Dreamscarred Press Presents: Akashic Mysteries, Thread 2

[Ssalarn]

So from essence forged weapons:



So if the weapon has both a +1 ability and a +2 ability do you have to invest 2 or 3 points of essence to access both weapon special abilities?

Assuming you've met the other requisite of being able to bind to your wrist slot, you'd need 3 essence invested. You need essence equal to the total effective enhancement bonus of all the abilities you want to unlock (in this instance, the total of the +1 and +2 ability is +3).

Kind of the inside joke on that one is that the fluff says essence forged weapons are training tools for users of akasha, but in one of our games they were a training tool for an akashic player. He'd always used his essence as "set and forget" finding the best all around investment combo and then just leaving it that way. When he got his first essence forged weapon, he really wanted to use it but didn't have quite enough essence, so he started playing with his swift actions more and wrote quick cards for his offensive and defensive essence investment spreads. He's now at the point where he reinvests essence almost every round, and has like 5 sets of quick cards for different situational layouts, so the essence forged weapon really did teach him how to be a better veilweaver.

[Kaidinah]

I enjoy this gunslinger archetypes mechanics. That mobility is fantastic!

Also I sure am glad that I got the subscription way before my car decided to wage war on my wallet. I'll be sure to put some money aside for that dead tree version though. My bookshelf likes dead trees more than my car likes money.

[Ssalarn]

Eeeh, I'll wait for Ultimate Akasha.

Fair warning, since we're only a copper best-seller on DrivethruRPG, Ultimate Akasha is not guaranteed. We're still in that kind of uncomfortable place where we're more likely to lump Akasha, Truenaming, and Shadow Magic into a Tome of Magic style release than we are to do an Ultimate Psionics style Akashic release. Subscriptions now are what create the possibility of an Ultimate Akasha later.

I enjoy this gunslinger archetypes mechanics. That mobility is fantastic!

Also I sure am glad that I got the subscription way before my car decided to wage war on my wallet. I'll be sure to put some money aside for that dead tree version though. My bookshelf likes dead trees more than my car likes money.

Yeah, the goal was just to give you a character who could do all the cool crazy crap you'd expect to see from a game like Wet, Destiny, or (apparently) Titanfall, or a movie like Equilibrium or The Matrix, without actually trying to fix the firearm subsystem. The archetype also has the advantage of letting you graft as much or as little Akasha onto your Gunslinger as you're comfortable with.

[Taveena]

Peeersonally I'd make it deal Constitution damage rather than fire damage? It fits the fluff better (at the moment, you can currently burn away a Zombie or Golem's life force, but not a Fire Giant's) and distances it mechanically from Flaming Burst, which is normally considered... pretty terrible. And this is worse.

EDIT: ... and also rename it somethin' like Lifeburning.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Subscriptions now are what create the possibility of an Ultimate Akasha later.

You misunderstand me.

[Ssalarn]

You misunderstand me.

You're a champ
Thanks for your purchase!

[Vhaidara]

Is it only drivethrurpg that matters? I'm 99% sure I went straight through the DSP store.

Also, I hope it doesn't come to that. I think what crippled Tome of Magic was that it was too condensed. No part of it got the full support it needed to be good, and then none of it got support past that.

[Ilorin Lorati]

I didn't buy a physical copy of DSP's psionics line until UPsi comes out, and I'm unlikely to do so again until they release another hardback of an Augmented compilation. All of my games are online and will be for the foreseeable future, if I'm going to buy a physical Akasha book it's going to be a full-color hardback to show off and not actually to use - the same applies to Ultimate Path of War, as well as maybe eventually Ultimate <Truenaming line here> and Ultimate <Shadowmagic line here> if they ever get off the ground / to that point.

[AGrinningCat]

I grabbed Ultimate Psionics in hardback and Path of War in softcover (Not by my choice; teach me not to specify when I'm ordering through a gaming store).

I hope PoW gets an ultimate edition for a nice big tome. Something to beat my players with when they start acting up.

If Akasha might get rolled with truenaming and shadowcasting into a big tome, I'd be happy too.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Is there a chance to get text in the Akashic Warrior's bonus feats ability to explicitly state that it'll still allow replacing the bonus feats through other archetypes? Because as it stands right now it's not compatible with PoW:E's Myrmidon because of it modifying bonus feats. It's fine if not, they are from different splat lines.

