Occult Adventures Class Preview: The Kineticist

Thursday, July 23, 2015


Illustration by Suzanne Helmigh

The kineticist is the odd girl out in Occult Adventures. All the other occult classes are spontaneous spellcasters, but the kineticist isn't a spellcaster. Instead the power of the elements surges through her, and she controls the fundamental building blocks of reality in her own way, using her own body as a conduit to unleash and shape raw bursts of power and to assist her in every aspect of her adventuring career. The kineticist class lets you play characters with strong elemental themes, just like those from all sorts of books, TV shows, movies, and other popular media. She can infuse both form (to change the shape and the delivery mechanism for her blasts) and substance (to add extra effects to her blast), making her blasts an extremely versatile weapon indeed in the hands of an experienced kineticist. The kineticist needs the Constitution to withstand those energies and the Dexterity to shape them, which also makes her an oddity among all the classes in the way she operates. She can use her powers at a baseline all day long, but she can also overclock them, pulling in more energy than her body can normally withstand to gain impressive short-term benefits and the lasting advantages of extra elemental energy coursing through her, but at a great cost to her durability.

In the playtest, I was lucky enough to have the most active playtesters for the kineticist, nearly more feedback than all five of the other classes combined, and I was able to work with those playtesters to refine the kineticist and add more options to open up more possibilities for each element. The final version not only has many more wild talent choices in her pages, she also gains about twice as many wild talents over the course of her career (split out between infusions and utility talents), as well as twice as many base skill points each level (4 instead of 2). This allows the kineticist to branch out and cover more areas instead of being super-specialized like in the playtest. In terms of what else is new, internal buffer grants her an ability to store a very small pool of extra energy to use instead of burning herself, and elemental overflow now provides more benefits than ever before, especially if you wind up taking large amounts of burn and begin taking on more and more elemental aspects within your own body. Infusion specialization now works on both types of infusion, so you don't have to pick between form and substance; whichever kind you use, it's reduced automatically. While the kineticist was always able to gather power in order to reduce the burn cost of her next blast, now she gains improvements at higher levels; a kineticist with the supercharge ability and a round to prepare can reduce the burn cost of her blast by a whopping 5! For reference, especially for those not involved in the playtest, that's enough to both empower the blast and double it, essentially shooting out two blasts for 1.5x damage!

Every single element has gotten something new and cool (and since there are new and cool universal talents that anyone can take, that adds even more options). Here's s little bit for each element (there are more for you to discover on your own!): Aether gains telekinetic invisibility, which lets you use strands of aether to dampen sound and refract light around yourself, potentially fooling sound-based blindsense like the echolocation spell. Air can gain evasion and can even haste the whole party by either spending your turn or taking burn to keep it active. Earth can create deadly areas of difficult terrain that cause reduced blast damage—and special substance effects of course!—to everyone inside everyone (pair with grappling infusion substance to make grasping hands of earth that hold them in place to take damage again and again). Fire can burn away an enemies buffs and has fan of flames, a cone-shaped blast available at 1st-level. Water can summon a tsunami to annihilate entire settlements.

Alright, whew! Too many goodies to describe them all, but let's move on to the archetypes. The kineticist archetypes are pretty high-impact, in that they can strongly alter the kineticist in a way that opens up whole new avenues of play. Much of that is thanks to the playtesters who desired alternate styles of play, allowing me to see what we needed most. In the end, I managed to fit five archetypes in there somehow, enough to cover many of the archetypes that playtesters wanted most of all. The blood kineticist gains mastery of blood and can injure a foe without an attack roll by twisting the blood within their body. Sounds good for a vampire, right? So I'll skip alphabetically to the overwhelming soul, which uses Charisma instead of Constitution and doesn't conflict with the blood kineticist; the overwhelming soul uses mind over matter to avoid burn, gaining some of the benefits of a kineticist who took a lot of burn through sheer focus. Overwhelming soul is perfect for a kineticist face character, or for players who don't want to handle the tactics and economy of burn, like a small group of the playtesters. Next up is elemental annihilator. This archetype is all about killing things with blasts, and she trades out all utility talents for increased combat boosts, free combat feats that ignore prerequisites, and a special form infusion that grants her a versatile stream of mixed melee and ranged attacks. The elemental ascetic combines monastic wisdom with elemental powers, adding elemental damage (and of course, the true power of the archetype: delicious extra substance effects like trip, entangle, stagger, and more) to every punch in his flurry of blows. Finally, the peaceful kinetic chirurgeon is the polar opposite of the elemental annihilator and the perfect archetype for a support healer kineticist, giving up infusions and blast-based metakinesis abilities to gain a large number of paladin mercies (1.5x as many as a paladin gets), metakinesis that affects her kinetic healer (like extra healing, healing that brings back a recently-dead target, and quickened healing), and a double size internal buffer that only works for healing. And remember, this healer heals a lot of hit points each time to a single target. Way more than a cure spell.

