Path of War Expanded: Mystic (PFRPG) PDF

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The Path of War continues onward!

Path of War Expanded is a series of releases to provide additional options for the martial system presented in Path of War.

Within the pages of this release, the mystic class and her support material are provided!

Within Path of War Expanded: Mystic, you will find:

  • The new mystic class, who fuses magical power into her martial abilities.
  • Four new martial disciplines - Elemental Flux, Mithral Current, Riven Hourglass, and Shattered Mirror
  • Two archetypes for the mystic - the aurora soul and the knight-chandler
  • Eight new feats for the mystic
  • Come and enjoy the spoils of battle with Path of War Expanded!

Path of War Expanded references material found in Path of War.

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An Endzeitgeist.com review

3/5

This installment of the Path of War Expanded-series clocks in at 55 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, leaving us with a massive 51 pages of content, so let's take a look!

As always with Path of War-reviews, note that I am NOT judging this book in accordance to the power-levels assumed in vanilla Pathfinder, but rather according to the level of power Path of War assumes. If you're not familiar with my stance on Path of War, its strengths and weaknesses, I urge you to take a look at my review of the book - also, since this is an expansion to the system and e.g. the fact that per-encounter abilities have a precise time-frame as well may not be known...but will the mystic attain the level of coolness of the harbinger?

Mechanics-wise, the Mystic receives d8, 4+Int skills per level, proficiency with simple and martial weapons as well as light armors and shields, 3/4 BAB-progression, good Will-saves and begins play with 7 maneuvers known (which scale up to 21) as well as one stance, scaling up to 7. Mystics can have 5 maneuvers readied at 1st level and increase that to up to 12...however, here, things become interesting: Much like To9S's Crusader, the Mystic does not have 100% reliable access to her maneuvers: The Mystic, before her first turn, determines 2 maneuvers, which are immediately accessible to her; thereafter, each round grants her one randomly determined maneuver from those of her readied maneuvers, unlocking this one for the remainder of the combat. If using the Lightning Recovery or Victorious Recovery feats, the mystic can immediately unlock such maneuvers, providing an option for players that are not 100% fine with the random nature of this mechanic. If, during a combat, the mystic would have not withheld maneuver to unlock left, she instead gets all readied maneuvers back and may choose 2 new ones to be immediately unlocked. The number of maneuvers granted at the beginning of combat increases by +1 at 3rd level, 6th, 9th and 18th level by one maneuver, but unlike the base chosen two, these are randomly determined as well.

The Mystic key-ability is btw. Wis and the class also receives a so-called animus - this means that mystics count as class level arcane spellcaster levels for the purpose of prerequisites and stacks mystic levels with caster levels for the purpose of item creation etc. Upon entering combat, the mystic receives 1 + Wis-mod animus pool; this pool increases by +1 every subsequent round and lasts for 1 minute out of combat and whenever the mystic initiates a maneuver, she adds an additional +1 animus to her pool. Animus may be spent as part of a maneuver initiation action for e.g. a cumulative +2 insight bonus to d20 rolls (atk, CMB, skills) associated with that maneuver, up to a maximum of 3 animus spent for a +6 bonus, increase the DC by +1 per point of animus spent. 4th level unlocks 2 animus spent per maneuver for +1/2 class level damage. Alternatively, animus can be used to ignore 10 points energy resistance or 5 points of damage reduction. The latter is a bit problematic: DR is not a unified concept: DR/adamantine or DR/epic is significantly more powerful than DR/magic - a finer and more precise scaling here via animus spent would have made the ability significantly fairer and more streamlined. At 9th level, mystics can target foes up to 30 ft. away with a melee maneuver or move up to movement rate as a teleportation-effect as part of the initiation - nice to see the acknowledgment of it being a teleportation and the line of sight caveat. 13th level and 19th level unlock up to 4 and 5 animus spent per maneuver, but do not unlock additional options.

Animus is important in other ways, though: Mystics are attuned to the elements and when they ready maneuvers, they select an active element and associated energy type. Whenever the mystic initiates a maneuver that deals damage, the mystic may spend one animus to change the damage type to the respective active element. As a standard action (or as a free action upon assuming a new stance) she can change the active element. If the character is psionic, her active element and active energy type are the same and if the mystic has the Elemental Flux discipline, she treats the active element as the active element for Elemental flux.

