RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16. RPG Superstar 7 Season Star Voter, 8 Season Star Voter. Pathfinder Society GM. 5,480 posts (5,702 including aliases). 26 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 32 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.
The problem with a status penalty is that it doesn't stack with Demoralize
Well, there are only the two types. Unless you want Get 'Em to be an Item penalty for some strange reason.
Edit: Or, I guess if you are arguing that the penalty should be Untyped. But that would make it stack with everything and that just feels way overpowered.
I'm saying that it's an antipattern to make a Charisma-based skill monkey class have a combat class feature that makes using Charisma-based skills redundant in combat. This is why I suggested making the ability to cause off-guard at the cost of requiring a skill check.
Alternatively, maybe Get 'Em could give you the choice of whether it's AC or a saving throw that gets a penalty?
The problem with a status penalty is that it doesn't stack with Demoralize
If I were designing Get 'Em, I would make the ability require a check with a skill based on Leadership Style. If it succeeds, the target is flat-footed. If it fails, the target just receives a -1 circumstance penalty to AC. Lead by example grants a +1 circumstance bonus to damage per weapon die and the envoy benefits from it on the triggering attack.
This is a class I've been looking forward to. I really like the directive system, but the Envoy's class features make it feel like a worse rogue or investigator.
Spoiler:
I don't understand why the class has Charisma as its key attribute. Almost none of the Envoy's class features use it. Compare to the alchemist, inventor, thaumaturge, and investigator, who all have important class features that use their key attribute. Is there a reason why the class does not let you choose? Why can't Leadership Styles determine the key attribute like rogue Rackets do? Why can't there be envoys who lead through Wisdom or Intelligence? Restricting it to Charisma hampers character builds and concepts for pretty much no mechanical reason.
Get 'Em's AC penalty does not stack with off-guard, which makes other actions like Demoralize or Create a Distraction feel like a better use of your action economy.
Get 'Em's lead by example ability's damage bonus does not stack with many weapon traits. It also has worse scaling, given that most such weapon traits scale based on weapon dice.
Does the envoy benefit from Get 'Em's lead by example on the attack that triggered it? It seems like a "no," which really hurts its usefulness because you have MAP and already had to spend two actions.
I really like Size Up's purpose and flavor, but it's a weaker and more restrictive Pursue a Lead. Size Up takes between 1 to 60 minutes---Pursue a Lead always only takes only 1 minute. Size Up has a frequency of once per hour---Pursue a Lead can be done once per 10 minutes. An asset must be a person while a lead can be a creature, item, small location, or anything that the GM allows. Size Up has complicated rules for how much information you already know before you can designate something as an asset---Pursue a Lead only requires a single clue. The circumstance bonus from Size Up only applies to Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Perception, and any check to Recall Knowledge. Pursue a Lead works on Perception and virtually any Charisma-, Intelligence-, or Wisdom-based skill check. Pursue a Lead's bonus also increases at a later level, but there's only 5 levels of Envoy so far. The bonus from Pursue a Lead can also be granted to allies without any feats.
Saw It Coming is cool, but it only works if your asset is an enemy. What if the asset is a hostage or a neutral party your enemies are trying to harm?
Saw It Coming's circumstance bonus to initiative is deceptively situational. You already get the bonus if you roll Perception or a social skill as your initiative. In fact, Saw It Coming's bonus will be *worse* if Size Up's bonus increases at a later level like Pursue a Lead does. It's also worthless if someone Scouts or you have Improved Initiative, which one of the Leadership Styles grants for free. So Stealth might be the most common use-case? But circumstance bonuses to Stealth are easy to get, and you will likely have one if you're Avoiding Notice while having cover.
I like the idea behind Leadership Styles, but, as mentioned before, many of them are hampered by the fact you always have Charisma as your key attribute modifier. An Infosphere Director will have to decide to either ignore Charisma or become MAD for little benefit.
