Akashic Mysteries: Vizier (PFRPG) PDF

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Bind energy to your chakras with the secrets held in Akashic Mysteries!

In Akashic Mysteries, the veilweaving system of magic is introduced, where akashic energy is wielded by new classes like the vizier, daevic, and guru, who form this energy into veils that they bind to different chakras on the body. Inspired by Arabian and Indian myths, the mystical veils woven by these new classes imbue the veilweaver or the equipment they carry. Each release in the series will contain different parts of the veilweaving system.

In this 31-page release is the vizier class, the undisputed master of veilweaving. In addition, included in this release are dozens of new feats for using veilweaving, the rules for veilweaving, and all of the veils a vizier can use.

If you want to get the entire book, be sure to instead pick up the on-going product that includes all individual releases like this release, as well as the final PDF combining all the parts of veilweaving into a single book!

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An intriguing new way to weave magic

4/5

First, I have to disclose that I received this product as a review copy.

Now to start off, I like this class a lot. There are many good details and interesting concepts here, and everything is presented with relative crispness and clearness.

Though reading the book is a must towards understanding the variant magical system, but in a nutshell the vizier can bind magical effects to various magical item slots on his body, such as hands and wrist slots. You then use points to create and maintain various effects around your body. For those of you wondering, these veils do not interfere with or replace normal magical items; both can be used simultaneously.

I did run into a few places where there was some strange wording on certain abilities, such as the Path of the Ruler Aura of Subjugation. It's a minor quibble, but it did take a few read throughs to understand what the ability did.

That having been said, I did thoroughly enjoy the variations of the vizier through paths, similar to archetypes in Pathfinder. As another nitpick, I wondered about the Path of Seer movement ability, and if it would apply past the range. Again, it seems somewhat unclear.

However, I am very keen on the Path of the Seer and its sharing of teamwork feats. I am always in favor of a class feature that uses teamwork feats without much fuss, as the teamwork feat concept is great, but had a poor initial implementation. The path of the Seer seems like a strange bard type.

I love the feats, and they mostly seemed well balanced, though ones like Essence of the Immortal seemed overpowered, providing far more hit points than the Toughness feat to which it compares itself.

Many of the feats lend the flavor of the Akashic to base classes, give generalized bonuses, or bolster the vizier further. Despite this, they work just as well for non-akashics by providing 1 point of essence per feat. There were a number of feats such as "Access Low Chakra Slot" that allowed for chakra binding (or in other words, higher powers bound to that slot) depending on the character level and not the vizier level. I instantly saw that as a hearty encouragement to multiclass, which is generally not seen in other class builds.

Somewhere between the feats and veils, I started to note that the term allies was thrown around a lot, and it seemed somewhat loose, but I might need to bone up on my pathfinder terminology to see how sturdy the term holds up to scrutiny.

Veils are well thought out, and very interesting. I do worry that the effects, while potent and interesting, have save DC's that are too low, due to the spellcasting nature of the viziers. An average vizier at level 10 might have a save DC of 16 for any of his effects, while a wizard of that level is likely to have a save DC of 19 for at least his most potent effects. This isn't generally a worry, but might become exacerbated at higher levels.

The veils themselves are interesting and varied, giving a wide range of effects while leaving room for other more interesting veils to be provided in the future. The binding feature that escalates the power of each veil was well thought out, and gives an interesting gradient of power that blends well with the class.

With that all having been said, I thoroughly enjoyed the vizier class, and am interested to see more. As I understand, this class may soon receive further updates, and I am looking forward to that product. Until then, I am giving this book 4 stars in anticipation for what I am sure is a 5 star product in progress.


Build your own class, Incarnum style

5/5

This is the first release of the Akashic Mysteries series. For those just tuning in, Akashic Mysteries is a Dreamscarred press product that is basically a reimagining and fine-tuning of Magic of Incarnum. It uses 3 new classes instead of porting the old ones over. Veils in this system do not take up your magic item slots (unlike soulmelds), and in some cases enhance the magic item in the slot.

