Tels, the Kinetic Blast is specific that they "count as s type of weapon for the purpose of feats such as Weapon Focus." That is all... they aren't weapons.
Protoman, this is the first I've heard of this, though admittedly, I learned years ago to avoid these forums, and am only back to understand Kineticist better. If they want it to be more than weapons, they should take the time to edit the PRD to reflect this. While I won't argue if it's canon, it's definitely not how we play. :/
If it counts for Weapon Focus, it counts for Improved Critical, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot etc. These are all weapon based feats and Weapon Focus has, traditionally, been the deciding factor on whether or not it counts as a weapon, for the most part.
It's why you can take Weapon Focus (ray) or Weapon Focus (bomb) and allows for the use of Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot on both of those. Kinetic Blast is viable for Weapon Focus? Then you need Precise Shot for it.
Pretty sure spells that have ranged attack rolls have always counted as weapons for the purposes of Precise Shot.
Precisely, Tels... for the purpose of feats, that's what it says. However, it does not count as a weapon in any other regard, including shooting into melee.
Arach, I assume you mean before Pathfinder? I never did 3.0 nor 3.5, however, in Pathfinder, according to the rules, according to the PRD, according to everything I can find other than some comment on a thread on a forum (which is not canonical), the penalty is only for weapons.
I understand that for others it may be canonical to their games, perhaps even in the pathfinder society stuff that I don't play, but by the rules, it's only for weapons both as RAW and RAI, at least as far as publications go.
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It requires worshipping Zon-Kuthon, which is a downside but it's a really good feat for burn. You would need a ring of ferocious action.An excellent item, thank you for pointing it out.
Please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, but while the feat was obviously defined for zon-kuthon, wouldn't any god that fufills the areas of pain, loss OR envy also qualify you for this feat?
d20pfsrd.com strips all Golarion specific language from the rules they post, and sometimes severely misrepresent feats because of it. I recommend using Archives of Nethys instead, which posts the original text as it appears in Inner Sea Gods here.
You'll note that spellcasters don't have an ability to regain spell slots without 8 hours rest.
That Paladins don't have a way to regain smites without 8 hours rest.
That Occultists can't recover focus without 8 hours rest.
The difference being that casting spells doesn't exhaust you... most of the time.
If you don't like burn go play an Overwhelming Soul. You'll never ever take a single point of Burn.
I've shown you mathematically that the consequences of Burn do not get worse over time. The devs have provided you an option for playing without Burn if you psychologically can't get over the idea.
Burn damage can be mitigated: Improve your Con. Each point of burn becomes less of a percentage of your health lost when you improve your Con.
I'm aware of you CAN avoid Burn. The class ITSELF has like 4 or 5 abilities to AVOID getting Burned. The same problem remains though...
Yes, I'm defending a weakness of a class, just as when someone complains that spellcasters can't regain spellslots without 8 hours rest I would tell them it's a balancing factor of the class.
... the problem being that they deliberately made Burn uncurable aside from resting.
THAT's my problem, especially since it seems SO easy to make feats, magic items and spells that cure Burn and/or prevent it. I'm not saying, let alone asking, to remove Burn from the inital class. I just feel like it's just plain dumb that nothing was added to heal Burn.
Was it THAT hard to make a Conjuration (Healing) spell that cure Burn non-lethal damage? Was it THAT hard to make a series of feats to allow a Kineticist to reduce Burn damage? Was it THAT hard to make a magic item that lessen Burn? Come on now...
BTW, there's a hitch with Overwhelming Soul: you must Gather Power long enough to reduce Burn cost to 0 in order to "use" Burn. If you're that "desperate" to reduce Burn to 0... you might as well not use that archetype, play a regular Kineticist and emply that same strategy to Gather Power and reduce Burn cost normally. That archetype seems to be best-suited for physically-weaken races... or races with high Charisma scores.
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You'll note that spellcasters don't have an ability to regain spell slots without 8 hours rest.
That Paladins don't have a way to regain smites without 8 hours rest.
That Occultists can't recover focus without 8 hours rest.
The difference being that casting spells doesn't exhaust you... most of the time.
If you don't like burn go play an Overwhelming Soul. You'll never ever take a single point of Burn.
I've shown you mathematically that the consequences of Burn do not get worse over time. The devs have provided you an option for playing without Burn if you psychologically can't get over the idea.
Burn damage can be mitigated: Improve your Con. Each point of burn becomes less of a percentage of your health lost when you improve your Con.
I'm aware of you CAN avoid Burn. The class ITSELF has like 4 or 5 abilities to AVOID getting Burned. The same problem remains though...
Yes, I'm defending a weakness of a class, just as when someone complains that spellcasters can't regain spellslots without 8 hours rest I would tell them it's a balancing factor of the class.... the problem being that they deliberately made Burn uncurable aside from resting.
THAT's my problem, especially since it seems SO easy to make feats, magic items and spells that cure Burn and/or prevent it. I'm not saying, let alone asking, to remove Burn from the inital class. I just feel like it's just plain dumb that nothing was added to heal Burn.
