Kane Kybor's page

Can an Air Kineticist using Chain Air Blast or Chain Lightning Blast bypass SR or what about immunity to electricity. I am assuming Air would work fine against Immunity to Electricity but what about Chain Lightning Blast?

Taja the Barbarian wrote:

Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

How does doing less damage than an archer does over two rounds every other round and having to beat SR to do it qualify as broken?

They're not broken, there are better ways to do damage, their are better ways to be the utility guy, they fall somewhere in the middle.

Actually, rethinking the Kane's post, it sounds like the Chain Infusion was also in play (as I said, not an expert on kineticists), so he would have done 84 to one target, then 78 to the next, 72 to the one after that, 66 to the next one, etc... until he hit his 14th target or missed an attack roll against touch AC (Again, that's just the dice, not the static bonuses which might be in the +10 range?), so it's a fair amount of damage (300+ total damage to the first four targets alone). I'm not seeing 900 damage from it, though...

A real spell AoE would probably do a lot more damage against tightly packed opponents (an Intensified Consecrated Fireball would do 78 to every evil creature in the AoE) but the Chain Infusion lets you 'snake' the blast over a large area (each target only needs to be within 30' of the previous target, so the last victim could be up to 390' from the initial target) and completely avoid hitting allies.

With infusions in play, the 'maximized every other round' vs. 'normal attack every round' argument shifts slightly: If he is over 30' away from his initial target, he can't chain every round (Extended Range Infusion costs another 1 Burn, and Chaining uses up his entire Infusion Specialization bonus at 13th level. I'm guessing the math is:

• +2 Burn - Composite Blast
• +2 Burn - Maximize
• +3 Burn - Chain Infusion
• +1 Burn - Extended Range Infusion
• -3 Burn - Infusion Specialization
• -3 Burn - One Full Round of Supercharged Gather

...

You have it exactly Taja. Chain Infusion, get burn back as a Move action State of Impossibility etc but zero burn with the archetype, maximized etc. Yes the class is a one trick pony and if facing ranged creatures can be at the mercy of concentration but when the attack is released the damage is huge. A wizard would get this perhaps once and done per day. This could be every round for 10 rounds while in a State of Impossibility unless I am missing something?? I admit I am No expert and I am having to learn this class in a crash course.

I know this topic of Kineticist has been discussed but not for a while and I am of the opinion this class is Broken. Perhaps I am missing something but recently ran a level 13 game and a new player has a Kineticist Air Kinetics and seems to be able to gather power about every other round and deal 13d6, 12d6, 11d6 etc with Maximize etc and had they not rolled a Nat 1 in the chain would have done over 900 points of total damage. This character seems to be able to do this without any significant limit. I am trying to find an error in his application of the ability but nothing seems to come up. The other players are basically ready to quite as why are they needed. If this is indeed possible with this class then I do not see how this class can continue to be supported?? Am I missing a limit with the burn and the ability to recover burn??

I think a good compromise, rather than all or nothing would be that the Scent Special Ability doubles your chance to hit the real image.

For example, if a Wizard has 8 images up and a protagonist would ordinarily have a 1 in 9 chance to hit the real image, a creature/character with Scent will have a 2 in 9 chance to hit.

This progression would continue until the Wizard/Creature is down to just one image and then the character/creature with Scent would have a 100 percent chance to discern the real image from the fake image.

Just my 2 cents for what it is worth.

bbangerter, if your interpretation is correct, then I would submit the author of the Special Ability chose poor word selection.

In the case of Mirror Image, the Scent special ability has zero tactical advantage over a character or creature without the Scent special ability. As you can see the images both real and illusionary. This is not a case of invisibility just illusions of the real image all in the same 5'x5' square.

In the end, my GM's decision will be final but I would assume the author of the Scent Special Ability had a different idea on it's ability.

In my game, I will use my interpretation.

Above, I agree with BigNorseWolf that opposing skills can settle the issue between this Special Ability and Invisibility.

