General Discussion: Kineticist


Rules Discussion

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Liberty's Edge

Dragon78 wrote:
Does anyone know if we will get a second version of the class for the playtest like most of the other playtest have had?

We have been told there will not be.


Starfinder Charter Superscriber
CanisDirus wrote:

Apparently there's been over 200 posts since last I looked in, and for some reason when I use the search function it's not showing me posts I know are (were?) there before, so apologies if any of these have been answered in the interim:

Do we know if:

1 - Can Metamagic feats affect blasts/talents? (Force Blast + Toppling Spell would be a nice combo)

2 - Can Telekinetic Haul be used on a willing creature (other than self) as well as an object? If not, can it be used on an object that a creature is standing on top of?

3 - Would racial alternative traits that affect elemental/ish bloodline powers/spells also apply to Wild Talents and Blasts? For example:

Advanced Race Guide wrote:


Some dwarves’ affinity for the earth grants them greater powers. Dwarves with this racial trait are treated as one level higher when casting spells with the earth descriptor or using granted powers of the Earth domain, the bloodline powers of the earth elemental bloodline, and revelations of the oracle’s stone mystery. This ability does not give them early access to level-based powers; it only affects the powers they could use without this ability. This racial trait replaces stonecunning.

(emphasis mine)

Thanks!

1) Only some of them. The kineticist's blasts (and most of the wild talents) are spell-like abilities, and metamagic feats affect only spells. And kineticists already get the ability to accept burn to empower, maximize, quicken, and double-cast their blasts as they go up in level.

2. The Telekinetic Haul talent never says anything about moving creatures. I would say no.

3. The blasts and infusions don't have the required descriptor. I would house-rule it to apply, but RAW says no.


So no 2.0 version of classes for playtest this time, darn:(

Grand Lodge

First time poster, too buy to read through every post..... just noting my observations, sorry if it's a repeat.

PFS legal build, runthrough Murder's Mark

1. having no knowledges, 2 points per level, and only UMD and profession as trained only skills, it seems that they are quite useless out of combat. even a fighter has a knowledge skill. I would suggest knowledge PLANES since their power origins are linked to them in addition to their element skill.

2. giving the recipient of kinetic healing only 1 burn seems a little cheap to me. at low levels the healing capacity far outstrips a base cleric, bard or oracle. I suggest either a 2pt burn or more on others, or a cumulative burn of some kind on the kineticist.

3. definitely need magic items that enhance their attacks and abilities without having to sacrifice necessary slots for "standard" items. for dealing with things like DR, SR...

FYI, relative new to PF and PFS ( started in April ), but fast learner and 20yrs+ with D&D since basic boxed set.

Liberty's Edge

A real shame, a 2.0 version might not have had CON Burn in order to be effective.
Oh I'm sorry "1 nonlethal damage per hit die that cannot be healed by any means". Truly the difference between that and losing 2 CON is staggering.

I'm honestly not that opposed to the idea but rather than the complicated nonlethal damage thing i would have had it be just CON loss as that is far simpler to understand and i would have had it as an option to fuel abilities that make you far more powerful than your peers rather than for minor benefits you often feel like you have to use to do well.
Doing unhealable damage to yourself should be the kind of thing you do to use abilities like planar binding or wail of the banshee lite, not "metablasts".


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Dragon78 wrote:
Does anyone know if we will get a second version of the class for the playtest like most of the other playtest have had?

I'm hoping we do.

Designer

mplindustries wrote:
Kahb00m wrote:
I really want to run a Terra/Geo/etc, but touch attacks just seem like the better method at the moment.

While I expected the same to be true, in my own analysis (when I compared blasting to a kineticist archer and gunman), the numbers came out nearly identically, and in fact, the physical blasts come out ahead now that Mark confirmed weapon focus and improved critical can apply.

The issue with touch attacks is that they are practically auto hits. They do so much less damage, though, that their near perfect accuracy doesn't compensate. Touch attacks get a bad rap because of gunslingers, but they are scary because they get to cheat. They get their full attack stat to damage (which archers do not get, they use Strength for damage), and they can leverage their nearly automatic hits by trading accuracy for damage (deadly aim, for example, which explicitly breaks its own rules for firearms, and rapid shot, which most touch attacks don't qualify for).

Without those options, the damage is so much lower on the touch blasts that it just doesn't matter that they auto hit. At level 11, you're doing 1.5(6d6+6+Con) vs. 1.5(6d6+.5Con). With, say, +7 con, which I think is fair to assume by then, the physical blast has +10 damage (empowered makes that 15) on the energy blast, which is a lot to dpr. Plus, when low AC targets rear their heads, the physical blaster can use deadly aim for more oomph.

Honestly, I think fire is the weakest because they can only touch with weak damage and are always subject to energy and spell resistance (and energy resists tend to be much higher than dr), while Earth actually has the ability to overcome all material dr--they only suffer against alignment, x/- and epic dr.

So, yeah, though I think the kineticist's damage is not well balanced against other striker types, the two kinds of blasts available are remarkably well balanced against each other.

As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

Liberty's Edge

Emperor Point wrote:

A real shame, a 2.0 version might not have had CON Burn in order to be effective.

Oh I'm sorry "1 nonlethal damage per hit die that cannot be healed by any means". Truly the difference between that and losing 2 CON is staggering.

...I feel like

* no penalties to Fort save
* the ability to actually take Con damage up to the full amount
and most importantly
* IT CAN'T KILL YOU

are noteworthy and nontrivial distinctions.

Like or dislike the mechanic, overblown hyperbole is not particularly helpful.