Was it THAT hard to make a Conjuration (Healing) spell that cure Burn non-lethal damage? Was it THAT hard to make a series of feats to allow a Kineticist to reduce Burn damage? Was it THAT hard to make a magic item that lessen Burn? Come on now...
BTW, there's a hitch with Overwhelming Soul: you must Gather Power long enough to reduce Burn cost to 0 in order to "use" Burn. If you're that "desperate" to reduce Burn to 0... you might as well not use that archetype, play a regular Kineticist and emply...
You know even if you max out your burn, you can still throw base blasts all day. Unlike a spellcaster who if he expends all his spell slots can't cast spells at all. Until they get 8 hours rest.
I'm sorry you don't like the drawback, but as a Con focused class you end up with such an excessive amount of hit points the nonlethal damage isn't really that much of an issue.
You can't recover nonlethal hit points for the same reason you can't recover spell slots, and Paladins can't recover smites, and Barbarians can't recover Rage. It's the resource you use to power your cool stuff.
The class works fine with burn as is. It doesn't need "fixing", from any kind of game balance perspective it's not "broken".
The Kineticist isn't perfect, but it is fairly powerful and versatile.
But if you want to house rule the game that's your prerogative.
You could just make up a spell that heals burn. Or allow burn damage to heal like normal nonlethal damage.
You could remove nonlethal damage entirely.
Kineticists can take a maximum of 2 + Con Modifier, and an additional 2 points of burn per level after 1st. If they use up half their burn they are fatigued, if they use their full burn they are exhausted.
If it really is such a problem you're free to house rule out the wazoo.
But in reality, the Kineticist ain't broke, doesn't need fixing. Stop saying that they get worse at taking burn and damage, because it's not true.
You can just say: "I don't like it." (Link is an example of me talking about this very thing).
Because that's an opinion, and that's absolutely fine.
But don't say that it's broken, unbalanced or the like. Because that's incorrect.
Ehm, except casters CAN recover spell slots, Barbarians CAN recover Rage, and Paladins CAN recover Smites, so your whole point just kinda flops.
Caught me editing. Listed some stuff above.
There's a Pearl of Power analogue for every kind of caster(Prepared, Spontaneous, and Alchemists) but they're functionally identical so I only listed one.
There are actually even more ways to get Rage back I believe, but I stopped after 4 Feats.
Likewise you can recover Ki (Ki Leech, Wyroot even though it's been nerfed, Ki Mat) and Arcane Pool (Wyroot, and I believe a few other options...never played a Magus), Arcane Points for the Arcanist (Consume Spells and so on).
Lots of stuff like that.
Not to mention health is a resource ALL classes share, so it's doubly painful for the Kineticist.
But in reality, the Kineticist ain't broke, doesn't need fixing. Stop saying that they get worse at taking burn and damage, because it's not true.
You can just say: "I don't like it." (Link is an example of me talking about this very thing).
Because that's an opinion, and that's absolutely fine.
But don't say that it's broken, unbalanced or the like. Because that's incorrect.
Ok then...
1) I never said that the Kineticist was broken. In fact, if it was broken, I wouldn't have even talked about it.2) I re-read the class and yes, you have features to reduce Burn right down to 0, so that point is out.
3) You must have the Blind Oracle's Curse or something... because I'm not asking to change the class itself.
The class is fine as it is. Ugh... I'm sounding like a broken record, but... there's a distinct lack of options to recover from Burn. Someone else pointed it out: Spellcasters can recover spells, barbarians can recover rages, paladins can recover smite attempts, monks, ninjas and magi can recover pool points, gunslingers and swashbucklers can recover grit and panache points. I didn't read word for word the ENTIRE book, but pretty sure that the Medium, Mesmerist, Occultist, Psychic and Spiritualist can recover some of their daily uses through feats, magic items and/or spells.
I'm not asking to change the class, I'm just asking to give the class recovery options.
I'm sorry but I don't see where you can recover spells, smites, rages, channels, bombs or ki points.
Yes you can recover grit and panache, but that's because those pools are tiny, they require a recovery mechanic to be useful.
Where are these recovery options?
Pearls of Power?
A Magus' spell recall and a Black Blade's Life Drinker?The Recovered Rage feat?
The Oath of Vengeance?
The Hungry Ghost Monk's Steal Ki?
A Ki Mat?
The Ki Leech spell?
Those are some options to recover daily uses.
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I'm sorry but I don't see where you can recover spells, smites, rages, channels, bombs or ki points.
Yes you can recover grit and panache, but that's because those pools are tiny, they require a recovery mechanic to be useful.
Where are these recovery options?
Perhaps follow the links I posted? I posted 4 different Feats and an archetype for Rage, an archetype for Smite, and a magic item for spellcasters.
Here's some options for Ki.
Ring of Ki Mastery. (you can store the Ki the night beforehand and take them out if needed).
Ki Leech. (Sacred Fists as a spell, and Monks and Unchained Monks as a Ki power that costs 0 points to activate.)
