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

[Lost_Spheres]

Sorry to keep you all waiting so long. We released a plain-text playtest version so you can start playing the mechanics. We are very happy with them and will be adding a nicer version once it is available.

[Milo v3]

Is Radiant the class that was originally the old Vedist concept?

[Ssalarn]

Is Radiant the class that was originally the old Vedist concept?

That's the one.

[AlienFromBeyond]

Looks like you've got some copy and paste syndrome in the Radiant doc from the Nexus. The elemental race FCBs mention Planar Detonation, a Nexus class feature.

[khadgar567]

Priestess’​ ​Clasp​ ​of​ ​Rebirth
I think i found a mistake reincarnate viel instead of reincrnate spell

Priestess’​ ​Clasp​ ​of​ ​RebirthDescriptors:​ ​noneClass:​ ​Guru,​ ​Radiant,​ ​Vizier
Slot:​ ​Neck
Saving​ ​Throw:​ ​none
She had no name, but was beloved by the rest, in all her forms and infinite appearances, as she danced with the way of Rebirth.
Shaping this veil allows you to cast disguise self as an at-will spell-like ability with a caster level equal toyour veilweaving level.
Essence:​ ​For each point of essence invested in this veil, you gain a +1 insight bonus on Bluff and Disguisechecks.Chakra​ ​Bind​ ​(Neck):​ ​[G14,​ ​R12,​ ​V14]​ ​Binding this veil to your Neck chakra grants you the power of truerebirth. You may spend 10 minutes to restore a creature to life in a new form as though casting areincarnate spell. You do not need to provide a material component for this effect, but you take 2 pointsof Constitution drain that cannot be healed by any means until it heals naturally after 1 week. For eachpoint of essence invested in this veil, you reduce the time to use this ability by 1 minute (minimum 1standard action). In addition, once per week if you die while this veil is shaped, you are automaticallyreturned to life 1d4 rounds after your death as though by a reincarnate veil. You may reshape and bindveils as part of this rebirth, just as though you had 8 hours rest and completed any normal preparationsfor shaping and binding veils.

[NomGarret]

Yay! Radiant's here to brighten my day off!

So a question on Criniere of Warding. The unlimited healing jumped out at me. I realize this doesn't come online until levels 9-12, where it's less of an issue, but was this supposed to only affect dropped targets?

Edit: Another question. Does Akashic Bond count as a single receptacle for effects like Enhanced Capacity, or does each target count individually? Namely, do I have to specify Akashic Bond: Dave the Daevic? This also affects the temp hp granted by Akashic Bond. If I invest the essence in Akashic Bond: Dave the Daevic, who then takes damage, and I reinvest in Akashic Bond: Nina the Nexus, does Nina get a full temp hp pool presuming it's the first time that day, or is it considered re-investing in a general Akashic Bond?

[Mithril Leaf]

Edit: Another question. Does Akashic Bond count as a single receptacle for effects like Enhanced Capacity, or does each target count individually? Namely, do I have to specify Akashic Bond: Dave the Daevic? This also affects the temp hp granted by Akashic Bond. If I invest the essence in Akashic Bond: Dave the Daevic, who then takes damage, and I reinvest in Akashic Bond: Nina the Nexus, does Nina get a full temp hp pool presuming it's the first time that day, or is it considered re-investing in a general Akashic Bond?

Also if it's the later, may I request the ability to have it count as another creature invested in per point of essence? IE: At one essence you give Dave a +2 insight bonus to damage rolls and at two essence you give both Dave and Nina a +2 insight bonus to damage and also DR/-.

[Ssalarn]

Priestess’​ ​Clasp​ ​of​ ​Rebirth
I think i found a mistake reincarnate viel instead of reincrnate spell

Thanks for the catch. I'll take care of that while I'm correcting the copy/paste issue with the FCBs.

Yay! Radiant's here to brighten my day off!

So a question on Criniere of Warding. The unlimited healing jumped out at me. I realize this doesn't come online until levels 9-12, where it's less of an issue, but was this supposed to only affect dropped targets?

I could have sworn there was a per target limit on that ability like most of the akashic healing options. Let me double-check with Christen and make sure that the mistake is on my end before I give a final answer, but I believe it should have a "1+veilweaving modifier uses per creature" or similar limitation on it.

