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I also wonder about those things :)

But, I'm not sure if its such a great idea to remove NL dmg, just in general. It might be fine in some specific parties, but terribly wrong in many other parties.

As said, CON is the primary casting modifier for kineticists, it influences many other things and not just hp. For my kineticist, I've always tried to raise CON more than any other stat (DEX being secondary). This means that my kineticist now has 30 CON (currently lvl14, but he's had this much CON probably since lvl11), plus Toughness, so (using average HP per level) he gets 5 + 10 + 1 = 16 HP per level. A barbarian using the same system would have to have Toughness, and a CON of 26, to reach the same amount of HP.

Since he walks around with 5 burn at all times, this means he effectively has 11 HP per level, and that a barbarian would have to have a CON of 16 to match the HP (which is not unreasonable, and that's good).

I've built him for ranged combat so he doesnt take direct damage often, and any AoE usually gets absorbed by Ward. When played properly, he would almost never be knocked unconscious, except one time when we were in deep trouble because the rest of the party was paralyzed and the enemies ganged up on him. On the other hand, the tank gets to very low HP almost every combat and is unconscious at least a couple of times per adventuring day. I dont think its fun or fair to always avoid damage while expecting another party member to take it all, so lately I've been taking him to the fronlines more often, and even with terrible AC, he rarely got knocked unconscious. Of course Ward is a big help, but the end result is that he has far greater survivability than I expected, even while walking around with a bunch of NL dmg from burn (Ward more than counters that). At the beginning, I expected it to be a far bigger problem than it turned out to be.

As someone said, the burn mechanic is a weird one: on one hand, it is obviously intended to limit the power of kineticists, giving them bad stuff and holding them back, but on the other hand, lots of stuff work better if they have more burn, making it look like it was supposed to be a good thing to have. The trick is then to carefully balance how much burn you take. I'm not convinced that the whole burn mechanic is implemented in the best possible way, so I'd like to see some improvements, however I honestly dont think that removing the NL dmg part is going to make it "better" or easier, it will just make it unbalanced. If NL dmg was removed from burn, then some other limiting factor would need to be put in.

The game is meant to offer a challenge to the characters, so that the characters (and players) are tested in many ways, on how to kill the bad guys but mostly on how not to get themselves killed (after all, if the bad guys dont die, the game goes on, but if the characters die, the game ends for them). Therefore if you remove (or greatly decrease) the chance of the characters dying, then you greatly decrease the challenge of the game, which soon leads to the game becoming boring. Having so many HP (and Ward, or possibly even immunities or whatever else you may come up with) that you're almost unkillable, sounds fun for a little while, but quickly becomes boring - even sooner for the rest of the party, who get to do nothing but watch you slay hordes of monsters and remain undamaged, while all of them lay around dead. Okay, that might be a bit exaggerated, but it could happen eventually.

And yes there's a limit on how much burn you can take per day and per round, which is good, but with just that, the kineticist would still have a ton of HP. Having CON as a primary (casting) stat is very interesting and I love it, however they knew that this means that players will be trying to max their CON. Unlike other casting stats, CON doesnt only make a character better at casting spells, it also gives a lot of HP, which casters in general arent supposed to have (which is probably a big reason why there wasnt a CON focused class before). So the choices probably were to either not make a CON caster class, or to come up with a way to reduce the "side effect" of having CON as primary casting stat. I'm glad that they chose the latter, even if I think it could have been done better - but it achieves its purpose, that is to make sure that you arent walking around with 15+ hp per level (as what is basically a caster class). You dont see wizards or sorcerers or arcanists or witches, or even bards or clerics or shamans or investigators or alchemists or magi, walking around with that kind of HP, so why should a kineticist? An average kineticist will still have more HP than an average d10 class (for example, a fighter would need Toughness and a CON of 18 to match the HP of my kineticist with NL damage, or a CON of 28 to match his HP if there was no NL damage - I dont think that an average fighter would often push CON to 18, much less to 28), and a fighter needs the HP more than a kineticist.

Its also true that kineticists have low will saves, but:
- so does almost every other class that's supposed to have a lot of HP
- many caster classes that have a high will save, have two low saves
- kineticists also have an very high fort save (another "side effect" of having CON as a primary stat)
- you can take measures to counter this weakness, like raising WIS by a few points, including with magic items (what else are you gonna put in your headband slot?), not to mention items that directly increase saves, or by taking a feat/trait or two (the kineticist isnt feat starved), or by getting access to spells like Protection from Evil (from scrolls, teammates, etc).

All in all, when I started playing, the kineticist was supposed to be a bad class. People said so, on paper it didnt look good, burn seemed terribly limiting, to the point where I almost didnt choose to play it. But the concept seemed interesting so I did anyway. The first couple of levels were not great, but things got better as soon as lvl3, and I think that it was going very well up to lvl7, where there was a bit of a struggle again, but by lvl9 things got much better and by lvl11 things seem pretty great. The low will save also isnt as low, or as problematic, as I expected. Currently his saves are +23, +19, +13. And even with constant 5 burn he has comparable HP to the tank (and then there's Ward on top of that), and since he's not the tank, there's really no need for him to have any more HP. In fact I think he would be doing ok even with fewer HP. Of course if you dont have access to Ward, your experience will probably be a lot different, however from my point, HP is the last thing that the kineticist needs more of. In fact I dont think it needs to be buffed - I think its performance is definitely average, if not a bit above average. So if a negative part like NL dmg is to be removed, I'd expect some other form of drawback...

I kinda like the idea where no NL dmg happens until the kineticist has at least CON+1 burn, and then there's a chance of all of it happening at once. However, this only works as a drawback for certain kineticists - those who need to continually take burn throughout the day. Mine takes all 5 points in the morning and then only takes more if its an emergency. So for him, this system is almost the same as if NL dmg didnt exist at all. He could even take 5 additional points in the morning, and on most days he still wouldnt incur any NL dmg..... Perhaps a better system would be to say that there's a 50% chance (or whatever percentage) for EACH point of burn to incur the NL dmg (or reduced dmg, or whatever). Or, if you want to make it more complicated, then perhaps each point has a certain chance to incur NL dmg, but if they're taken too soon one after another, the chance goes up. So for example, taking a point once per combat has a 50% chance to incur NL dmg. Taking a point once per round has like an 80% chance to incur NL dmg. Taking them at once has a 100% chance to incur NL dmg. Or you could even say that the more points you take at once, the more NL dmg you get (like an additional HP lost for every point of burn taken, etc). However, I think that's too complicated, and would make some people very angry :)

I dont think blasts or blade would ignore defenses. It's the kineticist that is incorporeal, not the weapons. The blasts would still be made of whatever element the kineticist has, like earth, wood, ice, and even the energy ones would still be made of fire, water, etc (or any combination for composite blasts). Most spells too, if they deal for example fire damage.
If the kineticist is incorporeal, I think only his unarmed attacks would count as incorporeal. If he wielded a regular sword, that sword wouldnt be automatically incorporeal, unless it had the Ghost Touch property. Also, there's a 3rd party infusion called "Incorporeal Infusion" that makes blasts work as incorporeal - its existence implies that normal blasts dont work like that.

I know, but even if we disregard the fact that sacrificing clarity for brevity is a terrible idea, what I was trying to do is show that my suggested clearer wording would be only a couple of letters longer. Given more thought (and rephrasing other parts of the power, possibly other powers) it could be even shorter, so I disagree with their logic, but thats a different topic.

