Kineticist - Regarding blasts and Kinetic Blade / Whip


Rules Questions


I believe this question has a fairly obvious answer, but I want to get a broader opinion and hopefully an official ruling.

Are Kinetic Whip and Kinetic Blade still considered "blasts" even after the form infusion has been applied to the blast?

Silver Crusade

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standaloneghost wrote:

I believe this question has a fairly obvious answer, but I want to get a broader opinion and hopefully an official ruling.

Are Kinetic Whip and Kinetic Blade still considered "blasts" even after the form infusion has been applied to the blast?

Yes. They just modify the blast but do not change what it is at the core.


They are still a kinetic blast, they are just remolded into the form of a melee weapon.


Yup! A kinetic blast is a kinetic blast no matter what. The form is changed by the Infusions, but it is still a blast. Now, that being said Blade/Whip do not gain the extra damage from Elemental Overflow.

Grand Lodge

Faelyn wrote:
Yup! A kinetic blast is a kinetic blast no matter what. The form is changed by the Infusions, but it is still a blast. Now, that being said Blade/Whip do not gain the extra damage from Elemental Overflow.

Losing the Elemental Overflow bonus seems like a good trade for iterative attacks, and attacks of opportunity, especially if you're using energy blasts where the decrease of accuracy on iterative attacks isn't too much of a setback.

Dark Archive

Ms. Pleiades wrote:
Faelyn wrote:
Yup! A kinetic blast is a kinetic blast no matter what. The form is changed by the Infusions, but it is still a blast. Now, that being said Blade/Whip do not gain the extra damage from Elemental Overflow.
Losing the Elemental Overflow bonus seems like a good trade for iterative attacks, and attacks of opportunity, especially if you're using energy blasts where the decrease of accuracy on iterative attacks isn't too much of a setback.

Just to remind, kinetic BLADE doesn't allow for attacks of opportunity since it vanishes at end of your turn. Kinetic WHIP does however, since it sticks around till your next turn. Another benefit of Kinetic Blade is being able to deal your blast damage in melee if you can't back up... without provoking an attack of opportunity.

Kinetic fist isn't anywhere near as good. Unless you have the associated archetype, dipped into monk, or otherwise have a natural attack. Can you imagine the surprise of someone getting bitten by a high level kitsune kineticist who is using kinetic fist? Or a half dragon elemental astheic who's unleashing their full claw/claw/bite chain (with improved natural attack feats) alongside kinetic fist and Powerful Fists? Which would raise the kinetic fist damage from D6's to D8's or D10's. On top of your natural attack's damage.

I could see that being effective. Still prefer kinetic blade though since it uses your full blast damage.

Grand Lodge

I really really like that weapon focus:blast effectively gets you three different weapons. It's a beautiful thing.


Kahel Stormbender wrote:

Kinetic fist isn't anywhere near as good. Unless you have the associated archetype, dipped into monk, or otherwise have a natural attack. Can you imagine the surprise of someone getting bitten by a high level kitsune kineticist who is using kinetic fist? Or a half dragon elemental astheic who's unleashing their full claw/claw/bite chain (with improved natural attack feats) alongside kinetic fist and Powerful Fists? Which would raise the kinetic fist damage from D6's to D8's or D10's. On top of your natural attack's damage.

I could see that being effective. Still prefer kinetic blade though since it uses your full blast damage.

I honestly don't understand why Kinetic Fist has such a low Blast damage... "1d6 points of damage per 3 dice of your kinetic blast's damage (minimum 1d6)" ? WHY?!?

Kinetic Blade just blows this talent in pieces, because it deals FULL damage.

What are the chances that a PC will fight with a ton of natural weapons OR unarmed strikes, considering that multiclassing into Monk or Brawler would actually cripple your Kineticist progression?

Did someone in the playtest managed to get Greater Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Unarmed Strike and OHKO a powerful monster to warrant such a nerf or something?


Kinetic Fists do allow for earlier threatening, but for more characters are vastly inferior to the blade.

If the archetype around them had been much simpler, it could have been a lot of fun to use them. Getting them for no burn in exchange for ranged blasts seems a fun, if slightly weak, trade.
That the archetype gives up elemental overflow means giving up the boost to stats that makes it viable for combat, and then giving up elemental defence as well means trading away pretty much every reason to play a kineticist for a payoff of almost nothing.

(Sorry, that degenerated in to rant of disgruntlement rather quicker than I meant for it to)


Officially what combat feats work with kinetic blade/whip?

