Ran Iji's page

It's completely campaign specific. I found it to be completely worthless in Rise of the Runelords due to the abundance of high fortitude creatures. That's actually one of the reasons I'm also not getting Suffocate on my next level as well.

I've used them as a bit of a radar system. It stands to reason that since my character should know the exact amount of Kinetic Cover resources he has available, if one is destroyed, I'd be aware of it to an extent. I may not know which one was broken, but there are ways to layer it in such a way that it'd be obvious where it came from. For one hall way, you place one barrier, for the next two and so forth.

Beyond that, you can use it to break charge lines, protect an ally from being flanked, or you could use it to prevent a square from being threatened so they can grab a potion or cast a spell. In terms of readied actions, you could utilize it as a means to 'create a barrier in front of the enemy that's casting a spell.' If they were aiming towards a friendly, you could very well make the spell fizzle in their face.

If you're lucky enough to have the translucent cover, and really want to be cheesy, you could summon a Mobile Blast. You can then place cover around the door towards yourself. You then can telekineticly open the door, and just direct the Mobile Blast into the room. If you have an idea of what's on the other side, you could even utilize a Delayed Blast ontop of the Mobile Blast.

Might be akin to something at my table. The martials wanted to be sword and shield users, and split their stats too much.

I've been playing an Aether Kin through ROTRL in a six man party using the adjustments for CR found on the subforum. We just hit level 7, and I've only had to take burn once or maybe twice, when I was willing to do something flashy. I've consistently been doing the most damage, despite the other party members gaining access to haste**. Part of this has to do with the fact that as a Kin, I'm not married to weapons/magic items. Outside of a basic stat boosting item, my character is fairly turn key. There's also the fact that I have ranged damage that is going to hit consistently and so I rarely need to move during combat.

There are also numerous utility features that I have, from Kinetic Barriers being placed in paths behind us [or used to provide a barrier when someone's flanked against something that we cannot easily kill] to at-will invisibility. With the feat Delayed Blast, my character is able sneak up on an opponent, prepare a blast to go off the next turn, and then use my next turn to effectively attack twice. At level 7, this produces ~80 damage. If I was being really lame, I could do the Delayed Blast, move into a place to use my high stealth score, and reactivate my invisibility the moment the blast goes off during my next turn. Sure, with Delayed Blast, you need to determine target, and what not beforehand, but when you're not in combat, someone isn't going to be moving too much in a 6 second period.

When it comes to the DCs of your abilities, they all naturally scale with your level and stats. I am a little worried about how useful Foe Throw is going to be since it competes against Fort saves. I'm still on the fence of going Aether/Aether or Aether/Earth. I have until Wednesday to decide. It's hard to say no to throwing one opponent into another though.

In terms of defense, I feel that my AC/HP has been solid. I'm constantly worried about the day that my character is going to fail a Will Save and kill another player character. Despite some poor HP rolls, I'm at 84 Hp. I start my day taking burn, which reduces my hp to 60, but I gain a regenerating shield of 18 Hp. The important thing of the shield is that unless an attack breaks it, the negative effects won't trigger for it. This has saved me from many, many, many deliberating situations.

** I mentioned at the start that I was doing the most damage in my party. Part of this has to do with the fact that most of them have weak mastery of the d20 system [I keep having to explain to people that Power Attack/Deadly Aim should be used all the time], and those that do have opted to go with buffing roles to make the newer players have more fun. I picked the Kin because it was supposed to be utility and a poor class based everything I read about it. Despite the initial negative hype, the class has proven to have consistent damage, crowd control, stealth, and numerous gimmicks I can utilize. Between all the buffs I have at the start of the fight, I'm hitting for +21 when coming out of Invisibility.

Faelyn wrote:

KB and Shield would be pretty good. Just be aware that it would affect your ability to Gather Power (unless you use a Buckler!). Other than that, archery would be the better way to go to boost the emphasis on ranged blasts. Specifically being able to pick up Improved Precise Shot at 6th level...

As a Kineticist, he needs to keep his hands free for Gather Power.

Bucklers allow you to use your hands.

Benefit: This small metal shield is worn strapped to your forearm. You can use a bow or crossbow without penalty while carrying it. You can also use your shield arm to wield a weapon (whether you are using an offhand weapon or using your off hand to help wield a two-handed weapon), but you take a –1 penalty on attack rolls while doing so. This penalty stacks with those that may apply for fighting with your off hand and for fighting with two weapons. In any case, if you use a weapon in your off hand, you lose the buckler’s Armor Class bonus until your next turn. You can cast a spell with somatic components using your shield arm, but you lose the buckler’s Armor Class bonus until your next turn. You can’t make a shield bash with a buckler.

RAI the damage is being done when the weapon is being physically removed via force. A Kinetic Blade is disappearing without making the wound worse, so it shouldn't really do anything with this feat.

Here's a fun question-Shift Earth. It mentions what happens if I move the earth from under someone's feet. Can I use it to make a 5 ft section of the ceiling of a cave come crashing down on my opponent?