Mark Seifter wrote:

As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

One thing I would note is to be careful about damage increases bellow say 6th level. When I threw a 4th level kineticist npc (CR 3) against a 2nd level party, its damage was the most of anything they'd seen up to that point (playing in the iron gods adventure path). As you get up there, other damage dealers (fighters in particular) start to hit their stride as things like weapon training and iterative attacks, two weapon fighting, and rapid shot kick in.

The damage capacity of most characters moves in fits and starts, where as the basic blast damage scales very evenly. If you push up that damage much at low levels, it might be too much.

Liberty's Edge

Really? In Iron Gods i found Hetuath to be pretty darn damaging and i imagine its quite something to top a full attack from that dude at level 4. Can you provide more specific damage numbers? Sounds like an exciting example of Kineticists in play.


If my pyrokineticist has fire blast, picks up expanded element (air) and get the air blast, do I need Weapon Focus for each blast to benefit from Weapon Focus when using both in different situations or does Weapon Focus (kinetic blast) work for both? How about Kinetic Blade? Is that a different weapon focus feat??


Kolokotroni wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:

As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

One thing I would note is to be careful about damage increases bellow say 6th level. When I threw a 4th level kineticist npc (CR 3) against a 2nd level party, its damage was the most of anything they'd seen up to that point (playing in the iron gods adventure path). As you get up there, other damage dealers (fighters in particular) start to hit their stride as things like weapon training and iterative attacks, two weapon fighting, and rapid shot kick in.

The damage capacity of most characters moves in fits and starts, where as the basic blast damage scales very evenly. If you push up that damage much at low levels, it might be too much.

That's why I feel a boost of some sort at each "new attack iterative" mark would be warranted. Except that any increase in damage for the ranged attacks is multiplied by up to three for the Melee version, because they have iteratives. And then it is multiplied by about 5 times more than that for the NOVA attack. So in essence, it feels as though to increase the base damage to an acceptable level, by any means at all, you only increase the disparity between melee and ranged and then royally unbalance the ability to deal massive damage on one turn.

