Pyrokineticist with Fire's Fury gets half Elemental Overflow damage on Kinetic Blade.
Part of the Kinetic Knight's idea is that they lose offense for defense anyway, hence their loss of metakinesis and supercharge.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the "no extra damage from elemental overflow" on the kinetic blade is intended to balance out how a kineticist using a blade can make many more attacks in a given round (iteratives plus hates plus AoOs if you're using a whip) than the kinetic blast ordinarily can.
Realistically, for a character as tanky as the Kinetic Knight can be, you're doing pretty well for offense as is. I mean, compare how quickly your damage die escalates (d6 every two levels) to how quickly the warpriest's does (2d6 at level 15).
The no damage from EO is, like PossibleCabbage said, to balance out iterative attacks. You are still getting the attack bonus for better accuracy as well as the size bonuses to your ability scores. For a melee focused build you gain automatic scaling damage on your weapon that can never be disarmed from you. You can also choose to have an element that targets touch AC. I think it's fine as is.
kinetic blade can't benefit from haste but other than that Cabbage has the right of it.
Kinetic Blade can explicitly benefit from Haste. There was an FAQ on this.
So basically the standard kineticist will be more powerful in melee in every way? What's the point of the kinetic knight then?
The best thing about the Kinetic Knight is being able to gather power while holding a shield and getting five extra infusions.
And a lot of people think the five free infusions are (two separate!) editing errors.
So basically the standard kineticist will be more powerful in melee in every way? What's the point of the kinetic knight then?
The kinetic knight gets heavy armor and a shield, which means a STR build is doable. They get KBlade as a 0 burn infusion and a set of melee maneuver related infusions as they level up. While the base class is great at blasting and switch hitting, the KKnight excels at melee combat at the cost of losing their ranged capabilities. If this is your character concept then the KKnight is a perfectly capable archetype to use.
Also they just lose ranged blasting. They can still take advantage of ranged utility talents like telekinetic maneuvers and such.
The standard kineticist isn't really more powerful in melee; neither of them can add their overflow bonus to damage.
No, but the loss of metakinesis is pretty big.
|
Neither kineticist can use the overflow damage bonus on kinetic blade.
Offensively, the kinetic knight loses metakinesis, which means their peak damage is lower. They also lose supercharge, but for a melee kineticist gathering power means not full-attacking so you don't get as much out of supercharge as a ranged kineticist would.
On the other hand, their kinetic blade is free so they don't have to take burn to engage in melee. They get 5 melee infusions, and only give up one infusion (at level 3), meaning they can take more substance infusions than a standard melee kineticist. And at level 13 they get to use a kinetic rush (charge) as a swift action, which is similar to a quickened blast but costs 2 instead of 3 burn.
When qualifying for feats they can use Con instead of Int and are treated as having Combat Expertise, which means that they can easily grab combat maneuver feats. These feats are also more useful for the kinetic knight than a standard kineticist, as the knight's whip gets the trip, disarm, and performance qualities.
Defensively the kinetic knight gets heavy armour, heavy shields, and samurai resolve - they get elemental defense two levels late but with no long-term effect.
This currently actually makes picking your initial element tricky, since you basically can only take substance infusions, so you have to make sure you actually have enough options before you hit expanded element, though if we continue to get more kineticist material, this issue may solve itself.
Yeah, running out of substance infusions is an issue. There also aren't that many good high-level substance infusions, so even if you don't actually run out of selections it can get disappointing after level 11 or so. (I believe both air and earth lack substance infusions higher than level 3, for example.)
Yeah, I figured metakinesis is the sort of thing you'd want to trade away anyway, since if the choice is "Gather power for 1.5x blast damage" (since 99% of the time you use empower) or "make 2 more attacks" (iterative plus haste) you're probably better off making the extra attacks.
In exchange for the thing a melee focused kineticist probably won't be doing much anyway (and your ranged blast), you get all the melee relevant infusions for free, plus the eventually the ability to do bladed rush as a swift action for 2 burn.
For "things you can't get close enough to" (though you too have the option to fly) take some utility talent, and instead of spending burn on metakinesis you can use that burn to add a trip, a stagger, a bull rush, or any number of different things to your fairly damaging melee attack.
The pure "I am here to make AoOs" melee kineticist might want to stay vanilla though.
