Mastering the Elements: N. Jolly's guide to the Pathfinder Kineticist


Advice

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Scarab Sages

Chess Pwn wrote:
So something to point out. It can make for an interesting class to dip into. If you go elemental annihilator /+overwhelming soul, you can get a weapon that deals damage based off of your con or charisma. Could make a fun dip for a paladin, get charisma to all the stats.

You can't do iterative attacks with Devastating Infusion until you get Flurry of Devastation at 6th.

As for Earth Glide: Yes, it strikes me as extremely powerful in some situations, but then again, it no longer works if you have worked-stone or wooden floors. I suppose if you're going to crawl through a metal dungeon (Iron Gods, presumably?) it also wouldn't work. Still, I'd definitely take it as a Geo.


Shiroi wrote:

That's what I thought. But that's still a really cool bonus damage with some nasty riders if done right.

By the time invisibility goes online for aether, you could be using force composite to do an invisible flurry of touch attacks to make targets ac 10, with a lot of rude rider effects and a solid handfull of d6 to go with it.

Would the flurry multiple hits effect add to the DC to resist any rider effects from the sneak attack, or just ones from the kineticists inherent effects?

eh, by lvl7 you can have invis, flurry, and 1d6 damage from sneak.

even picking the new feat from dirty tactics you could only have 2d6 sneak (since you get sneak at 7, picking it more than once would require a lot of retraining at that lvl).

at lvl7 you have 2 flurry attacks. maybe 3 if someone else is hasteing you.

so at max you would be doing 1d6+5+con+2d6+1 vs 3 opponents with a physical blast, or 1d6+4+(1/2)con+2d6+1 force damage.

even assuming a starting 20 con,:
physical blast would do an average of: 24.5 damage to 3 targets (1 burn cost)
energy blast would do an average of: 19,5 damage to 3 targets (3 burn cost)

to add a rider, like trip, you would need to take 2 burn for physical and 4 burn for force damage.

you could do this 1/2rounds, since inviibility is also a standard action.

considering a vanilla fireball will hit for exactly 24.5 average damage at lvl7 with no extra recources spend (like sorc dips, metamagics, etc), and it will probably hit more than 3 targets...not spectacular...

on the other side, double aether is neat for it's utility, so you have that.

Catharsis wrote:
Chess Pwn wrote:
So something to point out. It can make for an interesting class to dip into. If you go elemental annihilator /+overwhelming soul, you can get a weapon that deals damage based off of your con or charisma. Could make a fun dip for a paladin, get charisma to all the stats.

You can't do iterative attacks with Devastating Infusion until you get Flurry of Devastation at 6th.

As for Earth Glide: Yes, it strikes me as extremely powerful in some situations, but then again, it no longer works if you have worked-stone or wooden floors. I suppose if you're going to crawl through a metal dungeon (Iron Gods, presumably?) it also wouldn't work. Still, I'd definitely take it as a Geo.

why won't it work on worked stone?

earth elemental entry (since your earth glide is "as earth's elementals"

Quote:
A burrowing earth elemental can pass through stone, dirt, or almost any other sort of earth except metal as easily as a fish swims through water.

i see no restriction whatsoever about worked stone.

Scarab Sages

Oh, nice! :)


Imbicatus wrote:

Ninja would be good for this. You need CHA for Ki, and there is good synergy with sneak attack taking the place of normal blast progression. Paladin 2/elemental annihilator+overwhelming soul 1/Ninja x would be CHA to everything, have smite evil to fall back on to bypass dr, and have a hell of a lot of sneak attack that they could use with invisibility trick.

I'm trying to get my head around this as I find it an interesting concept but from my understanding you will be limited to a single attack per round with the kinetic blade.


Alex Mack wrote:
Imbicatus wrote:

Ninja would be good for this. You need CHA for Ki, and there is good synergy with sneak attack taking the place of normal blast progression. Paladin 2/elemental annihilator+overwhelming soul 1/Ninja x would be CHA to everything, have smite evil to fall back on to bypass dr, and have a hell of a lot of sneak attack that they could use with invisibility trick.

