General Discussion: Kineticist


Rules Discussion

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So, I know there's no phase 2 to this playtest, but I really like this class and will be playing one in an upcoming game. It's going to start in february and the expectation is that we'll be hitting the double digits around the time the book ultimately releases in August. Is there any way you, Mark, can give some hints as to how you're fixing the damage or maybe how that kinetic healer archetype works, since that's exactly the route I am most interested in?

Designer

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mplindustries wrote:
So, I know there's no phase 2 to this playtest, but I really like this class and will be playing one in an upcoming game. It's going to start in february and the expectation is that we'll be hitting the double digits around the time the book ultimately releases in August. Is there any way you, Mark, can give some hints as to how you're fixing the damage or maybe how that kinetic healer archetype works, since that's exactly the route I am most interested in?

If I ordered a kinetic healer archetype, then even I can't say exactly how it will turn out. However, I think that being able to choose paladin mercies as free extras when you use the wild talent seems pretty useful, don't you?

Grand Lodge

Flavor Text vs Rules

Telekinetic Blast (Sp): You throw whatever unattended object
happens to be nearby at a single foe as a ranged attack. The
object must weight 5 lbs. per kineticist level you possess
or less. If you hit, the target and the thrown object each
suffer an amount of bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing
damage equal to 1d6+1 + your Constitution modifier. This
damage increases by 1d6+1 for every 2 kineticist levels you
possess beyond 1st. Spell resistance does not apply. Even
if a telekineticist uses this power on a magic weapon or
other unusual object, the attack does not use any of the
magic weapon’s bonuses or effects and simply deals the
telekineticist’s blast damage.

1. Does this draw an attack of opportunity if adjacent to a threat?

2. Supposing the environment is described as "clean" (devoid of loose objects, this power is unusable?

3. What is the range?

4. Who determines the damage type?

5. To overcome DR would hurling a magic item or one made of a particular material still count for those purposes?


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Rogues actually deal decent damage... When they can successfully hit their target, which is where the problem appears.

Kineticists are the same. Except they have to lose hp to get the accuracy acquired by buying a magic weapon. Blast damage is not all that different from Sneak Attack damage... At least not at mid/high levels.

At 10th level, the Kineticist will make a single blast for (5d6+ 5 + Con modifier). Which is not very different from the archer Scout Rogue and his (5d6 + Str Modifier + Weapon Enhancement). With the difference that the Rogue didn't suffer a whole lot of non-healable damage just to use his magic weapon. Using the better Metakinesis is suicidal. The damage adds up too quickly.

Both have the same to-hit. (Medium BAB + Feel the Burn) is exactly the same bonus of (Medium BAB + Magic Weapon). When the Kineticist targets touch AC, he has a huge boon to his accuracy. When he doesn't, he's no more accurate than a Rogue with a magic weapon... If that's the baseline used to adjust non-touch blasts, then they will be a waste of time by mid levels.

The difference is that Rogues can try to full attack if they want. Kineticists are limited to their one blast. And have zero out-of-combat utility. Their mobility options range from amazing to "meh", though.

Keep in mind that a Scout Rogue can use a move action to deal Sneak Attack damage as well... And heavens forbid he be a Scout Ninja with Vanishing Trick/Invisible Blade!

From what you guys have said, melee options are too good, but that doesn't change the fact that ranged blasts are currently really, really bad.

- - -

A separate issue, is that he way Feel The Burns works makes no sense. I'm not completely sure if you can choose to take less damage from Feel the Burn for a lesser benefit, but either way...

1- If you can do it, at 5th level you lose 5hp for a +1 bonus to attack. At 10th level you suffer 10hp for the very same +1 bonus to attack... So the Kineticist grew more powerful and experienced, but somehow became worse at using his abilities... That makes no sense.

2- If you can't do it, then at 5th level you got that +1 from Feel The Burn. At 10th level you get a +3 bonus for a loss of 30hp... But somehow you forgot how to only use a simpler version of the very same power you're using. That doesn't make sense either.

3- The Kineticist learns how to use a move action to lower the damage caused by Burn... A very critical ability that would be a high priority for any character whose powers caused them harm. And yet... The Kineticist never gets any better at it. The move action lowers the Burn by -1, no matter if you're at 5th level or 20th. This makes no sense and basically means that using Metakinesis is pretty close to committing suicide (or at very least, being easily knocked unconscious by a single hit from a mook).

Honestly... Burn is a flavorful mechanic, but it's too damaging to the character. Some sort of resource pool would be a much better idea, IMO. In my playtest game, I tried using Burn just to see how it worked. I decided using Metakinesis was simply not worth it and gave up on it after I got knocked unconscious twice in two encounters...

What's worse is the fact that it becomes more damaging as the character levels up, as if the character were becoming less skilled with each level.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
However, I think that being able to choose paladin mercies as free extras when you use the wild talent seems pretty useful, don't you?

Hi Mark! MPL industries touched on this earlier, but historically pathfinder feats have been really bad and used to fill book space.

For the kineticist, it would be really cool if the core features required to be a competent one were baked into the class, and then you had feats that were cool things you can do extra, instead of extra wild talent or whatever it will turn out to be.