Yes they will take damage, although I did forget to mention that in our case, after I had dispelled the door (and we talked about it), it was decided that it was in fact a magical item and so the effect wasnt dispelled, merely suppressed. But anyway. Most of the time destroying the object is as good as dispelling it, right? If a spell was cast on the door, and you destroy the door, what happens to the spell? Does it linger in the air? Can you still try to dispel it even if the object was destroyed? And most importantly, you cant damage, for example, an area of Darkness - does that mean you cant target it at all, or just that you ignore the damage part (and possibly cant increase your check)?

Thanks for your reply.

I agree that a wizard is better off in terms of availability because a wizard could use Dispel Magic as early as lvl5, while a kineticist has to wait until at least lvl10 (theoretically, but actually until lvl11). A wizard can cast lvl6 spells by then.
However, a wizard will still have a limited number of spell slots available per day. And this seems to be what's upsetting people in my group the most. I've heard more than once that blasts are amazing (basically overpowered) because there's no limit to how many times you can use them. It's even worse if I add infusions (like Eruption), and worse again when I use Utility talents or Empowered Metakinesis.
I always try to keep my blast cost at 0, so I dont take any additional burn during the day (except in dire situations). So pretty much anything I do, I could be doing it "all day long". Which is true, but thats not nearly as powerful as people think. I've read that it has been calculated that an average character will spend around 10 or 12 rounds in combat on average. So, on average, having more than ~ 12 spell slots is effectively the same as having infinite spell slots.

And that's all well and true for combat uses, but (as I'm now realizing), its a different story when it comes to out of combat uses. If a wizard needs to Dispel something (out of combat), he still spends a spell slot for each attempt. Sure he may not need to use all of his slots on Dispel, but even if he uses 3 slots, that's theoretically around 25% of his expected average daily usage. He may not need that many slots, but the chance of him running out of slots still exists, while it doesnt for a kineticist. Sure, you need to be within 30 ft, and not use any other Infusions or effects, but that hardly matters when out of combat. My group feels that the "all day long" thing is pretty much overpowered. I would normally disagree, but on this matter I'm not sure. I agree that its quite powerful, but I'm not sure how it compares to other classes/similar abilities. If it turns out that it is indeed overpowered, I'm willing to agree to limit its targets/options/whatever, even if that's not by RAW, but I havent been able to find a conclusive answer. Your replies help a lot though, thanks again. I dont see why they couldnt have made the text clearer. If they wanted to limit the targets, then instead of:
"Whenever your infused blast hits a foe and penetrates its spell resistance..."
they could have just as easily wrote:
"Your infused blast can only target creatures. If it penetrates their spell resistance..."
or "enemies", or whatever.

As for Alarm, I'm sorry I havent looked up its exact effects. In fact it could have been a different effect - we just encountered a door and it showed up as magical with Detect Magic. The surroundings (door frame and possibly even further) were also "covered" in magic. I'm not sure if we determined that it was an Alarm spell, or if we just assumed it was. Either way, I blasted the door frame and dispelled it (on my 2nd try), which caused a minor upset. The room was filled with magical fog and when I did the same to the fog, that caused a bigger upset.
Anyway, we perceived the "Alarm" spell via Detect Magic. And the Fog was also found out to be magical in nature with the same method. Not by my character personally, but another member of the party, who then told my character to try and dispel the door. As far as I know that's allowed - the character doing the dispelling doesnt need to see the magic (or identify it via Spellcraft) to be able to dispel it.... or am I mistaken? My chacacter was able to see the door and the fog clearly, another member just detected them as magical, and asked my character to try dispelling them.

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah I also thought it was flavor text, and I'm not sure if "foe" is defined anywhere else but it is not here. Sure, when you hear "foe" most often you think of a creature, but the rest of the text makes it seem like the target could be other things too.

However, that makes it a pretty powerful ability. It made people at my table upset when I used it, cause I could theoretically do this all day long for free (at least from lvl11 onward). Is it really as OP as it seems or is it just my group that thinks so?

Hmm, its been a day, and no thoughts so far? :(
Sorry if it was too long, here's TLDR: Can Unraveling Infusion target magical effects like Darkness? Normally a Blast doesnt interact with effects like these at all, but the Infusion copies Dispel Magic which does interact with them.

.

I've given it more thought and realized that in most cases the target objects would most likely be destroyed far sooner than you'd manage to dispel them.... For example, a door with an Alarm (or any other) spell on it... you blast the door, but fail the check to dispel Alarm. If its a regular door, it wont survive even one blast, but if it does, you simply blast it again and again - chances are they are going to be destroyed before you dispel the Alarm. Then what? You cant try again because now there isnt a door anymore to target it?

Also, the Infusion lets you "reduce the blast’s damage by half to increase your bonus on the caster level check by 2". How would this work against a Wall of Fire or against Darkness? Those arent things that can be damaged by your blast, so how do you halve your damage against them? Does this mean that you cant use this option to get a +2 (cause there's nothing to decrease), or does it mean that you cant use the Infusion on such effects at all?

Hello,

I'm having some difficulty making sense of Unraveling Infusion and I cant seem to find the answer. I did find this topic but the answers are inconclusive. Mainly I want to know if you can use it to dispel magical effects that cover an area, like magical darkness or magical fog (as created by spells like Darkness or Fog Cloud). The question of course comes from our last session, where my character used Unraveling Infusion to dispel a magical fog that would have made the encounter much harder, but without the fog it was relatively easy.

I did quite a bit of research about it (sorry about the long post). First, if we take a look at the text of the infusion itself:

1.) "Your kinetic blast burns so hot that it melts away your foe’s magical effects." - this looks like its just a flavorful description of the effect, however it does state "foe's magical effects", which surely includes any effect that your foe produces via magic.

2.) "Whenever your infused blast hits a foe and penetrates its spell resistance, you can attempt a caster level check as if using a targeted dispel magic before determining whether the foe takes damage from the blast."

- It now says that it "hits a foe".... The topic I linked above has 1 answer that says that it can only target a creature, and therefore you cant use it to target objects, a square on the ground, magical effects, etc etc. However, the OP of that topic replies that a strict "word per word" ruling would mean that you cant use it on your allies (which seems too harsh, seeing how allies would also take the blasts damage, or at least half of it, if you used it on them - which seems punishing enough), and that the "foe's magical effects" from the first sentence means that it includes AoE spells cast by foes. And I personally agree with those points, however I'm not sure if Mark/Paizo intended it to work this way.

- I havent even asked the DM about SR, though it doesnt really matter: firstly, we werent in combat so I could have rolled a hundred times if needed, it'd just take longer. Secondly, it was a fog, I'm pretty sure it didnt have any SR. Doors, walls, and other objects usually dont have SR, and I dont think magical effects have SR either (for example, does magical darkness have a SR rating? Never heard of anything like that. It doesnt need to have a SR rating because you cant "attack" or otherwise affect "darkness" - you cant cast a Fireball at it, or damage it with said Fireball. The only thing you can do is dispell it, and that doesnt go against SR, it goes against CL). So, does this mean that Unraveling cant target Darkness because Darkness doesnt have SR? No, I dont think so, because most creatures dont have SR and yet you can obviously target them.