The best thing about the Kinetic Knight is being able to gather power while holding a shield and getting five extra infusions.
And a lot of people think the five free infusions are (two separate!) editing errors.
I am still leery of the Kinetic Knight, for one thing its not that they can gather power while holding a shield, they must be holding their bonded shield to gather power.
EDIT: woops, they have to be holding the shield to use defensive talents, not to gather power
Also the defensive talents all cost 1 burn instead of 0 burn for the KK (actually 2 burn for the water kinetic knight), which i think is extremely counter to the flavor they were going for with this archetype
Yeah, I figured metakinesis is the sort of thing you'd want to trade away anyway, since if the choice is "Gather power for 1.5x blast damage" (since 99% of the time you use empower) or "make 2 more attacks" (iterative plus haste) you're probably better off making the extra attacks.
Well, the issue is less that trade and more just how awesome empowered full attacks are.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like "let's eliminate a choice that you wouldn't make 90+% of the time in order to make your nova rounds less absurd" is probably good design.
In my experience, Kineticist players are loath to nova anyway since the resource you're risking running out of is HP, not bombs or spell slots or anything else where you can still participate in the fight even if you're out of it.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am still leery of the Kinetic Knight,
for one thing its not that they can gather power while holding a shield, they must be holding their bonded shield to gather power.EDIT: woops, they have to be holding the shield to use defensive talents, not to gather power
Also the defensive talents all cost 1 burn instead of 0 burn for the KK (actually 2 burn for the water kinetic knight), which i think is extremely counter to the flavor they were going for with this archetype
Strictly speaking, it's 1 burn to use a shield while gathering power. Since you can only use your elemental defense while using an "attuned" shield it does amount to about the same thing, but it gives you a bit of insight into the design process:
1) We want the kinetic knight to use a shield, but we need to deal with the restriction on gather power. Let's require the knight to spend 1 burn to use a shield to balance it.
2) We want to encourage people to make use of the knight's ability to use heavy armour and shields, so let's require them to suit up in order to use their elemental defense.
I'm not overly disappointed with this arrangement, though I think it would be better if the standard kineticist couldn't get a shield bonus with a masterwork buckler and/or the kinetic knight was proficient with shield bash, which would be a nice way to threaten off-turn when not using kinetic whip.
The hydrokinetic knight should probably be fixed to add +2 to the shield bonus period instead of only add the increased bonus from spending burn, though...
I feel like "let's eliminate a choice that you wouldn't make 90+% of the time in order to make your nova rounds less absurd" is probably good design.
Well, for starters one burn isn't exactly 'going nova'. It's not something you'll do every round but you can certainly afford to do it several times a day without really dipping into dangerous territory. Heck, from 5-7 you can do it for free if you're already adjacent to your enemy.
The question wasn't whether or not it was good either, merely how the knight stacked up in melee combat when compared to the baseline kineticist, with the answer being that they have a decided advantage from levels 1-5 but lose potential damage compared to their unarchetyped counterparts at mid to high levels.
Instead what has to be pointed out is that the archetype's real strength is in the relative flexibility provided by the large number of extra infusions and its ability to play melee right from level 1 (if you want to talk about bad design, kinetic blade costing 1 burn always felt gratuitously punitive, so this is a welcome reprieve).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Strictly speaking, it's 1 burn to use a shield while gathering power. Since you can only use your elemental defense while using an "attuned" shield it does amount to about the same thing, but it gives you a bit of insight into the design process:1) We want the kinetic knight to use a shield, but we need to deal with the restriction on gather power. Let's require the knight to spend 1 burn to use a shield to balance it.
2) We want to encourage people to make use of the knight's ability to use heavy armour and shields, so let's require them to suit up in order to use their elemental defense.
Maybe it's a bit cynical but reading through it I got the impression they started with step 1 and then realized that many people would just never bother attuning because gather power isn't a very good choice for kinetic knights in the first place. So they stuck a clause in to make sure it was mandatory.
That's actually probably my least favorite thing about the archetype. It's got a nice design and while it's not particularly fancy and none of its abilities are that special it's certainly interesting.
To then tack on this extremely strict flavor requirement feels almost spiteful. Also a bit strange, given that the archetype gains a medium armor proficiency that they can never properly use. It's also a bit funny given that the art on the same page has neither heavy armor nor a shield, but that's not important.