Officially what combat feats do not work with kinetic blade/whip?

Does the empower/maximize abilities work for all attacks in full attack action?


Empower and maximize do work and for all attacks because you create the blast once and then all attacks use those modifiers like metakinesis and infusions. However you cannot gather power and full attack in the same turn and would have to either GP the round prior or pay the burn.

Vital strike does not work, except for the archetypes that allow it

Power attack does work for physical blasts

Weapon Finesse works for all forms

Combat reflexes works for the whip, it sticks around for AoO


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Dragon78 wrote:

Officially what combat feats work with kinetic blade/whip?

Officially what combat feats do not work with kinetic blade/whip?

Does the empower/maximize abilities work for all attacks in full attack action?

Vital Strike only works for for elemental annihilator or any future archetype or ability (such as infusion) that specifically allows it.

Weapon Focus (kinetic blast) works for kinetic blade and whip as they're just modified blasts, however it doesn't work with kinetic fist as that infusion actually modifies another attack and would need Weapon Focus (unarmed strike or natural weapon, whichever player is preferring). This would entail stuff like Weapon Specialization or other weapon specific feats like Improved Critical or Greater Weapon Focus/Specialization would work.

Power Attack works with physical blades/whips, if one wants to 2-hand it for extra Power Attack damage though, the blade/whip has to be manifested as a one-handed weapon and then held two-hand it to get more, but then you'd be using Strength to hit as one-handed weapons (even the one-handed kinetic blade/whip) can't be Weapon Finessed by default.

Weapon Finesse obviously works if the blade/whip is manifested as a light weapon, with all the benefits/limits of light weapons, such as no two-handing it for extra benefits like with any light weapon.

Since there's a huge list of combat feats I'm only listing common questions that's popped up on forums. Are there specific feats you're wondering about?

Empower/Maximize Metakinesis as long as you pay for it once, all your kinetic blade/whip attacks will be metakinesized while it's manifiested: kinetic blade til end of your turn, kinetic whip til beginning of your next turn (AoOs will be empowered/maximized).


JiCi wrote:
Kahel Stormbender wrote:

Kinetic fist isn't anywhere near as good. Unless you have the associated archetype, dipped into monk, or otherwise have a natural attack. Can you imagine the surprise of someone getting bitten by a high level kitsune kineticist who is using kinetic fist? Or a half dragon elemental astheic who's unleashing their full claw/claw/bite chain (with improved natural attack feats) alongside kinetic fist and Powerful Fists? Which would raise the kinetic fist damage from D6's to D8's or D10's. On top of your natural attack's damage.

I could see that being effective. Still prefer kinetic blade though since it uses your full blast damage.

I honestly don't understand why Kinetic Fist has such a low Blast damage... "1d6 points of damage per 3 dice of your kinetic blast's damage (minimum 1d6)" ? WHY?!?

Kinetic Blade just blows this talent in pieces, because it deals FULL damage.

What are the chances that a PC will fight with a ton of natural weapons OR unarmed strikes, considering that multiclassing into Monk or Brawler would actually cripple your Kineticist progression?

Did someone in the playtest managed to get Greater Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Unarmed Strike and OHKO a powerful monster to warrant such a nerf or something?

Tengu, claw, claw, bite, kick, kick. Or even just claw, claw, bite. You get your elemental overflow to help accuracy and a free damage rider on every attack.

Things that apply to all of a certain kind of attack might seem awful to normal characters. But those that build around it are really strong. And it's also a good dip, get the free attacks and go elsewhere since the scaling isn't the best.


Does wielding a physical kinetic blade/whip in both hands give you 1 1/2 damage with your con mod?


Dragon78 wrote:
Does wielding a physical kinetic blade/whip in both hands give you 1 1/2 damage with your con mod?

I would think not, the wording in the text, "applying any modifiers to your kinetic blast's damage as normal, but not your Strength modifier" says you do not use your strength, not that you substitute some other stat in its place. In fact if you use an energy based Kinetic Blade you would still only add 1/2 CON to it. You can however make a one handed weapon with either Blade or Whip and then choose to wield that weapon two handed for the better Power Attack bonus. But then you've created a one handed weapon and must use your strength for hit bonus rather than using weapon finesse.


Dragon78 wrote:
Does wielding a physical kinetic blade/whip in both hands give you 1 1/2 damage with your con mod?

No that only happens with Devastating Infusion with Elemental Annihilator.

The kinetic blade/whip don't replace Strength for Constitution, but uses its own rules from the kinetic blast talent.