- Caster level check was done according to the rules (and I even rolled high enough on the first try).

- It says it works as if using a Targeted Dispel Magic. The spell says that it can be used as a Targeted version or as a Counterspell. However, only the last paragraph covers the Counterspell use, everything else is about the Targeted version, which lists all possible uses, including AoE spells:

a.) it says: "You can also use a targeted dispel to specifically end one spell affecting the target or one spell affecting an area (such as a wall of fire)." - and that's exactly what I've done. I've even looked up how dispelling AoE effects works, specifically if you can target any point/square of the effect, or do you need to target the central square/point of origin. And the asnwer is that you can target any square/point/edge of the AoE, because for example if the enemy casts Darkness, you cant even see the point of origin, and thus dispelling it would be almost impossible (unless you had some way of seeing through magical darkness).

b.) it also says: "You must name the specific spell effect to be targeted in this way." - this could be understood to mean that you have to correctly identify the effect (via Spellcraft) if you want to dispel it, but I looked it up and this is not true. You only need to make a Spellcraft check when you want to Counterspell, not when you want to Dispel. So this sentence just means that you have to proclaim in advance which spell you want to dispel (as opposed to the first use of the spell, which says you first try to dispel the strongest effect, and if you fail, you can try with the next one, and so on - which is reinforced by the continuation of the text that says: "No other spells or effects on the target are dispelled if your check is not high enough to end the targeted effect". So, its a case of "I want to dispel this darkness and nothing else", and not a case of "Well, I dont know what kind of magic produced this darkness, so I cant try to get rid of it").

So, it seems like we played by the rules. The only unclear part is the part about targets under my 2nd point. The text does say that it works "whenever your infused blast hits a foe", but (as usual, sadly) this is a far too vague/broad description: this is an infusion, which you add to your blast. Its not an "attack" on its own, or anything like that, the description is clear that you ADD it to a blast. And its also pretty clear that your blast can be aimed at anything. It can be aimed at creatures (friendly or not), it can be aimed at objects (evil or not), can be aimed at empty squares (floors or ceilings and everything inbetween). Basically they can be aimed at anything that you could aim at with any other weapon (ranged or melee or spell).
But, can a blast be aimed at a magical effect like Darkness? Well, I dont think so - can you aim at Darkness with a bow? Or with a sword? Or with a Fireball? The answer in my opinion is NO, you cant try to hit Darkness with a sword (or bow or Fireball). I mean you can, but it'll go straight through (and possibly hit something else that is hiding in the dark), because there isnt any interaction that exists between swords/bows/Fireballs and areas of Darkness. Or, to be more specific, areas of Fog. Can you cut a Fog? Or Fireball it? No, you cant.

But! You can affect it with certain specific spells, the most obvious one being Dispel Magic. In the case of Fog, other spells can affect it too, like Gust of Wind. Spells like these DO have very obvious, intended and rule-enforced interactions with Fog, Darkness, etc.

So, the issue comes from the fact that we have a Blast, which acts as a regular attack and DOESNT interact with Darkness, but when we add the Unraveling Infusion, it now suddenly wants to simultaneously act like an "attack"/effect that DOES interact with Darkness. Should it be allowed to do so? I'm leaning more towards yes. Why? Because if a Magus can imbue their sword (with the help of Spellstrike Gloves) to deliver ranged spells when it hits stuff (Sword also being an attack that cant normally target Darkness), and if I'm not mistaken Alchemists and Wizard, possibly others, can achieve a similar effect, then why couldnt a Kineticist imbue their blast to do the same?

But still, it all seems to come down to the "hits a foe" line. Yeah, a blast would normally (and most often) hit a foe. Does that mean it cant hit anything else? No. Does that mean it can normally hit Darkness? No. Does that mean that it cant hit Darkness even when imbued with an infusion whose purpose is clearly to copy (some part of) Dispel Magic in an effort to do some dispelling? No, I dont think so. Especially if we also take into account the first line that says "foe's magical effects".

But then again, this (obviously) makes it pretty damn powerful, even (or especially) outside of combat, where you can take your time and keep rolling until you roll high enough. Technically, you could spend however long you wanted on a certain effect, you could also walk around the place and blast the walls, the hallways, the any other magical things you see.... as long as the caster's CL isnt at least 11 points higher than yours (or 13 points if you halve your damage), you WILL eventually dispel their magic....

Thoughts?

Thanks for the replies.

First I must mention, I obviously meant to say Drag instead of Grab in all instances of my first post, I dont know what I said that :( I cant seem to edit it now, sorry for any confusion :(

I dont know what direction does the attack from, cause neither the spell nor the kinetic talent mention anything about it. It seems like it could come from any direction, that's an interesting way of looking at it, that I havent thought of before. Seems reasonable enough to me, it makes sense that telekinetic force could come from anywhere.

Although someone could make a counterpoint that since Bull Rush specifically states that you "push an opponent straight back", and since Telekinesis/Telekinetic Maneuvers doesnt change or add to it, then that's all you could do with it - push them straight back (the intention in the Bull Rush text is clearly that you're pushing them away from yourself). They could also argue that since the Telekinetic Maneuvers talent doesnt copy the entire Telekinesis spell (but just the combat maneuver part), that it doesnt matter what could be assumed based on other parts of the Telekinesis spell.

That's why I was looking for any sources that would officially clear this up, but it doesnt seem there are any (yet). In any case, thanks for the insight, I agree that, logically, Bull Rush should cover pushing from any direction when done telekinetically.

Hello,

So Telekinetic Maneuvers says that you can perform combat maneuvers as per the spell Telekinesis, which says you can perform bull rush, disarm, grapple (including pin), and trip, which is fine, but why wouldnt you be able to perform other maneuvers, specifically the drag maneuver? Surely if bull rush is available, it has some merit to include drag too? They're basically the same except they move the target in the opposite direction (towards you instead of away from you).
According to another topic I found, the spell Telekinesis was written before Grab existed. That topic also mentions that a new spell called Telekinetic Maneuver does include Grab and other maneuvers, but that's a completely different spell and has nothing to do with Telekinetic Maneuvers (the Aether Kineticist Utility talent).

My question is therefore almost the same as in that topic: is there an errata, a FAQ, or any other source that says you can use other maneuvers with Telekinesis (and Telekinetic Maneuvers)? If not, would you say that this is due to it not being important enough to fix, and not due to it being extremely important to keep these other maneuvers disallowed? As in, a reasonable group with a reasonable DM might say that Grab (and possibly others) are acceptable to use with Telekinetic Maneuvers, and not break the game? :) Since Telekinetic Maneuver (the spell) exists, this surely isnt a new concept? Or are they somehow clearly distinct, in some way that I'm not seeing?

Not a DM, but I play an ather kineticist.

It is very important to keep track of what can be done without burn and what cant.

If the character starts with 16 points in CON and adds +2 from race for 18 CON, he can easily get a belt of CON+2 for 20 CON. Elemental Overflow adds another +2 for 22 CON, but only if he has 3 burn at all times. Lets say he also put his lvl4 increase into CON and maybe picked up another CON item to get that to 24 CON for a +7 to dmg. Elemental Overflow itself adds another +4 to damage, so that's 3d6+3 + 11. Perhaps he has Point-Blank Shot which adds another 1 (within 30 ft), but to get the mentioned +13, he probably has 2 more points in CON, or maybe another item that increases damage. In any way, it is completely doable. I assume he actually has 26 CON, based on the HP: if he's taking average HP values, he has a max HP of 87, minus the 18 non-lethal, non-healable HP from 3 points of burn, that comes down to 69 "useable" HP.