It should be noted that the class also has a reset for readied maneuvers, namely blade meditation: As a full-round action, a mystic can spend 1 animus to immediately receive and EXPEND (*NOT* initiate!) the maneuvers readied, the mystic receives a new set of maneuvers as per the default rules of the mystic's ready-mechanic. Being slightly more vulnerable during this period, foes attacking the mystic still have to contend with the raging elemental maelstrom unleashed: Until the start of the next round, foes attacking the mystic receive 1d6 points of active element damage, +1d6 per point remaining in the mystic's animus pool. The class also receives bonus feats at 2nd, 12th and 17th level, being able to choose from Item Creation and Combat feats. 2nd level provides a +1 insight bonus to AC versus psionics and spells (and psi-like and spell-like abilities), increasing by +1 at 6th level, 11th, 16th and 20th level by +1.

3rd level Mystics may, as a move action 1 animus to affect up to Wis-mod allies within line of sight with her elemental glyph, lasting 1 + Wis-mod rounds and new glyphs supersede glyphs already affecting a target. Glyphs are supernatural abilities and add new effects at 3rd, 8th, 13th and 19th level. Beyond the elements, metal, darkness and illumination provide buffing options - air e.g. is about movement, darkness concealment etc. The mystic also receives solid chances of emulating unknown spells. At 5th level, the class gets an interesting ability: When targeted by spells/psionic powers or spell/psi-like effects that have a Fort or Ref-save partial, she may substitute a Will-save AND is unaffected on a successful save. If she fails, she receives 1 point of animus, but this ability only works while unencumbered and in light armor. The ability is very powerful, yes, but its limitations mean that it works actually pretty well in the Path of War-context. At 6th level, the mystic may 1/day as a free action swap a readied maneuver with another one the mystic knows, +1/day at every 4 levels thereafter. At 9th level, the mystic may utilize animus to suppress magical/psionic effects for Wis-mod rounds. 15th level allows for the expenditure of a move action to gain 1d6+Wis-mod animus points...which can be used outside of combat and, as a capstone, the mystic may create a glyph with the effects of two glyphs at the same time - brutal.

So what kind of supplemental material do we get here? First, one should mention feats: Using Animus for healing would be one - while the healing granted is low and has a 1/encounter cap, the feat can be abused to result in infinite healing by picking/ending fights with either kittens or friendly PCs. Note: I do not, as a reviewer, consider the feat per se broken, but if you're like me and do not want any kind of infinite healing anywhere near your table, then I'd suggest banning this one. The other feats allow for an increased energy resistance ignoring with a chosen element, more animus, more maneuvers and better action economy for the reset ability. An interesting feat allows you to not only increased damage die of katanas by one step and treat them as light weapons...which is per se relatively brutal...I mean, come on...katanas are not a weak weapon - why them of all weapons? There is also a feat for other classes to gain animus. The pdf also sports two archetypes for the class, namely the aurora soul and knight chandler. The aurora soul modifies skills and proficiencies and basically is an unarmed variant of the mystic with modified disciplines available, bonus feats to make unarmed combat viable and a defensive bonus to AC. A solid, function-driven archetype.

The Knight Chandler on the other hand is a pretty detailed, complex archetype: The knight-chandler needs to be non-evil and, at 1st level, receives a soul candle, a fist-sized mote of light that sheds illumination in a radius depending on the knight chandler's illumination pool. Once per round, the knight-chandler may will, as a free action, to move the candle up to her speed, ignoring difficult terrain, but being unable to pass through solid objects. If the candle is within the knight-chandler's space, she can have the candle move with her. Additionally, as a swift action, the knight-chandler may summon the soul candle to her square. Allies within 15 ft. of the candle gain resistance to the active element, equal to the number of illumination points in the knight-chandler's pool and the candle is only weakened in magic-dead zones, not suppressed.

