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Well that does make some since, even if I personally felt only classes focused almost exclusively on Int like wizards and witches should get the 2+Int skill points per level, and other classes should have 4+Int at the minimum. Thanks for the explanation it is appreciated.
Of course! I will tell you, this is a design decision I struggled with a bit as well, since I generally share your belief that 2+Int isn't appropriate for non-full casters, but in this instance something really needed to give, and I felt like the skills per level was probably the best area to target for that. The level based bonuses should help keep the Daevic's most relevant and thematic skills at an acceptable level as will wise veil selection.
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If you're going to create a class for publication, it's best to balance with the classes as they are, not as you might want them to be. Home GM's can always tinker to taste.
This is absolutely correct. Sometimes you've got to design for the game you have, even if now and then it veers a bit from the game you want.
The Daevic needs to exist in the same design space as the Fighter, Cavalier, Paladin, Magus, Ranger, Slayer, Soulknife, Aegis and Bloodrager. I think that the small changes we've made (and a few more you haven't seen yet) accomplish that in a very satisfactory manner. The Fighter may feel a little pushed on, but it's hard to make a class that doesn't do that (really, every class I listed pushes on the Fighter a little), but I think we're nearing where we want this to be. Note that if you want to houserule the Daevic up to 4+Int in games that modify some of the listed classes up a bit, or in games with players with high system mastery, you can consider this my official blessing to do so (like you need it).
Glad to hear about the progress being made. I had no idea you were sick though Ssalarn! No wonder there have not been many posts recently. I hope that you are feeling a bit better and that the nurses treated you right.
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Glad to hear about the progress being made. I had no idea you were sick though Ssalarn! No wonder there have not been many posts recently. I hope that you are feeling a bit better and that the nurses treated you right.
My nurse was 6'5" and played college football. Cold hands. He was very nice though....
I'm trying to get caught up, but unfortunately I'm still getting everything caught up at the day job as well which isn't leaving me with a lot of mental resources at the end of the day. And, full disclosure here, I didn't even try to write anything yesterday because it was my 30th birthday :P
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Happy birthday!
I just have to ask: Is there a class, feat line or group of veils based on the Akashic Records? Something similar to the akashic class from Arcana Evolved capable of touching the akashic records to get memories of events and skill boosts and other stuff. Possibly a mix of psionic and veilweaver, maybe as a Cryptic archetype? Having that book name and not using that tasty concept seems like a waste.
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I just have to ask: Is there a class, feat line or group of veils based on the Akashic Records? Something similar to the akashic class from Arcana Evolved capable of touching the akashic records to get memories of events and skill boosts and other stuff. Possibly a mix of psionic and veilweaver, maybe as a Cryptic archetype? Having that book name and not using that tasty concept seems like a waste.
Nothing directly intended as such, primarily due to the fact that if I actually directly modeled anything from Arcana Evolved we'd have to look for a new name since "Akashic" + "non-OGL materials using the same name" = bad copyright mojo.
That being said, there are some good veils and options you could use that would probably effectively model the idea, and you could just adjust the fluff and flavor to taste.
Is the Daevic supposed to have Bluff as a baseline class skill and as a bonus class skill from the Desire passion, or should they have a different baseline class skill in place of Bluff like Disguise?
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Is the Daevic supposed to have Bluff as a baseline class skill and as a bonus class skill from the Desire passion, or should they have a different baseline class skill in place of Bluff like Disguise?
That'll be addressed in the update I'm working on getting out. I've juggled the skills a bit so the core class list makes sense and the bonus class skills are all of roughly equal value.
Stay tuned...
I'm curious so figured I'd ask, which one the classes would possibly fit best for a 3.5 totemist? I want to convert several old characters to the new system.
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I'm curious so figured I'd ask, which one the classes would possibly fit best for a 3.5 totemist? I want to convert several old characters to the new system.
So, the Totemist has kind of been divvied up between two classes. If you're looking for a natural attack brute who uses veils to take on the aspects of various beasts, the Daevic now owns that niche (particularly Wrath). If you used the abilities to gain breath weapons and control effects, the AoE controller class is now the Vizier.
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Bit of a pity you didn't keep the flavour of the totemist. I liked the idea of someone who drew on the symbolic powers of their totems
There were a couple issues there, the biggest one being that if we had a totem-using class with this subsystem, we would be exposing ourselves to potential copyright violations.
