[CSC] [Spheres] Spheres of Akasha Open Playtest

[Mairn]

I know its a bit late (considering the playtest has been open for a few weeks now), but sadly the forum outtages took their tole. Anyhow, on to the main event:

Welcome to the playtest for the Spheres of Akasha, presented by Cobalt Sage Creations!

This book seeks to blend the Akashic Magic subsystem with the Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might systems in a way that aims to have them mesh more seamlessly.

This playtest contains:

The Veilweaving Sphere: A new sphere of power that allows casters of all sorts to shape and manipulate veils, harness essence, and disrupt the chakras and essence of their foes.

New Archtypes: Two new archetypes for the Daevic, Guru, and Vizier allowing them to gain spherecasting or to utilize Spheres of Might.

22 New Veils: With these new veils veilweavers gain the ability to access spheres and utilize their abilities with an augmentation of akashic power.

Even More: New classes features utilizing the veilweaving sphere for the Incanter and the Prodigy, tweaks to old veils to help them integrate properly with the system, the new Enhanced keyword for veils, new feats, and new character options!

Spheres of Akasha - Open Playtest

Changelog - Version 0.41

[StSword]

Mea culpa for accidentally resolving that discussion.

I just clicked on it and poof it went away as if by magic.

Wanted to say I'm looking forward to this coming out.

I quite like the sphereshaper veils, you mentioned later books to expand on this, so I was wondering if you had thought about cannibalizing those rules? They made me think of something along the lines of "Akashic Talent. Prereq- talent in question, Essence 1. The character can invest essence into the talent as if it was the corresponding sphereshaper viel. May be taken more than once, effects do not stack, applies to a different talent each time."

Or maybe an akashic Conscript archetype that can do much the same thing as a class feature?

[Mairn]

Mea culpa for accidentally resolving that discussion.

I just clicked on it and poof it went away as if by magic.

No worries!

Wanted to say I'm looking forward to this coming out.

I quite like the sphereshaper veils, you mentioned later books to expand on this, so I was wondering if you had thought about cannibalizing those rules? They made me think of something along the lines of "Akashic Talent. Prereq- talent in question, Essence 1. The character can invest essence into the talent as if it was the corresponding sphereshaper viel. May be taken more than once, effects do not stack, applies to a different talent each time."

Or maybe an akashic Conscript archetype that can do much the same thing as a class feature?

I'm not exactly sure what you are asking for with this talent idea.

[StSword]

Sorry I thought I was being clear.

Let me use an example, maybe that;ll help.

Roguish Domino gives out Fencing.

Someone takes Akashic Talent-Fencing feat or whatever you want to call it, and then they can invest essence into the feat ala the rules for the Roguish Domino veil, so an insight bonus to fatal thrust.

Just a thought. <shrugs>

[Mairn]

Interesting idea, might look into it a bit more for the expansion book I have planned.

Would need to have it pick a specific veil not just a sphere though. Haven't decided if the second book will contain any Sphereshaper veils that have duplicate spheres to those found in the first book yet, but its possible (and I already added rules accounting for it).

[Kris Moonhand]

Sorry to ask this here, but y'all don't have a FAQ thread. I have a couple questions about Stormbound, if that's alright.

Q1: You get a special pool of temporary Essence as part of your Stormweaving ability, and it says it's burned after both normal Essence and other temporary Essence. Now, when you take the Channel the Storm ability, it grants you a pool of E that only works in Storm veils. So if you have E from Channel the Storm and Stormweaving invested in a veil, then use Shifting Storms to swap veils (burning half the E in that veil in the process), does the Channel the Storm E get burned before the Stormweaving temp E?

Q2: Can Channel the Storm E be used in Storm veils outside of combat?

Q3: When you swap veils with Shifting Storms, is the E from the old veil automatically re-allocated in the new veil?

Q4: Normally in the akashic rules, aura effects are suppressed when the veilweaver is unconscious. However, the Weatherproofing ability seems to imply (though not outright state) that Storm veils continue to rage even when the Stormbound is unconscious. Which is correct?