I hope you enjoy the kineticist and use her to make all the elemental-focused character builds you've only dreamed about playing until now, based on all sorts of books, TV shows, and movies. It's going to be a (kinetic) blast!

Mark Seifter
Designer

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Iphigenia von Saltz wrote:
Is there any chance that this class could get more archetypes later on to add the Tian elements of metal and wood in some form?

Maybe in the Occult Players Companion book?

Scarab Sages

Iphigenia von Saltz wrote:
Is there any chance that this class could get more archetypes later on to add the Tian elements of metal and wood in some form?

Mark has teased that there may be wood options.

Designer

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Luthorne wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Berselius wrote:
I wonder if we'll get an ability to allow the Kineticist to ignore the elemental immunity of a creature.
From what I hear, yes and no. For example, can't make your fire flatout ignore immunity, but you could use your control over fire to rip the fire out of a fire elemental.
Or a red dragon; take that, dragon!
I would really like to know the details of this ability, it sounds awesome.
It's a 1st-level substance infusion that makes your blast only work on creatures of a subtype that matches your kinetic blast's element, but against those creatures, it's a touch attack, allows spell resistance, but ignores any and all damage reduction, resistances, or immunities they possess. It does somewhat less damage and they get a Fort save to reduce it further. But if at least one creature that gets hit fails their save, you can reduce the cost of a blast wild talent's burn by 1 for the next round.

You are basically "gathering power" from the creature. It's a big action economy booster and an especially great utility in a fight with mixed types of opponents, since you can combo it to do something nasty to your next foe!


my body is ready


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"In the playtest, I was lucky enough to have the most active playtesters for the kineticist, nearly more feedback than all five of the other classes combined, and I was able to work with those playtesters to refine the kineticist and add more options to open up more possibilities for each element."

Well... when you literally drop a class that mimics the abilities of characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Fairy Tail, Mortal Kombat, Marvel Comics, DC Comics... and just about every single other anime, manga, action cartoon, comic books, sci-fi series, sci-fi movies and video games, you're guaranteed to get a LOT of response :P

Have they SEEN the HUGE amount of conversion/homebrewed stuff that tries to mimic the Kineticist? I... kinda was wondering when you were gonna take a crack at it.


Luthorne wrote:
Ventnor wrote:

Oddly enough, it sounds like Hobgoblins are going to make great kineticists.

Though a corps of hobgoblin geokineticists whose job in an army is to create fortifications for the main hobgoblin force does sound quite plausible now that I think about it.

Moloch-worshiping hobgoblin pyrokineticists ahoy.

Beware the hobgoblin Fire Nation!

The antagonists of my very first campaign were Moloch-worshipping Hobgoblins, so this is relevant to my interests.