PRD - Equipment wrote:
Two-Handed: Two hands are required to use a two-handed melee weapon effectively. Apply 1-1/2 times the character's Strength bonus to damage rolls for melee attacks with such a weapon.

The kinetic blade's wording is:

Kinetic Blade wrote:
The kinetic blade deals your kinetic blast damage on each hit (applying any modifiers to your kinetic blast's damage as normal, but not your Strength modifier).

So it doesn't use any of the Strength modifier rules interactions as per a normal weapon.

Power Attack works because it doesn't rely on Strength modifier and just based on how a one-handed weapon (for physical blade/whip manifestation) would be wielded in one or two hands.

Elemental Annhilator's devastating infusion has a specific wording allowing 1.5 Con modifier if holding devastating infusion one-handed blade in two hands.

Devastating Infusion wrote:
When making a melee attack with devastating infusion, the elemental annihilator doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, and if she uses two hands, the attack's damage is equal to 1d8 + 1-1/2 times her Constitution modifier.

I think in this case, even if the blade is a light weapon, if held in two hands would probably get the +1-1/2 x Con modifier bonus due to specific vs general case; hopefully Mark can confirm if this is the case some time down the line, or if he already has if anyone can provide a link that would be great. However, the light weapon manifestation of the devastating blade wouldn't benefit from Power Attack, would still have to be one-handed.


Ms. Pleiades wrote:
Faelyn wrote:
Yup! A kinetic blast is a kinetic blast no matter what. The form is changed by the Infusions, but it is still a blast. Now, that being said Blade/Whip do not gain the extra damage from Elemental Overflow.
Losing the Elemental Overflow bonus seems like a good trade for iterative attacks, and attacks of opportunity, especially if you're using energy blasts where the decrease of accuracy on iterative attacks isn't too much of a setback.

Kinetic Blade only loses out on the damage bonus, you still get the accuracy bonus.

Dark Archive

Protoman wrote:
Dragon78 wrote:

Officially what combat feats work with kinetic blade/whip?

Officially what combat feats do not work with kinetic blade/whip?

Does the empower/maximize abilities work for all attacks in full attack action?

Vital Strike only works for for elemental annihilator or any future archetype or ability (such as infusion) that specifically allows it.

Weapon Focus (kinetic blast) works for kinetic blade and whip as they're just modified blasts, however it doesn't work with kinetic fist as that infusion actually modifies another attack and would need Weapon Focus (unarmed strike or natural weapon, whichever player is preferring). This would entail stuff like Weapon Specialization or other weapon specific feats like Improved Critical or Greater Weapon Focus/Specialization would work.

Power Attack works with physical blades/whips, if one wants to 2-hand it for extra Power Attack damage though, the blade/whip has to be manifested as a one-handed weapon and then held two-hand it to get more, but then you'd be using Strength to hit as one-handed weapons (even the one-handed kinetic blade/whip) can't be Weapon Finessed by default.

Weapon Finesse obviously works if the blade/whip is manifested as a light weapon, with all the benefits/limits of light weapons, such as no two-handing it for extra benefits like with any light weapon.

Since there's a huge list of combat feats I'm only listing common questions that's popped up on forums. Are there specific feats you're wondering about?

Empower/Maximize Metakinesis as long as you pay for it once, all your kinetic blade/whip attacks will be...

Just to note for those not aware, Maximize/Empower wont affect kinetic fist. Yet another way it is subpar.

Dark Archive

Protoman wrote:
Dragon78 wrote:
Does wielding a physical kinetic blade/whip in both hands give you 1 1/2 damage with your con mod?

No that only happens with Devastating Infusion with Elemental Annihilator.

The kinetic blade/whip don't replace Strength for Constitution, but uses its own rules from the kinetic blast talent.

PRD - Equipment wrote:
Two-Handed: Two hands are required to use a two-handed melee weapon effectively. Apply 1-1/2 times the character's Strength bonus to damage rolls for melee attacks with such a weapon.

The kinetic blade's wording is:

Kinetic Blade wrote:
The kinetic blade deals your kinetic blast damage on each hit (applying any modifiers to your kinetic blast's damage as normal, but not your Strength modifier).

So it doesn't use any of the Strength modifier rules interactions as per a normal weapon.

Power Attack works because it doesn't rely on Strength modifier and just based on how a one-handed weapon (for physical blade/whip manifestation) would be wielded in one or two hands

I'm not so sure if power attack can be applied to kinetic blade damage. After all, kinetic blade does the same damage if you poke the enemy or smash them with all your might. It's not you doing the damage, it's the blast you formed into a sword shape.

