Kineticist Playtest Analysis

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Hello, all! I’m Logan Bonner, Pathfinder Lead Designer and the primary designer of the kineticist. Now that we’ve finished up the class playtest, I want to cover where we’re planning to go with the class. Many of these changes are based on your survey feedback, as well as common comments we witnessed monitoring the forums and social media. This took a while, because the playtest had a big turnout. We don’t usually share these numbers, but the kineticist got exactly 1,000 survey responses, and that was too fun to keep to ourselves! (There were fewer for the open response, as is typical.)

I want to hit the main changes we’re planning to make. These aren’t necessarily the final changes, as our internal testing and number-crunching might nix some of them. Also, there are many other small changes I won’t be covering here to keep things brief(ish)—some of you dropped fun little ideas that we’ll just implement, but aren’t massively important to the bigger picture of the class.



Yoon, the iconic kineticist. Sketch by Wayne Reynolds
Yoon, the iconic kineticist. Sketch by Wayne Reynolds

Main Takeaways: Overall, the class had good ratings, but not top tier. If it went in the book as-is, it would be pretty effective and fun, but we think there’s clear room for improvement to make it a standout. Respondents vastly preferred the impulses of the playtest over expressing elemental powers as spellcasting of any kind. One common refrain though, was that damage was too low, especially on many of the overflow abilities. We were pretty conservative on the playtest, and we’ll be carefully turning some of the damage up. We’re also planning to reduce the overall number of overflow impulses while dialing up their effects, keeping the trait just for those impulses that have a major effect on the battle and feel worth spending a lot of actions to do.

Though the class is intended to be pretty focused on combat, we do have some concerns about the lack of options for kineticists during exploration, downtime, and the like. We’ll be seeing what we can do to make feel less narrow in those situations. It’s yet to be determined whether that comes in the form of more skills, some specific abilities, or a mix.

Complexity vs. Simplicity: The big challenge of this class is making it simple enough that it’s accessible and fun for a new player or a player who wants to play a character with a more straightforward playstyle. Many of the classes after the Advanced Player’s Guide have needed to be more complex to convey their concept. With the kineticist, we wanted to pull this back! Attaining the variety the class needs while not adding even more rules to remember is tricky, but rest assured we want the final class to make sense for its target audience. We did have a small number of respondents who wanted many different mechanics in the class at once (like having impulses, focus spells, cantrips, AND burn), but we’re not looking to go in that direction so that we can keep things streamlined.

Our ultimate goal is to have a class that feels extremely adept with their elements or elements. They will resemble a non-spellcaster in that they have a small set of tools they’ve very strong with, but also will resemble a spellcaster in their ability to create magical effects and straightforward focus on their impulses. It’s worth noting that, because kineticists have fewer tools, some impulses will just be stronger than comparable spells. Wings of Air from the playtest was often noted as being stronger than fly, but it’s intentional that the kineticist who is fully dedicated to mastering air is better at flying than a wizard who knows many spells and simply prepares one spell slot with a fly spell.

Lack of Clarity: One of the major problems we saw frequently was confusion over the intended role of certain parts of the class. What was meant to be important? What’s more of a side benefit? We saw this in attack rolls vs. class DC, the specialty of each element, the difference between overflow impulses and other impulses, and so on. We’re looking to streamline these for the final, to introduce bigger differences and clearer paths. For one example, multiple elements having healing abilities made it a bit muddy about what “belonged” to each element. So, for the final, expect each element to have a clearer identity while still allowing enough variety to not feel too stale.

Elemental Blast: The contrast between Elemental Blasts and other impulses touches on the lack of clarity too. After seeing feedback, we’re looking at switching it to function similarly to other impulses and act more like an attack cantrip. This will likely require something similar to a spell attack roll, letting you use your Constitution for it. This has several benefits: it should let us simplify how it works, make Con clearly the best choice for your top ability score, free up kineticist characters’ ability boosts for a wider variety of characters, and still allow upgrades to the blast. This does leave some challenges, especially around a kineticist’s item loadout.