Ya got me on Bombs and Channel, unless there's some niche options I don't know about.
Plus there's the issue with Burn that it leaves you in some ways weaker than those things.
An Alchemist with no Bombs just can't toss any more Bombs.
A Kineticist who's maxed out how much Burn he can take in a day, his Blasts are limited AND he has less HP. He's in a weaker state in some ways than if he simply hadn't take any Burn.
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I'm sorry but I don't see where you can recover spells, smites, rages, channels, bombs or ki points.
Yes you can recover grit and panache, but that's because those pools are tiny, they require a recovery mechanic to be useful.
Where are these recovery options?
Pearls of Power?
A Magus' spell recall and a Black Blade's Life Drinker?
The Recovered Rage feat?
The Oath of Vengeance?
The Hungry Ghost Monk's Steal Ki?
A Ki Mat?
The Ki Leech spell?Those are some options to recover daily uses.
Pearls of Power are a pretty expensive option to remain viably useful throughout a career.
Spell recall requires spending from the arcane pool, that's not recovery so much as exchange.
Life drinker comes online at level 19, and comes from an archetype.
I wasn't aware the Recovered Rage ability existed, I just looked it up now. Wow, for serious that is crazy, Barbarians are already monsters that rarely use up all their rage rounds in a day anyway I can't believe this got published.
Oath of Vengeance is another exchange ability, not recovery ability.
Hungry Ghost is an entire archetype that allows you to do the thing. It's not the base assumption.
Ki Mat takes so long to work you might as well rest for 8 hours to regain your ki.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In any case, I still disagree that recovering nonlethal damage is the way to go. I'd prefer to give a character a pool of points that drains out before they start taking nonlethal damage than I would give them a way to recover nonlethal damage.
I mean, at some point everyone in the party (wizards, clerics and barbarians included) are going to need to rest.
Even if you've taxed out your Burn for the day, you can still hang back and throw your base blasts or reduce burn costs to zero with move actions. It's such a non-problem.
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Your base blasts are pretty garbage without using Burn, unfortunately, until higher levels where Empowering is free.
And what you seem to have glossed over is that, yes, those options may be expensive, or come online a bit late...but they actually EXIST, in addition to options that mitigate cost in the first place.
Sure, a pool of points would have been great. Said half the people in the Playtest, including me.
Too late for that now.
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You really need to stop b+~!%ing about not being able to heal Burn. It's tiresome and you come off as a petulant child.
The Kineticist cannot recover Burn for very good reasons: Because his is the only "magical" class that never runs out of his abilities.
With any other class, all of their abilities are limited use, and once they run out, they're done; they won't really be able to contribute anymore. If an Inquisitor blows all of his Bane, Judgement and Spells on easy fights, he's done for the day. If a Magus blows all of his Arcana, and Spells, he's in the same boat as the Inquisitor.
Likewise, if these classes don't use their abilities, they're in the same exact situation. A Bard that doesn't use Bardic Performance and Spells is little more than an Expert NPC class.
The Kineticist is different. No other class has methods of reducing the cost of it's abilities. A Magus cannot reduce the cost of all of his arcana to 0, allowing him to activate it for free. An Summoner cannot gather energy so his spells don't use up spell slots. A Cleric has no class feature to reduce the cost of his chanels so he can channel for free.
Some of these classes have methods to recover, or increase the total number of uses per day of their ability, but in the end, they run out.
The Kineticist doesn't have this problem. The Kineticist can, literally, ramp up the power of his blasts and continue blasting at nearly full power, every single round, for the entire day, and never take a point of Burn. This means, that he never runs out of his resource.
As a trade off, that means the Kineticist must feel the effects of his resource for the entire day. It's a balancing factor and makes perfect sense.
God, with as much whining as you're doing now, I can't imagine how much you would complain if you were playing even 10 years ago, let alone 20.
Ehm, except casters CAN recover spell slots, Barbarians CAN recover Rage, and Paladins CAN recover Smites, so your whole point just kinda flops.
I have to tell you, that Recovered Rage feat is total BS. The closest analogue to that, pre-ACG, is the Raging Deathblow feat (which you also linked) but that requires Greater Rage as a Pre-req, so you can't even get it until at least 11th level.
Still... this isn't the first time that Paizo has published obscenely powerful options for Barbarians. We already know that several members of the staff possess raging (ha!) hard-ons for the class. It's also worth noting that these were not included in the Core Rule Book and came in later books. Perhaps the Kineticist will get broken options in later books too. Nearly everyone else has.
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Also if you assume a day of about 5-8 encounters (roughly half are CR appropriate, a quarter are below CR, a quarter are Challenging or higher).
The odds of you maxing out your burn are pretty low, more likely you're only going to do that if you're nova-ing to really put the hurt on a punk. In which case you're going to want to rest soon anyway (just as the alchemist who throws all his bombs in a crazy two-weapon flurry of awesomeness would, and a wizard who shot off all his top levels of spells would).