On the other hand, I can't find anything specifically blocking power attack from affecting kinetic blade.

Dark Archive

Mighty Squash wrote:

Kinetic Fists do allow for earlier threatening, but for more characters are vastly inferior to the blade.

If the archetype around them had been much simpler, it could have been a lot of fun to use them. Getting them for no burn in exchange for ranged blasts seems a fun, if slightly weak, trade.
That the archetype gives up elemental overflow means giving up the boost to stats that makes it viable for combat, and then giving up elemental defence as well means trading away pretty much every reason to play a kineticist for a payoff of almost nothing.

(Sorry, that degenerated in to rant of disgruntlement rather quicker than I meant for it to)

Kinetic Fist only allows you to threaten if you also have improved unarmed attack or natural weapons.

In a game I'm joining I'm making a half dragon kineticist with that archetype. On paper at least it looks good. Went with aerokinetic since it's got an energy and physical blast, and the elemental defense is kind of meh IMO. On paper at least, the build looks pretty solid. But I'll see how it actually works out. But if everything works out perfectly gear wise, by level 20 the build should be able to deal 30-66 damage per hit during a flurry with 47 AC.

And no, I didn't do anything silly like letting the half dragon attribute bonuses bump strength into the mid 20's. I did use the modifiers to take lower base attributes in several areas like strength in order to bump up other things like wisdom. Final stats at level one are Str 16, Dex 16, Con 20, Int 13, Wis 18, and Cha 9.


Kahel Stormbender wrote:

I'm not so sure if power attack can be applied to kinetic blade damage. After all, kinetic blade does the same damage if you poke the enemy or smash them with all your might. It's not you doing the damage, it's the blast you formed into a sword shape.

On the other hand, I can't find anything specifically blocking power attack from affecting kinetic blade.

You can power attack, you just have to use the one handed option instead of the light weapon option. This means you're using your STR mod to attack instead of DEX (if you have weapon finesse). You also need to use a physical blast.


So basically the vital strike feats are the only ones they specifically called out to not work with kinetic blade/whip.


Is there some rule I missed? Why can't you use Light version with Power Attack? There's nothing in Power Attack that I've ever seen that excludes it working with Light weapons.

Of course, even if I am being dumb and missing something obvious, there's always Piranha Strike. Sure you don't get the -1:+3 effect of two-handing, but it's a Dex-based Prereq rather than Str-based so it's easy to use with Weapon Finesse.


You can use light weapons with power attack. Power attack even specifically mentions natural attacks which are considered light weapons (according to the "special" line of the weapon finesse feat.


Chess Pwn wrote:
Tengu, claw, claw, bite, kick, kick. Or even just claw, claw, bite. You get your elemental overflow to help accuracy and a free damage rider on every attack.

Not sure on the first part(accuracy) but I'm going to guess you're saying the extra 1d6 blast damage is the free rider(said 1d6 gets no damage bumps ever, sadly, so no extra damage from elemental overflow or even Empower/Maximize).

Except for very niche builds, Kinetic Fist is not worth it though. And Elemental Ascetic really isn't. I mean.. no elemental defense, not even through Expanded Defense? Seriously? "Hey, guys, why not make a monk-like Kineticist, and remove all benefit from taking burn?"


Okay so you can power attack with a light weapon but you cannot use 2 hands for the damage boost so it is effectively pointless to do so since using the 1H kinetic blade with 2 hands will allow it. This is where it becomes the choice of weapon finesse vs power attack. Do you want your Dex to attack (weapon finesse) or do you the extra damage for power attacking with 2 hands?


One can Power Attack with physical blast kinetic blade/whips. There's many posts with Mark Seifter confirming that I'm not gonna bother looking for a specific one while on my tablet, but my first post has a link where he explains using Power Attack with kinetic blade/whips that it'll be insane to think it still can't be used even if the post doesn't specifically state "Yes you can Power Attack with it".

If manifested as a light weapon, it can be finessed, and can use Power Attack for the usual -1 attack / +2 damage rate.

If manifested as a one-handed weapon, it can't be finessed and uses Strength modifier for attacks, but can be held in two hands for the two-handed -1 attack / +3 damage Power Attack rate.

I typically haven't found Power Attack that worthwhile. When you already do a lot of a damage per hit in higher levels, negatives to attack actually drop DPR significantly despite the damage boost. More worthwhile for devastating infusion with the static 1d8+Con (or 1.5xCon) blade damage and virtual full BAB though.