Also, the idea is that the two systems should be similar enough that you can easily convert materials from one to the other, but leaving us enough room to innovate and explore. I don't really want to do a new totemist; Wizards already did a totemist, and he comes over to PF fairly easily. I want to give you something new to play with that was custom designed for Pathfinder and aimed at its own niche and style, and does something new and different.
We did learn some things from the Totemist though: you'll see that both the Vizier and the Daevic have their own unique binds, with the Vizier getting access to the Ring chakra and the Daevic gaining the ability to bind veils to Blood. That gives us some room to introduce some cool options that are going to be unique to those classes even if the veils are technically accessible through feats; there are no feats to unlock the Blood or Ring binds, and the only way to get them is to play a Vizier or Daevic (respectively), so much like the Totemist had options that were specialized to him, you've got a similar mechanic available in Akashic Mysteries. The Guru was going to get a special bind as well (Aura, for those who are curious) but between his built-in debuffs and the powers of his Philosophies, it just felt like a class-specific Bind was overkill, and really unnecessary from a balance perspective besides.
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So, I have some good news, and I have some bad news.
First, the good news. I have seen the final version of the Vizier .pdf, and it is glorious. The art and layout are just spectacular, and I could hardly believe that I had a hand in making something so cool happen.
The bad news: I f**&ed up. There's not really any other way to put it. When I updated some terminology back in the early days of the project, I changed the "Chakra Forge" to the "Vizier" and "meldforms" to "Veils". When I did that, I didn't check the little box that says "match case" and every single instance of those two names was capitalized, whether appropriate or not. Then to compound my own mistake, I didn't make fixing that error a priority and despite the fact that Anguish jumped in and tried to help with editing, somehow the final version of the .pdf ended up with those mistakes. I'm not happy about it, Jeremy's not happy about it, and frankly, our respect for our fans means we really don't want to put out a substandard product with such a juvenile error in it, so I'm working with Jeremy to log all of the errors so we can get it fixed, but that may mean a delay in getting the .pdf into your hands.
I'm really sorry guys. This one is entirely on me, and I'm going to work to get it corrected as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the fact that we've already completed layout on this thing means the solution is no longer a simple find and replace, but is going to require me to log each of the errors and Jeremy or one of our other teammates who has some layout talents to go through that log and make the changes.
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Ouch, man. Well, good luck in catching all those CAPS - think it's gonna be ready for next week perhaps?
I'm only going to buy PoW and AM after the first of the next month, so the delay is no problem for me.
But the extra work sure is fubar.
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I'm working on finding the quickest possible solution to get the .pdf updated and I believe Jeremy has already made the arrangements to get it and the subscription posted for sale, so we'll do everything we can to ensure that this gets turned around as quickly as possible.
Fortunately this was caught before layout started on the Guru or Daevic, so there is 0 chance of a pervasive and rookie error like this affecting the rest of the releases.
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Sorry about the extra work. Finding stuff like that last minute sucks. Personally the wait isn't a huge deal for me. I've waited this long, I can wait a little longer.
-Kcinlive
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Ssalarn, based on what I've seen you're a very imaginative and well rounded writer for your projects, be they classes, races, or abilities. I am a bit bummed at the delay, but it's a paltry feeling compared to the Knowledge that soon I'll have access to 3 amazing classes to expand my games.
Thank you for your hard work and I will show my thanks again when we purchase your materials! I already have Ultimate Psionics and I can tell you it's just itching to have Akashik Mysteries next to it.
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Is horns of the minotaur seriously the only way to use storm gauntlets effectively or am I missing something. I find it a tad bit ridiculous that the only way to effectively use storm gauntlets is through a gore attack, and the ranged touch attack is a complete waste of a bind. Seems like the storm gauntlets were meant for a different class or a hold over from when the Vizer had a average bab instead of poor, and should be reworked or removed unless I'm missing something here.
The Vizier and the Daevic both have access to Storm Gauntlets, as do characters who want to multiclass, so a given veil may not always be his "go to" veil, but I don't think that removing the veil or altering it are necessary. At 2nd level the vizier has an elemental at-will ranged attack that allows him to drop about 5 points of damage reliably from a safe distance, and this scales up to a 6d8 at-will ranged touch attack on one of the weakest bind slots; the fact that it does elemental damage leaves the door open for it to interact with other elemental effects, take advantage of vulnerabilities, etc.