So many ways to correct that, ranging from making composite (at lvl 8 then a x3 composite at lvl 15) blasts not apply to Iterative attacks, and giving an iterative Ranged option (so I can deal 3 hits of x at range, 3 hits of x at melee with attacks of opportunity and more feats but in a more dangerous position, or 1 big hit of 3x but I'm not applying substance effects 3 times so I don't have the status effect support of the other two. Or I can deal x to an area with a cone form infusion or such.) to simply having all melee options work like Kinetic fist and deal a damage cap based off but not the same as your regular shot (which then can be made survivably powerful by itself, survivably powerful in melee, and NOVA when using Composites, but doesn't offer iterative support for ranged).

``````````````````````

Ideally, a Kineticist should be able to choose many different attack forms (though perhaps Archetypes or features and talents we haven't yet seen with account for this) and still be acceptably powerful. I feel like we should be moving away from comparisons to Archers and Fighters, and stick to full casting classes for comparison.

Take a Sorcerer, give me access to the ability to emulate all spells from the sorcerer/wizard list at 1 spell level lower than they can use them, but only ones which correspond to my element, for free all day. Using Burn I should be able to access effects that would be up to 1 spell level HIGHER than a sorcerer of the same level, still related only to my elements. Now I'm just a little behind the caster, specialized pretty sharply to my own style, and able to get a bit ahead if I hurt myself to do it. That's where I'd see optimum balance eventually being. After all, the ability to use these spells constantly... That's pretty much standard for any sorc/wiz I've ever built. They usually start with 18 in their stat, and get every book/wish/item/potion benefit they can to give themselves a flat dumb number of spells per day anyways. I've only ever seen a caster run out of spells at low level, once they have access to 3rd level spells or so they stop caring about how many uses per day they have of 1st level. And aren't overly concerned about 2nd level either. Generally only the most recent spells learned, if even then, are in question. So the ability to cast all day? Not so different after all.

Designer

Kolokotroni wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:

As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

One thing I would note is to be careful about damage increases bellow say 6th level. When I threw a 4th level kineticist npc (CR 3) against a 2nd level party, its damage was the most of anything they'd seen up to that point (playing in the iron gods adventure path). As you get up there, other damage dealers (fighters in particular) start to hit their stride as things like weapon training and iterative attacks, two weapon fighting, and rapid shot kick in.

The damage capacity of most characters moves in fits and starts, where as the basic blast damage scales very evenly. If you push up that damage much at low levels, it might be too much.

Good eye. I was indeed considering something that would increase damage at higher levels while leaving low-levels pretty much as-is. Over the past few weeks, I have participated in 4 PFS scenarios with an average of two kineticists in each, for a total of 8 kineticist sessions of additional data at low levels, and they have continued to indicate that kineticist damage and accuracy are just fine at those levels.


Kolokotroni wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:

As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

One thing I would note is to be careful about damage increases bellow say 6th level. When I threw a 4th level kineticist npc (CR 3) against a 2nd level party, its damage was the most of anything they'd seen up to that point (playing in the iron gods adventure path). As you get up there, other damage dealers (fighters in particular) start to hit their stride as things like weapon training and iterative attacks, two weapon fighting, and rapid shot kick in.

The damage capacity of most characters moves in fits and starts, where as the basic blast damage scales very evenly. If you push up that damage much at low levels, it might be too much.

2d6+6 should be the max for Kineticist that level? At that point a 2 handed barb is doing 2d6+9 (1.5 str)+6 (power attack).


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Mark Seifter wrote:
As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

You're overlooking a serious problem here, though, Mark...

Increasing damage doesn't really help if the accuracy is too low. Rogues and Sneak Attack prove that. Besides, missing your single attack for the round is not fun. I'd much rather hit more often and deal less damage than spend 2 rounds achieving nothing and then deal explosive damage on the 3rd round (even more so considering that not only those 2 first rounds are very frustrating, but also the 3rd one might not even be necessary, as you allies will most likely have killed the enemy by then).

If things stay as they are, non-touch blasts will be non-options, only useful against weak enemies (in which case, they don't need the extra damage either) or enemies with particularly low AC (which really shouldn't be used as the baseline for determining the ideal accuracy of a combat-focused class).

How about giving Kineticists an scaling bonus to attack rolls that doesn't affect touch attacks? Or maybe just raise their BAB. The difference in accuracy will be negligible for touch attacks but extremely helpful for non-touch blasts (touch ACs tend to be really, really low... It doesn't matter if you have a +18 or a +2-when the AC you're going for is a 14... Or even a 20).

At very low levels (1~5), accuracy might not be much of a problem... But the gap grows bigger and bigger as the levels go by.

Scarab Sages

Lemmy wrote:
How about giving Kineticists an scaling bonus to attack rolls that doesn't affect touch attacks? Or maybe just raise their BAB. The difference in accuracy will be negligible for touch attacks but extremely helpful for non-touch blasts (touch ACs tend to be really, really low... It doesn't matter if you have a +18 or a +2-when the AC you're going for is a 14... Or even a 20).

Bonuses to accuracy have little to no affect on mid-level touch attacks as is. An optimized kineticist already hits on a 2+ with touch attacks, including iteratives with kinetic blade. Raising BAB pushes the kineticist into a melee role instead of a blaster roll as interatives become more effective.


Artanthos wrote:
Lemmy wrote:
How about giving Kineticists an scaling bonus to attack rolls that doesn't affect touch attacks? Or maybe just raise their BAB. The difference in accuracy will be negligible for touch attacks but extremely helpful for non-touch blasts (touch ACs tend to be really, really low... It doesn't matter if you have a +18 or a +2-when the AC you're going for is a 14... Or even a 20).
Bonuses to accuracy have little to no affect on mid-level touch attacks as is. An optimized kineticist already hits on a 2+ with touch attacks, including iteratives with kinetic blade.

That's my point. Well... One of the points I was trying to make.

Kinetic Blade should probably not be a touch attack, BTW. Not only hitting touch AC with multiple attacks all the times is not really something the game is designed to deal with, but it's also just asking for the class to be nerfed as soon as GMs inevitably complain about it.


Mark Seifter wrote:
As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

And I think that's brilliant, because you did a really great job keeping the physical and energy blasts equal. But, I would say that a damage increase really is in order.

Not early on--before 6th, they are very strong blasters, but right in the 6th-8th zone, when most are picking up extra attacks, they start to slip, and it's full on nose dive in the 11th to 14th area before free composite blasts kick in.

It is disappointing to me that melee is practical required to keep up with the damage of similar classes. You need something else. One or more of the following, perhaps:

1) A kinetic whip style ranged power, where you can take iteratives at short range (30', since it'd be a form, meaning extreme range already wouldn't work).

2) Cheaper (burnwise) composite blasts

3) Cheaper metakinesis

4) More base damage without creating an ugly stepped pattern (1d6 per two levels is nice and clean). Maybe adding more con to damage at some point? Jumping to d8s and then 10s later on? You need some way to keep that power out of the hands of kinetic whip, though. That does good damage already. You probably ultimately need a ranged kinetic whip option or raise the damage and take itetatives or at least vital strike away from melee.

5) Items and feats would be great, but will just feel like taxes if that's how they get their real damage potential unlocked.

6) Oh, raise the damage buff from feel the burn (but leave the accuracy where it is.

7) Let me have water armor and a water shield at the same time! Ok, that's untelated, but I definitely want that.

Scarab Sages

Optimizing for accuracy, I found only non-touch iteratives had a significant miss chance at 10th level.

Designer

Artanthos wrote:
Lemmy wrote:
How about giving Kineticists an scaling bonus to attack rolls that doesn't affect touch attacks? Or maybe just raise their BAB. The difference in accuracy will be negligible for touch attacks but extremely helpful for non-touch blasts (touch ACs tend to be really, really low... It doesn't matter if you have a +18 or a +2-when the AC you're going for is a 14... Or even a 20).
Bonuses to accuracy have little to no affect on mid-level touch attacks as is. An optimized kineticist already hits on a 2+ with touch attacks, including iteratives with kinetic blade.

Indeed. Basically, the fact that the non-touch attacks may need a 6-8 on the d20 to hit, rather than a 2, is a part of the balance factor. The rogue comparison is off for two reasons:

1) Rogue has even more accuracy issues than the kineticist, with no native way to increase accuracy

2) The rogue is designed to need to hit with iteratives to do the right amount of damage. The blasting kineticist is designed to rely on attacks that are all at full accuracy (as a side note, accuracy boosts would help the melee kineticist the most, since right now, if they want to do a composite, they must hit full AC, meaning the iteratives are very likely to miss, as intended).


Were was it said that there wouldn't be any 2.0 version for the playtest?

Designer

mplindustries wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

And I think that's brilliant, because you did a really great job keeping the physical and energy blasts equal. But, I would say that a damage increase really is in order.

Not early on--before 6th, they are very strong blasters, but right in the 6th-8th zone, when most are picking up extra attacks, they start to slip, and it's full on nose dive in the 11th to 14th area before free composite blasts kick in.

It is disappointing to me that melee is practical required to keep up with the damage of similar classes. You need something else. One or more of the following, perhaps:

1) A kinetic whip style ranged power, where you can take iteratives at short range (30', since it'd be a form, meaning extreme range already wouldn't work).

2) Cheaper (burnwise) composite blasts

3) Cheaper metakinesis

4) More base damage without creating an ugly stepped pattern (1d6 per two levels is nice and clean). Maybe adding more con to damage at some point? Jumping to d8s and then 10s later on? You need some way to keep that power out of the hands of kinetic whip, though. That does good damage already. You probably ultimately need a ranged kinetic whip option or raise the damage and take itetatives or at least vital strike away from melee.

5) Items and feats would be great, but will just feel like taxes if that's how they get their real damage potential unlocked.

6) Oh, raise the damage buff from feel the burn (but leave the accuracy where it is.

7) Let me have water armor and a water shield at the same time! Ok, that's untelated, but I definitely want that.

I am considering a few of the things on that list, indeed.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
1) Rogue has even more accuracy issues than the kineticist, with no native way to increase accuracy

But Rogues can use magical weapons. Kineticists don't have that option... At least not in this playtest. Feel The Burn merely compensates for the lack of masterwork/enhancement bonuses to accuracy.

Mark Seifter wrote:
2) The rogue is designed to need to hit with iteratives to do the right amount of damage. The blasting kineticist is designed to rely on attacks that are all at full accuracy (as a side note, accuracy boosts would help the melee kineticist the most, since right now, if they want to do a composite, they must hit full AC, meaning the iteratives are very likely to miss, as intended).

A Rogue with a magic weapon has the same accuracy as a Kineticist using a non-touch blast (and using Feel the Burn to lose about 25% of his health in non-healable damage).

So... The Kineticist is basically a Scout Rogue with no iterative attacks. Who burns hp everyday in order to be able to wield a magic weapon.

Is there any reason not to give this class a full BAB and d10 HD? It would barely affect touch blasts and give non-touch ones an actual chance to hit CR-appropriate enemies past level 6. The increase in hp would also really help (I still think Burn is not a good mechanic, but if it has to stay, Kineticist could definitely use some a hp boost).


Lemmy wrote:
Is there any reason not to give this class a full BAB and d10 HD? It would barely affect touch blasts and give non-touch ones an actual chance to hit CR-appropriate enemies past level 6. The increase in hp would also really help (I still think Burn is not a good mechanic, but if it has to stay, Kineticist could definitely use some a hp boost).

There's been multiple good reasons, per turn. Melee right now functions well above ranged in terms of damage. Adding in another iterative would take it from doing up to three times your ranged damage, to doing up to four times your ranged damage. When you add in that a NOVA attack does around five times your ranged damage... This means that from sniping to getting in your opponents face would do around 20 times the damage, if you landed all four hits. While I agree that a better chance to hit would be nice (and so would extra HP) I think this would be decidedly a poor decision when Kinetic Whip functions and interacts with Composite Blast and Meta as it does now. Perhaps if Composite Blast and Meta and even maybe substance infusions only affected the FIRST hit of a melee combo, this wouldn't be so horrible a difference. As it stands, affecting every-single-hit with powers balanced to be used on one attack feels like it can only possibly get worse when you add more hits per round. Which would result in having to lower your normal blast attack to make melee balanced. Which would make it ENTIRELY useless to try to go ranged in this class, instead of only mostly useless.