[Mairn]

Sorry to ask this here, but y'all don't have a FAQ thread. I have a couple questions about Stormbound, if that's alright.

Q1: You get a special pool of temporary Essence as part of your Stormweaving ability, and it says it's burned after both normal Essence and other temporary Essence. Now, when you take the Channel the Storm ability, it grants you a pool of E that only works in Storm veils. So if you have E from Channel the Storm and Stormweaving invested in a veil, then use Shifting Storms to swap veils (burning half the E in that veil in the process), does the Channel the Storm E get burned before the Stormweaving temp E?

Q2: Can Channel the Storm E be used in Storm veils outside of combat?

Q3: When you swap veils with Shifting Storms, is the E from the old veil automatically re-allocated in the new veil?

Q4: Normally in the akashic rules, aura effects are suppressed when the veilweaver is unconscious. However, the Weatherproofing ability seems to imply (though not outright state) that Storm veils continue to rage even when the Stormbound is unconscious. Which is correct?

Sort of off topic but thats ok.
Once some more CSC stuff comes out (Pale Philo, Sniper, this book?) I will try and push for a FAQ thread to be made.

1: Yes, Channel the Storm essence is burned before temporary essence gained from Stormweaving.
2: Yes.
3: The essence needs to be reinvested normally.
4: Storm veils continue to be in effect while the Stormbound is unconscious, overwriting the normal effects for veils being suppressed while unconscious.

[Mairn]

New Minor Update (v0.31)
All of the "Bind X Chakra" talents have been broken up into individual talents and now have the (bind) tag. Also added an errata'd version of the Armory of the Conqueror veil for use with Spheres content.
To see only the changes, check the Changelog.

[StSword]

The old discussion got resolved, but something occurred to me.

You stated you didn't want to have a generic akashic tradition talent for fear that some class's veil list might break the game in the hands of a veilweaver, well that's what the advanced talent designation is for, it says "DM, be warned this might break your game, so think about it first."

The prodigy support is much appreciated, but after consideration the veilweaving sphere still seems somewhat incomplete.

No chart in a veilweaver wild magic event?

What are veilweaver rituals like? The only thing I can think of is that they'd allow someone to ritually summon a a veil they don't know, unless you have better ideas?

An admixture feat to smack someone in the face with a destructive blast and a veil at the same time?

A spherecaster with veilweaving would be able to make magic items that give the effects of veils, that can change the campaign a bit, making akashic more common. Although that could certainly wait until a later book.

And while arcforge provided an akashic tradition for spherecasting, it worked under the assumption campaign specific rule that akashic magic is advanced technology, so an akashic tradition based on traditionl akashic magic would be nice...

What about metamagic? Sphere effects can be enhanced with metamagic, how does that work with veils? I didn't noticde that being addressed.

[Mairn]

The old discussion got resolved, but something occurred to me.

You stated you didn't want to have a generic akashic tradition talent for fear that some class's veil list might break the game in the hands of a veilweaver, well that's what the advanced talent designation is for, it says "DM, be warned this might break your game, so think about it first."

I guess, but eh. It also more easily lets me give Traditions to sphere archetypes for existing classes, and lets me more easily make talents that have a specific tradition as a prerequisite.

The prodigy support is much appreciated, but after consideration the veilweaving sphere still seems somewhat incomplete.

No chart in a veilweaver wild magic event?

I really don't like Wild Magic, and feel like its a waste of development time to come up with 100 unique effects that will rarely see use.

What are veilweaver rituals like? The only thing I can think of is that they'd allow someone to ritually summon a a veil they don't know, unless you have better ideas?

The veils themselves technically aren't sphere effects. I should clarify this (EDIT: This was already clarified. I was pretty sure I had, so I double checked and yup its under the Shape Veils ability). I might make some example rituals, but they would mostly have to do with essence manipulation / other aspects of akasha rather than improving veilweaving.

