Has it been determined that full plate and elemental form stack? Previously in the thread, it was determined that invoking the elemental form was like the spell and that the army would get absorbed.
Kinetic Form is an all-day ability. Put your armor on afterwards.
Apart from wondering if Elementals would need special (barding) armor...
My interpretation is that the ability lasts no longer than the spell would, but can be used an unlimited number of times per day. In many ways, yes, this means it lasts all day, but if you can't refresh the timer by recasting then you'd revert to normal while wearing the elemental sized armor, and then cast the spell again and absorb said armor... Making this right back to impractical. This is one to have a ruling on, or at least to know if recast to refresh is an option.
Also a great way to hide your identity when committing a crime, btw. Just be multielemental and never use your off-element when in town. "I'm well known for Geo, the water elemental that stole your ring couldn't possibly have been me!"
+10 Bluff, well played Red Herring, well played.
Has it been determined that full plate and elemental form stack? Previously in the thread, it was determined that invoking the elemental form was like the spell and that the army would get absorbed.
Kinetic Form is an all-day ability. Put your armor on afterwards.
That's great on paper , but will yield rather interesting results in an actual game (walking around as a large elemental and all).
How about this for a possible solution. How about kineticists can have a focus item that they can have enchanted as a weapon and can be added to their blasts? This would allow them to get some additional too hit and add some damage to boot. This would also be a good sink for gold so they have something to spend their coin on.
How about this for a possible solution. How about kineticists can have a focus item that they can have enchanted as a weapon and can be added to their blasts? This would allow them to get some additional too hit and add some damage to boot. This would also be a good sink for gold so they have something to spend their coin on.
So far the argument proposed by the Devs, and I agree, is that it would make Physical blasts more powerful than Touch blasts, wrecking the balance, if you tried to increase accuracy more than what they have currently. I mean, right now Physical blasts do more damage, ignore SR, and use DR which is normally lower than Resistances. Touch attacks have way worse problems with all that, but they are more accurate. In fact, they're usually a point or two at most from 95% hit cap. If you increase accuracy any further, it doesn't make Touch attacks stronger, but it does improve Physical attacks in the only area currently balancing the two.
The smart kineticist is only going to accept enough burn to maximize his FtB bonus. Usually by activating all-day abilities. With CON as a casting stat, he should still have as many, or more, hit points as other d8 classes. Additional burn should only be taken to NOVA the BBEG or prevent a TPK.
"The smart Kineticist will do all he can to avoid using his class features. Because they not only negate the main benefit of having Con as their casting stat, they also make him weaker. i.e.: You might as well ignore composite blasts and metakinesis, unless you want to be taken down by a mook."
Ranged Blasters are going to spam Maximize all day long.
Composite Blasts are not meant to be constantly used until high level.
You ignore every single ability that boosts the kineticist for a few points of burn. Most of which provide all-day benefits.
Resource management is a thing. People who understand this concept won't be killing or crippling their characters.
Has it been determined that full plate and elemental form stack? Previously in the thread, it was determined that invoking the elemental form was like the spell and that the army would get absorbed.
Kinetic Form is an all-day ability. Put your armor on afterwards.
That's great on paper , but will yield rather interesting results in an actual game (walking around as a large elemental and all).
Unless your GM plans on penalizing every non-human player, every summoner, everyone with an unusual animal companion, ect...
Quote:
Keep us posted on your calcs. Thanks!
Working on it, plus three PbP games testing occult classes.
Ranged Blasters are going to spam Maximize all day long.
And still not very impressive without FtB.
Artanthos wrote:
Composite Blasts are not meant to be constantly used until high level.
Burn damage increases with level. And losing hp is far more harmful than, say, running out of Rage.
Artanthos wrote:
You ignore every single ability that boosts the kineticist for a few points of burn. Most of which provide all-day
I don't ignore anything. A Few points of Burn equals [a few points x character level] of incurable damage. That's a pretty heavy price to pay. Burn stacks up too quickly.
And of course... The Kineticist actually becomes worse at using Burn. An ability that would cost him 5hp at 5th levels, costs him 10hp at 10th, even though it still gives exactly the same benefit. What other class becomes worse at using its own class features? Paladins don't suddenly have to spend 2 uses of LoH to get the benefits of his 2nd and 3rd Mercies.
Artanthos wrote:
Resource management is a thing. People who understand this concept won't be killing or crippling their characters.
No other class is crippled by using their resources. No other class is weaker when they run of uses of their abilities than they would be if they didn't have those abilities in the first place.
Resource Management is a thing, sure... But the Kineticist is in a really bad economy. He pays a high price for mediocre results.
Resource Management is a thing, sure... But the Kineticist is in a really bad economy. He pays a high price for mediocre results.
This is absolutely correct.
That's why every real comparison of the kineticist with any other class should assume a max of FtB Burn used, and stop there. This is what Artanthos is doing and I agree with him.
Using Burn thereafter should only be used for dire emergencies. It is not a class feature meant to be used for casual use. The designer may not agree with that, but that is more or less what has been created.
The Burn ability should be retooled to be a "per combat" thing and not a "per day" thing. That would make it far more eloquent and exciting ability in my opinion.
A Few points of Burn equals [a few points x character level of incurable damage]. That's a pretty heavy price to pay. Burn stacks up too quickly.
And of course... The Kineticist actually becomes worse at using Burn. An ability that would cost him 5hp at 5th levels, costs him 10hp at 10th, even though it still gives exactly the same benefit.
In a strictly numbers sense, HP for effect, you are correct. However, Burn damage is best looked at as a % of HP. You use effectively the same % of your health to use burn, regardless of level. I suppose because of increases in Con mod, you can also attribute a larger portion of your HP to burn damage at higher levels, but then each use of burn uses a smaller % of the total to accommodate that effect. Meanwhile, because the abilities the burn applies to often scale as well, you end up paying x% of your HP to add Y% to your DPR.
Perhaps the increases aren't enough to justify the damage, but overall I'd say that burn costs, if anything, less as you level. Not more.
Believe me, I do feel that something should be done. Namely, making the base damage of the class rise so that burn isn't strictly necessary to be competent, in the same way that a barbarian without rage is still competent. Dropping either composite or Meta so that the multiplicative stacking effect is removed, or making meta only work on the base damage of the blast and the first iterative attack of melee, so that massive x10 damage isn't possible with a single nova. Increasing the effect of burn per unit, so that it becomes a very valuable resource in addition to an expensive and rare one.