Mark Seifter wrote:
Luthorne wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Berselius wrote:
I wonder if we'll get an ability to allow the Kineticist to ignore the elemental immunity of a creature.
From what I hear, yes and no. For example, can't make your fire flatout ignore immunity, but you could use your control over fire to rip the fire out of a fire elemental.
Or a red dragon; take that, dragon!
I would really like to know the details of this ability, it sounds awesome.
It's a 1st-level substance infusion that makes your blast only work on creatures of a subtype that matches your kinetic blast's element, but against those creatures, it's a touch attack, allows spell resistance, but ignores any and all damage reduction, resistances, or immunities they possess. It does somewhat less damage and they get a Fort save to reduce it further. But if at least one creature that gets hit fails their save, you can reduce the cost of a blast wild talent's burn by 1 for the next round.
You are basically "gathering power" from the creature. It's a big action economy booster and an especially great utility in a fight with mixed types of opponents, since you can combo it to do something nasty to your next foe!

This is so much cooler than just being able to ignore immunity. I love it.

Designer

Arachnofiend wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Luthorne wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Berselius wrote:
I wonder if we'll get an ability to allow the Kineticist to ignore the elemental immunity of a creature.
From what I hear, yes and no. For example, can't make your fire flatout ignore immunity, but you could use your control over fire to rip the fire out of a fire elemental.
Or a red dragon; take that, dragon!
I would really like to know the details of this ability, it sounds awesome.
It's a 1st-level substance infusion that makes your blast only work on creatures of a subtype that matches your kinetic blast's element, but against those creatures, it's a touch attack, allows spell resistance, but ignores any and all damage reduction, resistances, or immunities they possess. It does somewhat less damage and they get a Fort save to reduce it further. But if at least one creature that gets hit fails their save, you can reduce the cost of a blast wild talent's burn by 1 for the next round.
You are basically "gathering power" from the creature. It's a big action economy booster and an especially great utility in a fight with mixed types of opponents, since you can combo it to do something nasty to your next foe!
This is so much cooler than just being able to ignore immunity. I love it.

Yeah, I knew all along that just ignoring immunity of some of these creatures was silly and unthematic. We needed something that could bypass the immunity in a way that actually made sense for a master of that element, and then it struck me; while it makes no sense whatsoever for elemental fire from the Plane of Fire to harm a fire elemental, a true master of fire should be able to manipulate the elemental and use it as a power source! In that vein, you can also hold an enemy with that subtype in place. Yoon's grandmother actually used that ability to help save Yoon, but unless it mentions it on one of the PFS sheets, how that happened is a mystery for now ;)


Is there a method to allow a Natsu-like character to eat his element to regain power (putting a fire in his belly)? If not, I have some rough thoughts for an archetype to support it based off the teaser from this blog post...

Dark Archive

As a fan of Codex Alera, I'd like there to be a summoner/kinetesist archetype, coming from either class.


Would the mythic ability Recuperation work to heal Burn ?

Designer

Shadow_Charlatan wrote:
Would the mythic ability Recuperation work to heal Burn ?

It counts as a full 8 hour rest for recovering all other abilities, even those that can normally only be recovered every 24 hours, so seems like it should do so for burn too. Now, as someone who likes to dabble with some of the mythic rules in my home games, I don't really recommend using recuperation, but if you do, it should work.


Can the Kineticist get enhancement bonuses to their blasts now? It wasn't possible to bypass metal-based DR without being earth and nobody could bypass alignment-based DR in the playtest. I assume there's either an item that grants this (hopefully not one that takes the neck slot...) or the Kineticist has some other trick up her sleeve.

Liberty's Edge

Just reading through the class and wasn't clear on some things;

Burn: Are various effects which reduce burn applied before or after the maximum burn per round limit? Internal buffer indicates that it applies before (i.e. if your max per round is 3, you can actually take 4 burn minus 1 from internal buffer), but none of the other abilities which reduce burn specify.

Elemental overflow: The stat mods are listed as size bonuses. Does the kineticist get bigger? Or was this just to prevent stacking with things like Enlarge Person? Does that mean a kineticist with +2 size bonus to dex from Elemental Overflow would effectively ignore the -2 size penalty to dex from Enlarge Person... they don't stack, so you take the highest only?

Supercharge: If the kineticist takes a full round action and then a move action the next round supercharging do they get 3 + 2 = 5 burn reduction?