Grand Lodge

JaJella wrote:
5. To overcome DR would hurling a magic item or one made of a particular material still count for those purposes?

No need. Under Kinetic Blast is says:

All damage from a kinetic blast is treated as magic for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction.


There's a kind of irony here. When Paizo said that they would not be doing a point-based psionics, there was much grumbling. I think now everyone can see why. Pretty much, the kineticist IS the point-based psionic of this playtest, and it appears to be, at least by the amount of feedback, the most popular. I don't think this is coincidence.

The only real problem is that the "points" (i.e. burn) actually decrease a character's effectiveness. Other than the barbarian's rage, I can't think of a common mechanic that leaves the PC more vulnerable while using it.

So we have the basic "points" concept... but with the worst of both worlds...


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Then again, what is the purpose of throwing an object if the said object will serve no purpose? Why not a raw impact blast? Or a crushing blast? If the object is there and it's of special material or has special properties, it's not intuitive that it makes no difference.


Eirikrautha wrote:
So we have the basic "points" concept... but with the worst of both worlds...

That's a pretty succinct way to put it... And sadly accurate.


Orfamay Quest wrote:

After last night's session, I think I can say I like this class. A: Good concept, fills needed niche, and has interesting, novel, and understandable mechanics

The kineticist ended up doing all the heavy lifting in the game last night and made an extremely effective glass cannon. The focus on a single element makes it a tad overspecialized, but given how extremely effective it is in its element ("in its element," get it? Thanks, I'll be here all week; don't forget to tip your server) that's good for overall balance and design.

Considering you are almost literally the only person who thinks this so far, I'd be interested in more details about the game you ran the playtest in.


Rynjin wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:

After last night's session, I think I can say I like this class. A: Good concept, fills needed niche, and has interesting, novel, and understandable mechanics

The kineticist ended up doing all the heavy lifting in the game last night and made an extremely effective glass cannon. The focus on a single element makes it a tad overspecialized, but given how extremely effective it is in its element ("in its element," get it? Thanks, I'll be here all week; don't forget to tip your server) that's good for overall balance and design.

Considering you are almost literally the only person who thinks this so far, I'd be interested in more details about the game you ran the playtest in.

Well... to be fair, the kinetic blast mechanics are pretty interesting and novel... They just aren't every effective...

Liberty's Edge

That really, really depends on the levels involved. I have zero complaints up through level 5 or so.


Shisumo wrote:
That really, really depends on the levels involved. I have zero complaints up through level 5 or so.

Well... Even Rogues are effective up to level 5 or so (in fact, they are a really good class up to 4th~5th level). The difference in BAB, saves, AC and skill bonuses is still very small and few characters and creatures have powerful spells or dangerous abilities that require preparation and/or effective class features to deal with.

The gap tends to widen faster and faster, though...

At low levels, HP is the biggest problem... And since the gap in accuracy is still pretty small Kineticists can function well without burn, so they get lots of hp due to high Con.

As times go by, though... They become more and more reliant on Burn. And Burn itself becomes more and more damaging... Causing the class, SAD as it is, to have surprisingly low health. At least from what I gathered from my playtest game and the one where my friend used a Hydrokineticist (at 6th level, IIRC... He told me what he thought, but he doesn't have an account here. I might translate his e-mail to English and post it here later, if I'm not feeling too lazy.)


Heladriell wrote:
Then again, what is the purpose of throwing an object if the said object will serve no purpose? Why not a raw impact blast? Or a crushing blast? If the object is there and it's of special material or has special properties, it's not intuitive that it makes no difference.

Many, many, many people feel the same way. The issue, at best, is 50/50. The problem some people have is that the blast would be harder to balance if you included the ability to use certain items with it, such as acid, alchemists fire, tanglefoot bags, and grenades. I feel that *most* of these can and should function normally, as they cost significant gold for single use, and not all are exceptionally useful additions in most cases. A D4 of acid damage will do you little good when the attack is already scaling by level. I'd even argue that it wouldn't make up the difference for how much stronger the base attack should be anyways, but that's beside the point.

Magic weapons, on the other hand, make more sense. If I get a flaming, shocking, frost, Bane sword and throw it at the opponent, should I get all those bonus dice? Every time I attack? On top of being scaled to deal (presumably) good damage without it?
I feel in this case, you'd do slashing or piercing damage (for the sword) which bypassed DR as whatever material the sword is, but because the sword was "unattended" for you to throw it you don't get any extra dice or the bonus from being magic.
Then there's the fringe cases. As worded, Tele is probably one of the most nasty tricksters in the game. When I throw an object, it takes damage just like the target does. Okay, equal and opposite reaction, got it. Ever seen a fully charged Staff or a Necklace of Fireballs take 4D6 damage? Problem. Big problem. Ever seen someone telekinetically lasso an opponent's head with a bag of holding and then use Quicken to drop a Portable Hole over it? It's an execution.