There are many ways to describe the Vizier because this class can take on all sorts of different roles. Basically, depending on your feat and veil choice, Viziers can act wildly different from each other. Despite the d6 hit die, they can be durable melee combatants, deadly "archers", or take on more standard "caster" roles such as area blasting, debuffing, and buffing.

There is not much to say after Endzeitgeist's review, though I do have my piece to say about the Vizier's veils, and the feats presented in the document.

The Vizier's veils have a variety of uses. Basically, there is a veil for most situations. Because of this (in conjunction with Veilshifting, which allows the Vizier to change out which veils he has) you are going to want to know what most of your veils do. I personally recommend keeping notecards labeled with different kinds of adventuring days like "downtime," "high probability of undead," or "definitely humans today" that contain different veil layouts, for when you know how the adventuring day will go. While there are many veils that are good no matter what, some excel when you are prepared.

I do wish there were more alignment veils, but that is a small complaint on my end. It is more important to have functional and fun veils before worrying about alignment.

The feats are excellent. There are many strong options for multiclassing and gestalt in the feats presented here. I personally wanted to see a few feats tailored to the Vizier, but the "standard" Akashic feats are still very powerful. In particular, Extra Essence is very strong and increases your versatility. This is rare for an “extra class feature” feat. There are feats to grant minor veilweaving to any interested class, feats to improve veilweaving for anyone, and feats that count as essence receptacles, granting bonuses as essence is invested into them. For instance, such as Will of the Daeva, which grants a bonus to will saves equal to the essence invested in this feat.

If you are looking for a balanced, interesting release you should look no further. Fans of Incarnum, or people who want a customizable magic system that mostly lacks daily limits, should definitely check this release out too.


An Endzeitgeist.com review

4/5

This first installment of the Akashic Mysteries-series clocks in at 31 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement and 1 page SRD, leaving us with 27 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?

First of all, in case you don't know - this is the PFRPG-version of "Magic of Incarnum", updated, refined and refluffed. But it's more than that. Let me elaborate - back in teh day, i liked the basic concept of Incarnum; its balancing may not always have been perfect, but it was an interesting system, one I wished had come out sooner and wish better cost/benefit ratios. I didn't enjoy the fluff, but that could be changed easily. Still, the system didn't seem to gel well with my group, until we went gestalt - in that playstyle, it excelled.

Fast-forward to this series - has it inherited the weaknesses of its parent-system? What about the flavor? We'll see!

The class introduced herein would be the vizier, who receives d6, 2+Int skills per level, proficiency with light armor, bucklers and simple weapons. The class has 1/2 BAB-progression and, uncommon for a full caster, but not unheard of, good fort and will-saves. The main schtick of the class, though, would be veilweaving, which is grouped into two categories, namely veils and essences. A 1st level vizier begins play with 2 veils and 1 essence and increases that to a total of 11 veils and 30 essences at 20th level.

Viziers receive instant access to all veils on the vizier's list, apart from those of an alignment opposing that of the vizier. When required, a veil's save DC is 10 + number of essence points invested + vizier's Intelligence modifier. A vizier may invest up to his character level in essence into a given veil or given receptacle. Here, the wording is slightly non-standard - not to a point where I'd complain about this or detract from the verdict, but still, making this one slightly more linear in its wording would help. At 3rd level, 11th and 19th, the vizier increases the maximum capacity of a receptacle by +1. DCs also increase by +1 on these levels. Re-allocating essence into veils can be done as a swift action each round. Veils are prepared much like spells each day after rest etc.