Sure all that CON is nice, but his other stats are probably way low. Even DEX, which means lower attack numbers. Also, keep in mind that he can only ever use 1 blast per round (high BAB doesnt give him an additional attack with the blast, neither does Haste, etc). And if he's using Kinetic Blade/Whip to get more attacks, those are Infusions that increase the blast's burn. At lvl6, Infusion Specialization only lets him negate 1 point of burn from infusions, so pay attention if he's adding any infusions to the blast.

Empower cannot be reduced by Infusion Specialization, so he'd have to use Gather Power if he wants to avoid it's burn cost, which is a move action, so if he uses his move action to do anything else, he cant Gather power, and he either cant use Empower, or will take burn from using it. If he's using any Infusions at all, check if there's any burn he should be taking from those (apart from 1 point negated by Infusion Specialization). As said, he can only accept a certain amount of burn per day (and per round), although that limit is probably higher than would be advisable, because each point of burn reduces his max HP by 6.

Internal Buffer is another way to negate 1 point of burn (that just became available at lvl6), but it's only 1 point, and he has to accept 1 point of burn beforehand (like, the previous day) to store it in the Buffer.

Anyway, in my experience, the kineticist feels the most overpowered between levels 3-6, because they get another damage die at lvl3 and lvl5, while other characters may still be using one die. At lvl6, martial characters get their 2nd attack and things start to even out.
That said, it doesnt seem like the cleric and fighter in your party are meant as damage dealers, they have other roles. The kineticist is a damage dealer and is doing well in that role. He might not hit every round, but when he does, it's going to hurt. Perhaps the other characters could use items to help them in their intended role (and/or help with their builds), but I think that overall, the kineticist isnt doing anything wrong with his build, especially if you've checked the burn tracking and it turns out correct.

Also, it was calculated that on average, each character is probably going to go through (I think) 10 rounds of combat per day, so on average, there's not much difference between being able to use an ability 10 times per day or infinite times per day :)

Thanks for your replies everyone.

I know there's no automatic bonuses, I just meant that I think it'd make sense. The game doesnt use logic all the time but in my opinion we should try to add more logic, if possible :) of course its up to the DM in the end :)

And yeah its not a good synergy but that's why I'm looking for ideas.
If I have a move action free to use, its probably always going to be better to use it for gather power (or do a full attack with kinetic blade). Potions are hardly worth it in the middle of combat, and I'm not sure what kind of items I'd need to retrieve since the kineticist doesnt really need items in combat (other than what he has equipped). Any ideas or examples are welcome.
I suck at climbing because Aether gives me the ability to fly pretty much all the time (but otherwise a good idea!).

Not sure about the all hands thing, it says "both hands" or "all prehensile appendages". An argument could be made that they're not the same. For example, a creature that has prehensile appendages presumably doesnt have hands, otherwise it would have just said hands. Not sure why it's phrased like it is. If the intention was to make sure that all limbs are free, then why not write "all hands, or all prehensile appendages"? It seems to presume that humanoids always have two hands while "unusual" races always have more than two, but this is not the case. But anyway: so far I havent been using gather power nearly as often as I should (or at least thought I would). If I'd need just two empty hands, then that would surely change. If I still need all empty hands, then its probably not going to change....

1.) Overflowing Rod: seems like this would give me +1 to attack and +2 to dmg, and also let me get the stat increases 3 levels earlier. Sounds pretty good for the price (unlike most other kineticist-specific items). I like the idea, though this might already be above the power level increase that our DM would allow...
2.) Shield sounds good
3.) Dueling sounds fun, and Training sounds useful, though there are far too many Combat Feats for me to go through in a timely manner... any suggestions for a good one?

Not a melee build (I do have kinetic blade though), not a grapple build (but I did recently take Telekinetic Maneuvers... still, I dont use hands for those, though I guess that means I could grapple even more targets :D but actually no, cause that sounds overpowered... at the very least I'd expect to gain a huge penalty for every additional target I'd try to grapple).

Yeah I do use a buckler already, and yeah I lose the bonus when gathering power, attacking, etc. Having a normal shield would let me keep the AC bonus, but might prevent gather power.... :(

All in all, thanks for the tips. If anyone's got more interesting stuff to hold in extra hands, I welcome all ideas :)

Hello,

My human Aether Kineticist recently caused a Primal Aether event (random wild magic) which resulted in him obtaining two extra arms. Seems like this might be permanent, but even if not, I was wondering what kind of interesting stuff could a Kineticist do with extra arms. I'm not looking for things that would make my character overpowered (or even reasonably more powerful) or things that are obviously broken. I'm looking for ideas that are fun, unusual, and provide a small benefit at most. Obviously a creature with 4 arms would be way more powerful than one with 2 arms, but for balance reasons I dont wanna get ahead of the power curve. Like, I know I could be carrying two extra weapons but I feel that making two extra attacks (if it's even possible) would make it overpowered so I probably am not going to do that. Also, as I'm mostly fighting at range, and have a STR of 10, I'm not really interested in making additional melee attacks (such a weapon would perhaps be useful only for occasional AoOs).

I have not discussed this with our DM yet, I would first like to get some ideas, but I'm having trouble coming up with something interesting. Like, first thing that comes to mind is that I'd assume a 4-armed creature gets a bonus to its CMB to grapple and also to its CMD to resist being grappled, for example, but even that might be too much of a power boost (I dunno yet. A +2 bonus might not be too bad). The other idea that comes to mind is being able to wield a shield and still have enough free hands for blasting and gathering power. A good shield could provide quite an AC boost, however my normal AC is so low that even with this boost it probably wouldnt be high enough to cause problems...

Any other interesting and fun ideas for things to carry, or do with extra arms?

This is just a part of what happened in our last session that was hillarious and I wanted to share it, perhaps it can make someone else laugh as well :)
I'm not going to give any details about the campaign or the fight in an attempt to avoid spoilers, though perhaps some people might be able to recognize it.

So, in our party there's a paladin (melee/tanky type), a magus (who was absent this session, otherwise relying on magic, obviously the smartest and most knowledgeable character), a warpriest (focused on ranged combat and healing), and a kineticist (me, aether/fire combo). We're currently lvl11. I had my familiar with me, and the paladin had a holy dog with him (the previous night, the situation looked so bad that he prayed to his god for help, and rolled a natural 100 on a d100, so he received a nifty dog friend as a reward, which was already impressive enough :)).

We were trying to sneak into a place heavily guarded by enemies, of course trying to be quiet but it was not really working out that well. After a couple of fights we come to a room guarded by a single enemy (who was sleeping). My kineticist, the sneakiest character in the party with high perception, decides to go in first and check things out. He somehow fails to spot a homemade trap and ends up making enough noise to wake the guard. After a brief exchange of blows where he has taken a fair amount of damage, the guard runs away, with the 3 of us thinking he's almost defeated.

