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


Advice

2,001 to 2,050 of 2,778 << first < prev | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | next > last >>
Lantern Lodge

evilaustintom wrote:
Y'all might want to consider the option of the Overwatch Style chain of feats. Two readied attacks by 7th level. 4 readied attacks by 15th level. It's feat-intensive (particularly for a feat-starved class), but an interesting option.

...So...let me refocus on the point of my post.

Since the second level of the feat chain makes readying two actions only a standard action, you can still gather power as a move action (although it would only save you burn cost if the first readied action triggered in the same round).

Some additional feats that work well with readied attacks...

Warning Shot (demoralize at range)
Kinetic Counter (counter energy powers using ready ranged attack)
Patient Strike (+2 to hit with readied attack)
Footslasher (damages targets feet, slowing their movement)
Friendly Fire (teamwork - +2 to hit with readied attack, may provoke AoO from enemy)
Concentrated Fire (teamwork – attack with ally, use the higher attack roll)


evilaustintom wrote:

Since the second level of the feat chain makes readying two actions only a standard action, you can still gather power as a move action (although it would only save you burn cost if the first readied action triggered in the same round).

Some additional feats that work well with readied attacks...

Warning Shot (demoralize at range)
Kinetic Counter (counter energy powers using ready ranged attack)
Patient Strike (+2 to hit with readied attack)
Footslasher (damages targets feet, slowing their movement)
Friendly Fire (teamwork - +2 to hit with readied attack, may provoke AoO from enemy)
Concentrated Fire (teamwork – attack with ally, use the higher attack roll)

I don't believe that Kinetic Blast works with Overwatch because it is not a ranged attack. It is, instead, a spell-like ability that is delivered via ranged attack.

Also, Overwatch does not let you ready a standard action, it only lets you ready ranged attacks. This kills all of the feats you suggest except Concentrated Fire, which has a problem with the spell-like ability issue.

Kinetic Counter is not a ranged attack at all, so it won't work either.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Kinetic Blast is very much a ranged attack. That's why it works with all of the feats that benefit ranged attacks.


Squiggit wrote:
Kinetic Blast is very much a ranged attack. That's why it works with all of the feats that benefit ranged attacks.

It is delivered as a ranged attack, but it is a standard action because it is a spell-like ability. It only works with the feats that work with ranged attacks that do not require their own actions to activate, such as Point Blank Shot, and Precise Shot. It does not work with Shot on the Run because it allows a ranged attack, but not the required standard action to activate the spell-like ability called Kinetic Blast (Sp). Kinetic Blast does not work with those feats for the same reason as Acid Arrow.

d20srd.org - Spell-like Abilities

d20srd wrote:
A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description. In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell.

(emphasis mine)

I had an Overwatch/Snapshot idea that is killed by that little "(Sp)".

Silver Crusade

Pretty sure miscdebris has the right of it here, I could swear this came up earlier, but it's based on the action required to use it that makes it less than viable.

Also since I didn't address this earlier.

Fourshadow wrote:

There is an advice thread for 3PP, but it ain't here: this is Paizo, ladies and gents.

Thank you!

You know people can mention 3p stuff in paizo threads, right? Like that's not something that's not allowed. If you are going to thread police, at least direct them towards the KOP discussion thread or else you're not actually helping anyone.

As an aside, I seriously can't believe this guide has 2 thousand post. Like when did that even happen? I never expected to have the biggest guide thread, or to have it be this one. I seriously hope we get some fun stuff in Horror Adventures to include, although soon I think I'll have written more 3P for the class than the class itself. Either way, a huge thanks to everyone who's posted in this thread, I'm glad it's been able to help you all out.


miscdebris wrote:


I had an Overwatch/Snapshot idea that is killed by that little "(Sp)".

I've been having the same problem. I'm trying to figure out some way to get attacks of opportunities with ranged-attack spell-like abilities, but there doesn't seem to be any. The closest thing I've found is to use Snap Shot with a conductive ranged weapon, but that doesn't fit the concept I'm going for.

Silver Crusade

Question guiders and guidettes:

Okay, so as you may have seen, there is now a 3rd party addendum. Let me explain some stuff first.

KOP and the like will not be removed from the main guide because of this, but they are also included in the addendum for meeting the prerequisites. This goes for anything else that I write in this regard, and will not change.