I could see Toughness as a bonus feat to the class, or even as a Take-As-Many-As-You-Want talent for +1 HP/HD or so.
Making FtB auto on and giving you that same value of burn spent on your Defense as a class gift might help too, increasing your AC, to Hit, and DMG based on level without costing you HP to do so. Because right now, almost everyone seems to be doing that first thing anyways, and it's causing a lot of people to be annoyed that they start the day at half health to get the armor and a magic weapon that everyone else was given by the DM two dungeons ago as loot.
This also give you + up to 6 burns and burns worth of HP to use during the day, which makes for far less restriction on the number of times you can burn. Which in turn makes me feel slightly less bad about using composite blast without dropping in 2 metas and a melee form. Because now I can do decent damage enough times a day to not feel so useless, and still have a nova left in me if I'm only slightly cautious instead of downright stingy with my powers.


Lemmy wrote:
Increasing damage doesn't really help if the accuracy is too low. Rogues and Sneak Attack prove that. Besides, missing your single attack for the round is not fun.

Except rogues have to hit with their 2nd and 3rd attacks, too. I worked out the numbers. Without using deadly aim (which lowered my dpr), but with full feel the burn and weapon focus) a physical blast hits roughly 80% of the time against equal cr opponents. That's really pretty damn good, and a big reason the touch attacks ade actually a little bit weaker by dpr.

Lemmy wrote:
I'd much rather hit more often and deal less damage than spend 2 rounds achieving nothing and then deal explosive damage on the 3rd round (even more so considering that not only those 2 first rounds are very frustrating, but also the 3rd one might not even be necessary, as you allies will most likely have killed the enemy by then).

But you are equally likely to do that amazing thing on round one and invalidate the need for 2 and 3. Clearly one big hit or miss is not for you, but I think the niche has appeal and deserves more support. 50 damage half of the time contributes just as much as 25 damage all of the time.

Lemmy wrote:
How about giving Kineticists an scaling bonus to attack rolls that doesn't affect touch attacks? Or maybe just raise their BAB. The difference in accuracy will be negligible for touch attacks but extremely helpful for non-touch blasts (touch ACs tend to be really, really low... It doesn't matter if you have a +18 or a +2-when the AC you're going for is a 14... Or even a 20).

Full BAB just reinforces that melee is the way to go. I think kinetic blade/whip are holding back the potential fixes the class needs. They probably have to be reworked before damage is added.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'd like to see some sort of split blast form infusion that lets you divide up your damage between multiple simultaneous blasts like scorching ray, or perhaps dealing slightly more since you'd be taking burn (perhaps dividing up into Xd6+1+Con per ray for physical attacks, and Xd6+1/2 Con per ray for energy), where you can choose to do a single attack at 3rd that does 2d6+modifiers, or two attacks that each deal 1d6+modifiers? Being able to pick between a barrage or a single massive attack sounds like fun.

Another thing I'd like is a form infusion that lets you shape your blast into some sort of mobile sphere or similar pattern, like flaming sphere, aqueous orb, ball lightning, or possibly aggressive thundercloud if you leave the exact shape up to the player. Something smaller than the Cloud form infusion, but letting you move it around.

Grand Lodge

Without me having to read all 1974 posts, can someone tell me if it has been clarified what "nearby un-attended object" means regarding the Telekineticist blast ability? Is it in the same square? Adjacent square? Any square within range of his blast ability? From what square do you determine line of effect? Can a Teleknieticist pull a piece of ammunition as a free action, drop it as another free action and then use his blast ability on it as it is now an unattended object?


Mark Seifter wrote:

1) Rogue has even more accuracy issues than the kineticist, with no native way to increase accuracy

2) The rogue is designed to need to hit with iteratives to do the right amount of damage. The blasting kineticist is designed to rely on attacks that are all at full accuracy (as a side note, accuracy boosts would help the melee kineticist the most, since right now, if they want to do a composite, they must hit full AC, meaning the iteratives are very likely to miss, as intended).

By saying that the Rogue has even more accuracy issues than the kineticist, does that mean it is safe to assume that the kineticist will get an enhancement bonus item? Because right now without any gear the Kineticist's accuracy is on par with the rogue when the kineticist has Feel The Burn and the rogue has a magical weapon. Unless I am mistaken at least.


I would personally as a DM rule that you pull any object within your range to yourself, then propel it from your square to the target. It's just more rules compatible with line of sight to handle it that way. As for using objects on your person, my TK keeps a stack of shuriken, a small bag of 5 lb balls of iron, and a few thin steel spikes. That's slashing/bludgeoning/piercing damage on the go. Drop the bag and start flinging things from it.

Designer

Matrix Dragon wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:

1) Rogue has even more accuracy issues than the kineticist, with no native way to increase accuracy

2) The rogue is designed to need to hit with iteratives to do the right amount of damage. The blasting kineticist is designed to rely on attacks that are all at full accuracy (as a side note, accuracy boosts would help the melee kineticist the most, since right now, if they want to do a composite, they must hit full AC, meaning the iteratives are very likely to miss, as intended).

By saying that the Rogue has even more accurazy issues than the kineticist, does that mean it is safe to assume that the kineticist will get an enhancement bonus item? Because right now without any gear the Kineticist's accuracy is on par with the rougue.

The rogue also often has to TWF to keep up, plus it has to spend money on the weapons that the kineticist could spend on stat increases or other items that aid accuracy. So I would say that the playtest kineticist is slightly more accurate than the rogue. That said, #2, as mentioned by mlp, is the main point—the level 15 rogue's accuracy on the first attack would not be a problem if the poor rogue wasn't aiming to hit with iteratives as well.


Dang, you saw my post before I fixed my terrible typos ;)


Insain Dragoon wrote:
Kolokotroni wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:

As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

One thing I would note is to be careful about damage increases bellow say 6th level. When I threw a 4th level kineticist npc (CR 3) against a 2nd level party, its damage was the most of anything they'd seen up to that point (playing in the iron gods adventure path). As you get up there, other damage dealers (fighters in particular) start to hit their stride as things like weapon training and iterative attacks, two weapon fighting, and rapid shot kick in.