We try to chase him but only my kineticist could make it far enough to see around the corner. However, he sees that the hallway branches off, and thinks that there's no hope of finding/catching him before he raises an alarm. The warpriest turned around to take a look around the room that we came from, and the paladin with his dog went back into the room and looked down another hallway out of the same room (so he was a bit further away).

My character tries to look for tracks of where the guard went, but finds none. He does spot something round and shiny on the floor though. He tries to check it out (not touching it), but without the "walking encyclopedia of all things arcane" (the magus), he had no idea what it was (I rolled a 4 on Knowledge: Arcana).

So he retreats back to stand next to the warpriest and tells both of his buddies what he found. The paladin (with his non-impressive intellect and wisdom) absentmindedly comments: "It must be one of them... pearls of power, that you guys are always talking about". My character (also with non-impressive intellect and wisdom) says: "You know what, it just might be!".

He's not completely dumb though, he knows it might be a trap of some sorts, so he carefully, standing a good 30ft away, grabs the shiny thingy with his telekinetic powers. Nothing happens. He lifts it into the air. Nothing happens. He slowly brings it closer. Nothing happens. He then moves it closer to the warpriest, so that he could look at it and maybe identify it. And that's when the s*** hit the fan :D

A massive explosion went off. It caught everyone except the dog (kineticist, his familiar, and the warpriest were standing in a group, with the paladin like 15ft away, and the dog was just outside of the blast radius). Turns out that the guard dropped a bead from his Necklace of Fireballs on the ground as bait, then hid behind the next corner and waited for the proper moment to toss the entire thing at us.

Turns out there were 8 more beads on the necklace. We were hit by 9 fireballs simultaneously. Sure, they were of varying types, but the DM had to roll A LOT of d6s. The total damage came up to 130 points, but we all made our saves (luckily) and only took half of that. Still, we were pretty banged up.

Then the guard comes charging at the warpriest and knocks him unconscious. My kineticist is standing next to him and succesfully attacks the guard, and so does the familiar. The paladin sees his buddy fall down and decides to charge the guard, first dropping his current weapon and shield, and drawing his falchion during his charge, then hits the guard. The dog charges too but I'm not sure if it hit or not. Anyway, we were all surprised that this "guard" is even still alive, after taking so much damage. It made us suspicious if it really is just a lowly guard, but that's not important right now, I guess we'll find out next time.

Next round, the guard hits the paladin, leaving him at 12 hp. My kineticist was down to 23 hp. The familiar was at 21 hp. The dog I'm not sure, but somewhere in the 20s too. It was our turn and we're thinking, this thing cant have much health remaining, lets just kill it and heal afterwards.

I go first. I roll for my kineticist to attack the guard with Kinetic Blade (made of fire, so that it would hit on anything but a natural 1 (touch attack)), but of course I roll a 1. The kineticist swings the blade so hard, it misses the guard but nearly takes the paladin's head off. He was granted a reflex save to dodge the blade, and he successfully saved.

Next, the familiar. It tries to hit the guard with its ranged attack, but something goes wrong with the magic (because I rolled another 1 on the attack) and it blows up in its face, dealing 17 damage to it, leaving it at 4 hp!

Next, the paladin. He raised his trusty falchion for his first attack, but was apparently too enthusiastic about it (you guessed it, another 1) because it slipped out of his grip and was flung several feet behind him.

The warpriest's player is laughing and says "You guys cant roll, let me show you how its done!" and grabs his d20, rolls it, and absolutely rolls a 1 too :D

Anyway, the paladin still had his 2nd attack left, but sadly he was now all out of weapons. So he did the only sensible thing, and that is slapping the s*** out of the guard (unarmed attack). Quite literally, because in a hillarious twist of fate, he rolled a freaking 20, crit-slapping the guard into unconsciousness!

If someone was observing this from afar, it would look as if the paladin charged at the guard while intentionally flinging all of his weapons away, just so that he could punch him to death :D

___

Hope you enjoyed the story! :)

I was so saddened by the lack of answers that I gave up and forgot to check in at a later time :) so, please excuse my late reply.

First, thanks for the "create primal event" tip, it is a good reference point. I somehow managed not to come across that one during my research of the subject.

I'm not sure about randomizing the range and direction too, on top of the random effect. The random effect is already random enough, could help you, could hurt you, or it could be just something weird or interesting that neither hurts nor helps. Which is fine for the most part, to make things more interesting and unpredictable, to create new unusual situations for the characters to react to, etc. But, if the effect is too random, or turns out to be hurtful more often than helpful, then the characters will simply never use it again. I mean, if a character is supposed to keep using something, then that something has to be beneficial in some way, at least over a longer period - why would anyone want to shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly?

Keep in mind that this is not a talent that you can simply pick at level up. You have to put effort into obtaining it (I'd say a lot of effort, but I guess that depends), and as such, you'd want to be able to use it to help yourself, not hurt yourself. If its goint to hurt you more than help you, then why bother putting in all that effort in the first place?

Therefore, a character would most likely want a little bit more control over the primal magic, not less. When deciding to trigger a primal event, its bad enough not knowing if it might cause an explosion or a buff, but then also not knowing in what direction and how far? That's too much randomness for it to be worth it. The chances of something helpful happening would be far too low. For example (and I'm making these numbers up), lets say that normally, there's a 33% chance of something good happening, a 33% chance of something bad happening, and a 33% chance of something neither good nor bad happening.

Then, if we randomize range and direction too, there will be a lot of situations where the good and bad effects happen too far away and/or in the wrong direction for them to have any effect on the characters/enemies. Meaning that they would now fall into the "neither good nor bad" category. So for example, there'd be a 10% chance of something good happening (in the proper place), a 10% chance of something bad happening (in the proper place, and an 80% chance of things that are neither good nor bad happening (or things that dont have a meaningful effect on the combat or whatever situation the characters are in). So in the end, you're wasting your action on something that only has a 10% chance of doing something good, a staggering 80% chance of basically doing nothing, and a 10% chance of doing something bad. Again, the numbers are made up, I havent done the math, I'm just trying to say that the chance of "nothing happening" would be much greater than anything else and as such it would most likely be a waste of an action to use this talent.

-

Anyway, yeah the list is just a sample. There are plenty of other random effect lists on the internet though. I obviously havent gone through them to see if they all list the specific radiuses, durations, etc. It would be great if they did, because these change from effect to effect (they are dependent on the effect), but one thing that shouldnt change is the range of the talent itself (the range should be dependent on the talent). As in, the talent should provide a range at which it can be used, and then the effect should provide what happens there and for how long, etc.

I have also come to the conclusion that it's probably one of these 2 options:
1.) range 0 (centered on the kineticist), in which case the kineticist must either always be excluded from the effect, or have the ability to choose to be excluded from the effect (for instantaneous effects like an explosion going off. If the effect persists, then it should probably affect everyone in its radius. There are probably exceptions to this that I cant think of right now)
2.) range greater than 0, in which case if the radius turns out to be big enough to reach back to the kineticist, then the kineticist is a fair target for the effect.

What exactly should "greater than 0" be? I'm not sure. The simplest range would be 30ft for a base kineticist. Because surely if he is always able to manipulate strands of aether within 30ft with his blasts/other talents, then he can also manipulate them in a different way (into a primal event) at that same range, right?
And if he has taken Extended/Extreme Range, maybe allow him to increase the range.... if necessary, even by paying the burn required by these talents.