Celerity: "You can galvanize the flow of electricity within your allies...". How many allies? At what range? Next sentence says it acts like Haste, but that could be effect only or also target/range. If it includes target then that'd be one and the first sentence should really say, 'an ally'.

Windsight: It isn't clear whether you can see in the direction the wind is coming from or going to. Based on 'Greater Windsight' I'd assume 'going to'.


This is the class I am waiting for the most.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'd like to state on the record that the way Mark interacts with the community is absolutely awesome. It goes for other Paizo staff too, but insofar I've had the idea that the lore arm of Paizo was much more on the ball in this department.


I'm really looking forward to Kineticist; especially for those archetypes like the Healer, and the Overwhelming. Are they able to be taken at the same time? Cause I would love to do so.


Does the Aerokinetic have any abilities that would be especially useful on a pirate ship ?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gorbacz wrote:
I'd like to state on the record that the way Mark interacts with the community is absolutely awesome. It goes for other Paizo staff too, but insofar I've had the idea that the lore arm of Paizo was much more on the ball in this department.

A non snarky post? Next thing you know, Cosmo is going to act, truly, benevolent.

Liberty's Edge

Shadow_Charlatan wrote:
Does the Aerokinetic have any abilities that would be especially useful on a pirate ship ?

Yeah, they can create and direct winds. Also have abilities that would allow them to jump (or fly) into the rigging or when boarding another ship, air bubble so they don't drown, et cetera. Lots of things which could be useful for a pirate character. Of course, you can also take water abilities (starting at 7th level) and the combination of the two would really be powerful in a naval setting.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Shadow_Charlatan wrote:
Does the Aerokinetic have any abilities that would be especially useful on a pirate ship ?
Yeah, they can create and direct winds. Also have abilities that would allow them to jump (or fly) into the rigging or when boarding another ship, air bubble so they don't drown, et cetera. Lots of things which could be useful for a pirate character. Of course, you can also take water abilities (starting at 7th level) and the combination of the two would really be powerful in a naval setting.

One of the characters I have in mind, in fact, is a Zaheer style pirate lord.

Designer

3 people marked this as a favorite.

CBDunkerson is right on; air would be a great choice for a pirate, especially at high levels when you can control the winds and weather! (and to be on a level with Zaheer, you'd have to be pretty high level, since he was pretty powerful in the show; that said, now you can air suffocate people like he did)


So looking forward to the blood kineticist. I want to see all that it can do. That said, I'll still probably go Earth Kineticist. EARTH NATION FTW!

Grand Lodge

Third Mind wrote:
So looking forward to the blood kineticist. I want to see all that it can do. That said, I'll still probably go Earth Kineticist. EARTH NATION FTW!

Indeed, there's something quite entertaining about a terrakineticist that can throw rocks, create cover, throw big rocks, control opponents, and throw even bigger rocks!


Mark Seifter wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Luthorne wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Berselius wrote:
I wonder if we'll get an ability to allow the Kineticist to ignore the elemental immunity of a creature.
From what I hear, yes and no. For example, can't make your fire flatout ignore immunity, but you could use your control over fire to rip the fire out of a fire elemental.
Or a red dragon; take that, dragon!
I would really like to know the details of this ability, it sounds awesome.
It's a 1st-level substance infusion that makes your blast only work on creatures of a subtype that matches your kinetic blast's element, but against those creatures, it's a touch attack, allows spell resistance, but ignores any and all damage reduction, resistances, or immunities they possess. It does somewhat less damage and they get a Fort save to reduce it further. But if at least one creature that gets hit fails their save, you can reduce the cost of a blast wild talent's burn by 1 for the next round.
You are basically "gathering power" from the creature. It's a big action economy booster and an especially great utility in a fight with mixed types of opponents, since you can combo it to do something nasty to your next foe!
This is so much cooler than just being able to ignore immunity. I love it.
Yeah, I knew all along that just ignoring immunity of some of these creatures was silly and unthematic. We needed something that could bypass the immunity in a way that actually made sense for a master of that element, and then it struck me; while it makes no sense whatsoever for elemental fire from the Plane of Fire to harm a fire elemental, a true master of fire should be able to manipulate the elemental and use it as a power source! In that vein, you can also hold an enemy with that subtype in place. Yoon's grandmother actually used that ability to help save Yoon, but unless it mentions it on one of the...

