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Stealing the format from Sammy T as it seems the most clear cut and straightforward. Hope you don't mind.
WHO ARE YOU?
I'm Protoman. This is the first time I ever had a chance to play a playtest class, only recently started up PFS after a 3 year hiatus, excited to playest it, and happy to report on it.
HOW ARE YOU PLAYTESTING?
I exclusively play PFS, so my playtests will be in sanctioned modules or official PFS scenarios. These are almost all tables with open sign ups. This means party sizes will vary, player system mastery may be lacking and the ideal balanced party you theorycraft may not be the one you actually play with. But it also means that table variation on rules should be minimized and the encounters I experience can almost be directly compared to other people's run-throughs.
I'm basically in the same boat. Between GM'ing and playing in higher tier, I'm gonna be scrounging up whatever opportunities I can for my low level kineticist.
WHAT SCENARIOS ARE YOU PLAYING
I've played #04-01: Rise of the Goblin Guild last night. If I'm very lucky I'll get a chance to do #06 - Black Waters before the playtest is over. There's a PFS Season 6 Special happening this weekend and throough conflict of timing, I doubt I'd have much opportunity to try more playtesting as I'm slated to play a different class for the Special and won't be able to join in on other scenarios following it that day.
WHAT ARE YOU PLAYTESTING?
Pyrokineticist. Gonna scorch butts and chew bubblegum. And I burned through all my bubblegum.
WHY A PYROKINETICIST?
I'm aware that the non-touch ranged attacks have more damage, but I personally like hitting with little effort, despite the lower damage. Played through too many characters wiffing the attack roll dice trying to Power Attack cuz the potential and option was there. And my dice tend to hate me, but they're too pretty to throw away. Plus I loved Avatar: The Last Airbender and enjoy The Legend of Korra. I'm also intrigued by the concept of the occultish firestarter that's barely reining in their primal power inside their physical forms as mentioned in my previous post in the General Kineticist thread and specifically from the Innsmouth Garden Society story arc in the D20 Monkey webcomic.
Plus at lower levels, I figured I had good odds of avoiding anything with fire immunity.
And I can use Sokka's alias of Wang Fire gleefully and unironically as I blast everything in sight. Win-win!
I wanted to go melee, but I can't justify the forced burn expenditure for simply moving + kinetic blade until level 5, so will be ranged build until then.
WHAT'S YOUR CURRENT BUILD AND WHY?
Wang Fire is starting at level 1 with one GM credit chronicle under his scorched belt (emergency last-minute GM'ed First Steps the weekend before). So I got some money and prestige I can spend on whatever which is nice. Proper playtest probably shouldn't start with a broke (money-wise, not power level) character anyways.
RACE:
Human. I can't bear the thought of not having Precise Shot until L3. The Point-Blank Shot + Precise Shot feat tax is the primary reason I didn't play a non-human kineticist. The secondary reason? With 2 skill points/level, I would be hurting to contribute in a meaningful way in non-combat situations...and depending on the scenario, that could be a significant chunk of time. Hello, human bonus skill point!
Pretty much the same reasons for human for me. Mechanically, anything else would hurt. I love having skills and have avoided 2-per-level classes for years.
STATS: STR 12, DEX 16, CON 18, INT 12, WIS 10, CHA 7
I went Constitution over Dexterity simply because with fire blast aiming for touch AC, I can afford a lower attack stat and bump it up in the future. I wanted a minimum 12 Strength because of carrying capacity. Int 12 for at least 4 skill points, and I went with favored class benefit (hit point).
TRAITS: Bruising Intellect and Reckless. I went Intimidate for the first time ever because it's hard to justify getting two traits for Diplomacy: one to make it a class skill and one to make it Intelligence-based instead of Charisma. Just having one or the other doesn't seem enough to appeal to me. I love acrobatics and refuse to play a decent Dexterity-based character without it (soooo happy when Reckless got released in Ultimate Campaign). I can tumble away from melee and increases my mobility options simply because it allows me to jump better than most of my party members typically.
FEATS:
(L1) Point Blank & (Human) Precise Shot. Pay your taxes everyone.
Ugh agreed. Though I plan on getting Weapon Finesse and Toughness/Improved Unarmed Strike/Weapon Focus (kinetic blast) by level 5. Obviously I'm undecided on which one of the three besides Weapon Finesse to pick by then.
SKILLS: Acrobatics, Intimidate, Knowledge nature (everyone should have at least 1 knowledge skill), and Perception.
WILD TALENTS: While I wanted to pick up Burning Infusion, moving around cover or getting within 30 feet for blast range in order to attack doesn't give me much opportunity to use a move action to reduce burn if I wanna be attacking in the same round. At lower levels a creature isn't gonna last more than a round or two anyways, so I went with Extended Range.
ARMOR CLASS: 17 = leather lamellar, no shield (didn't wanna mess up the burn-reduction-move-action as that requires 2 free hands), a 16 DEX, 13 HP, I was pretty confident on survival for most low level games.
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SCENARIO:
#04-01: Rise of the Goblin Guild (Subtier 1-2)
Nothing real special to report about his build in level 1 besides that he sports two cestii in order to help flank (ended up being useful) and has a light crossbow in order to benefit from a grappling bolt.
PARTY:
Level 1 Human Pyrokineticist = Wang Fire! Woo!
Level 2 Half-Orc Battle Oracle with greatsword and composite longbow (+4 Str), ten-foot pole, marbles, climbers kit, and other dungeoneering gear. Props to a well prepped character.
Level 1 Human Summoner with heavy crossbow and bipedal eidolon that bites.
Level 2 Human Lore Oracle with heavy crossbow.
Level 1 Tengu Gunslinger using a musket.
There was supposed to be a chase scene, but 1 critical bite from the right place/right time eidolon later in the first round, nixed the whole chase scene right in the bud when Ekkie immediately surrendered.
The GM shared what the chase was gonna entail. While I have decent Dex and might have passed the acrobatic checks, the climb/escape artist/CMB/Strength checks would have been definite problems. Not too much of an indictment on the kineticist, those skills can screw over lots of 4 skill point or lower per level Dex based characters.
The social/interrogation encounter went well. The summoner and both oracles had good diplomacy modifiers. I contributed only through creatively feeding Ekkie making a big show of blasting fire into the air (Chanted "Fire! Fire! Fire!" while punching the air above my head).
Down to the sewers! My nice Fortitude and Constitution prevented me from being sickened for being in the offal-infused sewers.
Stupid fire resistant 10 slime mold. Was disappointing Wang couldn't hurt it in the slightest. Oh well, them's the breaks for element-focused characters <shrug>. The goblins got killed before Wang could get a shot at them.
Party faced off against a goblin alchemist and 3 alchemist's fire chucking goblins with the Burn! Burn! Burn! feat (extra 1d4 fire damage). Wang's touch attack fire blast proved useful when trying to shoot past cover. Wang and Ekkie also bonded over seeing all the goblins and party members on fire. Ooo-ing and Aaahh-ing. All in all, the alchemist didn't get a shot in. Lore Oracle critted him with heavy crossbow and got finished by the tengu's musket.
The party and I all chortled on how much alchemist's fire was left over from the fight since we killed the tier 1-2 goblins so quickly. Even risked giving some to Ekkie since she was behaving. She was helpful to my character by then and stuck close.
The next fight was in a large chamber with huge pipes blocking movement and shots, and a sewer stream bissecting the chamber with a bridge across it. The bridge ended up being a chokepoint for a bit when the goblin bard casted grease on it. While gunslinger, summoner, and lore oracle took potshots through cover at the goblin bard, the battle oracle and eidolon cleared out the bridge of enemy combatants, Wang rushed across, nimbly passing the acrobatics check sliding across the greased up bridge daringly and fire blasted the bard. Ekkie, to the surprise of all followed Wang exactly and threw an alchemist's fire. Both the fire-appreciatists' attacks hit and the bard got burned up (even the GM was surprised Ekkie actually connected with the alchemist's fire). The bard was finished off by the rest of the party.
When Ekkie made some friends with the goblin dogs after asking us not to kill it. Wang took it upon himself to teach Ekkie that having a pet was a big responsibility; she has to feed, clean, and take her pet out for walks if she doesn't want it killed. I'm starting to think [i[Rise of the Goblin Guild wasn't a great scenerio to test out the social skills or lacking of for the kineticist since it was so well written that RP choices were doing just as great for the party and me. Ekkie made the checks to befriend and ride the advanced goblin dog after we fed them horse meat from the knackery.