As others said, I don't know how you could ever reliably use Guns Blazing's acts of leadership. A MAP does not carry over after a creature's turn unless they Ready an Action to Strike. The only way you can trigger it is if you can Strike as a reaction or if the creature takes a Readied Action to Strike before your turn. Even then, you won't get much use out of it, because most, if not all, directives last until the start of your next turn. Am I missing something here? If there is some way to use this, it needs to be more clear.
That said, was hoping that since Androids are being actually created in Starfinder timeline, was hoping to see an option for them to emulate non-human Ancestries, especially non-Medium ones.
I want to tackle this comment, because it has come up a few times. The team is VERY excited at the possibility of doing more with the "android chasis" but also don't want to complicate the Core Rulebook design too much. That being said, there's been a fair amount of hype for us exploring "Xenometric Android" as a potential versatile heritage in some future products. :)
Seems like a great opportunity for a Starfinder analog to the Mixed Ancestry versatile heritage. A science fantasy setting would have many more ways to create hybrid creatures.
OK, so please correct me if I'm interpreting this wrong.
1. We cannot publish Infinite products under ORC, but that's OK because we don't need to anyway?
2. If we publish an Infinite product based on a Paizo ORC product, we don't need any additional license beyond the Infinite license?
3. If we use Open Game Content from a Paizo OGL product, we have to publish it under both OGL and Infinite license as normal?
4. If we use setting/characters/etc but no Open Game Content from a Paizo OGL product, we don't have to publish it under OGL with the Infinite license. This is because the it's the Infinite license is what allows us to do that, not the OGL?
What about spells that have the same name but are otherwise completely different in a way that renders them incompatible with existing options?
For example, Remastered Light is NOT the same spell as the existing Light. They have completely different effects. How would my wayfinder work when the remastered Light cannot target objects? And what about Speltrickster? Can I use the old version of light for these options or so they just not work anymore?
It doesn’t seem fair when you can still use an old spell if it got a name change but not if the name stayed the same but nothing else.
But I'm really, really, really hoping unarmed attack builds get some love with the remastered Ranger. Almost all ranger martial feats only work with weapons. Twin Takedown, Hunted Shot, Hunter's Aim, Skirmish Strike, Far Shot, and many other feats don't work with claws and other unarmed attacks, which is incredibly weird for a class that revolves around "hunting prey."
I built several Exemplars to get a feel of the options and the experience of creating a character using it. Afterward, I ran a variety of combat encounters from the 10th level of Abomination Vaults. I was interested to see how satisfying the class felt in combat with the flow of swapping ikons.
SUMMARY
1) The class has amazing flavor and many interesting abilities. However, it lacked the breadth of tactical options I expected from this class's design.
2) Lack of medium armor proficiency, incompatibility with unarmed attacks, and weak feat choices at low levels were major limiting factors in character creation.
3) Almost all active feats are Transcend abilities, which compete with one another for usage. This made the class feel like it had less breadth of tactical options at higher levels compared to other martials.
4) Ikon swapping could be interesting at times, but I felt there's a dominant strategy in just swapping between weapon and worn ikons. Most body ikons did not feel useful in combat.
6) Struggles with constructs until level 7 when you can swap out spirit damage for something else.
7) Having only 2 + Religion trained skills does hurt.
Details:
CHARACTER CREATION
I built multiple exemplars based on several concepts I love. Out of them, I had two favorites:
1) katana-wielding storm-themed samurai kitsune using Gaze Sharp as Steel, Gleaming Blade, and Thousand-League Sandals
2) human dual-wielding air repeaters using Scar of the Survivor, Fated Shot, Victor's Wreath. This took advantage of Humble Strikes increasing the damage die of air repeaters from 1d4 to 1d6.
However, I ran into a few obstacles when making exemplars:
1) Absolutely no support for unarmed attacks. This surprised me, especially as many mystical characters in historic literature are unarmed fighters. Plus, the class features do not work with unarmed attacks. Humble Strikes only work with weapons. Weapon ikons have to be weapons, and other ikons have no options for enhancing unarmed attacks. So, even taking Martial Artist archetype is not an option here. It's also a missed chance for foxfires dealing spirit damage, which would have been super cool and flavorful.