But I have some stuff I'd like to ask of those who check this guide:

Right now, the damn thing is about 80 pages, and it's only going to get bigger. I'm not sure how everyone's computer is handling it at the moment, but I'm thinking of splitting each section into its own document. Would that help solve some problems of the doc being just freaking massive at this point?

And as opposed to the addendum, would you rather see all 3p included in the guide proper, or does the addendum work for those of you who actually care to check out 3p content? I will probably still have something implemented about including it, but since as I've said before it's not just my guide, I want to get input from those who still check it out.


Do you think there should be a section on variant multiclassing in the guide?

Silver Crusade

christos gurd wrote:
Do you think there should be a section on variant multiclassing in the guide?

I really should have included that, that'll most likely be added once things slow down for me, as VMC is a pretty nice option for most kineticist due to the criminal lack of valuable feats they have.


N. Jolly wrote:
Right now, the damn thing is about 80 pages, and it's only going to get bigger. I'm not sure how everyone's computer is handling it at the moment, but I'm thinking of splitting each section into its own document. Would that help solve some problems of the doc being just freaking massive at this point?

My i7-2600 desktop with 16 ram handles it just fine after it loads, as does my Surface Pro 3 with i5-4300u with 8 gb ram does to. Heck, even my Note 4 phone handles it ok. The phone and Surface just take longer to load than my desktop.

That tab in Chrome uses about 305mb ram. For comparison, My Drive root takes about 207 mb.

If I'm doing a build, I usually have it open 4-5 times, depending on the elements I'm interested in, so I can read different parts at the same time, mainly the different element contents.

I think it's fine, but I could see pulling out Elements and Talents, that being over half the document.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
N. Jolly wrote:
christos gurd wrote:
Do you think there should be a section on variant multiclassing in the guide?
I really should have included that, that'll most likely be added once things slow down for me, as VMC is a pretty nice option for most kineticist due to the criminal lack of valuable feats they have.

Very true. Hopefully more support for them will be released in the future.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Given the usefulness of the guide and the varying GM restrictions on what may or may not be used I would suggest splitting the guide so that 3rd party material is in its own addendum. You could also set up two guides one with everything and one without 3rd party material.

I would suggest, if you have the time, possibly going through and indicated options that are PFS legal or those that aren't (probably easier).


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Personally, I always rather dislike when guides are split into multiple documents. They're more of a pain to navigate and read through, and you lose the ability to simply Ctrl+F around to find things of note.

On my Note 4 in the Google Docs app, the guide does take a bit to load. The loading is mostly seamless, but does have some hitches where the app loses responsiveness for about a half second at a time. Those hitches appear to be related to loading the images, as best as I can tell.

As far as third party material, I think this is a case where it's fine to have it all mixed in with the first party material. There's so little overall first party support to begin with, and the design of the class is such that it's a bit of a pain to consider talents for a particular element when a decent chunk of them are in a completely different part of the guide just because they're third party. I think that having the third party content mixed in (with some clear indication that they're third party) enhances the overall usability of the guide.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I would consider perhaps having two copies of the guide, one that has Paizo material only, and one that has Paizo material and the various third party options, so that people who are allowed to use third party material can just use the one guide without having to reference both, and people who can only use Paizo material can use the 'pure' guide.

Silver Crusade

See, I'm torn here because I do still want to centerpiece things that I wrote (I wrote them, they're obviously good), but the reason to include new 3p is kind of as a thank you to 3p as a whole for getting me into the industry.

If I removed 3p from the guide entirely and put it in its own guide, I know my own writing will go there, and I feel like that will critically lower its visibility. Including KOP stuff was mostly done to make people aware of it who might have not normally checked out 3p stuff, which would really drop off.

I can admit it's selfish, but on the other hand, I did write the guide, so it's mine to do with as I want.

I feel like I'm going to have to split the guide up soon enough though, as there's always the looming shadow of KOP 4 (KOP 3 was 2nd in the top 10 this week) as well as other projects I've been working on which will have kinetic content. So yeah, we're probably going to have a guide split soon enough. I make sure to mention all this because I think sometimes people forget guide writers are people too, and we have our own reasons for doing things like this.


(N)PC Idea: +1 Conductive Light Ballista of Distance with Ride the Blast and (Improved) Vital Strike.