I'd be very careful in doing that. The earthen material has to come from somewhere, and could result in a weakening of the stability of the ceiling which would result in an actual cave in. In doing so, you could suddenly have a 25 ft radius of damage going out. This would cause result in a 'Rocks Fall, you Die' situation per the rules as a trigger of a CR 8 trap would occur.

If the situation would allow the block of earth to successfully fall on your opponent, mechanically speaking, the only thing that really comes close to it would be a Falling Block Trap for a 10 ft block which does +15 6d6 damage. The other issue with this is that you're moving a feature 5 feet, while Shift Earth requires the earth still be attached.

"This doesn't cause the earth to float in the air, although in areas with plenty of earth, you can move a cube upward, creating a short pillar."

Since the earth cannot disconnect on its own [you're only moving and shaping it if there's enough of a material], this leaves you only with the option to crush. This is then limited to a situation where a 5 ft movement is enough to press your opponent into the ground. Though there will be a few times when you're in a smaller area of a cave, I imagine that more of them have higher ceilings to where it would take more than a single standard action [and enough earth.]

There's a good deal of moving parts involved, some of which would get the party killed or buried in a cave. I'd be careful.

It makes a clear distinction in Foe Throw that you -can- [not must] throw a creature instead of an unattended object. It doesn't state that you must throw a creature. Of course, you want to throw the creature, since that's kind of the point to the move. If not, you'd just be doing your basic attack. The next paragraph of the ability states the thrown creature [which we've established could be an object per usual] and the target take the damage. The target has no indication of being a creature.

There's really no reason to assume that Foe Throw must target another creature. We also know that Foe throw is a Form Infusion, as is Extended Range, so the move would only have the base range of 30 feet. There aren't many things that it could be paired with either:

Bowling
Draining [Lol.]
Grappling
Pushing

It'd be fun to have a chain throw setup with a Delayed Blast. It'd be conceivable to move an enemy 60 feet at that point. With a class that has access to Invisibility, it wouldn't be far fetched to get this setup often. You'd be forced to suck Burn to avoid the Move Action 'here I am' charge, at least until level 8.

There's a feat called Dirty Fighting [Combat]. It's from the Dirty Fighter's Tool Box, and will count for having Dex 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, and Improved Unarmed Strike for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites of the various improved combat maneuver feats, and so forth.

I'm not sure you're going to find an answer here. Bringing up your frustrations with the GM, as a group, may be the better way to go.

Your GM may have other thoughts to reimburse you in the future, with treasure, or story XP, that simply haven't come to fruition yet, or maybe he/she is limiting XP in an attempt to keep you within a certain level range for future encounters.

We'll probably never know, here in the forums, but I know one person who might.

I do agree, but at the same time, he likes to play things by the book. He's stating that the experience rules state that we wouldn't get anything from the Skeletons, even though they are worth so much more experience that the actual Cleric that summoned them due to the amount that we had to kill. I cannot find such a rule that would support him, since Created Skeletons are not Summoned creatures.

I have a bit of a rules question. So in our game last night, we arrived at a tomb, and when we opened it up, there were 52 Skeletons inside the room. The party is composed of 8 level 3s and we managed to form a rather effective means of killing them thanks to two uses of Grease and our fighters holding the line.

After a few turns [once again, we're level 3!] we heard chanting in the background of an Undead Cleric preparing buffs to fight, but due to the waves [it was essentially a 4x20 room] of undead, we could only hold our line. Eventually, we thinned the herd enough for the Undead Cleric to finally have the chance to get in range of us for his Channel ability which did 3d6 damage. Once again, aside from our bow users, no one could really do any damage to him due to the horde of skeletons and later zombies that were being added to the mix from urns.

After another two rounds of taking the Channel damage, our party was in pretty bad shape, so we had to abandon our defensive perimeter. As we spread outside in an attempt to lure them, it was revealed that behind all of the various undead, there was an actual door that we had missed. Seriously, eight sets of eyes on the table couldn't see the door that was drawn, we just assumed it was part of the stair case in the room. So, the Undead Cleric closed the heavy door, and went back to create some fresh undead for us to fight.

We took two rounds to heal up since almost everyone was at 10 hp, and made our way through the grease perimeter that we had made. We opened the door, and found another 24 Skeletons. Once again, we started our slaughter. Once the Undead Cleric was able to get within range of us, he once again hit us pretty hard with his Channel. After four and a half hours of combat, we finally managed to clear the room.

The DM has stated that we aren't going to get any experience for the skeletons since they were part of the 'class features' of the Cleric and that the Cleric had sunk almost all of his money into the creation of them; however, I contend that since the skeletons were made prior to, and in such large numbers, that they should certainly count, or at least have an adjusted CR for the Cleric.

I understand that there is a rule about Summoned Monsters being part of the CR; I also am aware of a Dev response that states that not even that is a cut and dry experience situation since if players are being harassed by a summon, but not the actual caster, they should receive experience, and so forth. It just seems wrong for a party to fight 76 skeletons and not get a single hint of experience for it after playing for four hours. How is it fair to kill 10,260 experience worth of skeletons and only be awarded the experience for killing the Cleric which was a CR 6, thus only 2,600 experience?