I'm trying to get my head around this as I find it an interesting concept but from my understanding you will be limited to a single attack per round with the kinetic blade.

Read the elemental annihilator archetype, it adresses this


Hazrond wrote:
Alex Mack wrote:
Imbicatus wrote:

Ninja would be good for this. You need CHA for Ki, and there is good synergy with sneak attack taking the place of normal blast progression. Paladin 2/elemental annihilator+overwhelming soul 1/Ninja x would be CHA to everything, have smite evil to fall back on to bypass dr, and have a hell of a lot of sneak attack that they could use with invisibility trick.

I'm trying to get my head around this as I find it an interesting concept but from my understanding you will be limited to a single attack per round with the kinetic blade.
Read the elemental annihilator archetype, it adresses this

albeit at lvl6 (when they get flurry of devastation) and not at lvl1


shroudb wrote:
Hazrond wrote:
Alex Mack wrote:
Imbicatus wrote:

Ninja would be good for this. You need CHA for Ki, and there is good synergy with sneak attack taking the place of normal blast progression. Paladin 2/elemental annihilator+overwhelming soul 1/Ninja x would be CHA to everything, have smite evil to fall back on to bypass dr, and have a hell of a lot of sneak attack that they could use with invisibility trick.

I'm trying to get my head around this as I find it an interesting concept but from my understanding you will be limited to a single attack per round with the kinetic blade.
Read the elemental annihilator archetype, it adresses this
albeit at lvl6 (when they get flurry of devastation) and not at lvl1

That's how I understood it as well which is why I find such a dip rather unspectacular...

Scarab Sages

I was forgetting they don't get flurry of devastation until 6th level at the time. That does make it less desirable.


N. Jolly wrote:
4. Tremorsense: I'm not a huge fan of blind/tremorsense, since creatures you can't see still get total concealment. It's not nearly as exacting as Toph would lead you to believe.

Would you rather have:

  • A nasty foe that gets concealment and you have have taken every possible option to raise perception in order to have a slight chance to know what square they are in. If you don't roll well, you get surprised.
  • A nasty foe that gets concealment, but you automatically know exactly which square they are in no matter how high their stealth is. They don't get automatic surprise on you.

There's lots of options to reduce or eliminate miss chances. There are many ways to make them visible, and you can either do them yourself or tell others where to target them.

Faelyn wrote:
Aether and rogue would work well together as VMC I think... What with the Invisibility at will, you could actually reliably pull off a nice Sneak Attack combo.

Rogue also works well with Aether. Disabling a trap from 30' away is much better.

Silver Crusade

Philo Pharynx wrote:
N. Jolly wrote:
4. Tremorsense: I'm not a huge fan of blind/tremorsense, since creatures you can't see still get total concealment. It's not nearly as exacting as Toph would lead you to believe.

Would you rather have:

  • A nasty foe that gets concealment and you have have taken every possible option to raise perception in order to have a slight chance to know what square they are in. If you don't roll well, you get surprised.
  • A nasty foe that gets concealment, but you automatically know exactly which square they are in no matter how high their stealth is. They don't get automatic surprise on you.

There's lots of options to reduce or eliminate miss chances. There are many ways to make them visible, and you can either do them yourself or tell others where to target them.

I guess I'd ask how you get around total concealment against a target then. That's still a 50% miss chance on a physical blast, and those aren't numbers I feel like playing against. I'm not saying it's terrible, I'm just trying to warn people that it's not blindsight and not to treat it like blindsight.

No one's saying tremorsense+earth glide isn't a good combo, it's just important to understand the restrictions on it so you don't try sniping from inside the earth against a target (which I'm pretty sure you could do with kinetic whip, and that'd just be awesome to see.)

Scarab Sages

N. Jolly wrote:


I guess I'd ask how you get around total concealment against a target then. That's still a 50% miss chance on a physical blast, and those aren't numbers I feel like playing against. I'm not saying it's terrible, I'm just trying to warn people that it's not blindsight and not to treat it like blindsight.