The final fight with the bugbear was pretty fun with the long chamber and pillars providing cover. Wang finally got to use his Extended Range wild talent, had to move around a corner to line up his shot so ended up taking the burn and subsequent nonlethal damage. Wang also moved up close and to the side to allow others to get their shots in. Bugbear took that as an invitation to move from behind her throne and attacked with her horsechopper. I'm glad I forked over for the leather lamellar. That thing would have dropped Wang into ashy cinders had it connected. I kinda wished I had more talents and feats to try some melee combat but by then only provided a flank bonus for everyone else to finish it off before Wang got another shot off.
Final Fiery Thoughts
I enjoyed playing the kineticist. His combat options are pretty limited and only having to consider how to get from A to B to Shoot C. I'm glad I invested in acrobatics for that and bummed that it's not already a class skill or offered as such with an element focus. For this scenario, RP was limited I think, but I made the most of it committing to the idea of a fire-loving "hero" and his new goblin fire-prentice cohort. I lucked out with the party having so many Cha-based classes though. I wouldn't have gotten anything done if requiring Diplomacy or Knowledge local. This being a basic dungeon crawl, perception was a great choice.
4 skill points is definitely required to even have a well-rounded character. Maybe even better class skill selection to be more focused, as of now the skills are all kinda over the place and doesn't really stand out. If folks are expected to have good Con, Str/Dex and maybe Int, then maybe more physical skills should be provided as class skills, like swim and climb and escape artist and acrobatics. 2 skill points per level hurt. If I had more, I'd consider even cross-class skills of diplomacy or oither knowledge or linguistic skills as maybe ok investments.
Damage was fine for low-tier. Running into a fire resist 10 creature right off the bat was kinda foreboding of things to come, but something I accepted when I chose fire, one of the most resisted and immuned energy types out there, so I've read. I hope the final class allows the elemental focus choices to reduce immunity to resist 20 or something, and a scalable reduction in a target's energy resistance.
Some utility abilities would be nice. I couldn't really do anything outside combat besides improvising things to do. The wild-talent/elemental focused-given equivalents of cantrips like light or dancing lights (was RP-embarrassing to tell partymates I can't simple fire blast for illumination), spark, create water for hydrokineticists, or ability to put out or start fires for pyrokineticists would be nice. Energy resistance tacked on to the defense wild talents would definitely help with theme and survivability.
I can't say much about burn besides being a moot point at low levels when I don't have Metakinesis or Feel the Burn yet.
I hadn't thought about that "basic flames" aspect. It would make sense that if you can conjure fire, you should be able to do simple things with conjuring fire.
SCENARIO:
#06-01: Trial by Machine (Subtier 1-2). Was able to jump on this after the Season 6 Special (Legacy of the Stonelords) held this weekend.
PARTY:
Level 1 Human Pyrokineticist = Retrained out Extended Range for Burning Infusion to give it a shot before level 2.
Level 1 Monk of the Four Winds
Level 1 Musket Master with earthbreaker switch hitter (has Power Attack. Awesome)
Level 2 Slayer
Level 2 Zen Archer had a great Use Magic Device modifier. Ended up as main healer.
Obviously not the most balanced party what with the utter dearth of spellcasters.
Wang Fire learned fire was basically useless against robot hardness.
How does hardness work for creatures? Does energy damage such as cold deal half damage to creatures with hardness (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 173-174) even before applying the flat numerical reduction?
When a creature with hardness sustains damage, subtract its hardness from the damage dealt. The rules for halving damage, doubling damage, dealing damage with ineffective tools, immunities, and the like only apply to damaging inanimate objects.
Wang Fire was sad.
Granted I knew there was gonna be robots in the first few scenarios for season 6 and could have free-retrained into an aerokineticist (electricity blast) in order to be more useful, but I wanted to stick it out to see how I can adapt to the situation. For this encounter Wang Fire stayed behind cover and fired at the trap with burning infusion blast hoping to prevent the taser cables from retracting and shooting at party members again who were laying the beat down on the stuck robot.
This was getting embarrassing hah!
Basically 4 burning skeletons that also did electricity damage. Immunity to fire (Wang Fire learned the hard way). Explodes when destroyed (thankfully didn't have to learn that the hard way). Glad there was a monk willing to suffer aura damage to bull rush and a gunslinger and a zen archer with blunt arrows in the party. Wang Fire did not contribute even one bit in this encounter.
Wang Fire learned that air elementals can be burned and set on fire. Wang Fire was satisfied and all was right with the world.
Conclusions
Robot hardness bites. If it had been regular construct DR, probably wouldn't have been so useless this scenario as the fire blast could have ignored that. But that's something all energy-based spellcasters gotta deal with so I don't see that as too much of a complaint.
Fire immunity though? Ouch. A pyrokineticist or any other kineticist are locked down on energy type class features til level 7 with little utility otherwise, whereas let's say a fire-based sorcerer, evocation wizard, or flame oracle still has utility in other spell or combat options. I'd really want a way to get past resistances or immunity as a kineticist levels up. OR at the very least something useful to do in combat besides blast at lower levels, like maybe an elemental effect duplicating obscuring mist to provide concealment and block vision.
Lack of skill points hurt again. Even with the Charisma penalty I think I'd probably put ranks in Use Magic Device if I had skill points to spare simply to use a wand of CLW outside of combat.
SCENARIO
#00-06: Black Waters (Subtier 1-2). I was happy to get one more playtest in before Tuesday and report in before the playtest forums get locked. Got 3 lines on my chronicle!
Wang Fire just leveled up from Trial By Machines despite not contributing much. Yay for the free-rider effect. Took the opportunity to do some free retraining/tinkering while I still had the chance.
STATS: STR 12, DEX 16, CON 18, INT 12, WIS 10, CHA 7
Didn't feel the need to change any of it. I've been fine with the Accuracy/Damage so far Con>Dex. Plus Con 18, favored class benefit (HP) and D8 hit die means I get minimum +10 HP every level (can't weait for +2 Con belt), and that's a nice buffer for all the burn I'll be picking up in the future.
HP = 23! Wang Fire may be a glass cannon, but at least he'll be a healthy one!
TRAITS: I kept Reckless but retrained out Brusing Intellect for Clever Wordplay (diplomacy). Not being able to contribute much for social encounters or gather information checks hurt during level 1. So I'll suffer through the lack of class skill bonus for now and pick it up as a class skill via specialization with the Eagle Knight vanity at level 4.
FEATS: Kept Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot. Allies providing cover in cramped tunnels was bad enough even with fire blast's ranged touch attack's lower target number, but -4 shooting into melee penalty would have made Wang Fire beyond useless. Still plan on Weapon Finesse at level 3 for switch-hitting. Weapon Focus at level 5.
SKILLS: Acrobatics +9 (2 ranks + Reckless), Diplomacy +3 (2 ranks + Clever Wordplay), Escape Artist +7 (1 rank), Knowledge: Nature +5 (1 rank), and Perception +5 (2 ranks).
Despite intimidate making bit more sense for Wang Fire, PFS play doesn't really reward intimidating options over diplomacy. Currently thinking of maxing out Acrobatics, Diplomacy, and Perception, leaving 1 roaming skill point to shore up some other class skills (Dex based are priorities).
WILD TALENTS: I retrained out Extended Range for Burning Infusion, dungeon crawls or indoor settings didn't see Extended Range in play much. Setting folks on fire is always fun. Picked up Kinetic Blade at level 2, don't have Weapon Finesse yet so more of an emergency use, though it turns out to not be that useful while in a grapple. See Encounter 1.
ARMOR CLASS: 17 = mithral chainshirt, no shield (didn't wanna mess up the burn-reduction-move-action as that requires 2 free hands), a 16 DEX.
OTHER EQUIPMENT = Underwater crossbow with bolts & grappling bolt; I read up on underwater combat and spellcasting or fire spell-like abilities are basically more wasted effort than productive burning. Silk rope. Courtiers outfit; red, of course. Wand of CLW.
PARTY
Level 2 Human Pyrokineticist = Wang Fire!
Level 1 Half-Elf Slayer = Girlfriend was playing PFS for the first time. Finessing an elven curve blade. Did I help optimize her character? Sure, to her specifications. Did I encourage a melee build to ensure meatshield between me and monsters. Maybe. Do I regret it? Absolutely not.
