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I haven't had the opportunity to say anything before today, but with all the comparisons I've seen with benders and even Natsu, I think there's one that has been overlooked by many.
To me, one of the greatest kineticists in media is Jean Grey, especially when she's Phoenix. As a bearer of the Phoenix force, she has consistently been shown to be able to telekinetically rearrange things down to the molecular level. This does have mythic implications for the class but that's a whole other topic. Possible aether wild talents in this vein could actually be something similar to make whole or even a disintegrate-style blast to build off the make whole wild talent idea. You already touch on this aspect with being able to gather energy, as an aether specialist is drawing upon threads (filaments, if you will) of Ethereal energy to make this happen. Since the telekineticist is manipulating raw Ethereal forces in the form of these filaments, couldn't it be possible to express that as using those very threads to attack foes at the molecular level, with being reduced to 0 hit points meaning you've been ripped apart and reduced to nothing?
I'm sorry if this takes wild talents in a direction you didn't intend, but the lack of really good aether abilities really frustrated me. A telekineticist, in my opinion, should have more versatility than the other types and that's not what I'm seeing.
Otherwise, I'm digging the class and look forward to the goodness that's sure to come with the kineticist.
Stuff
Wow, this is about as misleading as it could possibly be. You're not "handling the inevitable burn", you're gimping yourself by making it so you just can't take as much burn as a character with a higher con mod. Chart 3 is how the class is meant to be played; Chart 4 looks better HP wise but fails utterly at the nova that burn is designed to allow. 4 can't even do a Quickened Composite Blast before level 19.
Disintegrate... That would be pretty awesome.
StuffWow, this is about as misleading as it could possibly be. You're not "handling the inevitable burn", you're gimping yourself by making it so you just can't take as much burn as a character with a higher con mod. Chart 3 is how the class is meant to be played; Chart 4 looks better HP wise but fails utterly at the nova that burn is designed to allow. 4 can't even do a Quickened Composite Blast before level 19.
Yeah, those results are a bit weird. I'm still concerned that you don't benefit from your primary ability score if you are using feel the burn. Constitution doesn't have much going for it outside of hit points and fort saves, and you can't really benefit from either in the normal sense.
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I will say that Eram the hydrokineticist, who has over 100 hours of playtest in Skull and Shackles and has so far been a major badass, uses the current playtest build of kineticist.I'm beginning to wonder if Mark isn't being all 'sneaky sneaky' and gave us an intentionally underpowered version of the Kineticist to see if we can't buff and break it in ways he didn't expect. Meanwhile, he's keeping the full powered one all to himself and running that one through his spreadsheets and stuff and tweaking it based off the playtest.
It would be a sneaky and yet, brilliant move.
Skull and Shackles is not a great litmus test. Of all the adventure Paths I've run, it's the only one where the PCs seem to regularly ROFLstomp encounters.
I would put maybe Disintegrate as a Fire and Aether combo. Both are sorely lacking for composite blasts and fire seems more the right flavor, the sheer force and heat reducing a foe to nothing but smoking ash :-D
StuffWow, this is about as misleading as it could possibly be. You're not "handling the inevitable burn", you're gimping yourself by making it so you just can't take as much burn as a character with a higher con mod. Chart 3 is how the class is meant to be played; Chart 4 looks better HP wise but fails utterly at the nova that burn is designed to allow. 4 can't even do a Quickened Composite Blast before level 19.
That's absolutely not true. The chart is there to show what happens when you take burn that can't be reduced. You still have the option of reducing burn damage below your limt via Infusion Specialization and a move action or Metakinesis Specialization etc. If you can reduce the Quicken Burn cost, you can use it.
That's the primary goal of the Kineticist, reduce Burn at all costs so you never take Burn in the first place.
For example, by level 11, you have Infusion Specialization 3 times, so you can reduce Form 3 times, or Form twice and Substance once, or Form once and Substance twice, or Substance 3 times. If you take Form 3 times, you can use an ability like Chain Lightning for free without sacrificing a move action.
