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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?


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?


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?


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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! :)


Hi,

I was wondering about the Primal Aether wild talent:

Primal Aether:

Element aether; Type utility (Su); Level 3; Burn 0

You can gather strands of aether twisted and warped by an aether saturation, and wind them so tightly that they explode, creating a primal magic event with a CR equal to your kineticist level.

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!


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?


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?