2) Lack of medium armor proficiency. This outright punishes Strength builds. I see absolutely no mechanical reason for this, and I strongly disagree with the flavor reason why the class only has light armor. There are plenty of legendary heroes in mythology that wear significant amounts of armor. If low armor is so integral to the class, then maybe give them expert in unarmored defense?
3) Boring 1st level and 2nd level feats. Almost none of the low level feats are attractive. Claim Initiate Domain is the most interesting of the bunch. Sanctified Soul doesn't feel like a net-positive. Twin Stars is a feat tax for dual-wielding that also conflicts with Dual-Weapon Warrior because you don't get a 1st level feat. Vow of Mortal Defiance is cool but I personally despise the flavor. Leap the Falls is not worth a class feat; it's two level 1 skill feats that only work with body ikons, which are the worst ikons aside from the overpowered Scar of the Survivor. Abilities that disrupt healing feel too situational as a player option and horrible as an NPC option, making Thorns of Mortality feel lackluster.
4) Low skills. Might be justified because of the versatility and combat focus, but I'm really missing that one skill increase at level 1.
I ultimately chose the samurai kitsune for this playtest.
ANCESTRY Sylph Kitsune
BACKGROUND Martial Disciple
CLASS Exemplar
STR +5, DEX +4, CON +3, INT +0, WIS +0, CHA +3
CLASS FEATS
Claim Initiate Domain (Air)
Only the Worthy
Motionless Cutter
Dominion Signifier
Journey of the Sky Chariot
IKONS
Gaze Sharp as Steel
Gleaming Blade
Thousand League Sandals
EPITHETS
Brave
Whose Cry is Thunder
GAMEPLAY
I ran through several combats on the 10th floor of Abomination Vaults. Swapping between ikons proved a lot more fluid than I anticipated and was pretty fun. However, as a level 10 martial, I felt like I had less damage and fewer tactical options, despite the ikons having varied effects. Most active abilities in feats and other class features are Transcend abilities. This combined with Transcend forcing a swap creates a rather big problem where ikons and Transcend abilities were always competing with one another. Most of the class's damage rests in the weapon ikon, which makes the feel problem worse. Also, because most body ikons don't feel useful in combat, there's a dominant strategy where you're just swapping between weapon and worn ikons. On the other hand, the support auras are really strong, even though some of them will become less useful at later levels due to status bonuses not stacking.
Brave Epithet ended up not being particularly useful. Most of the body ikons are extremely situational. If I want mobility, I'm better off using Thousand-League Sandals. So Brave never saw any use. There was a combat where I got lucky with lots of crits, which made Whose Cry is Thunder's Immanence incredibly awesome. That was the one time Epithets actually ended up being fun. I never got to use Judgment from Clear Skies. As cool as it looks, it did not feel worth using. The range is too low and my character primarily uses Strength, not Dexterity, which would have make the ranged Strike not particularly great.
Were I to make another exemplar, I would either focus on stacking immanence effects or support auras with maybe one go-to Transcend ability.
There were two combats of particular interest.
The spirit damage was very helpful against a combat of specters, and it was pretty fun to try to end each turn with Gaze Sharp as Steel active to protect myself from the ranged attacks.
On the flip side, I struggled against a stone golem, which is immune to spirit damage and has resistance 10 physical. I had to change my strategy to kite the construct with Thousand-League Sandals and use Gleaming Blade's Mirrored Spirit Strike to try to penetrate through its resistance.
However, I realized after the fight that I made a mistake: Mirrored Spirit Strike changes the weapon damage to spirit damage. So, I would have been completely useless against this monster. My only choice would be to stick with Thousand-League Sandals to help my allies kite it, and even that wouldn't work if I ran this encounter as written in the adventure path (the golem is supposed to be in a tiny room).
Then later, I realized I forgot that Whose Cry is Thunder can change spirit damage to electricity damage. So, I guess Mirrored Spirit Strike would have helped after all!
Warning: There's minor spoilers for Abomination Vaults.