Outside of combat, the knight-chandler has 1 point of illumination in her pool; upon entering combat, she adds +1 illumination point per round. She may also use a swift action to gain 2 illumination points and receives one whenever she initiates a boost. She also gains Tap Animus, which means that she does have animus in addition to her illumination pool. Starting at 3rd level, knight chandlers can utilize candle magic, beginning with votive effects and unlocking lantern effects at 8th level and bonfire effects at 15th level. The effects projected may be changed as a swift action. While it is relatively clear that only one effect from the respective lists can be in effect at a given time, I think explicitly stating this would be a wise choice to prevent ambiguity. The relatively close limitation of the soul candle's light is what makes these work, for the effects are rather brutal: More five-foot-steps, teleport, flat-out immunity to death effects...and then, there would be the bonfire effects, which provide AoE fast healing for infinite healing for the whole group and even ability score damage healing for initiators and a life 3-style option to reduce the pool to 1, but also receive immediate healing for 1/2 maximum hit point total plus an end to just about all negative conditions. I consider the latter to be pretty problematic, since it basically flat-out prevents death negating any damage that would bring the character below 0 Hp when used. Then again, seeing the ridiculous amounts of damage initiators can dish out, abilities like this may be actually needed in the long run. This does not change the fact that this is basically infinite healing once again, meaning the archetype will limited in its usefulness for some tables - as much as I like the archetype's mechanical frame, it won't get anywhere near my table. At higher levels, knight-chandlers may share boosts or counters readied with allies and as a capstone, the archetype gets an apotheosis alongside an increased illumination pool minimum.

Now the book obviously also features disciplines, some of which I've already mentioned. Since I have already covered shattered mirror in my review of the harbinger, I will not be going into details there. The book does sport 3 new disciplines, though, the first of which would be Elemental Flux, associated with Spellcraft and available for monk, thrown weapons and light blades. Elemental Flux requires elemental damage of some maneuvers to be determined in advance, but may choose this as a standard action. Furthermore, quite a few of the maneuvers in the discipline can be augmented via the expenditure of animus points. It should come as no surprise to the reader, then, that we're dealing with highly flexible offense/defense options here - unlike other disciplines, the significant flexibility of elemental flux is pretty hard to counter when combined by the resource-management of the mystic. For future-proofing purposes, this bears mention. As provided, though, the discipline is also highly interesting, with more than one maneuver offering wildly diverging in effects beyond just switching the respective energy damage types - and ultimately, I found myself enjoying this component most about elemental flux: While thematically, I did not consider the discipline too captivating, its flexibility is what ultimately makes me enjoy it. It should also be noted that the respective elemental benefits are pretty well-balanced among themselves. So yes, I was positively surprised here!

The second discipline herein would be Mithral Current, associated with Perform (dance) and the weapon-groups light blades, heavy blades and polearms. The discipline also has a unique flair and mechanical component: Being pretty much about Iaijutsu-style quick drawing, the discipline codifies a type of requirement for certain maneuvers that requires the wielder to properly draw a weapon immediately prior to utilizing the respective maneuver. The concise definition here is pretty much glorious and it should be noted that it does make basically for an optional component that can add additional effects to the respective maneuvers. It should also be noted that some maneuvers and stances here do allow for free sheathing of weapons as part of their usual effects. The discipline also does sport numerous rather interesting defensive tricks - alas, unlike some other more recent Path of War-installments, we once again have a more pronounced emphasis on skill-checks as substitutes for more valuable numeric options like AC etc., adding in the swinging effect more than in e.g. the harbinger's designs and making the content presented here feel less streamlined...and, again, more prone to being gamed. On the plus-side, the actual gaming flow of calm turning to brutal counter-assault and visuals of mithral current are fun.

The third discipline covered herein would be the Riven Hourglass, with the associated skill being Autohypnosis and the weapons being light blades, flails and hammers. Here, things get highly problematic in my book - no-save negative conditions and a 1st level strike that kills action economy for the target: Strike the Hourglass has this nice effect: "If it hits, it deals weapon damage as normal, and the target can only take a single move action or standard action during its next turn." Okay, so this 1st level strike prohibits the use of free or swift or immediate actions on the target's subsequent turn and cuts his actions in half, SANS SAVE. 1st level maneuver. This is, even in Path of War's context, broken. What about a boost you can initiate only at the start of your action that lets you grant a touched target your standard, move or full-round action? 4th level. Riven Hourglass is HORRIBLY BROKEN. It allows you to break any semblance of action economy and is chock-full with abuse-the-system-to-smithereens-combos. I'm at this point used to Path of War playing fast and loose with balance, even in the increased power-context of the series, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to come up with a plethora of ridiculous ways to break...everything with this discipline. Urgh.

