I miss rolling all those dice =(

Separate from the discussion about whether the Kineticist's damage output is on par with other damage dealers, I miss rolling a handful of dice, tossed just right to feel like you're actually blasting them at your opponent.

I always expected the 2E Kinetic Blast to function like a Cantrip, scaling as you levelled. In 1E, it made them feel distinct from martials and casters.

Now we have spells like Hurtling Stone, a Focus Spell with scaling d6s and +Strength to damage, that's only one action. And we have staple Cantrips like Telekinetic Projectile, that a Kineticist should be at least as capable of dishing out.

Making Kinetic Blasts the same in function as a mundane weapon kinda bums me out. Anyone else feel the same?

I like the blast functioning as a weapon bc I want the blaster to blast. Martial sensibilities is the easiest route to get the desired mechanical effect. The less it's basic attacks look like a caster, the better (imo)

Considering how cantrips work in 2e

I'm good

Separate from the discussion about whether the Kineticist's damage output is on par with other damage dealers, I miss rolling a handful of dice, tossed just right to feel like you're actually blasting them at your opponent.

I always expected the 2E Kinetic Blast to function like a Cantrip, scaling as you levelled. In 1E, it made them feel distinct from martials and casters.

Now we have spells like Hurtling Stone, a Focus Spell with scaling d6s and +Strength to damage, that's only one action. And we have staple Cantrips like Telekinetic Projectile, that a Kineticist should be at least as capable of dishing out.

Making Kinetic Blasts the same in function as a mundane weapon kinda bums me out. Anyone else feel the same?

I 100% feel this way.

Yeah that's pretty much exactly what I was hoping for. Blast being something like 1d6/2levels and then spending actions to add effects like aoe, status effects, etc. like 1e kineticist did for infusions. It would allow the class to get legendary spell attack and DC (which is what most monsters are balanced for), not have to get weapon runes to shoot fire better which I think is silly, and probably even raise the damage the class can do. Right now by being a martial with all these magical abilities it could be trying to do too much; if it was just magical abilities it would be easier to justify more damage and accuracy (though I would still hope for it to be an at will style class).

but.... cantrip damage is designed to be explicitly worse than martial damage? the psychic just came out for people that want to use enhanced and customized cantrips and they arent just going to make the psychic again

Then again, that way, you can use all 3 of your attacks with your Blast, like the Elemental Annihilator, and this time, it scales.

However, it does highlight how they handled enhancements in P2E...

Would it have been THIS hard to have +1 to +5 and the damage automatically multiplies by that number WITHOUT a striking rune?

but.... cantrip damage is designed to be explicitly worse than martial damage? the psychic just came out for people that want to use enhanced and customized cantrips and they arent just going to make the psychic again

This is what I keep coming back to in my understanding of Kineticist as a class. They literally just released the most powerful cantrip centered + focus spell enhanced magical blaster class that they game will see. The psychic is not just that, but the oscillating wave psychic pretty much is. With some spell slots for AoE and Utility thrown in as well.

Clearly the Kineticist was going to have to be something different than that, or be folded into that class in some fashion if it was going to occupy the mystical single target blaster that amped cantrips with focus points.

Then again, that way, you can use all 3 of your attacks with your Blast, like the Elemental Annihilator, and this time, it scales.

However, it does highlight how they handled enhancements in P2E...

Would it have been THIS hard to have +1 to +5 and the damage automatically multiplies by that number WITHOUT a striking rune?

that is not allowed because runes are a major part of a martials gold budget, if they get free bonuses with no runes then they effectivly just always have 1-2 more magic items than everyone else

but.... cantrip damage is designed to be explicitly worse than martial damage? the psychic just came out for people that want to use enhanced and customized cantrips and they arent just going to make the psychic again

Yeah thats the issue. Scaling kineticist blasts like a cantrip would be closer to the original. But then that damage would be mediocre in PF2.

If you let the blast also get the benefit of runes, it would become comparable to a character using power attack. But Paizo would never allow it. You could make it better by just having innate abilities that help the damage (ex: specialization and composite blasts) but really what are the odds of paizo just doing that?

If you justify the cantrip level damage with how customizeable the blast is that makes it better than the other cantrips. But paizo seems to want to go for as little modularity as possible given how most impulse are 2 or 3 actions and tend to do less than a cantrip (there are like 6 that take less then 1 action). Overflow being worse given they also remove your element.

So the whole thing is in a weird spot were the damage should be equivalent to a Rogue with sneak attack 8d6+Con twice a round (16d6 once a round for 2 action). But we were given a max by earth kineticist of 10d10 for 4 actions with a sustain of 3d10 to anyone dumb or restrained enough to not move from a 20 ft burst.

Separate from the discussion about whether the Kineticist's damage output is on par with other damage dealers, I miss rolling a handful of dice, tossed just right to feel like you're actually blasting them at your opponent.

I always expected the 2E Kinetic Blast to function like a Cantrip, scaling as you levelled. In 1E, it made them feel distinct from martials and casters.

Now we have spells like Hurtling Stone, a Focus Spell with scaling d6s and +Strength to damage, that's only one action. And we have staple Cantrips like Telekinetic Projectile, that a Kineticist should be at least as capable of dishing out.

Making Kinetic Blasts the same in function as a mundane weapon kinda bums me out. Anyone else feel the same?

Yup. That is what make me sad. Less dice rolling.

This is what I keep coming back to in my understanding of Kineticist as a class. They literally just released the most powerful cantrip centered + focus spell enhanced magical blaster class that they game will see. The psychic is not just that, but the oscillating wave psychic pretty much is. With some spell slots for AoE and Utility thrown in as well.

Clearly the Kineticist was going to have to be something different than that, or be folded into that class in some fashion if it was going to occupy the mystical single target blaster that amped cantrips with focus points.

I don't think that's necessarily the case. After all, as noted, the psychic does get spell slots, and those have to come out of the budget somewhere.

That said, I agree that I wouldn't have expected to see two amp-caters back-to-back like this. I feel like they try to have their new classes oscillate a bit more than that. Also, they definitely seem to be forging outward at the moment - breaking new ground, rather than filling in existing spaces. I'd expect that to last at least a few more cycles, and if we do see a dedicated slotless cantrip/amp caster, I'd expect that to show up as that tide starts to recede.

The dual gate Fusion Blast is the closest thing to what a higher level kineticist could do.

The dual gate Fusion Blast is the closest thing to what a higher level kineticist could do.

The fact it doesn't interact with anything, is locked to just one gate, and still has to deal with the whole power attack issue makes it blah.

But yes that is the closest thing to what kineticist should be doing.