For maximum range, +1 Conductive Trebuchet of Distance

Dark Archive

Personally, I'd say your guide could stand to be split up. Navigating it at length on my home PC works fine, but I'm a big fan of having the larger guides in 'chapters' to keep it organized. You can keep the 3rd party stuff intermixed with the first party. Your elements with Paizo's elements, Your feats with Paizo's feats, etc.

Plus, it gives you the freedom to add bulkier sections should you please. A guide to tactical play with a few examples? One or two sample PC builds? I'm sure you've got a couple of fun ideas that couldn't quite make the cut for fear of making a long document even longer.

The counterpart to your guide, Sucking Counts as Airbending, has the benefit of separate posts and spoiler tabs to keep things into bite-sized chunks. I find it much easier to maintain concentration when I'm doing research for builds or just playing with ideas. Your guide has more information and a better understanding of Burn management, though.

Again, your guide is cool the way it is. The early table of contents is more than enough to make it navigable. But if I had to vote, I'd vote for a split.

EDIT: Congrats on the topic getting as huge as it is. We all love to talk about this class and you've done a fantastic job of helping us all to understand it's high density of rules and restrictions.

Grand Lodge

I have a recommendation for a new section to be added to your guide: provide a breakdown of common enemies/enemy types that have immunities to certain kinds of elements, to help players decide if a certain element is right for their campaign.


so, I'm sure (like REALLY sure) this wouldn't work, but sure for me isn't 100% positive so I'll bring it up anyway.

Periapt of Wound Closure, or more so the line "The periapt doubles the wearer's normal rate of healing or allows normal healing of wounds that would not do so normally."

So, burn damage can't be "normally healed"...


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Burn may not be considered a "wound" though, at least not in the same way that, say, broken bones caused by a clay golem might be.


It wouldn't remove the Burn though, just the damage caused by it.

"For each point of burn she accepts, a kineticist takes 1 point of nonlethal damage per character level."

The damage taken is calculated by Burn, but not an integral part of it.


I dunno... I might allow it as a GM just so I could see it in action to decide whether to continue to allow it or not. The big thing to consider is that it might allow healing of the Nonlethal damage, but you still are limited by your Burn cap. There is, currently, no way to remove accrued Burn other than by resting. There is something to be considered, especially when you're dropping 15k on something like that.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Ye olde question what is more special, class ability or item.
What´s to consider there is, that burn and the resulting non-lethal damage are mainly meant to balance the kineticist as a Con caster.
Removing that non-lethal damage is severely skewering that balance.
When memory serves right there´s also a line stating that it can only be removed by resting. I think i wouldn´t allow that.


Hayato Ken wrote:

Ye olde question what is more special, class ability or item.

What´s to consider there is, that burn and the resulting non-lethal damage are mainly meant to balance the kineticist as a Con caster.
Removing that non-lethal damage is severely skewering that balance.
When memory serves right there´s also a line stating that it can only be removed by resting. I think i wouldn´t allow that.

Which covers the criteria for "allows normal healing of wounds that would not do so normally."

Silver Crusade

Rosc wrote:

Personally, I'd say your guide could stand to be split up. Navigating it at length on my home PC works fine, but I'm a big fan of having the larger guides in 'chapters' to keep it organized. You can keep the 3rd party stuff intermixed with the first party. Your elements with Paizo's elements, Your feats with Paizo's feats, etc.

Plus, it gives you the freedom to add bulkier sections should you please. A guide to tactical play with a few examples? One or two sample PC builds? I'm sure you've got a couple of fun ideas that couldn't quite make the cut for fear of making a long document even longer.

The counterpart to your guide, Sucking Counts as Airbending, has the benefit of separate posts and spoiler tabs to keep things into bite-sized chunks. I find it much easier to maintain concentration when I'm doing research for builds or just playing with ideas. Your guide has more information and a better understanding of Burn management, though.

Again, your guide is cool the way it is. The early table of contents is more than enough to make it navigable. But if I had to vote, I'd vote for a split.

EDIT: Congrats on the topic getting as huge as it is. We all love to talk about this class and you've done a fantastic job of helping us all to understand it's high density of rules and restrictions.

I'll be splitting it probably once I get up the KOP 3 reviews (which will happen once I get the revisions out), as I'm not looking forward to doing that. And you as well as everyone in this thread is welcome, the kineticist has been a very important class for me in a large amount of ways, and I'm glad to help spread the love.