Edit: Another question. Does Akashic Bond count as a single receptacle for effects like Enhanced Capacity, or does each target count individually? Namely, do I have to specify Akashic Bond: Dave the Daevic? This also affects the temp hp granted by Akashic Bond. If I invest the essence in Akashic Bond: Dave the Daevic, who then takes damage, and I reinvest in Akashic Bond: Nina the Nexus, does Nina get a full temp hp pool presuming it's the first time that day, or is it considered re-investing in a general Akashic Bond?

Akashic Bond is a single class feature, so if you have Enhanced Capacity for it, it raises the total capacity of Akashic Bond, not just one instance of it. So if your normal capacity is 2 per creature and you apply Enhanced Capacity, it's 3 per creature. The temp hp rules in general were intended to ensure that the temp hp veil functions remained as prepared abilities and go off the first time the veilweaver invests any of their essence for the day, so a combat swap like that would only grant the 1 temp hp and they'd have to let the normal course of time charge them back up to full.

The general flow of the class is set up so that when you start out with your allies fully buffed, they're going to be able to absorb some damage and shake off negative effects more easily, leaving you free to use your control or buffing veils. In tougher fights where you're reclaiming essence to remove status effects or because the temp hp pool is exhausted and you want to dedicate that resource towards healing or control veils, you should shift into being more and more individually powerful as the essence you reclaim from your allies is returned to invest in veils. Basically as your Akashic Bond benefits run down, your veils and other akashic abilities should be getting more and more powerful. Then when the fight's over, you can reinvest into Akashic Bond so that your allies can start generating those hit points back up for the next encounter.

[NomGarret]

That's how I figured it would work, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't simply projecting how I would have designed it. As far as regenerating the temp hp then, any ally with a bond on them would simultaneously build back up, so 3 allies with 1 essence apiece would come back to full in 5 minutes whereas 1 ally with 3 essence would take 15 minutes. Is that correct?

[Mithril Leaf]

Akashic Bond is a single class feature, so if you have Enhanced Capacity for it, it raises the total capacity of Akashic Bond, not just one instance of it. So if your normal capacity is 2 per creature and you apply Enhanced Capacity, it's 3 per creature. The temp hp rules in general were intended to ensure that the temp hp veil functions remained as prepared abilities and go off the first time the veilweaver invests any of their essence for the day, so a combat swap like that would only grant the 1 temp hp and they'd have to let the normal course of time charge them back up to full.

The general flow of the class is set up so that when you start out with your allies fully buffed, they're going to be able to absorb some damage and shake off negative effects more easily, leaving you free to use your control or buffing veils. In tougher fights where you're reclaiming essence to remove status effects or because the temp hp pool is exhausted and you want to dedicate that resource towards healing or control veils, you should shift into being more and more individually powerful as the essence you reclaim from your allies is returned to invest in veils. Basically as your Akashic Bond benefits run down, your veils and other akashic abilities should be getting more and more powerful. Then when the fight's over, you can reinvest into Akashic Bond so that your allies can start generating those hit points back up for the next encounter.

I like the idea here, but find it unfortunate the Vivifications require you to keep the essence invested in those allies to continue receiving their benefit. Seems somewhat counter to the intended path that you actively weaken your allies when you are removing their debuffs.

[Ssalarn]

That's how I figured it would work, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't simply projecting how I would have designed it. As far as regenerating the temp hp then, any ally with a bond on them would simultaneously build back up, so 3 allies with 1 essence apiece would come back to full in 5 minutes whereas 1 ally with 3 essence would take 15 minutes. Is that correct?

Correct. Anyone benefiting "recharges" simultaneously.

[khadgar567]

By the way whats the mabs class since radiant is for titania?

[Ssalarn]

By the way whats the mabs class since radiant is for titania?

As the queen of air and darkness, Mab would probably be an Eclipse to Titania's Radiant.

[Biapolis]

Salutations. Just stumbled onto this stuff. I am a huge fan of AM, so that alone gets a preorder from me, lol. Radiant seems right up my ally too, always a fan of support classes. Can't wait to check out the playtest, as well as the full release when all is said and done.

[AlienFromBeyond]

I see the Radiant FCBs got fixed, which is nice, so I redownloaded the updated version. I think the Undine FCB may be too strong. The fact that it only operates on just the descriptor and not also damage type means you should be able to use it with Storm Gauntlets and increase the electric, sonic, and cold damage each, since the veil as a whole has the cold descriptor while doing three different instances of damage at once. A slight change to "​increase​ ​the​ ​hit​ ​point​ ​healing​ ​or​ ​cold damage of​ ​the​ ​veil’s​ ​abilities​ ​by​ ​1​ ​point" should fix it right up, though I think a couple of the new veils in the Nexus doc have the cold descriptor without doing cold damage so that may break more than it fixes. I'm also not a fan of requiring the healing descriptor if using the FCB in a support capacity, as none of the veils in Akashic Mysteries or the Nexus preview have it, limiting it to just Heart of Yggdrasil (which only actually heals at level 18), Sparkling Alicorn (which doesn't actually heal, it only gives Temporary HP and so wouldn't be affected), and Unicorn Feathering (the only one it is worth using, but it massively increases its power by adding your level to the Fast Healing done).