For kinetic fist, while I'm not a personal fan of the infusion, it can be useful if you wanna spam substance infusions on someone if you're able to TWF/flurry/got bunch of natural attacks. Mark threw out some number crunching to show how they can be useful if you're going for a build that utilizes its effectiveness.

Vital Strike was specifically called out not to work because it if wasn't, by the rules it would be legal to use with blade/whip. This occurred during the playtest to see how it went; it was subsequently made not a legal option except for devastating infusion when Occult Adventures came out.


What if you had a level of Swashbuckler as a Geokineticist, and dealt piercing damage with a one-handed Kinetic Blade? That looks like it would work even while wielding the Kinetic Blade in two hands.

The Exchange

Why doesn't elemental overflow work with kinetic whip?


Just a Mort wrote:
Why doesn't elemental overflow work with kinetic whip?

"This functions as kinetic blade but counts as a reach weapon appropriate for your size."

It works just like kinetic blade but with reach and lasts longer. "The kinetic blade doesn't add the damage bonus from elemental overflow."


Azten wrote:
What if you had a level of Swashbuckler as a Geokineticist, and dealt piercing damage with a one-handed Kinetic Blade? That looks like it would work even while wielding the Kinetic Blade in two hands.

Then thanks to multiclass, it would ought to be finessable and would benefit from two hand Power Attack.


If you're just going for thematic then that's fine but I don't think the multiclass isn't worth it. You're delaying kineticist progression by a level, including the 1d6+1 which is more than what you gain from the multiclass.


Chess Pwn wrote:
JiCi wrote:
Kahel Stormbender wrote:

Kinetic fist isn't anywhere near as good. Unless you have the associated archetype, dipped into monk, or otherwise have a natural attack. Can you imagine the surprise of someone getting bitten by a high level kitsune kineticist who is using kinetic fist? Or a half dragon elemental astheic who's unleashing their full claw/claw/bite chain (with improved natural attack feats) alongside kinetic fist and Powerful Fists? Which would raise the kinetic fist damage from D6's to D8's or D10's. On top of your natural attack's damage.

I could see that being effective. Still prefer kinetic blade though since it uses your full blast damage.

I honestly don't understand why Kinetic Fist has such a low Blast damage... "1d6 points of damage per 3 dice of your kinetic blast's damage (minimum 1d6)" ? WHY?!?

Kinetic Blade just blows this talent in pieces, because it deals FULL damage.

What are the chances that a PC will fight with a ton of natural weapons OR unarmed strikes, considering that multiclassing into Monk or Brawler would actually cripple your Kineticist progression?

Did someone in the playtest managed to get Greater Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Unarmed Strike and OHKO a powerful monster to warrant such a nerf or something?

Tengu, claw, claw, bite, kick, kick. Or even just claw, claw, bite. You get your elemental overflow to help accuracy and a free damage rider on every attack.

Things that apply to all of a certain kind of attack might seem awful to normal characters. But those that build around it are really strong. And it's also a good dip, get the free attacks and go elsewhere since the scaling isn't the best.

Except that the extra kinetic blast is a joke compared to Kinetic Blade/Whip, not to mention that Fist is a regular melee attack, not a melee touch attack if the Blade is an energy blast.

The Exchange

Argh...thats what I get for trying to skim the text as fast as possible >< I miss things. Thanks guys!

Sovereign Court

Hi

Many of the issues raised are all changed with the Elemental Annihilator.

It specifically allows you to use Vital Strike etc with the melee attacks. Though you're melee attacks don't scale as you level. (You can take specialisation later).

It also grants access to other combat feats for ranged blasts too.

Thanks
Paul H


PaulH wrote:

Hi

Many of the issues raised are all changed with the Elemental Annihilator.

It specifically allows you to use Vital Strike etc with the melee attacks. Though you're melee attacks don't scale as you level. (You can take specialisation later).

It also grants access to other combat feats for ranged blasts too.

Thanks
Paul H

Yea the annihilator and devastating infusion exceptions got mentioned several times in this thread.


Elemental Ascetic works great with variant multiclass Monk. Increased unarmed damage, evasion, Ki pool (which lets you get an extra attack while using flurry), and a +3 stackable dodge bonus. Level one may be a little harsh but it picks up quickly.

Also, don't forget you get an effective higher base attack when using flurry.


A level of monk makes you a better Elemental Ascetic than the archetype. Kinetic Blade can look like a temple sword.

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