Ms. Pleiades wrote:
I have a recommendation for a new section to be added to your guide: provide a breakdown of common enemies/enemy types that have immunities to certain kinds of elements, to help players decide if a certain element is right for their campaign.

I feel like that's somewhat outside the scope of something that I want to do for this, but once I do the section split, it's something I will consider, as the guide's too big at the moment, and I don't want to make it larger for something that's not super vital at the moment.

Josh-o-Lantern wrote:

so, I'm sure (like REALLY sure) this wouldn't work, but sure for me isn't 100% positive so I'll bring it up anyway.

Periapt of Wound Closure, or more so the line "The periapt doubles the wearer's normal rate of healing or allows normal healing of wounds that would not do so normally."

So, burn damage can't be "normally healed"...

Me personally, I'd allow it. It's kind of annoying that it would be such a mid game vital purchase, but I would. I doubt it works like that, even though you're pretty damn clever to have thought of it, and I'm sure we'll get Mark S. in here soon enough telling us one way or another unless someone has asked him in his AMA thread, but officially I would say it probably doesn't work due to the reasons stated above. I may not 100% agree with burn as a balancing mechanic, but that's what it's there for, and this would be too large a shift on how things would work for the class.

Designer

N. Jolly is correct; it indeed doesn't heal burn for the reasons stated above (in fact, the item somewhat implies that it means natural 8 hour rest healing throughout based on the way that sentence starts, in which case burn heals from that anyway). It would also be really really bad if it allowed magical/fast healing to heal the damage from burn (countably-infinite [bounded only by how much time you have to keep increasing it] refilling temporary hit points via aether's defense is just one example off the top of my head), so while almost always I tell people to houserule what works for their game, this is one of those cases that I think nobody should rule that it does that in their game, full stop because I am pretty much always against having infinite loops in the game.

Silver Crusade

And there you go. Like I said, I think it would be too centralizing an item, especially for a midgame item. I stand by my allowance of it, but I use KOP in my games, which has other ways to sidestep burn (although not to this degree).

Personally, I think the class is more interesting playing around burn rather than negating it. It complicates things sure, which makes it a more complex class (which is why this thread has over 2k post), but that's something I like about it. Really, I've seen a hundred different 'blood knight' style homebrew classes, and having that's almost an official one seems like a cool thing to me. Doesn't mean I won't keep making amusing ways to work around a class feature, as I'm a large proponent of rage cycling, tumor familiar abuse, dual wielding firearms, and other 'exploits.'

I do have to thank Mark S. for making a class that's so fun to design with though, it's been a blast tooling around with things. Here's hoping horror adventures gives some more things for the base class, I can't wait to see what's in there!

Designer

1 person marked this as a favorite.

And I'm glad that 3pp are putting out creative ideas for the kineticist! It's probably never going to receive enough pagecount from Paizo books to give it the kind of focused products that 3rd party can give it, since there's so many other classes out there that it's hard even for those of us who love the kineticist to justify that many pages, even with the relatively-high sales of 3pp kineticist products.


Mark Seifter wrote:
And I'm glad that 3pp are putting out creative ideas for the kineticist! It's probably never going to receive enough pagecount from Paizo books to give it the kind of focused products that 3rd party can give it, since there's so many other classes out there that it's hard even for those of us who love the kineticist to justify that many pages, even with the relatively-high sales of 3pp kineticist products.

That's a shame as it really is holding the Kineticist back. I rather like the Burn mechanics myself and am playing my 2nd Kineticst, but I can't help but feel a bit limited at this point.


Mark Seifter wrote:
And I'm glad that 3pp are putting out creative ideas for the kineticist! It's probably never going to receive enough pagecount from Paizo books to give it the kind of focused products that 3rd party can give it, since there's so many other classes out there that it's hard even for those of us who love the kineticist to justify that many pages, even with the relatively-high sales of 3pp kineticist products.

Don't mean to derail but

A lot of kineticist abilities are duplicating spell effects. Given that, wouldn't it make sense to maybe start leaning on that and including kineticist abilities in the spell section of the book?

Do something like... I dunno

Quote:

Blah Blah Blah's Icy Doom.

Sorcerer/wizard 6, Magus 6, Cleric 6, Kineticist(water) 6
rules text rules text rules text

A kineticist must spend X burn to activate this ability.