Part II of my review is in the product discussion. See you there!


Community Manager

Now available!


Loving everything about this class


Noticing a few oddities as I read through it and I'll ask as I finish it but for now I do have a simple question.

Anima at low levels seems to be essentially endless. You gain 1 every turn or two if you use a maneuver. However, from what I can tell the only way you could spend two a turn is if you used 1 to augment a maneuver with your class feature and 1 to augment a maneuver based on it's specific augment option.

To me, this means that unless you invest in a Anima burning feat at low levels then you never will run low or out of Anima points. At the moment I only recognized the healing feat which can only be used once an encounter.

Based on the nature of recovering maneuvers it seems very unlikely that any low level Mystic with even 12 wisdom would ever run dry in a fight.

Is this all intended and am I following things correctly?

Overall the class looks very fun and unique. Only other things im a little weary on is how universally effective the air glyph seems compared to the others as well as how overwhelmingly strong the earth lvl 19 glyph seems. I suspect someone using it properly could keep a high level party immortal. Wisdom modifiers later on will allow a full party buff with only a single anima point as well as a duration that basically shuts down most enemies. Sure, you will be staggered at 0 hp but with even a light fast healing trait you can stay fully functional.

Also curious, do you have many testers for your classes before they are shown to the public? Just wondering if my suggestions here seem useful or too late.

I'll follow up if I find any other things that seem odd.


I did notice that Blade Meditation scales off of how many Animus points they have so perhaps the idea was them to not run out but instead to build Animus as a means of making enemies think twice about attacking them. The description sort of implies the energy is burned off but I see no mention of their Animus resetting back to base value like their maneuvers. Perhaps that would be a flavorful addition?

Font of Animus could probably use some clarification. As it sounds at the moment you can use it out of combat to gain a small pool... however it does not say that you cannot repeatedly use it amass a large pool. A move action roughly translates to 3 seconds worth of time. As a DM who tends to understand and follow things as intended I wouldn't let my players use the ability until the previous pool dissipated but others may have an issue putting their foot down.

Strike of Elemental Devastation: The augmenting section of the ability states a maximum of 3 points can be spent to augment it but that each beam has to be augmented separately. I assume this means 3 per beam but is also capped by your Animus spending max for maneuvers as normal? Essentially 3 per beam but no more than the 4-5 ud be allowed at higher level? Also, only the water beam has a DC save in order to avoid the effect. Is this intended? It seems contrary to the fact that the augment section talks about augmenting the beam effecting DCs as well. If this was intended to be water only I figure it may have specified.

Just smack me if im overloading everyone. lol I tend to be passionate like this with any class I like/allow in my games. So far all dreamscarred classes have been allowed. Only harbinger and mystic worry me a little but I already discussed my harbinger issues before. Perhaps this is due to Path of War Expanded being one of the few books i'v purchased before their actual release? I figure any help to clear things up before final printing would be appreciated.

Thanks for the interesting content.


Yigg wrote:
Also curious, do you have many testers for your classes before they are shown to the public? Just wondering if my suggestions here seem useful or too late.

To give you an idea, the open beta for Path of War: Expanded has lasted for either just under or just over two years now, across four different forums, with constant live revisions and engagement with dozens of posters.

We try to be transparent during the development process ^_^


Riven Hourglass sounds pretty interesting. What sorts of things do they do?


Cheapy wrote:
Riven Hourglass sounds pretty interesting. What sorts of things do they do?

Riven Hourglass is a time manipulation themed discipline. Great boosts and stances, good strikes and some very interesting utility maneuvers. Haste and Slow effects are common, as are sickened and nauseated conditions. Some of the higher level maneuvers give extra actions. The discipline plays nice with almost any build and has some great flavor to go with it.


Prince of Knives wrote:
Yigg wrote:
Also curious, do you have many testers for your classes before they are shown to the public? Just wondering if my suggestions here seem useful or too late.

