It seems unfair for creatures immune to nonlethal damage to be unable to use Burn.
True, in its current form a creature immune to nonlethal damage suffers little or no drawback from using burn, but I think that's a problem with how the ability is implemented and not with the concept itself.
The key feature of burn is that nonlethal damage from burn bypasses all forms of magical protection and can't be healed without rest.
Undead occult adventurers shouldn't become less able to use their class features than a living being.
Imagine if a kineticist was betrayed, murdered, and became a ghost, only to find that many of his class features had stopped working.
So why not have a line in the burn ability stating that it overcomes immunity to nonlethal damage due to creature type, but creatures that normally cannot heal through rest can heal damage from burn through rest?
Or maybe just that if a creature is immune to nonlethal damage, burn damage becomes lethal instead?
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The number of undead kineticists that would be made even with that is line is so small that it's not worth opening up loop holes for a class that has a balancing mechanic of non-lethal damage.
Undead barbarians can't rage, but I haven't seen a single thread complaining about this since the game came out.
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I don't see a problem with undead and kineticism being mutually exclusive. The powers are tied to life energy, so creatures that don't have that won't be able to use these abilities.
There might be an archetype released that undead are able to make use of, but Cheapy's right that it's a very small corner case.
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Neither can Wyrwood Barbarians, nor can they benefit from about half of the Bard abilities.
Part of the reason is there's no constant "undead" race in pathfinder, that also doesn't count as a living creature (such as Dhampir) and while you can conceivably tack a kineticist onto a monster, just like any other class, the bulk of design work and balancing principles go into making it work for player characters, the majority (vast majority) of which are not undead.
Now, your world, your game, etc. You can do whatever you want to circumvent this, such as MAKING it work for them, however, keep in mind, about 95% of what kineticist is runs off of Constitution, a stat that Undead do not have.
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Neither can Wyrwood Barbarians, nor can they benefit from about half of the Bard abilities.
Part of the reason is there's no constant "undead" race in pathfinder, that also doesn't count as a living creature (such as Dhampir) and while you can conceivably tack a kineticist onto a monster, just like any other class, the bulk of design work and balancing principles go into making it work for player characters, the majority (vast majority) of which are not undead.
Now, your world, your game, etc. You can do whatever you want to circumvent this, such as MAKING it work for them, however, keep in mind, about 95% of what kineticist is runs off of Constitution, a stat that Undead do not have.
It's in the Bestiary rules that anything modified by Consitution is instead modified by Charisma for undead, so kineticist powers would be based off Charisma.
Also, now that the idea has been planted in my brain, the fact that undead can't rage or bloodrage is really silly. Aren't there undead monsters whose entire concept revolves around anger?
Imagine Kruhulik Ghostslayer of the Northern Steppes, treacherously slain by his skald in the deep wastes, his spirit filled with rage and spite and a desire for vengeance, whose ax has the ghost touch property.
Now that he is a ghost, his class abilities are unusable?
Despite being a corner case, it's a corner case where the rules directly work against solid story concepts, and just because a DM can ignore those rules doesn't mean they aren't bad rules.
If a rule isn't followed in certain circumstances, the better decision is to amend the rule to take those circumstances into account, instead of using selective enforcement.
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Sure, they can rage in other fashions, as long as that raging isn't a morale bonus (such as a unique monster ability and such.)
Also, it's hard to say whether Kineticiest "would" transfer, the special ability exampled is a racial ability, such as a poison or breath weapon, not a class ability which is tied more to the class and less to a creature.
In theory though it goes against the design scheme of the class, as Mergy said, draws off of life force. Undead have a ton of other things going for them, they don't need a single class out of like almost 40 to be 100% compatible with them.
Sure, they can rage in other fashions, as long as that raging isn't a morale bonus (such as a unique monster ability and such.)
Also, it's hard to say whether Kineticiest "would" transfer, the special ability exampled is a racial ability, such as a poison or breath weapon, not a class ability which is tied more to the class and less to a creature.
In theory though it goes against the design scheme of the class, as Mergy said, draws off of life force. Undead have a ton of other things going for them, they don't need a single class out of like almost 40 to be 100% compatible with them.
While it is true that dead things don't have life force, that's not necessarily the case for UNdead things.
It's a perverted, inverse version of normal life force, true, but that doesn't mean it's any less powerful or less tied to the occult.
I guess it just seems odd that undead such as ghosts, which have pretty strong ties to the occult, would be flat-out barred from a class strongly tied to occult forces.
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Neither can Wyrwood Barbarians, nor can they benefit from about half of the Bard abilities.
Part of the reason is there's no constant "undead" race in pathfinder, that also doesn't count as a living creature (such as Dhampir) and while you can conceivably tack a kineticist onto a monster, just like any other class, the bulk of design work and balancing principles go into making it work for player characters, the majority (vast majority) of which are not undead.