While it won't always be the best choice for the vizier, there are many levels where it will be a good choice; as the veil becomes less useful for the vizier, it will become more useful for the daevic, and the vizier will have access to a wider array of effective elemental options elsewhere.
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Vizier is now looking good for a release this week - the crapstorm that was my life has started to settle down to the point that I've been able to incorporate most of the edits that were almost missed. I should have the rest finished soon.
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Vizier is now looking good for a release this week - the crapstorm that was my life has started to settle down to the point that I've been able to incorporate most of the edits that were almost missed. I should have the rest finished soon.
Thanks for getting this taken care of and rolled out Jeremy! As I can personally attest, the fans who've been following this project totally get that crapstorms happen in life (I've been under a perpetual brown overcast for months!).
To everyone else, hopefully you're as excited to get your hands on the Vizier as I am to hear what you all think of the final product. I may have mentioned this already, but Guru is back from editing and getting the final review from me, so things should be on schedule for regular, quality releases of all the subscription components.
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That's ok! A few delays never hurt anybody.
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+1. Take the time you need, we'll be here.
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I'm okay to wait for quality. I'll be all over it when it comes out.
I am excited about the vizier's release. I can't wait to see all the art assets you acquired for it! Also it will also let me pick up that subscription to the whole line! Thank you for your hard work Ssalarn and Jeremy, I don't mind waiting. Especially when the product is so professional.
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I'll just leave this here: Now available!Hurrah!
Which of the (two available) Dreamscarred sites would be best to get the subscription through? I have accounts at both; one for part of my rewards from the PsiMinis KS, and another for most of the pdf's. I'd rather like to keep everything in one place (better overview and all that) than have to bounce back and forth. Thanks!
It shouldn't make a difference as far as I'm aware. I'll share your question with the boss dudes and see if they have any input.
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Will be subscribing when I get home from work tonight.
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It shouldn't make a difference as far as I'm aware. I'll share your question with the boss dudes and see if they have any input.I'll just leave this here: Now available!Hurrah!
Which of the (two available) Dreamscarred sites would be best to get the subscription through? I have accounts at both; one for part of my rewards from the PsiMinis KS, and another for most of the pdf's. I'd rather like to keep everything in one place (better overview and all that) than have to bounce back and forth. Thanks!
Andreas informs me that though the new site is not fully launched yet, you should feel free to pick up the subscription there if you want.
I'll just leave this here: Now available!Hurrah!
Which of the (two available) Dreamscarred sites would be best to get the subscription through? I have accounts at both; one for part of my rewards from the PsiMinis KS, and another for most of the pdf's. I'd rather like to keep everything in one place (better overview and all that) than have to bounce back and forth. Thanks!
Soon the current/old site won't get any new releases (dreamscarredpress.com), and all new products will only be on our new site (dreamscarred.com)
Our old site has lots of technical limitations and issues (plus the software itself is no longer supported), so we're moving to a new design that has robust support.
About the transfer. My account on the old site has my premium and a lot of purchases in PDF format. Will my content be transferred over?
Premier customer status is one of the things that I'm currently still working on.
Transferring all the purchases over, no (or at least, not as one big wave), but we're not going to be deleting out any of the old transactions, so you'll still be able to get your downloads.
Well as long as I can buy my print copy of PoW at a discount I'll be happy :)
I'm liking the look of the Vizier. I am, however, compulsively going to nit pick in hopes of making the product better. I'll probably repeat what something does in plain English, so if my interpretation is obviously wrong you can correct me.
Vizier
Chassis: Awesome class skills and adequate starting proficiencies. d6 hit die as expected, two good saves and they're nice ones (Fort and Will!). I can see a lot of Viziers wearing heavy armor even without proficiency though. What do they care if they take ACP with attack rolls? If they're reduced to making attack rolls they've messed up bad, or they'd better have a veil with a touch attack that's worth the loss of AC from going down to light armor.
Veilweaving: You have X points of essence, and Y number of veils you can form simultaneously. You can redistribute Essence as a swift action, and form any veil on your class list. Veils stay up until you replace them. It's somewhat unclear how this works, specifically. If you have a full loadout of veils and you rest for 8 hours, are they all now "replaceable" like a wizard or clerics spells are, and you can spend your 1 hour at any time to reshape veils, or do you need to spend an hour meditating immediately or lose the chance? What if you leave some veil slots open and want to spend an hour at another time to fill the empty slots?