Also... you can still use Shocking Grasp, you know? It won't be fundamentally incompatible with the remaster. Archive of Nethys isn't removing it, nor will your old rule book be altered. I imagine pre-remaster content might not be viable for PFS, but home games should be fine. Heck, even PFS might still allow it, since tons of books and spells won't be getting remastered. Parsing out which is which may not be worth it when the real problem of publishing rights isn't impacted by table play.
That's unacceptable rhetoric in my view, even putting aside PFS, which is the only avenue of play for many such as myself.
I'm looking forward to Player Core, and I think most of the changes will make the game better. However, the Remaster was aggressively advertised as not adversely changing anything in the game. The previews make it clear that's not the case. A popular spell was outright removed and replaced with a completely different one. Light is now incompatible with options that interact with it; even wayfinders don't work anymore. At least one class will suffer a major paradigm shift and require an extensive errata.
I'm just puzzled why shocking grasp had to be replaced by a completely different spell. Thunderstrike is a great addition but why remove an iconic spell that has a fun niche?
Literally the whole reason they are doing the remaster, and aluded to in the blog post itself.
I'm not seeing why shocking grasp needed to be changed to a completely different spell. Other spells were kept fundamentally the same despite a name change.
That's because those spells already had different mechanics than their OGL counterparts. Magic Missile and Scorching Ray both had variable output based on the 3 action economy. Barkskin gave you resistance and weakness to different damage types instead of boosting your AC.
Spells that didn't have unique flavor or mechanics were altered so that they did, a la Meteor Swarm and Cone of Cold. And shocking grasp was functionally equivalent to its 3.5 version.
Still is not a good justification for replacing shocking grasp with a completely different spell. All of the above examples are fundamentally the same spell in both flavor and function.
Both scorching ray and blazing bolt shoot one or more heat rays
Both meteor and falling stars rain fiery death from the heavens.
Both cone of cold and howling blizzard unleash a frosty cone-shaped blast.
Both magic missile and force barrage still fire magical homing missiles.
Shocking grasp discharges a burst of lightning through a touch.
Thunderstrike calls down lightning on a distant target's head.
I'm just puzzled why shocking grasp had to be replaced by a completely different spell. Thunderstrike is a great addition but why remove an iconic spell that has a fun niche?
Literally the whole reason they are doing the remaster, and aluded to in the blog post itself.
I'm not seeing why shocking grasp needed to be changed to a completely different spell. Other spells were kept fundamentally the same despite a name change.
I'm just puzzled why shocking grasp had to be replaced by a completely different spell. Thunderstrike is a great addition but why remove an iconic spell that has a fun niche?
I cannot say I’m pleased with the removal of alignment. I understand many have misgivings about it but that’s a massive change to the lore of the Great Beyond. I’m having flashbacks of 4th Edition.
We don't plan to change the structure of the Great Beyond, so if the alignment aspect underpinning the organization and various interrelationships between the planes is important to you, don't expect any major changes to the lore that will frustrate you.
It's not just planar politics but also the concepts of philosophy, morality, ethics, and virtue as tangible forces that drive the multiverse and form the quintessence of the planes and the extraplanar creatures that reside there. Plus, it's super cool to say you're channeling "good" through your sword or getting hit with "chaos energy." It also removes hooks for gameplay and takes away something from the game.
However, I'd be totally OK if alignment was replaced with an analogous system that uses an expansive selection of specific aspects/ideals instead of a restrictive, finite list of dispositions. Maybe even use domains or something of the likes of Stormlight Archive? It would be really cool, open a huge range of options and concepts, and would work well with the trait system.
I just don't want a mechanic that's adding value to the game/lore taken away and replaced with nothing.
I cannot say I’m pleased with the removal of alignment. I understand many have misgivings about it but that’s a massive change to the lore of the Great Beyond. I’m having flashbacks of 4th Edition.
Any chance we'll get more accessible cardslinging options? Deadly Dealer was my favorite feat in 1st Edition, and Fane's Fourberie has a lot of elements that make it feel unsatisfying.