Level 2 Half-Elf Haunted Lore Oracle with heavy crossbow = Same lore oracle from the Rise of the Goblin Guild game, I got her race wrong that time. Comes with an assortment of wands.
Level 1 Half-Elf Monk of the Four Winds = Same monk from the Trial By Machines game. Uses a spear more often than flurrying from what I can tell.
Level 1 or 2 Human Bear Shaman Druid = I didn't catch what level the druid was but I suspect level 2 as he took quite a lot of hits and stayed standing.
Level 2 Human Hydrokineticist = Player was the GM for Rise of the Goblin Guild game. He told me that he originally played his hydrokineticist as a dwarf, but retrained out for human for Precise Shot. Chalk up another victim to feat tax. He uses water blast for the damage and the amount of healing he does with Kinetic Healer. Has the forementioned Kinetic Healer and Extended Range Wild Talents. He had Con>Dex.
After a late night visit to Drandle Drenge and a banquet the following evening, the party FINALLY went to the Drownyard to find the necropolis and the salamander ring Drenge wants. Maybe even find Junia if there's time. There was a creepy man talking to ghosts of a teacher and students, but he was hostile, we didn't attack anybody, and he and teacher ghost led us to a pond with the bubbling water and arm sticking out. The lore oracle asked the spirit haunting her to try picking up the arm (mage hand). Triggered the surprise round.
Wang Fire, the slayer, and the monk made the perception checks to spot the giant water bug coming up to the surface and got to act. The slayer studied the target, Wang Fire fire blasted and yelped in fear, and the monk's punch didn't dent the bug's shell.
The bug attacks the only one to have damaged it so far: Wang Fire. Hits and grabs and grapples Wang with its mandibles. Subsequent "mouthful of Wang" jokes had by me and rest of the table. As an immedate action Wang activated searing flesh (with no burn to improve it. He was grappled, can't risk MORE damage upon himself), the bug fails the reflex to avoid 1d6 heat damage. I forgot about automatic heat damage at the end of grappling creature's turn (but I'll get it right in following rounds). Bug survives round of attacks (but mostly misses) from party members. Wang failed the escape artist check to escape the grapple (rolled low). I didn't bother blasting or using Kinetic Blade because I still need to make a Concentration check, DC 10 + 1 (half my kineticist level for blast) + whatever the thing's grapple CMB is just to activate it. I didn't know what exact number was, but I'm pretty sure it was pointless to try. Wang spends his move action screaming. I know that's not necessarily an action, but I spent it to scream nonetheless.
The bug survives more hits and misses, maintains grapple on Wang, suffers more heat damage. Wang figures "screw it" and punches with a cestus with a -2 grapple penalty, barely connects for max damage (5) and the bug dies. Yay Wang!
Looking over the playtest document, I think searing flesh and flesh of stone are the only starting defense talents useful when already stuck in a grapple. I liked doing auto-fire damage to something grappling me. Felt like karma for other instances where something got auto rake/constrict/etc damage just because they had my character helpless in its jaws/grip/whatever. Wang Fire takes 2 burn (4 unhealable nonlethal damage) to enhance his searing flesh to 2d6 fire damage (Reflex DC 15 negates). I'm low enough level that each burn doesn't take out that much HP and I learned my lesson to keep Wang Fire further away from the front of the action.
After the slayer pulls the stone plug (the severed arm mentioned early was clutching it) in the pool and hilariously gets sucked into the hole, the party follows down into the necropolis. They run into a bugbear zombie. Taking cover behind a corner Wang Fire blasts it with a burning infusion, setting it on fire. I'm a little hazy on how the burning infusion or catch on fire rules work. When do foes take extra 1d6 fire damage? On my next turn? On the beginning or end of foe's next turn? I went conservative approach and assume beginning of my turn. Zombie dies before Wang's turn comes up again :( I actually find that pretty impressive with the group since only the Slayer had a slashing weapon for the zombie's DR.
After encountering the sad scene of the group of ghost children huddling in a circle comforting each other, the party basically pulls a Scooby Doo and runs into a pack of 3 ghouls when approaching a turn in the tunnels. Human druid gets paralyzed while the slayer, monk, and hydrokineticist holds the front lines. Oracle casts bless as Wang Fire blasts burning infusion on whichever ghoul is most damaged. Each ghoul on fire gets killed before extra 1d6 fire damage :( :( :( Combat lasted a while and I'm happy about attacking touch AC past cover.
The final encounter against the ghast was not ideal for ranged characters. Encountered it in a small alcove and half the party was inside with it and half outside trying to shoot in or provide support initially. The melees: slayer, monk, and druid, were blocking the entrance and Wang Fire had to move past them by tumbling through their squares because they were all in the ghast's threatened area. Tucked himself in an empty corner and blasted away.
Good news everyone, the ghast suffered SEVERAL rounds of being on fire. I gleefully rolled extra fire damage. Why did combat last several rounds, you may ask? The ghoul was pretty fricking tough for the others to hit. Hydrokineticist couldn't hit him past cover as he stayed outside the room blasting with Extended Range (he didn't have any acrobatics to get any closer to try and get around cover to begin with), the slayer, monk and druid were rolling poorly, and the oracle had to stay as healer and support when the druid and slayer inevitably got paralyzed. I think Wang Fire was the only one that damaged it barely making the touch AC past cover (but only missing once due to critical fumble) and the ghast never bothered putting out his fire.
CONCLUSIONS
I was pretty satisfied with the pyrokineticist for this scenario. Mainly because nothing was fire resistant. I'm pretty sure I'm always gonna prefer the lower damage for the ranged touch attack as I compared the hydrokineticist's and Wang Fire's hit rate. The hydrokineticist hit hard, but really only hit maybe half the time, while I missed really only a small number of times due to low rolls and did a respectable 1d6+3 (plus another 1d6 on fire damage if they guy lives long enough).
The hydrokineticist player told me that in his last game where he was still level 1, he had a lot of resistance from fellow players (all level 1 or 2) about kinetic healer. They didn't want to take 1-2 nonlethal damage despite getting healed for 1d6+5 and the hydrokineticist obviously couldn't take al lthe burn himself. So he was hesitant to use it this scenario. His teammates were basically dummies as in emergencies, that 1d6+1+Con +1d6+1 every two levels of healing is pretty incredible. Level 5 can do 3d6+7 heals a buttload of times while a cleric can do 3d8+5, 2d8+5, 1d8+5 a handful of times doesn't even compare when in combat and in dire need of effective in-combat healing, and all it costs is 5 nonlethal damage. Even non-kineticists have a knee-jerk reactions to Burn. Granted at low levels, burn is manageable. At higher levels, I'd like to see ways (class feature, feat, magic item, etc) to reduce the effects of burn already suffered in a day to help with higher level costs.
I was mostly happy about searing flesh. Granted the hydrokineticist upped his AC quite a bit with shroud of water granting him a shield bonus, but after the water bug fight I stuck with more ranged positioning and avoided melee when I could. Higher AC doesn't do much when enemy eventually does connect their attacks and potiential rider effects, like paralysis and grapple. But hurting enemies while they hurt you? Can be worth it for certain playstyles (such as Come and Get Me barbarians), yes burn would suck with that tactic so I'm hoping that gets remedied in the final version. Would suck against fire resistance/immunity though, something I also hope get addressed.
Grapple is pretty harsh. Almost as useless as a spellcaster in that way without any of the potential spellcaster "anti-grapple" spells utility such as liberating command. Staying in a grapple while getting mauled while the creature gets singed from searing flesh is about the only effective thing I can do. I know kinetic blade doesn't provoke in melee, but it'd be nice if it can be used in a grapple without having to worry about the concentration check just to activate it.
REQUESTS
Since this is my final playtest post, I'm gonna do some shameless begging.
Please grant some free/easy-access elelemtal-themed utility to this class! Or even a wild talent with bunch of utility baked in! I'll stick with the pyro whining because that's my focus and others have done plenty of playtests on the other elements. Seriously, does it seem to anyone else there's a lack of pyro playtests out there?
Light cantrip, even if it's stuck on their hand or something, anything to not be blind in the dark. For eons fire has been used to ward off the darkness and its predators for cavemen and more modern survivalists. Something that can counter deeper darkness maybe? A weaker Sunlight spell or something?