Unlike normal Termorsense, the talent removes the miss chance:

Quote:

TREMORSENSE

Element earth; Type utility (Su); Level 3; Burn 0
You can take a move action to gain tremorsense 30 feet for 1 round
on any earth or stone surface that you touch. You can accept
1 point of burn to increase the duration to 1 round per kineticist
level you possess. While benefiting from this tremorsense, your
earth blasts and composite blasts that include earth components
don’t suffer a miss chance from concealment or total concealment
against creatures you detect with your tremorsense.

Silver Crusade

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Imbicatus wrote:
N. Jolly wrote:


I guess I'd ask how you get around total concealment against a target then. That's still a 50% miss chance on a physical blast, and those aren't numbers I feel like playing against. I'm not saying it's terrible, I'm just trying to warn people that it's not blindsight and not to treat it like blindsight.

Unlike normal Termorsense, the talent removes the miss chance:

Quote:

TREMORSENSE

Element earth; Type utility (Su); Level 3; Burn 0
You can take a move action to gain tremorsense 30 feet for 1 round
on any earth or stone surface that you touch. You can accept
1 point of burn to increase the duration to 1 round per kineticist
level you possess. While benefiting from this tremorsense, your
earth blasts and composite blasts that include earth components
don’t suffer a miss chance from concealment or total concealment
against creatures you detect with your tremorsense.

...well noodles, I did not see that. Okay, Tremorsense/Earth Glide/Kinetic Whip confirmed for best combination.


N. Jolly wrote:
Imbicatus wrote:
N. Jolly wrote:


I guess I'd ask how you get around total concealment against a target then. That's still a 50% miss chance on a physical blast, and those aren't numbers I feel like playing against. I'm not saying it's terrible, I'm just trying to warn people that it's not blindsight and not to treat it like blindsight.

Unlike normal Termorsense, the talent removes the miss chance:

Quote:

TREMORSENSE

Element earth; Type utility (Su); Level 3; Burn 0
You can take a move action to gain tremorsense 30 feet for 1 round
on any earth or stone surface that you touch. You can accept
1 point of burn to increase the duration to 1 round per kineticist
level you possess. While benefiting from this tremorsense, your
earth blasts and composite blasts that include earth components
don’t suffer a miss chance from concealment or total concealment
against creatures you detect with your tremorsense.
...well noodles, I did not see that. Okay, Tremorsense/Earth Glide/Kinetic Whip confirmed for best combination.

But is it actually possible to make attacks from within the ground like that? It would make sense from a flavor standpoint, but can you actually attack through solid matter with your blast even if it's an earth blast? For your blasts they are spell like abilities which like spells require line of effect to your target(even glass or walls of force will stop you from targeting things with any spell unless the spell specifically states line of effect is not required). But blade/whip allow you to make regular attacks that deal your blast damage, does this effectively remove the requirement of line of effect?


Kindaul wrote:
N. Jolly wrote:
Imbicatus wrote:
N. Jolly wrote:


I guess I'd ask how you get around total concealment against a target then. That's still a 50% miss chance on a physical blast, and those aren't numbers I feel like playing against. I'm not saying it's terrible, I'm just trying to warn people that it's not blindsight and not to treat it like blindsight.

Unlike normal Termorsense, the talent removes the miss chance:

Quote:

TREMORSENSE

Element earth; Type utility (Su); Level 3; Burn 0
You can take a move action to gain tremorsense 30 feet for 1 round
on any earth or stone surface that you touch. You can accept
1 point of burn to increase the duration to 1 round per kineticist
level you possess. While benefiting from this tremorsense, your
earth blasts and composite blasts that include earth components
don’t suffer a miss chance from concealment or total concealment
against creatures you detect with your tremorsense.
...well noodles, I did not see that. Okay, Tremorsense/Earth Glide/Kinetic Whip confirmed for best combination.
But is it actually possible to make attacks from within the ground like that? It would make sense from a flavor standpoint, but can you actually attack through solid matter with your blast even if it's an earth blast? For your blasts they are spell like abilities which like spells require line of effect to your target(even glass or walls of force will stop you from targeting things with any spell unless the spell specifically states line of effect is not required). But blade/whip allow you to make regular attacks that deal your blast damage, does this effectively remove the requirement of line of effect?