1. Has everything to do with the mechanics! "When the creature is within 5 feet of the source, it pinpoints the source’s location." The author did not say "it pinpoints the 5' square of the source of the scent.

The author needs to rephrase his definition if you only get a general 5' location of the source.

If this post is meaningless because the topic was raised 6 years ago then why are you replying?

Dork Lord wrote:

This "Inhabits your square" stuff... do you all honestly play that every duplicate image appears within the same 5' square?

Since that's exactly what the spell says it does, yes. And the 3.5 FAQ recommended that the spell be treated this way as well.

Dork Lord wrote:

The same one the caster inhabits? If you can target a 5' square there's just a 50% miss chance, and that's not how Mirror Image is described.

If the attacker decides to close her/her eyes, then it would work that way. Otherwise you have to pick an image and swing at that instead.

Dork Lord wrote:

Since 2nd ed, whenever a Wizard cast Mirror Image, we had the images appear in random squares around the caster, not in the same square. If we were using miniatures, we got another miniature for each image.

Which lead to endless debates about what happens when their isn't enough room, what if the squares can't be occupied without damage, etc., ad nauseum.

Dork Lord wrote:

Having them in the same 5' square just seems... a bit crowded, especially when you have over 6 images plus the real caster.

I think that you're over thinking it. What is important is the mechanical effect, not the visualization. The spell is balanced and functions the way it always did.

Dork Lord wrote:

I'd love to get an official answer from a dev on this.

Well, if you mean about the scent interaction, then sure, but given the wording for scent, i.e. identify the square occupied, then it seems pretty clear. If you mean clarification about the spell, well, they did specifically change the wording, so that, in and of itself, is clarification. Mechanically the spell works the same way it all ways did. It makes duplicates that might get struck instead of the caster. The only thing that has really changed is the fluff.

I think it is important to get a little reality here. First read the definition of Pinpoint from Webster: "ADJECTIVE

Secondly, let's look at real Earthly world examples. The wolf, grizzly bear and polar bear see the world from scent and not from sight. Their world is an olfactory world. I assure you if presented with illusionary images a bear can easily bite the one image that is presenting it with scent and ignore the images that offer NO scent. The language of the skill is clear. You pinpoint the location of the target! Refer to the definition of pinpoint!

Can a Ghoul deliver a Coup de grace? As I read the rules, I would say no.

I have played a couple season 5's recently and have found the faction missions to be less then stellar. In the 4 games I have played no one completed their faction missions and most of them left feeling defeated (myself included). Most of them failed because they didn't know how season 5 worked. Some of us failed because the piece of the puzzle needed to even know there was a faction mission was presented in a tiny part of the story that had nothing to do with the adventure. The rest failed because they had no idea what their faction's mission was (requiring them to go to a website to find the letters).

After the last game I played I tried to figure out what the faction missions add to the game. Seasons 0-4 added a bond between players, helped newer players get into the game and feel part of something bigger, gave room for new interactions between players who wouldn't normally role play, and gave players a challenge to over come. I don't see these with season 5. I can't say I knew what faction anyone at my last table was until afterward when found out that we all failed. The martial characters had little interaction if any because they didn't have a goal they just kind of sat back and watched the show. The goals for the mission within the Scenario were hidden... After the Adventure I guessed at what it would take to complete my factions mission. I had no clue because in a 3 hour game the only hint was 1 line deep in the story. The newer players who play season 0-4 expect a letter from their faction leader letting them know how to help the faction out and when they didn't get one and were told they failed there is a bit of disappointment in there eyes.

The new faction missions don't add fun, challenge, or new interactions but seem to add frustration , disappointment and apathy. I love playing pathfinder and yes this change won't make me quit or play less but it does make it less fun then it use to.

So I ask you the leaders of the Society to think about changing the faction missions next season. It doesn't have to be the same as season 0-4 but something better then current system so that again we can get some new interactions, new challenges, and most of all some more fun.