Currently we can't increase base damage without increasing nova damage by a massive amount. We can't decrease the cost of burn because if we could nova six times a day as it stands, we'd be far overpowered. We can't increase the effect delivered by burn because our nova would become a solution to severely CR inappropriate encounters.
Only by addressing all three problems at once will we see a viable build which can do moderate damage all day, and impressive but not insane damage at a rough but acceptable cost to itself a few times a day.
You ignore every single ability that boosts the kineticist for a few points of burn. Most of which provide all-day
I don't ignore anything. A Few points of Burn equals [a few points x character level] of incurable damage. That's a pretty heavy price to pay. Burn stacks up too quickly.
And of course... The Kineticist actually becomes worse at using Burn. An ability that would cost him 5hp at 5th levels, costs him 10hp at 10th, even though it still gives exactly the same benefit. What other class becomes worse at using its own class features? Paladins don't suddenly have to spend 2 uses of LoH to get the benefits of his 2nd and 3rd Mercies.
As a CON based class, you should have prioritized CON, increasing your base hit points.
As a CON based class, you should continue to prioritize CON, increasing your modifier by at least enough to offset the amount of burn you take to maximize your FtB bonus.
As for burn cost of higher level abilities going up, the kineticist has a class feature to offset this, with the capacity to reduce burn costs to zero on most abilities at sufficient level.
Ok, I think I see the issue, now. I didn't realize that you were basically boycotting FtB when you ran numbers.
I see now that your objection is not actually related to how the math works out, it's based on this:
1) Every 3/4 bab class except rogues and monks have temporary (though effectively 100% uptime) attack buffs that put them at pseudo full bab.
2) Kineticists lack enhancement bonuses, and FtB only serves to cover that lack. You cannot abide losing health for that because you condsider that baseline 3/4 bab +enhancement to be your right--like it's the default.
3) So, even though Burn buffs last all day, you want that to parallel other class's temporary pseudo-full bab buffs because it's more costly? Yes, I am well aware than in typical games, those limited abilities are effectively always on, but from a developer perspective, I can still see the issue.
4) It doesn't matter how well the kineticist actually performs in actual play or theorycraft because it's not fair that they have to pay hp to get to the perceived baseline accuracy.
I don't agree, but I do finally understand. Would you be satisfied if an item existed that granted an enhancement bonus to kinetic blasts? FtB is not classified as an enhancement bonus, so, there's clearly room for that kind of thing.
As a CON based class, you should have prioritized CON, increasing your base hit points.
I don't remember seeing a build that prioritized CON. Every single one has another stat higher than it's 'casting' stat. They have all prioritized the attack stat. At best it's a secondary stat.
My level 14 Kineticist, after maxing out Feel the Burn, has 14 more HP than a d10 character with 14 CON and FCB in HP. So... if you give the d10 Toughness then they're equal.
That seems really, really wrong to me. putting so much into constitution (I have a +7 modifier) and then having such a marginal lead in HP is just silly. If you make the kineticist a d12, the difference in HP is 42... Meaning I can actually use Metakinesis and Composite Blasts a few times before having less HP than every other hammer in the game. I really love the burn mechanic, the kineticist just needs to support it better.
As a CON based class, you should have prioritized CON, increasing your base hit points.
I don't remember seeing a build that prioritized CON. Every single one has another stat higher than it's 'casting' stat. They have all prioritized the attack stat. At best it's a secondary stat.
Could be part of why they feel burn is so harsh. If I had low dex and an attack that penalized my accuracy in exchange for power I'd be upset too.
Having low HP and using your HP to get DMG/Hit/Defense Buffs/General Stat Buffs all at once would be significantly harder to keep up with if I didn't actually attempt to mitigate this with high Con. When you think about it, putting that extra point into Con instead of dex gives you most of the benefits of dex except reflex saves, and also adds it to some other stuff too.
It's almost like saying a barbarian would rather have a +12 Con and a +18 Str. If you go the other way, it adds turns to your rage as well as HP, and rage makes up a good portion of that Str difference. So, as a barbarian, I prioritize Con over Str. Because it's usually better, IMO. This is a similar situation, and I feel if someone isn't prioritizing Con then they might be missing the key point of the class : The more Con I have, the sturdier my body is, the better a channel I am for my element.
As a CON based class, you should have prioritized CON, increasing your base hit points.
I don't remember seeing a build that prioritized CON. Every single one has another stat higher than it's 'casting' stat. They have all prioritized the attack stat. At best it's a secondary stat.
The 10th level build I posted and ran numbers on had a 20 CON. After taking 3 points of burn, she had 83 hit points; exactly the same as most d8 classes are going to have at that level.
With a 33 AC, that is enough to stand on the front lines.
1~2- Every class uses their features to excel. Kineticists use theirs to be mediocre. And they pay a high price for it. The Inquisitor runs out of Judgement/Bane, he's still as powerful as he'd be without it. The Kineticists runs out of hp... He's weaker than he would be if he didn't have his abilities.
3- "Lasting all day" is proven to not be worth much more than "last every round of combat". e.g.: Rage. And the Kineticist's "bonus" is not really a bonus, it's just the removal of a harsh penalty (not being able to sue weapon enhancements) in exchange for another harsh penalty (lose a considerable chunk of your health).
4- It does matter. That's the whole point. They do not perform all that well, even though they lose one of the most precious resources a character has.
mplindustries wrote:
Would you be satisfied if an item existed that granted an enhancement bonus to kinetic blasts? FtB is not classified as an enhancement bonus, so, there's clearly room for that kind of thing.
Yes... Kinda... At least the accuracy would be fine (assuming we get a damage boost), and FtB would actually be a bonus, rather than a necessity.
But Burn would still not be a good mechanic, IMO. It's too harmful. With the proposed item, accuracy wouldn't be much of an issue, but using other abilities would still be too costly.
It really sucks to get a new ability and then think "Well... I really hope I never have to use this one"... It's okay if it's something like healing*, since most characters obviously would want to avoid getting injured, but it's really frustrating when it's an offense/utility tool that I should feel excited about using.
A Paladin's player gets smite and thinks... "Next time we face an evil enemy, I'm going to be awesome!"
A Kineticist's player gets Metakinesis and thinks "Next time we face a dangerous enemy, I hope it's not dangerous enough for me to have to use my class features!"