The damage capacity of most characters moves in fits and starts, where as the basic blast damage scales very evenly. If you push up that damage much at low levels, it might be too much.

2d6+6 should be the max for Kineticist that level? At that point a 2 handed barb is doing 2d6+9 (1.5 str)+6 (power attack).

A 2handed raging barbarian is more or less the best damage dealing low level character. So I dont exactly take that as my standard benchmark for damage.

And it was an aether kineticist 2d6+2+con(in this case 4) + 1 for feel the burn + 1 for point blank shot. A total of 2d6+8. Against 2nd level characters thats a lot of damage, and his con certainly could have been higher. Could a raging barbarian do more? Ofcourse, but generally, most adventures aren't filled to the brim with raging barbarian enemies.

Emperor Point wrote:
Really? In Iron Gods i found Hetuath to be pretty darn damaging and i imagine its quite something to top a full attack from that dude at level 4. Can you provide more specific damage numbers? Sounds like an exciting example of Kineticists in play.

Theres a post in the playtest section with some of the details, I dont want to put any spoilers in this general thread, but they are just about to meet hetuath.


Did some more looking into the class and was drooling over Ride the Blast. I can’t help but feel like it might be a little broken. Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere in this thread, but at 40 pages and counting I can’t really read the whole thread. (Insert ‘Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That’ meme here.)

Now, Ride the Blast….

I could (at level 10) charge up to 480 feet in a straight line or snake a path of up to 120 feet without provoking any AoO from my movement and without being affected by hindered terrain. I’d then reach my target, where I’d get to make an attack with my blast. And I still have my move action if I want. Next turn I could throw up my kinetic blade/whip. All without taking any burn (from Infusion Specialization). If I used my move action to reduce the burn cost, I could even add a substance infusion with a cost of 1 and still take no damage, or use a composite blast for only 1 burn.

At 13th level, I could quicken my blast, allowing me to make that charge as a swift action for 3 burn. Then I can make a full round of attacks with my blade/whip. I could even throw a substance infusion in there (for 0 burn with Infusion Specialization) to knock my target back 5 feet so I can keep him at reach and make good on AoO from my whip. If I’m hasted, well…. *drool*
Now, that’s for 3 burn, but I suspect most kineticists will have Con (and thus HP) that goes through the roof because they really have no reason not to do so.

Even without using it as a gap-closer for melee combat it seems like it provides an almost unreal amount of mobility. I assume that since kinetic blast is an SLA that using it would provoke an AoO, and thus using Ride the Blast would do the same. But, no AoO along the path you’re moving, and you could move up to 480 feet in a line or 120 feet however your pretty little heart desires. As many times per day as you would like. For 0 burn. Seems more than just a little good. I suppose the trade-off is that you don’t have anything close to a list of spells or the power and flexibility that spell list would provide.

It looks like a really fun ability and I like its current iteration, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the mobility seemed beyond good. Thoughts?

Designer

PhoenixLife wrote:

Did some more looking into the class and was drooling over Ride the Blast. I can’t help but feel like it might be a little broken. Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere in this thread, but at 40 pages and counting I can’t really read the whole thread. (Insert ‘Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That’ meme here.)

Now, Ride the Blast….

I could (at level 10) charge up to 480 feet in a straight line or snake a path of up to 120 feet without provoking any AoO from my movement and without being affected by hindered terrain. I’d then reach my target, where I’d get to make an attack with my blast. And I still have my move action if I want. Next turn I could throw up my kinetic blade/whip. All without taking any burn (from Infusion Specialization). If I used my move action to reduce the burn cost, I could even add a substance infusion with a cost of 1 and still take no damage, or use a composite blast for only 1 burn.

At 13th level, I could quicken my blast, allowing me to make that charge as a swift action for 3 burn. Then I can make a full round of attacks with my blade/whip. I could even throw a substance infusion in there (for 0 burn with Infusion Specialization) to knock my target back 5 feet so I can keep him at reach and make good on AoO from my whip. If I’m hasted, well…. *drool*
Now, that’s for 3 burn, but I suspect most kineticists will have Con (and thus HP) that goes through the roof because they really have no reason not to do so.

Even without using it as a gap-closer for melee combat it seems like it provides an almost unreal amount of mobility. I assume that since kinetic blast is an SLA that using it would provoke an AoO, and thus using Ride the Blast would do the same. But, no AoO along the path you’re moving, and you could move up to 480 feet in a line or 120 feet however your pretty little heart desires. As many times per day as you would like. For 0 burn. Seems more than just a little good. I suppose the trade-off is that you don’t have anything close to a list of spells...

This amount of mobility is intended (and double those numbers for air). Rock on!


By the way Mark, any progress on ways to make the Kineticist able to fill one of the 4 main party roles? Because right now, it cannot fill in in a four character party unless that party is already functional without the kineticist. I absolutely love this concept, but as it stands, its a pure 5th wheel class. It cant remove negative conditions and has very limited healing, cant be the 'divine caster', it doesnt have knowledge, spellcraft or the ability to in general be the 'magic guy' to be the arcane caster, it doesnt have significant skills and skill points to be the skill guy and it isnt the stand in front and take/give hits fighter guy. Its the we have a 5th friend who is joining our already functional party guy.


Mark Seifter wrote:
This amount of mobility is intended (and double those numbers for air). Rock on!

Awesome sauce!


Mark Seifter wrote:

The rogue also often has to TWF to keep up, plus it has to spend money on the weapons that the kineticist could spend on stat increases or other items that aid accuracy. So I would say that the playtest kineticist is slightly more accurate than the rogue. That said, #2, as mentioned by mlp, is the main point—the level 15 rogue's accuracy on the first attack would not be a problem if the poor rogue wasn't aiming to hit with iteratives as well.

So as a designer, you're considering this class to be built around dealing the full, acceptable, balanced damage of the round in one strike, with any iterative contact being additional damage, unnecessary to relative game enjoyment? I'm just clarifying for the crowd here, that this is the direction things are going for the Kineticist, so that they can start working math on how much damage the class needs to be able to do with that one hit to keep up, and then find ways to keep that in balance so that additional strikes with iteratives don't accidentally break the class when a high accuracy build happens to come along and do 3x and more damage per round than intended.