As both an artist and a software engineer, I support this stance and admire Paizo's dedication to artists, writers, and other creative people. AI generators have great potential for positive use, but the landscape is currently a quagmire of ethical, moral, and legal issues.
I'm extremely unhappy with the changes to Optional Flaws.
The two-boosts rule is great, but the change to Optional Flaws is a huge, unnecessary nerf to MAD characters, especially ancestries that only have two boosts. It also hurts build expression and is generally less fun. Much more fun to get that extra boost to my kitsune at the cost of making her less strong and more derpy.
There's a nasty trend where a class or ancestry releases with few options and feats and then rarely gets any support afterward.
On top of it, I'm not a fan of the mini adventures that appear in Book of the Dead and Dark Archive. They don't even use the books' content and game mechanics. Book of the Dead had tons of neat new undead monsters, and the adventure is mostly just run-of-the-mill zombies and skeletons.
The core of fighting as a martial spellcaster is Striking and using a non-attack spell.
The kineticist feels like it wants to be a martial spellcaster with impulse feats instead of spells. However, it doesn't have the options and numbers to make this work. I feel so much could be fixed if the kineticist got offensive impulses with a similar power/effect as an offensive cantrip and have overflow be an optional buff.
When playing the kineticist, I kept wishing I had scattered scree or electric arc that did fire damage, instead of Flame Eruption.
Overall, I did not enjoy playing this class, despite liking its general direction and structure.
The kineticist feels like it wants to be akin to a non-spell martial caster, but lacks the numbers, options, and action economy to pull this off. I felt mediocre at Striking because of the slower attack proficiency, key ability score, inability to two-hand or dual-wield Elemental Blasts. I felt bad at blasting because I don't have offensive cantrips and the blast impulses deal weak damage. And I felt bad at combining Strikes with blasts because offensive impulses essentially cost 3 actions due to Overflow. Contrast with other martial spellcasters, who typically Strike and then cast a non-attack cantrip.
1. I played an 11th level Strength-based melee kineticist with the fire dedicated gate. I played through the monk monastery dungeon in the first Ruby Phoenix AP volume alongside martial spellcasters.
2. Combat felt surprisingly dull. I spent all my feats on offense, and I still felt like I had few tactical options. Every fight just boiled down to spamming Elemental Blast.
3. The overflow offensive impulses never felt worthwhile. I would rather have electric arc or scatter scree than any of these impulses, and their secondary effects either felt too niche or too ineffective for the action economy cost. I wish there were tactical options with overflow, like an innate ability to boost an Elemental Blast. Or perhaps that offensive impulses have the overflow trait as an option, like how the inventor has the option to add unstable to Megavolt.
4. Impulse rules are annoying and cripple melee builds because all impulses have the manipulate trait and provoke reactions. Lack of medium armor proficiency also hurts melee builds as well.
5. Gather Element is really cool, but the class doesn't really use this ability other than as a punishment for overflow impulses, dropping the element, or using different elements.
6. Build versatility feels a little lacking for what I expected out of the class, but I think some quality of life changes for melee builds and maybe more Elemental Blast options would fix this.
7. I'm happy the CON is still the class's key score, but the "straining yourself to channel the elements" aspect of the class is completely missing. There's also a weird issue where the class punishes melee builds and encourages you to fight from afar while you have an absurd amount of Hit Points. It ends up making ranged builds feel way too safe, and you don't have the option of reducing your Hit Points with lower CON because you need it for your DCs.
ABOUT THE PLAYTESTER:
I've been playing Pathfinder since 2012, and I'm a Pathfinder Infinite author.
The kineticist was my favorite class in PF1E, second only to the magus. I absolutely loved the flavor and versatility of the 1st Edition incarnation as all four of my kineticists in PFS had completely different play styles. My kineticists in 1st Edition included:
1. A kitsune telekineticist who pilfered things with her mind and telekinetic blasted people with clusters of cards and dice
2. A kitsune chaokineticist who adventured with his twin sister, a hydrokineticist chirurgeon. The two of them combined their blasts using the Interweave Composite Blast teamwork feat.