For that matter, what action is distributing essence for people that aren't veilweaving classes? It doesn't seem to be defined anywhere. I'd assume it's also a swift action, but the only reference to an action being spent is in the class ability, and abilities that give you essence receptacles don't tell you how you can distribute essence to them. So RAW, you have essence and you have receptacles, but you can't actually do anything with them.
Eldritch Insight: You count as an arcane spellcaster for feats and abilities, but you don't actually get a caster level or the ability to "cast spells" so stuff like crafting feats and Arcane Strike are still out of the question. Not sure what this actually gives you access to. The cool thing about the ability is being able to drop essence into wands, staves, or charged wondrous items to eke extra uses out of them and activate them without UMD. You have to invest the essence when you shape your veils, and can't move it for 24 hours. Seems like you should probably be able to move it again after you've rested for 8 hours, like other similar abilities. Seems like staves should have a CL of your class level, but you don't have a caster level so no such luck. It's unclear what ability score you'd use for DCs, but probably Cha because of Use Magic Device? Letting you use your Int would be pretty sweet and give a class an actual reason to keep staves around.
Mystic Attunements. Basically, pick a subclass and get certain benefits.
Crafters boost the CL or DC of magic items you activate to cast spells in their vicinity. +1 CL or +1 DC. The most benefit you'll probably see out of this is slightly more efficient cure light wounds wands. +1/2 level to checks made to make stuff. They can also trade enhancements between similar items, like two weapons, or two shields, or two sets of armor, which is pretty nice. With how things are categorized it looks like this includes wondrous items, but what happens if you try to swap the effects of two wondrous items that go in different slots? You get a bunch of crafting feats as bonus feats, which is nice because they couldn't qualify for them on their own.
Rulers focus on mind affecting effects and lying to people. They get an aura that gets stronger and stronger as you level, giving enemies a penalty to Will saves and Sense Motive checks, eventually a bonus to your allies' Will saves, and at 17th level you can burn an immediate action to force someone to reroll a Will save or Sense Motive check. Really scary paired up with a dedicated enchanter.
Seers are Akashic tacticians. They get an aura that provides a boost to allies' land speeds. Unfortunately, it's an enhancement bonus so it doesn't stack with haste or stuff like longstrider, and won't matter at higher levels. They get to share teamwork feats and a single un-essenced Hands or Feet veil with a number of people equal to how much essence they invest in the ability. Pretty bad until you get increases to capacity at 3rd and 6th level, and it's going to be a long time until you can supe up your whole party. Gets worse the more people are in your game. At 17th level you can retrain your teamwork feats when you form veils.
Back to standard class features.
Chakra Binds. Binding a veil gets you an extra benefit with it. Viziers get the ability to bind every slot eventually, and get unique access to the Ring slot.
Viziers get an extra +3 over 19 levels to their maximum essence capacity, and an extra +3 to veil DCs. Their veil DCs cap out at DC 20+Int fully invested this way, unless you drop feats into making them better. It's tough to resist Vizier veils.
Veilshifting makes viziers the most versatile veilweavers. Starting at once and getting extra uses at higher levels, they can reshape some veils they already formed earlier that day- but they can't be bound, which sucks. Move action, so it doesn't interfere with your offense.
Viziers get a second ring slot that can also be bound. They've got 12 possible locations in the end, and 11 veil slots, so you're gonna have a LOT of abilities to keep track of.
Their capstone is kinda nuts. They can veilshift at will, change all of their veils when they do so, and bind their veils. This alone would be really good, but they also get 3 + Int (for most this will mean 15 Essence) temporary essence for 3 rounds when they do so. If you spend a move action every 3 rounds whenever using veils you suddenly have the most gigantic pool alone, dwarfing what a Daevic can have more than 4 times. If you took Essence of the Immortal, commented on later (Why didn't you? The feat is crazy powerful for a vizier!), you also get 30 extra hp from that. At this point you've got ~162 hp just from one feat and your class alone, compared to the 135 a non-raging barbarian gets. You're probably the toughest thing in the room.
The vizier could use a lot of clarification changes. Like, there are a lot of abilities that feel like they should do other stuff (qualify you for things like crafting feats, use your class level as CL for staves), but upon closer inspection don't actually do those things. Also, Essence of the Immortal would be really good even if it just provided 1 hp per essence, and that capstone is ludicrously good, even as capstones go.