The idea is to move underground until you are adjacent to the enemies, so you are attacking the square adjacent. It's worth noting that Earth Glide says, "A burrowing earth elemental can pass through stone, dirt, or almost any other sort of earth except metal as easily as a fish swims through water."

So if you can move through the earth as easily as a fish through water, then you should be able to make melee attacks out of the earth. To be safe, you should probably make sure you're adjacent to the enemy.


Kindaul wrote:
N. Jolly wrote:
Imbicatus wrote:
N. Jolly wrote:


I guess I'd ask how you get around total concealment against a target then. That's still a 50% miss chance on a physical blast, and those aren't numbers I feel like playing against. I'm not saying it's terrible, I'm just trying to warn people that it's not blindsight and not to treat it like blindsight.

Unlike normal Termorsense, the talent removes the miss chance:

Quote:

TREMORSENSE

Element earth; Type utility (Su); Level 3; Burn 0
You can take a move action to gain tremorsense 30 feet for 1 round
on any earth or stone surface that you touch. You can accept
1 point of burn to increase the duration to 1 round per kineticist
level you possess. While benefiting from this tremorsense, your
earth blasts and composite blasts that include earth components
don’t suffer a miss chance from concealment or total concealment
against creatures you detect with your tremorsense.
...well noodles, I did not see that. Okay, Tremorsense/Earth Glide/Kinetic Whip confirmed for best combination.
But is it actually possible to make attacks from within the ground like that? It would make sense from a flavor standpoint, but can you actually attack through solid matter with your blast even if it's an earth blast? For your blasts they are spell like abilities which like spells require line of effect to your target(even glass or walls of force will stop you from targeting things with any spell unless the spell specifically states line of effect is not required). But blade/whip allow you to make regular attacks that deal your blast damage, does this effectively remove the requirement of line of effect?

no.

line of effect still needs to be kept.

but this is easy, since there is a 100% identical case with clear, CRB rules:

Quote:
Lifesense works like Blindsight. Blindsight says "Invisibility, darkness, and most kinds of concealment are irrelevant, though the creature must have line of effect to a creature or object to discern that creature or object."
Quote:


An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks.

so

all those combines mean:

an incorporeal creature with lifesense ignores most kind of concealment and can move through solid earth.

a geokineticist with burrow and tremorsense ignores most kind of concealment and can move through solid earth.

in those 2 identical occasions, they CAN attack through solid earth, ignore the concealment, but in order to keep line of effect, they need to at least poke out their hand (dropping full concealment/cover, to standard cover for the action of attack)


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FYI, Nethys has updated his Archives with the Kineticist and he so kindly organized the elements and their associated wild talents by level AND linked to each one. Oh, Nethys, how I adore thee.

The organization alone makes figuring out the kineticist just that much easier. Trying to read through the class with my PDF was giving me a headache.


Faelyn wrote:

FYI, Nethys has updated his Archives with the Kineticist and he so kindly organized the elements and their associated wild talents by level AND linked to each one. Oh, Nethys, how I adore thee.

The organization alone makes figuring out the kineticist just that much easier. Trying to read through the class with my PDF was giving me a headache.

Lol, had the same issue, definitely could have been organized better.

Shadow Lodge

Shiroi wrote:
The wording on flurry stops you from adding sneak to *every hit of that mess* right? I think it does just want to be sure here before I immediately VMC every kineticist ever.

Pretty sure this FAQ prevents you from adding sneak to every hit.

FAQ wrote:

Sneak Attack: Can I add sneak attack damage to simultaneous attacks from a spell?

No. For example, scorching ray fires simultaneous rays at one or more targets, and the extra damage is only added once to one ray, chosen by the caster when the spell is cast.
Spell-based attacks which are not simultaneous, such as multiple attacks per round by a 8th-level druid using flame blade, may apply sneak attack damage to each attack so long as each attack qualifies for sneak attack (the target is denied its Dex bonus or the caster is flanking the target).