You may have noticed that the vizier, in spite of what the base frame of the class might look like, is NOT a spellcaster - however, they do treat vizier-levels as arcane caster levels for purposes of qualifying for feats and abilities. Now I mentioned that essence can be freely re-distributed between veils - well the same does *NOT* hold true regarding the investiture of essence into magic items with charges: Wands, staves and wondrous items can be infused with essence, gaining additional charges that last for 24 hours before dissipating. These cannot be reassigned and remain essentially locked in the item. Here, there's issue, though - (warning: nitpickery!) balance is a bit opaque, since the basic veilweaving does not specify when the essence-pool refreshes, instead stating "A vizier must have at least 8 hours rest or meditation to achieve a clear and focused state, and must meditate for one hour to shape his veils for the day." One could argue that you could theoretically invest essence twice into an item in a given 24 hour-period. Would that be smart? In most of the cases, it wouldn't be. I'd hence suggest to include a sentence that clearly states that essence invested in items does not regenerate before 24 hours have elapsed. Also, since the duration and essence capacity maximum (see waaaay down in the section on veilweaving) could cause confusion here, I'd strongly suggest rewiring the rest/essence-regain-wording.

There is another issue - an item that has essence invested in it not only gains the temporary charges, it also does never prompt UMD checks to use. While the ability can only be used to activate spells of 8th level or lower, it can still lead to problems.

What do I mean by this? Surprisingly, I'm not complaining about items with few charges being left as treasure to have some "smart bombs" here; What I'm not sold on is simply the flat-out "no UMD"-section AND the non-scaling nature of this ability. What if the players find a wand with precious few charges or a unique staff and can just flat-out use it? I am aware that these are fringe-cases, but it would theoretically allow the vizier to utilize charge-based items beyond his level's capacity (if the DM foolishly drops them into the treasure...) - and there is a pretty easy solution that prevents the issue: Just make the highest spell level of the item the governing factor for whether or not you have to UMD and make it scale with class level progression, by e.g. tying it to twice essence capacity. Now, yes, the base ability isn't broken, but I maintain that such a solution would be much more elegant and prevent fringe-case abuse.

Now there also are so-called chakra-binds - these are gained at 2nd level in a linear manner, +1 at every 2nd level, in a fixed progression from Hands, feet, head, wrist, shoulders, headband, neck, belt chest and finally, at 20th level, body. At 9th level, the vizier can bind veils in the ring slot and at 15th level, you can bind them into both ring slots. On a nitpicky-side, I don't get why the ring-slots are not wrapped in the chakra-ability, but that is purely a cosmetic gripe.

At 3rd level, viziers may reshape a veil 1/day (+1/day for every 4 levels thereafter) as a standard action that provokes AoOs into a new veil. Additionally, each time the daily uses increase, you may also shift one additional veil per ability use. The capstone allows for at-will veilshaping - and whenever the class uses the veilshaping ability, he regains 3+Int temporary essence.

Viziers also receive a kind of bloodline-ish linear ability chosen at first level - a total of 3 are provided and I hope we'll see more of those. The Path of the Crafter, Path of the Seer and Path of the Ruler.

The Path of the Crafter gain a bonus equal to 1/2 class level (rounded up or down?) on all skill-checks made as part of the crafting process. That is *pretty* powerful. Allies within 30 ft. that activate a magic item, treat caster level and DC of the activated item as +1. That is nasty, but will also make the vizier rather popular with his adventuring companions. Okay, where things get rather unique would be in one particular ability - transfer essence. This allows you to meditate on items and exchange their bonuses and special abilities. - Found a cool weapon, but don't have the proficiency for it? just exchange the enchantment with those on your trusty sword. I applaud the fact that you can't cherry-pick abilities. Now, on the other hand, wand/staff charges can also be exchanged if the items have the same highest spell level - a fitting restriction, but one I'd suggest to be supplemented with an analogue caster level (or lower) restriction to prevent spells that increase their potency with caster level having their charges cheaply upped by using charges from items that do not scale with CL. Once again, not a bad glitch, but rather one that can easily be fixed.

The path also grants item creation feats and a decreased craft-price at higher levels. Oh, and kudos for the intelligent item/cursed item/artifact caveat!