We intend to move any “use your element as a weapon” options into the Elemental Weapon feat so that still remains as an option—especially for melee kineticists. The final form of the Elemental Blast is still to be decided, since it relies on a lot of other moving parts, but we intend to keep it as a versatile option with some variety between the elements.

There was plenty of disagreement among playtesters about whether the class should be primarily a single-target damage dealer or be built around more varied effects. Much of this had to do with whether the player believed the Elemental Blast or the other impulses were the core mechanic of the class. Going all-in on single-target blasts can lead to extremely stagnant, repetitive play, so we aren’t planning to make that the sole focus. However, we will be exploring what room we have for boosting single-target damage as an option for those who want it, without making that the only role the class can fill.

Constitution?: The survey asked whether people preferred Constitution or a mental score for class DC. Though the responses wanting a mental score were quite low, there were a significant number of write-in responses that liked Con but also wanted it to be more important to the class. Looking at the issue and the target audience of the class, we’re planning to make Constitution matter a bit more so it’s the clear choice for your top ability score. This should allow more flexibility in other scores and open up a broader array of character concepts.

The change to Elemental Blast noted above is linked to this. We might also use Constitution for damage on some impulses or in certain circumstances.

Gates: We had a mixed bag of feedback about the gate options (dedicated gate, dual gate, and universal gate). Taking it as a whole, we’re currently leaning toward having a dedicated gate or dual gate option at 1st level, with class feature later on that let a kineticist either further specialize in an element they can channel or to expand to a new element. Universal gate had issues at low levels because it felt like the best option in some ways, but was also limited too severely by a small number of impulses. We think the new version will enable a story of a kineticist developing their elemental breadth over time in a more organic way, rather than locking them in tightly at level 1 with nowhere to grow.

Gathering your Element: Many playtesters noted that Gathering an Element felt like an action tax. Lots of folks equated it with drawing a weapon, which was the intended equivalent, but many people really wanted it to be more exciting, like the actions a swashbuckler can use to gain panache. There were also some mentions that it could be too much bookkeeping to track multiple elements for dual gate and universal gate—easy to forget which one you currently have gathered. The current plan for this part of kineticist play is to replace gathering an element with a process that serves a similar rules function, but has a theme that’s a bit more fun and fits the kineticist’s presentation a bit better.

Our current thinking is to have the kineticist surrounded with their kinetic aura at all times, letting their elements swirl around them. The aura doesn’t have any effect on its own—it’s just for show—though dedicated gate kineticists might get a minor benefit. To use an impulse, the kineticist directs the flowing elements with a free hand. Overflow impulses exhaust the aura, similar to expending a gathered element in the playtest. It would then take a single action to cause a resurgence from your inner gate, also granting an added benefit. This might be using a kinetic aura impulse to alter the effect of the aura, making an Elemental Blast, or a specific benefit related to an element. The final form will depend on the complexity of the other options in the class. We think this will be easier to understand, link better to other abilities within the class, and better tell the class’s story.

Manipulate Trait: There was a lot of conversation about the manipulate trait triggering Attacks of Opportunity and putting the melee kineticist in danger. This isn’t a factor in most combats, but in combats against many monsters with Attack of Opportunity, it’ll get you dead in a hurry! The discussions about this reinforced that the inclusion of concentrate and manipulate on all impulses was carried forward from how spells work... and these aren’t supposed to be just like spells! So, it’s likely the final impulses will still include concentrate, but manipulate will only appear on impulses where it’s essential to the action taking place in the story.

Burn: Burn was a hot topic, as expected! Survey feedback found that using impulses and gathering elements came out ahead, even when we combined burn and the “other” survey choice. There were plenty of votes for burn and for “other,” though, so it was far from a blowout. Fundamentally, we’re aiming at the “nonstop magic” fantasy for this class—the kineticist isn’t meant to be about long-term resource management. That means burn has to clear a pretty high bar to be included, since it pulls the class into relying more on resource management and limited-use abilities. Most suggestions we’ve seen so far for including a burn-type mechanic lead to the class feeling either too heavy on long-term planning, or too repetitive or exploitable. We’ll continue looking at possibilities as we work on the final version. It’s possible there might be a niche for implementing burn as an option for those interested, provided we find a way to make it dynamic.