3. An ifrit pyrokinetic knight who wielded fire like it was a katana using iaijitsu.
4. A merfolk hydrokineticist chirurgeon who used waterdancer to float on a current of water as a means of traveling on land.
Thus, I must concede that my expectations have been colored by my experiences playing a 1E kineticist as well as my experience playing many martial casters (magi and summoners) in 2E.
CONCEPTUALIZATION:
I tried several combinations of character concepts, but ultimately decided to use Elemental Weapon to recreate my kinetic knight from 1st Edition. The following are notes I wrote as I tried to create my character.
- Elemental Weapon feels mandatory to play a melee kineticist. All impulses have the manipulate trait, which means melee Elemental Blasts provoke Attacks of Opportunity.
- In my initial impressions, the greatest perk of Elemental Blast is that it can be used as both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. However, the issue with the manipulate trait in impulses severely undermines this perk. While Elemental Weapon avoids this, it also takes away the ability to switch-hit.
- Can't use Elemental Blasts with Striking feats, but generally feels like a fair trade.
- Wanted to use Elemental Weapon to create a katana. Got worried as this class can't use martial weapons, but thankfully it's simple weapon proficiency.
- Why doesnt' the class have proficiency in medium armor? This is supposed to be a martial class, and it doesn't have Dex as its key ability score. Yet another punch in the face for melee kineticists.
- I had to spend a general feat on medium armor. Every melee kineticist would probably be forced to take Sentinel.
- What do you use your off-hand for? A shield?
- I'm struggling to find any blast impulses I like. Flame Eruption is the basic one, but it only deals 4d6 at 11th level. Even for an AoE cantrip, that's low. Its secondary effects feel mostly useless as it only affects a single square and most enemies won't care about the weak damage. It seems only useful for blocking a door, but this niche usefulness is not worth the loss in damage and losing your element.
- The other blasts I'm having similar feelings. At this point, I'd rather have a cantrip like scatter scree or electric arc. Sure, they don't affect as many enemies as Blazing Wave, but the damage is higher, more reliable, and they don't cost me an extra action.
- Really like the utility impulses.
- There's an Elemental Weapon feat. Would have been cool if we could get an Elemental Armor feat, too. Would suit earth element very well.
- Why are there so few feats that use Elemental Blast? It's a core feature of the class.
- Don't really need much equipment other than armor and handwraps
- None of the feats for Dedicated Gate seem attractive, which is annoying as Dedicated Gate has the least versatility out of the three options.
- Considered Stoke Element but the bonus doesn't feel worth the action cost. One action is not worth a +3 damage on my next Elemental Blast. If it dealt +2 per weapon die, then it would be useful and reasonable given that this is a 6th level feat and Elemental Blasts deal as much damage as a one-handed weapon. It might be useful for AoE impulses, but those already have a crippling action cost.
- I'm glad Con is a key score, but it seems to run counter to the entire playstyle of the class. The class encourages you to fight from afar and punishes you for being in close range due to impulses having the manipulate trait. There's no class features that necessitate Con other than just class DCs. So the extra HP feels pointless at best and makes the class feel too "safe" at worst.
- Very few skills. This class doesn't get as many trained skills as most other classes.
- I really, really wish each element got more than one option for Elemental Blast.
- I miss Interweave Composite Blast from 1st Edition. It was a niche feat, but I had a ton of fun with it when a friend and I played twins that combined their blasts. I'm not sure how it would be implemented in this class. Maybe sacrifice a Gathered Element as a reaction to buff an ally's spell/impulse?
BUILD:
Level 11
Ancestry Human (Ifrit)
Background Warrior
Class Kineticist
Inner Gate Dedicated Gate (fire)
ABILITY SCORES
Lv 01: Str 16; Dex 14; Con 16; Wis 12; Cha 10
Lv 05: Str 18; Dex 16; Con 18; Wis 14; Cha 10
Lv 10: Str 19; Dex 18; Con 19; Wis 16; Cha 10
I played through the monk monestary dungeon in the first volume of the Ruby Phoenix AP. I played along side a magus with similar statistics. The following are notes I wrote about the experience.