The path of the ruler is all about granting a will-save/sense motive debuff aura, with selective exclusion of allies. Enforcing a reroll at high levels is nice, but when compare to the Crafter's benefits, the path of the ruler feels pretty meek. The poor guy could use an upgrade for his aura.

The path of the seer increases movement of all allies within 60 ft. by +5 ft, +5 more at 9th and 17th level - neat. Now the interesting part comes next - the seer learns teamwork feats and for each point invested, the class may share ALL teamwork feats granted by this ability (1 is gained at 1st, 5th, 9th and 13th level) with an ally; additionally, veils tied to hand or feat may be shared alongside with allies. High-level seer-viziers may freely retrain the teamwork feats. See, that one is a competent, powerful commander-style path and once again, mops the floor with the relatively uninspired ruler-path.

Next up would be an array of new feats, 37 if I'm not mistaken. There are some feats for non-akashic classes to wilder in the system. Feats with the new [Akashic]-descriptor increase the essence pool by +1. The feats very much do support one aspect I loved about the original incarnum - gestalting and multiclassing. Investing essence into one school to have the school's spells at CL+1? Can see that. On the downside, these feats constitute neither veils, nor charge-bearing items, so not sure whether one can freely re-allocate essence invested via feats of this formula. Free reallocation would amount to pretty much free CL+1 for all spells of that school. While not too bad in this example, when one takes a look at the power point-reducing feat in the same line (reduce PP-cost by essence invested, thankfully with power-level based additional restrictions), it becomes apparent that free reallocation is something that needs to be addressed, otherwise, you could decrease the cost of ALL powers subsequently. This is especially puzzling since the feat that allows you to invest essence in favor of getting power points *does* specify the 24 hours-no-reassignment cap. This also becomes also apparent when taking a look at the otherwise interesting veilbound metamagic, which once again uses a 1/day formula.

The pdf ought to specify whether it uses the 24-hour bind-and-locked wording or whether it imposes a cap on how many times per day essence can be invested in a feat - utilizing both models quickly becomes confusing. After multiple extensive playtesting sessions, I'd suggest the former, i.e. going analogue to charge-investment, for what it's worth.

Conversely, not all feats suffer from this specific issue -akashic charge allows you to 1/day invest essence in the feat, granting a bonus to atk and damage when charging equal to the essence invested. Its missing no-reassignment clause has been addressed in the errata and I'm willing to believe that this component will feature in the next update. This type of complaint, however, can be fielded against a whole feat-class herein - I assume that to be oversights in layout/editing, since some feats clearly sport this caveat. There are *a lot* of feats interacting and enhancing existing feats here and math-wizards *will* have a field day here. I just hope that all those cool feats receive the "no reassignment for 24 hours"-caveat in the next update - as provided here, the feats that lack it can be broken pretty easily.

Essentially, the point boils down to the following scenario:

Does the feat grant a significant bonus based on essence-investment? If yes, it should have the essence bound analogue to charge items.

Does the feat instead grant a highly situational or very restricted bonus? Then essence should remain flexible to justify the feat investment.

In any case, adding the 1/day restrictions feels a bit tacked on; with just a bit of minor streamlining, this whole section can be rid of its minor issues and made more smooth.

Beyond these, I also noticed that "Essence of the Immortals" has the [Akashic]-descriptor, but has neither an essence pool as a prerequisite, nor does it grant +1 essence -the same holds true for some other feats, but I have not yet determined whether that's intentional or an oversight.

This may all have sounded terribly negative - it's not my intent to do so. It's just that this one glitch in how the whole feat-class works makes it very hard to judge whether these work as intended or not. The plus-side here is that the math underlying the feats can be considered powerful, but NOT overpowered - at least once the 24-hour lock-caveat has been implemented. To close my discussion on the feats with something positive - the massive gestalting potential of incarnum is not only maintained, it is surpassed - the feats here have something for just about everyone to utilize, which is downright awesome.