More Stuff... and Less Stuff: The kineticist is a very big class, as we want each element to feel fun and distinct, and keeping it within the book’s page count is pretty difficult. As we add more elements to the class for the final version, there’s a high likelihood we’ll have to condense and trim back some other options. We’re aiming to condense down some of the overly complex bits rather than chopping whole impulses, but we might end up between a rock and a hard place, so be forewarned!


Initial Playtest and Design

We did a bit of a different process for the kineticist class design, as mentioned when I talked about James Case’s prototype kineticist character. That was part of an early playtest with the design team, Solomon St. John, and Shay Snow. Each designer made a single kineticist character. Not a list of feats, proficiencies, and all that—just the most basic playable character possible. Jason Bulmahn GMed a short adventure, and we tried out many different takes on the class! This hearkens back to the very first days of 2nd edition design, when we did something similar with a cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard based on some basic benchmarks.

How about another peek behind the curtain? Here are the elemental webs showing the strengths of the various elements. This was for the playtest version, so you’ll see some big alterations for the final as we differentiate the elements more, as mentioned above. Metal and wood were purely speculative! We didn’t write any impulses for those before the playtest.

Category Air Earth Fire Metal Water Wood Sum
Creation 2 3 3 3 3 4 18
Healing 2 2 1 1 2 3 11
Defense 1 4 2 3 2 3 15
Mobility 4 1 2 2 3 1 13
Destruction 2 3 4 3 2 2 16
Trickery 3 1 2 2 2 1 11
14 14 14 14 14 14

Kineticist Element Webs showing off the different strengths of the elements  An infographic consisting of a traditional table and several web diagrams indicating the different strengths of the elements to a kineticist


Not a Wish, Merely a Request

We’ve mentioned the inclusion of the elemental Plane of Metal and Plane of Wood. In sympathy for all this time you’ve had to spend with air, earth, fire, and water, how about a preview item from one of these elements? Enjoy a look at the damaj’s gloves, and see what you can suss out about the element, plane, and book from the multiple references in this stat block!

Damaj’s Gloves — Item 13

Evocation, Invested, Magical, Metal
Price 3,000 gp
Usage worn gloves; Bulk

This elaborate metallic webbing feels soft when wrapped around your hands and forearms. It constantly shifts its strands and connections. The name of a zuhra damaj is etched in Talican on the only part of the item that is unchanging. You gain a +3 item bonus to your Reflex DC against attempts to Disarm an item you’re holding in your hands.

Activate [two-actions] command, Interact; Frequency once per day; Requirements You’re wielding a weapon made primarily of metal; Effect You extend the weapon and call out the zuhra’s name. It channels its magic through the gloves to assist you with its choice of offense or defense (as determined by the GM). The zuhra makes any choices for the spell, and any save DC is 30.

Offense The metal of the gloves wraps around your weapon and channels the zuhra’s magic to cast a 6th-level weapon storm spell, replicating the metal weapon.

Defense The metal flows off your arms, creating a blade barrier. The blades have the appearance of your weapon. You lose the damaj’s gloves’ item bonus until the barrier ends, at which point the metal returns to your hands and forearms. You can Dismiss the activation.

The Elements of Style

As I close up this article, I’d like to throw a fond salute to our incredible corps of authors!

Rage of Elements was written by Logan Bonner, James Case, Jessica Catalan, Andrew D. Geels, Sen H.H.S., Patrick Hurley, Jason Keeley, Luis Loza, Mark Moreland, Jonathan Morgantini, AJ Neuro, Jessica Redekop, Solomon St. John, Mark Seifter, Shahreena Shahrani, Shay Snow, Levi Steadman, Mari Tokuda, Ruvaid Virk, Andrew White, and Linda Zayas-Palmer!


As I pop into a portal to transport myself to some plane beyond human ken, I want to tell you all how much we appreciate your playtesting and element slinging! There will be plenty more to explore in Rage of Elements!