It doesn't let you add as many crazy weird kineticist abilities, but it does let you add stuff to the class with only twelve or so words per spell rather than their own section. You could even standardize the last part 'X level spells cost Y level burn'.

Silver Crusade

Mark Seifter wrote:
And I'm glad that 3pp are putting out creative ideas for the kineticist! It's probably never going to receive enough pagecount from Paizo books to give it the kind of focused products that 3rd party can give it, since there's so many other classes out there that it's hard even for those of us who love the kineticist to justify that many pages, even with the relatively-high sales of 3pp kineticist products.

I feel like this is a heartbreaking statement to 1st party fans of the class, but I can totally understand you. Any psychic spell could be for the psychic spellcaster or others, but any kineticist ability is only for the kineticist. As I talked about, the reason the guide was smaller to start was because considerably little actually works for the class, everything has to be tailor made to fit it. It very much plays by its own rules, which is both cool and frustrating.

I'd love to see some 3p on your end of things, although if you ever want to check out something I'm working on, just hit me up here.

Also if anyone wants to talk 3p kin stuff with me, head over to the KOP thread, as some interesting ideas are being thrown around there. Again, thanks to everyone who's checked this out, this guide sometimes has as many as 40 people on it at a time. Those are some intense numbers for a guide!

EDIT: That's a pretty cool idea, Swoosh! It'd be nice to see something like that implimented, although sometimes kineticist abilities require a bit more rules text than that. Still, it'd be nice to see something that helped allow for more kinetic content.

Designer

swoosh wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
And I'm glad that 3pp are putting out creative ideas for the kineticist! It's probably never going to receive enough pagecount from Paizo books to give it the kind of focused products that 3rd party can give it, since there's so many other classes out there that it's hard even for those of us who love the kineticist to justify that many pages, even with the relatively-high sales of 3pp kineticist products.

Don't mean to derail but

A lot of kineticist abilities are duplicating spell effects. Given that, wouldn't it make sense to maybe start leaning on that and including kineticist abilities in the spell section of the book?

Do something like... I dunno

Quote:

Blah Blah Blah's Icy Doom.

Sorcerer/wizard 6, Magus 6, Cleric 6, Kineticist(water) 6
rules text rules text rules text

A kineticist must spend X burn to activate this ability.

It doesn't let you add as many crazy weird kineticist abilities, but it does let you add stuff to the class with only twelve or so words per spell rather than their own section. You could even standardize the last part 'X level spells cost Y level burn'.

Getting kineticist wild talents to be in the spells chapter just overall (like how warlock invocations were) was something I pushed for back in OA, but that's not how it shook out. The proposed suggestion is interesting, but the problem with it is that attack spells with unique effects or areas need a significant deconstruction to become form and substance infusions and in most cases a well-balanced utility talent will either cost 0 burn (1 for extra effect) or 1 burn, based on wording the ability to work around that, but those explanations would be a significant footprint on the spell and confusing to both the kineticist and spellcaster who have to pick apart the sections they won't use.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

It does remind me how the qinggong monk got a few new abilities in the Advanced Race Guide by adding on lines like, "At 4th level, a qinggong monk may select this spell as a ki power costing 1 ki point to activate (if the monk has 0 ki points after activating this ki power, the rock does not count as a ki strike)" and "At 4th level, a qinggong monk may select this spell as a ki power costing 1 ki point to activate". Was always disappointed that we didn't get some more expansion there after the Advanced Race Guide for additional ki powers, but I'll agree wording would likely be a bit finicky for a kineticist.


@ N.Jolly

I'd like to see suggestions/insights for some of the archetypes. For instance, for the Elemental Scion, I'd like to know your opinion on which element is "the best option" for it. Same goes for the Fusion Kineticist, with "the best two-elements combos".

Ok not really an URGING advice, but it would be nice to have this kind of info for the long run ;)


I have a separate thread where i have been chronicling my play experience with a now level 2 Aerokineticist. My many frustrations with that character have made me very curious; would anyone else care to share their experiences with the class at low levels or otherwise curious situations they have come across with the class? And if or how they overcame those difficulties? So far my realizations come down to a need for PBS and PS from level one and never rely on just a kinetic blast, ie, always carry around emergency thrown splash weapons and maybe a crossbow.


why a crossbow? It's just an inefficient non-scaling blast attack. Fairly similar question for the splash weapon. When would you ever use one of these two instead of your blast?


