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I thought I'd join the bandwagon and get in all my thoughts of the Kineticist, at least as I see them now (having not yet played a game with one, though I intend to play a 1-2 PFS adventure this weekend with a Pyro or Aether).
The Concept
First off, I want to say that I love this concept. I went into the Occult Playtest rules not very excited about the theme at all, but Kineticists were the first thing that caught my eye and changed my mind. I really do like the mental image of hurling limitless energy balls, summoning energy blades, turning into a force of nature and streaking across the field.
I also like the idea of having Con as your scaling class stat, sacking HP to get more powerful abilities, and having a living-on-the-edge type of playstyle. That sounds cool and exciting.
The Burn Mechanic
Of course, like many other players that I've seen in this forum, I have issues with the way the concept has currently been put into practice. The current burn mechanic in-particular does seem too harsh to me. Sure. You're suffering nonlethal damage, but that non-lethal damage looks like it can really add up fast.
I feel that suffering 1 nonlethal damage per Hit Dice is a mistake.
When I was originally looking at the Kineticist class, I was thinking that the burn just meant that you suffered that much damage total per attack – so 1 burn = 1 nonlethal. I thought the Kineticist was okay if that were the case, but one nonlethal per HD? That means that even at levels where you’re damage output doesn’t increase, you’re still taking more damage from the scaling burn. This means that at lower levels you’re able to manage alright (2 pts of nonlethal here… 3 pts of nonlethal there… It’s about the equivalent of Vicious Weapon Damage) but at higher levels, 1 burn could deal more damage than I feel it should. I could only imagine dealing 20 damage to myself at Level 20 – or 40, 60, etc. And sure, the Infusion Specializations should be able to help mitigate that, but still – that’s a lot of damage to deal to yourself, nonlethal or otherwise.
If burn has to scale at all, I don’t think it should scale off of HD. I’d much rather see it scale off of Simple Blast Damage (+1 nonlethal every odd lvl), or even off of Wild Talent Progression (so every time you gain a new Wild Talent, burn costs you a cumulative +1 nonlethal). Burn damage progression could be documented on the Kineticist table to keep things more simplified too.
On a side note, another way to balance the burn damage could be to make the Move Action Option for -1 Burn become a Swift or Free Action at higher levels. This in-particular is something I would really like to see (that's why I've got it highlighted & italicized for emphasis.) It would make the ability work similarly to the Slayer's studied target ability.
Class Stats
I want to make a particular note of the class statistics here, as one other possible solutions to the burn mechanic would be to simply give the Kineticist a better HD. More health would mean a better ability to soak up all the damage that you deal to yourself, and I could see a D10 or D12 HD being completely justified for this class. Not only would the HD seem to fit the playstyle of this class (reckless, all-out damage-dealing energy user; much like a barbarian - minus the energy part), but a lot of PF books seem to have at least one martial class-type of character (which the occult book is currently lacking). The Kineticist could be the Paladin/Barbarian/Bloodrager equivalent for the Occult Book.
As I posted in another thread, I’m also totally up for giving the Kineticist full BAB too and/or 4 skill points per level – though, if the Kineticist could get one thing, I would say get them the better HD (especially if they’re going to use touch-attack simple blasts – which seem to be the best option currently).
Simple Blasts
This was noted by others, but I feel that every element should have access to both forms of simple blast. It seems trivial to have limitations on that.
I also feel that if the touch and ranged attacks are going to be balanced, then the ranged attacks need to have more incentive to be used. The ranged attacks need to do more than 1 extra point of damage per level and full Con damage. Maybe the Con could be 1.5x damage, or extra damage every odd level could be increased?
Elemental Defense
I feel that of the Elemental Defenses, Earth and Air have really good ones – although Earth is probably the best hands-down. Fire is okay (though it won’t often find use – when it does find use, it could be pretty powerful). I could still see it getting a buff (perhaps make it so that all melee attacks suffer return damage, but non-unarmed strike/natural attackers take half damage?).