Logan Bonner
Pathfinder Lead Designer

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16 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Holy crap on a cracker that is an awesome analysis, well worth the wait. I love everything I'm reading here, seemed to have hit the nail on the head and I'm really happy with what was said about the especially divisive topics like single target damage and burn.

I would be sosososo happy if elemental blast becomes more like a cantrip. Not getting my hopes up too high as things surely aren't written in stone yet (and even then the language is vague), but ditching reliance on damage runes and scaling off of constitution would be amaaaazing


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Hmm. Little sad to see basic impulse attacks go away, they were very Avatar-ish... but if the weapon feat plays out well and we get some short-mid range impulses, it could still work out well.

I can't wait to see what comes out the other end!


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Thanks for this nice writeup Logan!


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Disappointed a bit on keeping Con, but my main reason for disliking it was skill-related, and that's been addressed here.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I love all of this, i love all the charts and graphs too.

As someone who really wanted Burn to come back for the fantasy of overexerting your body, I understand that it can be difficult to implement while keeping everything else. I do hope you at least provide it as an option of some kind but I get it.

I do think going 1 element or dual element at level 1 is a good idea. As much as i liked the universal gate concept it did seem difficult to balance early on.

Liberty's Edge

8 people marked this as a favorite.

I find it amazing the amount of insight you garnered from such a limited playtest. It looks like the new 2E Kineticist will be more streamlined than its predecessor, and that means more fun/less bookkeeping. To me, that is the right path to take!

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

40 people marked this as a favorite.

My main concern at this point, since most of the ones I had with the playtest were addressed in the post, is that the damage types of elemental blasts weren't discussed. I really want the option of cold for water or electricity for air. Aside from that, the broad strokes look good to me.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Hopefully we still get item bonuses on Elemental Blast if it's going to be similar to spell attacks but not one. Because the accuracy of spell attacks does not scale at all well and Kineticist doesn't get True Strike to help. Also hoping they use martial weapon proficiency rather than Class DC as that would help accuracy a smidge. Part of the reason Spell Attacks suck is the proficiency with them goes up slower in addition to no item bonuses but they go against the same thing weapon proficiency does.

Am sad to see Elemental Blast as a weapon go strictly Elemental Weapon since that did some interesting things in combination with Elemental Weapon, but it's fine as long as it can be used more reliably than spell attacks.

Also very glad to see we won't be locked to one or two elements from the get go. It seemed weird to not keep the 1e version's style of starting with one and then expanding or specializing. Especially given that style fits well in the progression of 2e classes getting a game changer class feature somewhere in the mid-levels.


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Is there vessel creature in this book?

And Inubrix vs Metal elemental?

So magical experiment could fit with kineticist. Right?


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I'm excited for this class all over again! I'm honestly surprised that Con may become a to-hit stat but I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out. I'm also a little sad to see Universal Gate go, but it does make sense and would have been even harder to maintain with the inclusion of even more elements.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what can be done about the utility side of the kineticist. I'm personally hoping for some kind of element-based skill feat system, perhaps one that any elementally invested character could take to help saving on page space, but that kineticists get one or two extra feats from.

Also love that we now know what the metal genies are called, and I'm guessing the nobles' names, too. Zuhra is a cool name; I'm pumped to learn more about them!


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I'm somewhat concerned about "Elemental Blast like a Cantrip"... not exactly full of confidence about it's powers.

Liberty's Edge

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I suppose them talking about EB working something like a Cantrip is okay but I am very much concerned that they didn't speak about how only one of the elements actually deals ... you know, elemental damage, surely those of us talking about how we were dissatisfied by EB doing physical damage in the vast majority of instances weren't simply a vocal minority... right?


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Very much right there with Cydeth and Themetricsystem.

I like what is being said, but I'm concerned there's no mention of damage types.

I also hope blasts aren't balanced too tightly to cantrips - a class whose main attack feature can be replicated with a first level ancestry feat doesn't sound fun.

Edit: I'm also a little disappointed this probably means they will be two action. One action blasts was a nice feel for the class.