I believe, per Mark's posts, you can use the Move action Burn reduction (which should probably get an official name as an ability), to reduce the burn from metakinesis, so Quicken should only cost 2 points of burn unless you can't take the chance.
However, that's neither here nor there as the charts show that, at maximum burn points, you are less efficient than if you had less con score. That is all the charts show, is that the more Con you have, the less efficient your burn management.
It is still absolutely true that the more Con you have, the more Burn you can take before reaching your limit, but, at the same time, the more Burn you take, the less efficient your bonus HP is.
For example, take Chart 2 Level 10 and compare it to Chart 4 level 10.
Chart 2: Con 16/Level 10 = 78 hp, burn 6, damage 60; ~76.92% of max hp
Chart 2: Bonus hp 20/Level 10 = 68 hp, burn 3, damage 30; ~44.11% of max hp
In chart 2, if you have 3 burn on you, you have suffered 30 points of non-lethal damage, out of your maximum 60 total and 78 hit points. This means that 3 burn points represents ~38.46% of your maximum hit points.
Conversely, in Chart 4, with 3 burn points, we already know that it represents ~44.11% of your maximum hit points.
This means that, from survival stand point, it is better to have the higher Con because after you've taken those 3 points of burn, you will have a larger supply of hit points to survive with.
Remember, the chart was purely a measure of the efficiency of the burn system in comparison to maximum HP when you are running on maximum burn.
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It strikes me that instead of burn doing 1hp per level, it should instead be one hp per spell level.
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I'm looking at Icewalker, and it's a really cool power. That said, I'm having trouble figuring out when I would ever use it, as at the same level I can turn into an air elemental and fly faster than I could run on ice.
Naturally this is only for water that expands into air, but water's only legitimate choices seem to be air or earth.
So, I finally made a character to playtest for this class.
And I gotta say...
This is really the closest you can get to playing a character from the DBZ universe.
I can see my character charging blasts to reduce burn (akin to Kamehameha or even spirit bomb), yelling "FRIEEEEZAAA!", and using ride the blast to imitate their charged dashes.
Especially with Kinetic Fist.
All we need now is some scouters, green plant people, and monkey tails.
I think aether would be more interesting if it was just balanced around using "ammunition" rather than trying to stretch disbelief to prevent it. Smacking someone in the face with a tanglefoot bag is too much fun to not allow.
So, I finally made a character to playtest for this class.
And I gotta say...
This is really the closest you can get to playing a character from the DBZ universe.
I can see my character charging blasts to reduce burn (akin to Kamehameha or even spirit bomb), yelling "FRIEEEEZAAA!", and using ride the blast to imitate their charged dashes.
Especially with Kinetic Fist.All we need now is some scouters, green plant people, and monkey tails.
Scouters (can be mimic'd in Pathfinder via a lens that is a use-activated Arcane Sight)
Green Men (use it on an elf).
So, I finally made a character to playtest for this class.
And I gotta say...
This is really the closest you can get to playing a character from the DBZ universe.
I can see my character charging blasts to reduce burn (akin to Kamehameha or even spirit bomb), yelling "FRIEEEEZAAA!", and using ride the blast to imitate their charged dashes.
Especially with Kinetic Fist.All we need now is some scouters, green plant people, and monkey tails.
Scouters (can be mimic'd in Pathfinder via a lens that is a use-activated Arcane Sight)
Green Men (use it on an elf).