While I'm sad to hear it sounds like this substance infusion (I'm guessing it's the "draining infusion" mentioned here) won't be working with demons' and devils' energy resistances and immunity (my PFS pyrokineticist will have to continue being wary of doing Mendev/Worldwound/Devil scenarios), it's still great to see this ability being available at level 1 so that players have an option against elementals or fire-subtyped outsiders.

Designer

Protoman wrote:
While I'm sad to hear it sounds like this substance infusion (I'm guessing it's the "draining infusion" mentioned here) won't be working with demons' and devils' energy resistances and immunity (my PFS pyrokineticist will have to continue being wary of doing Mendev/Worldwound/Devil scenarios), it's still great to see this ability being available at level 1 so that players have an option against elementals or fire-subtyped outsiders.

Don't worry about demons; you'll have another option beyond draining infusion (correct guess!) to deal with their puny resist fire 10. Devils, on the other hand. Those are bad news. They are one of a select tiny group of critters that are a bad day for a pyro who doesn't branch out.


Mark Seifter wrote:
Don't worry about demons; you'll have another option beyond draining infusion (correct guess!) to deal with their puny resist fire 10. Devils, on the other hand. Those are bad news. They are one of a select tiny group of critters that are a bad day for a pyro who doesn't branch out.

That's good to know about demons. For a level 7 Liberty's Edge Pyro who's been contemplating if he should branch out now that the book is out soon and PFS is gonna allow a retrain, I'm gonna have to think of my expanded element options now. I don't really know how often devils show up in PFS but I'm assuming odds are bigger at higher levels. I'm hoping there's an bigger list of composite blasts that help with the choices (Is there a fire+lightning one now perchance?) and I guess I'll have to look closely on other elements' low level wild talents that I can qualify for and snag quickly and efficiently.


Protoman wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Don't worry about demons; you'll have another option beyond draining infusion (correct guess!) to deal with their puny resist fire 10. Devils, on the other hand. Those are bad news. They are one of a select tiny group of critters that are a bad day for a pyro who doesn't branch out.
(Is there a fire+lightning one now perchance?)

Eh? Eh?


Tels wrote:
Protoman wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Don't worry about demons; you'll have another option beyond draining infusion (correct guess!) to deal with their puny resist fire 10. Devils, on the other hand. Those are bad news. They are one of a select tiny group of critters that are a bad day for a pyro who doesn't branch out.
(Is there a fire+lightning one now perchance?)

Eh? Eh?

Snaps finger guns!

You know it!


CBDunkerson wrote:

Just reading through the class and wasn't clear on some things;

Burn: Are various effects which reduce burn applied before or after the maximum burn per round limit? Internal buffer indicates that it applies before (i.e. if your max per round is 3, you can actually take 4 burn minus 1 from internal buffer), but none of the other abilities which reduce burn specify.

The way I read it, is that the reduction applies in advance, if it didn't a few abilities wouldn't be usable when you get them.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Elemental overflow: The stat mods are listed as size bonuses. Does the kineticist get bigger? Or was this just to prevent stacking with things like Enlarge Person? Does that mean a kineticist with +2 size bonus to dex from Elemental Overflow would effectively ignore the -2 size penalty to dex from Enlarge Person... they don't stack, so you take the highest only?

This is something I also would like some clarification on.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Supercharge: If the kineticist takes a full round action and then a move action the next round supercharging do they get 3 + 2 = 5 burn reduction?

Correct

CBDunkerson wrote:
Celerity: "You can galvanize the flow of electricity within your allies...". How many allies? At what range? Next sentence says it acts like Haste, but that could be effect only or also target/range. If it includes target then that'd be one and the first sentence should really say, 'an ally'.