Burn mechanics make the class frustrating to build and play. It's like I'm walking on a minefield. While everyone else is doing their best to be awesome, I'm doing my best to not kill myself with my own class features. That hurts balance and enjoyment of the class. I've seen more than a few playtest reports of players refusing to ever use anything that cost them burn. That's not just they saving their powers for the more dangerous enemies, but actually doing their best to avoid using their class features!
And unlike every other class, who can use their abilities more and more often, the Kineticist is penalized more and more for the very same benefit. 1 point of Burn at 20th level hurts more than 1 point of Burn at 5th level. That makes no sense. Why doesn't the Kineticist ever get better at reducing Burn? Why does Burn deal more damage, rather than less?
- - -
* That said, getting healing abilities allows characterto do stuff that gets them harmed with no consequences, so even those have a better "feel" than composite blasts and metakinesis, from a gameplay perspective.
Basically, I think the point some people here just aren't getting...
Con does not give the Kineticist HP. Con gives the Kineticist LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE PHYSCIAL.
Read that again. LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE PHYSICAL.
From Dex we get AC and to hit. Between the natural armor bonus from Kinetic Form and the defensive abilities, we get our defense from Burn. We also get our to hit, up to 6 points of it, equivalent of a 22 mod, from FtB. And it all stacks with our Dex, if we also happen to have some.
From Str we get DMG, and maybe Hit if we aren't Finesse or ranged. Hit has been covered under Dex/Con, so let's look at damage, where we add our Con to DMG and add it AGAIN from FtB, up to another +6. That's +12 DMG, equal to a Str score of 34. This is from a +6 in Con, btw. 22 is a lot easier to get to.
From Con we also could get HP, but as it stands we're basically treating Con as a second Dex and second Str score. Yes it's unusual, but it's not like there's not a tradeoff happening here. Some minor adjustments could well be made to burn, but I don't feel it's so horrid to have a high Con class without a massive amount of HP, simply because I AM getting something for that Con that isn't HP. While it could be refined a bit, I don't feel it's a bad concept.
Ok, I think I see the issue, now. I didn't realize that you were basically boycotting FtB when you ran numbers.
Burn to get you equal to other people is not something that sits well. Burn to be awesome does.
#1 paying the 30hp toll to get all the way up to an average 3/4th... yeah, no way around that hurting.
#2 because it is? This is a martial class.
#3 it's length is meaningless. It's the fact that you have to pay the tax before you start playing.
#4 "how well it performs" is a mater of dispute. If I step out of the 'template', it fairs far worse than your perfect build.
An item just brings the class up to base and really solves no of my issues with FtB which is also a mandatory 'option' to get to base.
Shiroi: You have to hit and try to avoid damage. When the best attack is melee all boosting you CON to the max did was let you take an additional hit maybe where Dex let you maybe avoid the damage AND lets you hit more. That's all without you trying to hurt yourself on top of it.
Artanthos: That 10th level character had a 20 CON. What was the DEX? I'm betting it was a bit higher than 20 right? THAT'S what I'm saying. You high stat isn't CON; you didn't make it your primary stat.
You may have the hp of an average d8 class with a 14 con, you have the hp of a d6 class with that CON. It doesn't feel right. Buffing CON just ends up being a save bonus.
To compare with another con based class, my scarred witch doctor at 10th beats that 83 with a lesser HD since it actually prioritizes CON.
Shiroi: You have to hit and try to avoid damage. When the best attack is melee all boosting you CON to the max did was let you take an additional hit maybe where Dex let you maybe avoid the damage AND lets you hit more. That's all without you trying to hurt yourself on top of it.
I do agree with melee/ranged needing a proper balancing, I feel that ranged should generally be just as good (in the overall, with melee doing more damage BECAUSE and IN BALANCE TO the risk they take for being front line.
And depending on what abilities you use in the AM to kick on FtB, it may very well let you avoid those hits. Natural AC from Kinetic body and your defensive abilities (honestly, +6 shield bonus, can you really say that isn't helping your AC?). Con is improving your defense and offense, instead of your HP. Whether it does so in acceptable amounts in the current build is a matter of opinion I won't get into right now because I feel this thread heating up a bit and would like to diffuse it.
Can we agree that prioritizing Con does have bonuses outside of HP, which, IF properly balanced, MIGHT be worth the loss?
Can we agree that prioritizing Con does have bonuses outside of HP, which, IF properly balanced, MIGHT be worth the loss?
The way the class is currently, you don't even get the HP. Prioritizing Con pretty much gets you a higher fort save.
On defenses, look at fire or air. Neither is stopping any melee attacks and you spent HP to gain those defenses. Offense? You get hit from a higher attack stat to that's would be a push if one way didn't involve damage. CON is just there so you can take your daily beating...
I'm getting too invested in this discussion... I'll give it a break at least 'til tomorrow. Suffice to say I'm very worried about the future of this class.
We haven't heard anything from Mark in a while. We have no idea what he thinks of the issues/suggestions/criticisms brought up since his last post.
AFAIK, he never mentioned anything about changing skills, enhancement bonuses or Burn.
CON is just there so you can take your daily beating...
That's how every other class ever has worked, yes. I'm talking about this class. What if, just once, because of a unique and interesting mechanic, Con was used for OTHER things instead? Saying "this is how it's always done" doesn't answer the question, COULD it be balanced IF they did something else with it that didn't make it not hurt you? In other words, is there literally ANY way to make you happy without removing the burn feature?
Ok, I think I see the issue, now. I didn't realize that you were basically boycotting FtB when you ran numbers.
Burn to get you equal to other people is not something that sits well. Burn to be awesome does.
#1 paying the 30hp toll to get all the way up to an average 3/4th... yeah, no way around that hurting.
#2 because it is? This is a martial class.
#3 it's length is meaningless. It's the fact that you have to pay the tax before you start playing.
#4 "how well it performs" is a mater of dispute. If I step out of the 'template', it fairs far worse than your perfect build.
An item just brings the class up to base and really solves no of my issues with FtB which is also a mandatory 'option' to get to base.
Shiroi: You have to hit and try to avoid damage. When the best attack is melee all boosting you CON to the max did was let you take an additional hit maybe where Dex let you maybe avoid the damage AND lets you hit more. That's all without you trying to hurt yourself on top of it.
Artanthos: That 10th level character had a 20 CON. What was the DEX? I'm betting it was a bit higher than 20 right? THAT'S what I'm saying. You high stat isn't CON; you didn't make it your primary stat.