See... now I HAVE to play in a DBZ campaign. xD
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Here's an attempt at making use of the pyrokineticist's defensive ability:
N Medium humanoid (human)
Init +11; Senses Perception +9
Current Burn: 3
AC 28, touch 21, flat-footed 19 (+4 armour, +2 deflection, +9 Dex, +3 natural)
hp 108 (10d8+60); 30 nonlethal
Fort +14, Ref +19, Will +8
DR 5/adamantine; searing flesh +2d6 (DC 15)
Resist fire 20; Vulnerable cold
OFFENCE
Speed 50 ft.; flame jet (standard)
Melee kinetic fire blade +20/+15 touch (5d6+5 plus 1d6 fire) or kinetic earth blade +20/+15 (5d6+12 plus 1d6 fire) or kinetic magma blade +20/+15 (10d6+17 plus 1d6 fire)
or unarmed strike +18/+13 (1d3+1 plus 1d6 fire)
Ranged fire blast +20 (5d6+5 fire; Ref DC 15 or catch on fire) or earth blast +20 (5d6+13) or magma blast +20 (10d6+18; Ref DC 15 or catch on fire)
Special Attacks burn (DC 14), burning infusion (DC 15), metakinesis (empower, maximize)
STATISTICS
Str 8, Dex 28, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 7
Base Atk +7; CMB +17 (+25 to grapple); CMD 27 (31 vs. grapple)
Feats Agile Manoeuvres, Greater Grapple, Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, Toughness, Weapon Finesse
Skills Escape Artist +22, Knowledge (Nature) +9, Perception +9, Use Magic Device +11
Traits Indomitable Faith, Reactionary
SQ feel the burn +3, infusion specialization (form –1, substance –1), wild talents (expanded element [earth], expanded defence, fire sculpter, flame jet, kinetic blade, kinetic form)
Gear +1 brawling chain shirt, belt of incredible dexterity +4, cloak of resistance +3, cracked pale green prism (attacks), gauntlets of the skilled manoeuvre (grapple), pink rhomboid, polymorphic pouch, potion of mage armour, ring of protection +2, wand of cure light wounds, wand of mage armour, 2200 gp
Thoughts?
So thoughtss on blasts for earth and aether.
For earth they're missing a touch one.. easy enough acid damage. Keeps in line with the earth presentation in the game already
I'm not sure if Earth really needs a touch blast. B/P/S functions very well early on, and when you get to the point where you're going to really want a touch attack to be able to hit things sometimes you'll have Expanded Element. I think Earth synergizes especially well with Air; I'd love to know if there is anything in the game that can Fly and Earth Glide at will. A Geoaerokineticist can do it at level 10.
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I think the problem here comes from the assumption that someone is going to want to Expand to a different element.
That's the other main issue with it...there is exactly ZERO incentive to specialize in a single element (unless you're Fire which at least has a small boost). You're gimping yourself hardcore if you take your own element twice...which seems like a huge flaw.
If anything picking your own element should be a more powerful (though less versatile) option.
Because you can take expanded element on your base Element I think the first expanded element at 7th should be a class feature. That way if someone is mono element they can just up their element. If they want to grab another element they have that option too.
The second expanded element would be better as a wild talent because someone going Mono element wouldn't want to be forced into it.
Alternatively upping your initial element could just be a thing that happens naturally as you level then you require Expanded element to take new elements and up them.
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Claudius
Dwarf Aero-Kineticist 10.
LN Medium humanoid (dwarf)
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +19
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Defense
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AC 27, touch 15, flat-footed 23 (+7 armor, +1 deflection, +4 dexterity, +1 natural, +4 shield)
hp 128 (10d8+80)
Fort +17, Ref +15, Will +13; +2 vs. poison, spells, and spell-like abilities, +1 trait bonus vs. spells, spell-like abilities, and poison
Defensive Abilities defensive training
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Offense
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Speed 20 ft.
Melee +1 silversheen cestus +13/+8 (1d4-1/19-20)
Ranged light crossbow +12 (1d8/19-20/×3)
Special Attacks hatred
Kineticist Spell-Like Abilities (CL 10th; concentration +16)
Air Blast: 5d6+11 slashing damage
Electrict Blast 5d6+3 electricity damage (ranged touch attack)
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Statistics
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Str 7, Dex 18, Con 22, Int 13, Wis 16, Cha 5
Base Atk +7; CMB +6; CMD 20 (24 vs. bull rush, 24 vs. trip)
Feats Iron Will, Point-blank Shot, Precise Shot, Toughness, Weapon Finesse
Wild Talents Air Cushion, Extended Range (form), Kinetic Whip (form), Spark of Life, Wings of Air
Infusion specialization: form (-2).