Usually when these abilities happen, you just cast the spell. So when you use this ability it is just a flavorful re-skinning of haste, limited to 1 round unless you accept burn.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Windsight: It isn't clear whether you can see in the direction the wind is coming from or going to. Based on 'Greater Windsight' I'd assume 'going to'.

I have no idea on this one.

Dark Archive

Mark I got a question. I was reading Blood Kineticist and blood blast didn't make any sense to me.
Blood blast says:"instead, she gains the blood composite blast, which costs 2 points of burn. A blood blast is a physical blast that deals bludgeoning damage. It is associated with the same infusions as the water blast."
Now all of the Blood kineticist infusion work with a regular water blast. So why would I pay 2 points of burn to have an invisible gnome wizard cast prestidigiation on my water blast to turn it red?
Unless you guys omitted a line in there?

Scarab Sages

Hyamda wrote:

Mark I got a question. I was reading Blood Kineticist and blood blast didn't make any sense to me.

Blood blast says:"instead, she gains the blood composite blast, which costs 2 points of burn. A blood blast is a physical blast that deals bludgeoning damage. It is associated with the same infusions as the water blast."
Now all of the Blood kineticist infusion work with a regular water blast. So why would I pay 2 points of burn to have an invisible gnome wizard cast prestidigiation on my water blast to turn it red?
Unless you guys omitted a line in there?

I'm not Mark, but as a composite blast it does double damage.


Hyamda wrote:

Mark I got a question. I was reading Blood Kineticist and blood blast didn't make any sense to me.

Blood blast says:"instead, she gains the blood composite blast, which costs 2 points of burn. A blood blast is a physical blast that deals bludgeoning damage. It is associated with the same infusions as the water blast."
Now all of the Blood kineticist infusion work with a regular water blast. So why would I pay 2 points of burn to have an invisible gnome wizard cast prestidigiation on my water blast to turn it red?
Unless you guys omitted a line in there?

Composite blasts do twice the damage before Con is added, and cost two burn.

Dark Archive

Oh... sorry missed that part apparently. Thanks guys


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

There was some confusion in the full OA thread, but Elemental Overflow comes online if you take burn and stays on (unless suppressed) the whole day, only going away when you sleep and heal your burn, correct?


someweirdguy wrote:
There was some confusion in the full OA thread, but Elemental Overflow comes online if you take burn and stays on (unless suppressed) the whole day, only going away when you sleep and heal your burn, correct?

Yep!


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
QuidEst wrote:
someweirdguy wrote:
There was some confusion in the full OA thread, but Elemental Overflow comes online if you take burn and stays on (unless suppressed) the whole day, only going away when you sleep and heal your burn, correct?
Yep!

Ok, that's what I thought, I was just told differently in another thread and wanted someone to confirm my reading of the ability.


someweirdguy wrote:
QuidEst wrote:
someweirdguy wrote:
There was some confusion in the full OA thread, but Elemental Overflow comes online if you take burn and stays on (unless suppressed) the whole day, only going away when you sleep and heal your burn, correct?
Yep!
Ok, that's what I thought, I was just told differently in another thread and wanted someone to confirm my reading of the ability.

Yeah, I don't think he was understanding what you were saying. Which is odd as the wording was fine in your statement.


Alright, so can anyone tell me (Possibly with playtest experience) whether or not going Aether is a terrible idea? The utility talents look very fun, but I'm just not convinced about the composite blasts. +1 per d6 is honestly just terrible for 2 burn, and if you go full aether I'm not convinced that halved damage is worth it being force.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Cadvin wrote:
Alright, so can anyone tell me (Possibly with playtest experience) whether or not going Aether is a terrible idea? The utility talents look very fun, but I'm just not convinced about the composite blasts. +1 per d6 is honestly just terrible for 2 burn, and if you go full aether I'm not convinced that halved damage is worth it being force.

If you go for Aether as a primary element you can later gain the ability to do a force composite blast and add a disintegration effect to it as well via talent.

however while it is not as flashy as some of the other elements if you want to touch into aether as an expanded element it does add some very nice options to your play style as having a second option when your primary element fails is very useful.