Chess Pwn wrote:
why a crossbow? It's just an inefficient non-scaling blast attack. Fairly similar question for the splash weapon. When would you ever use one of these two instead of your blast?

As an aerokineticist i deal bludgeoning damage at regular AC, a crossbow drops my damage but uses the same attack modifier to deal piercing damage. I have also ran into a few situations were regular AC needs a 17+ on the die so having a back up vial of acid or the like is very appealing. likewise i have run into some enemies at levels 1 and 2 where just being magic wouldnt get around DR and having a ready source of energy damage would have been great. dealing small amounts of damage is still preferable to not contributing to an entire fight.


My pyrokineticist kept an underwater crossbow around whenever he finds himself being forced to swim. Concentration checks to do fire spells/SLA underwater is very tough in low levels.


To echo what Torbyne is saying, players thinking of starting out from 1st level need to consider blast accuracy. Compared to a reasonably built archer (similar role in combat, I'm guessing) a Kineticist is going to be down 1-2 to hit due to 3/4 BAB. They are also going to be lacking the low hanging +1 enhancement bonus from a masterwork weapon most archers will pick up by 2nd level. An archer might also have the bounty of feats to pick up weapon focus, something that might be delayed or passed by a kientcist. Archers also probably have a +4 DEX mod, while many Kineticists will be a point or so behind. Add that up and low level kineticists are often 3-4 behind on attack roles. If a kineticst fails to pick up Precise Shot early, then they are really behind the 8-ball.

Upside: A kineticist can take an energy blast (ranged touch), but with reduced damage. Both archers and kineticts benefit from some of those nice ranged magic items, like Bracers of Falcon's Aim (or lesser archery), which are available pretty early (5th or 6th level - what else are you spending money on?).

I'm guessing by mid levels, the focus on a single shot and diminishing marginal enemy AC evens things out. Archers need the to hit bonuses to hit with iterative attacks, not as issue for a kineticist. But at early levels, in actual play, missing often is simply frustrating.

One thought: In a home game a kineticist should be allowed to use a feat to pick up an additional blast with Extra Wild Talent. Maybe let them retrain out of it at 7th. Having the physical and energy blast would be more flavorful than just some accuracy boosting feat.


mikkelibob wrote:

To echo what Torbyne is saying, players thinking of starting out from 1st level need to consider blast accuracy. Compared to a reasonably built archer (similar role in combat, I'm guessing) a Kineticist is going to be down 1-2 to hit due to 3/4 BAB. They are also going to be lacking the low hanging +1 enhancement bonus from a masterwork weapon most archers will pick up by 2nd level. An archer might also have the bounty of feats to pick up weapon focus, something that might be delayed or passed by a kientcist. Archers also probably have a +4 DEX mod, while many Kineticists will be a point or so behind. Add that up and low level kineticists are often 3-4 behind on attack roles. If a kineticst fails to pick up Precise Shot early, then they are really behind the 8-ball.

Upside: A kineticist can take an energy blast (ranged touch), but with reduced damage. Both archers and kineticts benefit from some of those nice ranged magic items, like Bracers of Falcon's Aim (or lesser archery), which are available pretty early (5th or 6th level - what else are you spending money on?).

I'm guessing by mid levels, the focus on a single shot and diminishing marginal enemy AC evens things out. Archers need the to hit bonuses to hit with iterative attacks, not as issue for a kineticist. But at early levels, in actual play, missing often is simply frustrating.

One thought: In a home game a kineticist should be allowed to use a feat to pick up an additional blast with Extra Wild Talent. Maybe let them retrain out of it at 7th. Having the physical and energy blast would be more flavorful than just some accuracy boosting feat.

I dont want to get started on the topic again but yes, to keep it short, accuracy can be a massive problem at low levels with gear, feats, BAB and stats putting you far behind the curve compared to a full up archer build. What experiences have others had at levels 1-4? People who talk about how great things get by level 6 fail to account for that being half way through a campaign :(


I played a fire kineticist through PFS confirmation. So lv1. Worked quite well.

Scarab Sages

I played Yoon, the PFS pregen fire kineticist through a tier 1-2 From Under Ice. She did the most damage of anyone at the table.

I also played an Aerokinectist with air blast and was doing quite well.