So there's a reason they don't allow the object properties to matter aside from picking Piercing/Bludgeoning/Slashing damage type based on the object thrown. However, I feel that most of the time this could honestly be allowed RAI and RAW. It should, if it becomes a problem, be stopped by a well thought out GM. "You've been handling several normal bags and a bag of holding. You just put a bag in a portable hole. Make a Wis check to see if you just put the right bag in." "Your Aether blast is based on Ethereal Plane manipulation, are you sure you want to mess with a bag of holding with that kind of magic?" or "You have so many staffs on your person it becomes hard to walk. You fail stealth checks until you ditch a few or find a better way to carry them. If you don't, you'll start facing reflex saves to avoid dropping them down that chasm. If you do, goblins will try to steal them from wherever you hide them. Stop being a metagamer."

All of these rebalance most of the problems with letting the item itself be included in the attack. Congrats, you bypass a little DR, you add a little splash of acid to your attack, et cetera. It cost you money, and a DM has every right to pull shenanigans on an abusive player.

As far as raw impact damage goes, I'd like to see bludgeoning as a default choice for throwing "no item". But you can't have it do Force damage, that ignores all forms of DR or resistance, which is why Force is universally lower damage than all other types.


Since Mark said that it intentionally isn't going to be the best DSP, what is it meant to do? The class doesn't seem have any non-blast options.


One thing that I'm a bit worried about is that the Kineticist will get its utility abilities, but that there will be gaps in their capabilities that full spellcasters will be able to cover. Will an Aerokineticist be able to do everything that a spellcaster could with Air spells? Will a Hydrokineticist be able to blast and freeze things in even close to all the varied ways that a spellcaster could with water and cold spells?

I'm not suggesting that a kineticist become a real spellcaster. I'm just thinking that it will be difficult to make a non-spellcaster have the utility of a spellcaster without some crazy abilities. And let's be honest: if the kineticist isn't going to have the skills of a rogue or bard, he's going to need a lot of 'magic' style utility.

Perhaps a way to work around the limitations of the kineticist being a non-spellcaster class would be to allow it to pay Burn to cast a spell which has a discriptor that matches his element? Let it be any spell from the wizard and druid lists with the correct descriptor and a low enough level. You could make it into an expensive last resort kind of thing by having the burn cost equal the spells level, and reducing this burn cost very slowly at higher levels.


So far I honestly think there's a whole package left out of the playtest. This feels like literally half a class, the damage side only, so I've been suggesting things to put on the other side of the class, the back of the coin, the utility end, but trying not to complain about it not being there. Because I don't think we're supposed to see it yet. That's literally the only justification I have, is that it hasn't been designed and they want more time and ideas, or they want to keep it under wraps until it's closer to time. So I'm not too worried about the utility package. We'll see it when they're ready for us to see it.

These guys know what they're doing, they've done amazing things with this RP system, and I fully expect this class will be great. Both at balanced blasting, and at utility. Just hoping that it gets the right feel, that little niche of utility and attack interaction that makes it unique in the party.

Designer

Shiroi wrote:

So far I honestly think there's a whole package left out of the playtest. This feels like literally half a class, the damage side only, so I've been suggesting things to put on the other side of the class, the back of the coin, the utility end, but trying not to complain about it not being there. Because I don't think we're supposed to see it yet. That's literally the only justification I have, is that it hasn't been designed and they want more time and ideas, or they want to keep it under wraps until it's closer to time. So I'm not too worried about the utility package. We'll see it when they're ready for us to see it.

These guys know what they're doing, they've done amazing things with this RP system, and I fully expect this class will be great. Both at balanced blasting, and at utility. Just hoping that it gets the right feel, that little niche of utility and attack interaction that makes it unique in the party.

It is certainly the case that we have only put some of the options in the playtest for each class, lest it increase the complexity of jumping into the playtest. Given the threads about that complexity being high, I think we made the right choice.

Now that being said, classes where almost all the options come from this book from scratch are going to seem to be missing more options than classes with lots of spells, which come from previous books and don't need to be printed in the playtest.


Matrix Dragon wrote:

One thing that I'm a bit worried about is that the Kineticist will get its utility abilities, but that there will be gaps in their capabilities that full spellcasters will be able to cover. Will an Aerokineticist be able to do everything that a spellcaster could with Air spells? Will a Hydrokineticist be able to blast and freeze things in even close to all the varied ways that a spellcaster could with water and cold spells?

I'm not suggesting that a kineticist become a real spellcaster. I'm just thinking that it will be difficult to make a non-spellcaster have the utility of a spellcaster without some crazy abilities. And let's be honest: if the kineticist isn't going to have the skills of a rogue or bard, he's going to need a lot of 'magic' style utility.

Perhaps a way to work around the limitations of the kineticist being a non-spellcaster class would be to allow it to pay Burn to cast a spell which has a discriptor that matches his element? Let it be any spell from the wizard and druid lists with the correct descriptor and a low enough level. You could make it into an expensive last resort kind of thing by having the burn cost equal the spells level, and reducing this burn cost very slowly at higher levels.

Same boat here. I'm actually hoping to see us get powers and infusion combinations and utilities that essentially allow us to emulate every spell on those lists (and possibly more) that matches our elements, but just a little behind for being unlimited use abilities. Then we can catch up, or even get ahead of that caster by expending burn.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

Without a accuracy boost, I think you are going to lose people like my players as people that enjoy the class. In a mid level game, they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with non-touch blasts. With the lack of magic items and the players unwilling to take a free 30 points of damage, about the only boosts to hit are weapon focus and bracers of falcon's aim.

