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The kineticist is an idea that has never been tried before. Class balance was always tricky given that magic has such overwealming potential. The Kineticist is an attempt to balance impressive at will abilities by providing direct and punishing consequences for "improving" their basic abilities. The concept of pay to use abilities is rather new. It was obviously influenced by the Warlock from D&D 3.5 However unlike the Kineticist, the Warlock didn't have any consequences of ability use. Their abilities were free, the rational was that they had an extremely limited # of abilities to draw upon.

Here the Kineticist has virtually the same limited ability options, the same options to improve/modify their abilities and the same damage potential. Where this starts to get confusing is in how the penalties are to be interpreted. There are many abilities that mitigate the Burn damage.

Kineticists pay 0 burn for basic blasts and through normally acquired means can reduce infusion burn costs " infusion specialization" by up to 6 at LV20. this is not including the "gather power" ability that allows her to ignore the first 1-3 burn based on the time spent gathering. They can also "store" unused burn for later by way of placing them in her "internal buffer" another 1-3 points. Thus giving her 1-3 additional free points of burn available to her the next day.

Using these abilties a kineticist can and should have a virtually unlimited repatoire of damaging and powerful blasts that cost nothing. Just like the Warlock. Only twice as powerful.

Its only really when attempting to really go big that Burn becomes limited. Maxing out at 6 Burn per round not with standing the above mentioned methods of reduction, it is conceivable that a pyro kineticist at 19th level could perform a:(Feel free to do the math)

Kinetic Blast
Blue flame 2(reduced to 0 burn) composite specialization and internal buffer
Form Explosion 4(reduced to 0 burn) infusion specialization
Doubled ( 4 Burn META gained at lv 17)
Quickened 3(reduced to 0 Burn) gather power 1 full round
Maximized ( 2 Burn Meta)
Empowered 1( reduced to 0 Burn) Metakinetic master

Costing 6 Burn total and 120HP of non-lethal

Range up to 120ft
Causing 2x 144 hp of damage to a 40ft diameter area all for a swift action the following round of a gather power. Leaving a follow up move action to gather power (2 burn reduction) and a standard action to inflict an additional Blue flame empowered, maximized, explosion(0 Burn Cost) causing another 144HP(+CON) to that same 40ft area. (This alone doable for free (0 Burn cost) is mind blowing.)

Total area target damage 432HP spread over 2 rounds !!!

Tell me again how a 20th level fighter can compare for damage output?

My concern is the ability to stack Metakinesis. Wizards must consume higher level spell slots, limiting the level of spell that can be effected and the type of meta magic feats that can be combined. The Burn mitigation does not limit the stacking effects nearly enough to be balancing. I would suggest a Maximum Burn VALUE before mitigation to help control the scaling effects here. Instead of the percieved maximum burn accepted/taken