Kineticist that refuses Burn?


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If you're a telekineticist, then it's worthwhile. Unless you got a better idea for a decent burn investment when one's committed to pick up 3 burn at level 6 for elemental overflow. The defense talents are awesome for that. Even pyros like searing flesh for that reason and that does nothing to stop damage.

Plus it regenerates and will be a lil useful almost every fight.

If you're doing it as expanded defense considerations, force ward probably isn't best choice over investing in flesh of stone or whatever initial defense talent you start with.


RaizielDragon wrote:

Is it worth it to use burn for more temp HP with Force Ward?

If you take 1 burn, you gain nonlethal = your kineticist level and get temp HP = 1/2 your kineticist level in return. How is that a good deal? Granted the temp HP can regenerate, but you're reducing your effective overall HP total.

Usually I top off my elemental overflow at the start of the day by spending burn for my defenses, because I need elemental overflow for accuracy. My kineticist is aether/earth so I have both DR and a regenerating temp HP pool, so the goal in any combat is to try to have enough temporary HP that what does manage to penetrate my DR doesn't cause lethal damage I need to heal from in between combats.

It might not be worth spending burn on force ward at low levels (like before you get elemental overflow or infusion specialization, because burn doesn't benefit you and you might need it to blast) but depending on the sort of situation you are in trading 8 nonlethal damage for 4 regenerating temp HP might be worth it. Since the force ward pool regenerates over time, unless there's really very little time between combats (i.e. the party can't take 10 minutes to catch their breath or whatever), that's a pool of HP that you can lose in every combat during a day without costing you resources to replenish it. So if you're level 6 and you spend 1 burn for Force Ward, you will get 3 temporary HP and cost yourself 6 nonlethal damage. But if you have 5 combats before you can rest, your force ward will soak up 3*5=15 damage that you would otherwise have to suck up yourself, so you come out ahead.


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Force Ward is definitely worth taking Burn for as pointed out by the fine folks above. The fact that it regenerates is down right awesome. Also, one thing that I like about Force Ward is that if you're hit and the damage fails to overcome your temp HP, then it is if you were never struck. (Granted, I highly doubt there will be many instances where the damage doesn't overcome your temp HP, but still...) Failed his Linguistics check....

Liberty's Edge

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Faelyn wrote:
(Granted, I highly doubt there will be many instances where the damage doesn't overcome your temp HP, but still...)

Eh. Once you're putting 3 Burn into it at 6th level, you're talking 15 HP. That's enough that many attacks with rider effects like poison (which often do less damage than attacks without rider effects) won't get through at that level, and it goes up as you level.


RaizielDragon wrote:

Is it worth it to use burn for more temp HP with Force Ward?

If you take 1 burn, you gain nonlethal = your kineticist level and get temp HP = 1/2 your kineticist level in return. How is that a good deal? Granted the temp HP can regenerate, but you're reducing your effective overall HP total.

Yep, it's worth it. Remember, you still have Temp HP equal to your level to begin with, and as a Kineticist, you're working with a surprisingly high number of hit points. Here, let's do some basic math. Assuming a 15 point buy on a Dwarf, we can easily get the following stats:

Str 7
Dex 14 (Admittedly not great, but workable enough)
Con 18
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 8

So, once we get to 6th level (the bare minimum for when burning up your defenses becomes worth it), this ensures that we're working with 6d8+36 hp (Toughness and FCB included), or a rough average of 64 hp, and 6 temporary HP. Each burn you take gives you another 3 temp hp to work with, and once you hit two, you get to regenerate 2 temp every minute. Pump in the magical number of 3 burn, and you get a +2 to your Dexterity and Constitution. I don't remember for sure if the Con buff gives you more HP, but it does give you more damage regardless. Anyways, this has you looking at a grand total of 15 temporary HP that will pretty much regenerate between every combat as you and your friends loot the broken remains of your foes. This is in exchange for 18 nonlethal, which brings you down to 46 HP, 15 regenerating temp HP. Yes, you're "loosing" 3 HP total in this deal, but it's in exchange for a buffer that will always spring back for the next fight, which is quite valuable.

TL;DR - Yep, burn up that Force Ward. It's good.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Faelyn wrote:
(Granted, I highly doubt there will be many instances where the damage doesn't overcome your temp HP, but still...)
Eh. Once you're putting 3 Burn into it at 6th level, you're talking 15 HP. That's enough that many attacks with rider effects like poison (which often do less damage than attacks without rider effects) won't get through at that level, and it goes up as you level.

Okay... mind blown. I have been misreading Force Ward in a very negative way. I was thinking it capped out at 1+1/2 level. I did not realize each additional burn after that was an additional +1/2 ECL. You can easily ignore my little caveat... And thank you Deadmanwalking for pointing that out!

Designer

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Faelyn wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Faelyn wrote:
(Granted, I highly doubt there will be many instances where the damage doesn't overcome your temp HP, but still...)
Eh. Once you're putting 3 Burn into it at 6th level, you're talking 15 HP. That's enough that many attacks with rider effects like poison (which often do less damage than attacks without rider effects) won't get through at that level, and it goes up as you level.
Okay... mind blown. I have been misreading Force Ward in a very negative way. I was thinking it capped out at 1+1/2 level. I did not realize each additional burn after that was an additional +1/2 ECL. You can easily ignore my little caveat... And thank you Deadmanwalking for pointing that out!