I expect at high levels most Kineticists probably wouldn't end a day spending more burn than they'd get bonuses for with Elemental Overflow. (Which also mitigates the hp lost to Burn because you can put your bonus in Con which increases hp).
Also get your cleric pal (or his summoned Lantern Archons) to cast Aid on you, get some temporary hp all up ins. You might not be able to remove nonlethal burn damage, but you can certainly mitigate it's effects. UMD to grab a bear's endurance.
The worst that will happen is you'll be knocked unconscious, to be re-awoken with some low level healzies.
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You really need to stop b+@#~ing about not being able to heal Burn. It's tiresome and you come off as a petulant child.
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God, with as much whining as you're doing now, I can't imagine how much you would complain if you were playing even 10 years ago, let alone 20.
I'ma have to ask you to chill the f@!+ out on this s+#$ right here, man.
The Kineticist cannot recover Burn for very good reasons: Because his is the only "magical" class that never runs out of his abilities.
With any other class, all of their abilities are limited use, and once they run out, they're done; they won't really be able to contribute anymore. If an Inquisitor blows all of his Bane, Judgement and Spells on easy fights, he's done for the day. If a Magus blows all of his Arcana, and Spells, he's in the same boat as the Inquisitor.
Come on man, you know better than this. "It's limited" doesn't matter if you have enough uses to last for any reasonable number of combats (Which Bane, Rage, and so on definitely do).
The Kineticist is different. No other class has methods of reducing the cost of it's abilities. A Magus cannot reduce the cost of all of his arcana to 0, allowing him to activate it for free. An Summoner cannot gather energy so his spells don't use up spell slots. A Cleric has no class feature to reduce the cost of his chanels so he can channel for free.Some of these classes have methods to recover, or increase the total number of uses per day of their ability, but in the end, they run out.
Six of one, half dozen of another. It all evens out to the same effect: Delaying the time until you can no longer use your best abilities (which is a problem the Kineticist still has until VERY high levels).
The Kineticist is only competitive in damage at high levels if he both uses a Composite Blast and Empowers it...which means he's taking a point of Burn every round to do so until 16th, when Empowering and Composite becomes free between Composite Specialization and Supercharge.
If he doesn't do that, he's better off just picking up a bow and using that. Which is also "unlimited".
Or, he's stuck using Kinetic Blade all the time, and considering a lot of people would rather, you know, BLAST with the Kineticist, is not an option everybody should be pushed towards taking.
Wanting an option to mitigate the effects of Burn is not an unreasonable desire.
Hell, if the Defense talents were better for every element whose name isn't "Aether" (and maybe Earth) so you also got something that could really mitigate the damage you took, I would like the mechanic more.
Searing Flesh actively encourages you to get hurt more, Enveloping Winds doesn't do much (most enemies will either close to melee or attack with a "non-physical weapon" rather than a bow or something IME), and Shroud of Water is so-so, and entirely useless if you have both armor and a shield.
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Empowering costs 1 burn. Composite costs 2 burn.
At level 11 you can reduce all of that down to 0 with a full-round action.
Before level 11 you can reduce all of that down to 0 zero with a full-round action and a half action.
If you want to do it right away you can take 3 points of burn and lose about 18% of your health to nonlethal damage, although I still recommend reducing it with at least a move action, plus you get a couple of infusions for free thanks to Infusion specialization.
Now, and this is the important part.
You aren't in competition with the other players at the table, and comparing damage to the archery tree is ridiculous because the archery tree is the best option in the game. An archery bard, archery inquisitor, archery paladin, archery ranger, archery fighter etc are all incredibly good because all they do is activate buffs and full attack. Archery beats melee almost every time in damage races.
You aren't an archer though, you get all sorts of neat tricks that an archer can't touch. Adding all sorts of sweet riders. Like throwing a dude at another dude so that both dudes take some damage.
Honestly I'd prefer to pull down a 5,000 lb. statue or pillar and use it for cover, or toss it up and let gravity do the hard work for me.
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Empowering costs 1 burn. Composite costs 2 burn.
At level 11 you can reduce all of that down to 0 with a full-round action.
Before level 11 you can reduce all of that down to 0 zero with a full-round action and a half action.
Ah, yes, perfect. you can spend an entire round doing jack and s!$# so you can make one attack next round that does about 3/4 of the damage an archer would be doing. So a little over half as effective.
Now, and this is the important part.
You aren't in competition with the other players at the table, and comparing damage to the archery tree is ridiculous because the archery tree is the best option in the game. An archery bard, archery inquisitor, archery paladin, archery ranger, archery fighter etc are all incredibly good because all they do is activate buffs and full attack. Archery beats melee almost every time in damage races.
You aren't an archer though, you get all sorts of neat tricks that an archer can't touch. Adding all sorts of sweet riders. Like throwing a dude at another dude so that both dudes take some damage.
Honestly I'd prefer to pull down a 5,000 lb. statue or pillar and use it for cover, or toss it up and let gravity do the hard work for me.