Purify food? Burn out toxins/parasites.
Conjure a flame and maybe be able to heat up a room? At the very least a spark cantrip to start a fire. Liz Sherman snaps fingers to get a small flame to light cigarettes. I wanna do trivial things with fire too.
Endure elements fire? Resist energy fire? Flame Shield at level 10 doesn't cut it. Maybe a LITTLE bit against cold attacks, but pyros should be at least somewhat resistant to fire without having to rely on race or other classes or magic items.
More class skills. 1 physical and 1 knowledge skill per elemental focus ain't really enough. The base kineticist has stealth, its only physical skill. The class has only one written function as of now, BLAST. Which uses Constitution for damage, and Dexterity by default for ranged blasts or Strength for kinetic blade or whip. The class ought to have more physical skills pre-elemental focus and post-elemental focus. What kind of class would emphasize Dexterity or Strength and not provide useful skills for those ability scores? Rogues have acrobatics, disable device, etc. Fighters have swim AND climb (the only Strength skills), cavaliers have all the social skills, slayers get all that.
More skill points. Not granting a lot of skill points doesn't justify not enough class skills, or vice versa. Only ones stuck with that situation are: sorcerers, wizards, clerics, arcanists, warpriests who got spells to justify/balance the utility; paladins have some spells/utility and durability; fighters DEFINITELY don't have enough but they still got more than kineticists as written now.
I can't really argue for higher BAB or HD size I haven't played that high enough level to really see the need yet. I'd rather see ways to reduce burn effects, like after 2 encounters, or 1 hour's rest, the burn is reduced by 1 or the nonlethal damage of 1 burn is negated.
Let a kineticist somehow get past energy resistance/immunity of their chosen element. Like immunity becomes resist 20, and/or can take a burn to do that or to reduce/ignore resistance.
Give pyros more fire wild talents. I have no doubt that's gonna happen, but it needs to be said I think there's very little pyrokineticist playtests because all the others have funner utility wild talents, or simply have MORE wild talents available to them.
Finally, I'm sure/hoping a lot of these fixes are in the works. Could someone maybe implement those changes at the end of the playtest so I and fellow playtesters and other curious folks can try them out in PFS or home games?
I'm glad you got to give searing flesh a spin. It sounds like buggy bug might have fried itself right away if you had 2d6 up to start and applied the additional auto 2d6 at the end of that first round, and that would have been pretty sweet.
It would have been! Fortune favors the bold! Will start off with 2d6 up and running next time I play.
Some quick questions about burning infusion if anyone's got any insight as I might have messed up.
It says Reflex negates. Is that for the initial attack? I do burning infusion blast for 1d6+3 damage, target passes reflex save and doesn't catch on fire? Or is catching on fire automatic like alchemist's fire and the Negate is for putting it out?
When does the extra damage from catching on fire in the turn order occur? On my next turn? At the end of burning creature's turn if they fail or don't pass Reflex save? Is it a full round action to put out the fire?
Hmm after thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I messed burning infusion up.
Until someone corrects me I think I'll go with this order of events and questions.
Scenario #1: Target Avoids Catching on Fire
- On Wang Fire's turn he burning infusion fire blasts target. Target takes the normal blast damage (currently 1d6+3 fire damage).
- Target passes saving throw (currently DC 15 = 10 + 1/2 kineticist level + Con mod). Avoids/negates catching on fire.
- Wang Fire whines about lack of fire.
- Combat resumes as normal.
Scenario #2: Target Catches on Fire. "The Winning Scenario"
- On Wang Fire's turn he burning infusion fire blasts target. Target takes the normal blast damage (currently 1d6+3 fire damage).
- Target fails saving throw (currently DC 15 = 10 + 1/2 kineticist level + Con mod). Catches on fire.
- As per the PRD's Catching on Fire rules, in each subsequent round, the burning character must make another Reflex saving throw. Failure means he takes another 1d6 points of damage that round. Success means that the fire has gone out—that is, once he succeeds on his saving throw, he's no longer on fire.
- However, I don't know what action it is for the burning infusion's fire to be put out. Your kinetic blast ignites your foes. Whenever an infused blast deals fire damage to a foe, that foe catches on fire. Foes that are on fire take 1d6 points of fire damage each round until they put out the flames.
As of now burning infusion isn't as clear as I'd like. I'll probably switch it out at level 6 for Fire Sculptor as that one's tad more clear on how to use it.
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I've happily played the pyro quite a few times since the playtest ended. While I thought I'd put a pause on it after level 5 after trying out metakinesis (empower) a few times, but local PFS scheduled scenario tiers recently caused me to dust off the pyro for a few more "last missions" before the Occult Adventures book comes out.
I'll do a quick level-by-level observation instead of by scenarios. I'm gonna be spoiler tagging the level layout of Wang Fire rather than encounters; instead I'll have to reference scenarios when talking about specific challenges to the pyro, so spoilers abound as it's too messy to spoiler tag everything when it's mixed in with the observations.
HP = 23 (favoured class bonus)
ARMOR CLASS: 17 = Mithral chainshirt.
SAVES = Fort +7, Ref +6, Will +0.
KINETIC DEFENSE = Searing Flesh 1d6 (no burn).
KINETIC BLAST = Fire Blast: +4 ranged touch, 1d6+2 fire.
TRAITS: Reckless. Clever Wordplay (diplomacy).
FEATS: Point-Blank Shot. Precise Shot.
SKILLS [RANKS]: Acrobatics +9 [2]. Diplomacy +3 [2]. Escape Artist +7
[1]. Knowledge: Nature +5 [1]. Perception +5 [2].
WILD TALENTS: Burning Infusion. Kinetic Blade.
OTHER EQUIPMENT = Underwater crossbow with bolts & grappling bolt. Silk rope. Courtiers outfit; red, of course. Wand of CLW. Cestii, 1 cold iron and 1 silver.
SCENARIOS: #0-06: Black Waters (mentioned in previous playtest post). #3-11: The Quest for Perfection, Part II. #6-05: Slave Ships of Absalom.
Playing a level 2 pyrokineticist, and from I seen of other kineticists played locally, was pretty fun. 1d6+2 fire damage shooting at touch AC meant I'm usually contributing, despite the low damage. Being the only party member armed with fire while fighting a trollhound was a pretty great situation where I wasn't merely acting as potshot-wonder hiding behind the tanks doing minimal damage.
My (then) new policy of avoiding scenarios with robots on the cover proved a good one as I didn't have to worry about hardness messing up my day.
HP = 33 (favoured class benefit). Non-Lethal Damage 3.
ARMOR CLASS: 17 = Mithral chainshirt.
SAVES = Fort +8, Ref +7, Will +2.
KINETIC DEFENSE = Searing Flesh 1d8 (1 burn).
KINETIC BLAST = Fire Blast: +6 ranged touch, 2d6+3 fire. (Feel the Burn +1)
TRAITS: Reckless. Clever Wordplay (diplomacy)
FEATS: Point-Blank Shot. Precise Shot. Weapon Finesse.
SKILLS [RANKS]: Acrobatics +10 [3]. Diplomacy +4 [3]. Escape Artist +7 [1]. Knowledge (Nature) +5 [1]. Perception +6 [3]. Profession (Sailor) +4 [1].
WILD TALENTS: Burning Infusion. Kinetic Blade.
OTHER EQUIPMENT = Cloak of resistance +1. Wayfinder. Underwater crossbow with bolts & grappling bolt. Silk rope. Courtiers outfit; red, of course. Wand of CLW. Cestii, 1 cold iron and 1 silver.
SCENARIOS: #6-06: Hall of the Flesh Eaters. #3-13: The Quest for Perfection, Part III. GM CREDIT = PFS 3-16: The Midnight Mauler.
My fire blast's 2d6+3 damage was pretty respectable. Searing flesh didn't much play these levels due to my being more ranged focus (I stayed WELL away from the advanced owlbear that grinded the party's cleric to a pulp) or enemies mostly using weaponry. Burning infusion was pretty fun to use against ghouls and invading tengu. Though it's confusing on how to put out the fire. I just went with target gets a free action in his turn to put out flames like with any other saving throw. At-will burning folks got a lot of raised eye-brows at the table though. My explanations of move action requirement to reduce burn did not assuage comments of "over-poweredness".