I'd personally lean more towards the 2nd option cause I really dont like it having centered on the kineticist. It complicates things about affecting the kineticist etc. And, since the kineticist probably doesnt want to get its allies caught in the radius, it kinda forces him to run ahead and jump into the middle of the enemy formation before using this talent, which can be very much problematic.

-

I guess I can share my experiences with it so far. It came up a whooping two times.
1st time was soon after I obtained it. Me and an ally were in a room with a minor boss, while 2 allies were outside the room. I triggered a primal event which turned out to work like Confusion on everyone in a small radius. The DM insisted that the effect is centered on me. Dont remember the details, not even if I had to save against it (this was many months ago), but I know that the ally and the boss had to save, and the ally failed, while the boss succeeded, causing serious problems for us.
I was very cautious with it since then, basically never using it again for a very long time in fear of causing something terrible, if using the talent while being close to allies (which I am, most of the time).
So the 2nd time was in a fight with more participants. We had like 7 NPCs on our side (but they were pretty weak), and the enemy force consisted of about 8 normal enemies and 3 stronger ones. The 8 normal enemies were all standing together on one side while the 3 stronger ones were coming in from the other side. One ally took off to meet the stronger ones head first, the other two allies moved a bit away from me, so I felt that if I move closer to the other 8 enemies, I might get to trigger a primal event without catching my allies in it. I did just that, and the effect that happened forced everyone in its radius to roll two d20s and take the worse result. The radius was pretty big too, but not enough to reach my allies. It did reach almost all enemies and the remaining NPCs (the NPCs were weak and basically died in 1 hit from the enemies). However, the primal magic caused everyone to miss a whole lot more. This ended messing up the enemies way more than us, they had a hard time hitting even the NPCs, which survived for much longer than they would otherwise. The NPCs didnt have much of a chance to hit anything to begin with, so this additional debuff didnt make them that much worse. And as for me: I also have an energy blast/blade, which targets touch AC, that is usually much lower than regular AC, giving me a good chance to hit the enemies even with the debuff. So, while my 3 allies were busy killing the 3 stronger enemies, me & the NPCs were keeping the rest of the enemies occupied, and I was slowly wearing them down with my energy blade. I'm sure that without the primal event, the enemies would have killed all the NPCs in 1-2 turns, then ganged up on me, and I'd have to run, or my allies would have to help out, making the fight much harder. Instead, the NPCs kept standing, I was even damaging the enemies, and when the allies have dealt with the other threats, they came to help finish off these guys too.

So the 1st time I used it, it turned out terrible and made me never want to use it again. The 2nd time I used it, it turned out pretty good, but still worried about using it unless I again get isolated from my team. The fact is, that even if circumstances have made the 2nd time go better than expected, its still true that the usefulness of this talent would be increased if it could be triggered from range, not centered on myself. As it is, I've used it twice in like a year of gaming, which is not nearly often enough for a talent that you have to work this hard to even obtain. If it had a range (even a short one), it'd get used more often, because a talent like this (that you have to work for) deserves to be used more often than that.

Thank you. That's an important detail that I wasnt aware of. It might never come up, or it might come up all the time, so its good to know.

As said, I currently have a familiar gained from Elemental Whispers, and I'm looking to soon upgrade it to one gained from Greater Elemental Whispers.

And I agree on most of these. I'm just not sure what does the "it gains a new form" mean with GEW - if it dies as an elemental, it can then be raised as a wysp, but keeps the old memories? Or that it can be raised as an elemental again but with a new/different "body" and old memories?

And no, my party hasnt summoned any elementals yet. I dont think there's much summoning planned in our future either. If it does come up, and the summoned monsters end up being elementals (of the matching element), then okay. But if the party only summons one elemental, I hardly think that this is enough to justify taking the wysp for this bonus. Sure, if you have like 4 people who can summon the correct type of elementals, then the wysp may be amazing. But for summoning one elemental here and there, not really :/ Unless I also take Spark of Life and summon my own elementals (which wasnt the plan, but might work....)

I dont think so. The talent doesnt say anything about sharing your senses. Even a familiar gained from (Greater) Elemental Whispers doesnt automatically share senses... it shares emotions, can eventually speak with you, and eventually you can scry on it, but you cant see through its eyes or hear through its ears, etc.

So the way I understand the basic version is, you summon the elemental and then must spend your move action to "direct" it. Directing it probably means stuff like "go to x", "kill this enemy", "come back", and similar. I think even a command like "go to x, kill this enemy, and then come back" would be valid, as long as you keep spending your move action on it every turn until the task is finished. As soon as you do something else with your move action, it collapses on itself and the spell ends. So even if the elemental is out of sight, you can always command it to come back, or to move to a location that is in sight. But you dont sense anything that the elemental does.

If you pour your sentience into it, it acts on its own, freeing your move action. You can probably give it directions as before, and it would probably try to execute them to the best of its ability. It still doesnt say anything about sharing senses though.

If you replace Ghoul 1 with a monster with 40 AC, and you miss Ghoul 2, then you shouldn't automatically hit the monster.

if the Attack roll is prevented by the bonus +4AC from cover coming from Ghoul_1 (but would hit without this cover), the Attack Roll would then be contested with the AC of Ghoul_1

As in, if you miss Ghoul 2, you dont automatically hit Ghoul 1, you instead compare your roll against Ghoul 1's AC.

And there's even a feat that already does something similar (except that the feat says that the attacker makes a new roll against the new target).

I dont know if this makes it possible, but if I was his GM, I'd at least consider it. Perhaps make a modified feat for him to take, that would then allow him to try against Ghoul 1 if he missed Ghoul 2. Making it a feat would keep it in line of the Ally Shield feat, as they'd provide a similar benefit.

Even so, perhaps the roll against Ghoul 1 would need to have a certain penalty added to it (like -2), or the damage would need a penalty (cause the arrow maybe didnt hit it with the pointy bit).
And if there's more than one enemy, it'd be simple enough to say that the closest enemy is the next in line (or that it only works against the first adjacent enemy). Alternatively, just roll a d[number of enemies] to see which one is hit.

Sure, this complicates combat a bit, but if they dont mind, let them play with it :)

I see. Wasnt aware that normal familiars work like that cause I've never played a character who had one, at least not in PF. Without that point of reference, I assumed it's always the same type of creature, and carried it on to kineticist's familiar too. But its good to know.

Yeah that's pretty much what I figured, but wanted to make sure cause sometimes there are advantages to being able to unsummon them.

Thanks for all the answers!

Hi,

I was wondering about the Primal Aether wild talent:

This is all that the talent description says. No range, no radius, no nothing.
The lack of radius isnt as much of an issue, because some of the random effects list their own radius, or maybe it doesnt apply to that effect.
However, the lack of range is causing some problems, because the effects dont list how far away from the kineticist they happen. Therefore I'm looking for some clarification: what is the range of this talent? Is it centered on the kineticist? Can the point of origin be within 30 ft for a base kineticist (meaning equal to the standard blast range)? Does this increase with level, or perhaps with the Extended/Extreme Range talents?

Thanks!

Oh really? I thought that the new familiar is the same as the old (not the same individual creature but same type of creature).