Traits indomitable faith, reactionary
Skills Appraise +1 (+3 to assess nonmagical metals or gemstones), Fly +17, Perception +19 (+21 to notice unusual stonework), Stealth +17, Survival +3 (+5 to avoid becoming lost); Racial Modifiers +2 Appraise to assess nonmagical metals or gemstones, +2 Perception to notice unusual stonework
Languages Common, Dwarven
Other Gear +3 chain shirt, +3 buckler, +1 silversheen cestus, light crossbow, amulet of natural armor +1, belt of physical might +2 (Dex, Con), bracers of falcon's aim, cloak of resistance +3, clear spindle ioun stone, cracked pale green prism ioun stone (attack), cracked pale green prism ioun stone (saves), ring of protection +1, wayfinder, 1,305 gp
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Special Abilities
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Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Defensive Training +4 Gain a dodge bonus to AC vs monsters of the Giant subtype.
Glory of Old You receive a +1 trait bonus on saving throws against spells, spell-like abilities, and poison.
Greed +2 to Appraise to determine price of nonmagic goods with precious metals or gemstones.
Hatred +1 Gain a racial bonus to attacks vs Goblinoids/Orcs.
Ioun stone (clear spindle) Sustains bearer without food or water.
Point-Blank Shot +1 to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at up to 30 feet.
Precise Shot You don't get -4 to hit when shooting or throwing into melee.
Stonecunning +2 +2 bonus to Perception vs. unusual stonework. Free check within 10 feet.
WayfinderWith a command word, you can use a wayfinder to shine (as the light spell). The wayfinder also acts as a nonmagical (magnetic) compass, granting you a +2 circumstance bonus on Survival checks to avoid becoming lost. All wayfinders include a small indentation designed to hold a single ioun stone.
(If there's any mention of the Hunter class here, ignore it. I used it as a basis for the Kineticist in HeroLab to post it here more quickly. In-game, I used a hand-written character sheet)
My party was a Sorcerer with Arcane bloodline, an Inquisitor, a Bolt-Ace and a Ninja with the Scout archetype.
- Without Burn, Claudius wasn't able to hit anything with his Air Blast. Even without Vanish, the Ninja was able to hit more often with his bow than I was with Air-Blast... I had to suffer 20 points of non-healable damage just to have the accuracy of an unbuffed Ninja! 50 points I actually wanted to hit anything with my Air Blast!
-OTOH, Electric Blast hits more often than not. SR and Energy Resistance are a problem, though. I asked the GM to switch the red dragon for a blue dragon just to see how helpful I'd be... My character was basically useless.
- Flying is fun.
- Out of combat, I might as well not be there... My measly 3 skill points went to Fly, Perception and Stealth. Non-combat scenes were boring as hell and I just couldn't contribute in any interesting way... At best, I could scout ahead... Most of the time, all I did was roll Perception.
- Used Metakinesis (Empower) a few times. No problems there.
- Used Metakinesis (Maximize) twice. Got knocked unconscious twice in 2 combats. Never did it again. (mind you, that's with Con 22, Toughness and taking HP as my favored class bonus).
- Used Enveloping Winds twice. It's okay.
- At will Fly is really cool.
- Evenloping Wnds is okay.
- Out of combat, the class is basically useless, as it has no skill points, no class skills and needs really high Dex and Con (and decent Wis), leaving very few points to invest in Int. The need for lots of HP also basically force it to grab extra hp as their FCB, so no extra skill points.
- Flight is cool, but it didn't really help my party since I couldn't even carry my friends, as I had to dump Str just to compensate for the bad Will save, lack of skills and need to suffer lots of non-healable damage. Poor Pyros don't even get flight. :(
- The accuracy of the class is horrible. Having to lose 25% of my hp just to have the accuracy of a Warrior is an awful deal. If you can't target touch AC, either be prepared to lose a lot of your hp or don't even bother to attack.
- Metakinesis is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too harmful to the character. I used it twice and couldn't do anything useful in combat because even a mook could knock me out with a single hit.
- The delayed progression of Spark of Life really hurts its usefulness.
Sadly, the Kineticist is turning out to be pretty underwhelming... It's mediocre at his best and completely useless at his worst.
Did you use spark of life to any great effect?