I think it would be better if[...]the kinetic knight was proficient with shield bash
That's a whole other issue but I find it really sort of silly and unintuitive that you can be proficient with shields but not proficient with shields. It's also likely to throw off newer players, because simply reading the text there's no reason to suspect that being proficient with a shield only means that in one way.
Strictly speaking, it's 1 burn to use a shield while gathering power. Since you can only use your elemental defense while using an "attuned" shield it does amount to about the same thing, but it gives you a bit of insight into the design process:1) We want the kinetic knight to use a shield, but we need to deal with the restriction on gather power. Let's require the knight to spend 1 burn to use a shield to balance it.
2) We want to encourage people to make use of the knight's ability to use heavy armour and shields, so let's require them to suit up in order to use their elemental defense.
Maybe it's a bit cynical but reading through it I got the impression they started with step 1 and then realized that many people would just never bother attuning because gather power isn't a very good choice for kinetic knights in the first place. So they stuck a clause in to make sure it was mandatory.
That's actually probably my least favorite thing about the archetype. It's got a nice design and while it's not particularly fancy and none of its abilities are that special it's certainly interesting.
To then tack on this extremely strict flavor requirement feels almost spiteful. Also a bit strange, given that the archetype gains a medium armor proficiency that they can never properly use. It's also a bit funny given that the art on the same page has neither heavy armor nor a shield, but that's not important.
I think it would be better if[...]the kinetic knight was proficient with shield bashThat's a whole other issue but I find it really sort of silly and unintuitive that you can be proficient with shields but not proficient with shields. It's also likely to throw off newer players, because simply reading the text there's no reason to suspect that being proficient with a shield only means that in one way.
Well, mithral full plate is med but heavy for class features, right?
I assume you wear medium at 1st level, but heavy from 2nd and on.You don't need heavy to form sword.
Well, mithral full plate is med but heavy for class features, right?
I assume you wear medium at 1st level, but...
Mithral plate takes the heavy armor proficiency to use, not medium. As such, they STILL aren't using the medium armor proficiency.
Well, mithral full plate is med but heavy for class features, right?
Mithral full plate is just heavy, but treated as medium for movement and 'other limitations', so no.
I assume you wear medium at 1st level, but heavy from 2nd and on.
You don't need heavy to form sword.
You don't actually get medium proficiency until level 2 either and while you can wear anything and form a sword, losing your elemental defense is big so you're probably going to lean on heavy armor and a shield regardless.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I can live with the defensive talent nerf (adding a cost to a 0 cost talent cant be anything else), but i think there was a place where the kinetic knight could have really stood apart and been the flavorful tanky warrior it seems to want to be.
As i mentioned in another thread, i think a huge opportunity was missed when they did not tailor the Unstoppable Resolve ability to be used with the Kinetic Knight's kit
By RAW a kinetic knight will never get any benefit from this ability, to use their powers to the fullest they must attune to their shield for 1 burn so they will always be under their non-lethal threshold by the time they hit 0 hit points (you can't "remain conscious" if you weren't conscious to begin with). If they had changed that to let the kinetic knight remain conscious under their non-lethal threshold it would have made the Knight shine.
|
|
The issue is that nonlethal damage does not reduce your HP. Instead, you become unconscious when your nonlethal damage is equal to or greater than your current HP. This means a character who has taken nonlethal damage falls unconscious at positive HP.
This is an issue for several abilities aside from the kineticist, notably Orc Ferocity. (An orc with 10 HP and 10 Con become unconscious after 20 points of lethal damage, but only 10 points nonlethal.) A more general clarification of how nonlethal damage interacts with effects that trigger at 0 HP would be useful.
I'm not following the issue here beyond a rare/odd attack that does both lethal & nonlethal.
Since nonlethal and lethal are tracked separately, if you go below 0hp via lethal you can use Unstoppable Resolve because your nonlethal is unaffected and vice-versa.
What am I missing?
As Weirdo said, non-lethal damage stacks with lethal damage. If you have 5 non-lethal damage you will fall unconscious when you are lowered to 5 hp, instead of when you get to 0 hp. You aren't dying, but you are out of the fight. It's worse in the Kineticist's case because they cannot remove the non-lethal damage from burn in any way aside from resting. All of the better Kineticist class features cost burn sooo...