You may have the hp of an average d8 class with a 14 con, you have the hp of a d6 class with that CON. It doesn't feel right. Buffing CON just ends up being a save bonus.
To compare with another con based class, my scarred witch doctor at 10th beats that 83 with a lesser HD since it actually prioritizes CON.
What did I get for my 3 points of burn, other than +3 to-hit/+3 damage?
An all day Elemental Body II (+4 size bonus to dex, +3 natural armor, darkvision, 60' perfect fly speed) and 7 AC (without a dex cap or ACP).
I've been thinking a bit about how maybe the Kineticists could be made to interact with tech, e.g. make the areokineticist could use electricity to power up an item, or maybe the geokineticist could manipulate radiation in some way.
I'm getting too invested in this discussion... I'll give it a break at least 'til tomorrow. Suffice to say I'm very worried about the future of this class.
We haven't heard anything from Mark in a while. We have no idea what he thinks of the issues/suggestions/criticisms brought up since his last post.
AFAIK, he never mentioned anything about changing skills, enhancement bonuses or Burn.
I do recall him specifically stating he was probably going to boost the skill points of the Kineticist. I'm less certain on the others, but I think he's good with how Burn works currently and hasn't expressed any opinion one way or another as regards an item to add enhancement bonuses to Blasts.
I know he said Composite Blasts are an expected part of the class's ability to deal damage, so if anything, I think I'd like to see him fold those out of the wild talents and directly into the class chassis. More composites targeting touch and more total resources to contribute would be good.
As a reminder, in the ACG playtest Jason Bulmahn made practically no posts between doc 1 and doc 2, but apparently read a lot of posts and implemented a ton of changes based on feedback.
Paizo is a highly secretive and opaque company that hates to be open with more info than is absolutely required, especially post ACG.
Mark probably has lots of ideas and inspirations for what to do with Kineticist, but just cannot share them. It's scary, but I have a hard time believing Mark will drop the ball considering how much love this class has been given.
A party of 5 Kineticist/Synthesist Summoners... Power Rangers?
(My nephews were in no way watching Power Rangers Mystic Force and I absolutely did not sit down and watch 4 episodes with them and was more enthralled with it than they were.)
Question: If you have the means to make multiple move actions in a round, such as the use of a Quick Runner's Shirt, can you reduce burn cost by an additional point?
Also, can you take multiple turns to reduce burn even further? For example, could you spend a full round using two move actions to reduce burn, and then the move action on the next round to reduce burn by a total of three points, allowing you to do a free Quickened blast?
This class is probably giving them a lot of work, but it's worth it. This is most amazing class idea from Paizo in the last years (IMO), it deserves to be perfected.
As a reminder, in the ACG playtest Jason Bulmahn made practically no posts between doc 1 and doc 2, but apparently read a lot of posts and implemented a ton of changes based on feedback.
Paizo is a highly secretive and opaque company that hates to be open with more info than is absolutely required, especially post ACG.
Mark probably has lots of ideas and inspirations for what to do with Kineticist, but just cannot share them. It's scary, but I have a hard time believing Mark will drop the ball considering how much love this class has been given.
I've been dropping what I think are a good number of little breadcrumbs through this thread, particularly back before I left for the funeral, I thought. Particularly, I think I have responded with designer feedback more often in general than in any previous playtest in which I read the forums heavily (so starting with the APG), but that could be wrong on a numbers count. There's no wall against info, per se, and Ssalarn is mostly right about things I've said before.
However, for the playtest to test certain factors, sometimes saying something about my composite picture on a particular day would cause bias in the playtest. That said, I most certainly intend to give a retrospective with substantial information at the end. I want to make sure you guys get to see some of the things you helped shape.
Note: I am assuming Vital Strike amplifies Empowered. Not entirely sure on that front, but that's my reading. All stats assume Kinetic Form (Medium Air Elemental) is active at all times, and Shroud of Water has been increased by 1 AC by taking 1 Burn
Shiroi wrote:
At level 10, You enter a room with 5 CR-1 appropriate mooks, Titan Centipedes.
This feels like a reasonable test at each of five levels for crowd control. Assume a 100x100 foot room, so 20 squares in any direction. Put in cover in a low wall on second column, from the second square at the top to the second square at the bottom, 5 foot high wall. A mirror image location wall on the other side of the room is floor to ceiling wall. There is a pit 10 foot by 10 foot dead center of the room. It drops cleanly all the way to the hell hounds birthplace. Don't go down there. We now have an arena for this challenge.
Automatic victory for Arashi; the Titan Centipede has no counter to him flying over the pit and bombarding them with Extreme Range Cold Blasts.
A close range engagement would be difficult if they were able to swarm him and engage en masse, because even with them needing a 16 to hit he has a 40% chance of failing his save against their poison and doesn't appreciate Dex damage.
Shiroi wrote:
Now use that same arena vs a single PA opponent you feel should be used as a balancing class, who you also used in that test. We see kineticists against CR crowd, we see an existing class against the same crowd, now we should see the kineticist against that other class 1 on 1. Same room.
This one I'll come back to. However, very few of the Kineticist's direct analogs-- Fighters, Swashbucklers, Barbarians, basically the martial types-- have such easy access to flight, so they would likely struggle more with the engagement (only the Mutation Warrior Fighter and oddly-built Barbarians have inbuilt Flight at this level).
Shiroi wrote:
Next, a room 100x20. There are people listening with a perception check of 25, a DC 25 pit trap, a DC 25 locked door, and a treasure chest suspended over a pit by a dangling chain. Get the chest, don't get caught. Remember, this is a test of utility, if you can't pass a particular obstacle (including not getting noticed) make note of it and move to the next step. Please still do at least 1 non kineticist build as well, for comparison.
Perception/Stealth: 80% chance of passing.
Pit Trap: Flight. Easy.
Locked Door: No solution at this point without just blasting through it. Failed.
Chest: Only possible obstacle is its weight due to Arashi's Str of 10.
Other build will come later, but again non of the Kineticist's direct comparisons have an obvious solution to bypass the door.
Shiroi wrote:
Survive in the wilderness for 1 week, DC 25. You arrive in a city, you need to make gold. Craft/perform/profession/pick pocket/beg. Whatever you have to do, in a city setting. Make 100 gold. Define how long this takes and the method used. Attempt to interact with an unhappy customer, DC 25 with any given method to interact. How many different ways can you make that interaction, and how effective are you?
Survival is an automatic failure, though Arashi could get where he was going twice as fast or better than most due to his flight speed.
