So what in Pandemonium is an Epilektoi?

Introduction Akasha Reshaped: Path of Enlightenment is a book by Moonhand Press. It includes a new class, the Epilektoi, plus a tons of content for other classes, most of it directed to the Path of War system. Is it a worthy addition to the Akashic magic and Path of War systems? Let’s see! But before that, Epilektoi is a Greek word meaning “chosen”, as they were conscripted from regular citizens to become soldiers. By the way, the name of this review is a running gag in my Akashic reviews echoing infamous words by certain character in Magic of Incarnum.

Disclaimer: I received this book as a reviewer’s copy, which by no means influenced my scoring. I also don’t play with Path of War, but played extensively with the Tome of Battle.

What’s inside? 35 pages of content (not counting covers, ads etc.) for 6 bucks, which include:

-The Epilektoi initiator class: As the author puts it, this is a remake of the Crusader class from the old Tome of Battle, and as such, it has a divine warrior concept but instead of using divine magic it uses initiation. Like its ancestor, it uses a wild, variable way of gaining maneuvers during combat, by means of divine inspiration. I always found this cool but weird, and it was the least popular classes among my group, but the ones who appeared were memorable.

Like other initiators it has a powerful chassis, having full BAB, two good saves, 4 skillpoints, fighter’s proficiencies, and a juicy d12 HD. They start with 6 maneuvers known and 4 readied (2 of which they get at the start of combat), and 1 stance, ending their careers with 18, 11 (8) and 7 respectively. For class features, they start with an aura like other divine characters, and get a Battle Prayer that refreshes their maneuvers and protects them using their Delayed Damage Pool. What is that? Their last ability gained at first level, which as its name says delays up to ¼ of your max HP in damage automatically, and the damage is deducted until the end of your next turn. This would allow an Epilektoi to battle for 1 round “dead”, which is awesome! They also get 5 bonus combat feats (they don’t count as fighters though, which many classes already do, and is something I have never liked, so thumbs up).

The “talents” of the class are called “implacabilities”, and 11 are gained over their careers from a list of 22. Some of this are powerful, but that’s expected of Initiators. All of them are defensive abilities, and include damage reduction, fast healing, energy resistance/immunity, Stalwart an even Improved Stalwart.

Other class features they gain are: Will of the Gods let them mesh 2 disciplines into 1, getting many cool benefits. Patient Counterpoint gives them their initiation modifier as insight bonus damage, which is important since adding ability scores as untyped bonus is never recommended; this increases with levels but has a cap. Aligned Defense let them prepare counters that can be empowered by any granted maneuver. Intervention let them “request” a specific maneuver to their deity. Deific Counter let them use their prepared counters even against natural 20s. Finally, Deific Implacability is a chosen capstone ability from a list of 4 (all of them insanely powerful but hey, its PoW 20th, enjoy it while it lasts!), and their maneuver are treated as if empowered by a mythic source. The class also includes 16 favored class bonuses!

-6 Archetypes: This section includes some tables that are not in the book, so keep that in mind if you want to print it. Anyway, Dancer of the Seven Veils Gurus become initiators at the cost of Chakra Disruption, use Charisma for veilweaving, get a slightly modified skill list (with a bonus to disguise veil effects since their veils are more physical), and deal more damage when unarmed and can empower their Gentle Touch abilities by dealing nonlethal damage, and some other Initiating benefits, but lose a lot of features. An interesting if powerful archetype.

Malleo are initiating Malefex, which is a class I have no experience with. Quantum are Voyagers who sacrifice or their psionic might for initiating. Same case with Sacred Band Duos, who lose spells, and Thane Highlords, who lose psionic power. Xeshim are Daevics that exchange their most iconic ability, the passion veils, in exchange for initiating, with each passion granting access to specific disciplines and some bonuses when using them. There is a problem here with the Hatred passion, since it includes mostly brand veils outside of the Daevic’s list and wouldn’t be able to shape them normally otherwise; this could be fixed by stating that all passion veils are added to their respective lists. Even then, this archetype is great, oozes flavor, and shows the designer’s care.

-Zodiac Options: These include a new orbit and a new cosmology! Nebula Zodiac kind of steps in the Solar’s role, since they are warriors that get greater proficiency access and also get half their bonus feats, plus are variant akashic “sparking” initiators, at the cost of summoning champions! I find this very weird, since the other Zodiac option, the Haab cosmology, only has Champion and Weapon form for ALL 12 SIGNS! They would work better with the Greek and Chinese cosmologies though.

Speaking of the Haab cosmology, it is a very complex one that gives you access to 12 signs based on the Mayan zodiac, which by the way have variants with up to 20 signs but lets just not go there. The twelve signs are divided into 4 elemental groups of 3 like all other cosmologies to date, but as I said before each has only two forms: a champion with a 0 HD exotic race with an initiator class (none an Epilektoi though) and an essence cost of 5, or a melee weapon (some exotic, one thrown) with an essence cost of 2. In the hands of an expert player, my spider sense (TM) tells me this cosmology is too much… having a 2nd level Lunar Morphbear or Human with Extra Essence lets the summoning of the 2 champions of not-opposing element, or even the 3 at 5th! Let alone the creation of 13 different unique characters at the hands of one player! Sorry but the rules bouncer in my games wouldn’t allow it if I used PoW.

