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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Tags: Kineticists Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Suzanne Helmigh
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Seeking some opinions, between Spark of Life (Air) and Aether Puppet, which would be the better option?

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I prefer Aethyr for flavour and because I want to animate a house and then have it slap someone in the face.


Whats the actual benefit of flurry of devastation? Is it just feats like two-weapon fighting and rapid shot + range? I mean, can't devastating infusion already be used as part of a full attack since devastating blasts go off attack actions?


Milo v3 wrote:
Whats the actual benefit of flurry of devastation? Is it just feats like two-weapon fighting and rapid shot + range? I mean, can't devastating infusion already be used as part of a full attack since devastating blasts go off attack actions?

I believe Flurry of Devastation is what allows one to fire blasts at range with full-attack iteratives. Devastating infusion allows full BAB but the iteratives only apply for the melee (as per Kinetic Blade); ranged blasts would still be with an attack action.


Wow... that's bad. So devastating basically makes ranged blasts suck horribly for only a few points of bab....


I think it's only worthwhile for melee at low levels. Until Flurry of Devastation the Abbihilator can still use blast normally without the devastating infusion.


Can one suppress constant/passive supernatural utility wild talents? Or choose not to use a constant/passive utility wild talent?

Specifically Searing Flame. Was wondering if I can turn it off, get my kineticist to burning infusion blast himself and NOT suffer the fire resistance reducing ability of Searing Flame vs an active Heat Adapation talent. With my kineticist on fire he'd be a constant source of an open flame to use Smoke Storm with.

I could do it with alchemist fire or something (though from how it's written I'm never too sure how long the thing lasts for. It only says the following round after a direct hit would there still be damage, but no mention of subsequent rounds.)


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Protoman wrote:

Can one suppress constant/passive supernatural utility wild talents? Or choose not to use a constant/passive utility wild talent?

Specifically Searing Flame. Was wondering if I can turn it off, get my kineticist to burning infusion blast himself and NOT suffer the fire resistance reducing ability of Searing Flame vs an active Heat Adapation talent. With my kineticist on fire he'd be a constant source of an open flame to use Smoke Storm with.

I could do it with alchemist fire or something (though from how it's written I'm never too sure how long the thing lasts for. It only says the following round after a direct hit would there still be damage, but no mention of subsequent rounds.)

Can't you just use basic pyrokinesis to set yourself on fire with spark? I mean, it does have to be a Fine object technically, but you could just start with your sock or something. Or have a collection of hats.


Is there any intent of giving electric a bit more options? It seems kind of silly that a asomeone who is a direct pathway to an element can not get the staple form for the type? In fact you can have an air and fire bolt (30 foot line) just seems wrong.


Luthorne wrote:
Protoman wrote:

Can one suppress constant/passive supernatural utility wild talents? Or choose not to use a constant/passive utility wild talent?

Specifically Searing Flame. Was wondering if I can turn it off, get my kineticist to burning infusion blast himself and NOT suffer the fire resistance reducing ability of Searing Flame vs an active Heat Adapation talent. With my kineticist on fire he'd be a constant source of an open flame to use Smoke Storm with.

I could do it with alchemist fire or something (though from how it's written I'm never too sure how long the thing lasts for. It only says the following round after a direct hit would there still be damage, but no mention of subsequent rounds.)

Can't you just use basic pyrokinesis to set yourself on fire with spark? I mean, it does have to be a Fine object technically, but you could just start with your sock or something. Or have a collection of hats.

I figured I'd want something very definite so I don't have to deal with too much table variation for PFS.


Does Telekinetic Invisibility and Wings of Air have a duration?

Also does Telekinetic Invisibility deactivate after attacking?


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Gordrenn Higgler wrote:

Does Telekinetic Invisibility and Wings of Air have a duration?

Also does Telekinetic Invisibility deactivate after attacking?

Telekinetic invisibility says that it works as invisibility except as described; since a duration is not described, it should last for one minute per level and deactives after attacking.

Wings of air, on the other hand, specifically says it's a constant spell-like ability, which means that it lasts indefinitely unless dispelled or something similar, and, as noted here, can be reactivated as a swift action if something deactivates it:

Bestiary wrote:
A constant spell-like ability or one that can be used at will has no use limit; unless otherwise stated, a creature can only use a constant spell-like ability on itself. Reactivating a constant spell-like ability is a swift action.


Luthorne wrote:
Gordrenn Higgler wrote:

Does Telekinetic Invisibility and Wings of Air have a duration?

Also does Telekinetic Invisibility deactivate after attacking?