- Off to a bad start. Struggling to deal any damage to the spiders in A1, but I did have some pretty bad luck.
- Switch-hitting the spiders useful when they kept climbing up and down their webs
- AoEs not useful except for clearing webs
- Got restrained but thankfully escaped. Made me realize that getting grabbed is really *really* bad for this class as almost everything they do has the manipulate trait.
- Tried different combinations of actions, but the best seemed to just spam Elemental Blast.
- Tried the combination of Striking and then using Blazing Wave. The cost of having to Gather my Element on the following turn just didn't seem worth it. The damage is ineffectual. The magus is doing a lot more damage even though they're just Spellstriking with cantrips and recharging.
- Had nothing to deal with the ghosts in A3. Not enough burst to punch through their resistances. Ineffectual the whole fight.
- We had to flee from the haunts. None of us had the right skills to deal with them.
- Halfway through the dungeon, this class just feels really, really dull in combat. I took all combat feats, but every time it's my turn, none of my options feel viable. I took Bon Mot for flavor, but even that wasn't an option for most enemies. So I just ended up Elemental Blasting every turn. Maneuvering around with Flame Jet was probably the most interesting part of fighting. This is a huge contrast with the 1st Edition kineticist where you usually had multiple infusions that either pushed enemies or knocked them prone.
- Chain Blast was nice against multiple enemies. Elemental Barrage is not bad either, but I'm definitely feeling the sting at having a weaker attack roll than the magus.
OTHER FEEDBACK:
- I'm super happy Water Dance is a feat. The action economy is awkward, but this impulse means I can recreate my merfolk hydrokineticist, which was one of my favorite characters to play in 1st Edition. It would be cool if there was a feat that lets you use a Swim speed as a land speed.
- Where's kinetic healer? That was such an iconic ability in 1st Edition. Some of the elements have healing abilities, but water is surprisingly one of the worst at them. Why is air the best at healing?
- One thing I liked about the elements in 1st Edition was that they each had their own niches and play styles. While it's cool that each element has its own Elemental Blast statistics, I'm not needing a coherent theme with any of the elements.
- I miss the straining aspect of the original kineticist; the flavor of straining one's body to channel the raw power of the elements. Odd that it's missing given that this is a Con-based class.
- I love Adapt Element and the utility abilities that kineticists get as they level up. Not only does it fill the same role as utility cantrips, but also it's a major flavor enabler. Avoids the trap of the Evolutionist playtest class in Starfinder, which was a shapeshifting class that had no innate way to alter their appearance.
- Fire is the only energy Elemental Blast? No electricity or cold damage? Not even an ice blast with the water element?
Happy the ancestries are going down, but I wish heritages would get the same treatment. All heritages still cost as much, if not more, than an ancestry, which feels neither fair nor appropriate to the lore of the society.
It's great you're promoting products for this program! Lots of great stuff on it.
However, I must admit I'm hesitating to publish under Pathfinder Infinite due to the exclusivity agreement. The agreement mostly makes sense and is a fair trade-off for the ability to utilize Paizo IP. However the fact that it also applies to setting neutral content gives me pause and raises a lot of questions about whether or not I would be able to re-publish portions of non-IP OGL rules content. For example, if I published a feat in a product under Pathfinder Infinite, would I be barred from publishing the same feat in a non-Infinite OGL product?
It also doesn't help that the Pathfinder Infinite site does not actually show the policy agreement. I spent over an hour trying to find it on the site. It only shows a small FAQ that interprets the agreement, but doesn't let me read the agreement for myself.
You are responsible for my favorite Pathfinder classes and content of both editions. I have a close friend who feels the same way as we frequently nerd out about the many cool concepts your work has enabled.
I still have a fond memory of Pathfinder 2E's Gen Con launch. When my dimwitted barbarian dwarf "punched the universe back together" and caused such an uproar of laughter at the table that you strode over and said "I was about to ask if you guys were having fun, but..."
I'm excited for the awesome stuff you're working on for Battlezoo, and I can't wait to see what you will surprise us with next!