I'm assuming here that spell-like abilities are enough like spells that rules applying to simultaneous attacks from a spell also apply to the kinetic blast.

On a similar note, am I correct that this FAQ would by extension allow Inspire Courage and similar effects that increase weapon damage to boost a kinetic blast (since the blast requires an attack roll and does hit point damage)? The kinetic blast's text only refers to treating them like weapons for the purpose of feats, but I don't see why you'd get to apply Inspire Courage and similar for bombs and rays but not blasts.

EDIT: Just discovered this FAQ request for confirmation on that issue. Strongly recommend heading there given the effect on the kineticist.


Now here's the question, scorching ray hits multiple targets yes, but do you get an extra scorching ray for haste effects? I don't know that I would call flurry of blasts a "simultaneously hitting spell (like ability)" given how it operates. It basically gives ranged iterative attacks and limits the power of them. I'd call it closer to the flame blade example based on that detail, and the fluff of it being "flurry" which references the monk ability.

Scarab Sages

Scorching Ray is based on caster level. The max amount of rays is 3 at Level 11. Haste does not affect it.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Cao Phen wrote:
Scorching Ray is based on caster level. The max amount of rays is 3 at Level 11. Haste does not affect it.

I think that was his point. His argument is that, since Haste adds an extra blast to Flurry of Blasts, it isn't a simultaneous attack like Scorching Ray.


Tels wrote:
Azten wrote:
Tels wrote:
Unfortunately, this means a lot of things had their descriptions truncated. For example, Kinetic Form is an oddity as it doesn't take into account the size of the Kineticist who uses it. If you're a small Kineticist (like a Halfling), Kinetic Form makes you large or huge, not medium or large (as Enlarge Person would). If you're a tiny, or diminuitive or fine sized Kineticist, you're in the same boat; Kinetic Form has you bypass all of the other sizes, jumping you straight to large or huge without altering your ability scores.
That's fine by me. Why would a Small want less size out of doing the exact same thing?

Because it goes against all other size altering options in the game? If a Halfling casts enlarge person, or righteous might, they become medium size, not large size. If a Cloud Giant casts righteous might he become Gargantuan.

However, if you're tiny sized and use Kinetic Form, you jump straight to large. If you're huge and use Kinetic Form, you gain 0 benefit because it specifies making you large or huge and you can't make yourself smaller.

You DON'T increase in size via Elemental Overflow, you get a size bonus to stats, that's it. So no, a tiny creature does not become large just because they take some burn, they stay tiny.


they aren't talking about the elemental overflow. They are talking about the Kinetic Form wild talent.

Shadow Lodge

Shiroi wrote:
Now here's the question, scorching ray hits multiple targets yes, but do you get an extra scorching ray for haste effects? I don't know that I would call flurry of blasts a "simultaneously hitting spell (like ability)" given how it operates. It basically gives ranged iterative attacks and limits the power of them. I'd call it closer to the flame blade example based on that detail, and the fluff of it being "flurry" which references the monk ability.

The special rule allowing you to benefit from Haste doesn't make Flurry of Blasts into an iterative attack. Iterative attacks have decreasing BAB for each attack. You are also required to take a full-round action to make use of iterative attacks. Finally, you may assign targets for your iterative attacks one at a time, finishing off one opponent before moving on to the next. None of these things are true for Flurry of Blasts. In particular, the fact that "you must assign the targets of all your blasts before rolling any of the attacks" indicates that the attacks are indeed simultaneous.


Xelaaredn wrote:
Tels wrote:
Azten wrote:
Tels wrote:
Unfortunately, this means a lot of things had their descriptions truncated. For example, Kinetic Form is an oddity as it doesn't take into account the size of the Kineticist who uses it. If you're a small Kineticist (like a Halfling), Kinetic Form makes you large or huge, not medium or large (as Enlarge Person would). If you're a tiny, or diminuitive or fine sized Kineticist, you're in the same boat; Kinetic Form has you bypass all of the other sizes, jumping you straight to large or huge without altering your ability scores.
That's fine by me. Why would a Small want less size out of doing the exact same thing?