A few times... Took it to get some versatility and because it's interesting, but Air Elementals are not exactly impressive. It mostly worked as a flank-buddy for the Ninja and Inquisitor.
When we had to carry someone over a chasm, I had to use the elemental, since with Str 7, I can barely carry my own gear.
To make things worse, for some reason, the Spark of Life version of summoned creature is worse than the level-appropriate Summon Monster; -.-'
Can I ask why you went for double air? A second element might have given you more options.
Because I wanted to try and make an Air-focused Kineticist... The idea for the character was that he was born with a mystical connection to the sky and winds and storms, so he left his dwarven community to live under the open sky.
If I have to go for composite elements, then the class is even weaker than I imagined.
I'm honestly curious to how Mark made his Kineticist a badass. And what are his expectations on how much Burn a character is expected to use every day.
Because you can take expanded element on your base Element I think the first expanded element at 7th should be a class feature. That way if someone is mono element they can just up their element. If they want to grab another element they have that option too.
The second expanded element would be better as a wild talent because someone going Mono element wouldn't want to be forced into it.
Alternatively upping your initial element could just be a thing that happens naturally as you level then you require Expanded element to take new elements and up them.
This is how it was at first; there wasn't a Wild Talent at level 7 and you just got Expanded Element as a class feature. Apparently some in-house testers said people might not necessarily want Expanded Element (to which I say ???) so it got changed to another Wild Talent.
Can I ask why you went for double air? A second element might have given you more options.Because I wanted to try and make an Air-focused Kineticist... The idea for the character was that he was born with a mystical connection to the sky and winds and storms, so he left his dwarven community to live under the open sky.
If I have to go for composite elements, then the class is even weaker than I imagined.
I'm honestly curious to how Mark made his Kineticist a badass. And what are his expectations on how much Burn a character is expected to use every day.
Part of the problem is playtesting in Skull and Shackles I think.
Skull and Shackles is much kinder to alternative builds than many APs, for one thing, due to a combination of the non-standard water/ship focus and the fact that the encounters are on average easier than most APs. Most enemies in the first two books have no DR, no SR, and no Energy Resistance. They also have relatively low armor classes, with many enemies being level 1 Warrior mooks with either no armor, light armor, or bad Medium armor, or creatures with low Dex and no significant Natural Armor.
Can I ask why you went for double air? A second element might have given you more options.Because I wanted to try and make an Air-focused Kineticist... The idea for the character was that he was born with a mystical connection to the sky and winds and storms, so he left his dwarven community to live under the open sky.
If I have to go for composite elements, then the class is even weaker than I imagined.
I'm honestly curious to how Mark made his Kineticist a badass. And what are his expectations on how much Burn a character is expected to use every day.
Part of the problem is playtesting in Skull and Shackles I think.
Skull and Shackles is much kinder to alternative builds than many APs, for one thing, due to a combination of the non-standard water/ship focus and the fact that the encounters are on average easier than most APs. Most enemies in the first two books have no DR, no SR, and no Energy Resistance. They also have relatively low armor classes, with many enemies being level 1 Warrior mooks with either no armor, light armor, or bad Medium armor, or creatures with low Dex and no significant Natural Armor.
That worries me... If that the kind of threat that the Kineticist is compared to, the class isn't going to be very good in combat... I wonder if he didn't at least have some trouble with out-of-combat usefulness... 2~3 skill points per level and that shameful list of class skills really don't leave a lot of room open to be good at anything. Specially if you want to invest in Fly/Swim or other element-appropriate thematic skills.
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Yeah... going to have to agree with the naysayers on that one. Fighting a mob of salty pirate humans isn't going to provide a hydrokineticist with much adversity. I remember a post a while back where someone, in order to prove that the Paladin was still an effective combatant without a bunch of evil enemies to smite, effectively ran their Paladin through Paladin Hell and forced the class to tackle a number of encounters that should have theoretically screwed over the Paladin, such as strong animated objects. The Paladin was able to hold up effectively and not be a waste of a party slot in all of these scenarios; I don't think a Pyrokineticist could run the Fiendish Gauntlet and say the same.