...Archer Bards and Paladins and Clerics and Hunters and whatnot can do those things too. Because spells can do most of the things your Wild Talents can do. And then they ALSO do better damage.
No, you're not in competition with the other players, but that doesn't mean anything in this context. If another class can do what you can do, but better, why do you need to exist?
It's the same problem as the Rogue.
"You're not in a competition" is just a fancy way of saying "Yeah, you're right, the class is subpar but I don't give a s#%&".
If the Kineticist's main schtick has him working at the same effective range as an archer, he should be roughly equivalent to an archer.
There's some leeway up or down if he has unique and useful options other classes can't get, but for the most part he doesn't, and most of the optios he does get are element locked, with some element's stuff being way better than others (I hate to keep harping on this but why does Lightning only get ONE INFUSION, and it sucks ass?).
Hmm, given I'm used to ability damage burn from psionics to get an oomph, nonlethal hp burn seems minor to me. Still digesting the book though.
Here's the thing about Ability Burn: There isn't a class whose every ability relies on accruing it, and the ways to get it are fairly rare.
Taking ability burn with a Psionic character usually makes you operate at 110% for a bit, or does wonky s~~$ like adding a metric ballton to the ability scores that AREN'T burnt instead.
Taking Burn (or finding ways to mitigate it) is the only way to hit 100% at all with the Kineticist, you're sitting at around 70% at a baseline.
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I think your definition of operating at 100% is different from my definition.
Druids are the best class in the game bar none, every other class is worse than a druid at basically every tenet of the game (they got skills, 9 levels of spells, shapeshifting to boost their hit and damage, and can go archery focused if they want because archery has such a low threshold to work you can fall into it).
Why do we have any other classes in the game?
The Druid is the best class. It can do elemental stuff better than a kineticist (because of spells, and shapeshifting letting it turn into an elemental). Why do even have kineticists, we have druids.
Why are there Barbarians, Druids can go berserk better than barbarians, hell they can turn in to BEARS. Barbarians are just worse than druids because they don't get spells. Why do we even have Barbarians?
But let's be honest the Druid is the best class in the game.
Archery is the best combat style in the game.
You shouldn't use the best most optimal thing as a comparitive baseline.
Compared to a sorcerer a Kineticist blasts better and longer. A baseline blast does a very good amount of damage even without empowering etc.
Also I 100% agree Electricity should get more toys to play with, I suspect it comes down to a matter of space in the book. The Kineticist had the largest page count of any of the classes and I'm sure Mark was squeezing as much in there as he could. It is unfortunate electricity got short shrift in that deal, I'd be interested in your thoughts what existing infusions should get extended to electricity.
I do think it should be said that electricity does have more than 1 infusion. It has 11 infusions available to it, though it only has 1 special electric infusion (3 if you count magnetic and thundering).
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Let's table the "what baseline should we be comparing to" debate for now because I really don't feel like doing this run around again ATM and move on to the not-retreaded ground. =)
So for lightning, Thundering is the one I was thinking of. What's the other one I missed?
Edit: Oh right, Chain! Forgot that one.
And it may have 11 Infusions available, and 8 of them are generic Infusions like Extended Range. Which is bad, since you can actually get more than 11 Infusions, and will definitely be getting 10 at minimum.
As for what existing Infusions it should have access to IMO?
-Brilliant infusion, maybe. It illuminates squares.
-Disintegrating Infusion would be a good one. It's a staple of fiction, a lightning bolt turning people to ash.
-Flash Infusion for sure. Which do you more associate for flashing brightly and temporarily blinding people? Fire or lightning?
-Pushing Infusion, because lightning is pretty much the ONLY one that doesn't get access to it. It fits! you see it in movies all the time. Guy gets shocked, goes UGGHAUGHAUGHA for a bit, and then flies backwards.
-Torrent. Do I really need to explain this one? This is like THE thing associated with lightning in media, just a never-ending stream of electricity into the target. Force Lightning, for example, in the Star Wars franchise. Lightning Bolt is a Core spell for cryin' out loud!
I'd also like Thundering infusion to not suck. Deafening does...basically nothing. I cannot think of very many occasions deafening someone is a good move, since the Initiative thing doesn't apply retroactively and the main benefit only works on some spells for casters. Screws Bards, basically. It'd be good if it Stunned or Dazed like Ear Piercing Scream or some such.
I'ma have to ask you to chill the f%#~ out on this s!&+ right here, man.You really need to stop b+@#~ing about not being able to heal Burn. It's tiresome and you come off as a petulant child.
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God, with as much whining as you're doing now, I can't imagine how much you would complain if you were playing even 10 years ago, let alone 20.
No, I don't think I will when, as far as I can tell, nearly every, singl post he's made in this thread is him saying, "WAAAAAH I CAN'T HEAL BURN!!! WAAAAH"
That's all he's doing. Complaining that he can't heal burn and that the designers failed because they didn't put in a spell or feat or an item to heal Burn even though healing Burn was explicitly denied from the very beginning of the damned playtest!