Arashi would probably be forced to mug somebody for the gold. Basic 1st-level NPC has 260 GP by the Wealth By Level chart, so it's a matter of finding one, luring him down a dark alley, and popping a Cold Blast into his chest. Alternately he would put his combat skills to use by hunting down a minor quest but that seems outside the scope of the scenario
Shiroi wrote:
Read a book. This book relates to a knowledge skill you have. You black out. You've been tied up, hands and legs DC 25, break free. The door has a Magic lock, you must have a spell to escape this room. On the outside, you must swim underwater for 30 feet, climb a rock wall, and then get down a 40 foot drop with no rope or handholds. These are all DC 25. Now run, you have 1,000 squares to run. How many rounds did it take you? Did you need an endurance check? Did you pass it? Does your character remember what they read, with a DC 25 knowledge check? Auto move past each obstacle if you cannot complete them.
Book: Arashi has no Knowledge skills. Automatic failure.
Tied up: Arashi would cheat and shift into a Small Air Elemental; as the bonds aren't sized for him this should make escape easy.
Door: Expecting a class with no spells to have a spell to escape is a forced failure. At this point Arashi would blast the door down.
Swim: Arashi would shift into a Water Elemental, gaining a Swim speed (60ft) and the ability to breathe underwater.
Climb/Drop: Shift back to Air Elemental, fly.
Run: Fly, but sure.
Endurance Check: N/A
Remember what was read: Arashi has no knowledge skills. Automatic failure.
Total rounds: One Standard Action to slip the bonds, another to resume his normal form. Door is being discounted due to being impossible for any Kineticist. One Standard Action to shift to a Water Elemental, one move action to traverse the water, so one round for that. One Standard Action to shift back to an Air Elemental; the height of the rock wall isn't stated so we'll assume 40', same as the drop, one Move Action for that. Arashi has no reason to actually move down the drop, so 0 rounds for that. Using the Run (x4) action is 240'/round, he has 5000' to cross, it requires 21 rounds, so no endurance check. Knowledge failed, 0 rounds.
Total time: 25 rounds. Two challenges failed; one of which no Kineticist could possibly succeed, and neither of which could any of its direct analogs.
Shiroi wrote:
What do you feel your greatest weakness as a character is, having seen this test? What do you feel your greatest strength was? Could you have performed better in a test if the parameters had been different, such as using a more ranged CR-1 encounter instead of melee minions? Could it have been worse with similar small changes? Do you feel, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being a guaranteed great time, that you could enjoy this class as it stands? What would you do to improve this class? Please consider running this test again with your changes included in your build, so that they may be seen in use.
Weaknesses: Apparently, doors. Realistically, anything that falls outside his very narrow skill-set. He can fight well and he can scout well, but knowledge checks are impossible for him, social interaction is impossible for him.
Strengths: Kinetic Form, full stop. It trivialized the fight, boosted his Stealth check, negated both pits, and gave easy solutions to four of the final obstacles as well as halving the time needed to pass the fifth. Easy access to flight is awesome, and the last challenge showed the simple versatility in switching between elemental forms.
Increased difficulties: Being forced to actually fight in the combat scenario would have been an increased difficulty by default. Running the same challenge at level 9 would have been more difficult, as Kinetic Form helped massively.
Build Changes: The only major change is that I'd consider picking up Air Blast over Lightning Blast; both have themeatic value to the character so I could go either way (at level 15, he'd get the other). This would not affect the current challenges in the least though. I would consider investing points in Disable Device (he really doesn't need any more investment in Fly, so there are open skill points going forward there).
Could I enjoy the class: I would be much more eager to play it in a high-level game, where the options expand dramatically, but I think I could enjoy it as much as I'd enjoy any martial.
Improvements: Halving damage of Burn (maybe), a weapon-ish item for them to work with, and I'd like an expansion on the Move-Action-to-decrease-Burn option; let it reduce Burn by 2 at 9th, by 3 at 13th, by 4 at 17th.
But that's to be OPTIMAL at a certain role. Which is fine. To be the best at something, obviously some options are better than others for a given role.
When you are forced into a cookie cutter build just to be PASSABLE, that's a problem.
The optimal Barbarian (Beast Totem Superstition Spell Sunder) is cookie cutter, but a Barbarian with a different build can still be passable (excellent, really). Same with most other classes.
Nothing forces you into a specific build.
You could just as easily be a strength based geokineticist in full plate. Same AC, same effectiveness in melee.
There are two (really one) effective Kineticist builds currently. One involves stacking on boring +X Feats so your to-hit matches a Rogue on a good day, and the other involves saying "Screw it" to attempting to use the Blast mechanic and all associated abilities at all, and just whacking people over the head with a Kinetic Blade.
Which is nice as an option, but not when it's the only truly effective option on a class based around a ranged blast mechanic.
Which tells me you've not looked at strength based melee builds. You are simply going off the builds others have posted and are following along with their opinions.
If you want to see what can and cannot be done, stop listening to the complaints of others and instead ask yourself, "How can I make this work?"
Making a Str based Nodachi user isn't "making it work" IMO. Why would I make a poor man's Barbarian when I could make an ACTUAL Barbarian?
The class is based around the Blast. As far as I'm concerned unless it can actually use the Blast, it's still ineffective. I've made a ranged Kineticist, and find it lacking. Pretty much everyone who has made one does as well. That's a bad trend for a class whose main mechanic is ranged.
I also don't see why I need to build 7 different characters when I can just look at the builds others have already made. Assuming none of them are absolutely terrible optimization-wise (which none have been so far) they give a good idea of what to expect.
Which is, so far: Melee Kineticist trumps ranged Kineticist.
Question: If you have the means to make multiple move actions in a round, such as the use of a Quick Runner's Shirt, can you reduce burn cost by an additional point?
Also, can you take multiple turns to reduce burn even further? For example, could you spend a full round using two move actions to reduce burn, and then the move action on the next round to reduce burn by a total of three points, allowing you to do a free Quickened blast?
no idea about the extra move action I've asked the same question, unfortunately quick runner's shirt isn't pathfinder society legal so it doesn't effect me, maybe we could get one specifically for the kineticist, with text to stop people from abusing it.
as for the full round to reduce sadly that doesn't work
If she has both hands free, as a move action, a kineticist
can visibly gather energy or elemental matter around her,
allowing her to reduce the total burn cost of a wild talent
used in the same round by 1 point (to a minimum of 0
points).