Linking burn to your ability to hit means you're forced to burn, so no matter how much you like/dislike the mechanic you MUST use it. It's an unavoidable hp tax and doesn't feel fun when you're character is otherwise built to avoid burn.


Hey Mark, as an alternative to FtB, has a Focus been considered? Making that same boost progression based around a personal, emotionally valuable or elementally representative object would allow us to retain our HP in the morning. Granted, many would still use it on buffing the defense abilities, but a prime example is fire. The damage dice progression of fire isn't exceptionally clear to me and I am honestly not likely to invest points in it even when I get to the highest amounts of it, simply because I'm not a fan of that one ability. So I literally have to Nova my first attack to get that FtB bonus, even if I'm sort of wasting it on whatever the first target happens to be (goblins). So now I'm not getting the defense of the other classes, but for that +5% to +30% chance to hit I still have to leave myself vulnerable. A focus instead would give me the choice not to spend said burn, and save it for when I need it. I feel a lot of people would be interested in that as an option.


Shiroi wrote:
Hey Mark, as an alternative to FtB, has a Focus been considered? Making that same boost progression based around a personal, emotionally valuable or elementally representative object would allow us to retain our HP in the morning. Granted, many would still use it on buffing the defense abilities, but a prime example is fire. The damage dice progression of fire isn't exceptionally clear to me and I am honestly not likely to invest points in it even when I get to the highest amounts of it, simply because I'm not a fan of that one ability. So I literally have to Nova my first attack to get that FtB bonus, even if I'm sort of wasting it on whatever the first target happens to be (goblins). So now I'm not getting the defense of the other classes, but for that +5% to +30% chance to hit I still have to leave myself vulnerable. A focus instead would give me the choice not to spend said burn, and save it for when I need it. I feel a lot of people would be interested in that as an option.

There are plenty of times when the defensive abilities aren't exciting options. for example, you know you're fighting lots of incorporeal undead. Does DR or AC matter much? Attacking a mage school, how great is a miss chance with ranged weapons? I agree with you fire isn't exciting to start off with, now attack an area full of fire resistant creatures. Only temp hp are always a good idea.

A non-burn option for FtB would be MUCH appreciated.


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From what I've been able to play and a little of what I've seen, Feel the Burn is meant to be the primary accuracy booster. While I really enjoyed the DR increase along with an attack increase when taking burn, it seems like the burn is a bit too much.

I also understand that burn is meant to be a sort of last ditch effort sort of deal. However, if my personal accuracy with my ranged blasts requires burn, or more accurately Feel the Burn, to stand a good chance of hitting outside of touch, then burn no longer becomes a last ditch effort. It seems to become in fact a requirement if I wish to hit things with relative consistency.

Don't get me wrong though, I love the flavor of Feel the Burn as a sort of powering up deal and I don't necessarily mind that burn hurts ones self, but I do feel that enemies that aren't out to kill me will have a decent, if not good chance of plain taking me out of the fight. So perhaps the burn damage needs to be reigned back. Maybe over time (i.e. the levels) or maybe Feel the Burn could stand a little bit of a bump at least in the accuracy given. or both.

Anyways, with all that said, I have little doubt that Mark has taken this into consideration. I'm sure he has the skill to make this class shine and a massive amount of feedback to draw off of.

I do sincerely hope that something is done to enhance accuracy somewhere though, or I feel I may be sort of forced to take ranged touch only kineticists to be effective enough to have consistent fun. Which would bum me out, considering I love earth based powers. :D


I could almost see FtB and the 'Burn Pool' many people have asked for overlapping. You get x free burn, and as you use them each gives you +1/+1. So even if you do have to 'waste' the free burn pool in the morning to get the FtB, you at least didn't kill yourself to become competent.


As a note, if this character is as much like the Warlock as it seems, you are never going to have a huge number of magic abilities...less than one each level. There is only so much utility you ca do with that few abilities.

Grand Lodge

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AlanDG2 wrote:
As a note, if this character is as much like the Warlock as it seems, you are never going to have a huge number of magic abilities...less than one each level. There is only so much utility you ca do with that few abilities.

Yeah, and the Warlock suffered from having below average damage and utility because the words "at-will" apparently make people stop thinking straight.


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AlanDG2 wrote:
As a note, if this character is as much like the Warlock as it seems, you are never going to have a huge number of magic abilities...less than one each level. There is only so much utility you ca do with that few abilities.

So far, I'll be surprised if we aren't completely the opposite. Warlocks I've heard (no personal 3.5 exp) were massively unbalanced in the battlefield. So since we (at least so far) feel very underwhelming in the combat end, I'm hoping we get ridiculous, obscene, amazing amounts of utility. I mean, honestly, the things you can do if you can move earth and mundane objects with your mind... You can literally build a castle and power the elevators in it with TK. Or use Earth and Water, and lift a small lake to the top of your castle each day, to power the whole building from mills. If this class is done right, the only reason I couldn't do those things will be time. It's not a question of "can you do it" it's a question of "how long will it take" and "how refined will the product be". That's what I see for this class, all the perks that come with being a Bender/On the X-Men/Half-Demon/whatever. At the cost of being only second best in combat. I'll take that trade.