The Kineticist playtest is the best one I've ever seen on Paizo so far. Mark really listened to the players and included a lot of options based on our feedback. The Kineticist is, probably, the most 'community driven class design' that Paizo has ever done, and this guy is still bloody complaining about it!
Come on man, you know better than this. "It's limited" doesn't matter if you have enough uses to last for any reasonable number of combats (Which Bane, Rage, and so on definitely do).The Kineticist cannot recover Burn for very good reasons: Because his is the only "magical" class that never runs out of his abilities.
With any other class, all of their abilities are limited use, and once they run out, they're done; they won't really be able to contribute anymore. If an Inquisitor blows all of his Bane, Judgement and Spells on easy fights, he's done for the day. If a Magus blows all of his Arcana, and Spells, he's in the same boat as the Inquisitor.
Out of the class abilities, the ones that are least likely to run out are Bardic Performance, and Rage rounds. Bane has a very limited number of uses at between 5 - and 20 rounds of Bane. The average number of rounds in combat is about 4, and you're supposed to face between 4 and 7 combats each day (depending on the scenario). So if you were to use Bane in every round, it requires a minimum (based on the average) of 16 uses of Bane, and a maximum of 28 uses. An Inquisitor has, at most (excluding Extra Feats) 7 uses of Judgement, so he could, within reason, use Judgement in every fight at 20th level, but as he's leveling up? Not so much.
The Magus' Arcane Pool varies based off his Int Mod, but it's reasonable, (I guess) to expect somewhere between 4 and 20 Arcane Pool points at 1 and 20 respectively. However, the Magus burns through Arcane Pool points very quickly, especially if he's boosting his accuracy every round, or using his Arcane Pool for Spell Recall. Granted, the Magus has limited means of recovering his Pool, but it's still very limited and not very fast in execution.
The examples go on. Unless a player is playing fairly conservatively, he's likely to be exhausted on resources, or very nearly so, after 4 - 7 fights. Granted, this chance is reduced proportional to the optimization of the party level, but that's not a major factor.
The Kineticist, unlike these other classes, does not have to blow through his resource to remain at nearly 100% combat potency. As long as he play marginally intelligently (as in, not going Nova in every fight) then he's very likely to not need to take anymore than 3-4 burn, at most, unless he opts to top off his Defense/Elemental Overflow bonuses. Sure, there will be times when he has to go full-stop and take 6 or 8 or 10 Burn in a day, but those occurrences are, likely, to be few and far between.
And you know what? 3 - 4 Burn isn't going to hurt that much, at any point in his career. Not once you factor in he's a Con based class, even without FCB and Toughness.
As a "Nova" class (which I don't consider the Kineticist) he is far more efficient when it comes to his resources than any other. When the Kineticist goes Nova, he only takes a few points of Burn, where as anyone else is burning through a significant number of their resources. The Inquisitor is the worst, as he's burning through a spell, a Judgement, and Bane all at the same time to go Nova.
The Kineticist is different. No other class has methods of reducing the cost of it's abilities. A Magus cannot reduce the cost of all of his arcana to 0, allowing him to activate it for free. An Summoner cannot gather energy so his spells don't use up spell slots. A Cleric has no class feature to reduce the cost of his chanels so he can channel for free.Some of these classes have methods to recover, or increase the total number of uses per day of their ability, but in the end, they run out.
Six of one, half dozen of another. It all evens out to the same effect: Delaying the time until you can no longer use your best abilities (which is a problem the Kineticist still has until VERY high levels).
The Kineticist is only competitive in damage at high levels if he both uses a Composite Blast and Empowers it...which means he's taking a point of Burn every round to do so until 16th, when Empowering and Composite becomes free between Composite Specialization and Supercharge.
If he doesn't do that, he's better off just picking up a bow and using that. Which is also "unlimited".
Or, he's stuck using Kinetic Blade all the time, and considering a lot of people would rather, you know, BLAST with the Kineticist, is not an option everybody should be pushed towards taking.
Wanting an option to mitigate the effects of Burn is not an unreasonable desire.
Hell, if the Defense talents were better for every element whose name isn't "Aether" (and maybe Earth) so you also got something that could really mitigate the damage you took, I would like the mechanic more.
Searing Flesh actively encourages you to get hurt more, Enveloping Winds doesn't do much (most enemies will either close to melee or attack with a "non-physical weapon" rather than a bow or something IME), and Shroud of Water is so-so, and entirely useless if you have both armor and a shield.
First, how about you establish a baseline 'competitive damage' threshold? What do you consider "competitive?"
Answering that question, is very important.
However, I'll humor you.
Why not just use one of the archery classes? Because, for one, every version of the archer is a feat starved and all of them play exactly the same. Also, for another, outside of the Eldritch Knight, Arcane Archer, Bardcher, or Inquisitor, most of them are, essentially, one-trick ponies. They don't have a lot of options other than "I full attack." The other 4, at least, have spells to back them up, but even then, those all expend resources that could be used elsewhere.