CON is just there so you can take your daily beating...
That's how every other class ever has worked, yes. I'm talking about this class. What if, just once, because of a unique and interesting mechanic, Con was used for OTHER things instead? Saying "this is how it's always done" doesn't answer the question, COULD it be balanced IF they did something else with it that didn't make it not hurt you? In other words, is there literally ANY way to make you happy without removing the burn feature?
I gotta agree with this, actually. It does need a little bit of refining, but what (mostly) totally new option doesn't? Kudos to Mark for daring to think outside the box and making a stat work for something other than what everyone is used to.
I will be positively disgusted if it's changed. Seriously, I want something NEW in my RPGs. I love Pathfinder, D&D, and d20 in general. I'm just started to get ill over the fact that for the most part... It's always... The same... Probably why I completely butchered it with house rules, fixes, re-balances, and subsystems in the system I'm fiddling around with.
What has CON always been used for? Pretty much nothing more than Fort saves and extra HP. Almost every other stat has a bunch of other stuff they do, Skills for example. CON's "other stuff" comes up rarely. Endurance checks? When's the last time ANYONE had to roll an endurance check?
So, seriously. Give me the Kineticist. Keep burn, even if the abilities that use it have to be refined.
And, honestly... Why do people look at the HP as straight numbers? You've got a +4 Con, that's 4 extra HP every level. To me, that's 4 points of burn I can take without losing any base HP from the d8 hit die. Is 20 HP loss REALLY that big a deal for a 20th level character?
Personally I just think people are scared by the new, and want it shoved into structures and preconceptions they're comfortable with. It's basic human nature, the human mind is built to go off patterns. Nothing to be ashamed or upset over. Just a basic pattern I've observed that's going on all over this thread.
To get full use of Feel the Burn at 20th you need to give up ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY HP.
And the class is designed to need Feel the Burn. As-is without it, they have the worst accuracy of any 3/4 BaB class in the game.
1/2 BaB classes with buffs might even beat him out.
And it's not even the significance of what you give up (which is still a terrible trade), it's the quite honestly (and no offense to Mark) ass-backwards design of Burn.
You becomes the only class unable to make full use of their main stat. No other class has that design, and for good reason. It makes no sense for a class to be encouraged to use one stat but in essence penalized for having it.
Using Feel the Burn (which the class needs to be passably good) negates your investment in Con. Con determines 2 things, really: HP and Fort saves. And you have a good Fort save already.
Wizards don't get a skill point penalty equal to their Int modifier per level.
Likewise Monks don't get a Will save penalty.
Fighters don't get a penalty to attack rolls equal to their Str mod to balance out Weapon Training.
Because that's silly.
And that's not even touching on using Burn past the point where you're required to.
Making a Str based Nodachi user isn't "making it work" IMO. Why would I make a poor man's Barbarian when I could make an ACTUAL Barbarian?
The class is based around the Blast. As far as I'm concerned unless it can actually use the Blast, it's still ineffective. I've made a ranged Kineticist, and find it lacking. Pretty much everyone who has made one does as well. That's a bad trend for a class whose main mechanic is ranged.
I also don't see why I need to build 7 different characters when I can just look at the builds others have already made....
I've previously responded to a similar inquiry. I am in the process of testing various ideas, one of which is to compare a kineticist set up to wield a Nodach with a kineticist using an earthen kinetic blade. I've not finished my comparison, but will post both build along with the numbers once I am finished.
Is the strength based geokineticist viable?
Is he better with a normal weapon or an earthern blade?
Is he better with a 1 level dip in fighter or armored hulk?
I don't have definitive answers, yet. But I will. And I will share my numbers when I have them.
Making a Str based Nodachi user isn't "making it work" IMO. Why would I make a poor man's Barbarian when I could make an ACTUAL Barbarian?
The class is based around the Blast. As far as I'm concerned unless it can actually use the Blast, it's still ineffective. I've made a ranged Kineticist, and find it lacking. Pretty much everyone who has made one does as well. That's a bad trend for a class whose main mechanic is ranged.
I also don't see why I need to build 7 different characters when I can just look at the builds others have already made....
I've previously responded to a similar inquiry. I am in the process of testing various ideas, one of which is to compare a kineticist set up to wield a Nodach with a kineticist using an earthen kinetic blade. I've not finished my comparison, but will post both build along with the numbers once I am finished.
Is the strength based geokineticist viable?
Is he better with a normal weapon or an earthern blade?
Is he better with a 1 level dip in fighter or armored hulk?
I don't have definitive answers, yet. But I will. And I will share my numbers when I have them.
Which is cool, and I'm interested in seeing it.
Just not surewhy that gal triggered your response to my post.
My last post in this thread was fearful of the outcome and somewhat emotion driven.
One GM previously banned the Warlock class because it was effectively infinite - years later, summoner's 50/50 ban - especially the Synthesist archetype (100% ban from the games of the one guy I feel could do the concept story justice) - killing one of the more interesting concepts I've had, because people abused the crud out of it. My past GM discretion as odd as it is, I was/am having some mild PTSD regarding these two things possibly repeating themselves in a Kineticist.
I am (probably) just going to sit back and see where it goes after this post, to avoid more of my previous.
As a final hurrah, my compiled suggestions/thoughts:
1) They should get Weapon Focus: Blast for free at first. Not a single respectable Kinetic will pass on this, so why make them burn a feat for it?
2) The ability for each Kineticist to effectively shape their element entirely (as in First Sculptor but with greater capacity for misc. flavor) feels like a must.
3) Would be nice if Aether users could get a Substance Infusion that let them use the thrown item's properties for damage at least (if not hit) and misc effects, boosted by the kinetic force - probably not threat range though, because throwing Scimitar would become brutal. Could make for some interesting use of the "Returning" property, add a lot of flavor, and give them a little something it feels like they're lacking in comparison.
4) Aether - Kinetic Haul: Hits one target for standard blast damage despite weight/size of object thrown... It just doesn't sit right with me. This conflicting data makes me twitch.
Mark Seifter - I have total faith in you that this will become the class you (and many others) want it to be. I'm bowing out for now.
I salute you, and look forward whatever revision (if any) there may be to the PT docs (and if there aren't any I'll eagerly await the book).