A major problem with kineticist lacking utility and hopping that it'll be added with more Wild Talents, is that picking anything that is flavourful and utility based seems like it would severely weaken you.


I have played Warlocks, they were fair at low level (less than 5), good at medium level (6-12) and not great at high level...but not bad either. I rather liked them.


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Milo v3 wrote:
A major problem with kineticist lacking utility and hopping that it'll be added with more Wild Talents, is that picking anything that is flavourful and utility based seems like it would severely weaken you.

I'm really hoping we can get a basic "move your element around" power that functions off 5'cubes per level for Earth, Water, and Fire, and then uses a radius around Air to manipulate the level and direction of the wind, and a scaling lbs rating with an increasing number of controllable items totalling less than said rating for Tele.

So Earth moves LVL squares of dirt, and can make it into Dirt, Stone, or Sand.
Water moves LVL squares of water and can make it Water or Ice.
Fire can start, stop, or move up to LVL squares of fire.
Air can move wind in a radius of LVL squares of himself, and can adjust it 1, 2, or 3 windspeed levels based on his current level.
TK can move about 500 lbs a level, divided among 1/2 LVL objects.

Then you don't necessarily need to have "specific" talents for most Kineticist abilities, your versatility comes from your mind.


Shiroi wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
A major problem with kineticist lacking utility and hopping that it'll be added with more Wild Talents, is that picking anything that is flavourful and utility based seems like it would severely weaken you.

I'm really hoping we can get a basic "move your element around" power that functions off 5'cubes per level for Earth, Water, and Fire, and then uses a radius around Air to manipulate the level and direction of the wind, and a scaling lbs rating with an increasing number of controllable items totalling less than said rating for Tele.

So Earth moves LVL squares of dirt, and can make it into Dirt, Stone, or Sand.
Water moves LVL squares of water and can make it Water or Ice.
Fire can start, stop, or move up to LVL squares of fire.
Air can move wind in a radius of LVL squares of himself, and can adjust it 1, 2, or 3 windspeed levels based on his current level.
TK can move about 500 lbs a level, divided among 1/2 LVL objects.

Then you don't necessarily need to have "specific" talents for most Kineticist abilities, your versatility comes from your mind.

That would solve a lot of issues from this class.


Shiroi wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
A major problem with kineticist lacking utility and hopping that it'll be added with more Wild Talents, is that picking anything that is flavourful and utility based seems like it would severely weaken you.

I'm really hoping we can get a basic "move your element around" power that functions off 5'cubes per level for Earth, Water, and Fire, and then uses a radius around Air to manipulate the level and direction of the wind, and a scaling lbs rating with an increasing number of controllable items totalling less than said rating for Tele.

So Earth moves LVL squares of dirt, and can make it into Dirt, Stone, or Sand.
Water moves LVL squares of water and can make it Water or Ice.
Fire can start, stop, or move up to LVL squares of fire.
Air can move wind in a radius of LVL squares of himself, and can adjust it 1, 2, or 3 windspeed levels based on his current level.
TK can move about 500 lbs a level, divided among 1/2 LVL objects.

Then you don't necessarily need to have "specific" talents for most Kineticist abilities, your versatility comes from your mind.

Perhaps you need a shaping skill of some kind, give different forms a difficulty.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
Given the threads about that complexity being high, I think we made the right choice.

Agreed, but in more way than one...

It was right to not include every option in the playtest, to keep complexity down, especially given that much change may be following.

It was also right to have the complexity high in the first place.

I'd just like to point out that the most complex of the new classes are the ones that are drawing the most interest. The psychic, which is - let's be honest - a sorcerer with renamed bloodlines is the least popular. Go figure. Do something new, and the piranha players snap it up.

Frankly I've long realized that Paizo puts out products for different markets, and different playstyles. Not everything is for me. So, while I'm beyond bored by the ACG's rehash and light tweak of existing material, and while I'm very, very comfortable with DSP's psionics material at my table, I'm interested in this book because it's complex and new. The people who wanted simple got their book... ACG. Now it's our turn.

So crank up the fiddly bits and experimental mechanics. As long as a class does the job, the more funky it is the better.


AlanDG2 wrote:
Shiroi wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
A major problem with kineticist lacking utility and hopping that it'll be added with more Wild Talents, is that picking anything that is flavourful and utility based seems like it would severely weaken you.

I'm really hoping we can get a basic "move your element around" power that functions off 5'cubes per level for Earth, Water, and Fire, and then uses a radius around Air to manipulate the level and direction of the wind, and a scaling lbs rating with an increasing number of controllable items totalling less than said rating for Tele.

So Earth moves LVL squares of dirt, and can make it into Dirt, Stone, or Sand.
Water moves LVL squares of water and can make it Water or Ice.
Fire can start, stop, or move up to LVL squares of fire.
Air can move wind in a radius of LVL squares of himself, and can adjust it 1, 2, or 3 windspeed levels based on his current level.
TK can move about 500 lbs a level, divided among 1/2 LVL objects.

