Kristal Moonhand's page

(Crossposted from the reply on DTRPG) Hi Vlad, glad you enjoyed the book! You're right that it's only a bit akashic. It started as the Guru/Daevic archetypes and Zodiac stuff (plus an Eclipse archetype that didn't get printed due to some issues, maybe later~) and kinda snowballed from there.

Few things here. The Xeshim should still be able to shape veils that are listed in the Passion but not normally on the list. The Passion class feature reads "the daevic is granted the ability to shape additional veils drawn from a list associated with her passion." Meanwhile, the veil slots that are "passion veil only", which is what the Xeshim replaces, are from the Daevic Veilweaving class feature. But still, I will clarify to make sure the intention is clear.

With the Nebula, I wanted to make it focus wholly on combat, which is why it doesn't get the ability to summon champions. Plus champions are not a... super great mechanic? I was really hesitant to write a PoW "class" that got the ability to summon other PoW classes. Now, if you're a Solar or Lunar in a game where the DM also allows PoW, then Haab is gonna be your jam. As a houserule, I personally cap the number of champions a character can summon at the same time to 4. Starting with 1 at 1st, 2 at 6th, and 3 at 12th, and 4 at 18th (essentially following the E Cap from HD table). I definitely recommend doing this on your table, and get a feel for the limit you would prefer. I think your math is wrong on how many you can summon at low levels, though. A Morphbear Lunar at 2nd will have 5 E (assuming no other abilities), and the Extra Essence Human will have 6. Meaning they can only summon a single 5 essence champion (reduced to cost 4 by Lunar). And by the same token, since they have 9 E at 5th (10 for Human) they would be limited to 2 champions. Now if the Morphbear had Extra Essence and a bit of bonus E from an Akashic feat, they could definitely summon 3 at 5th. Which, again, is why I recommend limiting the amount that can be out at a time, and also level cap them.

There were originally going to be even more constellations to fill out the other Mayan/Aztec ones, a huge pile of Lost Constellations, but I was writing Haab near the end of the deadline and just had to get it out instead of taking another year on the dang thing. They'll probably show up in another book in the future, so keep an eye out.

I didn't consider the synergy effect of Dual Hemisphere. I'll have to look at that and see what I want to do about it... I might just leave it as is, you are still paying for both manifestations of the constellation, after all? I dunno.

Thanks again for the review! And watch out for my next book, which is gonna focus on the overlap of Psionics and Akasha, with a lot more akashic focus than this one ended up with. I'll just say "Veilknife" and leave it at that~

(Crossposted from the reply on DTRPG) Hi Vladimir, thanks so much for the review! The Huay book is a bit unpolished, I'll admit, being my first book. Most things you couldn't find (including the Helmsman) can be found on the Library of Metzofitz, but here's the rundown. Mineralite is a race found in The Crystal Planet Player's Guide from Golden Glyph, a fun little race I really enjoy that definitely has no connection to an animated television show about polymorphic sentient rocks (please don't sue). False Veil is a power from April Augmented 2017 by Dreamscarred Press, a free book.

My process for the Huay was not to make a traditional wild shaping Druid, but use that as a base for something else, in this case the Huay-Chivo, a mythical shapeshifting mage who could take the forms of beasts, demons, and all manner of monsters. This is why you'll find demonic veils that you wouldn't normally expect to find associated with a "Druid" on the Huay's list. I have gotten some feedback recently regarding its... eclectic choices, but what's done is done. I do have some plans for the future of making archetypes that focus on a single skin form line, but that's a while away. Some of the oddness, like calling out the Akashic Rules page or getting all the binds, harkens back to when the Huay was just a google doc I shared among friends (it used to literally just have the Nexus list instead of its own list, lord almighty). No one really said anything about it, so it kinda just stuck.

