Aero-Kineticist Playtest


Playtest Feedback


Well... I posted my playtest experience in the wrong thread, and because I used spoilers, I can't quote/copy it here, so I will add a link here to the relevant playtest.

Character build can be found here:

10th Level Dwarf Aero-Kineticist Playtest

(If there's any mention of the Hunter class here, ignore it. I used it as a basis for the Kineticist in HeroLab to post it here more quickly. In-game, I used a hand-written character sheet)

The party was a Arcane-blooded Sorcerer, a Ninja (Scout), an Inquisitor and a Gunslinger (Bolt Ace).

What I observed:
- Without Burn, Claudius wasn't able to hit anything with his Air Blast. Even without Vanish, the Ninja was able to hit more often with his bow than I was with Air-Blast... I had to suffer 20 points of non-healable damage just to have the accuracy of an unbuffed Ninja! 50 points I actually wanted to hit anything with my Air Blast!
-OTOH, Electric Blast hits more often than not. SR and Energy Resistance are a problem, though. I asked the GM to switch the red dragon for a blue dragon just to see how helpful I'd be... My character was basically useless.
- Flying is fun.
- Out of combat, I might as well not be there... My measly 3 skill points went to Fly, Perception and Stealth. Non-combat scenes were boring as hell and I just couldn't contribute in any interesting way... At best, I could scout ahead... Most of the time, all I did was roll Perception.
- Used Metakinesis (Empower) a few times. No problems there.
- Used Metakinesis (Maximize) twice. Got knocked unconscious twice in 2 combats. Never did it again. (mind you, that's with Con 22, Toughness and taking HP as my favored class bonus).
- Used Enveloping Winds twice. It's okay.

The Good:
- At will Fly is really cool.
- Evenloping Wnds is okay.

The Bad:
- Out of combat, the class is basically useless, as it has no skill points, no class skills and needs really high Dex and Con (and decent Wis), leaving very few points to invest in Int. The need for lots of HP also basically force it to grab extra hp as their FCB, so no extra skill points.
- Flight is cool, but it didn't really help my party since I couldn't even carry my friends, as I had to dump Str just to compensate for the bad Will save, lack of skills and need to suffer lots of non-healable damage. Poor Pyros don't even get flight. :(
- The accuracy of the class is horrible. Having to lose 25% of my hp just to have the accuracy of a Warrior is an awful deal. If you can't target touch AC, either be prepared to lose a lot of your hp or don't even bother to attack.
- Metakinesis is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too harmful to the character. I used it twice and couldn't do anything useful in combat because even a mook could knock me out with a single hit.
- The delayed progression of Spark of Life really hurts its usefulness.

Sadly, the Kineticist is turning out to be pretty underwhelming... It's mediocre at his best and completely useless at his worst.

Suggestions:
- It desperately needs 4 skill points per level. It could even get away with 6, considering how many partial casters get that many. It also should have a much, much better list of class skills.
- Give it Full BAB and d10. That will help with its Rogue-like accuracy and with the damage from Burn.
- Burn has to be completely reworked. It costs too much hp. Use Burn twice a day and you lost half your hp. Kineticists should have some resource pool and hp damage would only be used once they run out of said resource. T

Designer

Thanks for testing the kineticist out, and for your feedback!


I hope my information helps. I'm sorry for if my criticism sounds too negative.


I agree with Lemmy. My conclusion of my kineticist in playtest was pretty much the same.

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