As for GEW familiar, I understood it differently, I thought "new form" just means like a "new body" for your familiar, never would I imagine that the "new body" can be of a different type than the old one... just that its not the same old flesh and bones that have been left rotting somewhere for a week....
Anyway, if this indeed means it can come back in a new form, the available forms would still include only the elemental or the wysp, so I dunno... it'd be a pretty expensive "trial run" to first summon it in one form and if you dont like it, summon it in the other next time..

On that note, is it possible to "unsummon" or otherwise "deactivate" a familiar like this? Or once its out, its out until it dies?

Ok, I get that they were captured to give bonuses and be servants... doesnt mean they couldnt make them give bonuses to their new masters as well... makes them less useful. Oh well.

Sorry about the double post but I cant seem to edit the last post anymore.

I forgot to mention archetypes. As far as I know, you cant pick an archetype that replaces Speak With Animals Of Its Kind, which only leaves a few choices, namely:

- Egotist: seems like a nightmare to play, since its supposed to interfere with everything the master does. It gets bonuses instead of the master, can scry on the master, and does this at the cost of other useful feats... I'm going to stay away from this one.

- Emissary: looks like a decent one, it gets new abilities that are about as useful as the one it replaces (YMMV of course). I guess the choice depends on your play style, and right now I'm leaning more towards keeping the original abilities.

- Sage: a good archetype, but much more suited to the wysp/noncombat familiar. I feel like I'd definitely chose this archetype if I decided to go with wysp, but for a familiar that is expected to do things other than standing there and rolling knowledge, I think the original abilities would be better suited.

The Wysp says:

So yes, a kineticist gets +1 to attack and damage, which is not terrible, but hardly reason enough to pick the wysp.
However, the wysp grants a +2 to a whole lot of things to other creatures EXCEPT its master (apparently). I guess theoretically those creatures could also be allies, not just enemies, but in any case, its odd that your familiar would grant other creatures far bigger bonuses than to yourself.

And then Aid Another and Living Battery both depend on Resonance:

So, does the +1 to attack and damage that kineticists get, count as "benefiting from its resonance"? It must, because if not then the wysp is practically useless to a kineticist. But even if it does count, I still find it odd that others would benefit more than the kineticist. It seems to me that wysp is not quite as good as I had originally thought.

__
For what it's worth, I did take a look at the greensting scorpion and imp, and for me personally the decision seems much easier - the scorpion doesnt seem to offer much for my character, so I'd go with the imp (assuming I wouldnt mind its evil nature).

__
And I'm not sure if I'm missing anything with the way that familiars work, but what you're saying is that if I choose lets say Wysp, and it dies (not from Living Battery I assume), and I then revive it, I could revive it as an Elemental instead? I havent seen anything to support this, where does it say I could do this?

__
Also, forgot to mention it before, but why would the familiar's hit dice need DM interpretation? Arent the rules clear enough in stating:

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Regarding body type: ah ok I see. I imagined the wysps as balls of matter, and I've always envisioned elementals as humanoids, but that's mostly because that's how they're presented in the video games that I've played, and they sometimes get these things differently than in pathfinder. I will discuss it with the GM too of course, but if the elemental has almost all slots and the wysp has almost no slots, then the scales tip even more in favor of the elemental for me....

Do flatfooted enemies not get AoOs against invisible creatures that have to move into their square to attack them? If so, that might make the wysp a bit more useful, as long as the enemies cant see invisible creatures etc...

Regarding subtype: wait, really? I thought my character gains the aether subtype based on the fact that aether is his primary element.... if not, then the wysp only gives +1 to two rolls of the kineticist, and +2 to a whole bunch of rolls to any potential enemy that finds itself in the area.... this isnt making sense to me, why would it give a bigger bonus to enemies than to its "master"? If this is true, then a kineticist wouldnt even be able to benefit from Living Battery, meaning none of its abilities work, so then what's the point of the wysp?

I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the green sting scorption vs imp debate. I dont think the "remembering it is there" would be much of an issue - its miniature would still be on the board. The enemies might not notice it due to invisibility, and it would be my responsibility to make sure to move/do stuff with it. If I forget, then though luck for me cause I just wasted some actions, but generally no harm done.

Well, as an Aether Kineticist, my character has picked up TK Invisibility, which he has been using to decent effect. The rest of the party are: a magus, who could easily get invisibility if desired, a warpriest that I dont think can easily get invisibility, and a paladin, which I also dont think is gonna be invisible any time soon (not that it'd help him much with all the clunking :P)

Hello,

I'm trying to decide which familiar to take for my Aether Kineticist, the Small Aether Elemental or the Aether Wysp. Havent found much info on one versus the other though. I've looked at both of them and have some questions too. But first, I looked at the creatures' basic stats and then calculated their exact stats that they would have as my familiars.

In both cases, the wysp is better than (or at least equal to) the elemental in almost all areas. The elemental is better only in a few areas that are quite niche (it is immune do force damage, but how often is that gonna come up) or quite pointless (it has 12 STR over 10 STR for the wysp).

The only area where the elemental has a real advantage is ranged attack, because the wysp has none. Which is especially painful since the wysp is a tiny creature and has a reach of 0 ft. Meaning that it cant flank, cant make AoOs, and provokes an AoO from its target when attacking them in melee.

To go over the wysp's special abilities:
1.) Resonance: so, every creature with "aether" subtype in range (including enemies, I assume?) gets a +2 bonus to all the stuff listed, but on top of that, the kineticist gets an additional +1 to attack and damage rolls? For a total of +3 to attack and damage? If I'm reading this right, then this is a very powerful ability. 10/10.
2.) Servitor: increases Aid Another from +2 to +4. Sounds great for out of combat. I guess I'd give it a 9/10.
3.) Lesser Telekinesis: sounds like a worse version of my Basic Telekinesis. Might be great for other characters, but for a Telekineticist, it just doesnt add anything new or more useful than what they already have. 3/10
4.) Living Battery: Incredibly hard for me to evaluate. It sounds great in theory.... but hear me out :) First of all, who decides if the familiar should use this ability or not? Is it me, the kineticist that summoned it? Is it the GM? Does it happen automatically wheter or not we want it to?
Because, lets assume that any character values their familiar and wants to keep the familiar alive and helping (as it should be for almost all characters). Then, you wouldnt want the familiar to commit suicide at the first sign of danger, right? Especially if you're merely falling unconscious (would the familiar know this, or would it kill itself to "save" you?).
Anyway, even if it comes to the point where you actually die... would you always want the familiar to sacrifice itself for you? I dont have nearly enough experience to know the answer, but my thinking is this: working under the same assumption as before, you'd still want your familiar alive and helping. But, after the wysp kills itself, you can only revive it with True Ressurection, Miracle or Wish. Which is much harder than simply reviving a lil' ol' human kineticist with Raise Dead, which could even be cast by one of your teammates (at much lower levels), if they have the spell. So I'd say that the choice depends heavily on whether or not your party has someone that can cast Raise Dead or similar spells, or at least has easy access to someone that can, or at least to scrolls, or other means of reviving dead characters. And then it also depends on how the current fight is going. Is it almost over and your team can mop up and then revive you? Is it half way through and could go either way, with the chances of it going badly dramaticaly increased by your death? Perhaps the battle just started and there's a good chance that your team can grab your body and run (since something that killed a character this fast isnt something that a now-weakened party can defeat anyway)? These things all play a factor and if the decision isnt in the hands of the player, then this ability is almost detrimental imo..... If it is in the hands of the player, then I guess it would be pretty great for that one time when you need it... still really hard to evaluate, but probably comes in quite high.