All right, so let's get to veilweaving, shall we? Every veil is associated with a chakra and *can* be bound to the chakra if the akashic class is powerful enough to do so, gaining more benefits. Each chakra corresponds to an equipment slot and some veils can occupy one or two or even more different slots. It is very important to note that veils bound to chakras do *NOT* interfere with items worn in the same slot - the biggest suckage-factor of incarnum is GONE.

Upon manifesting the veil, you can choose which slot the veil is applied to. If you remember the above discussion of the class, you'll realize that new chakras become unlocked at a fixed progression. Veils interact with spells and spell-like abilities as if they were spells. Veils, unless they modify/grant natural attacks or weapons, are subject to SR. Veils can be targeted and even sundered to temporarily suppress them. identifying veils works via Knowledge (arcana), which may seem a bit odd, seeing the usual adherence to Spellcraft for such a task...but I actually really like this decision. it adds a "different" flavor to the magic-class. Now before you all start screaming regarding how huge, highly circumstantial bonuses can be stacked up - there *is* a pretty conservative essence capacity limit based on character level - no more than this fixed amount can be invested in any one veil, feat, etc.

Now the veils...ooohhh, if you like customizable classes, you'll have a field day here! Fascination-auras with customizable aura size may be nice...but what if a target is freed from the effect and you have bound the veil to your wrist? Well, then you can deliver what my group called the "akashic pimp slap" with a free action ranged touch attack. Eyes of fiery death? Yup. Veils that improve starting attitude (and this one ACTUALLY manages to achieve the "disarming smile/diplomancer-trope *so much* better than comparable options, it's really cool) can be found herein alongside those helping with elemental affinities. Want a veil that allows you to spontaneously create zombies (or cairn wights in ring-slot-bound-form?) from the deceased? Channel-like effects of veils have thankfully daily limits imposed upon them to prevent abuse - that's how it's done.

On a nitpicky side that will not influence the final verdict, the veil that grants a draconic breath weapon could have used a short list of what dragon-colors net lines and which cones - while *I* know them by hard, many players will have to look that one up. As mentioned, nitpicking here and not gonna penalize the pdf for one page-skip required. Pretty awesome - by binding the aforementioned veil to the neck, you can further increase your draconic breath's power; alternatively, you can grow wings with increasing maneuverability. Now the hand cannons combined with target of Opportunity are a pretty nasty combo -especially when combined with a sniper as deadly as the one I have in my group - but come on. Hand cannons. I actually made a hand cannon in an archetype once. I'm a berserk fanboy. I can't hate on magical hand cannons. (Plus, while powerful, they're not broken.)

Want whips of light? Yup. What about binding it to make trip attempts against every enemy in range whenever the veil is triggered? Yep, that's crazy awesome to not be flooded by groups of moderately competent mooks. And yes, in playtest, a defense scenario against floods of foes actually saw the vizier shine pretty nicely.

Conclusion of my review in the product discussion.


All day magic

5/5

I don't normally post to this forum, but I was over checking things out on another product I was interested in and thought I'd come weigh in on the vizier. I love the Dreamscarred Press stuff and I think our group probably uses something from them in every game we play. I've played the dread and the soulknife from their psionic books, and the stalker from Path of War.
The vizier uses life energy called essence to power up magic devices called veils. The veils range from cloaks that let you breathe fire and fly like a dragon, to rings that let you summon and control undead. He also gets abilities called paths that let him craft items, share teamwork feats, or gain an oppressive aura that lowers enemies saves.
I'm generally not a big fan of casting classes, but I liked that the vizier felt almost more like a superhero, where I picked my powers for the day and just kept doing those things. It made it a lot easier to play a character who acted as the party wizard but where I didn't have to keep track of spell slots, durations, and all the small fiddly bits that distract from just getting in and playing the game.


A new look at Incarnum

3/5

My opinion of this product is fairly average. While I believe the class is relatively balanced, the veils seem to lacks something and the essence cap in it's current form makes some of the veils abilities fluctuate.

First off you can't shape a veil that opposes your alignment (fine same with divine spells), then you find 4 evil veils, 0 chaos, 0 good and 0 law...