Investing in Reckless trait has continued to be a boon for me. Having Acrobatics around allowed me to tumble safely and/or shoot fire from rooftops during the bandit siege. Weapon Finesse allowed me to finally go into melee worry free! Melee kineticists get a lot of flak in the kineticist general discussion thread for being too strong at higher levels due to more attacks from BAB, but I find that being in melee is the main time I get to have some risk, and therefore FUN. Hiding behind the tanks gets boring. Plus at 33 HP at level 3, I'm practically the party's meatshield as is; what's the point of being conservative with burn and having crazy high Constitution if I can't risk it all going blow to blow with horde of bandits? My AC is crap, but Wang Fire has the RECKLESS trait, and he's gonna stay in-character to his stats, dammit!
Except against the owlbear. Wang Fire is reckless, but he didn't dump stat his Intelligence. ^_^
HP = 43 (favoured class benefit). Non-Lethal Damage 4.
ARMOR CLASS: 18 = Mithral chainshirt.
SAVES = Fort +9, Ref +9, Will +2.
KINETIC DEFENSE = Searing Flesh 1d8 (1 burn).
KINETIC BLAST = Fire Blast: +8 ranged touch, 2d6+3 fire. (Feel the Burn +1)
TRAITS: Reckless. Clever Wordplay (diplomacy)
FEATS: Point-Blank Shot. Precise Shot. Weapon Finesse.
SKILLS [RANKS]: Acrobatics +12 [4], Diplomacy +8 [4], Escape Artist +8 [1], Knowledge (Nature) +5 [1], Perception +7 [4], Profession (Sailor) +4 [1], Use Magic Device +2 [1].
WILD TALENTS: Burning Infusion. Kinetic Blade. Extended Range.
OTHER EQUIPMENT = Belt of incredible dexterity +2. Cloak of resistance +1. Wayfinder. Underwater crossbow with bolts & grappling bolt. Silk rope. Courtiers outfit; red, of course. Wand of CLW. Cestii, 1 cold iron and 1 silver.
VANITIES: Eagle Knight (diplomacy specialized). Tiller (+3 escape artist to free slaves).
SCENARIOS: #6-09: By Way of Bloodcove. #6-11: The Slave Master's Mirror. PFS 5-19: The Horn of Aroden.
Wang Fire got promoted within the Eagle Knights! Diplomacy is now a class skill and decent enough that I can contribute rather well in social encounters. Proved real useful in Horn of Aroden when I finally have the numbers to back up me mouthing off like an oily weasel when sucking up or placating nobles for the Society, pretending to be merchant in Bloodcove, or trying to convince slaves they should shake free their bondage.
Extended Range wild talent has proven real useful. As Wang Fire leveled up, a 30 feet range for kinetic blasts proved real limiting when dealing with larger maps or flying targets. For example, the final fight of By Way of Bloodcove I ended up having to blast from across a greater than 30 ft wide stream/river at a target that was engaging with the party's tanks. The bridge was covered in a stinking cloud so Wang Fire and the rest of the party's support characters were stuck making potshot ranged attacks...until the robot came in and chased us. Wang Fire made himself the biggest threat blasting the enemy mage's touch AC while the tanks were either nauseated or charmed, and the rest of the characters were missing like crazy, so he was the obvious target for the mage to order the robot to focus its attacks on. Knowing my previous crappy attempts fighting robots (I'm looking at you, Trial by Machines!) acrobatics and awesome fortitude ended up saving my bacon as Wang Fire essentially tumbled and full defensed while running and dodging inside the sticking cloud, stalling for the tanks' nauseated to wear off and charm fought off. In the end, being able to switch hit with extended range or kinetic blade, and blowing throw loads of burn to do either and move full speed in the same round, until only 1 HP from loss of consciousness, Wang Fire chased down and blasted the invisible fleeing mage.
Between the spellcasters' defensive buffs and ghasts' strong AC, I'm glad I picked up touch AC targeting fire blast. Rolling a 2 and still hitting touch AC thanks to a flank is a crazy relief when dealing with lethal dangerous things.
HP = 58 (favoured class benefit, Toughness). Non-Lethal Damage 5.
ARMOR CLASS: 18 = Mithral chainshirt.
SAVES = Fort +9, Ref +9, Will +2.
KINETIC DEFENSE = Searing Flesh 1d8 (1 burn).
KINETIC BLAST = Fire Blast: +8 ranged touch, 3d6+3 fire (Feel the Burn +1) or (3d6+3)+50% with Empower Metakinesis.
TRAITS: Reckless. Clever Wordplay (diplomacy)
FEATS: Point-Blank Shot. Precise Shot. Weapon Finesse. Toughness.
SKILLS [RANKS]: Acrobatics +13 [5], Diplomacy +9 [5], Escape Artist +8 [1], Knowledge (Nature) +5 [1], Perception +8 [5], Profession (Sailor) +7 [2], Use Magic Device +2 [1].
WILD TALENTS: Burning Infusion. Kinetic Blade. Extended Range.
OTHER EQUIPMENT = Belt of incredible dexterity +2. Cloak of resistance +1. Wayfinder + Ioun stone (clear spindle). Wand of CLW. Sleeves of many garments. Underwater crossbow with bolts & grappling bolt. Silk rope. Courtiers outfit; red, of course. Cestii, 1 cold iron and 1 silver.
VANITIES: Eagle Knight (diplomacy specialized). Tiller (+3 escape artist to free slaves). Ship (+2 sailor checks, and so Wang Fire can correct others that he is to be referred to as "Captain Wang Fire" obnoxiously).
SCENARIOS: #3-02: Sewer Dragons of Absalom. #4-02: In Shadow's Wrath (played for no credit as I've done this before with another character, was helping party attain a legal playing size that day). PFS Season 2 Special: Year of the Shadow Lodge. PFS 6-18: From Under Ice.
Captain Wang Fire of the Andoran Naval Ship "Kindled Kami" reporting for duty!
Bought a clear spindle ioun stone to be inserted in the wayfinder for its resonance power. Last thing anyone needs is him being dominated to turn on the party. He's pretty dangerous now with metakinesis, capable of killing otyughs or young black dragons in a few rounds. In Shadow's Wrath's end boss, who has an extremely high AC & low touch AC, would have died fast too if it weren't for a really crappy saving throw against Hold Person.
This level introduced Wang Fire to the biggest obstacles a (pyro)kineticist can face: grappling, spell resistance (for specific kineticists), and swarms.
GRAPPLING
Wang Fire got grappled then pinned by an otyugh:
Wang Fire: CMB +4, CMD 18, Escape Artist +8 (+6 when grappled).
Otyugh (CMB +9 (+13 grapple); CMD 19 (21 vs. trip).
The penalty to my escape artist skill (due to -4 Dex penalty) and overall CMB were too low to reliably attempt to escape, and the concentration check to use my blast is like DC 25 (10 base +13 grapple CMB +2 effective spell level), where my concentration bonus is only a +9. Suffice to say, I was grappled and pinned for a while. My party eventually killed it, though I definitely contributed before the grapple occured with empowered blasts, but during the grapple the otyugh automatically suffered 2d6 fire damage from my searing flesh ability at the end of its turn (I was stuck there for a while so figured I might as well pump some burn and do some autodamage). The damage was nice and I probably could have killed the thing on my own faster if I had pumped in more burn for 3d6 or 4d6 damage, but didn't wanna get too greedy with glory or reckless with burn as there was tougher combat further into the scenario. Thankfully the paladin critted and I was soon free.
I like searing flesh, and while I would love fire resistance, I don't really see the need for searing flesh providing any AC bonus (as some in the kineticist general thread has clamoured for) as I see it more as a bait+punish tactic of the pyrokineticists. Granted there's safer methods of being a kineticist such as sniping, but when one picks up the kinetic blade, one gives up being entirely safe in a cowardly far range from danger and accepts the glory and danger that he's gonna get smacked around a bit up close and personal with the opposing end of a hostile blade/hammer/teeth/claw/tentacle/etc.
SPELL RESISTANCE AND ENERGY RESISTANCE
Fought a revenant, constantly failed the caster level check to defeat SR so the blasts did nothing. This would eventually tie into issues with demons/devils/elementals with energy resistance and SR for cold/fire/lightning and other touch AC blasts. I know Mark said that the finalized version will have options that help against resistances, it's too bad about energy immunity though. Leaves Expanded Element (something with regular AC blast) a requirement for touch-ac blast users. Oh well, them's the breaks.[/spoiler]
SWARMS
Ugh. Swarms. At least water and air can deal with them with Torrent (does Impale work against swarms?) at level 6, everyone else has to wait til level 10 or 16. Pyro is 16. I hope final book gets area-affecting options early on.