Then you don't necessarily need to have "specific" talents for most Kineticist abilities, your versatility comes from your mind.

Perhaps you need a shaping skill of some kind, give different forms a difficulty.

Craft (sculpture), Knowledge (Engineering), Craft/perform/profession (pyrotechnics), or maybe a generic Craft (element).

Grand Lodge

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By the way, this is the only thread in the Occult Adventures Playtest Forum to be above 1000 posts.

We are currently over 2000.

This is a highly anticipated class.

Let us hope it all works out in the end.


Heladriell wrote:
AlanDG2 wrote:

Perhaps you need a shaping skill of some kind, give different forms a difficulty.

Craft (sculpture), Knowledge (Engineering), Craft/perform/profession (pyrotechnics), or maybe a generic Craft (element).

Could use the highest of the two skills associated with the element. So "generic" aether shaping would use Knowledge (Engineering) and Sleight of Hand.


Starfinder Charter Superscriber
JaJella wrote:

1. Does this draw an attack of opportunity if adjacent to a threat?

2. Supposing the environment is described as "clean" (devoid of loose objects, this power is unusable?

3. What is the range?

4. Who determines the damage type?

5. To overcome DR would hurling a magic item or one made of a particular material still count for those purposes?

For the answers to your questions, look at the blast ability a kineticist gains at 1st level. Here is how I interpret the answers (everyone else, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

1. The kineticist blast ability is a spell-like ability, and spell-like abilities provoke unless the individual text says otherwise.

2. I would say that a character could carry something that could be used for this ability. However, take note of the third sentence of the ability text: "... the target and the thrown object each suffer ... damage equal to 1d6+1+your Constitution modifier." Throwing that ancient Thassilonian vase around isn't good for it. Copper pieces, on the other hand...

3. All kineticist blasts start at a 30 foot range. Unless a kineticist has the wild talents extended range or extreme range (extended range is a prerequisite for extreme range, BTW,) that's as far as the blast can reach.

4. You do.

5. No. The specific object used to assault your target does not matter when it comes to damage or critical hits. Blasts already overcome magic DR, and most of the energy-type blasts deal with energy resistance instead. Terrakineticists get the ability to overcome material-based DR (mithral/adamantine/cold iron) with one of their blasts; aetherkineticists do not.

Grand Lodge

Shiroi wrote:
AlanDG2 wrote:
As a note, if this character is as much like the Warlock as it seems, you are never going to have a huge number of magic abilities...less than one each level. There is only so much utility you ca do with that few abilities.
So far, I'll be surprised if we aren't completely the opposite. Warlocks I've heard (no personal 3.5 exp) were massively unbalanced in the battlefield.

You've heard wrong. Warlocks were sub-par both at damage and utility. Except for one rather specific combination that allowed them to get up to respectable damage levels (Hellfire Warlock with either Binder or Shape Soulmeld to offset the con damage).


Jeff Merola wrote:
Shiroi wrote:
AlanDG2 wrote:
As a note, if this character is as much like the Warlock as it seems, you are never going to have a huge number of magic abilities...less than one each level. There is only so much utility you ca do with that few abilities.
So far, I'll be surprised if we aren't completely the opposite. Warlocks I've heard (no personal 3.5 exp) were massively unbalanced in the battlefield.
You've heard wrong. Warlocks were sub-par both at damage and utility. Except for one rather specific combination that allowed them to get up to respectable damage levels (Hellfire Warlock with either Binder or Shape Soulmeld to offset the con damage).

Odd. Maybe it's just because the last class I heard called "Like a Warlock" was Magus. The class I personally associate with the phrase vastly OP.

Grand Lodge

Shiroi wrote:
Jeff Merola wrote:
Shiroi wrote:
AlanDG2 wrote:
As a note, if this character is as much like the Warlock as it seems, you are never going to have a huge number of magic abilities...less than one each level. There is only so much utility you ca do with that few abilities.
So far, I'll be surprised if we aren't completely the opposite. Warlocks I've heard (no personal 3.5 exp) were massively unbalanced in the battlefield.
You've heard wrong. Warlocks were sub-par both at damage and utility. Except for one rather specific combination that allowed them to get up to respectable damage levels (Hellfire Warlock with either Binder or Shape Soulmeld to offset the con damage).
Odd. Maybe it's just because the last class I heard called "Like a Warlock" was Magus. The class I personally associate with the phrase vastly OP.

Not sure I'd really compare those two, although you saying that did remind me of a second build that was fairly okay, and the parallels to the current Kineticist are actually rather interesting. The Glaivelock build also worked decently, which used an ability to turn their at-will ranged touch attack into a reach weapon so they could use iteratives to boost their damage from "meh" to "respectable".


My post got eaten by Server Maintenance, so I'll repost.

AlanDG2 wrote:
Shiroi wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
A major problem with kineticist lacking utility and hopping that it'll be added with more Wild Talents, is that picking anything that is flavourful and utility based seems like it would severely weaken you.

