Guru

Your primary ability as a guru is to weave the magic of akasha into temporary constructs known as veils.

Your veilweaving modifier is Wisdom. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against your veils is 10 + the number of essence invested in the veil + your veilweaving modifier. Your veilweaver level is equal to your class level.

You can weave only a limited number of veils at one time, as given on Table: The Guru. You know and can weave all veils on the guru veil list. You must benefit from a Long Rest and spend one hour in meditation in order to weave your veils for the day.

In addition, at 1st level, you gain access to your personal essence pool, granting you energy to invest into your veils and other essence receptacles. The amount of essence you gain is indicated on Table: The Guru.  You can allocate essence investments every round as a swift action. Your total Hit Dice determines your essence capacity, which is the maximum essence you can invest into any one receptacle.

At 1st level, you choose the philosophy you will follow. Usually the tenets of this belief are passed down by guru masters in varying schools and monasteries where like-minded individuals join them to discuss ideology. You gain special benefits based on your philosophy at 1st, 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, and 19th level. Many philosophy powers are activated by “burning” essence.

Guru Philosophies

• Akasin
• Sineater
• Vayist

All gurus learn to master the art of the gentle touch, a mystical martial art that involves dealing nonlethal damage with focused bursts of essence. By investing at least 1 point of essence in this ability you can charge a weapon granted by your philosophy with Ouranic energy. All attacks you make with that weapon deal additional damage equal to your Wisdom modifier, but all damage dealt while this ability is active is nonlethal.

For every point of essence invested in this ability, the charged weapon deals an additional 1d4 damage. Nonliving creatures, such as constructs, are immune to the effects of this ability. Undead, however, are vulnerable to ouranic energy, so they take lethal damage when struck with gentle touch.

Once per day per guru level, you may turn any attack made using your gentle touch ability into a stunning strike.

When you make a successful stunning strike attack, you deal damage normally and also force the target struck to make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + ½ your veilweaver level + your key ability modifier). On a failed save, the target is stunned for 1 round, until just before your next action. (A stunned creature drops everything held, can’t take actions, takes a -2 penalty to AC, and is flat-footed.)

Once per day as a free action, you can restore a single use of stunning strike by taking 3 points of essence burn. You can restore 1 additional use per day at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter.

At 2nd level, you gain the ability to shatter magical defenses with focused thrusts of essence. When making an attack with gentle touch, you can expend a use of stunning strike to attempt to end one ongoing esoteric effect active on a creature. When you activate this ability, make a dispel check (1d20 + your guru level) against the highest level spell or effect currently active on the target (DC 11 + caster level). If successful, that spell or effect ends.

Alternatively you can target the veils of a veilweaver. In this case, make the dispel check against the target’s veil with the most essence invested (DC 10 + veilweaver level + number of essence invested). If successful, the veil is suppressed for a number of rounds equal to your guru level.

At 3rd level, and every three levels thereafter, you gain the ability to inflict debilitating status effects on your opponents. As a standard action, you may make a single attack using gentle touch, applying a disruption you knows to the attack. The target suffers the chosen disruption unless they succeed on a Fortitude save equal to 10 + your Wis mod + 2 per point of essence invested in your gentle touch ability.

A single target cannot suffer the effects of more than one disruption at a time. Subsequent successful uses of this ability replace the previous disruption. Unless otherwise noted, such conditions end after a number of rounds equal to your Wisdom bonus (minimum 1) as the afflicted creature’s body slowly regulates itself.

At 3rd level, you can disrupt the flow of energy in an opponent’s hands, making them clumsy and uncoordinated; opponents affected by this disruption take a –1 penalty to all attack rolls made with their hands or equivalent limbs (for example, a dragon’s primary claw attacks). This penalty increases by 1 per point of essence invested in the gentle touch ability.

At 6th level you can damage the flow of essence through an enemy’s feet, slowing and hampering them. An enemy affected by this disruption has their movement reduced by 10 feet +5 feet per point of essence invested (minimum 5).

At 9th level, you can block the flow of energy through an enemy’s shoulders causing his movements to become slow and predictable, too weak to properly hold a shield. Enemies affected by this disruption have both their shield and Dexterity bonuses to AC each lowered by 1 (minimum 0). These penalties increase by 1 per point of essence invested.

At 12th level you can sever chakra connections associated with an opponent’s Headband slot, causing the opponent to be blinded for 1 round + 1 round per point of essence invested.

At 15th level you can disrupt the delicate chakra connections in an opponent’s Head slot, causing them to be stunned for 1 round.

At 18th level you can almost completely block the flow of essence throughout an opponent’s body, causing them to be exhausted.

Your intense meditation has made you particularly talented at investing essence. At 4th, 10th and 19th level the essence capacity of all your chakra receptacles increases by 1.

At 7th level, your talent with essence allows you to make small alterations to your internal circulation. You gain the ability to close wounds you sustain by redirecting the flow of blood and energy in the affected area. Each day when you weave veils, you can bind essence into this ability. Once essence is bound, it remains invested for 24 hours or until the next time you weave veils for the day.

This ability can heal a total number of hit points of damage equal to your guru level × the essence bound in this ability (minimum equal to your guru level).

Your skill in controlling essence becomes so potent that by 9th level you can damage physical objects with just a touch. While using your gentle touch ability, you can attempt a sunder combat maneuver to sunder an item held or worn by an opponent. If the attack is successful, you deal damage to the item as normal for your gentle touch attack. This attack ignores ½ of the target’s Hardness.

At 16th level your ability to disrupt an opponent’s chakra has become so powerful that you can completely block their connection to the flow of magic. By spending a use of your stunning strike ability when you successfully attack an opponent with gentle touch, all magical effects currently affecting the target are disjoined as though affected by a mage’s disjunction spell. That is, spells and spell-like effects are unraveled and destroyed completely (ending the effect as a dispel magic spell does), and the target must make a Will save for each veil currently shaped or lose its benefits until it can be rewoven.

Unlike a standard mage’s disjunction, this ability does not affect magic items wielded or worn by the target.

This effect can be resisted with a Will save equal to 10 + your Wisdom modifier + the number of points of essence invested in your Gentle Touch ability.

Your mastery of the flow of essence both within yourself and within your enemies has reached its ultimate peak. You can now steal a small amount of your opponent’s life force with your gentle touch. Whenever you successfully dispel an effect or suppresses a veil with your sunder veil ability, you heal a number of hit points equal to twice the amount of essence invested in your gentle touch. Whenever you successfully use your sever the flow ability against an enemy, you draw some of their own arcane energy into yourself, gaining a temporary pool of essence equal to the spell level of the highest level dispelled effect or the amount of essence invested in any suppressed veils (to a maximum of your essence capacity), whichever is greater. This essence lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Wisdom modifier and can be used to power any ability you could assign your normal essence pool to. Multiple uses of this ability do not stack; but they do overlap.