HP = 75 (favoured class benefit, Toughness). Non-Lethal Damage 12.
ARMOR CLASS: 19 = +1 Mithral chainshirt.
SAVES = Fort +11, Ref +10, Will +3.
KINETIC DEFENSE = Searing Flesh 2d6 (2 burn).
KINETIC BLAST = Fire Blast: +10 ranged touch, 3d6+4 fire (Feel the Burn +2) or (3d6+4)+50% with Empower Metakinesis.
TRAITS: Reckless. Clever Wordplay (diplomacy)
FEATS: Point-Blank Shot. Precise Shot. Weapon Finesse. Toughness.
SKILLS [RANKS]: Acrobatics +14 [6], Diplomacy +10 [6], Escape Artist +8 [1], Knowledge (Nature) +5 [1], Perception +9 [6], Profession (Sailor) +8 [3], Use Magic Device +2 [1].
WILD TALENTS: Kinetic Blade. Extended Range. Burning Infusion replaced with Fire Sculptor. Flame Jet.
OTHER EQUIPMENT = Belt of physical might (Con, Dex) +2. Boots of the Cat. Cloak of resistance +1. Wayfinder + Ioun stone (clear spindle). Wand of CLW. Sleeves of many garments. Underwater crossbow with bolts & grappling bolt. Silk rope. Courtiers outfit; red, of course. Cestii, 1 cold iron and 1 silver.
VANITIES: Eagle Knight (diplomacy specialized). Tiller (+3 escape artist to free slaves). Ship (+2 sailor checks, and so Wang Fire can correct others that he is to be referred to as "Captain Wang Fire" obnoxiously).
SCENARIOS: GM Credit - #1-52: The City of Strangers, Part II. #6-21: Tapestry's Toil.
Replaced Burning Infusion with Fire Sculptor. Haven't used it much of late because the opportunity cost of move-action-reduce-burn to use Burning Infusion instead of metakinesis (empower) is too high. I figured I'd try and give Fire Sculptor a chance (if the opportunity ever arises) before the book comes out and I'd hopefully get to retrain. Does/will Fire Sculptor work on magical ongoing fires such as Wall of Fire or flame oracle's firestorm ability?
75 HP! I absolutely tanked (well helped the barbarian tank) in Tapestry's Toil recently. Confidently told the GM that a critical hit from a greataxe wasn't likely gonna kill me when I got swarmed with undead. Flame Jet is probably my most favourite fire wild talent so far. The increased mobility was a definite boon flying up steep stairs/mountainside or across a river. I love my saving throws. Not much lasted long against empowered and non-empowered fire blast spamming. Well until I ran into a fire immune xorn; punched it once with cestus after seeing it absorb a great fire blast roll and had to back off to let rest of the party swarm it.
Had an awesome BIG DAMN HERO moment when the big bad threw a Wall of Stone in front of me and the barbarian at the final room entrance, potentially trapping the rogue (not unchained version) inside the room with the big boss (enlarged) and 4 underlings (also enlarged). The barbarian failed her saving throw and was stuck outside the room, and whereas I passed and jumped inside to at least give the rogue a chance on not dying. While apparently selfless, the room was open to a waterfall, so if the rogue had died, and the barbarian couldn't get back into the room fast enough chopping away at the wall with her adamantine weapon, I was ABSOLUTELY gonna get Wang Fire to jump right out into the water if things went bad on him. With boots of the cat on, no matter how high he was up, max of 20 fall damage was more than survivable for him. But Wang Fire did a good job of diverting attacks so he and the rogue lived long enough for the party to get through the wall. Empowered fire blasts/blades on weakened underlings to finish them off quickly definitely helped keep us from getting swarmed too easily.
That fight at this level has been my favourite so far for my pyrokineticist. Was exactly the kind of high acrobatics firebending, firepunching antics I wanted when I first read the kineticist class. Outside the mountainside fight with 4 sentries and 2 animated statues, when I was able to utilize flame jet for mobility while rest of the party struggled with the REALLY steep stairs (like Climb DC 20 half speed / Climb DC 15 quarter speed STEEP!) was an absolute pleasure zippng up platforms, tumbling around and tripping an enlarged duergar, and slicing up statues! Though I suspect the GM accidently let the fire bypass hardness instead of reducing the fire damage (probably mistaken it for DR), the statues went down a little fast.
But while level 6 the pyrokineticist absolutely shined, had to deal with half the table saying it's too strong again. 14.5 average damage, or full-action 21.75 empowered average damage isn't exactly high in my opinion at level 6, even if I only miss against a touch AC when I fumble. Even fighters do more than that by that level despite attacking regular AC. Compared to the barbarian rolling poorly for her 3 attacks, attack or damage, and the rogue not able to always get sneak attack all the time (but that's a rogue, who has sympathy for such a choice?) my damage did look pretty high. "You're just rolling poor for damage. 14 is like your MINIMUM damage" wasn't a great defense for my kineticist I'm afraid.
Overall, I'm very happy with the kineticist. Can't wait for 4 skill points and acrobatics as a class skill to free up a trait. And twice as many wild talents (I assume that's gonna be one per level?) is gonna be awesome! Here's hoping for more fire talents!
Great playtest stuff. The Tapestry's Toil stuff is just what I was hoping to see.
Yea Tapestry Toil really opened my eyes on how much I wanna go into melee with the pyro now, danger be damned! Will have to invest in AC items next couple levels.
Occult Adventures is finally out and Wang Fire got updated and looking sweet.
I was fortunate enough to be in the middle of level 7 when it happened so I figured I'd post a report of the same level in pre and post-update to show off some of the differences.
PLUS these still-open-to-post playtest forums have been a nice place to consolidate my thoughts and views of the kineticist without having to get into debates about how little damage a kineticist does. I know it's lower than a lot of other classes, but I do alright and I have fun doing it; that matters more to me than damage any day.
STATS: STR 12, DEX 18 (+2 belt), CON 21 (belt +2, level up), INT 12, WIS 10, CHA 7
HP = 87 (favoured class benefit, Toughness). Non-Lethal Damage 14 (2 burn).
ARMOR CLASS: 20 = +1 Mithral chainshirt. Jingasa of the fortunate soldier (+1 luck).
SAVES = Fort +11, Ref +10, Will +5.
KINETIC DEFENSE = Searing Flesh 3d6 (2 burn).
KINETIC BLAST (WITH FEEL THE BURN +2) =
TRAITS: Reckless. Clever Wordplay (diplomacy)
FEATS: Point-Blank Shot. Precise Shot. Weapon Finesse. Toughness. Iron Will
SKILLS [RANKS]: Acrobatics +15 [7], Diplomacy +11 [7], Escape Artist +8 [1], Knowledge (Nature) +5 [1], Perception +10 [7], Profession (Sailor) +8 [3], Stealth +8 [1] Use Magic Device +2 [1].
WILD TALENTS: Kinetic Blade. Extended Range. Fire Sculptor. Flame Jet. Expanded Element (Earth).
OTHER EQUIPMENT = Belt of physical might (Con, Dex) +2. Boots of the Cat. Cloak of resistance +1. Wayfinder + Ioun stone (clear spindle). Wand of CLW. Sleeves of many garments. Jingasa of the fortunate soldier. Underwater crossbow with bolts & grappling bolt. Silk rope. Courtiers outfit; red, of course. Cestii, 1 cold iron and 1 silver.
VANITIES: Eagle Knight (diplomacy specialized). Tiller (+3 escape artist to free slaves). Ship (+2 sailor checks).
SCENARIOS:
#3-10: The Immortal Conundrum
PARTY:
Level 7 Lance Corporal Wang Fire!!! (That Eagle Knight vanity/rank actually mattered in the scenario).
Level 7 Nagaji Bloodrager. Arcane bloodline.
Level 6 Irrisen Sorcerer. Arboreal bloodline. Somehow and hilariously, the nervous Irrisen befriended the Ulfen amazon witch-slayer.
Level 7 Kyra Pregen
Bloodrager got impeded by underlings, so it was down to Wang and the sorcerer and Kyra to keep the pressure on the head assassin before he can kill the almost-dead ambassador.
