greypilgrim's page

Organized Play Member. 2 posts. No reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 1 Organized Play character.


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I appreciate the head-up notice on the fulfillment problem - and the Paizo's pro-customer service response. I consider you folk are gentlemen in the British sense of the term. In my particular case, I am out of state away from home on vacation, so the late arrival of the physical book (soft cover) isn't affecting me as much - plus having the pdf online (still on-time for download) allows me to to work with the material while "out there" on vacation.


We have two players that are both playing Aether Kineticists. Mine is half-elf: S=14, D=14, C=18, I=15, W=14, CHA=15. (The original role for C was 16, but had the +2 from half-elf race trait.) The second Aetherist was human; I don't remember the his stats, except his C was 1 higher than mine. The other party members vary in race classes between a couple of goblins, a half-orc and a Succubus.

The first session was little combat other than foraging to gain "stuff" - we were escaped prisoners in a city under attack and were keeping our heads down to arm ourselves and just "get out of Dodge". The GM pushed a "fait accompli" to push us up to 5th level for the next game so we'd be able to face what he was wanting to throw at us. Okay, so much for background.

For the second game, our regular playgroup was down to only 3 players, aside from the GM: both Aether Kineticists and the Succubus. This session was mostly roleplaying before the King. The main combat point was the Kineticists squaring off in simultaneous duels against the King's uppity Prime Mininster and Treasurer. I was up against the PM, the other Aetherist against the Treasurer - who was also an Aetherist!

My combat went quick. The PM threw a spell (a magicaster - I don't remember the specific class) which missed. I shoved a marble at him (both of our PC Aetherists had at least one bag of marbles.) With the 5th level Meta feature giving +50% on variable effects added to the 3d6 +3 +CON(4) my result worked out to 25 points, which exactly equaled his HP plus his Constitution, so it was a perfect instant one-shot kill.

My companion Aetherist wasn't so lucky. His opponent missed, but he made an impact. Then his opponent hit, but he was using contact poison on his marbles [paralysis] which put my companion on the ground. Fortunately, Kineticists don't need to move [oh - wait - we screwed up: his hand DOES need to move; our bad!]. Well, the combat still ended with him on the ground, the Treasurer cheated by trying to stomp on his throat - and the King's Paladin instantly beheaded the Treasurer for "fighting without honor", thus my companion still survived and won by default.

A bit of combat ensured later before game was called for the night as we reentered the old Orc fortress under the city that the Thieves' Guild had taken over (which we had started to clear out the previous session.

So, granted we have not really had a lot of nitty-gritty battle to test the class, but I do like the damage progression as the levels rise. The option of longer range (120' Extended) makes the class more pliable than being stuck to only a 'close range' of 30', plus we can "make our own weapon" in our hand in close melee. The restriction to simple weapons and light armor makes sense as they are "spellcasters". The slightly better HD for the class than spellcasters is a plus. I agree with the others that claim that the Skill points per level is too low; I am not aware of any class that is limited to only 2+INT. Perhaps this was intended to offset the "no limits" to the use of our powers as opposed to the spellcasters' limited number of spells they can cast each day; we can keep swinging alongside the fighters every round.