I'm planning on doing a fire kineticist with expanded element(aether) at level 7(?) and later getting the expanded element(fire) at level 15(?). the reason for that is the number of talents requiring you to have both the primary and expanded of the same element are very few.


So, just ran a session with a level 4 kineticist (Wind), and it feels pretty good. My infusions right now are: Pushing, Extended Range, Air Cushion, and Air Leap. The ability to gather energy and do 2d6+8 (2 for level, 4 for con, and 2 for overflowing energy) + a bull rush every turn was really good. Also the option of running away and just doing damage from 120 feet was also fun. We leveled at the end of the session, so next week I will try to report about how it feels with the damage going up to 3d6+9 per hit with the options of range, bull rush, or thundering added on is like. I also got access to the metakenisis, so empower might be fun.


Nevermind, dropping the kineticist. My favorite character I have ever played was a Scar-Witch Doctor. The nerf, suspiciously coming out today, has put a bad taste in my mouth for the kineticist. I would hope that pathfinder wouldn't ruin a unique archetype just to make the con based classes in this book unique, but again the timing is just odd.

I hope everyone enjoys this class, maybe I will pick it up in the future again.


John Ryan 783 wrote:

Nevermind, dropping the kineticist. My favorite character I have ever played was a Scar-Witch Doctor. The nerf, suspiciously coming out today, has put a bad taste in my mouth for the kineticist. I would hope that pathfinder wouldn't ruin a unique archetype just to make the con based classes in this book unique, but again the timing is just odd.

I hope everyone enjoys this class, maybe I will pick it up in the future again.

Do what now?


Xelaaredn wrote:
John Ryan 783 wrote:

Nevermind, dropping the kineticist. My favorite character I have ever played was a Scar-Witch Doctor. The nerf, suspiciously coming out today, has put a bad taste in my mouth for the kineticist. I would hope that pathfinder wouldn't ruin a unique archetype just to make the con based classes in this book unique, but again the timing is just odd.

I hope everyone enjoys this class, maybe I will pick it up in the future again.

Do what now?

They changed the Scar Witch Doctor to be int based, as opposed to con based as it had been. The timing is suspicious because a couple of classes in Occult Adventures are con based. Even if it is total coincidence, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I went from loving my Kineticist to hating him.


Quick questions if anyone has time to chime in on:

Kinetic Leap grants a +10 (or +20 with 10 ranks in acrobatics) bonus) to acrobatics to jump and Air's Leap utility wild talent provides a bonus to jump equal to kineticist level and you jump twice as far as the results of the check indicates and accepting 1 burn can double that for a final 4 times as far as check indicates. Either one of these options, even more so with both, could get one jumping WAAAY more than one's speed allows in a move action. Would a kineticist take several rounds to finish the jump or is this a special case that it'll be done a lot faster as one move action or full-round action?

Does the Elemental Overflow bonus to blast damage apply to how much damage the kinetic healer can heal? It just says "heal a willing living creature of an amount of damage equal to your kinetic blast's damage". Also Metakinesis (Empower) wouldn't work for Kinetic Healer, right? Or am I wrong about that?

I wanna make sure I'm getting Internal Buffer right. Let's say I'm fresh for the day with no burn and empty buffer, and I accept 1 burn but place it in the buffer. Is that 1 burn safely in the buffer and nowhere else or do I simultaneously have 1 burn giving me nonlethal damage and activating Elemental Overflow AND 1 burn in the buffer to be used later?

Flame Jet and Greater Flame Jet: Does the kinetist need hands free to shoot a "burst of flame behind you" or to hover with Greater Flame Jet? If hovering can I still gather energy and/or blast or are my hands occupied maintaining a "mild jet of flame" keeping me in the air?


Protoman wrote:
Kinetic Leap grants a +10 (or +20 with 10 ranks in acrobatics) bonus) to acrobatics to jump and Air's Leap utility wild talent provides a bonus to jump equal to kineticist level and you jump twice as far as the results of the check indicates and accepting 1 burn can double that for a final 4 times as far as check indicates. Either one of these options, even more so with both, could get one jumping WAAAY more than one's speed allows in a move action. Would a kineticist take several rounds to finish the jump or is this a special case that it'll be done a lot faster as one move action or full-round action?