I think I'll try another playtest GAME with the Kineticist again next week... I'll try to use a less min-maxed build and go for composite elements (I'm not sure how to use them, though. Air/Water seems like the best combination). Gonna try a different playtest class on the week after that.
I feel bad for the heavy criticism. Hopefully Mark won't ignore my posts for seeing them as too negative...
Mark has been pretty receptive to all data, though since yours was an actual playtest it should also be a thread in the forum section for playtest data (that way it doesn't get burried in this thread).
Mono-element is something that should be expected to be common to be honest and the class should make that a viable option.
So, probably a silly question, but I assume that the Nonlethal Damage from Burn is not affected by DR, such as that granted by Flesh of Stone?
You're correct. DR only affects damage caused by physical attacks. Burn is not an attack.
** spoiler omitted **...
Great work, broad unbiased analysis.
If the Kineticist is going to be a combat heavy class the designers should make sure they excel at it or introduce some significant non-combat options.
This is just my interpretation, but it seems on the DMG VS Utility Spectrum with Barb as the goalpost for "DMG" and Bard as the goalpost for "Utility" the Kineticist should have less utility than a Bard Archer and less damage than a Barbarian, but more damage than a Bard Archer and more utility than a Barbarian.
Some good questions to ask while finding out where to dig out the Kineticist's niche.
On the utility spectrum how does it compare to Bard?
How much Utility is enough?
Can this be solved with more skill points or are skill points not the issue?
Does the Kineticist need a 1/2 level bonus to a skill? Should that skill change depending on starting elemeent?
Should there be infusions with narrative power?
What kind of narrative power are we looking for?
Should different Elements be just plain better for utility in ALL situations?
On the damage spectrum how does it compare to Barbarian?
How much less damage should a Kineticist be doing compared to a Barbarian?
How much more damage should a kineticist than a Bard Archer with Arcane Strike? (Honestly if someone could find out how much DPR a decent Bard Archer was pulling this may help)
Does Feel the Burn have a strong enough bonus to be worth it?
Should different choices in Element be just plain better at damage in all situations?
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So, I went through the PFS Scenario "The Beacon Below" (Tier 7-11) tonight with my playtest character... my d20s betrayed me at every turn, and even with +14 to hit sometimes (due to bonuses from blessing of fervor and prayer and point blank shot and feel the burn), I only landed 3 telekinetic blasts the entire game.
Telekinetic haul looked like it would have been useful at one point near the end of the scenario, but other PCs in the party got a rather high diplomacy check to convince a NPC to help us "do the thing" a different way instead. I kinda felt useless.
One other player at the table has been looking over kineticist, and posed a question that I don't know the answer to. For Force Ward (Aether Defense) -
"By accepting 1 point of burn, you can increase the strength of your force ward by a number of temporary hit points equal to half your kineticist level until the next time you recover burn; this increase stacks with multiple uses."
Is there a cap to this, or could a character theoretically just keep boosting their Force Ward hp total for the day? I was under the impression that you could only do it once, but I was pointed out that last bit which threw it into more of an open question again.
I'll post the stats for my character in a bit... see if maybe I just built it wrong or something...
This is just my interpretation, but it seems on the DMG VS Utility Spectrum with Barb as the goalpost for "DMG" and Bard as the goalpost for "Utility" the Kineticist should have less utility than a Bard Archer and less damage than a Barbarian, but more damage than a Bard Archer and more utility than a Barbarian.
Some good questions to ask while finding out where to dig out the Kineticist's niche.
On the utility spectrum how does it compare to Bard?
How much Utility is enough?
Can this be solved with more skill points or are skill points not the issue?
Does the Kineticist need a 1/2 level bonus to a skill? Should that skill change depending on starting elemeent?
Should there be infusions with narrative power?
What kind of narrative power are we looking for?
Should different Elements be just plain better for utility in ALL situations?On the damage spectrum how does it compare to Barbarian?
How much less damage should a Kineticist be doing compared to a Barbarian?