[Ssalarn]

So, Dropbox is messing with me right now. I got the update file with the Gunslinger and Barbarian archetypes added, but now it's not accepting any new updates from me. So, let me know what you think about this replacement for the igniting property:

Lifescorch: A lifescorch weapon seeks to burn the very life force of its enemies, sheathing itself in fire upon command and dealing an extra 1d8 points of fire damage on a successful hit. The fire does not
harm the wielder. The effect remains until another command is given. The lifescorch weapon also
deals 2 points of essence burn to its target on a successful critical hit. Targets without an essence pool
or whose essence pool has been reduced to zero instead take an additional 1d8 points of fire
damage. Whenever a lifescorch weapon causes essence burn to a target, all fire damage it deals for the next 3 rounds instead becomes untyped akashic energy and is therefore not subject to being reduced by resistance to fire-based attacks.

Strong evocation ; CL 12th; must have an essence pool, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and flame blade ,
flame strike , or fireball ; Price +2 bonus.

[Extra Anchovies]

Hm. Lifescorch looks alright. Not something I'd buy unless the DM liked throwing Akasha wielders at us, but that's kind of the point of the item.

Also, I hope it doesn't come to that. I think what crippled Tome of Magic was that it was too condensed. No part of it got the full support it needed to be good, and then none of it got support past that.

Eh. Binders got some pretty sweet stuff via web enhancements.

On the topic of Binders, is DSP planning an update/rework of that system, or are you guys leaving that task to Radiance House?

[Nyaa]

So, Dropbox is messing with me right now. I got the update file with the Gunslinger and Barbarian archetypes added, but now it's not accepting any new updates from me.

Is there a reason you don't use google docs like PoW team?

[AGrinningCat]

Is there a reason you don't use google docs like PoW team?

Beat me to it.

Seriously, google docs is amazing. Also Dropbox is a pain in the ass if you're trying to copy/paste/format a mass of veils into a table.

[Ssalarn]

Beat me to it.

Seriously, google docs is amazing. Also Dropbox is a pain in the ass if you're trying to copy/paste/format a mass of veils into a table.

I feel like there was once a reason I moved to Dropbox, but now I honestly can't remember what it is.

On the topic of Binders, is DSP planning an update/rework of that system, or are you guys leaving that task to Radiance House?

Considering how entrenched Alex Agunas and Radiance House are with their Pact Magic ports, and the fact that we were even talking about partnering up with them for a joint release at one point, I strongly doubt DSP is going to try and push into that territory, unless we do it in a way that's so cool and original that it doesn't directly compete with the Radiance House materials. There's also Paizo's new Medium class coming out in Occult Adventures that's their Binder port, so I think that particular market's pretty well saturated for the time being.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Probably because you can use your native word processor and simply upload the files with a click. God knows that's what I use Dropbox for.
Drive is better for something you're going to actively share and modify on the fly though.

On the topic of Binders, is DSP planning an update/rework of that system, or are you guys leaving that task to Radiance House?

IIRC they're going to leave it to Radiance House, since they don't want to step on other 3pp toes for something that's already been pretty well implemented. I still find it strange that they're doing Truenaming despite Interjection doing just fine with it, though I suppose it's not as well known and the flavor is significantly different.

[master4sword]

So, Dropbox is messing with me right now. I got the update file with the Gunslinger and Barbarian archetypes added, but now it's not accepting any new updates from me. So, let me know what you think about this replacement for the igniting property:

Lifescorch: A lifescorch weapon seeks to burn the very life force of its enemies, sheathing itself in fire upon command and dealing an extra 1d8 points of fire damage on a successful hit. The fire does not
harm the wielder. The effect remains until another command is given. The lifescorch weapon also
deals 2 points of essence burn to its target on a successful critical hit. Targets without an essence pool
or whose essence pool has been reduced to zero instead take an additional 1d8 points of fire
damage. Whenever a lifescorch weapon causes essence burn to a target, all fire damage it deals for the next 3 rounds instead becomes untyped akashic energy and is therefore not subject to being reduced by resistance to fire-based attacks.