[NomGarret]

What update? I’m not finding anything.

[Long_shanks]

What update? I’m not finding anything.

On the Kickstater page, under the Updates section (I think that is what it's called, but I'm not sure since my page is in French. Its the third one, between FAQ and Comments). There you have all the informations from the devs and the playtest docs.

[khadgar567]

On the Kickstater page, under the Updates section (I think that is what it's called, but I'm not sure since my page is in French. Its the third one, between FAQ and Comments). There you have all the informations from the devs and the playtest docs.

looks like your copy mixed with swaeau( nick named french bastard)'s so sorry mate

[calyst]

So one of my players testing this one had some feedback I am passing along, he was disappointed that going deep into a convergence didn't grant some kind of bonus to the associated veils. I agreed it feels like a missed opportunity for some thematic set bonus type stuff.

[khadgar567]

So one of my players testing this one had some feedback I am passing along, he was disappointed that going deep into a convergence didn't grant some kind of bonus to the associated veils. I agreed it feels like a missed opportunity for some thematic set bonus type stuff.

Agreed themetic set bonuses would be nice.

[NomGarret]

I, for one, can take or leave set bonuses. Doing without them leaves more room for refluffing and eases veil variety. It does a good enough job already of steering readers towards thematic choices, there’s little need to add mechanical impetus on top of that.

[Ssalarn]

So one of my players testing this one had some feedback I am passing along, he was disappointed that going deep into a convergence didn't grant some kind of bonus to the associated veils. I agreed it feels like a missed opportunity for some thematic set bonus type stuff.

That was actually intentional, as we wanted multi-convergence characters to be just as viable as someone who dedicated to a convergence. That's why they're written so that the resistances and such all stack. Tying the convergences too tightly to the associated veil sets means that you pretty much have to let your convergence dictate your veils so you can get the best mechanical benefits, and we wanted to leave the options a lot more open than that, so that if you wanted to play a tiefling whose soul is a gateway to the Hells but who girds himself in Angelic Armaments to fight against evil enemies and resist his very nature, the class would support that without "punishing" the player for making a suboptimal choice. Even our iconic is a mix-and-match Nexus, which would be kind of misleading at a fundamental level if dedicating to a convergence was the hands down best way to play.

The veil sets also naturally compliment each other, so the biggest benefit to dedicating to a theme comes from the natural interactions from the veils. For example, in the Genie's Ambitions set Djinni's Turban + Marid's Sanadils lets you do a sky-dive elbow drop and potentially drown your opponent, Shahzada's Dissolution + Pasha's Crushing Gauntlets lets you use a blast of water to bull rush someone into a stone surface and then blow the surface up around them, Shaitan's Earthen Armor boosts the power of the Heart of the Efreet bind by changing it from fire to lava, and Voice of the Janni boosts the effectiveness of the Suli's Sash by increasing your saves against relevant effects and giving you the ability to charm elementals. All of the various veil sets are written so that the veils aren't just useful individually, but also so that the more of a set you use the more combination abilities and powers, or the more ways to set the conditions for your veils yourself in the case of veils like Belt of Woven Gold and Halo of Light, the stronger you get exponentially.

I, for one, can take or leave set bonuses. Doing without them leaves more room for refluffing and eases veil variety. It does a good enough job already of steering readers towards thematic choices, there’s little need to add mechanical impetus on top of that.

Also, pretty much all of this.

I see the Radiant FCBs got fixed, which is nice, so I redownloaded the updated version. I think the Undine FCB may be too strong. The fact that it only operates on just the descriptor and not also damage type means you should be able to use it with Storm Gauntlets and increase the electric, sonic, and cold damage each, since the veil as a whole has the cold descriptor while doing three different instances of damage at once. A slight change to "​increase​ ​the​ ​hit​ ​point​ ​healing​ ​or​ ​cold damage of​ ​the​ ​veil’s​ ​abilities​ ​by​ ​1​ ​point" should fix it right up, though I think a couple of the new veils in the Nexus doc have the cold descriptor without doing cold damage so that may break more than it fixes. I'm also not a fan of requiring the healing descriptor if using the FCB in a support capacity, as none of the veils in Akashic Mysteries or the Nexus preview have it, limiting it to just Heart of Yggdrasil (which only actually heals at level 18), Sparkling Alicorn (which doesn't actually heal, it only gives Temporary HP and so wouldn't be affected), and Unicorn Feathering (the only one it is worth using, but it massively increases its power by adding your level to the Fast Healing done).