Unfortunately, as per PF rules, a jump cannot exceed your maximum movement for a round. So if a human uses a move action to jump, he can move 30ft maximum; if he uses a double move, it's 60ft. Personally I houserule that a jump longer than your speed spends move actions automatically until you land (I mean, hurtling through the air isn't super conducive to action economy), but that's me.

Protoman wrote:
I wanna make sure I'm getting Internal Buffer right. Let's say I'm fresh for the day with no burn and empty buffer, and I accept 1 burn but place it in the buffer. Is that 1 burn safely in the buffer and nowhere else or do I simultaneously have 1 burn giving me nonlethal damage and activating Elemental Overflow AND 1 burn in the buffer to be used later?

Yep, that's how I understand it. Good way to get EO bonuses while still saving up burn.


Cadvin wrote:
Protoman wrote:
Kinetic Leap grants a +10 (or +20 with 10 ranks in acrobatics) bonus) to acrobatics to jump and Air's Leap utility wild talent provides a bonus to jump equal to kineticist level and you jump twice as far as the results of the check indicates and accepting 1 burn can double that for a final 4 times as far as check indicates. Either one of these options, even more so with both, could get one jumping WAAAY more than one's speed allows in a move action. Would a kineticist take several rounds to finish the jump or is this a special case that it'll be done a lot faster as one move action or full-round action?
Unfortunately, as per PF rules, a jump cannot exceed your maximum movement for a round. So if a human uses a move action to jump, he can move 30ft maximum; if he uses a double move, it's 60ft. Personally I houserule that a jump longer than your speed spends move actions automatically until you land (I mean, hurtling through the air isn't super conducive to action economy), but that's me.

Does using the wild talents constitute an action? If not, meaning they are a passive bonus, then you can use the Run action to get quadruple movement (120 move speed) for one round. Also, of note, Pathfinder/d20 has a rule of a'double-double is triple'. So unless Air's Leap specifically overrides that general rule, you would jump triple the distance instead of quadruple the distance.

Side note: for more jumping funsies, pick up a Rod of Balance; it also doubles the distance you jump! :D

Cadvin wrote:
Protoman wrote:
I wanna make sure I'm getting Internal Buffer right. Let's say I'm fresh for the day with no burn and empty buffer, and I accept 1 burn but place it in the buffer. Is that 1 burn safely in the buffer and nowhere else or do I simultaneously have 1 burn giving me nonlethal damage and activating Elemental Overflow AND 1 burn in the buffer to be used later?
Yep, that's how I understand it. Good way to get EO bonuses while still saving up burn.

Internal Buffer also carries over from one day to the next. So before you make camp for the night, you can spend burn (if you have any left) to fill up your Internal Buffer and the next day, you can wake up and be clear of burn but still have the buffer.


Tels wrote:
Does using the wild talents constitute an action? If not, meaning they are a passive bonus, then you can use the Run action to get quadruple movement (120 move speed) for one round. Also, of note, Pathfinder/d20 has a rule of a'double-double is triple'. So unless Air's Leap specifically overrides that general rule, you would jump triple the distance instead of quadruple the distance.

Thankfully it does! :D

And good point about the Run action. The utility wild talents are a mix of action-to-activate or passive-always-on abilities.


Telekinetic Invisibility says it works like invisibility (but with reduced bonuses), would it still qualify for use of

Undetectable ?:
Undetectable: This grants its bonded user the ability to become utterly undetectable while invisible. While invisible and in physical contact with this item, the bonded creature can't be detected or scryed by any method.

Legendary Items..

Dark Archive

Shadow_Charlatan wrote:

Telekinetic Invisibility says it works like invisibility (but with reduced bonuses), would it still qualify for use of** spoiler omitted **

Legendary Items..

I would say yes as you are invisible just a little easier to see the invisible effect then normal.

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