Strong evocation ; CL 12th; must have an essence pool, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and flame blade ,
flame strike , or fireball ; Price +2 bonus.

When there's no Akashic targets around, it's the highest damage boost you can buy for +2 (compared to a pair of elemental enchantments for 2d6 split between two elements, or collision's flat +5), but it's all fire so it's also the most likely to be resisted. Against a veilweaver, just gotta get that crit.

Works for me.

[PsyBomb]

When there's no Akashic targets around, it's the highest damage boost you can buy for +2 (compared to a pair of elemental enchantments for 2d6 split between two elements, or collision's flat +5), but it's all fire so it's also the most likely to be resisted. Against a veilweaver, just gotta get that crit.

Works for me.

I second this assessment. I can see this being common to use if you're facing enemy Daevics or other half-Veilweavers a lot.

[AGrinningCat]

Lifescorch

At +2 weapon, you could get a Fire/Corrosive for +2d6 elemental damage, or an average of 7.0 bonus damage before resistances/hit.

Here we have a +2d8 vs non-Akasha, or 9.0 bonus damage/hit. The crit to eat Essence is better now, but Criting is a low chance unless you're fishing for it. Akasha Hunters will be crit fishers if that's the case.
Reading comprehension is hard.

If the idea is to harm veil weavers, how about some enchantment interaction with attacking the veils themselves via Sunder?

Logically speaking, if this enchantment arised from needing weapons to fight veil weavers, attacking the Essence would be a silly way to go about it -- A veil weaver will move essence out of non-critical things and into the veil to keep their power strong.

Disrupting Problematic veils would be more useful to Akasha hunters to improve defense (Attacking Armory of the Conqueror, Natural attack givers), as well as cutting off escapes (Coward boots). Since it no longer relies on crits, you don't have to worry about what weapon type it's applied to.

If attacking Essence is something you still want to do, a Poison makes more than enough sense -- Essence is life, and Poison attacks it. Together you can make some mean Akashic hunters.

[Ssalarn]

When there's no Akashic targets around, it's the highest damage boost you can buy for +2 (compared to a pair of elemental enchantments for 2d6 split between two elements, or collision's flat +5), but it's all fire so it's also the most likely to be resisted. Against a veilweaver, just gotta get that crit.

Works for me.

Someone told me recently that if you take all 4 PF Bestiaries into account, cold has actually replaced fire as the most resisted element in the game. So there's that.

The goal with the new lifescorch property was to make it a viable option in campaigns where akashic foes are rare, and a good option in campaigns where they're common. I feel like it's pretty much hitting that point now, so I'm going to turn my attention to the reverberating property. On that front, do you all feel like just removing the Fortitude save portion would help, so that the property is a flat "Whenever a reverberating weapon deals a critical hit, the target suffers an amount of damage equal to the weapon’s damage die at the start of their next turn"?

I like the imagery of it and feel like it's potentially really good in a world where daevics and akashic warriors are running around with Armory of the Conqueror.

[Extra Anchovies]

There seems to be some confusion about Lifescorch's damage. Isn't it 1d8 against all targets on normal hits, 1d8+2 essence burn on crits against targets with essence, and 2d8 on crits against targets without essence? People seem to be thinking that it's 2d8 against non-akashic targets even on normal hits, which it (to me) clearly isn't.

Considering how entrenched Alex Agunas and Radiance House are with their Pact Magic ports, and the fact that we were even talking about partnering up with them for a joint release at one point, I strongly doubt DSP is going to try and push into that territory, unless we do it in a way that's so cool and original that it doesn't directly compete with the Radiance House materials. There's also Paizo's new Medium class coming out in Occult Adventures that's their Binder port, so I think that particular market's pretty well saturated for the time being.

Makes perfect sense. Except Medium isn't a binder port anymore; apparently, the OcA classes chapter can only be 60% the length of the ACG's, which is really weird for a book that introduces at least four new subsystems (kineticist wild talents, medium spirits, occultist implements, and spiritualist phantoms). So the Medium is only getting six spirits. Yes, six. Forty-eight fewer than originally intended. A different class will be getting the 54 original spirits, but it won't be the Medium, which fills me with sad

When there's no Akashic targets around, it's the highest damage boost you can buy for +2 (compared to a pair of elemental enchantments for 2d6 split between two elements, or collision's flat +5), but it's all fire so it's also the most likely to be resisted. Against a veilweaver, just gotta get that crit.