I'm really hoping we can get a basic "move your element around" power that functions off 5'cubes per level for Earth, Water, and Fire, and then uses a radius around Air to manipulate the level and direction of the wind, and a scaling lbs rating with an increasing number of controllable items totalling less than said rating for Tele.

So Earth moves LVL squares of dirt, and can make it into Dirt, Stone, or Sand.
Water moves LVL squares of water and can make it Water or Ice.
Fire can start, stop, or move up to LVL squares of fire.
Air can move wind in a radius of LVL squares of himself, and can adjust it 1, 2, or 3 windspeed levels based on his current level.
TK can move about 500 lbs a level, divided among 1/2 LVL objects.

Then you don't necessarily need to have "specific" talents for most Kineticist abilities, your versatility comes from your mind.

Perhaps you need a shaping skill of some kind, give different forms a difficulty.

I hope that you meant 50 lbs. per level, and not 500 lbs. as being able to move 500 lbs. at level 1 is... well, a lot.

I would prefer to see the telekineticist getting 50 lbs. per level, of which he can move any amount of objects totaling up to his weight limit. Then, give him a Wild Talent to let him increase the weight limit per level, like with Telekinetic Haul, but increasing it to 100 lbs. per level, and then a Greater Haul increasing it to 500 lbs. per level. This puts the cap at 10,000 lbs. at 20th level. At 10,000 lbs. the Telekineticist is capable of moving multiple cars around with his mind, which is, I think, thematic. ***

At the same time, with the telekinetic, let him treat his telekinetic weight limit similar to that of his strength score.

Carrying Capacity wrote:

Lifting and Dragging: A character can lift as much as his maximum load over his head. A character's maximum load is the highest amount of weight listed for a character's Strength in the heavy load column of Table: Carrying Capacity.

A character can lift as much as double his maximum load off the ground, but he or she can only stagger around with it. While overloaded in this way, the character loses any Dexterity bonus to AC and can move only 5 feet per round (as a full-round action).

A character can generally push or drag along the ground as much as five times his maximum load. Favorable conditions can double these numbers, and bad circumstances can reduce them by half or more.

So at level 1, a Telekineticist can lift a 100 lbs. object, but can only move at 5 ft. per level as a full-round action. This is iconic of a telekineticist having to move slowly and focus all of his concentration on moving something really heavy. Then, if they can push/pull up to 5 times their maximum load, then the telekineticist, at level 1, can push up to 250 lbs. along the ground with some concentration.

Come 20th level, that's being able to focus on and lift a 20,00 lbs. object (like a small house) and being able to push up to 50,000 lbs. of objects out of the way (like pushing away a doezen cars in a single telekinetic shove).

***

I thought of this as I was reposting; you could make the weight limit naturally scaling, but have burn attached to it. So at level 5 you can increase the weight limit to 100 lbs. per level for a point of burn (can't be reduced with a move action). Then, at level 10, you can increase it to 500 lbs. per level for 2 burn. At level 15, the burn cost to increase your load limit is reduced by 1 (to a burn cost of 0 and 1 respectively), and at level 20, your cost of burn is reduced by 1 again (to 0 burn for both abilities).


Tels wrote:

I hope that you meant 50 lbs. per level, and not 500 lbs. as being able to move 500 lbs. at level 1 is... well, a lot.

I would prefer to see the telekineticist getting 50 lbs. per level, of which he can move any amount of objects totaling up to his weight limit. Then, give him a Wild Talent to let him increase the weight limit per level, like with Telekinetic Haul, but increasing it to 100 lbs. per level, and then a Greater Haul increasing it to 500 lbs. per level. This puts the cap at 10,000 lbs. at 20th level. At 10,000 lbs. the Telekineticist is capable of moving multiple cars around with his mind, which is, I think, thematic. ***

At the same time, with the telekinetic, let him treat his telekinetic weight limit similar to that of his strength score.

Oh, gods... No! Don't make me calculate the weight of objects in Pathfinder, please... This will be even more annoying for a character whose main shtick is throwing stuff around!


Lemmy wrote:
Tels wrote:

I hope that you meant 50 lbs. per level, and not 500 lbs. as being able to move 500 lbs. at level 1 is... well, a lot.

I would prefer to see the telekineticist getting 50 lbs. per level, of which he can move any amount of objects totaling up to his weight limit. Then, give him a Wild Talent to let him increase the weight limit per level, like with Telekinetic Haul, but increasing it to 100 lbs. per level, and then a Greater Haul increasing it to 500 lbs. per level. This puts the cap at 10,000 lbs. at 20th level. At 10,000 lbs. the Telekineticist is capable of moving multiple cars around with his mind, which is, I think, thematic. ***

At the same time, with the telekinetic, let him treat his telekinetic weight limit similar to that of his strength score.

Oh, gods... No! Don't make me calculate the weight of objects in Pathfinder, please... This will be even more annoying for a character whose main shtick is throwing stuff around!

Nope, you MUST get your calculator out. Now what's the formula for figuring out the weight of a 5' cube of granite...