Wang didn't come to the party armed (he had blasts, come on!) and had to fight against head assassin who had the Catch Off-Guard feat. After being flat-footed and sneak attacked the whole fight against him, Wang is keeping a pair of cestii on his person at all times from now on. I also wanted to try out earth blast/blade. As usual I rolled poorly and whiffed the attacks for several rounds. I finally gave up and stuck with fire and the fight went a lot smoother. Lesson learned: physical blasts are mostly for fire immune and inanimate objects (Well physical blades on inanimate objects. Apparently ranged attacks do half damage on objects); stick with fire otherwise (at my current level, that even applies to even with robots with hardness). 7 extra points of damage ain't worth me missing half the time. Searing flesh came into play when a weakened underling mook attacked me with an unarmed strike and dying from the subsequent fire damage from failed saving throws.
Wang Fire with high acrobatics had an easy time jumping from pole to collapsing pole in the Air room and the flame jet allowed him to get the jewel in the ceiling of the Fire room easy enough but he had nothing to protect from the explosion of fire except for Reflexes. Combat in the Earth room was straight forward, blast/blade earth elementals til they fall down while fighting in tight hallway or small room.
First round: Wang flame jets to the top of one of the bookshelves for better range attack potential (and look cool and awesome throughout the fight). Sorcerer buffs the party with haste. Bloodrager preps up with casting enlarge person.
One of the hieracosphinx charge pounces on Wang on top of the bookshelves and does a decent amount of damage. I was ecstatic: with tons of HP I was confident I can survive a few rounds of full-attacks from these things; best of all, through poor positioning and bunch of GM credit, this is the first time I'm actually benefiting from haste for full-attacking in melee. That hieracosphinx charging at me just shortened its remaining lifespan! Especially since it was using natural attacks and every time it hit, it risks 3d6 fire damage from searing flesh (reflex negates) Two rounds of full attacking each other and one dead hieracosphinx and a battered Wang are all that remained on top of the bookshelf.
The other hieracosphinx was engaged with the enlarged bloodrager but utilizing its Flyby Attack feat. Some fire blasts and a power attacking raging angry bloodrager and ice magic from the sorcerer brought the hieracosphinx down.
Not wanting to leave too much obvious evidence that someone was down here stealing from the Thuvians, Wang placed one unconscious (we decided not to kill them simply for defending their charges) suggestively on top of the other unconscious hieracosphinx so that anyone that finds them can come to their own conclusions on why they were asleep and exhausted.
PLAYTEST CONCLUSIONS
For a final time playing the playtest version I was pretty satisfied with kineticist performance. Proper trait investment is needed for potential social stuff for a kineticist but that's no different than a ranger or fighter. Such characters are more of a combat and utility (well less fighter than the others) purposes.
Damage was solid. Empowered fire 4d6+4 was doing average of 27. Not high, but accuracy was way better than empowered earth (4d6+11 average of 37.5) so I feel that overall fire wins out for me when dealing with things nonresistant or immune to fire. DR or monsters with hardness, I'll still stick with fire. Obviously damage is way lower than other classes, but I hit almost all the time and no one feels that the kineticist didn't contribute when everyone else is whiffing their attack rolls or when monster makes their saving throws.
Hasted full attacks for two 4d6+4 fire blade attacks was awesome. Melee was definitely more powerful than ranged (when battle positioning allows it) but I'm personally cool with that. I'm also favouring the option of fighting defensively with touch attack kinetic blades; attack rolls take a drop but still acceptable vs touch AC and thanks to acrobatics, my AC and touch AC get a nice boost. Too bad fighting defensively doesn't work with spell-like abilities.
Flame jet was still the winner wild talent for me here. At will "flight" is proving its usefulness again and again, and I'm loving every moment of it when combined with Boots of the Cat. I wanted more useful wild talents though, especially a low level AoE.
At level 7 searing flesh gets pretty decent at only 2 burn investment for 3d6. Absolutely contributes to my fire output when dealing with full-attacking natural weapon monsters. I've taken to seeing searing flesh as a situational passive offense tactic rather than a defensive feature; things don't be less inclined to attack me, but I at least get a chance of ending combat sooner.
The Immortal Conundrum probably isn't the best scenario to showcase the kineticist abilities (that would be Tapestry's Toil as a great scenario for the size of maps and the variety of terrain involved) what with the first third of the scenario consisting of a fancy dinner involving Absalom's foreign dignitaries. But it had interesting combatants and skill challenges and lessons. 1) Always stay armed with a cestus or have one nearby. 2) Remember to fight defensively in melee; ranged tactic of hiding behind tanks don't fly anymore. 3) Watch out for dispel magic while flame jetting about. 4) Pick up some languages, if Kyra hadn't had a comprehend languages scroll, would have been annoying for some stuff in the scenario.
A fully updated Wang Fire made his debut in PFS this week. It seems appropriate that his first adventure post-playtest would be Returned to Sky where he's in Numeria and likely to face robots while his first actual adventure was Trial By Machines.
STATS: STR 12, DEX 20 (+2 belt, +2 size), CON 23 (belt +2, level up, +2 size), INT 12, WIS 10, CHA 7
HP = 87 (Toughness). Non-Lethal Damage 21 (3 burn).
ARMOR CLASS: 21 = +1 Mithral chainshirt. Jingasa of the fortunate soldier (+1 luck).
SAVES = Fort +12, Ref +11, Will +3.
KINETIC DEFENSE = Searing Flesh 4 (3 burn).
KINETIC BLAST (WITH ELEMENTAL OVERFLOW +2 ATTACK / +4 DAMAGE) =
TRAITS: Clever Wordplay (diplomacy). Cosmopolitan (Absalom). I don't need a trait for Acrobatics anymore! BEST CHANGE EVER!!!
FEATS [LEVEL]: Point-Blank Shot [1]. Precise Shot [1]. Weapon Finesse [3]. Toughness [5]. Extra Wild Talent* (cold adaptation) [6]. Extra Wild Talent (extended range) [7].
SKILLS [RANKS]: Acrobatics +14 [7]. Diplomacy +11 [7]. Escape Artist +12 (+15 to free slaves from bondage), [5]. Knowledge (Nature) +5 [1]. Linguistics +12 [7]. Perception +10 [7]. Profession (Sailor) +12 (+15 on Andoren vessels) [7]. Stealth +9 [1]. Use Magic Device +2 [1]
WILD TALENTS:
OTHER EQUIPMENT = Belt of physical might (Con, Dex) +2. Boots of the Cat. Cloak of resistance +1. Wayfinder + Ioun stone (clear spindle). Wand of CLW. Sleeves of many garments. Jingasa of the fortunate soldier. Necklace of Adaption. Underwater crossbow with bolts & grappling bolt. Silk rope. Courtiers outfit (black with red trimming). Cestii, 1 cold iron and 1 silver.
VANITIES: Eagle Knight (diplomacy specialized). Tiller (+3 escape artist to free slaves). Ship ("Kindled Kami". +2 sailor checks. Place to stash stuff. Future Pathfinder lodge?). Captain (perform oratory specialized). Knighthood (awesome title and +2 diplomacy and knowledge nobility within Andoran and against Andoren subjects). Gray Corsair (+3 sailer checks while serving on Andoren vessel, which the Kindled Kami is declared as such).
SCENARIOS:
#6-20: Returned to Sky
PARTY:
Level 7 Sir Knight Captain Wang Fire of the Eagle Knight Gray Corsairs; Captain of the Kindled Kami; and Tiller of the Bellflower Network.
Level 9 Nagaji Bloodrager. Arcane bloodline.
Level 9 Human Cleric (described as dwarf-like) with weasel familiar.
Level 7 Human Bloatmage. Started off as wizard and level dip in crossblooded sorcerer (orc/dragon bloodlines). His damage with fire was WAY higher than mine.
Level 9 Aasimar Bard.
Level 10 Tiefling Alchemist.
APL was exactly 8.5 for 7-11 scenario. We decided to play up because it was deemed party composition and level would stomp the lower tier.
Oh gods! Why did we play up?!?
At Jor's tavern we convinced her to tell us where the Sky Key is and we received her grandfather's journal detailing his adventure to find it. Right after that, the tavern door exploded inwards.
