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Some kineticists channel elemental energy through their bodies, others resist the elemental flow with their overwhelming souls. Then there are those that have experienced the trauma of a fractured psyche, either through circumstance or experimentation. The fracture opens a channel in their mind for truly spectacular power directed by thought alone. More fragile than their classic counterparts, Psychokinetics are mental giants.
Saves:
The Psychokinetic swaps the values for their Fortitude saves and Will Saves. This alters the saves.
Class Skills
A Psychokinetic loses Acrobatics, and does not gain additional skills for their element. In exchange they gain all Knowledge skills as class skills. This alters the Kineticist class skills.
Mental Might (Ex)
A psychokinetic uses her Intelligence modifier instead of her Dexterity modifier to determine the accuracy of her blasts, the DC of Dexterity based wild talents, the duration of wild talents with a Dexterity based duration, any spell-like abilities from the Psychic spell list, and any other dexterity based effects of all her wild talents.
A psychokinetic uses her Wisdom modifier instead of her Constitution modifier to determine the damage of her Constitution based wild talents, the DC of Constitution based wild talents, the duration of wild talents with a Constitution based duration, her bonus on concentration checks for wild talents, and all other Constitution based effects of her talents.
A psychokinetic loses Acrobatics, and does not gain additional skills for their element, and gains all Knowledge skills as class skills.
This alters the kineticist's class skills and the key ability scores of wild talents.
Brain Strain (Su)
A Psychokinetic gains a pool of Burn points equal to 3 + Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma bonuses. When this pool is reduced by 1/3rd the Psychokinetic is fatigued. When reduced by 2/3rds the Psychokinetic is Exhausted. When reduced to 0 the Psychokinetic is unconscious for 8 hours. The Psychokinetic loses points from their Burn Pool every time they would otherwise take burn. This ability replaces burn.
Psychokinetic Focus (Su)
A Psychokinetic can only choose Aether or Fire as their element.
This ability alters Elemental Focus.
Psychic Talent
A Psychokinetic can select a spell from the psychic spell list, with a burn cost equal to the level of the spell which they can cast as a spell-like ability using their psychokineticist level instead of a utility talent. The psychokineticist may only select spells of equal to half their level or less, a psychokinetic may undercast this spell as a psychic, paying less burn for doing so.
This ability alters Wild Talent.
Mental Overflow (Su)
A psychokineticist can alter their own brain chemistry, but does not improve her physical body.
At 6th level when they have taken at least 3 points of burn, the psychokinetic gains a +2 alchemical bonus to two mental ability scores of their choice. She also can reduce the roll on any confusion effect by 5% x her current points of burn that she suffers. At 11th level whenever she has suffered at least 5 points of burn, these bonuses increase to a +4 alchemical bonus to one mental ability score of her choice and a +2 alchemical bonus to each of her other two ability scores.
At 16th level, whenever the psychokineticist has at least 7 points of burn, these bonuses increase to +6 alchemical bonus to one mental ability score of her choice, a +4 to another mental ability score of her choice, and a +2 alchemical bonus to the remaining ability score.
This ability alters elemental overflow.
Expanded Talent (Su)
A Psychokinetic can either expand into Aether or Fire (whichever they didn’t choose), or they may select the original element again and gain a spell from the sorcerer/wizard spell list with either force descriptor (if aether) or fire descriptor (if fire), which they may cast as a Spell Like ability.
At 15th level they may either expand into the element (fire or aether) they have yet to select as the expanded element ability, or select another spell with either the fire or force descriptor from the sorcerer wizard list.
This ability replaces Expanded Element at level 7 and level 15.
Psychonaut (Su)
At 20th level a psychokineticist unlocks the deepest recesses of the mind, gaining unparalleled psychic abilities. They may cast any spell they do not know from the Psychic spell list, or any spell with the force or fire descriptor by taking an additional point of burn.
By accepting 1 point of burn as a standard action, she can change any of her wild talents into any other wild talent of the same category (such as simple blasts or defense) for 24 hours, from either the aether or fire elements but otherwise ignoring elemental requirements or restrictions (but not any other requirement or restriction). This ability replaces Omnikinesis.
I wanted to create a version of the kineticist that is a bit more of a science fictiony psychic. This is Jean Grey and Xavier's lovechild. This is Carrie. This is Psycho Mantis.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. What do you think of the balance?
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Seems fun to play.