Once you hit level 3 and get the second die it picks up.


My early experience with my aether kineticist (physical blast) was alright at levels 1-3. I went human so I had PBS and PS right out of the gate so that does help and once you start getting other bonuses like elemental overflow and weapon focus (both were gained at 3 for me for a total +3 accuracy gain in 1 level) you really catch up quickly. I can see how not having PS can really hurt any attacks into melee though.

Designer

Math:
Even at level 4 (I have chosen this to be optimally bad for the kineticist, since we gained no blasting advantage since 3 but the fighter got weapon specialization), with overflow, you're looking at an additional +1, so you're likely to be more accurate than a fighter archer: Consider you have 18 Dex, 16 Con, 10 Strength to the archer's 18 Dex, 14 Strength, 14 Con, same mental stats. This is arguably one of the weakest levels for the kineticist relatively since her damage will rise dramatically at level 5. The longbow fighter probably has +7/+7 at Point-Blank Range with Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim (Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization and a +1 weapon included) for 1d8+10 each while the kineticist probably has +9 (+10 if human with Weapon Focus, or if size Small halfling or the like, which lowers the archer's damage but not ours, but let's go with the lower estimate for now to make this worst for the kineticist; in the same way, the kineticist will have 0 wealth spent by level 4 while the fighter has a +1 weapon) for 2d6+8 damage (.5 more damage). If the fighter can't take a full attack, he's at +9 for 1d8+10. So the worst case kineticist (0 wealth spent, not a human, not a halfling, not sure what race we actually are here) against the hardest foe (AC 20 CR 7 boss) is going to do about 2/3 the damage of the fighter on full attack or equal when the fighter can't take one. With something like a Dex belt (a stretch but possible at level 4 if you don't buy other things) and a human or halfling, we're actually looking at slightly over 3/4 of the fighter's damage if the fighter gets a full attack and more if not. Plus we get an infusion with a move action, which might add a small fun effect to the attack. At 3rd, it was basically the same except shifted down by 1 accuracy and monster AC (no difference) and the fighter loses Specialization, so the human or halfling kineticist to be really close to the fighter's damage (.6 hits for 15 vs .8 hits for 12.5 means the kineticist has 90% as much damage as the fighter against that AC 19 boss). At 5th, the fighter gets weapon training and more BAB than the kineticist and is now +9/+9 for 1d8+10 but our "full attack" deals (3d6+9)*1.5 damage which is more damage than both hits from the fighter combined (barely), and we have equal (or slightly better with human or halfling) accuracy.

The upshot is that at level 3, we're looking at up to 90% of the (Point Blank/Precise/Weapon Focus/Rapid Shot/Deadly Aim) fighter's expected full attack damage vs a boss (and more than the fighter when the fighter doesn't get one) plus an infusion if we "full attack" with gather power, at level 4, we're looking at about 2/3-3/4 of the fighter's full attack (the 2/3 being a serious minimum where the kineticist buys no gear) plus an infusion if we "full attack", and at level 5, the kineticist does at least slightly more damage on a "full attack" to the archer fighter full attack, significantly more if neither of them gets a full attack, plus a free 1-cost infusion. I haven't rated levels 1 or 2 because factoring in the absence of Precise Shot for non-human kineticists requires making weird assumptions that might not bear fruit in actual play, but I can try them at some point on request. I'll note that the kineticist isn't doing anything fancy here to compare to the fighter. We can't even get any worse than the weaker level 4 kineticist without lowering Dexterity, but as shown in the point buy, we've spent equally to the fighter on physical ability scores, so any amount lower Dexterity is, the fighter could commensurately lose Dex to match, keeping the numbers relatively even. My sample kineticist even has 10 Strength, and could drop it lower without much to lose to get better mental than the fighter or start with 17 Con or something like that; there's no reason that the fighter should have higher Dex.

EDIT @Play data: My play data from GMing and playing as/with low-level kineticists matches the three posts that slow-ninjaed me (had a meeting during my long post).


I played playtest pyro with Trial by Machine as second scenario (more details here). I learned real fast how early it can be hard for energy kineticists. Accuracy needs to be taken care of immediately at level 1-3 and energy kineticists need to pack back up weapon. Also, wear cestus to count as armed to help party members flank.

