the same skill for a bonus multiple times?

Dominion:
-3rd level bonus is a bit of an odd one, eventually your bonuses to Shield Bash multiple times will be higher than your main-hand weapon for the second and third strikes.
-Benevolence bonus: I like it better than the very limited version we had before, but busting a Standard action every 3-4 rounds is going to hurt.
-Tyranny bonus: Now THAT is a class-defining feature! I like it, will have to do some math and theory to see if it is breakable (it feels like there might be, I have a friend who plays a Dread who may be able to enlighten me)

Wrath:
-3rd level bonus is good, cleanly replicates what we had before.
-Justice and Vengeance bonuses: perfect intention... just gotta clean up the wording in order to make them usable on Overrun. Remove the phrase "against the target of the bull rush" from Vengeance, and add "or Overrun" to Justice. This way, they both function on any AoO granted by the level-3 class feature.

Chakra Binds: Rules text has it starting at 4th level and never gaining Feet. Chart has Feet at 2nd level.

Blood Bind: Random idea, perhaps make this damage count as Bleed damage?

I was sad to lose the unique capstones per-Passion. They were all really cool and flavorful.

That's all for now on initial read. Can't wait to see how Desire pans out.

[Ssalarn]

Gonna try and bust through these real quick-

I'm glad you're onboard with the new layout. It ended being kind of a middle ground between the old system and my initial ideas to revamp it. I still feel like there's a few giant blocks of text that probably need to be cleaned up or trimmed down, just working on doing that without accidentally trimming important information. I may break up the veilweaving and possession information into two completely separate class features as part of that clean up and organization.

No, new goal is that you cannot invest individually in the passion veils. Since they're the actual body of the daeva and you're getting a big bost as a result, he's in charge of how that all works. I'll try and tighten up and clarify the wording to make that clear.

Yes, the possession bonuses should stack with themselves, so you could put every one of your Cha skill bonuses into Bluff, for example. I'll add more specific verbage to make that clear.

I expanded the passion vel lists a little bit as well, adding daevic aspect like I've been saying I was going to and bringing a couple extra thematically appropriate veils into each list.

The Dominion 3rd level benefit was basically designed to make you really, really good with a shield, regardless of what you're wielding in the other hand. It should kind of shift the focus so that your shield bash is always your most reliable attack. I'm thinking I may add a clause in there so that the penalty reduction applies to either your shield or to fighting defensively to open up a few more options for combat style and weapon preference.

Benevolence is now a lot more powerful and versatile, and my hope is that with the door opened fo access to things like Coordinate Charge, the benefits will outweigh the action economy cost. Between respecting the Paizo core material and the general power of the Daevic in general, I just couldn't really see dropping the action economy down on this one. With Horsemaster's Greaves as a passion veil, anything less than a standard action is no cost at all in a lot of situations.

Chakra Binds- I'm going to go beat my head on a desk now. I don't know how the outdated entry keeps creeping back into the main doc. I'll get it fixed....

Blood Bind - That, is an interesting thought. Let me ruminate on it a bit.

I'm willing to reconsider the passion capstones. I get that Apotheosis is fairly... well, boring. The capstones may not be quite as comprehensive as they were previously, but maybe I'll add some tags for each passion to the Apotheosis ability (kind of like gaining the first power in your new divine portfolio), so that you get ascension plus a relevant ability.

[PsyBomb]

Gonna try and bust through these real quick-
<snip>

Glad I could help. Couple more things, actually:

Thanks for expanding the Passion veil list, having Daevic Essence on all of them really helps.

In the Feats section:

Akashic Augmentation: meant to ask, but does this only affect inherent Augmentations or also Metapsionics?

Akasha-Infused Spells- it is unclear why you have to choose a school of magic, since at no point in the text of the feat does it force you to choose spells from that school.

Enhanced Veil Capacity: We talked about it briefly, but how does this interact with invest-able class or racial features or feats that aren't explicitly Veils or Feats?

Discussed before, but possible Akashic feat to boost Piranha Strike (or add as a rider onto Chakra Power, making the prereqs 13 Con plus either Power Attack or Piranha Strike)

Excellent addition to Essence Focus... and time to have fun with applying two Metapsionic abilities to the same feat at once.

Essence of the Immortal: As long as you're a dedicated Akashic, this is now strictly better than Toughness. I have no problem with this, personally, since it does require strong dedication to Akasha to keep up.

Life Bond: 17 Con requirement hurts, but makes some sense if you do require both it and the veilweaver level. Not sure if this is the intent, from prior design philosophy conversation.

Veil-Woven Channel: Updated, this is really fun. Makes the healbot clerics have something else they contribute.

View Energy: The first sentence is unneeded, the feat does not lock Essence.

[Ssalarn]

Akasha-Infused Spells- it is unclear why you have to choose a school of magic, since at no point in the text of the feat does it force you to choose spells from that school.