How much more damage should a kineticist than a Bard Archer with Arcane Strike? (Honestly if someone could find out how much DPR a decent Bard Archer was pulling this may help)
Does Feel the Burn have a strong enough bonus to be worth it?
Should different choices in Element be just plain better at damage in all situations?
A Arcane Archer Build could make a good benchmark in determining the effectiveness of the Kineticist.
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So, my idea was to make him useful in combat while also having some utility to help a party outside of fighting... even if more of my attack rolls had hit, though, the spear-chucker barbarian in the party was landing ~70 damage a round, and the bloodrager was doing ~25 a hit (and with blessing of fervor being up during the longer/harder battles, they got to swing a lot while my character didn't have much usefulness...)
Jah-ah-Koh Level 7 Kineticist
(items in italics are things that I did not use even once during his playtest, that I might consider swapping out or, if need be, paying pfs prestige for "retraining").
(no I don't use HeroLab, so apologies if the formatting feels "off" to you...)
Jah-ah-Koh
Level 7 Male Human Kineticist
Str 8 Dex 16 Con 21 Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 10
(Human: +2 Con, Level 4: +1 Con)
Favored Class: Kineticist
HP: 87
Fort: 10
Ref: 8
Will: 3
BAB: +5
CMB: +4
CMD: +17
AC: 19
Touch: 13
Flat: 16
Skills:
Acrobatics, 1 rank (5)
Disable Device, 1 rank (5)
Heal, 1 rank (5)
Intimidate, 1 rank (4)
Knowledge Engineering, 1 rank (6)
Linguistics, 1 rank (6)
Perception, 7 ranks (11)
Sleight of Hand, 3 ranks (9)
Stealth, 5 ranks (11)
Use Magic Device, 7 ranks (10)
Feats:
Human - Hermean Blood (Acrobatics, Disable Device)
1st - Point Blank Shot
3rd - Precise Shot
5th - Deadly Aim
7th - Toughness
Trait - Reactionary (+2 initiative)
Trait - Ancient Historian (Scarab Seekers Faction, Linguistics becomes class skill, gain one ancient language)
Human alternative racial trait: Heart of the Slums (+2 Stealth and Sleight of Hand checks, +4 Survival checks in urban and underground environments, roll twice for saves vs disease).
Gear of note:
Elven Chainmail Armor +1 (6,150gp)
Silver Cestus (25gp)
Cold Iron Dagger (4gp)
Snapleaf (2 prestige)
Potion of Gaseous Form (2 prestige)
Handy Haversack (2,000gp)
Wayfinder (250gp)
Clear Spindle (Normal) Ioun Stone (slotted) (4,000gp)
Ioun Torch (75gp)
Deep Red Sphere (Normal) Ioun Stone (+2 Dex) (8,000gp)
Belt of Mighty Constitution +2 (+2 Con) (4,000gp)
Elemental Focus: Aether
Telekinetic Blast: 4d6+8 (P or S or B)
Force Ward: 7 temporary hp, 1 Burn for +3
Burn: Max 2 Burn per round, max Burn 7/day
Feel the Burn: Max +2 Attack/Damage to Blast
Infusion Specialization: Form -1, Substance -0
Metakinesis (Empower - 1 Burn)
Wild Talents:
1 - Extended Range
1 - Kinetic Healer
1 - Light Touch
6 - Foe Throw
6 - Telekinetic Haul
Backstory overview:
Orphaned child of a Hermean "ambassador" and a potential Hermean recruit, he started to manifest strange powers - violent outbursts of energy...but, being alone, and not understanding what a medallion in the shape of a gold dragon's head he was found with means, he lived most of his young life in the slums, taking whatever he can to survive, relying on his "gift" to create distractions and cause damage to give him enough of a window to take what he needs for food and clothing.
Then, one day, he was found by Kreighton Shaine of the Pathfinder Society, who wanted to learn from Jah just as much as he wanted to teach the boy control, and patience. Five years later, Jah-ah-Koh is now a Pathfinder Field Agent going on missions for the Society and the Scarab Sages, with whom he hopes to unlock more of the mysteries behind his occult powers.