Second there is no interaction between the alignments:
-No way to get past aligned DR
-No ability to target certain alignments
-No down side to be neutral at higher levels (not a major concern, but high level effects for pathfinder tend to a little less forgiving against those who sit on the fence then "previous systems")

The scaling for the Vizier' veils essence cap is:
1-2 1
3-5 2
6-10 3
11 4
12-17 5
18 6
19+ 7
Given that a lot of the damage this class can deal is not based on a per day limit, it might surprise some GM's that over the course of 2 levels the damaged can potentially jump up 6d6 after lagging behind for a while.

There are no magic items.

There are no guides or rules to make your own veils, I'm only surprised because it was mentioned in a couple veil descriptions.

Since I have MoI I should be able to port over a couple aligned melds to fill this out a little more, but even then it is still a solid class.

I look forward to archetypes, and am glad the "smite feat" was left in the dust.


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I want to thank everyone for their help in getting me to understand the Vizier and the mechanics behind its Akashic abilities. I've come to love this class and its possibilities. Can't wait to see the Guru.


No problem! Did you end up building a crazy vizier? You should totally spoil the details to us.


LOL I haven't yet. I don't have an opportunity to be a player currently, so it'd have to be an NPC. But I'll try to put something together soon.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

DungeonmasterCal wrote:
I want to thank everyone for their help in getting me to understand the Vizier and the mechanics behind its Akashic abilities. I've come to love this class and its possibilities. Can't wait to see the Guru.

You're very welcome! You'll have to let us know what you make with it :)


Tinkering with a Vizier build. Nothing crazy, just hoping to make something solid and fun. I may have overlooked it, but does the Vizier get extra essence for having a high Intelligence score?

Also, since a Vizier cannot weave a Veil that opposes his alignment, where does this leave Neutral Viziers?


Dot.


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Neutral Viziers can use all veils. No alignment restrictions!

Paizo Employee Design Manager

1 person marked this as a favorite.
DungeonmasterCal wrote:

Tinkering with a Vizier build. Nothing crazy, just hoping to make something solid and fun. I may have overlooked it, but does the Vizier get extra essence for having a high Intelligence score?

Also, since a Vizier cannot weave a Veil that opposes his alignment, where does this leave Neutral Viziers?

The Vizier does not gain extra essence for having a high INT mod. That primarily impacts DCs, total uses of veil powers like those that emulate channel effects, and a few other things.

Neutral viziers don't really have a downside, other than the mockery rained upon them by viziers with the cojones to actually pick a side :P


LOL..thanks!


Is there a hero lab file available for the Akashic classes?

Paizo Employee Design Manager

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Kiora Atua wrote:
Is there a hero lab file available for the Akashic classes?

I have no idea. I'll see if Andreas is familiar enough with the guys at Hero Labs to get an answer or an ETA on that one. My guess would be that given how many moving parts there are in the system, they're waiting on the final compiled release since even a relatively small change could create a cascading programming nightmare.

Sovereign Court

Reviewed!

Paizo Employee Design Manager

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Lorathorn wrote:
Reviewed!

Thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to do the review. When you got your review copy, did we direct send the .pdf or did you get a download code? Vizier is going to be getting some updates soon, including a couple that directly address your (excitingly few) concerns, like tidying up Path of the Ruler and adjusting Essence of the Immortal.

Just to chat a bit about some of the other points you went over:

Quote:
Somewhere between the feats and veils, I started to note that the term allies was thrown around a lot, and it seemed somewhat loose, but I might need to bone up on my pathfinder terminology to see how sturdy the term holds up to scrutiny.

References to allies are common enough in the core system that there is a FAQ just to make it clear that effects that refer to your allies also include you (unless otherwise stated).

Quote:
I instantly saw that as a hearty encouragement to multiclass, which is generally not seen in other class builds.