The only thing I owuld nit-pick: The way brain-strain is worded, you don't ever take burn, you only reduce the pool. That's alright, but the phrasing of mental overflow should be changed accordingly, as right now it wouldn't work.
Also, brain-strain seems to not go up with your levels, hence making it a wery front-loaded ability. Given that, and their ability to take any (psychic) spell as a power, I'd consider giving the class a bad reflex save too, wich might make them more balanced while fitting tematicaly (reinforces the "mind over matter" theme).
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Seems fun to play.
The only thing I owuld nit-pick: The way brain-strain is worded, you don't ever take burn, you only reduce the pool. That's alright, but the phrasing of mental overflow should be changed accordingly, as right now it wouldn't work.
Also, brain-strain seems to not go up with your levels, hence making it a wery front-loaded ability. Given that, and their ability to take any (psychic) spell as a power, I'd consider giving the class a bad reflex save too, wich might make them more balanced while fitting tematicaly (reinforces the "mind over matter" theme).
Well the character should never take burn damage, instead they get the pool which gives progressively worse status effects (fatigue, exhaustion, unconsciousness).
While it is indeed front loaded, the old rule that you can only take 1 burn at level 1, 2 at level 6, and an additional 1 every 4 levels thereafter is still in effect. Although you're right that should be reflected in the wording of the ability.
(It means to cast any spell of level 7, 8 or 9th level you have to use Internal Buffer, Gather Power and Supercharge).
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Seems fun to play.
The only thing I owuld nit-pick: The way brain-strain is worded, you don't ever take burn, you only reduce the pool. That's alright, but the phrasing of mental overflow should be changed accordingly, as right now it wouldn't work.
Also, brain-strain seems to not go up with your levels, hence making it a wery front-loaded ability. Given that, and their ability to take any (psychic) spell as a power, I'd consider giving the class a bad reflex save too, wich might make them more balanced while fitting tematicaly (reinforces the "mind over matter" theme).
Well the character should never take burn damage, instead they get the pool which gives progressively worse status effects (fatigue, exhaustion, unconsciousness).
While it is indeed front loaded, the old rule that you can only take 1 burn at level 1, 2 at level 6, and an additional 1 every 4 levels thereafter is still in effect. Although you're right that should be reflected in the wording of the ability.
(It means to cast any spell of level 7, 8 or 9th level you have to use Internal Buffer, Gather Power and Supercharge).
That won't work. You are gaining the spells as wild talents. Gather power is explicitly meant to work only for blast powers (thank kinetic healing for that). Still, 6 levels spells are good enough, though you might considering opening up mesmerist spells too to gain some early entries.
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Internal Buffer still works though, since you can get up to 3 points in an internal buffer, means they could conceivably cast out of there.
I'm leery of letting them get any early access to spells just because I don't know how balanced spells for burn is in the first place.
I'm also considering how to make the math work for Brain Strain, so it's not nearly so front loaded.
Perhaps 3 + Int mod at level 1.
Add an additional 3 + Wis mod at level 6
Add an additional 3 + Cha mod at level 12?
The flavour I'm going for is that they use 100% of their brain?
3 + Int mod at level 1 is probably 6 points (Fatigued at 4, Exhausted at 2, Unconscious at 0).
At level 6 (assuming some kind of mental headband) 16 points (Fatigued at 11, Exhausted at 5, Unconscious at 0).
At level 12 (assuming another kind of mental headband) 25 points of burn that they can take in the course of a day. (Fatigued at 17, Exhausted at 9, Unconscious at 0)
I'm also rethinking whether fatigue is the right track to use, because it won't really effect such a mentally focused character all that much.
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A very quick look over tells me you need to clarify Expanded Talent, but I don't see anything else immediately wrong.
How many times per day do you get the spell-like ability?
The spell you pick needs a level limitation.
EDIT: I'm assuming probably like Psychic Talent, but you still need to clarify it.
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I might be misreading this, but it seems very unbalanced compared to the regular Kineticist. Everything is traded out for something better.
- Dex is traded out for Int. Normally, Dex is the best stat to grab, but in this case, you're now aiming with a mental stat. That means you don't care about your max Dex from armor, and happily clunk around in medium armor once you can spare a feat.
Verdict: Equal.
- Con is traded for Wis. While this would mean fewer hitpoints, the rest of the class more than negates that.
Verdict: Better.
- You trade out fort for will. 'Nuff said.
Verdict: Better.