Feats
The Access Chakra Slot line seems pretty fun. A few solid options for small boosts, and probably nice for veilweaving classes with less total access than the Vizier (Daevics only get 7/10 binding slots, for example, so picking up another couple is a pretty sweet deal). The extra minor insight bonus is nice icing, since it's not the main draw of the feat. They should definitely have "the ability to weave a veil" as a prerequisite though, since the feats are selectable for characters without any veilweaving, but don't do anything for them other than a minor insight bonus.
Akasha-Infused Spells is something a caster might feel like taking so they can spend a swift action to get +1 CL on a spell right before they cast it. Kinda like Varisian Tattoo, except you can change it to boost any spell you like at the time instead of only ever applying to one school, at the cost of actions. Decent... but I don't think casters really need another method of boosting their CL, especially for pursuits like making Simulacrums or sky-high blasting CLs.
Akashic Augmentation is pretty similar to Akasha-Infused Spells, but you can invest further in it if you like. Probably more in line.
Body-Bound Mind provides such a small amount of power points, it's not worth splashing for a psionicist that could just take Psionic Talent and get better returns. Maybe alright for a multiclass character, but investing essence in it somewhat defeats the point of multiclassing so that you can get essence and veils in the first place. I suppose you could use it to set essence on fire for more power points in an emergency, but the number is so small I question whether that's even worth it.
Most of the insert-essence-for-insight-bonuses feats are really lackluster. The few that stand out (in either direction), I'll mention.
I can't see someone with sneak attack EVER burning feats for the insignificant boosts in damage Chakra Strike provides. 1-4 feats for a +2 to +8 bonus on sneak attack damage, which need accuracy far more than they need small amounts of extra damage. Connecting it with Studied Strike is rather irrelevant, since Studied Strike is really only useful for landing certain talents, and the damage it does will usually reduce your output since you lose attack and damage bonuses for ending Studied Combat.
Chakra Targeting sounds kinda nice if you're already a veilweaver... but if you're a veilweaver martial, you're probably using Daevic Aspect for a ranged insight bonus that doesn't require you to be so close, doesn't require you to be using Deadly Aim, and provides the additional benefit of higher DCs.
The save boosters, like Chakra-Enhanced Fortitude. Their bonuses are pretty small (starting out at +1 for the first feat you take, and only getting better at high levels), and hard to justify over just taking the associated save bonus feat that grants a +2 out of the gate, doesn't require you to allocate resources, and provides an untyped bonus.
Daevic Rage would be really interesting with some way to get Rage in-class as a veilweaver. Probably the most attractive for burning a lot of feats on if you're not, since its bonuses are more wide-reaching.
Divine Essence might be interesting for a Daevic that takes a single level in Life Oracle or Cleric. Otherwise rather weak due to multiclassing requirements, but at least it scales without needing a bunch of levels in the channeling class.
Enhanced Capacity is pretty sweet for boosting your primary veil that you use a lot. For a Vizier, it means they can get their highest save DC up to around 21+Int, which is solid if expensive to acquire.
Essence Expertise would be nice if Combat Expertise itself weren't so cruddy. If you could just choose to always take a -1 penalty to hit, or Combat Expertise were a good option and not a feat tax, this would let you build a cool defensive fighting character. As is you have to cripple your offense to use this and the prereqs are annoying. You might get some mileage out of grabbing a veil weaving feat and Extra Essence to get the insight bonuses up to +3 and pick up a veil, but it's expensive.
Essence Focus seems like the biggest draw to grab Akashic feats for a psionic character. Being able to throw out multiple focus-burning effects simultaneously is REALLY nice, and if you have 3 points of essence you can pretty much use this at will (like Psionic Meditation). Cheaper to use than Metapsionic Mastery, that's for sure.
Essence of Recovery is super weak. Wholeness of Body already sucks out loud, but with Lay On Hands you get ONE extra use per day for every 2 essence you invest. You could have just taken Extra Lay On Hands and been done with it. To make matters worse, the Con prereq will be annoying for paladins, since they tend to need less Con than other classes.
Essence of the Immortal is Toughness but better for Viziers, Gurus, and if they take Extra Essence, Daevics. It's up to +60 or +64 hp for Viziers, which is probably way too much for one feat.
Essence Rejection needs some other kind of benefit. Akashic effects aren't going to be nearly widespread enough in your average (not totally Akashic focused) game, and probably not at all for NPCs due to their complexity to play. You'd see use pretty much only for NPCs meant to smack down an Akashic PC, and that's bad GMing you don't want to encourage.