What the Kineticist brings to the table is, mostly, a resource efficient class. Need some battlefield control? They can do that. Need some scouting done? They can do that. Need some ranged damage done now and not after 3-4 rounds? They can do that.
The Kineticist brings a host of options to the party, and most of them require little to no resources expended. Hell, 3 of the 5 energy types can fly, 2 of them can heal, 3 of them can re-shape the battlefield (to various degrees).
The Kineticist, in many ways, blurs the lines of support, battlefield control, and DPS all into a single class with little to no resource expenditure.
I mean, if you're playing in a sea campaign, there is, in my opinion, literally no better person to have in the party than Hydrokineticist. I mean, being able to use control water at will at fairly low levels is bloody amazing! Especially since she can hurl, essentially, 50 gallon barrels of water at enemies and wash them away.
The Kineticist is not just a one-trick pony. They don't just deal damage. They bring loads of support to the team and lots of options to the party.
Trying to compare the Kineticist to "full-attack archers" is a pretty sad argument, as the only ones who come off good in a comparison to archers, is gunslingers. Anyone else... well, anyone else looks like an incompetent ninny and should feel ashamed of themselves.
Let's table the "what baseline should we be comparing to" debate for now because I really don't feel like doing this run around again ATM and move on to the not-retreaded ground. =)
So for lightning, Thundering is the one I was thinking of. What's the other one I missed?
Edit: Oh right, Chain! Forgot that one.
And it may have 11 Infusions available, and 8 of them are generic Infusions like Extended Range. Which is bad, since you can actually get more than 11 Infusions, and will definitely be getting 10 at minimum.
As for what existing Infusions it should have access to IMO?
-Brilliant infusion, maybe. It illuminates squares.
-Disintegrating Infusion would be a good one. It's a staple of fiction, a lightning bolt turning people to ash.
-Flash Infusion for sure. Which do you more associate for flashing brightly and temporarily blinding people? Fire or lightning?
-Pushing Infusion, because lightning is pretty much the ONLY one that doesn't get access to it. It fits! you see it in movies all the time. Guy gets shocked, goes UGGHAUGHAUGHA for a bit, and then flies backwards.
-Torrent. Do I really need to explain this one? This is like THE thing associated with lightning in media, just a never-ending stream of electricity into the target. Force Lightning, for example, in the Star Wars franchise. Lightning Bolt is a Core spell for cryin' out loud!
I'd also like Thundering infusion to not suck. Deafening does...basically nothing. I cannot think of very many occasions deafening someone is a good move, since the Initiative thing doesn't apply retroactively and the main benefit only works on some spells for casters. Screws Bards, basically. It'd be good if it Stunned or Dazed like Ear Piercing Scream or some such.
This, I agree on. It's really sad that my dream of having an entire campaing of Jedi vs. Sith (Aether/Air) battles is a little bit crushed because there's no Force Lightning. At least, without house rules.
I'm already fixing to write a homebrewed 'Dragon Slayer' archetype (ala Fairy Tail) after I've let the Kineticist stew for awhile. I might as well tackle some more talents that I think are missing as well.
First, thought you were talking to me since JiCi's last post was like 6 posts previous.
On phone, so just Re: Bane rounds and damage baseline.
Excluding Extended Bane and/or the Bane Baldric kind of misses the point considering we were discussing similar options for the Kineticist. The two combined add about 10 extra rounds.
Damage baseline? People have run the numbers, and an Expert with a bow out damages them without Empowering.
But a good baseline is being able to two round kill a CR equal opponent. I think, though it's hard to check, the DPR numbers I came up with up thread precluded that, needing 3 rounds to kill unless they Empowered a Composite blast at 11th.
First, thought you were talking to me since JiCi's last post was like 6 posts previous.
On phone, so just Re: Bane rounds and damage baseline.
Excluding Extended Bane and/or the Bane Baldric kind of misses the point considering we were discussing similar options for the Kineticist. The two combined add about 10 extra rounds.
Damage baseline? People have run the numbers, and an Expert with a bow out damages them without Empowering.
But a good baseline is being able to two round kill a CR equal opponent. I think, though it's hard to check, the DPR numbers I came up with up thread precluded that, needing 3 rounds to kill unless they Empowered a Composite blast at 11th.
Okay, so without going full nova, does any of the other 'archer' classes 2-round any CR appropriate opponent? That means an Inquisitor shouldn't be using all three of a spell, bane and Judgement, or a Magus activating his Arcane Pool to enhance his weapon, using an Arcana, and spell striking etc.
For the most part, unless these classes activate multiple abilities, they're probably 3-rounding opponents as well. This, of course, varies with the opponent and level of optimization, but that's to be expected.
The thing is, all of those classes can afford to do all that in every combat. They have the resources to pull it off.
The Kineticist's damage output balance seems to be based around him doing so in every combat, but he just can't QUITE manage it.