Works for me.

Nitpick: both the flat +5 and the 2d6 have more average damage than the 1d8 from Lifescorch. The 2d8 on crit is more than either of those but less than that from Shocking/Flaming/Icy Burst.

[AGrinningCat]

Edit: Reading Comprehension is hard. Ignore that.

As far as Reverberating; why would I want to pick it over Wounding?

[Seerow]

Okay seeing two different takes on Lifescorch here:

1) The bonus +d8 applies 100% of the time against non-akashic foes.
2) The bonus +d8 applies on crit in place of essence drain against non-akashic foes.



If it's the first, the property is probably stronger than average, but doesn't really make a lot of sense (why does >75% of the time my akashic foe hunting weapon do more to non-akashic people than akashic people?)

If it's the second, it's a poor man's Fiery Burst that trades out a tiny bit of damage for more utility against a specific enemy type. It is acceptable if you consider Flaming Burst to be acceptable.

[AGrinningCat]

Okay seeing two different takes on Lifescorch here:

1) The bonus +d8 applies 100% of the time against non-akashic foes.
2) The bonus +d8 applies on crit in place of essence drain against non-akashic foes.



If it's the first, the property is probably stronger than average, but doesn't really make a lot of sense (why does >75% of the time my akashic foe hunting weapon do more to non-akashic people than akashic people?)

If it's the second, it's a poor man's Fiery Burst that trades out a tiny bit of damage for more utility against a specific enemy type. It is acceptable if you consider Flaming Burst to be acceptable.

Because reading comprehension is hard and the bonus 1d8 only applies on crits due to the 'Instead' wording.

(Do we consider flaming burst acceptable? I have a love for fire damage so my perception on the matter is askew)

[Seerow]

Because reading comprehension is hard and the bonus 1d8 only applies on crits due to the 'Instead' wording.

(Do we consider flaming burst acceptable? I have a love for fire damage so my perception on the matter is askew)

I as a GM/Player do not. I tend to think of it as overpriced for its benefit, especially given the way weapon property costs scale.

That said, as a 3rd Party Publisher writing content intended to be used by a broad audience of people who do think Paizo craps gold, I can understand Ssalarn having a strong incentive to want to avoid making properties that are explicitly better than existing stand-bys like Fiery Burst.

[Ssalarn]

As far as Reverberating; why would I want to pick it over Wounding?

Because Wounding only deals 1 point of Bleed damage per hit, and not all creatures are subject to bleed?
Or because you could have both and drastically lower the chances of an enemy lasting into later rounds. 1 critical hit on a Reverberating longsword nets you slightly better average damage than 4 successful hits with a Wounding weapon, and as your level increases both your damage die and your chance to crit are likely going to increase, so Reverberating grows progressively better than Wounding .

That said, as a 3rd Party Publisher writing content intended to be used by a broad audience of people who do think Paizo craps gold, I can understand Ssalarn having a strong incentive to want to avoid making properties that are explicitly better than existing stand-bys like Fiery Burst.

This is a for real reality that I am always very careful to take into account.

[Deadkitten]

Rage (Ex): A barbarian can call upon inner reserves of strength and ferocity, granting her additional combat prowess. Starting at 1st level, a barbarian can rage for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + her Constitution modifier. At each level after 1st, she can rage for 2 additional rounds. Temporary increases to Constitution, such as those gained from rage and spells like bear's endurance, do not increase the total number of rounds that a barbarian can rage per day. A barbarian can enter rage as a free action. The total number of rounds of rage per day is renewed after resting for 8 hours, although these hours do not need to be consecutive.

While in rage, a barbarian gains a +4 morale bonus to her Strength and Constitution, as well as a +2 morale bonus on Will saves. In addition, she takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class. The increase to Constitution grants the barbarian 2 hit points per Hit Dice, but these disappear when the rage ends and are not lost first like temporary hit points. While in rage, a barbarian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration.

