I'm toying with the idea of a fire/keneticist for the Hell's Wrath AP
But I'm flavoring it as a wielder of Hellfire....
To date...is there any means (feat etc) that would allow me to turn half the damage to unholy ?
Or any means to get past immunity to an element ?
There's no damage type called "unholy." Weapons can have an associated alignment, which has it bypass damage reduction.
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Pathfinder Player Companion: Occult Origins has details on the void element; one of the blast options for the void element is negative energy. A pyrokineticist who selects the void element (negative blast) as their expanded element at 7th level gains the negative admixture composite blast (half fire, half negative energy); call it your "hellfire blast" if you want.
There's no such thing as "unholy" damage, but there is such a thing as Hellfire damage. It's detailed in "Pathfinder Chronicles: Princes of Darkness, Book of the Damned Vol. I". No way to get your Kineticist to use this damage type outside of a house rule, though.
There's no such thing as "unholy" damage, but there is such a thing as Hellfire damage. It's detailed in "Pathfinder Chronicles: Princes of Darkness, Book of the Damned Vol. I". No way to get your Kineticist to use this damage type outside of a house rule, though.
A Diabolist can change their kinetic blast into Hellfire a number of times per day equal to their Charisma after 2nd level
I'm toying with the idea of a fire/keneticist for the Hell's Wrath AP
But I'm flavoring it as a wielder of Hellfire....To date...is there any means (feat etc) that would allow me to turn half the damage to unholy ?
Or any means to get past immunity to an element ?
Your questions make it seem like you're looking for advice instead of a houseruling.
Unholy: No, there is no way to turn half the damage to unholy.
Immunity: The closest you'll get is Searing Flame.
The closest you'll get is the composite blast of fire/void (negative admixture) (as Dragonchess Player stated already), which will mix well with Searing Flame.
Houserule suggestion: Allow Burning Infusion to work with Negative Admixture. Then you get to stack Searing Flame along with the burning damage.
I'll have to look and see if I Keneticist qualifies for Diabolist...the void route may be acceptable as well....
I have no idea why my post was moved to a different forum...bad call on the part of whoever did that (since I was asking advice on existing rules) :(
I used the term "unholy" because that is exactly the term used...
Quote from hellfire ray: "Half the damage is fire damage, but the other half results directly from unholy power and is therefore not subject to being reduced by resistance to fire-based attacks."
The problem with the Diabolist is that you lose your level progression, which is very important as a Kineticist. (That, and I'm not sure that the Kinetic Blast counts as a 'spell').
You really want to find a way to do this without exiting the class for 2 levels. If you're not looking for houserules (which it seems you're not), I'd still recommend the void/fire combo. :/
The problem with the Diabolist is that you lose your level progression, which is very important as a Kineticist. (That, and I'm not sure that the Kinetic Blast counts as a 'spell').
You really want to find a way to do this without exiting the class for 2 levels. If you're not looking for houserules (which it seems you're not), I'd still recommend the void/fire combo. :/
Ya, that's my concern as well.
And no, I was not looking for houserules...I was hoping for a feat or some such...as it's my understanding that they can effect spell like abilities as well.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
From what I've been reading, hellfire damage is basically something that'll partially bypass fire resistance and is lawful/evil aligned, right? You may be best going with a fire/fire/(something else) build, or just going pure fire and relying purely on searing flame to slowly eat through enemies' fire resist.
I've been looking for feats that might be helpful to you, and I'm not getting too many. Here's what I'm finding:
Align Spell-Like Ability - This one's... only marginally useful. For one, since kineticists don't technically have caster levels, they may not be subject to this. Furthermore, since kinetic blasts are always at a caster level of half your kineticist level (up to a cap of 9) and this ability only works for SLAs one level below half your caster level, you'd only be allowed to align your kinetic blasts at 20th. It's worth looking at, at least, but probably not what you're aiming for.
Blessed Striker - This is probably going to be your best shot. It'll require you to worship a lawful evil deity and be within one step of it (meaning you're restricted to lawful neutral, evil neutral, or lawful evil), as well as requiring a one-level dip into a divine casting class. Cleric, druid, inquisitor, oracle, shaman, and warpriest all seem like they'd work, but be mindful that you're going to lose +1 BAB, a utility wild talent, one level of infusion specialization, and omnikinesis. I'll detail my opinions on each in the below spoiler tag.
- Cleric honestly doesn't seem too useful here. I haven't read every 1st level domain ability, but they generally seem to scale with your cleric level, which will be no higher than 1st.
- Druid is about the same as cleric. Wild empathy and nature sense are... okay, I suppose, but domains are pointless, and an animal companion isn't going to be useful without feats to boost it somehow.
- Inquistor is, again, a lackluster class for this dip. Domans are again not too good, though inquisitions are a little better. Justice, oblivion, persistence, possession, redemption, spellkiller, and torture are probbaly going to be the better choices here, though non really make up for what you're losing for taking the inquisitor dip. Judgements are decent minor bonuses, but they scale with inquisitor level, so you won't get anything more than a +1 bonus here or there, and while smiting could apply an alignment to your kinetic blasts at inquisitor 6, it's useless beforehand since all it does is make your attacks magic (which it already is).
- Oracle might be slightly more useful. I'm looking specifically at the revelations from their mystery class feature, as a few could be useful to you even with only one oracle level. Battle, bones, clockwork, flame, outer rifts, and volcano all seem to have revelations that'd be useful. As for curses, it's hard to recommend one since they all are more hindering at 1st level, but it seems like unchained, wasting, and wrecker would be the least harmful.
- Shaman is a decent choice; you gain a familiar, and unlike a druid's animal companion, familiars can partially scale with character level and grant a small bonus to a skill check or save or something else. None of the spirits really seems to offer much at 1st level, so your choice there is probably more for what it does for the spirit animal than for you.
- Warpriest seems like it'd be the best option since you get to pick up Weapon Focus (kinetic blast) as a bonus feat and the abilities granted by certain blessings (such as destruction, luck, nobility, and war) could prove useful to you, though you'll need to consider that the alignment-specific abilities won't work since you have to touch your weapon for them to work, and since a kinetic blast isn't a physical object, you obviously can't touch it.
Corrupt Spell-Like Ability - Probably the easiest to use since you can take it at first level and the only requirement is that you have an evil alignment. Problem is that it's 3.5, rather than PF, so you'd need to get your DM to approve it. Also, its application is limited to three times the number of times you've taken it, and the part of the damage that's converted becomes unholy, which isn't really a thing in PF. The limit is per SLA though, so it might be applicable to each individual kinetic blast, as well as to any utility wild talents you have that are SLAs.
Violate Spell-Like Ability - Similar to above, but this one's a 3.0 feat. There's no prerequisite, but it applies to each spell-like ability twice per day rather than three times, and rather than unholy, it changes half the damage to vile.
Hellsworn - A little less useful and more prerequisites than the other two talents I listed above. This one requires the spell to have the evil descriptor already to split the damage; otherwise, you can just designate a single target a day to add 1d6 unholy damage to when it's hit by your kinetic blast. And again, since it's a 3.5 feat, you'd need to get your DM's permission.
Beyond the above, I can only recommend a Fire/Fire/(other element) build, as I said before. You could go with Void to get negative admixture (though that can only apply to fire blast, and will make it impossible to use non-universal infusions), or you could use one of the elements that'll provide you with a physical half-fire composite blast. Earth will give you magma blast, Air will give you plasma blast, Water will give you steam blast, and Wood will give you summer blast, but keep in mind that steam and summer blasts won't be able to apply burning infusion. You'd be best off with earth or air, whichever you'd prefer.