So... I know I am coming to the party late here.. so.. some observations:
1. A level 1 Kineticist is basically a druid with infinite Produce Flame uses.
2. A level 3 Kineticist is generally less efficient than a Sorcerer who has Snowball and some Alchemical ice.
3. A level 6 Kineticist is just simply put to shame by an archer of any type. For example, even with fairly tame optimization, you can get 3 attacks at approx +10 to hit and one at +5 for around 14 average points of damage... which is just mountains more damage than the approximate 13 or so damage as a touch attack that you'll be doing as a standard action with a kineticist. And that doesn't include Haste.
So part of the problem here is that the class does less damage than other classes. The other part is that you do not get multiple attacks with your simple blast.
It isn't all that challenging to beat 10d6 damage with even a single attack at middling levels, not even counting iteratives... and that's the damage of the touch attack blasts at level 19.
For example, a level 10 Warpriest can get: 2d6 + 9 (str) + 1 (enh) + 9 + 4 (divine favor) + 2d6 (holy) + 1d6 (fire) = 40.5. And you get iteratives. And you can have haste. Let's not talk about Barbarians with pounce.
As for ranged damage, both archers AND spellcasters pretty easily out-dps this class... I mean, how much resources does it take to cast intensified Snowball over and over? Not much at those levels. But the worst part is that you wouldn't even WANT to. It's so bad at that point that you wouldn't want to waste actions doing that.
I think the damage needs to be upped some initially, perhaps with a full +CON on the touch-attacks and either the progression needs to increase better, or here need to be iteratives using the BAB of the caster somehow. Probably both.
The expectation is that it should be around 70-80% as good as dps as an archer. On some turns maybe higher due to expending HP DAMAGE THAT DOES NOT HEAL.
They need a way to bypass resistances and immunities to be viable.
This class does NOT have a lot of bells and whistles, they primarily do damage, with a few extra powers. They should accordingly do damage somewhat equivalent to other damage dealing characters.
The centipedes have +24 to climb, I think they can climb up like 3 squares and get you?
Climb up what? If I'm hovering over the pit, no wall is close enough for them to climb and reach out to get to Arashi. This does assume that the room has sufficient altitude to play with, but given a height wasn't stated I'm assuming that's true.
*Shrug* 'Course, it's been gone over that 5 Titan Centipedes is insane for a level 9 of any stripe. But that's not going to stop me from trying. I'm open to running through another encounter though.
Shiroi wrote:
I love the debate. Sadly it feels like we are going in circles. So, let's try this.
Second round of this with the non-Kineticist. Things will be odd.
The Challenger:
So, background first. Building characters tends to take me a while. I don't do well with "come up with a build for X" in any kind of short period of time. This means I went to grab a martial character I had ready-- because frankly, I don't think any caster is a "balancing class" to compete with a Kineticist. Hit their Will save and laugh, it's done.
Thus I turned to the martials I'd already build... and my options were lacking. A Swashbuckler built off 40 point buy (don't ask) that was designed during the playtest, an Orc Barbarian with (amusingly absurd) rolled stats, a Strix Mutation Warrior who more or less started a fight on these boards by existing, and Tanya, the Samurai Daring Champion. Tanya seemed like the lesser of three evils.
Samurai + Daring Champion is, of course, an illegal combination. Badwrongfun. But, for the purposes of this test, I feel like using the Samurai chassis makes for a more fair competition, since the Cavalier's Tactician ability would be wasted anyway, so I rolled with it.
To make it work, I simply chopped Heavy Armor and non-Buckler shields off the Samurai's proficiencies, Champion's Finesse still replaces Mount, Nimble replaces Weapons Expertise, Panache and Deeds replaces Mounted Archer, Advanced Deeds replaces Honorable Stand, Champion's Weapon Mastery replaces Last Stand.
I will freely test Arashi against other martials if somebody else has one in mind-- or non-martials if we really want, though again I doubt the validity of the test. But this is what I'm working with. Tanya is probably still far from optimal, so an optimized martial may improve the test.
+1 Mithril Kikko
+2 Buckler
Ring of Protection +2
Amulet of Natural Armor +1
Cloak of Resistance +2
Belt of Incredible Dexterity +4
Headband of Alluring Charisma +2
Cracked Dark Blue Rhomboid (+1 on Perception & Sense Motive)
Cracked Dusty Rose Prison (+1 on initiative)
Movement: Land 40ft, Jump 1/day
Senses: Low-Light Vision
Stats assume shifted as often as possible and the Skinwalker feature is the Fanglord's +10 speed
Shiroi wrote:
At level 10, You enter a room with 5 CR-1 appropriate mooks, Titan Centipedes.
This feels like a reasonable test at each of five levels for crowd control. Assume a 100x100 foot room, so 20 squares in any direction. Put in cover in a low wall on second column, from the second square at the top to the second square at the bottom, 5 foot high wall. A mirror image location wall on the other side of the room is floor to ceiling wall. There is a pit 10 foot by 10 foot dead center of the room. It drops cleanly all the way to the hell hounds birthplace. Don't go down there. We now have an arena for this challenge.
Tanya is screwed. The Titan Centipede is a really nasty opponent for her. Being Colossal, Opportune Parry & Riposte isn't easy: she's eating a -8 off the size modifier, so with Answering she's looking a +14 to hit a 21 AC; 70% chance of success. Against a single centipede, not terrible odds, but against five it means she's probably missing one in the first rush and draining all of her Panache in the process. They need a 13 to hit her AC, and her Fort save is not great even if it is her best. She can bolster it with Battle Cry and Resolve for a re-roll, but her low Con is going to bite her too hard here. Also, the save boosters after the first round mean no riposte even if they do get into range.
She can put some decent enough numbers on them offensively, but as soon as she gets poisoned-- especially twice in one round-- it's over.
Shiroi wrote:
Now use that same arena vs a single PA opponent you feel should be used as a balancing class, who you also used in that test. We see kineticists against CR crowd, we see an existing class against the same crowd, now we should see the kineticist against that other class 1 on 1. Same room.
If Arashi flies, it's over. But that's boring, so we'll assume that-- for whatever reason-- Arashi was forced to the ground. The ceiling shrunk.
Arashi has the edge in mobility, in HP (even after Burn-- go Con stat), and in AC. He can't miss Tanya, due to Touch blast reliance, while Tanya requires a 13 to hit him-- only 40% accuracy, though this jumps when Answering comes into play and drops her required to-hit to a 9 (60% accuracy). The mobility and accuracy edges may be sufficient to carry the day even if he's forced to fly low, if he can move back and shoot her each round. Doing this drops his DPR to a miserable 23.5, so he's going to need three or four rounds to handle her.