The corrected version of this feat should be available in the Vizier document. I'll get it carried over to the Daevic document this evening.

Enhanced Veil Capacity: We talked about it briefly, but how does this interact with invest-able class or racial features or feats that aren't explicitly Veils or Feats?

Currently it doesn't interact with anything other than veils, but I'll get this updated on all docs to a more generic "Enhanced Capacity" feat.

Life Bond: 17 Con requirement hurts, but makes some sense if you do require both it and the veilweaver level. Not sure if this is the intent, from prior design philosophy conversation

Should be an either veilweaver level or Con requirement, not both. I'll make sure that's up to date in all documents.

View Energy: The first sentence is unneeded, the feat does not lock Essence.

I'll remove that, it's a relic from a time when more of the feats locked in your Essence investment.

Veil-Woven Channel: Updated, this is really fun. Makes the healbot clerics have something else they contribute

Thank you! Sometimes it's worth going back to something and saying "Yeah, it works, but couldn't it be more fun?"

Excellent addition to Essence Focus... and time to have fun with applying two Metapsionic abilities to the same feat at once.

You can thank Andreas for this one, it was his idea :)
Note that we might still need to do a little clean up on the verbage so that instead of "Whenever Essence is invested in this feat you may activate two abilities requiring you to spend your psionic focus" it's more like "During a round in which you invest Essence into this feat, you may activate two abilities requiring you to spend your psionic focus". We're definitely going to keep the dual activation thing, we're just trying to avoid creating god-psions who take an akashic race and become instant metapsionics masters.

Discussed before, but possible Akashic feat to boost Piranha Strike (or add as a rider onto Chakra Power, making the prereqs 13 Con plus either Power Attack or Piranha Strike)

So, I've got to tell you, I felt really dumb the other night. I had somehow completely overlooked the fact that Piranha Strike is an UP feat; the last time we talked about it I thought you were referring to the feat of the same name from the "Secrets of Sarlona" (I think? the one that also had that crappy Monkey Reach feat) splatbook. I'll add an "or Piranha Strike" to this one.

[PsyBomb]

To be clear, the feat "Piranha Strike" is originally from "Pathfinder Companion: Sargava, the Lost Colony". Not sure about its appearance in UP, that's not what is said on the SRD. It is, however, referenced in the Soulknife Archetype Nimble Blade. It's the one that acts like Power Attack for Light weapons.

[Psyren]

Sargava, like all the other PF Companions, is open content (the mechanics anyway) and thus its feats are fair game for use by DSP in their own products despite it not being part of the "core product line."

[PsyBomb]

Sargava, like all the other PF Companions, is open content (the mechanics anyway) and thus its feats are fair game for use by DSP in their own products despite it not being part of the "core product line."

Awesome. Gives a much bigger playground to play in. This particular case was on behalf of the player I was working on Guru optimization with (I'm working the details solo now). He noticed that Sineaters at the very least would LOVE having Piranha strike, and wanted to extend Chakra Power to it to keep it in theme. Glad it's working out.

[Psyren]

The reverse is true too - Paizo themselves lifted mechanics from Psionics Unleashed for one of their official adventure paths (Dragon's Demand.)

Open gaming is the gift that keeps on giving.

[Anlashok]

I'm conflicted on the new daevic. On the one hand the slimmed down passion trees make the class feel more like a class rather than three smaller classes that coincidentally share the same chassis and it gets rid of some (not all, but some) of the feelings of being pigeonholed in how you could play with each passion

On the other hand the class feels a bit.. empty now. The cool SLAs and variant AoOs and the amazingly fun passion capstones are just replaced with... more +1s. Leveling up and getting a +1 to saves or +1 to natural armor or +1 to a single skill check or -1 to a penalty (etc) just doesn't feel like a very inspiring progression.

Veils and chakras do help here a bit, but the vizier and guru can get by with veils AND pages upon pages of class features. Honestly the first time I read the new daevic's PDF I actually thought that I had skipped over something because of how short the class feature section was.

I get that Apotheosis is fairly... well, boring.

So the level 20 daevic has a body "utterly infused with Akashic energy" to the point where he doesn't even need to sleep to reshape his veils.

What if you expanded upon how easy it is for the max level daevic to manipulate Akashic energy? What if, say, X times per Y interval the Daevic could reassign his essence as a free action and/or reshape veils as a free or swift or standard action?

Edit: Maybe it's just me but I think you should find a way to give the Sobek full movement speed. Whether or not it's for balance or fluff I know it's not a huge deal objectively, but slow moving characters kinda make my skin crawl for whatever reason and the Sobek are my favorite race otherwise :(

[Prime32]

The reverse is true too - Paizo themselves lifted mechanics from Psionics Unleashed for one of their official adventure paths (Dragon's Demand.)