-New Martial Discipline, Roaring Mouse: A discipline with a nice backstory that focuses on teamwork. Wait, what? Yeah, teamwork is one of those things that should be a greater part of the game, not only via buffing or teamwork feats. As such, it is free for any companion creature that can initiate (cool!). It also include a nice new condition, Tricked, that gives benefits for some maneuvers. It sounds like it could give more, like being subject to sneak attack or not be able to make attacks of opportunity, since as it is, it is exclusive to the discipline. The maneuvers themselves are cool. For example, Rat Pack lets you treat all allies within range as having a teamwork feat, and if they are in a SM stance, they actually get the benefits of the feat! Chew Through is a strike maneuver that, if successful, has a rider effect that eliminates the target’s armor/shield bonus to AC, or their natural armor bonus. Scatter is a high level boost that gives your allies free movement, even outside their turn, and if they are in a RM stance they can even act! The top maneuver, Herding Cats, gives your allies a full-round worth of actions that can’t be used to use 9th level spells/powers/maneuvers, and it is difficult to recover, but if you use a special recovery method, you give your allies lots of bonuses and even some healing! Kind of strong but well, this is PoW material we are talking about. All in all a great discipline if the party can design their characters together to have more benefits, but most probably the GM will love to throw it against the PCs LOL! It includes a “martial” tradition, The Merry Pranksters, who really sound more like an adventurer Frat, even doing prank dares!

-6 veils: Of the 6 veils, only one is not a Title one, and also one not available to the Rajah. Bonds of Freedom is the one, and creates a bludgeoning spiked chain (I guess it’s not a spiked anymore LOL); it gives the shaper some abilities to break and escape bonds, with the wristbind giving you freedom of movement as the spell a couple of times per day.

The rest of the veils have the Title descriptor, which mark them as exclusive to the Rajah. The Exploiter gives the entitled the ability to apply the new Tricked continue with a penalty to AC and saves, with the shoulderbind grants them a virtual Dirty Trick Master feat and some other benefits. The Jovial lets the entitled feint easier, with the handbind increasing it to the point of even affecting mindless creatures! The Luchadore made me, as a Mexican, grin and laugh at the way it is written; as should be, it gives the entitled greater grappling abilities, with the headbind even giving some special, wrestling-themed options for ending grapples.

The Engineer again made me smirk, since there is a meme running in Mexico about an engineer fetus LOL. Anyway, this one lets the entitled sunder better, while the chestbind increases that but also let “el inge” (common way to refer to an engineer in Spanish) to repair objects. The Sparker would be the last title veil, and is one that ties with the Sparking system from another book by the author of Akashic Mysteries (which I also reviewed but forgot the name of… sigh). It gives the entitled combat stamina and some ways to expend it, while neckbinding it makes you immune to electricity and even be able to heal with it, without a cap. This should have a maximum amount of healing per day or you could be healed indefinitely by, say, a kineticist.

-16 feats: Most of them are geared towards the new discipline, giving nice benefits like tying two different conditions, Tricked and Cursed, or even a whole Style featchain for it, and another for the Unquiet Grave discipline. Others of note are Aspected Energy, which is kind of a “meta veil” feat that lets you change the energy and effect of a veil, Essence Void, basically an improved version of Essence Rejection, and Dual Hemisphere, a way to manifest a champion constellation that wields one of its other forms, which is really cool but should specify that it doesn’t count as two instances of an element so it doesn’t get cheaper and greater synergy.

-4 magic items: Martial Legend is a +1-equivalent special ability for weapons that ties it to a martial discipline; a wielder with knowledge of at least one maneuver from said discipline increases the enhancement bonus by 1, even going beyond 5! Really nice! Kheshig's Scabbard lets the user sheathe a weapon veil and both the weapon and veil detect as not-magical and can even go away from the user; I can think of some interesting situations with this one. Martial Scripts grant the knowledge of one maneuver for one encounter, while Maneuver Marbles do that indefinitely but are understandably expensive.

Of Note: Getting a remake of a favorite from 3.5 is nice, as is having versions of cool classes that use other “magic” systems. I particularly liked the Guru archetype’s changes to veilweaving. Also, the new discipline’s focus on teamwork is really cool! Finally, some of the feats and all of the items are really cool!

Anything wrong?: The book’s focus is hardly Akashic Magic and more Path of War, and coupled with the inclusion of so many 3pp classes, may give the wrong impression of the book’s content. Also, the book has some editing oversights and glitches, but nothing deal breaking. The Haab cosmology is very powerful and complex, and sadly doesn’t include a PoW-less version.

What I want: to read some of the intriguing classes used for the book, as well as maybe give PoW a chance… maybe.

What cool things did this inspire?: A ratfolk/catfolk scoundrel guild using the new discipline would rock! Also, the Epilektoi “chosen one” motif is intriguing and ripe with possibilities for storytelling. Finally, the changes to veils from the Guru archetype can be expanded upon to make different veilweavers shape their veils differently.

Do I recommend it?: If your games include PoW, hell yeah! But only if. The book oozes flavor and contains great ideas. While the few editing glitches are there, this book deserves 5 stars from this reviewer. Great book!