If Tanya can close, the fight gets more interesting. In a full attack vs. full attack fight, Arashi's DPR jumps up to 61.75 (assuming she can Parry, this drops to 24.7), which means he needs four rounds if she can consistently attempt to Parry. He can abuse Kinetic Whip's reach to avoid eating the Riposte. Meanwhile Tanya's low accuracy screws her over- she deals a mere 20.39 damage up close even after she issues her Challenge (15.18 if she only gets a single attack). She needs six rounds to handle him, while even if she made it to melee with full HP, he needs four attacks to kill her the first time and trigger Without Master, then one additional attack to kill her again. His raw damage per hit is high enough to make her various tricks to last below 0 HP worthless. If he can soften her up at range, the fight ceases to be this close.
Shiroi wrote:
Next, a room 100x20. There are people listening with a perception check of 25, a DC 25 pit trap, a DC 25 locked door, and a treasure chest suspended over a pit by a dangling chain. Get the chest, don't get caught. Remember, this is a test of utility, if you can't pass a particular obstacle (including not getting noticed) make note of it and move to the next step. Please still do at least 1 non kineticist build as well, for comparison.
Perception: 55% chance of success.
Pit Trap: Not good odds. With a +5 Reflex, even if Battle Cry is in place she's almost certainly screwed.
Door: Screwed.
Chest: Actually the easy part thanks to her Jump SLA. Should be fine.
And for kicks, the rest of the challenge:
Shiroi wrote:
Survive in the wilderness for 1 week, DC 25. You arrive in a city, you need to make gold. Craft/perform/profession/pick pocket/beg. Whatever you have to do, in a city setting. Make 100 gold. Define how long this takes and the method used. Attempt to interact with an unhappy customer, DC 25 with any given method to interact. How many different ways can you make that interaction, and how effective are you?
Screwed on Survival.
Making the money could go the old mug-them-in-a-dark-alley route, but with a good Diplomacy roll Tanya could probably convince people to show her some charity, either giving her money directly or giving her menial labor to do. Or a quest, either or.
DC 25 with Diplomacy +18 and Sense Motive +14? Not hard. 70% chance of success.
Shiroi wrote:
Read a book. This book relates to a knowledge skill you have. You black out. You've been tied up, hands and legs DC 25, break free. The door has a Magic lock, you must have a spell to escape this room. On the outside, you must swim underwater for 30 feet, climb a rock wall, and then get down a 40 foot drop with no rope or handholds. These are all DC 25. Now run, you have 1,000 squares to run. How many rounds did it take you? Did you need an endurance check? Did you pass it? Does your character remember what they read, with a DC 25 knowledge check? Auto move past each obstacle if you cannot complete them.
Book: Tanya has no Knowledge skills. Automatic failure.
Tied up: Tanya would have to Take 20.
Door: Expecting a class with no spells to have a spell to escape is a forced failure. At this point Tanya would try to cut the door open.
Swim: DC 25 Swim check is impossible for her. Failure.
Climb/Drop: Climbing would require another Take 20. The Jump SLA gives a high enough Acrobatics check to trivialize the drop though.
Run: Tanya chooses to hustle instead to save herself the checks.
Remember what was read: Tanya has no knowledge skills. Automatic failure.
Time: 2 minutes to escape, 2 minutes to Climb, 62.5 rounds to run. Call it ten minutes and some change.
Note: I misread the endurance check rules for Arashi, he'd have to make a fair few Endurance checks to keep running. He'd probably do better to Hustle, which increases his total time to 46 rounds.
Results: Okay, Tanya needs work. I thought her level x2 to damage would make her a more challenging opponent to Arashi, but that's not the case-- his AC is high enough to make those kind of engagements hard, and sliding outside her Parry & Riposte range certainly doesn't do anything nice to her damage either. In fact, looking over the numbers Kinetic Whip's reach carries the match for Arashi in a straight-up melee fight. Of course, Arashi would do everything he can to not enter that scenario in the first place.
Arashi's looking at dramatic superiority in the obstacle course and the scouting scenario, but Tanya will do much better in the social interaction challenge since she can actually, well, interact socially. Tanya is also better at team support thanks to Battle Cry, and to a lesser extent the Banner (at higher levels she'd trade in for one of the wondrous item banners that does cool things).
It's difficult to say how much of this is a fair conclusion and how much of this is due to Tanya probably needing a fair bit of work. Anyone want to toss out a build for a 10th level Barbarian or the like?
@ kestral287
Excellent data, speaks volumes to me about the class. A lot of people have been tossing "no out of combat utility" around, so mixing multiple forms of movement and such tells me we do have a bit more function than some people have led me to believe. Definitely going to need to adapt the parameters for the combat PV-CR, I'm used to way power gamed third party characters in my home games. CR-1 is breakfast to my usual group, mostly my fault.
Still, it also tells me what needs to be worked on. No knowledges, survival, cha based checks of any kind, or USD to get through the door, tells me we have a lot of gaps for something that's supposed to be a balanced utility class. If we aren't blasters, and we aren't meat shields, then I'd suspect we should be able to handle several more of those situations than that. I'll try a Earth/Water kineticist tomorrow, and see if I can dig up an Iconic sheet. If I'm really feeling ambitious, I'll test all the iconics and maybe do it on a larger course now that I see how this works in action.
What did I get for my 3 points of burn, other than +3 to-hit/+3 damage?
An all day Elemental Body II (+4 size bonus to dex, +3 natural armor, darkvision, 60' perfect fly speed) and 7 AC (without a dex cap or ACP).
So your 6 points of Con (basically your belt, and actually 1/2 or 1/3 your belt depending on which one you could afford) bought you, instead of any HP at all...
3 Fort
5 Hit
2 Ref
6 DMG
12 AC*
60 Darkvision
60 Fly (P)
*depending on if you'd already included your size bonus to dex or your natural armor increase in that final AC number or not, if you'd already added it to 7 that's still a good number to put here.
And all of this stacks just fine with your Dex and Str bonuses?
For all of this you gave up putting those 6 extra points on Dex and getting +3 to Ref and +3 to Hit and +3 to AC?
In other words, instead of putting +6 in dex, you sacrificed 1 point of Reflex save to nearly double the to hit bonus and many times over the AC bonus you could otherwise have gotten with those same ability points, as well as many other abilities besides.
Just helping to clarify for the crowd who thinks that this class isn't getting anything for having to buff Con so hard. lol