- You get max burn equal to three plus all three mental stats, a lot more than the original class. The consequence for spending it is penalties to the stats you don't use. A one-level dip into Oracle means you don't even lose AC. And unlike regular Kineticist, there's no increased risk of somebody else knocking you out- just never spend the last point.
Verdict: Much better.
- You are limited to two elements. If you were going to play those, there's no difference.
Verdict: Worse/equal.
- Psychic Talent alters Wild Talent, but doesn't replace anything- you just have more options.
Verdict: Much better.
- Mental Overflow is the same stat boosts, but lacks the bonus to attack and damage. This is the only balancing point I've seen so far, but a good one. Whereas regular Kineticist needs to sink their primary stat boost into Con to offset the burn they've been taking, Psychokineticist can put it where they please.
Suggestions: Use something that the Psychokineticist cares about instead of fatigued/exhausted. Reduce the burn pool to 3 + Wis. Between that and the Overflow trade, that should make for a more balanced class. Consider trading something out in return for the access to Psychic spells (maybe form or substance infusions?).
EDIT: Ninja'd! You caught most of these. If you're using all three mental stats, there's no way you should be giving it an additional +3. It should probably be minus something, if anything.
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As to giving the Psychokineticist a bad Reflex Save, I could see that being a right decision from the fluff perspective, but I think there's already enough of a trade by limiting them to Aether and Fire elements.
It's not actually a trade, though. Right now, if this were official, the guides would say "Thinking of playing Pyrokineticist or Aetherkineticist? Go use the Psychokineticist archetype instead. Why are you still here?"
A wizard archetype that only lets you choose Divination school doesn't reward you for that restriction- you were probably planning on playing that for the crazy initiative anyway.(That said, I'm not particularly advocating for removing reflex as a good save- it's other stuff that seems like a balance issue.)
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Thanks for the feedback Efreeti, QuidEst and Wolin, and thank you for the encouragement I'm Hiding In Your Closet.
QuidEst:
I can see that this obviously needs some tweaking, I chose fatigue track for flavor but another read through did bring to light that the penalties wouldn't be so harsh for the Psychokineticist.
After losing 1/3 of their Burn Pool a Psychokineticist is
Strained Taking a -2 Penalty to Attack Rolls, Will Saves and skill checks based on Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
After losing 2/3rds of their Burn Pool a Psychokineticist is
Concussed Taking a -6 Penalty to Attack Rolls, Will Saves and Skill checks based on Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
If their burn pool reaches 0, a Psychokineticist is Unconscious
Until the pool refreshes after 8 hours rest.
I want to clarify, the Psychokineticist should still get the bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls that the normal kineticist gets, the only thing that changes are the ability bonuses shift to mental bonuses rather than physical bonuses, and they don't get any resistance to critical hits (instead they are able to reduce the severity of Confusion effects).
This is important because if the Psychokineticist is going to take penalties to their attack when suffering burn, that needs to be mitigated a little with an accuracy booster. As a Medium BaB character the Psychokineticist might suffer too much.
As for Fortitude and Will, design wise they are about equivalent, as far as I'm concerned. The Psychokineticist will be passing more Will Saves, but losing out on Fortitude saves.
I'm still juggling the math on the Burn Pool, because there are not a great deal of ways a Psychokineticist can mitigate burn on Psychic spells as they follow the Utility rules. I want a Psychokineticist to use burn more often for casting those psychic spells.
Wolin: Yes, I need to clean up the wording on Expanded Talent so it's closer to Psychic talent, thank you for pointing that out.
Musing Allowing Metakinetic abilities to apply to Psychic spell-likes, I might need to add some wording on that.
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Of course, if I do change the conditions to Strained and Concussed, then that means at 1st level you can only really take about 2 points of burn before you take penalties to your attacks, if only one ability score counts towards it.
The flavour I'm going for with the Brain Strain ability is the popular (and inaccurate) pseudoscientific notion that a Psychokineticist will be able to access 100% of their brain. It's meant to be a bit of a MAD class because dumping Dex still affects Reflex saves, Dex based skills (some of the most common in the game), and leaves one susceptible to Dex ability damage. Dumping Con still affects Fortitude saves and hit points, which directly impacts survival ability.
I'm still juggling the math on the Burn Pool, because there are not a great deal of ways a Psychokineticist can mitigate burn on Psychic spells as they follow the Utility rules. I want a Psychokineticist to use burn more often for casting those psychic spells.