Designer

Protoman wrote:
I played playtest pyro with Trial by Machine as second scenario (more details here. I learned real fast how early it can be hard for energy kineticists. Accuracy needs to be taken care of immediately at level 1-3 and energy kineticists need to pack back up weapon. Also, wear cestus to count as armed to help party members flank.

Yeah, that scenario is rough for almost everyone. When Logan saw the <redacted> during the pickup phase for Bestiary 5, he told me right away that they needed some reduction to their <defensive ability redacted>, and I said "Trial by Machine would back that observation up."


I actually like the kineticist at low levels. Energy and Physical both do solid damage and while accuracy can be an issue with the latter, you're realistically only going to be at a -1 on your hit roll which is far from the end of the world.

I struggled the most with mine actually in mid game. There's a point (the few levels before supercharge) where you really need to use composites to keep up with everyone else in terms of damage but you can't actually afford them consistently because of the burn. Supercharge helps a bit and once you get Composite Specialization you really come into your own and can be pretty damn terrifying. Sadly the latter comes online too late to help most builds.

Mark Seifter wrote:


Getting kineticist wild talents to be in the spells chapter just overall (like how warlock invocations were) was something I pushed for back in OA, but that's not how it shook out. The proposed suggestion is interesting, but the problem with it is that attack spells with unique effects or areas need a significant deconstruction to become form and substance infusions and in most cases a well-balanced utility talent will either cost 0 burn (1 for extra effect) or 1 burn, based on wording the ability to work around that, but those explanations would be a significant footprint on the spell and confusing to both the kineticist and spellcaster who have to pick apart the sections they won't use.

Yeah, it doesn't let you add as many fun and nuanced powers and it certainly isn't optimal, but it would be a way to continue to flesh out the kineticist without taking over half the book.

It's not like it's unprecedented either. Wild Growth, Warp Wood, Gravity Master, Earthmeld, Tidal Wave, Telekinetic Maneuvers and others I'm probably forgetting are all more or less 'function as spell' talents. Wild Growth, Warp Wood and Tidal Wave don't have any addendums at all to how they function.

Designer

2 people marked this as a favorite.
swoosh wrote:
Wild Growth, Warp Wood and Tidal Wave don't have any addendums at all to how they function.

Yeah, these are the only ones for which it would be feasible, like with tidal wave. That said, very occasionally for effects like these, it would be feasible, as long as there was a good way to put in their wild talent name, level, and elements. You know what? You're right! I'll keep a lookout if we wind up with any new spells coming out in the RPG line that match the profile (usually these will be non-damage [interesting aspects of a damage spell become infusions] elementally-themed spells that are so powerful that they can't really cost 0 burn at a baseline level, so probably high-level elemental spells). Obviously the ship has sailed for Horror (and I don't think it had any of these that I remember off the top of my head), but later books.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Off comment:
I love Trial by Machine, it´s definately one of the most fun scenarios!
Also i gmed that several times and while single characters had problems at times, the groups overall never had real problems. My players over here don´t have a large optimization level.

@Mark Seifter:
Could you perhaps be bothered to compare a kineticist to a gunslinger like that? I think they´re the better match since they also attack touch AC.

Silver Crusade

JiCi wrote:

@ N.Jolly

I'd like to see suggestions/insights for some of the archetypes. For instance, for the Elemental Scion, I'd like to know your opinion on which element is "the best option" for it. Same goes for the Fusion Kineticist, with "the best two-elements combos".

Ok not really an URGING advice, but it would be nice to have this kind of info for the long run ;)

This question would probably be better suited for the KOP thread, so I'll answer it there. But I will say now that Brutal Mutation from KOP 3 is getting a variant that'll let it work more easily with fusion kineticist to help make that a better archetype.

With the topic at hand, human feels like such an 'obvious' racial choice to me due to getting PBS/PS at 1st level, which really helps open up the class. With their FCB, you get a nice open window for new talents too, something I really appreciate.

And just speaking for myself as someone who's done both a guide for gunslingers and kineticist, you're going to see slingers who fire within touch range outdamaging energy kineticist pretty well. A full BAB attack routine with your standard ranged feats is just so powerful, although it lacks the AOE and debuffing that the kineticist has, so it's a matter of damage vs. utility to me.

2,001 to 2,050 of 2,778 << first < prev | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Mastering the Elements: N. Jolly's guide to the Pathfinder Kineticist All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.