Now, your world, your game, etc. You can do whatever you want to circumvent this, such as MAKING it work for them, however, keep in mind, about 95% of what kineticist is runs off of Constitution, a stat that Undead do not have.
It's in the Bestiary rules that anything modified by Consitution is instead modified by Charisma for undead, so kineticist powers would be based off Charisma.
Also, now that the idea has been planted in my brain, the fact that undead can't rage or bloodrage is really silly. Aren't there undead monsters whose entire concept revolves around anger?
Imagine Kruhulik Ghostslayer of the Northern Steppes, treacherously slain by his skald in the deep wastes, his spirit filled with rage and spite and a desire for vengeance, whose ax has the ghost touch property.
Now that he is a ghost, his class abilities are unusable?
Despite being a corner case, it's a corner case where the rules directly work against solid story concepts, and just because a DM can ignore those rules doesn't mean they aren't bad rules.
If a rule isn't followed in certain circumstances, the better decision is to amend the rule to take those circumstances into account, instead of using selective enforcement.
All true, however, you're talking about flavor and story related circumstances. There's nothing saying that you, as a GM can't change it, they do it all the time in adventure paths (Gein Kafog from Shattered Star comes to mind.) A Cleric of Zon-Kuthon that can channel Positive energy (goes into his belief structure and such, great npc imho.)
The thing is, it's not "bad design" if it's something clearly intended for the typical target, which is player characters, the overwhelming majority of which aren't undead. Sorcerer works well for a Dragon, but it is intended for player characters (no racial hit dice, etc etc.)
However, it IS a small area where a certain crature type can't benefit from a certain class feature of a certain class. That's not uncommon and honestly a ton of games have features like that. I'd be concerned if it was something like "elves can't be kineticists because it's not in their nature," like older editions of some games were.
Saying that your Lich Kineticist (which btw unless they amend the rules can't be done either, as it's not a caster) can't use the burn option sucks, but that doesn't mean it's a big deal.
RAW REALLY only matters for purposes of PFS, and as a basis. From there, it's up to GM fiat, houseruling and group consensus.
I'm not normally a fan of Rule 0, but here's a circumstance where it matters and should be used.
If the story is that big a deal, make another interesting part of the story to make it work. Maybe a kineticist is raised as a Vampire, and now said Vampire keeps a collection of Thralls (non undead thralls that is) around and has a special occult (tie in) ritual to make THEM take the burn for him.
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Their are hints that we might see unique forms of undead that use kineticist abilities. Whether they are released in Bestiary 5, a campaign setting book, or this book, I don't know.
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Since this is OCCULT adventures, I'm talking more about Ghosts than Liches.
A haunted house adventure revolving around an evil poltergeist works much better at medium to higher levels when it is a Ghost Kineticist rather than a haunt that the cleric can just channel-spam into oblivion.
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Well, similar to how some AP's have access to unique rules for that adventure (ones that go outside the normal bounds,) maybe the location (house or whatever) that the Ghost Kineticist is haunting has a "pool" of temporary hp the kineticist can use, or maybe it's something else. Again, it's RAW, and RAW only REALLY matter for PFS. From there slight twitches or slight rule modifications for the sake of the story are expected, and often utilized.
I suppose so.
*Sigh.*
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Now, I don't know the details, but the designer of the class has said that they definitely considered this angle when someone brought it up. It sounds like we'll get some rule for it in the full book.
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Personally if I built some undead based on anger I'd go for profane bonus to replace the morale.
I'd say have undead use their Charisma, with being allowed "free" burns a number of times per day equal to their Charisma score.
Undead barbarians can't rage, but I haven't seen a single thread complaining about this since the game came out.
Sadly, this has not stopped at least two undead raging barbarians from being published, despite the fact that they aren't supposed to be able to get a morale bonus.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of specialty undead made for kineticists as they did with the pale strangers for gunslingers.
-TimD
I dont see anyone complaining about not beign able to make tarrasque wizards
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The number of undead kineticists that would be made even with that is line is so small that it's not worth opening up loop holes for a class that has a balancing mechanic of non-lethal damage.
Undead barbarians can't rage, but I haven't seen a single thread complaining about this since the game came out.
To add to this:
Many GM ignore that restriction and allow barbarians to rage anyway. In a home game I think the same will be done with kineticists. Some will say "but PC's". Most PC's don't get to play undead creatures, and if a GM is going to allow it then allowing them to play a kineticist or houserule that the undead does take damage is no longer a far stretch.
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There's certainly grounds for allowing an undead to rage, but based on their Cha, in place of Con; maybe accessible via a feat or template ability.
Based on the concept that Cha = 'force of personality/spirit'.
Given that, assuming the rager is built organically, from level 1 up, most barbarians won't have prioritised Cha, so they won't be that dangerous.