To give you an idea, the open beta for Path of War: Expanded has lasted for either just under or just over two years now, across four different forums, with constant live revisions and engagement with dozens of posters.

We try to be transparent during the development process ^_^

Ah, ok. So is there a better place my comments could be posted rather than here? I generally love to follow the step by step process in developing new content. In general I like the feeling of the Path of War classes.

Also, can you possibly give any feedback to the above listed things I encountered? I just want to get a better understanding of the class as a whole.


Yigg wrote:
Prince of Knives wrote:
Yigg wrote:
Also curious, do you have many testers for your classes before they are shown to the public? Just wondering if my suggestions here seem useful or too late.

To give you an idea, the open beta for Path of War: Expanded has lasted for either just under or just over two years now, across four different forums, with constant live revisions and engagement with dozens of posters.

We try to be transparent during the development process ^_^

Ah, ok. So is there a better place my comments could be posted rather than here? I generally love to follow the step by step process in developing new content. In general I like the feeling of the Path of War classes.

Also, can you possibly give any feedback to the above listed things I encountered? I just want to get a better understanding of the class as a whole.

I'm one of the other writers for Path of War: Expanded. The two best places to get an idea of our open playtesting are on Giant in the Playground, where we have both a Dreamscarred FAQ Thread and a Discussion Thread. There is also a Discussion Thread here on the Paizo Forums. We've been in playtest for about two years now, so there's a lot of stuff that's already been discussed, but we always welcome more feedback!


Yigg wrote:
Prince of Knives wrote:
Yigg wrote:
Also curious, do you have many testers for your classes before they are shown to the public? Just wondering if my suggestions here seem useful or too late.

To give you an idea, the open beta for Path of War: Expanded has lasted for either just under or just over two years now, across four different forums, with constant live revisions and engagement with dozens of posters.

We try to be transparent during the development process ^_^

Ah, ok. So is there a better place my comments could be posted rather than here? I generally love to follow the step by step process in developing new content. In general I like the feeling of the Path of War classes.

Also, can you possibly give any feedback to the above listed things I encountered? I just want to get a better understanding of the class as a whole.

Always be willing to discuss feedback even if you're certain someone else has brought it up in the past. You never know when it will be your feedback that keeps something from slipping past during release.

Sczarni

Could I get some insight into what happened to the gunsmoke mystic? Has it been fully scrapped or will it show up later on the series?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

One of the things I was a little confused by. The Blade Meditation. I assume that where it says "...to grant herself all her remaining witheld maneuvers, then immediately expend them in a raging cadence of arcane power." doesn't mean that they actually initiate every maneuver they were just granted does it? The way it's written to me reads that they are granted all their remaining maneuvers and initiate all of them, but I'm pretty certain that the intent is that action economy prevents that from happening.


Frerezar wrote:
Could I get some insight into what happened to the gunsmoke mystic? Has it been fully scrapped or will it show up later on the series?

To quote Myself, From the Other Thread:

Myself, From the Other Thread wrote:
Nothing untoward. We didn't have room in this one to add another new disc (Tempest Gale), so Gunsmoke and Gale got moved to the upcoming Supplemental release. The archetype has not been canceled.
Robert Jordan wrote:
One of the things I was a little confused by. The Blade Meditation. I assume that where it says "...to grant herself all her remaining witheld maneuvers, then immediately expend them in a raging cadence of arcane power." doesn't mean that they actually initiate every maneuver they were just granted does it? The way it's written to me reads that they are granted all their remaining maneuvers and initiate all of them, but I'm pretty certain that the intent is that action economy prevents that from happening.

There's a difference between 'expend' and 'initiate'; for instance, many PrC abilities require you to expend a maneuver. An expended maneuver is no longer readied. An initiated maneuver becomes expended, but it's not the only way in which a maneuver might be expended.

Blade Meditation is meant to re-set your maneuver cycle in case you get dealt a bad hand, as it were. It does not cause the initiation of any of those maneuvers.