Now, I know this next part seems a bit leading, and possibly disrespectful, it's not intended to at all. (A lot of people say that when I get passionate about a subject I make a **** out of myself) I'm just honestly trying to help out with making every bit of this class as great as it deserves, and I prefer to state things clearly than to beat hedges about it.

Especially since at lvl... Let's say 11 for this comparison, you hit for 6D6+6+Con to one target, one time per round, and can burn up 4-5 depending on if you move or not to get a NOVA of 12D6 maximized and empowered to one target, or then halved for each target (reflex for another halved) and only a 30 foot cone. That's 105+Con damage to one target, or 52+1/2Con to the 30 ft cone. I can do this twice, and the second time will get +3 to hit and damage.
A Sorcerer at the same level can use 5 5th lvl spells a day. Which is the equivalent of "nova"ing 5 times a day.
When doing so, they get Cone of Cold, which is a 60 ft cone that deals 11d6 damage, reflex for half. That's 38 damage in a significantly larger area, 5 times a day. Without taking 40-50 damage.

If we aren't intended to hit but the one time, shouldn't that one time be worth it? I don't feel that it can be, presently. As amazing as the flavor on this class is, as much as I LOVE the burn mechanic, I sincerely hope that doing less than three times the damage of a 5/day ability to a single target, or less than double the damage to a third of the number of targets, for half my HP and a once or maybe twice a day power, isn't the full extent of what I can do when this class hits the shelf. I feel that I should be doing a few less damage dice than that Cone of Cold at the same level, in the same area. Then I should Burn and take 20 non lethal and do several more dice in the same area, with a status effect to boot. Because casting all your spells per day leaves you a commoner with a bunch of magic items. Burning all your HD away leaves you limping from a fight you didn't finish, hoping your magic items will get you away because they sure can't make you feel better.

And yes, I do actually love the class as it is. Frankly I feel like a lot of classes could do better to be balanced around this class, instead of the other way around. But that's unfortunately not the case, and I'd rather have this work with the other classes than to "not have the other classes work with this" so to speak.

Designer

Kolokotroni wrote:
By the way Mark, any progress on ways to make the Kineticist able to fill one of the 4 main party roles? Because right now, it cannot fill in in a four character party unless that party is already functional without the kineticist. I absolutely love this concept, but as it stands, its a pure 5th wheel class. It cant remove negative conditions and has very limited healing, cant be the 'divine caster', it doesnt have knowledge, spellcraft or the ability to in general be the 'magic guy' to be the arcane caster, it doesnt have significant skills and skill points to be the skill guy and it isnt the stand in front and take/give hits fighter guy. Its the we have a 5th friend who is joining our already functional party guy.

I'd say if you're missing a key role that isn't skill guy, the kineticist's player can make some adjustments to assist. For instance, it doesn't take too much investment to be a switch-hitter who can stand front-line, and for somewhat-more investment, if there's an archetype expanding kinetic healer, you might be able to take that and be a fairly blasty divine stand-in.


Are you also going to increase the base range of the blasts?

30 feet seems pretty lame to me


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Being the "skill guy" is something that can be expected from someone that is able to move things with his mind. Not in the same sense that a rogue with overflowing skill points, but with creative use of his kinetic abilities. There is still lack of rule support to manipulating elements. Want to bend a steel bar with your kinesis? What is the effective strength? Want to make that rock into chair? How? Wish to carry a small flame around, or heat a bowl of soup? Those small things that make the idea of the class interesting out of combat are important, and shouldn't be chosen from the same pools as combat powers.

Lantern Lodge

I have one experience playing with a kineticist. It is probably the most thought out class and most original concept. I've heard varying opinions about how the class is similar to Benders from the Avatar cartoon series and also Warlocks from the new D&D versions (being a primary blaster type), then there is Liz Sherman from Hellboy, as well as a few other logical lines of similarity. From these I can conclude that this is a class that appeals to a wide variety of players. It is capable of filling multiple roles. Even the drawbacks help to enhance the playability of the class. A fire bender facing down a red dragon would certainly have to fall back on his other talents (if any) or rely on his teammates.

The issue of role filling may be the limitation. If the Kinetiscist were similar to a bender, then a hydrokinetic would have an option to learn some healing abilities. When it comes down to it, most living creatures are composed of mostly water. If a hydrokinetic is powerful enough, he should be able to control living creatures in the same way a cleric can control undead. Maybe that's a little too far out of the scope of what the class should be capable of, but it's something to consider.


Mark,

Any word on whether the Alternate racial traits found in Dwarves and Gnomes for example, could be applied to Blasts/Defensive Wild Talents? RAW, we're about 1 word from it being a thing - can you yay/nay this?


Mark Seifter wrote:
Kolokotroni wrote:
By the way Mark, any progress on ways to make the Kineticist able to fill one of the 4 main party roles? Because right now, it cannot fill in in a four character party unless that party is already functional without the kineticist. I absolutely love this concept, but as it stands, its a pure 5th wheel class. It cant remove negative conditions and has very limited healing, cant be the 'divine caster', it doesnt have knowledge, spellcraft or the ability to in general be the 'magic guy' to be the arcane caster, it doesnt have significant skills and skill points to be the skill guy and it isnt the stand in front and take/give hits fighter guy. Its the we have a 5th friend who is joining our already functional party guy.
I'd say if you're missing a key role that isn't skill guy, the kineticist's player can make some adjustments to assist. For instance, it doesn't take too much investment to be a switch-hitter who can stand front-line, and for somewhat-more investment, if there's an archetype expanding kinetic healer, you might be able to take that and be a fairly blasty divine stand-in.

If kinetic healing is expanded to be able to deal with negative conditions, then I'd agree with the ability to be the divine caster, at least in the bare necessity.

Front liner, is a bit of a stretch. If you optimize the crap out kinetic blade, sure. But thats a specific set of options that dont really represent what the kineticist appears to be at it's core. And you are still a d8 hit die character with very limited defensive abilities.