The problem here is that Psychic spells don't replace anything to make the balancing easier. You could horribly over-cost Psychic spells, and it wouldn't matter; I just wouldn't take any and still be a better Kineticist than the Kineticist. Psychic spells might need to replace something (infusions, metakinesis, or utility talents). Perhaps they could be balanced by making them useable 1/day without burn, and additional uses cost burn? In that case, it might need to use a 1/3 your level limit minimum, since the 9th level options are extremely powerful. (Greater Mind Swap, for instance, is a permanent upgrade to your body.) If they replace Utility talents, though, they could probably be the full progression. (It would suck for fire, though, since a lot of their utility goes into making fire work against enemies. On the other hand, you've got a few psychic spells to sling.)
Anyway, it's a cool idea- best of luck ironing out the details!
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I actually really like this!
+1
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Brain Strain (Su)
The mental fracture suffered by the psychokineticist when widened by channeling power through their minds allows other personalities to slowly take hold of them. These personalities may be dormant aspects of the psychokineticist’s own personality, or spirits that have travelled through the ethereal realm attempting to possess the psychokineticist. Instead of suffering burn, a psychokineticist gains influence, similar to a Medium.
At 1st level a psychokineticist has two influence thresholds. The first influence threshold is at 3 points. At this level of influence the psychokineticist becomes unfocused taking a -2 penalty to reflex saves and AC.
The second influence threshold is at 3 + the psychokineticist’s Charisma modifier. When you reach this level of influence you take a -2 penalty to all skill checks which apply your Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma modifiers, your alignment temporarily shifts randomly by one step determined by your GM, until your influence is removed.
At 6th level the third influence threshold is the same as the above + the psychokineticist’s Intelligence modifier, once this level of influence is reached the psychokineticist no longer applies Mental Might to determine the accuracy of their blasts, or any dexterity based effects of their blasts and wild talents. Your alignment also shifts by one step determined by your GM, until your influence is removed.
At 12th level you gain another threshold as above + the psychokineticist’s Wisdom modifier. If your influence is equal to this threshold your Mental Might no longer applies to your blast damage, and constitution based effects of blasts and wild talents. Your alignment also shifts randomly by one step determined by your GM until your influence is removed.
If you accept 1 further point of burn beyond your final threshold, you become an NPC under your GM’s control until you awaken the next day with the other personality gone, if you are forced to accept this point of burn by an outside source you instead fall unconscious.
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I wanted to get a bit into the idea of a kineticist with multiple personalities fighting for dominance. Instead of sacrificing their health, they are sacrificing their sanity. Since their Influence pool is powered by their mental ability scores, when they are forced to manually aim their blasts, and use their physical body to determine their damage they become weaker and weaker until eventually they become an NPC or unconscious.
Unlike a regular kineticist who is at full strength until unconscious, a Psychokineticist can burn for longer, but keeps losing steam.
Sorry for the delay, I wanted a chance to sit down and go over this before commenting.
I love almost all of it...
I don't however think you should use Int in place of Dex to attack with. Even Wizards/Sorcerers have to use Dex to hit with Ray spells. However, you could make it that all attacks are energy-only attacks (after all, even spells like Battering Blast are touch attacks), just alter the aether blast so that it's energy and doesn't require material components to throw... (Int for DC/Durations would be fine of course).
Also curious... why not air? Electrokinesis is as plausable (or moreso) than pyrokinesis, and air/force-blast are in the same ballpark. Similarly, how to justify pyrokinesis from a mental viewpoint, but not cryokinesis. This archetype could be an inclusive class for -anyone- that doesn't like the current burn, so why limit it to only a few of the players (you're just opening this up for someone to 'modify' again for the elements they want to play, which being more inclusive, becomes more widespread in use than the original).
Lastly, I think you open yourself up to problems when you set up a wide net of spells by including all psychic spells. I really think you should go through the psychic spells, find the ones that won't break the archetype, but will be thematic to the archetype, and list those as the only spells they can learn. This gives you a chance to make sure the burn cost is balanced instead of crossing fingers and hoping it works out...
I like it a lot better than the Cha-based archetype in OA, which seems to be gaining nothing but disadvantages. I would even prefer the regular class when using a race with +Cha and -Con
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Sorry for the delay, I wanted a chance to sit down and go over this before commenting.
I love almost all of it...