Heck yeah! Veilweaving is, quite intentionally, very, very dippable, whether through feats, multiclassing, or gestalt if you happen to play in a group that uses that option. The vizier actually has many veils that specifically take into account the possibility that they'll be used by multiclass Vizier/Wizards or even by casters who just grabbed the Shape Veil feat and a couple other akashic feats to set up an essence pool.

Quote:
I do worry that the effects, while potent and interesting, have save DC's that are too low, due to the spellcasting nature of the viziers. An average vizier at level 10 might have a save DC of 16 for any of his effects, while a wizard of that level is likely to have a save DC of 19 for at least his most potent effects. This isn't generally a worry, but might become exacerbated at higher levels.

I actually had a lot of worry during design that the flexible nature of the class was going to lead to him having DCs that were too high, so they're intentionally kept at a baseline that sits about 2 points behind a wizard, but which can surpass the wizard if the vizier decides to devote additional resources. For example, say a 1st level built himself like a Wizard, started with an 18 Int (after racials) with a 14 Dex and a 14 CON (for feats, saves, and AC). He grabs Extra Essence as a feat, and decides that his veils for the day are going to be Circlet of Brass and Gorget of the Wyrm, with a point of essence in each. He now has an at-will 15 foot cone breath weapon that allows him to deal 1d6+4 fire damage with a DC 17 (10 + 4 Int + 1 for essence in GotW + 2 Circlet of Brass) Reflex save. A 1st level wizard with the same stat spread is looking at DC 15, maybe DC 16 saves on his limited use spells. The flip side, of course, is that the vizier in question just decided that fire breathing + whatever ability he has from his path is his schtick for the day, while the wizard has a larger variety of cantrips and a couple 1st level spells, so he's probably much more adaptable. This dynamic continues on throughout the game. By 20th level, if we assume the vizier and the wizard both have a 30 Intelligence (+10 modifier) the wizard is looking at a base DC of 29 for his 9th level spells. A vizier who has maxed out his investable essence in a veil (his equivalent of 9th level spellcasting) has a base DC of 27, two points lower, but at will. Sure, the wizard can pump past that 29, but the vizier can pump past that 27 just as easily. Taking the Enhanced Capacity feat alone allows him to hit 28, a fair comparison point, but if the vizier decides he wants to dedicate serious resources to the effect, he can also pump a complimentary veil. Take the Gorget of the Wyrm and Circlet of Brass combo from earlier. At 20th level, that same vizier probably has an essence pool of at least 32 (since that vizier took Extra Essence), likely more depending on his other options, like feats. If he really wants to blow something up with that Gorget of the Wyrm, he takes the Enhanced Capacity feat to give it an essence cap of 8 and fills it all the way up, letting him deal 15d6 fire damage at will in a 15 foot cone, Reflex save DC 28 for half (this could also have the additional effect of giving him a 100 foot fly speed with perfect maneuverability or bumping the damage to 15d8 and giving all allies within 30 feet 40 fire resistance depending on which bind you choose). Then you decide to stack Circlet of Brass onto this as well, put 7 essence in it, and now your breath weapon is dealing 15d6+16 with a DC of 36.

The more you play with the vizier, the more of these little combos you'll discover. The Tainted Chakra feat doesn't just allow non-evil viziers to shape evil veils, it also makes the zombie or cairn wight granted by the Dark Lord's Ring of Essence Binding veil stronger. Grabbing the Share Veil feat and sharing the Bloody Shroud veil to your cairn wight from DLRoEB gives you a potent beatstick while allowing you to avoid risking yourself. Combo that with Path of the Seer and the Collar of Skilled Instruction veil, and you've now got an intelligent and loyal undead ally with a bunch of shared teamwork feats, a seriously scary force on the battlefield. If you want to play a magical sniper, you can use the Hand Cannons veil in conjunction with the Eyes of the Hawkguard veil to create a magical "gun" that has a 140 foot range increment.
So on and so forth. The vizier's veils are designed to become increasingly potent the more of them you turn towards a single task, and since almost all of the abilities are at-will, they're designed to individually cap out around the same place as a 6th or 7th level spell, generally requiring you to have at least one complimentary veil if you want to hit those higher DCs. Alternatively, you can grab an offensive veil or two that doesn't grant a save and then spread out your other veils to boost your versatility with flight, SR, energy resistance, DR, etc.