Telekinetic invisibility says that it works as invisibility except as described; since a duration is not described, it should last for one minute per level and deactives after attacking.

Wings of air, on the other hand, specifically says it's a constant spell-like ability, which means that it lasts indefinitely unless dispelled or something similar, and, as noted here, can be reactivated as a swift action if something deactivates it:

Bestiary wrote:
A constant spell-like ability or one that can be used at will has no use limit; unless otherwise stated, a creature can only use a constant spell-like ability on itself. Reactivating a constant spell-like ability is a swift action.

Wings of Air has a specific statement/action for reactivation.

Occult Adventures wrote:
The air bends to your will, allowing you to soar to great heights. You are constantly under the effects of fly. If this effect is dispelled, you can call it forth again as a standard action.


Luthorne wrote:
Gordrenn Higgler wrote:

Does Telekinetic Invisibility and Wings of Air have a duration?

Also does Telekinetic Invisibility deactivate after attacking?

Telekinetic invisibility says that it works as invisibility except as described; since a duration is not described, it should last for one minute per level and deactives after attacking.

Wings of air, on the other hand, specifically says it's a constant spell-like ability, which means that it lasts indefinitely unless dispelled or something similar, and, as noted here, can be reactivated as a swift action if something deactivates it:

Bestiary wrote:
A constant spell-like ability or one that can be used at will has no use limit; unless otherwise stated, a creature can only use a constant spell-like ability on itself. Reactivating a constant spell-like ability is a swift action.

So Telekinetic Invisibility should be able to be used on others then


Gordrenn Higgler wrote:
Luthorne wrote:
Gordrenn Higgler wrote:

Does Telekinetic Invisibility and Wings of Air have a duration?

Also does Telekinetic Invisibility deactivate after attacking?

Telekinetic invisibility says that it works as invisibility except as described; since a duration is not described, it should last for one minute per level and deactives after attacking.

Wings of air, on the other hand, specifically says it's a constant spell-like ability, which means that it lasts indefinitely unless dispelled or something similar, and, as noted here, can be reactivated as a swift action if something deactivates it:

Bestiary wrote:
A constant spell-like ability or one that can be used at will has no use limit; unless otherwise stated, a creature can only use a constant spell-like ability on itself. Reactivating a constant spell-like ability is a swift action.
So Telekinetic Invisibility should be able to be used on others then

Looks like it. Which would be cool!


Going to agree that it technically can be used on others, but that's probably an error. Expect eventual errata.


Here's a question, can temporary hit points (from spells,magic items, abilities etc..) be used to take the non-lethal damage from Burn ?

Also if those points had a limited duration, would that affect accumulated Burn ?


Temporary hit points never affected nonlethal damage. Nonlethal damage is tracked separately from HP (normal or temporary). Temp HP would help keep one conscious though.


Since spell-like abilities no longer qualify for taking creation feats (FAQ ruling), how would a kineticist create any of the kineticist specific items ? (example "creator must be a 10th-level kineticist" Hollow Rod CL15)
Would he have to multiclass or is there some other way around ?


Shadow_Charlatan wrote:

Since spell-like abilities no longer qualify for taking creation feats (FAQ ruling), how would a kineticist create any of the kineticist specific items ? (example "creator must be a 10th-level kineticist" Hollow Rod CL15)

Would he have to multiclass or is there some other way around ?

Multiclassing or master craftsman.


Shadow_Charlatan wrote:

Since spell-like abilities no longer qualify for taking creation feats (FAQ ruling), how would a kineticist create any of the kineticist specific items ? (example "creator must be a 10th-level kineticist" Hollow Rod CL15)

Would he have to multiclass or is there some other way around ?

He'd just need to increase the DC by 5 for a requirement he doesn't have.


Chess Pwn wrote:
Shadow_Charlatan wrote:

Since spell-like abilities no longer qualify for taking creation feats (FAQ ruling), how would a kineticist create any of the kineticist specific items ? (example "creator must be a 10th-level kineticist" Hollow Rod CL15)

Would he have to multiclass or is there some other way around ?
He'd just need to increase the DC by 5 for a requirement he doesn't have.

That would be a wizard or cleric pretending to be kineticist. Not a kineticst crafting the item.


Oh haha, I misunderstood the question.


Telekinetic invisibility and vampires.
Can they be in sun light when using this ability?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Zautos' wrote:

Telekinetic invisibility and vampires.

Can they be in sun light when using this ability?

Whatever you'd rule with regular invisibility should be the same.

(If I'm the GM, I say: Sunlight hurts you even when invisible, because the prohibition isn't scientific it's magical.)

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