"For each point of burn she accepts, a kineticist takes 1 point of nonlethal damage per character level."
So, if a 10th level kineticist uses a power that costs 2 points of burn, she takes 20 points of nonlethal damage? Is that how this works?
correct
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I'm probably the only one who doesn't see this as a good thing.
It's not supposed to be "good". It's supposed to be a price you only want to pay when the chips are down.
However, I, along with a vast number of people, do believe the price is currently set too high.
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Just don't forget, Con is your most important stat, you'll have more HP than most fighters, and there's a max on how much you can burn, which still puts you at better than a wizard in remaining HP before KO, and that's IF you get around to burning all your burn. I rarely ever spend all my burn, and once I do, I rarely am in a situation afterwards (before resting) in which I need many HPs.
In most optimization guides there is no reason for most classes to take Toughness. For the Kineticist, you have lots of free room for feats, so might as well take Toughness. Also, the class favors getting Con bonuses for your damage, so run with it.
What's the point of a caster using Con as his casting stat if he can't spend his health to power his abilities?
Thanks, everyone!
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In another thread I said
One thing I feel about the cost of burn is comparing HP left to other classes. I'm assuming a standard d10 class will have a 14 con and lets say FCB to hp. So he has 13 hp lv1 and gains 9 per level. A Kineticist is a d8 class but lets assume an 18 con. So he starts with 13 hp and gains 10 per level. So if you accept 1 pt of burn your remaining HP is the same as a d10 class. If you get your con higher then you take more burn and still have a remaining HP as a d10.
Skip to lv6, you probably have a Con belt where the d10 has a str belt and you get +2 Con at 3 burn. So now you can have 3 burn and still have remaining HP equal to the d10 class.
For each if you gain 1 more burn then you're the same hp as other d8 classes.
So my point is, I feel that burn isn't really that bad since you have a few uses "for free" before you start to feel the effects of it.
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I was scared of Burn from the beginning, and over the course of the playtest (5 levels in my case) I never took a point of Burn.
If you're like me, take a look at the Overwhelming Soul archetype. It eschews Burn in favor of face skills. I immediately retrained my Kineticist into it after the book came out.
Mine arrived Monday, and I've slowly been going through it. The rules seem more complicated than some of the earlier releases, so I may have a lot more questions in the future. I was really unsure about Burn, so I appreciate all the comments!
If you're going with an elemental blast, take CON as your highest stat - if physical, second-highest. I'll be using the Automatic Bonus Progression table to approximate your CON score and average HP at every level.
1: 18 CON, 13 HP.
2: 18 CON, 22 HP.
3: 18 CON, 32 HP.
4: 19 CON, 41 HP.
5: 19 CON, 51 HP.
6: 21 CON, 66 HP max, 48 Current (3 Burn)
7: 23 CON, 91 HP max, 70 Current (3 Burn)
8: 24 CON, 111 HP max, 87 Current (3 Burn)
9: 24 CON, 125 HP max, 98 Current (3 Burn)
10: 24 CON, 138 HP max, 108 Current (3 Burn)
11: 26 CON, 163 HP max, 108 Current (5 Burn)
12: 29 CON, 189 HP max, 129 Current (5 Burn)
13: 29 CON, 205 HP max, 140 Current (5 Burn)
14: 29 CON, 220 HP max, 150 Current (5 Burn)
15: 29 CON, 236 HP max, 161 Current (5 Burn)
16: 34 CON, 299 HP max, 187 Current (7 Burn)
17: 34 CON, 318 HP max, 199 Current (7 Burn)
18: 34 CON, 336 HP max, 210 Current (7 Burn)
19: 37 CON, 374 HP max, 241 Current (7 Burn)
20: 40 CON, 433 HP max, 293 Current (7 Burn)
(If you're wondering about the health spike at level 7, I assume Toughness is taken at that time or around it, figuring you'll want PBS, Precise Shot, and Weapon Focus before getting that)
At all levels, your maximum HP is astounding, and even after assuming you take enough burn to max out your Elemental Overflow bonuses every morning you still end the game with nearly 300 health. Not too shabby, eh?
Here's what you get at relevant levels for losing that much hp:
6: +2 CON, +2 DEX or STR, +2 Attack, +4 Damage, 15% Fortification*
9: +2 CON, +2 DEX or STR, +3 Attack, +6 Damage, 15% Fortification
11: +4 CON, +2 DEX/STR, +3 Attack, +6 Damage, 25% Fortification
12: +4 CON, +2 DEX/STR, +4 Attack, +8 Damage, 25% Fortification
15: +4 CON, +2 DEX/STR, +5 Attack, +10 Damage, 25% Fortification
16: +6 CON, +4/+2 DEX/STR, +5 Attack, +10 Damage, 35% Fortification
18: +6 CON, +4/+2 DEX/STR, +6 Attack, +12 Damage, 35% Fortification
*Fortification = Chance to negate any critical hit or sneak attack
And that's not even counting what you actually spent that Burn on. That could be +7 DR, +4 AC, +35% miss chance vs ranged attacks, +7 damage to any creature or weapon that hits you, +70 temporary HP that regenerates by 4 per minute, Evasion, the ability to change size to Large or even Huge, 20% miss chance, or any number of powerful blasts to start off the day. You can almost always afford to lose a bit more hp to deal more damage, entangle, slow, suffocate, etc. And as you gain levels you become even more efficient in reducing how much burn it costs you to modify your blast.
Sure, you're giving up HP and thus making it easier to kill you (Well, Aether Kineticists basically get free burn from their Force Ward), but you get so much in return for it. It's a lot of HP to lose, yes, but take another look at how much you have in the first place. It looks bad at a glance but once you actually run the numbers it's easy to see that you gain just as much as you give, not to mention that the more burn you get the less likely you are to be taken down by a random crit or sneak attack. The class is a lot more sturdy than it looks. Plus, all of that damage is nonlethal - unless you get Coup de Grace'd they have to convert all that into lethal damage and then some before you actually die. And whether or not a Coup de Grace actually works depends on if they bypass your crit negation first :P