I originally had a slightly more complex version of this, your ability to manipulate anything started as a full round action and eventually went down to a move action. You started at 5 lbs per level, and hit 50 lbs per level when you would normally get 3rd level spells, and 500 when you'd hit sixth level spells. You could move 1/2 your level worth of objects as a TK, and your level worth of squares as anything else. You then started at a certain rate of motion for the manipulated matter, and increased it as you leveled. So at lvl 1, I can move one square (or 1 5lb object) 5 feet as a full round action. (in control of course, flinging it takes less refined focus)
The system was a bit complex, but ultimately it gives a very gratifying feeling of being able to lift more and larger things, move them faster, and pay less attention while doing so. You eventually got to lvl 20, doing exactly that, tossing elephants out of your way with one move action and walking down the street they occupied with the other.


graystone wrote:
Lemmy wrote:
Tels wrote:

I hope that you meant 50 lbs. per level, and not 500 lbs. as being able to move 500 lbs. at level 1 is... well, a lot.

I would prefer to see the telekineticist getting 50 lbs. per level, of which he can move any amount of objects totaling up to his weight limit. Then, give him a Wild Talent to let him increase the weight limit per level, like with Telekinetic Haul, but increasing it to 100 lbs. per level, and then a Greater Haul increasing it to 500 lbs. per level. This puts the cap at 10,000 lbs. at 20th level. At 10,000 lbs. the Telekineticist is capable of moving multiple cars around with his mind, which is, I think, thematic. ***

At the same time, with the telekinetic, let him treat his telekinetic weight limit similar to that of his strength score.

Oh, gods... No! Don't make me calculate the weight of objects in Pathfinder, please... This will be even more annoying for a character whose main shtick is throwing stuff around!
Nope, you MUST get your calculator out. Now what's the formula for figuring out the weight of a 5' cube of granite...

I actually put together a whole thread on the imbalance of the movement of elements currently used by this class.


graystone wrote:
Lemmy wrote:
Tels wrote:

I hope that you meant 50 lbs. per level, and not 500 lbs. as being able to move 500 lbs. at level 1 is... well, a lot.

I would prefer to see the telekineticist getting 50 lbs. per level, of which he can move any amount of objects totaling up to his weight limit. Then, give him a Wild Talent to let him increase the weight limit per level, like with Telekinetic Haul, but increasing it to 100 lbs. per level, and then a Greater Haul increasing it to 500 lbs. per level. This puts the cap at 10,000 lbs. at 20th level. At 10,000 lbs. the Telekineticist is capable of moving multiple cars around with his mind, which is, I think, thematic. ***

At the same time, with the telekinetic, let him treat his telekinetic weight limit similar to that of his strength score.

Oh, gods... No! Don't make me calculate the weight of objects in Pathfinder, please... This will be even more annoying for a character whose main shtick is throwing stuff around!
Nope, you MUST get your calculator out. Now what's the formula for figuring out the weight of a 5' cube of granite...

I specified telekinetics in my post for a reason.

Telekinetics should be the most general of all the kineticists, capable of manipulating each element, at least partially. They can move earch, water, air, and fire, but not to the same degree an actual elemental kineticist could.

So, using my idea above, a telekinetic could cap out t 50,000 lbs. of material lifted, but the other elementals should be able to lift far more, but only of their own element.

So a geokinetic could large numbers of boulders and hurl them, and hydrokinetics could toss around olympic swimming pools very easily. They should be stronger at lifting their own element than a telekinetic, because they are specialized in one element, where as the telekinetic can move them all, if only partially.

@Lemmy,

Honestly, I suspect most GM's won't really care how much you can lift if it seems reasonable. I mean, come 5th level, you'd be able to lift 250 lbs. of objects, which teeters on the 'handwave' territory of being able to lift things. As levels go higher, the lifting limit of the telekinetic becomes less and less of an issue.

The hard part, is rationalizing Foe Throw with the weight limit. I mean, a Fire Giant weighs 7,000 lbs. on average, which is well out of the current telekinetics capability to lift, yet he could conceivably throw the Fire Giant at someone else.


Foe Throw should be limited by creature Size, then... Not all enemies have their average weight written down.


Ehh, sorta the same thing. There's weight ranges tied to each size. As long as the Telekinetic can move the upper end of each size category's weight, he's gold.


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Yeah, but size is quicker to look. The GM doesn't have to know the weight limits (I don't)... Or even know that such limits exist! Things get even weirder when we consider stuff like Air Elementals... Or Ghosts!

Just write "The Kineticists can raise medium creatures at 3rd level, at 5th level and every 2 levels thereafter, the maximum size of the creatures increases by 1 category" or something like that and we are good to go.

Weight is the more precise measure, of course, but it's also an annoying thing to keep track of in Pathfinder... Specially stuff that doesn't have its weight written down.


Dunno that I'd let him throw a... *Checks rules* Is anyone seeing where it specifies throwing a Corporeal creature? Maybe I missed it. Meh. RAI you probably can't throw a ghost, and I'm not certain I'd let you throw something quite so insubstantial as a living fire either. But yes, I'm seeing level 14 as the theoretical limit by which you could do that. Assuming you didn't delay the progression to 500/lvl until lvl 16, which suddenly seems reasonable.

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