A small correction to your bit on Veil of Balance, you're not actually restricted from taking a veil with an alignment descriptor counter to your own alignment. You can shape and use a [good] veil as an evil creature, it'll likely just be less useful to you unless you're fighting other evil creatures. My idea for it was to reward characters who were dedicated to neutrality, like an old-school Druid kind of thing, but I can admit I may have gone a bit overboard on it. When I finally get around to another book for Huay, it'll likely be erratacated. In the meantime, consider your proposed changes to have my stamp of approval!

For the Arcadian's daeva, they do still get essence, as the akashic subtype grants essence equal to your racial hit dice, which is what things like animal companions and phantoms use. I definitely should have put in some reminder text for that instead of assuming everyone would have weird little rules like that memorized, so that's my fault. And for veils, they share the Arcadian's veils like a normal Helmsman's mech would, and can select things like Shape Veil with their feats, if they so choose. I wish I could have made it a bit more elegant, but Natural Veilweaver just had to go due to the "shape and bind literally any veil from any list" thing.

Again, thanks so much for your thoughts, criticism, and enjoyment of the book! I don't know if you like Path of War, but if so, keep an eye out for my next book~ (It'll actually be notated properly, I swear)

Going with Black Seraph Style would fit nicely with the Guard's Glare feat, forcing creatures scared of you to save if they even want to try and run away.

Cursed Razor is generally better for classes that get a Claim feature, due to feat synergy. Eternal Guardian (and EG Style) might be better for you, since it synergizes nicely with combat maneuvers and intimidation, while still getting all those sweet curse abilities.

It would depend on the counter, but for the most part, yes. Bait the Dragon requires an enemy to make an attack, not hit you, which is the trigger for most counters as well.

As for your second question, it is the same as the first, provided you have Combat Reflexes.

Yes, you can use your recovery outside of combat, whether to recover your maneuvers or to get the other benefits. The only exception is classes that use granted maneuvers, but that's because of their special mechanics. And they still regain their granted maneuvers the following round if they expend them outside of combat.

There's Psi-Animus Assault. You could also get ahold of the The Primordial title veil, either by taking the Narcissism feat or getting a Rajah on your team.

There's some psionic powers that deal with animus, but they mostly involve either giving animus to others or punishing enemies that use animus, and a feat that increases the DC of powers when using animus, none of which really help a Zealot.

There's also the Roil Dancer archetype for Kineticist and the Rubato Bard, but obviously since they're PoW archetypes for a non-PoW classes, they max out at 6th level maneuvers. Up to you if that's something you're interested in.

Those items are from Kineticists of Porphyra. Not sure why they're in the Spheres wiki... But yeah, those are all good and well-balanced. N. Jolly is the hero Kineticists need.

No. You have to follow what the strike says, so you cannot replace it with a bull rush without some other ability to allow you to do so. Like how a Magus can replace a touch attack for a spell with a weapon attack or, in some cases, combat maneuver.

In case you wanted the exact wording, here it is:

All initiating classes have the ability to swap maneuvers for newer ones as they level up. This is meant to work off of initiator level, rather than class level. In the Maneuvers section of each initiating class, replace

“Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even numbered initiator level thereafter (6th, 8th, 10th, and so on)” with

“Upon reaching initiator level 4th, and at every even numbered initiator level thereafter (6th, 8th, 10th, and so on)”. The bolded text has been changed.

Since prestige classes advance the initiator level of the previous class, this applies to them as well.

I'm having a bit of a disagreement of the use of the Highlord's Mark ability.

At 5th level, willingly or unwillingly, a highlord’s charismatic and psionic nature bleeds into the environment around him. The highlord can establish a location as his territory, after spending at least a week in the area around it. This location must be an area no larger in volume than a cube that is a number of feet per side equal to 10 feet per highlord level. If it is a public (or at least well known) area, it becomes widely regarded by others that the highlord controls or own it in some way. The highlord’s power influences the appearance of the area through his open heart ability, though objects within it are not changed as to become unrecognizable.

My opinion is that you can spread out the area provided by the ability to cover irregularly-sized areas, or restrict it so that it only covers a single building, due to the very specific "area no larger in volume than a cube that is..." wording.