Because it goes against all other size altering options in the game? If a Halfling casts enlarge person, or righteous might, they become medium size, not large size. If a Cloud Giant casts righteous might he become Gargantuan.

However, if you're tiny sized and use Kinetic Form, you jump straight to large. If you're huge and use Kinetic Form, you gain 0 benefit because it specifies making you large or huge and you can't make yourself smaller.

You DON'T increase in size via Elemental Overflow, you get a size bonus to stats, that's it. So no, a tiny creature does not become large just because they take some burn, they stay tiny.

Did you read the post you quoted? I wasn't talking about Elemental Overflow. Kinetic Form increase your size to large, or huge. That's what the ability says. RAW, it doesn't matter what size you are, it increase you to large, or huge, and nothing more. So only Medium and smaller kineticists have any real use for the ability as large sized kineticists can't use it until 16th level.

I feel like this is an oversight on the side of the developers and should probably be fixed in errata. But that's my personal opinion.


Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber
Tels wrote:
I feel like this is an oversight on the side of the developers and should probably be fixed in errata. But that's my personal opinion.

Whereas I think it's a sensible restriction, and probably intentional. (To each their own.)

The power level increase from S to M is negligible, but the one from M to L increases reach, which can be very important. Making S characters wait longer would be less equitable to the little folk.

Similarly, a giant kineticist increasing one size is super powerful (and would require greater quantities of %element% to be managed, suggesting greater skill), so again the size change is not as consistently beneficial of an effect across characters.

Again, having given this some thought, I suspect it's a purposeful decision, and unlikely to change.

Scarab Sages

There is also the fact that it doesn't increase or decrease stats at all, so it's already vastly different than any other size changing effect. It will make you less accurate, it will not increase any damage from your kinetic blast or blade. It's also not listed as a polymorph effect, so it's not clear what happens to your equipment when you change size.


Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber
Imbicatus wrote:
... it's not clear what happens to your equipment when you change size.

The (flavor?) text says "suspend your body in a large mass of elemental matter", so I'd go with a) no polymorph, b) equipment unchanged.

But that interpretation is trying to parse what is flavor and what is crunch, so it could be very wrong.


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TomG wrote:
Imbicatus wrote:
... it's not clear what happens to your equipment when you change size.

The (flavor?) text says "suspend your body in a large mass of elemental matter", so I'd go with a) no polymorph, b) equipment unchanged.

But that interpretation is trying to parse what is flavor and what is crunch, so it could be very wrong.

Okay, so I'm a halfling geokinetici. I'm about 3' tall and I use Kinetic Form. Now I'm sitting inside a 12' tall body that is, literally, 4 times my normal size. Essentially, I'm a fetus inside an earth elemental.

There is probably 1 foot of stone, or more separating my actual body, from the attacks of enemies. If you attack my kinetic form, all you're doing is slamming your weapons against stone.

Since I'm not actually being hit by anything, why do I even take damage?


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Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber
Tels wrote:
Since I'm not actually being hit by anything, why do I even take damage?

As you're looking for a fantastical answer for a fantasy situation ...

a) due to conservation of energy as waves of force from the impact propagate through the elemental structure

b) due to feedback through the psychic connection to the element

c) because the shell is transmuted matter from within your base form

d) because this is a fantasy game, and them's the rules.


Perhaps the strain of maintaining that form against trauma is physically harmful?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Perhaps the form isn't solid rock? Perhaps it's several boulders and bits of debri hovering around you in the vague shape of a humanoid body? This would allow enemies to harm you by aiming for the gaps in between the matter and allow you to utilize your equipment and spells.

After all, nothing in the ability's description says it gives you total cover, or even normal cover.

Designer

TomG wrote:
Tels wrote:
Since I'm not actually being hit by anything, why do I even take damage?