Yeah, if he wanted, the example dwarf from mourge could take 8 points of burn in ward and have 70 hp with 48 nonlethal (so 22 available) + a ward of 30 (regening 5 per minute). 30 is even probably going to deflect several attacks at level 6 unless you're up against something like a T-Rex that does one big blow. Not that I would necessarily recommend maxing out ward, but it's one option.

Liberty's Edge

Faelyn wrote:
Okay... mind blown. I have been misreading Force Ward in a very negative way. I was thinking it capped out at 1+1/2 level. I did not realize each additional burn after that was an additional +1/2 ECL. You can easily ignore my little caveat... And thank you Deadmanwalking for pointing that out!

No problem, I'm always happy to be of assistance. :)


So if Earth is my primary element and Aether is only my secondary, is my effective level lower for Force Ward, or just for qualifying for Force Ward?

Designer

RaizielDragon wrote:
So if Earth is my primary element and Aether is only my secondary, is my effective level lower for Force Ward, or just for qualifying for Force Ward?

Just for qualifying for it. Aether/Earth or Earth/Aether is really solid for force ward, since you can use DR to take less per hit and that makes it easier for force ward to deflect attacks for you.

Silver Crusade

RaizielDragon wrote:
So if Earth is my primary element and Aether is only my secondary, is my effective level lower for Force Ward, or just for qualifying for Force Ward?

As far as I'm aware, your effective level for force ward should be the same. Heck, since Expanded Defense is a universal talent, you could snag it at 8th level and have your force ward by then. Really, playing with burn will probably be way more helpful than trying to fight accruing it.


RaizielDragon wrote:

Is it worth it to use burn for more temp HP with Force Ward?

If you take 1 burn, you gain nonlethal = your kineticist level and get temp HP = 1/2 your kineticist level in return. How is that a good deal? Granted the temp HP can regenerate, but you're reducing your effective overall HP total.

Always.

When you factor in that you are boosting Con with your stat boosts, somebody that only burns on force ward can get a great number of temp HP without their total HP+THP-BURN going below your original HP.

As to how good it is overall depends on how you adventure. If your party carefully searches the bodies and the room, then you're almost always at full temp HP. If you have somebody who says "I've got a minute left on this spell, let's rush into the next fight", then it's much less effective.

When you combine it with the DR from Earth, it's hard to take significant damage. Generally when this happens, you are dealing with a big crit creature, taking spell damage that avoids DR, or it's a long fight.

The only issue with combining Earth and Aether is that you only have physical blasts.


If I'm planning to be Earth/Water/Aether over the course of my Kineticist career, would it be advised to pick up Water first or Aether first?

Silver Crusade

RaizielDragon wrote:
If I'm planning to be Earth/Water/Aether over the course of my Kineticist career, would it be advised to pick up Water first or Aether first?

Depends on if you want utility or power more.

Aether gives you a ton more utility but its composite blast is pretty weak. Personally I'd select it myself, but I think it compliments earth very well. Aether has better earlier game talents (foe throw, invisibility, and TK control being 3rd level), so you'll be a lot closer to picking up those earlier, as well as the lower level talents overall being more useful. Plus its defense better compliments your natural earth defense.

Water only gives a composite if you select water blast (so just like aether, you only have physical blast), where if you select ice you'll get an energy blast and no composite until you get aetheric boost at 15th. This means if you want mud blast, you're going pure physical. I'd select this second just because a lot of its really great talents are later game, and by 15th, you'll be able to snag them with extra talent.

There's a sample build in my guide that goes earth/aether/water if you want to check it out and see what you think of the progression.


Yeah, your guide has been my...well my guide... for starting this build. I was just looking for more focused/specific suggestions.

I'm not as interested in Utility. My order would probably be Defense>Offense>Utility. I was even tempted to go Elemental Annihilator, but didn't want to lose out on Expanded Defense.

I like how the Earth and Aether defenses interact, but I think not getting hit at all is even better than reducing damage, so I feel like the Water one is better to get earlier.


Also, I think I've decided to not try for the Stalwart chain. I'm stretched thin on feats and I'd rather not dip Fighter to try to fit it in.


RaizielDragon wrote:
I like how the Earth and Aether defenses interact, but I think not getting hit at all is even better than reducing damage, so I feel like the Water one is better to get earlier.

It's cheap to buy AC and really hard to buy temp HP. This isn't even touch AC.


Fair point about AC vs Temp HP.

Here is what I'm looking at so far:

FEATS (in no particular order)
Toughness (Dwarf bonus)
Fight On
Ironhide
Dodge
Bolstered Resilience
Medium Armor Proficiency
Weapon Finesse
Piranha Strike
Combat Reflexes
Point Blank Shot
Precise Shot

I'm wondering if I should make room for Weapon Focus and/or Improved Precise Shot, since physical blasts need accuracy more than damage; could give up Piranha Strike and/or Medium Armor Proficiency for them. Also considering making room for Iron Will; with either MAP or Ironhide. Thoughts?

Utility Wild Talents
02: Kinetic Cover
04: Earth Climb
06: ???
08: Expanded Defense (water)
10: Kinetic Form
12: Earth Glide
14: Shimmering Mirage
16: Expanded Defense (aether)
18: Ride the Blast
20: ???

I heavily considered the self telekinesis but decided against it for now, though I may still take the regular one in one of the slots I have left if there are no better suggestions.

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