Extra Essence seems pretty nice, especially for Daevics. It should probably just always provide +2 essence though, it would at least make things easier on people trying to use Essence Receptacle feats that are already fairly weak.
Life Bond is cool for a character with Fast Healing or Regeneration to boost people out of combat. Otherwise fairly pointless.
Anyone without a class focusing on gun use is going to be awful with guns, and anyone with a class focusing on gun use has ways to mitigate firearm misfiring. Who is Pistolero's Bind actually for?
Shape Veil is pretty cute, it lets you pick up a minor bonus as a non-veilweaver. It should probably give you a point of essence like the other receptacle feats, though.
Shared Veil is unfortunately probably limited to only people who ride a mount. 15 feet is super harsh.
Tainted Chakra... sounds cool, but only really applies to Deathchannel Ring (+1 damage on an attack that deals less than 10d8 damage at maximum... yay) and Heart of the Wight (+1 profane bonus against death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep, and stun, lots of uncommon effects but probably the best use of this feat). Boosts the DC of the Bloody Shroud bind and lackluster Deathchannel Ring AoE by 1. Alignment restrictions are kinda silly to begin with, and probably shouldn't exist in the system at all to begin with.
Treewalker sounds really cool, but the amount of time you're going to spend in an area where you can actually use it is probably super low. And since it gives you a climb speed instead of being able to just walk up the structure, your actions are limited.
Twin Veil sounds nice. I have no idea what combos it could enable, but it seems like a cool option.
Veilbound Resilience is either really nice if you can invest a lot in it (up to 40 hp 8/day, almost like being a high level paladin!) or really disappointing if you can't (12 hp 4/day and it cost me a bunch of feats at 18th level... yay?). Not much middleground, and it sucks really bad at low levels.
I'll go over all the veils at some point later. So far it seems like it's got potential to be really awesome, but this release feels more like an untested beta document than it does a retail release, which is really disappointing to me considering all the other high quality work Dreamscarred Press releases.
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Eldritch Insight: "The Vizier’s class levels count as arcane spell-caster levels for the purposes of qualifying for feats and abilities" could probably read "The Vizier’s class levels count as arcane caster levels for the purposes of qualifying for feats, and for other CL based abilities, such as determining your caster level when using a stave". I'll see about using that more precise verbage in an update.
Several of the feats you noted as being subpar are actually quite reasonable from the context of what they stack with. The save feats in particular are much stronger than you're giving them credit for.
Pistolero's Bind is for literally anyone who wants to use a gun and doesn't have misfire mitigation. Off the top of my head, Trench Fighters and Rogues with the Gun Twirling feat can eke a lot out of this.
Chakra Strike is solid for Rogue/Viziers or Investigator/Viziers (a lot of stuff exists with multi-classing specifically in mind), Rogues or Investigators who are from one of the Akashic races (available in playtest), or who choose the as yet unreleased archetypes. There's other ways to use it as well.
Essence of the Immortal is something I've acknowledged as strong and may still nerf a bit; the primary reason I hadn't previously was that none of the playtesters really wanted me to and its power varies a lot between people dipping into the system and the Vizier, specifically. I was more or less willing to let that stay as is since the people who benefit most are extremely squishy and relatively short ranged.
Essence Rejection is fairly niche, which I'm honestly okay with since someone very well might run a campaign where akasha is ubiquitous, but I'm open to taking another look at it and maybe scaling it a bit and making it a little more universally applicable.
If you reread the section on akasha, it states that investing or redistributing essence is a swift action. You may have overlooked it.
Essence Expertise gives you bonuses to multiple maneuvers, and when comboed with Combat Expertise can give you upwards of +11 AC. Full BAB classes can often afford the hit to their accuracy, as can classes with multiple ways of targeting touch AC, like the Vizier. I don't agree with your assessment of its weakness.
Essence of Recovery, again, is a fairly niche feat, but on the right build it can count for a good bit. This is another feat whose value will rise as additional materials are released. Also, look at things a bit from the perspective that this release intentionally bucks the Pathfinder trend of discouraging multiclassing.
Naw, I get it. I think the problem I was having with those feats is that they seem very underwhelming for non-akashic characters to invest in. It takes a lot of effort for them to be effective. If you're a Vizier or Guru, you've got enough essence lying around that you can dump some into certain ones (like the save boosters) when it becomes apparent that they're going to be important. But it seems like a false, trappy choice to offer them to non-akashic characters, since they're going to be very expensive to invest in for marginal benefit.