A barbarian can end her rage as a free action and is fatigued after rage for a number of rounds equal to 2 times the number of rounds spent in the rage. A barbarian cannot enter a new rage while fatigued or exhausted but can otherwise enter rage multiple times during a single encounter or combat. If a barbarian falls unconscious, her rage immediately ends, placing her in peril of death.

Fueled by Fury-Starting at 7th level,when ever the becomer starts his rage while adjacent to at least one enemy,he may make a single melee attack as part of the action used to activate his rage.This attack must be used to deal lethal damage. If this attack hits successfully,the becomer increases the essence pool granted by his furious essence ability by 1,plus an additional 1 at 10th level and every 3 levels thereafter.This replaces the damage reduction class feature

This should definitely be reworded, it can just get silly with rage cycling.

Also Akashic Transformation might need to get some tweaks:

While raging,the becomer increases his total veils shaped by one and learns the ability to shape one veil from the daevic’s Wrath passion veil list.

Wording is odd, the Becomer cannot shape unless they are raging so the way this is phrased seems awkward.

And while I am mostly fine with the Akashic Transformation ability, The fact that Rage cycling exists just gets odd with how fast this archetype can shape veils. The image of someone shaping and unshaping veils multiple veils in a round seems strange to me.

And THANK GOD its not compatible with Urban Barbarian, The combination of how the Dreamcatcher Veil and this archetype interact is awkward.....

[Ssalarn]

This should definitely be reworded, it can just get silly with rage cycling.

I typed up a big long response with FAQ links and examples, but instead of posting that, I'm just going to agree that a per round or AoO-based limitation isn't a bad idea.

Wording is odd, the Becomer cannot shape unless they are raging so the way this is phrased seems awkward.

And while I am mostly fine with the Akashic Transformation ability, The fact that Rage cycling exists just gets odd with how fast this archetype can shape veils. The image of someone shaping and unshaping veils multiple veils in a round seems strange to me.

It's worded that way because it's possible for the Becomer to gain veilweaving from other sources, and that needs to be taken into account to prevent real weirdness. There is very little benefit to rage cycling veils, because the Becomer has an incredibly limited list of veils available to him; unless you're self-gimping by grabbing veils for the same slot (in which case you're balancing yourself out by limiting your ceiling), or you're using rage cycling to recover sundered veils (a valid tactic), there's just not a lot of point. Note that Akashic Transformation only applies to veils gained from that ability; it doesn't allow him to reshape veils from any other source.

Dreamcatcher is going to be largely pointless because you can't use Knowledge skills while raging (the only time you have access to your veils before 20th level), and it was entirely intentional that the Becomer not stack with Urban Barbarian for pretty much exactly that reason.

[Deadkitten]

I typed up a big long response with FAQ links and examples, but instead of posting that, I'm just going to agree that a per round or AoO-based limitation isn't a bad idea.



It's worded that way because it's possible for the Becomer to gain veilweaving from other sources, and that needs to be taken into account to prevent real weirdness. There is very little benefit to rage cycling veils, because the Becomer has an incredibly limited list of veils available to him; unless you're self-gimping by grabbing veils for the same slot (in which case you're balancing yourself out by limiting your ceiling), or you're using rage cycling to recover sundered veils (a valid tactic), there's just not a lot of point. Note that Akashic Transformation only applies to veils gained from that ability; it doesn't allow him to reshape veils from any other source.

Dreamcatcher is going to be largely pointless because you can't use Knowledge skills while raging (the only time you have access to your veils before 20th level), and it was entirely intentional that the Becomer not stack with Urban Barbarian for pretty much exactly that reason.

My main issue with Akashic Transformation is more of how it looks in my head, mechanically it is fine. Though the fact that the veils have to be reshaped when you want to rage cycle for some other reason is kind of annoying. Maybe have the veils last for at minimum the whole round?

It working exactly off of when your rage ends and begins kinda gives me the image of turning a fluorescent light on and off repeatedly.

But again, its not a big deal and its just my opinion of it.

[Extra Anchovies]

I typed up a big long response with FAQ links and examples, but instead of posting that, I'm just going to agree that a per round or AoO-based limitation isn't a bad idea.

I'd recommend making it a 1/round thing. There are enough things in PF that force us to burn AoOs already, and not everyone can support a Dex high enough to make Combat Reflexes worth the feat.