I don't however think you should use Int in place of Dex to attack with. Even Wizards/Sorcerers have to use Dex to hit with Ray spells. However, you could make it that all attacks are energy-only attacks (after all, even spells like Battering Blast are touch attacks), just alter the aether blast so that it's energy and doesn't require material components to throw... (Int for DC/Durations would be fine of course).
Also curious... why not air? Electrokinesis is as plausable (or moreso) than pyrokinesis, and air/force-blast are in the same ballpark. Similarly, how to justify pyrokinesis from a mental viewpoint, but not cryokinesis. This archetype could be an inclusive class for -anyone- that doesn't like the current burn, so why limit it to only a few of the players (you're just opening this up for someone to 'modify' again for the elements they want to play, which being more inclusive, becomes more widespread in use than the original).
Lastly, I think you open yourself up to problems when you set up a wide net of spells by including all psychic spells. I really think you should go through the psychic spells, find the ones that won't break the archetype, but will be thematic to the archetype, and list those as the only spells they can learn. This gives you a chance to make sure the burn cost is balanced instead of crossing fingers and hoping it works out...
Thank you very much Sphynx, your encouragement is very appreciated.
Now, as you can tell the Psychokineticist is very unusual in that it aims with Intelligence, and Damages with Wisdom. (I had originally considered the reverse, and still am as Wisdom governs perception while Intelligence can be a dominating force). The reason for this is I wanted a character who is even more unusual than most. That might let his body wither away as he becomes more and more inwardly focused. A physically weak and clumsy character who can unleash a mental storm. Intelligence is an under-utilised ability score for everyone except the odd spellcaster. Also as you can see from my above revision, eventually a Psychokineticist will still have to rely on the coarse method of physically aiming their blasts, as their mental might fails them against the forces that intrude on their rational minds.
As to the second thing, aether and fire are my choices because these are supported by the fiction, my goal is the achievement of this first and foremost. I've not heard of or read of an aerokineticist or electrokineticist in the vein of fire starter, or psycho mantis. I wanted an archetype even more occult than the original. Now, anyone is free to change the archetype however they please, and that is the joy of tinkering. But to me, my goal is the creation of a kineticist more tied to the weird, psychic powers popularised by the likes of Stephen King and other horror authors. But it is obviously very easy to translate the class to other elements by exchanging the descriptor choices.
As to the last thing, I hardly think that a very limited selection of psychic powers that further limit your utility talents is too broken an option. My rough calculations tell me that taking such amounts of influence will rapidly weaken the character's ability to blast with any certainty, and would push them to try and use more psychic powers, thus gaining further influence until they either lose control or fall unconscious.
And I do not include all psychic spells, only those from the spell list of the psychic class. Furthermore, it becomes clear to me that selecting any option greater than 6th level will likely send a kineticist past their first two thresholds very rapidly.
I do understand your criticisms, and my decisions around the unusual ability score substitutions, limited elemental pallete and spell list choices are for purposes of creating a variant balanced against the original kineticist but with a more cerebral and occult flavour.
In future I might try my hand at an Unchained Kineticist with an eye towards entirely revising the burn mechanic, and altering the way blasts work (with an eye towards changing blasts to attack actions rather than standard actions), but this is not that class.
Please do not think though that I am dismissing your feedback though, as the consideration of psychic spells with expensive material components vexes me and I'm considering whether to not allow them or force the Psychokineticist to bear the cost. I'm also considering a further loss to balance out the wider menu of choices the Psychokineticist gains from being able to choose psychic spells or spells of appropriate descriptors. I also am strongly considering reversing the accuracy/damage of Menfal Might so Int determines damage and Wis determines accuracy.
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I like it a lot better than the Cha-based archetype in OA, which seems to be gaining nothing but disadvantages. I would even prefer the regular class when using a race with +Cha and -Con
My issue with the Overwhelming Soul is that, while a character no longer needs to deal
with burn, they also lose access to elemental defenses, and the more interesting aspects of their utility talents. I wish that an Overwhelming soul gained some manner of Ki, Grit or Panache like feature that allowed them to access elemental defense and as they spent the points out of it, they would grow weaker in their elemental defenses.The Overwhelming Soul Unchained might be another future project.
From my reading of the archetype, the overwhelming soul still has to deal with burn but unlike a regular kineticist she's forced to reduce all burn costs to 0. So all she got was losing the option to take nonlethal damage for using wild talents.