They can eke the ability to expose themselves to Paizo's gun mechanics with slightly less agony once a day at significant action cost (you're not doing much besides moving that round), and they've got nothing if their weapon misfires again and is wrecked. Not to mention they're using a Paizo gun, so unless they're one of a few classes that can boost its damage output with Dex their damage is going to be abysmal.
I'm not convinced Chakra Strike is a good investment. Those multiclass characters are going to have massive problems with accuracy that a small boost to damage output (under the same restrictive conditions as Sneak Attack) really can't solve. A rogue... is a rogue, with all the problems that entails, and an investigator only receives any benefit at all when they activate Studied Strike, which is usually a bad choice unless it's the last round of Studied Combat and their last hit.
I just CTRL+F searched the document for "swift". The only references I found were in the Vizier's class feature, Veilbound Resilience, and the Robe of the Forgotten Deity. Maybe it was accidentally omitted?
Combat Expertise only works when you make melee attacks. For a Vizier, that means Storm Gauntlets, but their damage output is pretty low. If you're fully investing in them, they're d3 until 3rd level, d4 until 6th level, d6 until 11th level, d8 until 12th level, d10 until 16th, and then d12 until 19th, where they hit 2d6. Enhanced capacity skips a step, capping at 2d8. That's not really action-worthy damage at any stage, especially with the extra essence you'd have to pump into Essence Expertise, and the fact that you can still miss- especially with a -3 hit penalty and low Str. I suppose it could be decent for a Daevic (I've been assuming the end result will look similar-ish to the playtest), but being able to control your hit penalty would make it way more enticing.
Essence of Recovery is really not worth it. You need to invest 6 or more essence in it for it to do more than Extra Lay On Hands, which is always on and doesn't detract from your ability to use other effects. If you're not a veilweaver, you can't do that. The most you can reach is 5, and to get that you need to have invested 5 feats in akashic options or 4 and been an akashic race. Wholeness of Body is famously weak, and an extra couple hitpoints isn't going to save it.
I don't have a problem with feats being sub-par on certain builds. But it feels like offering a lot of these to characters without essence pools is unfairly enticing to players who can't math out why that's an expensive and inefficient proposition.
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Let me do a quick compare between my copy and the one linked for purchase, see if there was an issue with the swift action information getting dropped somewhere. It should be there.
Pistolero's Bind gives you an in combat option for "fixing" your gun, and has the added benefit of ensuring it never explodes on you. As I mentioned, there are Fighter and Rogue options out there capable of squeezing a lot of good use out of guns, but lacking a misfire recovery option. Would making it a swift action be more amenable to you? I get that it's niche, but having seen it save playtester's bacon, I just don't agree it's bad. As a side note, this is also where Chakra Strike can come in handy, giving you a damage boost on ranged attacks that doesn't penalize your to-hit like Deadly Aim.
You know when the nastiest time for a vizier to use Combat Expertise/Essence Expertise is? When his Light Whip activates. Essence Expertise automatically offsets his Combat Expertise penalties, so a vizier who uses this combo can trip an opponent with a 15 foot AoO and simultaneously boost his AC, which will then last until the start of his turn when he gets full attack bonus back. For a high level Vizier in the right circumstances that's an incredible defensive combo with virtually no downside. Even if all of your trip attempts fail, you've now got a powerfully boosted AC against the opponent(s) who triggered your Light Whip. There's other uses as well, but that's my favorite.
I don't think Pistolero's Bind is salvageable at all (and aside, I think very, very few things that interact with Paizo's gun mechanics are salvageable). Let's look at what it functionally does:
You can use a standard action to remove the broken condition from a firearm, as long as that condition was caused by a misfire. But, if you misfire again without repairing the gun, your weapon is wrecked (if it's magic) and tossed into Rules Limbo if it's not (but it doesn't explode), since the Firearm rules say that Gunsmithing or make whole can fix a wrecked gun, but Gunsmithing doesn't allow you to fix wrecked guns (only broken ones, which will often be the result of misfires) and your nonmagic gun isn't a valid target for make whole in this case. A good house rule fix to this problem is letting Gunsmithing repair a wrecked gun with an hour of work or let make whole target them properly assuming they have 1 hp or something.