And it does not reset your Animus pool at all as well, correct? Seems like a do over sort of ability. The causing the energy to burst out thing makes it sound like it would. If not, they could spend all their time self buffing themselves with a increasingly stronger retaliation damage against melee. Although im sure most smart enemies would not hit the thing shrouded in mystical energy. They just get to pelt you to death with arrows. lol


One quick question, I know some disciplines have restrictions when using their maneuvers. I.e Solar wind and maneuvers being usable with only a bow or thrown weapons.

Does Riven hourglass or Elemental flux have either restriction?


SACplayin wrote:

One quick question, I know some disciplines have restrictions when using their maneuvers. I.e Solar wind and maneuvers being usable with only a bow or thrown weapons.

Does Riven hourglass or Elemental flux have either restriction?

No. There aren't any restrictions on any disciplines. Solar wind maneuvers are ranged attacks, that's where the restriction comes from, not the discipline itself. If, for example, you found a way to make ranged attacks with your greatsword, you would then be able to use Solar Wind maneuvers with a greatsword.


"Solar Wind maneuvers may only be performed with a weapon in the bow, crossbow, or thrown weapon groups (see the fighter weapon training class feature)."

This seems to read as Maneuvers can only be used with those weapon groups.

" Steel Serpent maneuvers can only be used with throwing weapons, piercing weapons, slashing weapons, and unarmed strikes. "

the same can be said for Steel serpent in this regard.


Mystic character sheet available as a PDF and in JPG. Take your pick!

Is there a pool point out there with quite so many uses as Animus?

By the way, how do you guys select the granted maneuvers? Let the GM choose, roll dice, what was the more popular method during playtest? Did anyone ever select less maneuvers to refresh them faster?

Also liked very much the theme of the mystic and how it reflects on his class features.


Note cards+shuffling


Part II of my review:

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good - the complex rules-language employed tends to be precise and well-crafted, though there are some discrepancies regarding the consistency of what abilities need saves and what don't. Layout adheres to Dreamscarred Press' two-column full-color standard and the pdf sports numerous gorgeous full-color artworks. The pdf comes with a second, more printer-friendly version as well - kudos!

Chris Bennett and Jade Ripley's Mystic is an interesting class: The heir apparent to the Crusader, the Mystic has a flow in its maneuver availability I very much enjoyed on paper and, from experience, classes with a flow require playtesting. The Mystic, and this is interesting, is not the first Path of War class with a flow: All classes can freely and easily regain maneuvers and as such, there always was the flowing motion inherent in the system. The Mystic takes this up to 11...or at least, makes you think it does: Basically, the class feels like it's afraid of its own self-imposed limitations. We get a class that says: No reliable maneuver-access...unlike the default "you do x, y or z". Which is not bad per se, but it does mean that the class plays less unique than you'd expect from the set-up. A similar process can be observed in my mechanically favorite component of the mystic: The way in which animus increases over the rounds hearkens back to an escalation die-like 13th Age-style mechanic coupled with resource-management. It pretends to require serious resource-management...when it really doesn't.

Animus is a cool mechanic that has the potential to be extremely entertaining...but in practice, the system awards blasting away: If an enemy's still standing after you run out of animus, that slightly limits your options...but not in a manner that is strictly stifling for even a short duration or render it problematic: Basically, I love the ability's frame-work...but it's not really required for the class. Most combats can be defeated sans tapping into the animus-mechanic. Basically, I feel like this class is afraid of requiring the use of its resources and playstyle: It introduces these cool mechanics, these unique tricks, has the mechanical means to provide a flow and then tells you: "You don't need these, but if you do use them, you're even more awesome."

On the design-side, the high flexibility of Elemental Flux and Mithral Current's draw-component are truly astounding and render play with them exciting, though they do hint at another discrepancy. I also absolutely adored the Knight-Chandler's soul candle mechanic, if not all components of the particular execution here.

My intense dislike for skill-check substitutions is back in full swing here; after the Harbinger's maneuvers clothed such mechanics in effects that sported less potential problems, we have them here again...though, again, in a way that does show growth over the original Path of War, with an emphasis on defense and, since it represents more of a personal preference, is not a key component of my verdict. The book does sport some discrepancies with no-save nerfs and the like.

