Kindulas's page

Fair correction of 'tele,'
Still, I think Conduit is more evocative of the themes and feel considering CON, burn, and the gather energy ability.

Also, I think the flavor here fits the mechanics better than the 3.5 Warlock. I adore the Warlcok flavor, but as people channeling the power of dark entities, why do they have a big theme of 'variations on a basic blast?' Now the warlock did a lot more than that, I know, and I get that your complaint isn't a flavor based one but really how constrained it's options are - which is similar to one of my own really, so I'm not really arguing with you at all in this - But my point, nonetheless, is just that the 'have a vanilla at will Attack, now here's some ways to reshape it' feels more at home with this flavor of 'you're not a spellcaster, you don't have access to complex powers - you have raw elemental force, this one basic thing that you can do and control, but you can learn to get more creative in your applications of said single power. Warlocks gain power from dark entities, makes sense that they should get a wide range of complex spells. Which, I understand there were a lot of invocations to do various things for the Warlock, but the basic Eldritch-blast mechanic feels better served by this skin.

First glance, I love the Kineticist. The fact that blasting is considered suboptimal in PF is frustrating, since what I want to do as a caster is just lasers. At last, they have this, and based around at-will blasting with bonuses rather than Vancian spellcasting. It's a warlock revamp with more (but very fittingly) generic flavor. It's also finally a class that lets us just pick one element and go with it, since even sorcerers couldn't really have everything they knew be based around their element.

But on that topic, it's a little hard to just be /lightning/. I frequently run into this - where lightning isn't allowed its own elemental category... Anyway, my real issue here is the lack of lightning themed air talents. No 'other talents' except the 'all elements' ones, and for infusions we get chain lightning at 10th. Until that we just get Magnetic and the generics. Especially obnoxious is that we can't apply Torrent to lightning... I get that it's not exactly the flavor of 'torrent' but it seems a lightning bolt should get to apply to the line infusion. In fact, is feels to me like a lot of the quintessential form effects - become line, become burst, become cone - should be pretty generic. Since mix-n-matching is part of the fun here I wish it weren't so restrictive. I see that in the case of the bull rush infusions, the same ability is given twice on different flavor and element restrictions- perhaps add more duplicates or near duplicates to spread the love on shapes? Then I request to just add more lightning - thundercrack substance infusion, a lightning-leap as a utility (aside from just the ride the blast... Which, for the record, I love), stuff like that.

Secondly I take issue with the name 'Kineticist.' It's not bad but... Let me begin with my nitpick about 'Telekinecist.' It's very ironic that the prefix 'tele' is added to the objects-thrower. Seems to make sense, because 'Telekinesis,' except that 'tele' refers to 'with the mind,' which applies to the entire class, whereas 'Kinetic' is what really describes the object throwing of the Aether focus. Which comes into the bigger issue that the class is based in a word that really describes one of its five focuses.

Now, with that comic irony poked at I do offer more than 'eh I'm not sold on the name' (I'm not sold on 'Occultist' either but I don't have a better suggestion). The flavor here is people channeling raw elemental/aetherial energy through their body - this is brilliantly illustrated by using CON and the awesome Burn mechanic. They aren't just commanding forces like so many other classes, they're bringing them in through their body. It's their physical endurance that determines how well they can channel and command those forces, and using their body as a conduit is taxing when they're running such dangerous forces through themselves. Because that's what they are. Conduits for raw energy. With so many referencing Avatar in respond to this class (of which, for the record, I am a fan), I'm going to reference InFamous (can you tell I like Lightning yet?). But I don't suggest this as a reference - I suggest picking it because it fits, InFamous being coincidental. I think it really hits home the flavor they were going for, whereas Kineticist seems to say "I move objects with my mind. But you can also pick an element." So if 'Conduit' was simply a word that hadn't come to the designers, I offer the suggestion. Or, perhaps, SuckerPunch actually trademarked the term 'Conduit' in reference to special powers. In which case, moot point.