And it definately cant be the arcane caster. It doesnt have spellcraft, it doesnt have knowledges, it cant identify magic items, it cant deal with magic issues in just about any way. It has some utility in the form of some of the wild talents at mid to high levels, but it certainly isnt able to stand in a party that lacks a arcane caster and fill the role like a wizard, sorceror, or even a bard or magus could.

Basically what I am asking, is don't make another monk. A cool concept that ends up so divided and focused on what ammount to non-essential things in the classic dnd party that it cant actually be one of the 4.

On it's surface the kineticist is a dude who manipulates elements and throws blasts of stuff at people. The class needs some baked in options that allows it to at least partially fill a party need. Maybe making a few wild talents automatic for specific elements could provide that. If you take water, kinetic healing is automatic, with options to add ability damage/disease/blindness/other negative condition removal later on. If you take earth, kinetic blade is automatic, maybe aether gets spellcraft and detect magic? There needs to be some kind of guidance in the class. As it is, its sort of all over the place except for blasts.

No matter what you do it should be difficult to impossible to make a character that doesnt fit in a 4 person party, as pretty much every class in the game does. Every single class in the game (except for maybe a non-optimized monk) has access to at least one of the following: Divine magic, Arcane Magic, lots of skills, obvious combat ability, right on the tin. You have to try really hard to make a cavalier, fighter, or barbarian that cant be a frontliner. Baring a low ability score in the casting stat, you cant make a bard, inquisitor, or summoner without access to spells that help them fill their roles.

Its really easy, and close to the most natural path of choices in the current kineticist to make someone who is just good at hurling blasts at people from a distance. Maybe at higher levels you have a few tricks up your sleave, but even then, you cant do the basic necessities of a given role, and you DEFINATELY cant do that at low levels. Every other class makes at least one of the for, not an option, but something you get for taking the class.


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Kolokotroni wrote:
Insain Dragoon wrote:
Kolokotroni wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:

As an aside, this is why I keep saying that I'm more likely to increase the damage than I am to increase the accuracy. If the accuracy goes up, it breaks the balance between touch and full AC blasts. If the damage goes up in an appropriate ratio, they both get stronger in parallel.

One thing I would note is to be careful about damage increases bellow say 6th level. When I threw a 4th level kineticist npc (CR 3) against a 2nd level party, its damage was the most of anything they'd seen up to that point (playing in the iron gods adventure path). As you get up there, other damage dealers (fighters in particular) start to hit their stride as things like weapon training and iterative attacks, two weapon fighting, and rapid shot kick in.

The damage capacity of most characters moves in fits and starts, where as the basic blast damage scales very evenly. If you push up that damage much at low levels, it might be too much.

2d6+6 should be the max for Kineticist that level? At that point a 2 handed barb is doing 2d6+9 (1.5 str)+6 (power attack).

A 2handed raging barbarian is more or less the best damage dealing low level character. So I dont exactly take that as my standard benchmark for damage.

And it was an aether kineticist 2d6+2+con(in this case 4) + 1 for feel the burn + 1 for point blank shot. A total of 2d6+8. Against 2nd level characters thats a lot of damage, and his con certainly could have been higher. Could a raging barbarian do more? Ofcourse, but generally, most adventures aren't filled to the brim with raging barbarian enemies.

Emperor Point wrote:
Really? In Iron Gods i found Hetuath to be pretty darn damaging and i imagine its quite something to top a full attack from that dude at level 4. Can you provide more specific damage numbers? Sounds like an exciting example of Kineticists in play.
Theres a post in the playtest section with some of the details, I dont...

A level 4 Fighter or Ranger does just 1 less point of damage per attack than said Barbarian. Antipaladin/Paladin does more with Smite. Brawlers/Monks have the potential to do more thanks to flurry. A two handed Inquisitor with Bane+Judgement does more on decent rolls. Archery build Fighters and Rangers do more at level 4.

When you look at it from this perspective a level 4 Kineticist, compared to other classes that share the same niche (Big dumb damage guy) is slightly below average in damage for his niche at level 4. This could be balanced out by Kineticist having pretty high AC and HP by that point allowing it to survive a round or 2 more.

By no stretch would I say a level 4 Kineticist is above the damage available to any of the current classes in its niche, except a dismounted Cavalier and a Gunslinger (they dont get Dex to dmg till 5).


Insain Dragoon wrote:

A level 4 Fighter or Ranger does just 1 less point of damage per attack than said Barbarian. Antipaladin/Paladin does more with Smite. Brawlers/Monks have the potential to do more thanks to flurry. A two handed Inquisitor with Bane+Judgement does more on decent rolls. Archery build Fighters and Rangers do more at level 4.

When you look at it from this perspective a level 4 Kineticist, compared to other classes that share the same niche (Big dumb damage guy) is slightly below average in damage for his niche at level 4. This could be balanced out by Kineticist having pretty high AC and HP by that point allowing it to survive a round or 2 more.

By no stretch would I say a level 4 Kineticist is above the damage available to any of the current classes in its niche, except a dismounted Cavalier and a Gunslinger (they dont get Dex to dmg till 5).

This sort of goes in line with my complaint of a lack of a roll. He isnt the big dumb damage guy. Or at least thats not what he is on the tin. Big dumb damage guys do so from the front lines.

The kineticist is a dedicated ranged character on the tin. Which isnt the big dumb damage guy. But its also not one of the other things, leaving people wondering. DPS is not a role in pathfinder. Its an addon to one of the other roles.

Designer

Also, to be fair to Kolokotroni, he picked level 4, when kineticists get a huge bump in damage at level 5.


Nifty nifty ness.

I'm still hopin that Aetherist get access to some form of kinetic body and ride the blast.

I suppose you could say the ability to super weight mage hand switchs it. but man I'd still love to have both of those on my TK sniper.

As a random side note. I think I'll make Ness or Lucas sometime.

Grand Lodge

I'm still hoping for Force Choke.


trollbill wrote:
I'm still hoping for Force Choke.

Actually, Telekinetic Maneuver gives you Grapple, and one of the effects of grappling is DOT while you hold them. It's not hard to construe that as Force Choke. :)

Scratch that, it requires you to use an unarmed, natural, or OHW attack... :(


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Free utility powers is definately high on the list of things that I would like to have for the Kineticist. Playing a Pyrokineticist and not being able to at least generate my own light sources without a torch (or setting an enemy on fire) kind of drove me crazy in my playtest, but it is also something that I couldn't afford to spend a wild talent on if it was an option.

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