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Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I really doubt blasts will have everything in common to cantrips. They will work in a similar way but what similarities we don't know. I doubt they will have cantrip level damage and cost two actions.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
MaxAstro wrote:
Edit: I'm also a little disappointed this probably means they will be two action. One action blasts was a nice feel for the class.

yes, this, PLEASE paizo stick to one action blasts,


12 people marked this as a favorite.

+Con to hit and support for single-target blasting are both huge positives, but I'm worried to see my main playtest concern (lack of non-physical damage types on the Blast, like Cold and Electricity) not mentioned at all. These changes broadly sound like big positives... but the class will be a dud for me without the option for that at level 1.

Thank you for the analysis blog! I loved these for the previous playtests, and how well the Dark Archive classes came together in the final thing gives me a lot of hope for the Kineticist. I'm excited for us to all be having these talks about the Inquisitor and Shaman this time next year ;>

Silver Crusade

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Appreciate the update, I am now a bit more optimistic for the class than I was after he playtest.


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What is making folks think Elemental Blasts are 2 actions now? I don't see that in the blog, and it would break my heart.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I doubt they'd go two actions, it's class specific, and they know people want to throw blasts around like punches.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I am happy about the aura... But, quite annoy about the lack of healing option for fire.

Horizon Hunters

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It's amazing how this "conversation" between the community and the developers goes so smoothly through the playtest. It makes me feel that it was worth taking the time to participate in this with everyone! I'm very happy with this blog and reassured to know that amazing people are working hard to deliver the best for the community!

About the problem of the class being too big, don't worry hahaha an APG 2 is always welcome hahahaha!!!

Now I need to reread this entire blog again.

Horizon Hunters

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Now we need Versatile Heritage for Metal and Wood to goes with it.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I understand paizos desire to provide traits and then do physical damage for elemental stuff. It always felt weird in how 1e so much of a thing connected to an element had more to do with cold, or electricity, or acid(this one has always been the most bizarre)(and I am especially thinking about stuff like sorcerer bloodlines in 1e)
but I think Paizo has over-corrected a bit in 2e. Cold shouldn't be the only thing water does, but it should still be able to do it as well as water blasts. Air should be about controlling the winds, flying, and air blasts, but someone who wants to Zap electricity should be able to do it to. Earth in my opinion is better served by letting them do multiple physical damage types as opposed to Acid.

Edit: this might also be a weird one but what if Fire got like a bludgeoning blast that was like represented of combustion/explosions


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Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I’m very pleased with this analysis and overall very optimistic that things are proceeding in the right direction with the appropriate care. That said, I would like to add my voice to the chorus advocating for different elements to do different types of damage.


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pixierose wrote:

I understand paizos desire to provide traits and then do physical damage for elemental stuff. It always felt weird in how 1e so much of a thing connected to an element had more to do with cold, or electricity, or acid(this one has always been the most bizarre)(and I am especially thinking about stuff like sorcerer bloodlines in 1e)

but I think Paizo has over-corrected a bit in 2e. Cold shouldn't be the only thing water does, but it should still be able to do it as well as water blasts. Air should be about controlling the winds, flying, and air blasts, but someone who wants to Zap electricity should be able to do it to. Earth in my opinion is better served by letting them do multiple physical damage types as opposed to Acid.

Edit: this might also be a weird one but what if Fire got like a bludgeoning blast that was like represented of combustion/explosions

There's definitely a middle ground to be found. My preference would be giving two damage types to each element and giving Dedicated Gate characters access to both at character creation, while the dabblers might have to pick one and access the other with a feat.

An Undine Kineticist who smacks people with waves and a Kitsune Kineticist who throws out ice/snow should both be equally possible level 1 characters.


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On a wholly different note: Talican, presumably taken from "metallic," is a very fun name for the Metal planar language.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I'm loving everything I see here. I'm also weirdly exceptionally excited to see what an elemental plane of wood looks like. Wood as an element is so distinct from the others and so little used in western fantasy that I don't have a good frame of reference for it in terms of... A realm. Colour me extremely excited. Maybe a massive endless forest of every tree imaginable? A realm of treats and such? Maybe some connection to branches (haha) of the Green Faith?