One of my fellow players believes that it's an immutable cube. So if you're a level 5 Highlord, you get a 50x50x50 cube and just plop is down somewhere. For example, if there's a tower that's 20x20x60, you have to wait until level 6 to fully claim it.

Thoughts?

I'd recommend Fool's Errand over Broken Blade, personally. But that's me.

Look at this line from the Vitalist's level 2 ability, Spirit of Many:

Whenever a vitalist manifests a power with the Network descriptor targeting only members of his collective, the power loses the mind-affecting descriptor (if it had it) and bypasses any power resistance, although it still provokes an attack of opportunity to manifest as normal.

Why would you need to be able to remove the mind-affecting descriptor if you can't put creatures immune to mind-affecting effects into the collective in the first place? Therefor, the collective is not a mind-affecting ability.

Yeah, that should work.

Yes. Though if you're using the High Psionics rules, do note that they also recommend replacing the Wild Talent feat with Unlocked Talent for all purposes.

In campaigns where psionics is more commonplace, such as the Third Dawn Campaign Setting, it is recommended to remove the prerequisite of Wild Talent from Unlocked Talent and substitute the Unlocked Talent feat for Wild Talent to represent how the ability to manifest powers is common within the world.

I've got a Rajah (Batal archetype) that got my DM to temporarily ban it because it's so ridiculous. Using a bow (with The Specialist veil for elemental arrows) and the Sword of the Sun King to blast out cones of akashic flame, then holding them in place with The Memory to strike again the next round. All this while healing my allies to tip-top shape. He thought I was trying to cheat until I walked him through the whole thing.

Yes, an unarmed strike is a weapon, so you can totally use Windmill Waltz to get three unarmed strikes (and I do~).

As for Death at Ten Paces, yeah, it definitely looks that way. Though if you have Endless Dance of Death, you might be better served using the 6th level stance, Lesson V: Expression, and using something like Lightning Strikes Twice as your boost.

Kahnya is right about Thrashing Dragon, though watch out for that Flurry of Blows thing, since it's only Unchained Monk that doesn't take the penalties. Chained Monk's and Brawler's Flurry have a -2.

Oh damn, I completely forgot about that. Good catch, thank you. Also, thank you so much for writing the Akashic stuff, we're having a blast with it!

One of my players on my online server is playing a Gamla (technically a Feelkha, but potato, potahto) Warder. He's using a Medium-sized longsword but a Large-sized shield (cuz we figured using a Medium shield would offer less protection). Anyway, the reason for this is this trait of the Gamla:

Undersized Weapons: The gamla have crude ungulate hands which make it difficult for them to wield properly sized weapons. As such, gamla’s ability to wield manufactured weapons is determined as though the gamla were one size category smaller than they actually are.

The issue arises because he's using Iron Tortoise and needs to make shield bash attacks for his counters, but he takes the the -2 penalty for using an inappropriately sized weapon, because the shield is too big for his clumsy elephant hands.

I'm just... somewhat unsure what to do about this, so I'm hoping for some advice. We're a big community with lots of players, so I can't just make a snap ruling like I would for a home game.

Attempting to pierce the spell resistance of your allies is not an attack, no.

I'm gonna be honest, everything you said was super convoluted. But it looks like you asking about healing someone while under the effects of Sanctuary. So no, healing is not going to break Sanctuary. If you're casting, like, Cure Light Wounds on a zombie, that'll break it because healing harms undead, but otherwise you'll be fine.

Kristal Moonhand wrote:

There are plenty of classes and/or archetypes which give bonus feats without explicitly stating that you need to meet the prereqs.

They don't need to since the general rules tell you that you must.

So I guess the True Silvered Throne Shaman doesn't get Ritual Hex since that's a 1st level ability for them and Ritual Hex requires 4 ranks in both Arcana and History? Warpriests don't get Weapon Focus since that requires +1 BAB and they have +0 BAB at 1st level.