As you're looking for a fantastical answer for a fantasy situation ...

a) due to conservation of energy as waves of force from the impact propagate through the elemental structure

b) due to feedback through the psychic connection to the element

c) because the shell is transmuted matter from within your base form

d) because this is a fantasy game, and them's the rules.

TomG, you seem to have a really good handle on the ability. It's essentially similar to (c), in that the elemental matter is infused with your life essence (the burn you take once per day to activate the ability provides the link). I try to have sort of "in-world" fantasy world logic to abilities.

For a fun visual, I would imagine that a character using kinetic whip with kinetic form might look a bit like Ming-Hua from Korra Season 3 when she's playing for keeps, though potentially with even more water flowing around, depending on your preferred visual. With all her tendrils in, for an example of when she did this, her fight against Kya, Ming-Hua was definitely grown out to size Large at least.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Tels wrote:
TomG wrote:
Imbicatus wrote:
... it's not clear what happens to your equipment when you change size.

The (flavor?) text says "suspend your body in a large mass of elemental matter", so I'd go with a) no polymorph, b) equipment unchanged.

But that interpretation is trying to parse what is flavor and what is crunch, so it could be very wrong.

Okay, so I'm a halfling geokinetici. I'm about 3' tall and I use Kinetic Form. Now I'm sitting inside a 12' tall body that is, literally, 4 times my normal size. Essentially, I'm a fetus inside an earth elemental.

There is probably 1 foot of stone, or more separating my actual body, from the attacks of enemies. If you attack my kinetic form, all you're doing is slamming your weapons against stone.

Since I'm not actually being hit by anything, why do I even take damage?

Yeah, I remember wishing that Kinetic Form gave you a pool of temporary hit points that represented the material, or at least a natural armor bonus to AC...


Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber
Mark Seifter wrote:
TomG, you seem to have a really good handle on the ability.

Golly, thanks for the compliment. (And thanks for the kineticist!)

It's probably an over-estimation of my skill level, but I'll take it.

Designer

TomG wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
TomG, you seem to have a really good handle on the ability.

Golly, thanks for the compliment. (And thanks for the kineticist!)

It's probably an over-estimation of my skill level, but I'll take it.

You posted three times with solid analysis, including correctly determining why the Small to Medium shift was mostly irrelevant (or even non-beneficial for a Small character). That's good enough for me. And you're welcome!


Seeing Mark here makes me happy. He's pretty cool.

It also reminds me that hollow rods and vril staves are not worth it now though. :(

Scarab Sages

Azten wrote:

Seeing Mark here makes me happy. He's pretty cool.

It also reminds me that hollow rods and vril staves are not worth it now though. :(

Sure they are. You just need quick draw or gloves of storing. It's not like kineticists have a need for a lot of feats.

They are still to expensive for the benefit though, IMO.

Designer

Imbicatus wrote:
Azten wrote:

Seeing Mark here makes me happy. He's pretty cool.

It also reminds me that hollow rods and vril staves are not worth it now though. :(

Sure they are. You just need quick draw or gloves of storing. It's not like kineticists have a need for a lot of feats.

They are still to expensive for the benefit though, IMO.

The net increase of Quick Draw or gloves of storing or something like that is pretty low (spring-loaded hollow rods, if your GM goes for rods in wrist-sheathes, which is pretty ambiguous), are particularly cheap. Then again, given that fact as the case, that means the reverse is true: there's not really a big impact of a houserule to allow those two items to be held while gathering power sort of "through" the item. I think people should definitely consider doing it that way if they prefer. Not going to stop gloves of storing from still being a solid item for kineticists regardless, once they get high enough level that the price tag starts looking low.


If they were cheaper, maybe, but combined with their expensive price(gold + a feat OR gold + even more gold) they really aren't.


Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber
Mark Seifter wrote:
The net increase of Quick Draw or gloves of storing or something like that is pretty low ...

I haven't had a chance to use kineticist at that high of a level yet, but I suspect the disadvantage of Quick Draw versus other solutions like gloves of storing is the ability to switch back and forth from using the rod (or not) in long combats, as the only way to then quickly "put it away" is to drop it.