Outside were two Technic League mages, a magus and sorcerer, and two slaves with scimitars. While the slaves did piddly damage, they did impede the bloodrager enough to prevent him from getting to the magus and full attacking to his content. While I didn't want them killed, they were getting in the way for several rounds to the magus or simply out of the tavern that they were becoming a threat simply for being obstacles, I relented and resorted to attacking them for hopefully minimal damage to either scare them off or knock them unconscious.
The bloodrager learned mortality that day and what bastards magi can be with a monofilament whip (or simply with a whip in general) and spell combat and spellstrike. True Strike + trip combo (inadvertently suggested by the bard PC to the GM. Thankfully the GM never did the true strike + disarm idea), critical shocking grasp with critical strike arcana and shocking grasp again. Due to his tactics, the slaves' positioning, and the magus' whip, the magus was getting his full hasted number of attacks in while the bloodrager was stuck moving and attacking once per round for significant damage. Both the bloodrager and the magus had blur on which extended their lives, but it was close between the two as the bloodrager insisted he wanted to end the magus's life and we should focus elsewhere: the sorcerer.
The sorcerer had casted haste for their side and was flying and throwing fireballs. The alchemist was focused on throwing bombs at her, the bloatmage readied to cast spells when the sorcerer did to force concentration checks, the cleric tried keeping the bloodrager alive, the bard was busy buffing the party and keeping Ingret alive from area attacks, and Wang tried to knock the slaves out with minimal fire yelling at them to "Stay the hell down, already!"
The sorcerer was brought down and the party looked on at the bloodrager/magus duel. We all agreed to delay after the bloodrager so he can finish the fight. He finally arranged himself 3 attacks with haste from his greater arcane bloodrage -- and all three missed due to blur's 20% miss chance. We sadly tried to attack the magus right afterwards but he lived long enough to dimension door away to escape. The bloodrager was rather put out by that.
Sadly Wang Fire didn't get to do much. Simply using the reduced damage of his fire blade to try and knock out the slaves without killing them.
We made our way to the Sky Key site and had to get past some mixed up gravity rooms with laser turrets. Cleric invested in bunch of wands and scrolls with his prestige points and obscuring mist the rooms so we can get past. Wang Fire only contributed by flame jetting his way through the loopy random gravity and applying a grappling hook and rope to the doorway we needed for the rest of the party to advance.
We descended down the technological ruins into some caverns, and ran into...
Obviously it must have hardness.
With a laser eye.
Claws.
Laser lashes with 20 foot reach.
Can see invisible. (Ripnugget, the bloatmage faerie learned about the 20 ft reach and see invisibility the hard way when it tried to sneak past)
And missiles. So many missiles. 30 ft radius explosions that do 6d6 fire and 6d6 bludgeoning damage (Reflex DC 18 for half). Started combat off with a warning to get off his yard (or whatever the grumpy ancient robot equivalent is) and a missile to our faces. And initiative!
Second Rocket.
The party had to scramble to get into position to defend against the large, flying robot (20 ft cavern ceiling) and attack it past a narrow hall (really messed up ranged shots).
Bloodrager tries to move away from the others and out of "fireball formation" (little did we know of the missiles' explosive radius at the time) and starts casting enlarge person. Stupid 1 round casting times.
Bloatmage casted haste and moved away and to sent out an invisible Ripnugget armed with a wand forward to harry the robot with invisible ranged magic attacks. That's when we all learned about the 20 ft reach and invisibility being useless against this thing.
Bard started inspiring courage and casted Good Hope (+2 attack, weapon damage, saves, and skills).
Cleric channeled to heal everyone for 5d6. Rolled an 11. Since the alchemist and Wang had fire resistance and good reflexes, that actually tops them up.
Alchemist started off the counter attack with fast bombs.
Wang goes last due to crappy initiative roll. No clear shot with a 5 ft step so had to move. Thankfully Internal Buffer exists now so he can still open up with an empowered extended range fire blast without having to take extra burn. . NATURAL 20. Easy confirmation! 50 damage with the modifiers, empowered to a 75.
Third rocket. Bloatmage is brought down to 0 and slinks off around a far corner to lick his wounds and wait for his familiar to come back (from beyond the front lines) with the wand of infernal healing to tend to him and is out of the fight for good. The bloodrager enlarges himself but doesn't want his remaining move action to be move close to robot, trigger AoO from 20 ft, and lose more of his already half-gone HP. More bombs, another empowered fire blast. Cleric casts wall of stone from a scroll to cover up the tunnel between us and robot.
Robot moves to a side tunnel and shoots a 4th rocket. Everyone damaged but the bloatmage and familiar hiding far away in the caverns. Alchemist only gets one bomb off due to having to move for a clear shot while Wang only needed 5 foot step and was able to empower blast. Bard casts jester jaunt on the bloodrager and teleports him next to the robot. Bloodrager finally gets to full attack with his adamatine earthbreaker and finally downs the robot. We grab the Sky Key from the robot's chest and we hightail it out of Numeria.
Post-Game, the GM tells us that regular high tier had 2 of those robots in the end. 4 player adjustment was 1 robot with suped up forcefield for extra hit points. The first encounter with the magus and sorcerer took so long that we skipped the optional encounter, bunch of fabricator robots. While I would have enjoyed using an empowered fan of flames against several robots, the fight probably would have tapped out party resources a little much I think.
That last fight was terrifying for the party. It didn't do much to showcase the kineticist except for it being able to take a beating when Con focused. Everyone was pretty happy how much damage the kineticist did though, as only the alchemist and kineticist were able to attack it without risking unexpected death from AoOs. I sure as heck wasn't gonna risk tumbling in for hasted kinetic blade attacks. The bloodrager, alchemist, and bloatmage absolutely does more damage. But the bloodrager is limited to his melee attacks and cramped quarters, flying targets, magus with combat maneuvers severely limited his damage potential this scenario. The alchemist was fine all day; totally had enough bombs to last him 7-10 rounds of hasted throwing. The bloatmage player is one of the vocal players in the lodge about how insufficient or low the damage the kineticist deals out, but his overspecialization for damage tanked his saving throws and didn't have enough hit points to last head to head with something way above our CR for very long and had to sit out almost the entirety of the last fight; which was the very opposite of what happened to the kineticist who got to attack every round and survive every hit (even with the nonlethal damage lowering his effective "I'm still conscious" hit points total).
POST-PLAYTEST CONCLUSIONS
Almost EVERTHING got a significant boost. Number of wild talents. Number of skill points. ACROBATICS!!! <3 Fire blast damage with Fire's Fury. Elemental overflow being awesome with doubled the playtest's Feel the Burn damage bonus and the size bonuses at 3 burn at level 6? Put a bonus into Con and the nonlethal damage from 2 burn to 3 burn is basically balanced out with the extra HP, but still get the damage boost from Con, and AC+Reflex+Initiative+Attack+Skills+CMD boost from Dex, AND 5% x # of burn = chance to ignore crit/sneak attack; totally worth it!
Burn is still as harsh as the playtest version, but there's stronger benefits for accepting it now compared to the playtest: elemental overflow so much stronger than feel the burn and bunch of utility talents last longer with one burn. Playing through the class, it's pretty easy to avoid taking on more burn than needed, especially with internal buffer thrown into the mix of options. I've usually never had to go beyond the burn I spent on my defensive talent or whatever else long-term buff a burn would grant me. I only ever go over when I need to spend a move action beyond a 5 ft in order to still empower.
It's great that I don't have to choose between form or substance infusions for specialization anymore. Infusion specialization is a godsend for opening up my combat options at each level I get it. Wang Fire is level 8 with smoke storm now, so I plan on benefiting more from burning infusion and extended range at the same time as empower to get some battlefield control with smoke screens. Wang Fire might start setting himself on fire just to have an open flame source for smoke to centre on himself. Burning infusion with eruption at level 9 to increase my odds of burning someone in the distance by targeting multiple foes and smoke storm next round for hijinks.
Overall, I'm very happy with the final kineticist. Sir Knight Captain Wang Fire!!! is currently my highest level character in PFS and that happened while he was still in the playtest version. The APG is what convinced me to get off the 4th Edition train and convince my friends to jump on the Pathfinder tracks, and the Occult Adventures book reminds me of what I felt and saw when I first looked at the APG. Great classes that I wanna try because just reading the initial description and actual mechanics just makes me think up character ideas by the truckload. And new rules sets that are doing something different that I would wanna try out.