Anyway, a quick look at the elemental's special abilities:
1.) Telekinetic Invisibility: this is simply great. 10/10.
2.) Telekinetic Throw: sounds like a pretty good ranged attack. It probably wont be able to throw many creatures due to the DC12 save, but it can always throw objects. 8/10.
3.) Telekinetic Maneuver: I'm planning on taking this utility talent later, so its great for now, but soon it wont be as important (kinda like wysp's telekinesis). 5/10
4.) Telekinetic Deflection: getting the CON modifier to AC sounds great until you realize that its CON is 12, for a +1 to AC (which is already poor).... 3/10

_____

Looking at all of this, it seems like the wysp isnt actually meant as a combat companion. Its main benefit is a static boost to some of your rolls, and a static increase to the boost to your other rolls, and a one-time heal when you're in danger of dying. It doesnt have a ranged attack and has to get smacked by AoO to attack anyone in melee, meaning you'd have to be crazy or desperate to send it into a fight. It seems like the best use of it would be to have it just kind of stand (float) there while giving you a static increase to your stats. It would be just hanging around and making you stronger. Somehow, this doesnt sound like a familiar anymore to me. Its starting to sound more like a piece of equipment. And, I almost cant believe I'm going to say this, but I dont like that. Sure, almost all of its stats are better than the elemental's. Sure, its special abilities are very powerful. But in the end, it just feels like having another piece of equipment that just happens to be floating around instead of being worn. So, basically a slotless wondrous item. And yes, if someone would offer me a slotless wondrous item that does all this for the price of one class "feature", I'd call it a great deal. But somehow the fact that it's a familiar, is making it worse for me, to the point where I'm seriously leaning towards the elemental. Which has its own set of pretty cool special abilities, but the wysp's seem even better, in addition to being better in almost all other stats as well... But at least the elemental is able to do things like scout, attack things, participate in flaking, etc... you know, do something other than being there to give you boosts.... I dunno. Am I crazy for thinking the wysp is little more than a good piece of gear? Does anyone think the same? If so, what did/would you do in my position?

_____

And another thing I wanted to ask was about gear/magic items for familiars. They are able to wear items based on their body type, as listed here.... but what in the world are the body types of the aether wysp and the aether elemental?

Thanks. Yeah that line does indeed refer to basic EW, which means you get this benefit "Alertness" while GEW is dead, but I'm still not sure if its possible to completely "unsummon" it and "summon" basic EW instead.

I know you can only have one familiar out (in use), but is it possible to have multiple "sources" of familiars, like multiple feats that grant familiars, either at different times or under different conditions? Obviously would still have to follow the rule about 1 familiar at a time, but could possibly grant 2 different familiars, just not at the same time? I dont know if anything like that exists. I know the rules usually say something like "levels of classes granting familiars stack for the purposes of determining the familiars attributes" or something along these lines, however, these "classes" mentioned all grant the same thing - familiars - while EW seems just different enough from GEW, in turn making the "familiars" they grant also just different enough from eachother to make them hard to "stack" (as in, one doesnt seem an upgrade of the other, but more like a completely different familiar with different mechanics). I'm not sure what to do in such a situation, that is (to me at least) quite different than the standard "all familiars are mechanically the same" thing.... :/

Yeah, I guess that's a good point. Perhaps I should have used a different word, but I cant think of a better one (english is not my native language). I was just trying to say that a "full familiar" is its own creature: tangible, visible, existent. While EW is just a product of your mind.... you can make it visible, but as soon as someone touches it, it disappears. As the rules say, its "a voice in your mind"... it doesnt have any stats, not even HP (I'm not sure if that disqualifies it as a creature or not, but it sure is very different than any other familiar).

Hello.

I have been following these forums for a while now but for the life of me I cant seem to find an answer to my question. Which is:

As a kineticist, if you take GEW (Greater Elemental Whispers), do you lose access to EW (normal Elemental Whispers)? Or do both feats(talents) exist simultaneously?

To elaborate:
Normally, when a feat (or anything else) has a Greater version, that Greater version is a direct upgrade of the basic feat. For example, Weapon Focus increases attack by +1, and then Greater Weapon Focus increases it by another +1, which stacks with WF, for a total increase of +2 to attack. The original +1 from WF is already included in this total bonus, and you'd be crazy to want to only use the basic +1 from WF instead of the total +2 from having both.

Likewise, if you have feats like Cleave: Greater Cleave allows you to attack more targets, but the first target (granted by Cleave) is included in these additional targets.
Further, almost any Combat Maneuver normally carries some penalty, but if you take the Improved [combat maneuver] feat, the penalty is negated and you sometimes get bonuses to its CMB. Then the Greater [combat maneuver] feat further increases those bonuses and sometimes adds additional effects.
And another example: the "Sniping" magic weapon special ability gives a +5 bonus to Stealth checks in its base version, the Improved version gives +10 and Greater gives +15.

In all of these examples, the Improved and Greater versions improve the bonuses from the basic version. Nowhere does it say that by taking the Greater version, you lose access to the normal version. In fact, it could be said that you can never get the Greater version without the normal one, and that you even lose access to the Greater version if you somehow lose the normal version - which is also the reason that temporary feats (like ones gained from equipment) cant be used to qualify for Greater feats. Therefore we can conclude that in all these cases, the Greater version doesnt "overwrite" the normal version, instead they both exist simultaneously. In theory, you could then use "Cleave" instead "Greater Cleave" if you wanted to, but in practice, you'd never ever want to, because the bonus of the base feat is included (and expanded upon) in the Greater feat, making the Greater feat a superior choice all the time (as it should be).

However, that doesnt seem to be the case with EW/GEW. GEW is not a direct improvement of EW, it gives somewhat different benefits.
EW gives you a mind figment (its not a familiar - its not even a creature as far as I can tell) that you can "manifest" at will (requires concentration while manifested), but it returns to your mind as soon as it takes any damage. It grants you a skill/save bonus depending on its type, and while in your mind, you also get Alertness.
GEW on the other hand, gives you a fully functional familiar that doesnt require concentration, it gets its own stats including HP, and obviously it can also die, in which case you need to wait a whole week and also pony up some serious cash in order to bring it back, which is a considerable drawback. You can still get Alertness while its dead (but not at will like with EW), however you also dont get the skill/save bonus that you got from EW's type.

This is clearly not a straightforward improvement from EW, but almost a whole different mechanic. Sure, in many situations you're better off with a fully functional improved familiar than with a figment of your mind, so it is an improvement in that sense, however this makes it pretty different than the feats I talked about above. GEW not only works differently, but also takes away some of the bonuses that EW provided, which is unlike any of those feats above. As such, I am not sure I even want to upgrade to GEW (there are other good talents to consider at that level), but if I do, I'd like to have the option to keep on using EW if I decide that GEW's downsides are too much for me.

From the examples above I've concluded that both feats exist simultaneously, you just wouldnt normally want to use the lesser one. If both EW and GEW also exist simultaneously, then it should be possible to choose which one to use, right? I mean, obviously you cant have both "manifested" at the same time, or even EW in your mind while GEW is manifested, but if GEW dies (or you somehow deactivate it, which should be possible I guess), shouldnt you then be able to use EW instead?