Dreamscarred Press Introduces: Akashic Mysteries

[Ssalarn]

I've been in touch with Jeremy and after some of the new feedback I've gotten since the renewed interest of the re-titled thread and some prior notes that have been corroborated a bit I'm thinking about pulling the Vizier out of layout and going back in to complete a terminology clean up and incorporate a few of the changes to minor issues or clarifications that have been caught. Instead of some of this "chakra energy" business, we focus the terminology as tightly as possible so it's very clear we've got a limited number of specific new terms.

Chakra Slots- areas on the body that control the outward flow of Essence.

Essence- the mystical embodiment of your own spirit and life energy. This is the stuff that is coursing through your body 24/7 and which can be accessed/controlled via your chakra slots. Everyone has it, but few people have it in great enough quantities to utilize it for any purpose beyond sustaining life.

Chakra Binding- a technique experienced veilweavers use to amplify the power of their veils and akashic abilities, often creating additional and spectaular effects.

Veils and Akasha- Akasha is essentially "heavy" arcane magic that gathers around large sources of Essence. Beings who are strong of will or properly trained can shape akasha into veils, which are basically crude arcane constructs designed to serve a specific purpose. Akasha's natural ability to act as a conduit makes it highly compatible with other power sources, often serving as an amplifier for more refined arcane, divine, or psionic energy.

I'll codify the segments discussing this terminology a little more tightly and bring everything in the playtest docs and the Vizier final draft "up to code".

This will also give me a chance to expand the Vizier's veil list a bit for his initial release, adding in veils designed to complement psionic and Path of War initiator classes that were originally slated for the archetype and final product releases.

The good news: they just added like 30 additional pages to the Path of War final compiled release, so odds are good that I can get this busted out by the end of the week and the first release and the subscription for Akashic Mysteries doesn't get delayed any more than it already would have due to the additional Path of War materials.

@Prime32

I think that touches on several of your general notes and some of your Guru notes as well. Currently we're not going to be going "slotless" with the veils, for balance, flavor, and compatibility reasons. I will, however, talk to Jeremy and Andreas and see if we can put in a sidebar for an alternate system where players can remove the slot reqs and bind by level since there have been one or two other people interested in something like that.

On the Guru-
Thanks for the spell check on IUS. I'll get that fixed.

Stunning Fist- So, you get the ability to restore a use of Stunning Fist by taking 3 minutes worth of Essence Burn (it takes 1 minute to recover a point of Essence Burn). Considering that Stunning Fist uses are basically currency for other abilities the Guru has access to, and can be pretty gnarly when it works in its own right, it's not a bad trade. Originally there was not a per day limitation on this ability, but I had more conservative segments of the gaming population ready to burn me at the stake for introducing effectively unlimited Stunning Fist attempts. The Guru gets up to 20 uses of Stunning Fist just like a monk and one more he can pull out of his hat at a free action in a pinch. What if we scaled the ability a bit so that you get an additional use every 5 levels?

Maelstrom of Sin- I'll tighten up the verbage a bit to clarify that your reach increases by feet for the duration of the ability only. Probably "As a full round action the Sineater's body becomes shrouded in tainted Akashic energy and he make a single unarmed strike against all enemies in reach. The shroud of energy surrounding him allows him to treat his reach as 5 feet greater when determining who he can target with this ability." Sound good?

I spoke about it briefly in the other topic, but my main comment right now would be to watch carefully what level binds come online. Constant True Seeing from the Body bind of Eyes of the Archer Lord is decent at 20. Constant shareable Air Walk from Airborne Imbuement is not.

I'm also a big proponent of counts-as for as many feats as possible, even with non- stacking clauses, if only to open different paths to otherwise underused options

To be fair, the background mechanics behind determing spell power says that the constant communal air walk effect is equal to or better than the constant true seeing effect.

That being said, you are absolutely right that in practice those two abilities have a substantial gulf in how useful they actually are to the party, and as such I'm rewriting the bind ability of Airborne Imbuement so that it instead gives the Guru a certain amount of environmental mastery while airborne. I'm toying with the idea of giving him SLA's scaled on Essence investment with a universal duration... Anyways, you should get to see it soon.