Sovereign Court

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Ssalarn wrote:


Thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to do the review. When you got your review copy, did we direct send the .pdf or did you get a download code? Vizier is going to be getting some updates soon, including a couple that directly address your (excitingly few) concerns, like tidying up Path of the Ruler and adjusting Essence of the Immortal.

Just to chat a bit about some of the other points you went over:

You sent me a download code for OBS, and thank you for that.

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References to allies are common enough in the core system that there is a FAQ just to make it clear that effects that refer to your allies also include you (unless otherwise stated).

Oh good, that will help me moving forward. I get hung up on wordage, but that's my neurotic freelancer thinking.

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Heck yeah! Veilweaving is, quite intentionally, very, very dippable, whether through feats, multiclassing, or gestalt if you happen to play in a group that uses that option. The vizier actually has many veils that specifically take into account the possibility that they'll be used by multiclass Vizier/Wizards or even by casters who just grabbed the Shape Veil feat and a couple other akashic feats to set up an essence pool.

That's radical. It would totally make me want to do just that! I love wizards, and vizier seems like a great class to pair well with it.

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I actually had a lot of worry during design that the flexible nature of the class was...

Interesting... I think I haven't put on my combo hat in a while, but you are right. Those all sound fantastic. I rescind my prior statement. Bravo.

I am looking forward to not only reading and reviewing the next two akashic books, but also to seeing the revision!

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Lorathorn wrote:


You sent me a download code for OBS, and thank you for that.

You're very welcome!

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Oh good, that will help me moving forward. I get hung up on wordage, but that's my neurotic freelancer thinking.

I get that. When I first read your review I had to go double-check, make sure I hadn't accidentally pulled something from another game or edition out of my head on accident. I hadn't, but I get that mindset.

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That's radical. It would totally make me want to do just that! I love wizards, and vizier seems like a great class to pair well with it.

The Supplemental release (playtest available here) includes a PrC for Wizard/Vizier MC characters, the Amplifier. Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think, that release is going to be going off for layout pretty quick here.

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Interesting... I think I haven't put on my combo hat in a while, but you are right. Those all sound fantastic. I rescind my prior statement. Bravo.

Vizier definitely is the home of the combo hat. It's not spelled out in the document anywhere because I wanted people to explore and find their own builds, but I made sure that the Vizier is all about synergy, both with other classes and internally between his own abilities. He makes a solid generalist, but his real strength kicks in when you pick a theme to run with. I've done viziers themed after Mega Man, a necromancer, a sniper, Storm from the X-Men, a "tank" vizier who fights at the front line, and I'm currently running a vizier in Legacy of Fire who deals pesh and uses mental themed powers.

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I am looking forward to not only reading and reviewing the next two akashic books, but also to seeing the revision!

Can't wait to hear your thoughts!


Maybe I'm blind, but I can't seem to find it in the Vizier entry on d20pfsrd.com... What is the Vizier's starting wealth? Anyone?


Artemis Moonstar wrote:
Maybe I'm blind, but I can't seem to find it in the Vizier entry on d20pfsrd.com... What is the Vizier's starting wealth? Anyone?

Here's a link to the d20pfsrd. I'd assume the wealth is the same as a wizard's.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Milo v3 wrote:
Artemis Moonstar wrote:
Maybe I'm blind, but I can't seem to find it in the Vizier entry on d20pfsrd.com... What is the Vizier's starting wealth? Anyone?
Here's a link to the d20pfsrd. I'd assume the wealth is the same as a wizard's.

It is the same as a Wizard's. This got dropped on the initial .pdf release but will be reflected in all finalized releases. (For reference, Daevic starting wealth is as Paladin, and Guru is as Bard.)

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