An admixture feat to smack someone in the face with a destructive blast and a veil at the same time?

Might be interesting for some of the (Essence) talents, but Veil effects are way too broad and unspecific to easily be combined in something like an Admixture and have it work properly.

A spherecaster with veilweaving would be able to make magic items that give the effects of veils, that can change the campaign a bit, making akashic more common. Although that could certainly wait until a later book.

I already had ideas for supporting veils-as-items as part of a Blacksmith archetype, if I could make the balance of it work. I'm going to say its currently on the table for said book, but might get scrapped.

And while arcforge provided an akashic tradition for spherecasting, it worked under the assumption campaign specific rule that akashic magic is advanced technology, so an akashic tradition based on traditionl akashic magic would be nice...

Not sure exactly what you are asking for here.

What about metamagic? Sphere effects can be enhanced with metamagic, how does that work with veils? I didn't noticde that being addressed.

The veils themselves are not sphere effects and cannot be affected by metamagic. (Essence) talents that take actions to use can be.

[StSword]

Spheres of Power has traditions, that not only change how the spheres work, but can change the nature of the spheres for the character.

So spheres might be arcane magic, divine magic, occult magic, science, psionics, or temporary possession by spirits from Beyond Reality ala Pact Magic, whatever.

Arcforge created a tradition to make spheres akashic magic, but in Arcforge "akashic magic" is actually advanced science that works by creating temporary nanotechnological constructs, and that tradition reflects that.

So I was suggesting you might want to include an actual Akashic tradition for a spherecaster whose magic works by creating temporary constructs of akashic energy.

[Mairn]

Spheres of Power has traditions, that not only change how the spheres work, but can change the nature of the spheres for the character.

So spheres might be arcane magic, divine magic, occult magic, science, psionics, or temporary possession by spirits from Beyond Reality ala Pact Magic, whatever.

Arcforge created a tradition to make spheres akashic magic, but in Arcforge "akashic magic" is actually advanced science that works by creating temporary nanotechnological constructs, and that tradition reflects that.

So I was suggesting you might want to include an actual Akashic tradition for a spherecaster whose magic works by creating temporary constructs of akashic energy.

Ah ok gotcha. Yeah will add it to the list of things to do.

[Mairn]

New Major Update (v0.4)
Added conversions of the Veilbound Metamagic and Wildclaw Chakra feats, and added more options for casting traditions for akashic casters (2 new general drawbacks, 2 new boons, 1 new standard tradition)

[Mairn]

Unless there are some major changes or additions, or issues found in the next few weeks, I am planning to close this playtest by the end of the month or to somewhere mid-April.

The playtest has been pretty quiet here, but I figured I would give it another bump in case it simply got buried by the flood of new threads after the forums came back up.

[BioCharge]

No comments on any flaws or suggestions, but I wanted to thank you greatly for making this! I've been wracking my brain trying to figure a good way to mix SoP and Akashic (I still generally use 3.5 Incarnum terminology for my campaign) and my party was about to start a quest all about unlocking Incarnum for the world, so this came at a perfect time.

[Mairn]

No comments on any flaws or suggestions, but I wanted to thank you greatly for making this! I've been wracking my brain trying to figure a good way to mix SoP and Akashic (I still generally use 3.5 Incarnum terminology for my campaign) and my party was about to start a quest all about unlocking Incarnum for the world, so this came at a perfect time.

Thanks, I am glad you enjoy it!

[Mairn]

I am now aiming to close this playtest on the weekend of the 27th, unless any major issues are brought up.

These next two weeks are your last chance to read it and leave any comments, since I will be focusing my time towards developing and playtesting the expansion book for this system after that date.

[silphael]

Is it intended to be in "request only" ?

[StSword]

That playtest was over a while ago.

I understand that it's been picked up by another publisher and they are doing thier own playtest, but they (Lost Spheres Publishing) apparently didn't choose to do their playtest over this forum.

[StSword]

I thought people might like to know that this book has dropped, I'm just about to hit buy over at drivethrurpg.