Maybe it's not really an issue in practice, but it seems like a theoretical hurdle.


Just read through the guide, but not the 12 pages of talking about it.

It seems to me that this guide would be better broken up into multiple guides based on the type of Kineticist (fire/earth/water/etc). It seemed that a lot of the descriptions were -well depends on the type of kineticist.

Maybe with the builds section it will work better.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Luthorne wrote:


Yeah, I remember wishing that Kinetic Form gave you a pool of temporary hit points that represented the material, or at least a natural armor bonus to AC...

That's what the Elemental Overflow bonuses are for (the stat boosts at least).

Shadow Lodge

I don't think there's enough difference to warrant separate guides. The roles are pretty similar, even if one or two of them are easier with a different element. Stats, race, and traits are all the same. The class features are mostly the same, with Elemental Defense and Elemental Expansion the only things that need separate treatment. Skills are the same aside from Heal. Specific blasts and talents do get separate treatment, which makes sense.

Though I did notice that the blast ratings don't seem to take into account the infusion options that work with those blasts. For example, cold and blizzard get a yellow rating compared to green for water and charged water thanks to cold resistance being more common, but water and charged water don't get any good infusions. This seems like an important thing to point out given that it's not obvious and people should know the relevant tradeoffs when selecting blasts. You only get at most three simple blasts in your whole career and your first blast choice can seriously limit your options for composite blasts at level 7.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
someweirdguy wrote:
Luthorne wrote:
Yeah, I remember wishing that Kinetic Form gave you a pool of temporary hit points that represented the material, or at least a natural armor bonus to AC...
That's what the Elemental Overflow bonuses are for (the stat boosts at least).

...the Elemental Overflow bonuses are to represent when you use Kinetic Form to wrap yourself in a mass of elemental matter and my wish that there were some defensive bonuses for using that particular wild talent that would make it a more useful talent for kineticists who don't use kinetic blade/fist/whip/a conductive weapon? ...how so?

Or did you mis-quote?


Elemental Overflow has nothing to do with Kinetic Form. "Size" is just the bonus they used so you couldn't cast Enlarge Person on a Kineticist for even more Strength. You can't even get Kinetic Form until seven levels after you start using Elemental Overflow.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

I think what he us saying comes from the playtest where kinetic form gave access to a limited version of elemental body and that led most to requiring that feature. To compensate they rolled the size mods from kinetic form into overflow and changed the ability.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

What I'm saying is that Elemental Overflow is the substance of the elemental plane suffusing your body, which gives you bonuses (eventually to your stats which gives you bonus HP). Kinetic Form requires you to take Burn which goes towards giving you that bonus (unless you use your Buffer, which let's ignore for the moment). Kinetic Form is just a more physical way of utilizing the substance of the elemental plane that you're channeling, so I was pointing out that you're already getting a bonus to your HP from channeling said energy.

Also, in a more mechanics based manner, they couldn't add any temporary HP or Con because there are already mechanisms in place to add both of those things to a Kineticist (Aether Defensive Talent and the aforementioned Elemental Overflow stat boost).


what irritates me, is that "size" bonuses, were ALWAYS related, to no one's surprise, to goddamn SIZE.

kineticist, get's them without switching his size, without doing anything to his size.

99% this was solely done so that he couldn't stack stats. but even then, they could change them to something like inherent or something, so that he couldn't stack them with inherent in later levels. Or soemthing like that.

But as it stands, kineticist goes 100% opposite of existing mechanics, where you gain size bonuses without altering your size, and gain no bonuses when you actually do change your size...

CONSISTENCY in the mechanics is a GOOD things...


The way I always imagined overflow working was that there was an organ for controlling elements in your head (kinda like your pineal gland or somthing)....and it swelled in size as you overused your power.

That could work nicely for explaining the size bonuses, as well as burn. The relevant bits ARE increasing in size. And since the thing is expanding to the size of a grapefruit inside your head....well, that is where all the unhealable damage comes from- it doesn't heal because the swollen organ is technically not an injury (since it is supposed to do that), but it certainly isn't good for the surrounding brain goop.

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