I think, if you're reading this far, you may be one of my readers using the original Path of War or at least being interested in the system. I've rambled on about a narrow implicit playstyle that does not take table-variation into account in one particular context: Unlimited healing. This installment once again does provide such options, which eliminate this pdf for a significant amount of tables, mine included. And then there would be Riven Hourglass. The harbinger's Shattered Mirror *could* be broken in some campaigns and brilliant in others. Riven Hourglass is just friggin' broken, regardless of context or powerlevel. It begs to be abused to kingdom come and you don't even want to know what an evil GM can do with this...or what a halfway decent adventurer group can make with this beast. This discipline needs a serious nerf and some significant limitations to make its utterly broken action-shifting more restrictive. "That's just EZG rambling, he doesn't get Path of War." Wrong. Path of War's emphasis on getting more power, more versatility out of your actions, if anything, exacerbates the problem this discipline poses.

In the end, the mystic does sport some conceptually brilliant mechanic innovations, but is too afraid to truly capitalize on them and make them the focus of the class - to me, this felt like the class, time and again, tries to apologize for its own mechanics, stating: "See, it's not so bad, you still get all your crucial tools when you want them." - and that undermines the unique framework the mystic offers. The harbinger's only issues were one out of place ability and the escalating DCs far beyond any you'd otherwise see. However, its accomplishment boils down to being a fun skirmisher that requires the player to treat it as such. The Mystic, in contrast, has these great flowing set-up mechanics...but doesn't strictly require them. It does feel like the class was revised time and again to cater to the taste of people that did not like the class's random maneuver-mechanics - which, to me, is a shame, because it undermines the unique and compelling identity the class actually sports. Worse, the increased flexibility the maneuvers of the new disciplines offer do look like they were balanced to work with regards to a more limited availability, like there was once the intent to offset the lack of control with more powerful options - something the class no longer requires. And yes, this extends to the animus-mechanics.

While I do consider some options here to be brutal power-creep and yes, broken, there is still a whole lot to like and truly interesting material to be found herein. Still, to me, this falls a long way short of the harbinger. It should also be noted that, while Mithral Current and Elemental Flux on their own are powerful (and Elemental Flux surpasses ANY elemental-themed option in power and flexibility, including Solar Wind), Riven Hourglass is pretty much the equivalent of throwing any sense of balance to the wind - it imho hurts this pdf...and it hurts Path of War as a whole. Even in my most high-fantasy of campaigns, I will not allow this anywhere near my table, which is a first for the series - I can conceive of campaigns where infinite healing is no issue and while I won't run one, I don't judge. Riven Hourglass, on the other hand, begs to be broken in any context.

It should be considered a testament to the quality of the other content herein and the pdf's mechanical innovation that this one does not sink the pdf. Ultimately, the Mystic is an exercise in brilliant highlights and darkest shadows - and hence, my final verdict will clock in at 3 stars. Even fans of Path of War should take careful stock before allowing this pdf, though.

Reviewed first on endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to Nerdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop.

Endzeitgeist out.


I note the Pathfinder OGL description of Solar Wind in the Art of the Blade page includes Guns as one of the discipline weapons, but in the Solar Wind page they are specifically left out of the list of weapons that the discipline can be used with. Which is correct? Can guns be used with Solar Wind?

Edit: I see in the PoW errata that the sentence not including guns is to be taken out, so I'm going with guns can be used with Solar Wind.


Chuck123 wrote:

I note the Pathfinder OGL description of Solar Wind in the Art of the Blade page includes Guns as one of the discipline weapons, but in the Solar Wind page they are specifically left out of the list of weapons that the discipline can be used with. Which is correct? Can guns be used with Solar Wind?

Edit: I see in the PoW errata that the sentence not including guns is to be taken out, so I'm going with guns can be used with Solar Wind.

You could use guns with solar wind regardless.

Discipline weapons aren't the only weapons you can use with a discipline, they are the weapons that can have special synergy with the discipline which may give a bonus due to feats or class features or the like.

So does the build you want to use have a feat or class feature dependent on using discipline weapons? If no, it doesn't matter. If yes, do you care about those benefits more than about using guns? For that matter, there is a feat to add weapons to discipline weapons so you could have guns as a discipline weapon if you really wanted.

if you have the ability to make ranged attacks with unarmed strikes, it would be totally legal to apply solar wind maneuvers as you punch someone from across the room.

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