Assuming you have house rules in place to patch the Firearm rules, the feat basically gives you the privilege of burning a Standard action (the action type used for the most valuable actions in combat) so that you can continue firing your broken gun without an attack penalty on later rounds. But if you misfire again (which is highly likely- no matter how skilled the user is, the best pistols still misfire on a 1 (or 2 if you want to be able to full attack), and the best muskets have a misfire of 1-2 (or 1-3 if you want to be able to full attack but you also need to have 3 levels in Musket Master Gunslinger). So you're looking at a 10-15% chance of your gun breaking and taking an hour of work to fix every single time you shoot, which gets worse as you have more attacks per round. At BAB +11 with no haste and no Rapid Shot or Two-Weapon Fighting, bare minimum attacks, you have a 27% chance of your pistol misfiring every round. A 27% chance every round you full attack that you're pretty much done with the fight and are going to need to bum a make whole off of a casting, cutting severely into available party spellcasting, or tell the adventure it needs to wait an hour for you to be ready again (which isn't usually an option).
It's a very weak feat supporting a very badly designed system. Akashic Mysteries would likely be a superior product not interacting with Paizo's firearms at all.
@Light Whip
You can't activate Power Attack or Combat Expertise on an AoO, only when you declare an attack or full attack action.
You can only choose to use this feat when you declare that you are making an attack or a full-attack action with a melee weapon. The effects of this feat last until your next turn.
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The Light Whip / Expertise interaction works as I described. I'm 100% on this. An attack of opportunity is an attack, and you can declare the use of Power Attack or Combat Expertise when using one. In Pathfinder, an attack is anything that requires an attack roll. This is different than an attack action which is a specific type of standard action. For reference: " Vital Strike can only be used as part of an attack action, which is a specific kind of standard action. Spring Attack is a special kind of full-round action that includes the ability to make one melee attack, not one attack action." And also: "*** the text should read "in place of a melee attack", which would allow you to make multiple attempts in one round, or even make a sunder attempt as an attack of opportunity."
We'll just agree that the Paizo firearm system is borked and leave Pistolero's Bind for those who do use it (I, personally, also houserule it heavily and agree that it's probably their worst subsystem, but you write for the system you're supporting).
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I did pull up the release version of the .pdf and compared it to my source doc, and it looks like we lost the verbage about investing essence defaulting to a swift action. I'm not sure what happened there, but I'll be getting it updated along with the Eldritch Insight verbage. Thanks for the catch! This is one of the reasons it's so helpful to do these .pdf releases before our print run; with a small staff and a busy release schedule, our fans help us provide them with the best product we can possibly produce with these little (but occasionally important!) items, so you get a great finished product instead of a page full of errata.
I did pull up the release version of the .pdf and compared it to my source doc, and it looks like we lost the verbage about investing essence defaulting to a swift action. I'm not sure what happened there.
This sort of situation is why I try to avoid starting layout until things are finished. Multiple copies of the document end up existing.
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I did pull up the release version of the .pdf and compared it to my source doc, and it looks like we lost the verbage about investing essence defaulting to a swift action. I'm not sure what happened there.This sort of situation is why I try to avoid starting layout until things are finished. Multiple copies of the document end up existing.
I think a bit of it was that we had a long lull in playtest where it seemed like we were good to start, followed by a flurry of new playtesters who joined us just after we announced that the Vizier was going in for layout, several of whom offered really good feedback that I thought should be incorporated. The upside is, all of that feedback has been incorporated into the remaining materials before they even went out for editing, well before layout, so our couple hiccups with the vizier should be non-issues going forward. We'll address the Eldritch Insight and essence investment items in an update to the Vizier .pdf.
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Since you are on the subject of catching tiny mistakes:
Pg. 18, DARK LORD’S RING OF ESSENCE-BINDING
"Use the statistics for a human zombie found in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook."
I believe that would be "Pathfinder RPG Bestiary".
On a brighter note, I really liked the concept of having all the veils open from the first level, and slowly powering them up. While on the binding side the Vizir has some obvious choices, specially at low levels, deciding on the rest of his veils makes for a great playing experience.
I'm GMing a RotRL campaign right now, and plan to introduce akasha into the mix by adapting a villain NPC from a lvl 3 wizard into a vizir. I'll post it here later - I'm thinking bound Riven Darts, an aura, and that head veil that buffs knowledge (she's not expecting combat), which will promptly be replaced by an yet undecided veil. I'm aiming for damage + exotic and not only blasting.
Congratulations overall, and expecting to see the Guru soon and curious for the Daevic fighter. IIRC, there's a healer planned for the second book? That would be great.