Thank you for the feedback! I'll review the FCBs you called out and see if we can't tweak them a bit to address those issues.

Salutations. Just stumbled onto this stuff. I am a huge fan of AM, so that alone gets a preorder from me, lol. Radiant seems right up my ally too, always a fan of support classes. Can't wait to check out the playtest, as well as the full release when all is said and done.

Thank you! If you haven't already preordered, you can do so here. You should get access to the alpha documents for both the Nexus and the Radiant shortly after your preorder goes through. If you have any issues, let us know and we'll do our best to get them sorted out for you.

[NomGarret]

Here's an order of operations question on Akashic Bond. Does any essence reclaimed and invested into a save-boosting receptacle (Criniere of Warding, Heart of Ygdrassil, Will of the Daeva, etc.) apply before the saving throw for any incoming condition? It's all part of the same swift action, so I wasn't sure.

Extra essence is a must-have feat for pretty much any veilweaver, and the new ones are no different. The Radiant, though, wants it at 1st level almost every time. They actually have somewhere to put it all.

I worried about the Nexus not getting full essence progression since they have so many veils and want to occasionally burn essence, but then reading the new veils very few of them encourage you to keep a lot of essence invested all the time. A problem I ran into with my vizier was how much I needed several veils powered up to operate. Pestilence Cloak is great, but I had to keep it fully invested since it affected my defense, mobility, and offense (boosting my Stare of the Ghaele.) The Nexus appears to have a lot fewer such veils and veil-combos, and a lot more that are fine with the base ability and binds and investing essence situationally. Boatman's Ferry, for example, only needs essence when you need extra speed.

There's plenty of great new veils for Seer Viziers to share with allies, but one did stand out: Banelight Vortices. Is it just me, or is this strictly better than Riven Darts?

Anyways, this is as much a mix of thoughts as questions, but there you have it.

[Biapolis]

There's plenty of great new veils for Seer Viziers to share with allies, but one did stand out: Banelight Vortices. Is it just me, or is this strictly better than Riven Darts?

Well, Riven Darts does fire more shots, but depending on what you are targeting it may still deal more damage. I find this an acceptable trade off, as it keeps a niche for Riven Darts [fodder clear] while giving new laser veils.


Also, on an unrelated topic, I was curious if there were any plans for an archetype/feat that changes the Veilweaving Modefier for Radiants. Mostly because I love the concept of an Alicorn [frok DSP's Bloodforge] running around in the Unicorn's Caparison set. But that Wis penalty they have hurts for those saving throws/per Veilweaving modefier effects. I mean, the concept is still cool enough to try to get to work, just would take a lot more work just playing a Vizier. Not as good support but it would work. Lol.

[calyst]

On Radiant noticed something a bit strange, it gets 8 veils shaped at higher levels but only has 6 slots on its veil list, even assuming a twinveil feat that leaves them with 1 extra veil shaped over what they can use.

[NomGarret]

They also get some veils that can be shaped to chest and shoulders. The chest binds can't be accessed through an Access X Chakra feat, but they're mostly lesser versions of the body binds, so you're better off doing Twin Veil for those anyway. Either way, this doesn't become an issue until your last two feats.

[Biapolis]

Huh, that is interesting. I didn't notice, but they don't seem to have any veils shaped to the feet veil. That is rather interesting. Unless they are just not revealed yet. And ya, the Veil List is organized by only the Chakra slots they naturally bind, and there are 4 slots that they don't naturally bind, and 3 of those can be picked up with feats.

[calyst]

Yeah you could use shape veil and bind via Access * Slot to pick up the missing ones, but doing that intrinsically get you a shaped veil from the shape veil feat and would still leave at least 1 shaped veil from Radiant with nothing to put it on.

[NomGarret]

No, you can still shape the native ones, you just need to spend feats if you want to bind them all.

[Biapolis]

No, you can still shape the native ones, you just need to spend feats if you want to bind them all.

This. They can shape to every slot [although I don't think they have any veils that can be shaped to the feet slot on their list yet], but they just can't bind them without feats.