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So, yea, there he is. I have another chance to play him on Monday evening in another 7-11, but I'm starting to have second thoughts since he felt so useless earlier today...any advice would be welcome. Thanks!
Edit: Also of note, I only took 1 point of burn during the whole scenario - that was when I first put up Force Ward at the start of the dungeon crawl part of the scenario. Every time I needed to use things that needed burn, the combination of Form Infusion specialization and making a move action to reduce Burn by 1 reduced it to 0.
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Playtest - KineticistThanks Lemmy! So, are you saying that the damage comparisons posted earlier and saying that he is totally useless with low skill points is all true?
I suppose... I don't recall the posted damage comparison, but it certainly didn't feel like a lot of damage in my playtest game. And the lack of skills really hurts the class...
In combat, when the Kineticist gets to do his thing... He is... passable. About as deadly as a (Scout) Rogue with bow. Except he has to take non-healable damage to compensate for his lack of magical weapon.
Without suffering that damage, the non-touch blasts might as well not exist. You need a 10+ just to hit an CR-appropriate enemy. Once. Provoking AoO. From only 30ft away. With no means to bypass DR.
Out of combat, he just didn't do anything fun or useful (other than roll Perception). He rolled Perception very often, because, hey, it's Perception. But once the party needed to be proactive, the Kineticist's only real option was to step aside and let someone else deal with the situation.
This class desperately needs more skill points and a much, much better list of class skills. At very least, Kn(Nature), Kn(Planes) and Acrobatics should be class skills to all Kineticists. Honestly, rather than severely limiting their class skills and then only giving a few of them based on element, Kineticists should just have all element-specific skills as class skill, then get a scaling bonus to a the appropriate elemental skill (Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, Swim)
Burn doesn't work very well. The damage is too high, and even with high Con, Toughness and FCB, the Kineticist still loses half his hp just to fuel his one and only class feature: blasting stuff. Flavorful class feature, but ,mechanically speaking, not a good one.
Metakinesis deals craploads of (non-healable) damage to you. It's actually kinda amazing that a Con-based class effectively has so few hit points.
I think Mark underestimated the cost of suffering non-healable hp drain. The cost is too high and the benefits are often not to par. Many abilities and talents either cost too much Burn or come too late to make a difference (and I don't mean it in the "I never play at these levels" way, I mean it as "Many of them are just not very good for the levels that they come online" way) .
Anything that costs 3 or more Burn damage is basically useless, because if you do use it, you'll be knocked unconscious by a mook.
Maybe Mark is being conservative, since this is his first official Pathfinder class and he doesn't want to create an overpowered mess, but as it's, the Kineticist is a very underpowered class with a few nice tricks, none of them nice enough to compensate the severe limitation of the class.
- Skill points and list of class skills are too limited. The class is about as useful as Fighters out of combat.
- Burn is extremely harmful and just not worth it most the time. Many players will completely avoid using one of the Kineticist's main class features. Overall, a flavorful but poorly executed mechanic.
- Accuracy is terrible! If you want to hit the broad side of a mountain, you better be ready to lose (at least) a quarter of your hp.
- Damage is meh. Because only touch blasts are useful at mid levels (see my point about accuracy), your damage is basically a weaker version of Sneak Attack... If you want to deal more than 20.5 damage per turn, then you better be ready to suffer loads of (non-healable) damage at least once a day.
- Depending on element, your mobility is either great or "meh".
- AC is nothing to write home about... It can be pretty good if you have a buckler. Most likely, it's mediocre.
- Range sucks. You basically need a Wild Talent-tax just to hit people from more than 30ft. Why a ranged class has such a short range increment is beyond me. Basic blast range should be 60ft.
The Kineticist needs a lot o buffs if he doesn't want to be relegated to "cool class wasted on underpowered mechanics". Sadly, I can honestly say that I see the playtest version of the Kineticist as one of the weakest classes in the game.
I'm kinda disappointed with class' abilities right now... It seems like it suffers half a dozen drawbacks for every cool thing it can do.
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EDIT: BTW, I'm not seeing where it says that Feel The Burn only needs to be activated once per day. I only know that's the case because Mark mentioned it in this thread