As a side note, they also did this. It even has the PP cap rule.

[PsyBomb]

Any chance we can see the Desire ability set in-thread, while you wrestle with formatting?

[stack]

Wrath Rider - Cavalier Archetype

Spoiler

Show

Wrath Wyrm Mount
Instead of a normal mount, the wrath rider bonds with the physical manifestation of a bestial daeva, a wrath wyrm. The wyrm is appropriately sized for its rider. If slain, the wyrm can be re-summoned after eight hours of rest with a one hour ritual, returning at half its maximum hit points. The Wrath Wyrm has the outsider type and the akashic subtype gaining BAB equal to HD and D10 HD, as well as being target-able by effects such as banish and dismissal. A banished or dismissed Wyrm can be re-summoned with an hour long ritual. The wyrm can take [Akashic] feats that it qualifies for in addition to the feats normally available to animal companions. Otherwise it follows the normal animal companion progression and is treated as a cavalier's mount for all purposes and affects. This ability modifies the mount class feature.

Spoiler: Wrath Wyrm: Medium

Show

Starting Statistics

Size Medium; Speed 40 ft., swim 20 ft.; AC +1 natural armor; Attack bite (1d4); Ability Scores Str 13, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 10, Cha 15; Special Qualities darkvision.

7th-Level Advancement

AC +2 natural armor; Attack bite (1d6), tailslap (1d4); Ability Scores Str +4, Con +2; Special Attacks: pounce.

Wrath Wyrm - Medium

Spoiler: Wrath Wyrm - Large

Show

Starting Statistics

Size Large; Speed 30 ft.; AC +2 natural armor; Attack bite (1d6); Ability Scores Str 16, Dex 13, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 10, Cha 12; Special Qualities darkvision.

7th-Level Advancement

AC +2 natural armor; Attack bite (1d8), tailslap (1d6) Ability Scores Str +4, Con +2; Special Attacks: pounce

Possession (Su)
As a full round action, the wrath rider can merge with his mount, allowing the spirit of wrath to overtake him. The cavalier gains the benefits of any veils shaped by the wrath wyrm, including the benefits of any binds and may invest essence as normal for a creature with shaped veils. If the wrath rider has veils from another source shaped to the same location, he must choose one to become dormant and inaccessible. The merger can be ended as a full-round action and ends automatically if the cavalier falls unconscious, dies, or enters the area of an anit-magic field. While merged, the raging passions of the wyrm cause great distraction, forcing a -2 penalty on will saves with an additional -2 penalty on saves verses effects with the [emotion] descriptor. This ability replaces the cavalier's order. While merged, the Wrath Wyrm ceases to be a separate creature and cannot be targeted or affected.

Daeva's Body
At level one, the wrath wyrm can shape one veil per day from the wrath passion list. This increases to two veils at level 8, and three at level 14. The wyrm gains an essence pool of one third its HD. The cavalier can use a swift action to direct the wyrm to invest essence, which requires the wyrm's swift action as usual. This ability replaces tactician, the order ability gained level 8, and Greater Banner.

Binds
The Wrath Wyrm can bind veils to its feet chakra at level 2. At level 5 it can bind to its hand chakra, using its forelimbs in place of hands. At level 9 it can bind to the shoulder chakra and the head chakra at level 15. This replaces the order ability gained at level 2, banner, greater tactician, and the order ability gained at level 15.

edit - cleaned a few things up and added binds. Now you have a cavalier that can ride a mini-dragon, granting flight (eventually with the shoulder bind) and a range of combat abilities that doesn't leave the a character nerfed when indoors or some other location that a mount is inconvenient.

[Ssalarn]

I'm conflicted on the new daevic. On the one hand the slimmed down passion trees make the class feel more like a class rather than three smaller classes that coincidentally share the same chassis and it gets rid of some (not all, but some) of the feelings of being pigeonholed in how you could play with each passion

On the other hand the class feels a bit.. empty now. The cool SLAs and variant AoOs and the amazingly fun passion capstones are just replaced with... more +1s. Leveling up and getting a +1 to saves or +1 to natural armor or +1 to a single skill check or -1 to a penalty (etc) just doesn't feel like a very inspiring progression.

Missing the capstones in particular has been a very common complaint, so I'll be reintroducing those in some form or another to the Passions (or possibly the Possession class feature, which I'm looking at separating from the veilweaving class feature).

The speed reduction is probably going to stay on the core sobek, but I'm looking at a packet of alternate racial traits for the sobek that will include an option to trade out the slow speed and another feature for something new and different, per the earlier conversation in this thread regarding using alternate racial traits to kind of "sneak in" a few additional races.

[stack]

Have you come to a conclusion about handcannons and enhancement? (Some of us had expressed concern that there was no way to ever overcome DR with them and suggested that the hit/damage bonus from essence be counted as enhancement.)