Are you asking if healing is an offensive combat action? Because the answer is no. That "even those that don’t damage opponents" is for stuff like Hold Person.

There are plenty of classes and/or archetypes which give bonus feats without explicitly stating that you need to meet the prereqs.

That said, since Earth blasts are physical, they generally don't allow for SR.

It's not the person that's damaging the telekinetically blasted item, it's the force of your blast itself.

I think you missed the part where they were stealing, hon.

Yeah, we just ignore that rule because it's dumb.

There are several Styles that don't need IUS, such as Swordplay Style and Mobile Bulwark Style. Unless you were speaking specifically about Styles that use Wis for stuff.

Also, check out the Evangelist Boon for Erastil. It's Wis to both attack and damage~

It's James Jacobs. Starknives are his baby.

Feint is not a maneuver, despite being listed alongside the actual maneuvers. Ridiculous, I know, but true.

I also have a slightly related question. Since the phantom weapon can be a ranged weapon, does the Phantom Blade need to provide ammo if they take a bow or does the weapon come with its own ammo?

The Phantom Blade Spiritualist says its weapon is "an incorporeal masterwork weapon of its type". If it's incorporeal, does that mean it ignores armor and shields?

I'd just ask the DM to let me use a rifle when I can afford it.

Brew Potion and the Promethean Disciple discovery sets the precedent for how the Alchemist works vis-à-vis spell requirements. Don't start the old "Alchemists aren't casters, but yeah, they're casters" and "extracts aren't spells, but yeah, they're spells" shit up again.

You can get Craft Wand as an Alchemist through the Spell Knowledge discovery, since that gives you a caster level.

Here's a more permanent solution.

Here you go.

It is indeed abusable, that's why my group limits you to one Training weapon. Picking up a second one replaces the effects of the first.

Ask your DM to let you use Dimensional Dervish to grab allies and move them around instead of attacking.

Some advice for DMs, stealing the PCs' stuff is a great way to get them to go where you want. I had some goblins steal the PCs' boots while they slept and they spent three sessions (about an in-game week) tracking them down as I led them to an ancient jungle temple. They weren't even magical boots, they were just so pissed at the goblins' audacity.

I actually have a Halfling sling fighter who uses this feat. For what it's worth, my group uses the 2nd interpretation, that WF (sling) also applies to sling staves and double slings and such.

Bro... This thread is over 8 years old. It's from the very beginning of Pathfinder's existence. That bit of thread necromancy was entirely unnecessary.

Bump

You can't do both, they do not stack.

A character can take more than one archetype (sometimes called “stacking” archetypes) and garner additional alternate class features, but none of the alternate class features can replace or alter the same class feature from the base class as another alternate class feature. For example, a fighter could not be both an armor master and a brawler, since both archetypes replace the weapon training 1 class feature with something different.

Monk of the Empty Hand alters flurry of blows. Sensei replaces it with advice, aka bardic performance.

Now, if your group is ignoring that rule, that's one thing. But don't try and pretend like what you're doing is actually allowed normally. Also, you still can't use your Wisdom mod to attack with improvised weapons unless your DM allows that as well, since insightful strike only affects unarmed strikes or monk weapons.

That was not antagonistic at all, but go off, I guess.

You cannot cast the spell if you miss with your weapon attack.

Also, Dajur, that is a poor understanding of how touch spells work. Shocking Grasp is also instantaneous and it definitely can be held.

You can't Ride the Blast with telekinetic blast.

Yeah, so just like the title says, can you make metal alchemical cartridges like dragon's breath or entangling shot for advanced firearms? And if so, how much do they cost? I tried googling this but all I got was a good two dozen people asking if metal cartridges being "sturdier versions of alchemical cartridges" meant that they reduced the reload time, which was not at all helpful.

Fourshadow, don't forget that slings are thrown weapons. Get yourself a Halfling!

Okay, but incorporeal creatures cannot fall. That's in the incorporeal special quality description: "Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage." So yeah, ghosts don't need to make hover checks.