Essentially: any Kineticist that falls in battle is going to be unconscious for 8 hours. Its the biggest weakness of the class imo, and also the reason most Kineticist builds include the toughness feat asap (more hp).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well, toughness usually works its way in there because you honestly don't have a lot of feats you need anyway.
But I think the Kinetic Knight only getting 2/3 of the Samurai's resolve feature is okay (rerolling saves and shrugging off conditions are nice things to have), and it would have taken a lot of space to rework Unstoppable resolve to work with a class that expects to have nonlethal damage. IIRC the "uses the samurai's resolve feature" class feature for the Kinetic Knight is like 2 lines in Psychic Anthology (which is jam packed with stuff.)
If someone had a way to rework the ability so it works with the Kinetic Knight, I'd listen but I don't blame Paizo for not finding a way to fit it in.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If someone had a way to rework the ability so it works with the Kinetic Knight, I'd listen but I don't blame Paizo for not finding a way to fit it in.
If they had wanted only 2/3rds of the ability to apply they could have added "(excepting Unstoppable)" to the ability, which makes me think this was pure oversight. Anyway here is how I would rework it ->
Unstoppable: When the samurai [Kinetic Knight] is reduced to fewer than 0 hit points but not slain [falls below his non-lethal damage threshold], he can spend one use of his resolve as an immediate action to instantly stabilize and remain conscious. He is staggered , but he does not fall unconscious and begin dying if he takes a standard action. He does [and will] fall unconscious if he takes additional damage from any source.
easier to read version:
Unstoppable: When the Kinetic Knight falls below his non-lethal damage threshold, he can spend one use of his resolve as an immediate action to remain conscious. He is staggered and will fall unconscious if he takes additional damage from any source.
You won't catch me saying the other two Resolve options are bad, they are definitely not. I'm saying that this ability would have set the archetype apart by allowing the Knight to keep adventuring (after being healed back above their threshold) beyond the point at which other kineticists become a liability for the party.
|
Why are people saying you get free infusions for the kinetic knight? The way I read it is that the infusions at level 1 etc are not free but the ones you would normally get art this levels, but you are fixed into taking them. Hence why it says modified infusions at the end.
As for the resolve I would run it as one you go unconscious rather than zero hit points as that seems the intent.
Because, for example the Elemental Ascetic Kineticist's powerful fist Class Feature includes the text:
This ability replaces the 5th-, 9th-, and 13th-level infusions.The Elemental Annihilator Kineticist Archetype's "Dampened Versatility" has the text:
This ability replaces the 2nd-, 8th-, 10th-, 14th-, and 18th-level utility wild talents.The Elemental Purist Kineticist Archetype's "Elemental Impossibility" says:
This ability replaces expanded element, as well as the 11th- and 19th-level infusions.The Blood Kineticist has various class features that say:
Whereas the Kinetic Knight's Elemental Blade simply saysThis ability replaces the 1st-level infusion...
This ability replaces the 5th-level infusion...
This ability replaces the 6th-level utility wild talent...
This ability replaces the 8th-level utility wild talent...
This ability replaces the 9th-level infusion...
This ability replaces the 11th-level infusion.
This ability alters kinetic blast and infusions, and replaces metakinesis and metakinetic master
Since there's already an "and replaces" clause in which any number of level's wild talents could be specified, in keeping with how previous Kineticist archetypes are written, I can only conclude that those are bonus talents. If you take them as replacing the normal infusions gained at those levels, the Kinetic Knight cannot have any substance infusions without the extra wild talent feat before level 15 and the restrictions on the Kinetic Knight's blast are on form infusions not substance infusions.
Plus, I'm not sure trading All ranged blasting ability, Reduced Access to Form infusions, all infusions until level 15, and all metakinesis is really worth "early access to melee infusions and 0 burn kinetic blade".
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I can confirm that the kinetic knight's various infusions are in addition to those gained normally, rather than forced choices.
Since we've not got confirmation that these are bonus infusions, I guess I can bring up the concern I have. What do you do when there are no more substance infusions you can take legally? Just take a form infusion you can't use?
I'm thinking specifically in terms of a Kinetic Knight who wants to go mono-aether for whatever reason. Aether has 1 level 1 substance infusion, 1 level 2 substance infusion (and both of these are fantastic on a melee attack), and no other substance infusions until level 6, and none thereafter. You can instead take universal infusions, but all of the universal infusions are form infusions except for draining at level 1.