.... Green Faith Kineticist who fights deforestation with literal forests? I can't wait to see what we get.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Kekkres wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:
Edit: I'm also a little disappointed this probably means they will be two action. One action blasts was a nice feel for the class.
yes, this, PLEASE paizo stick to one action blasts,

A one-action melee blast that's comparable to a martial attack (but scales without runes or weird elemental mixups), and a two-action ranged version, both using Con-based strikes with the attack (but not manipulate) trait?

I can live with a variable action simil-cantrip basic blast.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

"Having access to a second damage type within your element" seems like the sort of thing you should get for doubling down on your element with feats, and these can be low level ones anyway. I'm okay with "you have to be able buffet people with wind" before you can hit them with lightning. Notably the 2nd level feat slot was pretty barren in the playtest.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

But wait, if the Plane of Metal and Plane of Wood are actually elemental planes now, do they have Elemental Lords as well? What about prominent settlements? I imagine the Elemental Plane of Wood would be especially habitable for sentient life.

Marketing & Media Manager

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For those interested in the lore aspects of Rage of Elements, as well as some concept art, I recommend watching our Gen Con Keynote and Exploring Pathfinder and Lost Omens Rulebooks videos.

Sczarni

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Definitely happy to hear that blasts will scale more like Cantrips. That's the feel I loved from the original Kineticist, and playtesting the "weapon" version was very underwhelming.

Dark Archive

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I like most of what I see, great writeup. My only fear is that with blasts basically being like cantrips, Kineticists scale to hit will suck. Without martial scaling and weapon runes, they'll have trouble keeping up.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Love to see the playtest process functioning as intended. A lot of the above changes and updates reflect feedback I noted in my own playtest and feedback forms. Looking forward to seeing the final product next year.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

A little worried that a true cantrip effect will make Blasting feel even less rewarding, since cantrips tend to lack accuracy (also if they're moving away from handwraps, kineticists will be even worse at dealing with immune enemies).

I also hope they consider baking a few more things into the core kit. The references to fewer, stronger impulses and level 1 experiences suggests a little bit of that, but it felt really painful to buy out-of-class options with the playtest kineticist in a way that isn't true for most other classes and I'm hoping that gets looked at at least a little.

PossibleCabbage wrote:
I'm okay with "you have to be able buffet people with wind" before you can hit them with lightning. Notably the 2nd level feat slot was pretty barren in the playtest.

I'm not. There's no reason to not just let someone be able to play this type of character because that's what they want to do. Having a buy-in tax, worse one you might not even be able to have on a new character, is real bad.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

I do hope you can get "cantrip-like scaling damage" with "martial accuracy." The Magus would be a lot less fun to play if you didn't add your item bonus from your weapon to your spellstrikes.

But I also figure that this is the sort of thing that they're going to get right. Since it's fine of the pyrokineticist with a basic blast is simply more effective than "Produce Flame" for the same reason "Wings of Air" is allowed to be better than the Fly spell. If they don't want to use handwraps, Kinetic diadems are a thing from the last edition that you could give the accuracy fixing with.


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A little sad that blasts will be like cantrips. I liked that they had weapon traits and you could put runes on them. Otherwise, great analysis. "some impulses will just be stronger than comparable spells" is good news.


13 people marked this as a favorite.
PossibleCabbage wrote:
"Having access to a second damage type within your element" seems like the sort of thing you should get for doubling down on your element with feats, and these can be low level ones anyway. I'm okay with "you have to be able buffet people with wind" before you can hit them with lightning. Notably the 2nd level feat slot was pretty barren in the playtest.

Why? Plenty of characters exclusively utilize lightning or cold powers across countless fictional works; it feels a little silly to only grant that fantasy to the firebenders from level 1.

If my player is excited to play as fantasy Static Shock, they shouldn’t have to first play as Aang to earn it. Ditto for someone who wants something thematic for, say, their Winter Catfolk or Frozen Wind Kitsune from the outset.

Let the elemental class deal elemental damage, IMO.

Wayfinders

6 people marked this as a favorite.