Whatever the case, I feel that both Aether and Water got the shaft here. Both the Temp HP and AC bonuses don’t scale very well. Maybe the Temp HP could be upped to 2 HD or more, and/or the burn option could scale faster? Same goes with the water. I feel that it could probably scale faster too. Otherwise, why not just buy a magical buckler? Sure it would cost a decent bit more, but then you could be an Earth Kineticist and get the much more useful DR instead.
Wild Talents
Some of the Wild Talents are really cool and thematic (I especially like the Ride the Blast ability flavor-wise). Some are definitely underpowered though. I can call out Pressurized Blast Infusion as a serious offender. It costs 1 Burn to *maybe* move an enemy 5 ft? If anything, it should *automatically* move the enemy 5 ft – no check required. Even then however, 5 ft is a negligible amount of space. I don’t know why I’d ever get that ability.
I'm not sure how I feel about Kinetic Fist, as it seems like it scales very, very slowly (though it would be an excellent 1 Lvl class dip). Also, Burning Infusion doesn't scale at all & I'd love to see it scale one way or another (though that might not be a major issue - an extra D6 damage is still nice, no matter what level you are).
I haven’t looked through all the Wild Talents so I’m not going to pretend to know which of the other options are weak or powerful. I feel that some of them could potentially just be turned into automatic class abilities though (kind of like how the gunslinger gets a small selection of grit abilities to begin with). A lot of the universal Wild Talents could be talents that the Kineticists simply get for free once they reach the required level (Kinetic Blade & Extended Range for instance both feel like abilities that all Kineticists could be able to access). That would give players access to more of the more flavorful Wild Talents, while still having access to the basic necessities of the class for combat and such.
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In sum, these are all my initial thoughts of the class. I feel Kineticists are an awesome idea. I just feel that they haven’t reached their sweet spot yet, and still need some work.
Thanks XandZero2 for writing exactly what I'd have written
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Glad to see you like what I had to say 45ur4.
Also Kestral,
I'm still not sold on the water defense - but I also don't know how all the rules interact. How does armor normally work with things like elemental body? Do you keep the armor bonus when you change forms? I seem to recall that you don't - so if that is the case, then I can see where you're coming from there.
Having still not played a Kineticist yet in-game (especially a high-level one), I don't know exactly how common melee-focused fighting is in the class. On paper, melee does seem ideal when you get iterative attacks though, and if you're forced into melee in order to get the most damage output in every scenario, then that might be another issue with the class (depending on whether the developers were intending Kineticists to actually be melee fighters, ranged combatants, or both).
As far as burn goes though, it might not be hard to avoid burn at 20th level, but I'm more concerned about earlier levels. How are people avoiding so much burn? Is it just that one Move Action Option and stacked Infusion Specializations? Even so, 1 nonlethal per HD sounds harsh, and why force players to take extra burn on levels where their attacks aren't getting any more powerful through more Wild Talents/blast damage anyway?
Again, I do like the idea behind the burn mechanic (taking damage to use more powerful abilities), but I think the amount of nonlethal damage dealt per burn could be revised.
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On a sidenote, I'd like to add this to my opening comments:
Wild Talents - Continued...
I was looking over Wild Talents in more depth the other night, and I realized that Fire Kineticists don't gain access to a single AoE blast infusion until 16th level. This just seems to be completely counter-intuitive to the flavor and mechanics I'd expect from a Pyrokineticist PC. Shouldn't they be able to rain AoEs of fiery death down on their enemies by at least level 10? Compared to the other elements, I feel like Pyrokineticists should maybe trade out flexibility, but overall have more potential for damage and (again) AoEs. They should at least have similar options to Water Kineticists, who can get both Torrent and Spray by levels 6 & 10 respectively. I could easily see lines of fire and cones of fire as logical blast infusions, and by giving Pyros a Lvl 6 & 10 AoE option, it would create a more logical build up to the uber-infusion that is Explosion.
Also, one other thing that struck me as a bit odd about the Wild Talents - there seem to be a lot more form infusions than substance infusions. Out of 24 combat infusions (I believe that's the right number), I only counted 8 substance infusions. Not sure if that's a really big issue in itself, but each element gets quite a few more form infusions than substance infusions. It would be nice to see more substance infusion options getting added in later down the line.