So how does one handle this, aside from "don't play a mono-aether kinetic knight"? You can take pushing, draining, bowling, and then take another element at level 7 and start taking their infusions, which is probably the sensible course. But I don't think I've encountered a situation in pathfinder before where a class feature gives you a choice that is limited to options you cannot use.
That's definitely an issue, and one for which there's no current fix. Hopefully future products will expand the available options to a suitable degree. Sorry. :(
(My original turnover replaced more of the infusions, among other things. Unfortunately, I can't offer any insight into the changes.)
On the other hand, their kinetic blade is free so they don't have to take burn to engage in melee. They get 5 melee infusions, and only give up one infusion (at level 3), meaning they can take more substance infusions than a standard melee kineticist. And at level 13 they get to use a kinetic rush (charge) as a swift action, which is similar to a quickened blast but costs 2 instead of 3 burn.
Something else to note about this: since it's an increase to the existing cost (and not the separate cost of metakinesis), infusion specialization should apply normally to the kinetic knight's swift blade rush.
Well, mithral full plate is med but heavy for class features, right?Mithral full plate is just heavy, but treated as medium for movement and 'other limitations', so no.
This is correct.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As i mentioned in another thread, i think a huge opportunity was missed when they did not tailor the Unstoppable Resolve ability to be used with the Kinetic Knight's kit
But I think the Kinetic Knight only getting 2/3 of the Samurai's resolve feature is okay (rerolling saves and shrugging off conditions are nice things to have), and it would have taken a lot of space to rework Unstoppable resolve to work with a class that expects to have nonlethal damage. IIRC the "uses the samurai's resolve feature" class feature for the Kinetic Knight is like 2 lines in Psychic Anthology (which is jam packed with stuff.)
This is at the heart of it. Space is at an extreme premium in Player Companions, and I'd already used a lot of discretionary words on the clarification to shroud of water. In the end, it had to be "close enough".
(I haven't come up with a homebrew way for this to work, either. I'd love to see the PDT release a solid blanket solution to the various nonlethal-vs-ferocity issues.)
You don't get an infusion at 7th/15th, remember? You get expanded element, and if you choose your primary element, you get a bonus wild talent, which can be either an infusion or a utility wild talent.
Yeah, I figured out that's what you were doing right after I hit "submit" and couldn't delete it fast enough I guess.
It seems like at the very least we've identified "what sorts of new infusions the kineticist needs"- more substance infusions, particularly for elements that lack them. We've probably got enough form infusions, and those are easy to imagine: swords, walls, snakes, etc.
By my count Aether has 3 substance infusions, Air has 5, Earth has 5 (two of which require the earth-earth composite, which is hard for the knight to use), Fire has 6, Void has 6, Water has 5, Wood has 6, and there's a lone universal substance talent that's of limited use to certain elements (not a lot of wood, aether, or void subtypes out there.)
I was planning an Aether/Earth/Earth Kinetic Knight and was chagrined that I ran out of substance infusions *really* quickly, since Aether and Earth share pushing and bowling.
While Mr. Seifter has clarified that chaokineticists can use draining infusion on certain "negative energy creatures", getting custom-made versions for aether, wood, and void would be nice.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In terms of future content: while it's a few months out, more than a few folks have speculated that the Elemental Master's Handbook will contain new kineticist content.
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
On the other hand, their kinetic blade is free so they don't have to take burn to engage in melee. They get 5 melee infusions, and only give up one infusion (at level 3), meaning they can take more substance infusions than a standard melee kineticist. And at level 13 they get to use a kinetic rush (charge) as a swift action, which is similar to a quickened blast but costs 2 instead of 3 burn.Something else to note about this: since it's an increase to the existing cost (and not the separate cost of metakinesis), infusion specialization should apply normally to the kinetic knight's swift blade rush.
I don't believe that's the case (it's a special archetype feature, not an infusion "At 13th level as a swift action, she can accept 2 points of burn" so it's a separate cost, not an increase to the infusion)?
My mistake! I was posting from my phone, and didn't double-check the text. (I remembered it as a cost increase.)
Mr. Seifter is correct.
My mistake! I was posting from my phone, and didn't double-check the text. (I remembered it as a cost increase.)
Mr. Seifter is correct.
Bummer. As a cost increase I might have used it. With an automatic cost though... :(