My hope is that the variety of elemental damage types was somewhat rolled into the "fun little ideas that we’ll just implement, but aren’t massively important to the bigger picture of the class" part, but being able to use a particular damage type right out the game is kind of crucial to a not-insignificant amount of kineticist character types, so having an affirmation of that would have been nice.

Other than that, I'm very impressed with the depth of this playtest analysis! Definitely shows that the feedback was taken strongly into account, and that the class will hopefully turn out awesome in the end!


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I've mentioned this before, but it'd be really cool to have some more utility-y impulses, to support a more mystical type of character, sort of like fullmetal alchemist.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

"Jason Bulmahn GMed a short adventure, and we tried out many different takes on the class!"

Can I play? That sounds fun, and probably one of the best parts of the job.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Berselius wrote:
But wait, if the Plane of Metal and Plane of Wood are actually elemental planes now, do they have Elemental Lords as well? What about prominent settlements? I imagine the Elemental Plane of Wood would be especially habitable for sentient life.

If you didn’t click through the stream, I believe what was said is that the elemental lords of Metal and Wood “retreated” after the schism between the good and evil lords of the other elements. Their return is somehow tied to Ranginori’s freedom; 2e canon is currently contradictory on if the other Good elemental lords have likewise gotten out of their bindings.

My current hypothesis is they Metal and Wood lords be Law/Chaos duos, just to be different.


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Add the elemental damage options for the other elements.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Honestly if if elemental blasts are gonna be more cantrip like, I'd kinda prefer it if they were like "one to three action" cantrips with different effects depending on how hard you focus on the single blast

(sidenote, I'm still hoping there is design space for return of void and aether elemental kineticists ;D Wouldn't actually mind new take on positive/life energy elemental now that wood isn't first world touching on elemental planes anymore kind of thing)

Contributor

10 people marked this as a favorite.

Wow what a cool list of cool authors


1 person marked this as a favorite.
keftiu wrote:


Let the elemental class deal elemental damage, IMO.

I think that ship sailed when they made the Air/Water/Earth Elemental Bloodline Sorcerer do bludgeoning damage with re-skinned fire spells. If air elemental kineticists can do electricity damage, that's going to beg the question of why air elemental sorcerers are stuck throwing bludgeoning Airballs at people.

I know it probably won't happen, but I do wish Elemental Fury would do something about that; in addition to the kineticist, I'm excited to hopefully see Wood and Metal bloodline sorcerers, but that's tempered by the knowledge that it's probably going to be bludgeoning Woodballs and Metalballs all around.


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keftiu wrote:
Berselius wrote:
But wait, if the Plane of Metal and Plane of Wood are actually elemental planes now, do they have Elemental Lords as well? What about prominent settlements? I imagine the Elemental Plane of Wood would be especially habitable for sentient life.

If you didn’t click through the stream, I believe what was said is that the elemental lords of Metal and Wood “retreated” after the schism between the good and evil lords of the other elements. Their return is somehow tied to Ranginori’s freedom; 2e canon is currently contradictory on if the other Good elemental lords have likewise gotten out of their bindings.

My current hypothesis is they Metal and Wood lords be Law/Chaos duos, just to be different.

THANK YOUUUUUU KEFTIU! :D

(gives many cookies)


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

So maybe i missed it somewhere but WHEN and WHERE will we see the finished class? i am supper pumped to see this class. very much makes me think of the dark sun elemental cleric type.


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wyrmhaven wrote:
So maybe i missed it somewhere but WHEN and WHERE will we see the finished class? i am supper pumped to see this class. very much makes me think of the dark sun elemental cleric type.

In the Rage of Elements book,which is the first "rulebook" line release of 2023 (as opposed to the Lost Omens and Adventure Path lines). I don't think we have a release date yet, but we'll get one closer to release.


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Personally I don't like the choice of Concentrate over Manipulate. I'm fine being in the minority on this opinion, but it's already quite impossible to create a Bloodrager that can do anything other than self-buff or can only use spells in exploration.

Class looks great and the analysis looks very in-depth. Just a bummer it's another caster-ish class that can't mix with Barbarian because of slapping the concentrate tag on everything.

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