Even in melee, I whipped up an Inquisitor for the Sacred Fist thread in like 15 minutes that can do 108 DPR with a scimitar, Str based pretty much all day, while the Kineticist is pulling 75 DPR at the same level using an Empowered Composite Blast...which, forgive me, IS actually 2 rounds to kill, but BARELY, and doesn't factor in DR concerns and the need to bypass SR every round to attack. Not sure how that math changes for Physical blasts, since a lot of that DPR came from the attack being 95% likely to hit.
But if he uses that Empowered Composite Blast, he takes a point of Burn, so he actually cannot keep it up all day. He will hit his Burn limit fairly quickly, since he only, effectively, has 3+Con "uses" of that blast in the first place.
Scratch that, that 75 DPR number came from maxing out Elemental Overflow (actually it'd be a bit higher, around 80, forgot to account for the damage bonus being +6 instead of +3), so he only has Con uses per day of that kind of Blast (which is about 6-8 uses, maximum).
So the Kineticist's damage output, competitive or not, isn't nearly as sustainable as the Inquisitor or Magus or Alchemist or what have you.
Edit: Call it 85-90 DPR on the Inquisitor, take off Divine Favor and it probably knocks about that much off. point still stands.
If the Kineticist were looking at that 75 DPR number just with either an Empowered Blast or a Composite Blast (not both), and thus could truly do it all day, then "nova" for more by taking Burn, I'd be perfectly cool with the mechanic.
But as-is it's not an extra bit of oomph...it's a necessity.
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You really need to stop b%+&@ing about not being able to heal Burn. It's tiresome and you come off as a petulant child.
Physician, heal thyself.
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I don't care if it's an AoE or not, it's still not much damage, especially when they save.
Kinetic Blade is nice...but it's not the Blast. The class shouldn't be forced into melee attacking to deal good damage...which is yet another thing that was stressed ad naueeam during the playtest, but not addressed.
I haven't ignored anything. I mentioned both of these options already.
[edit]Oops, I misunderstood some rules. :P[/edit]
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They don't need to do nonlethal. Once your current HP falls under your current nonlethal, you're unconscious. If you have 100 hp and take 99 nonlethal, 1 lethal damage knocks you out.
Also are you seriously telling me you see nothing wrong with a Con based class with a higher hit dice ending up with nearly half the effective HP of the class who is so well known for being squishy there's a whole f&&&ing TVTropes page about it?
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Having at-will equivalent to 5th level AoE evocation spells is not much AoE damage?
...No. it isn't. It's about as much damage as playing your generic Draconic Sorcerer with an Empowered Fireball, which is generally considered to be, well...not the greatest. No matter how many times a day they can do it, and do it as a 3rd level spell (those nifty "lower metamagic costs fro a single spell" traits at work).
Or being able to drop staggering AoEs at will for hydromancers?
It's not really "at-will".
It has to be a Cold blast, so your options for AoE are limited to Fragmentation (4 Burn) or Cloud if you're going Blizzard (also 4 Burn from Cloud, plus 2 Burn for a Composite Blast, and 1/4 of the damage).
Plus the 3 Burn from Chilling Infusion. At 11th level, which we're taking about, you can reduce that by 2 with Supercharge, and 3 with Infusion Specialization, leaving you to take 2 Burn per use with Fragmentation, and a whopping 4 Burn per use with Cloud...yeah, that's neither at-will (you have a max amount of Burn you can take in a day, remember?), nor really feasible except as a nova option...and staggering for only 1 round, Fort negates (and that's most things' best save) ain't that good in the first place.
Even if you use a Full-Round with Supercharge, and a Move the next round, you just waited a round and a half for something that might not even work.
There are a lot of powerful viable options available for kineticists. Standing there and playing archer just doesn't happen to be one. I'm sorry that's what you want the class to be, but its just not
And I'm sorry the things you say are so awesome really aren't...if they were I wouldn't have as much of a problem.
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I don't care if it's an AoE or not, it's still not much damage, especially when they save.
Kinetic Blade is nice...but it's not the Blast. The class shouldn't be forced into melee attacking to deal good damage...which is yet another thing that was stressed ad naueeam during the playtest, but not addressed.
I haven't ignored anything. I mentioned both of these options already.
Having at-will equivalent to 5th level AoE evocation spells is not much AoE damage?
Or being able to drop staggering AoEs at will for hydromancers?
There are a lot of powerful viable options available for kineticists. Standing there and playing archer just doesn't happen to be one. I'm sorry that's what you want the class to be, but its just not
But it should be.
I love the Kineticist; it might even be my favorite class now, but I still feel that I should be able to specialize in DPR and excel at it.
The Elemental Annihilator goes a long way towards fulfilling that desire, but in doing so it completely obliterates the Utility Wild Talents, without which I feel like I'm just playing a fighter archetype that gets less feats.
I also might come off like a petulant child to Tels, but a wonderous item that you could store burn points in would be incredibly welcome; as would something to mitigate the actual non-lethal damage taken per burn point.
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Personally I think the fastest fix would be to increase to Full BAB and d10 HD. Makes them better at combat and reduces the issue of burn without making burn ineffectual.
Personally I think the fastest fix would be to increase to Full BAB and d10 HD. Makes them better at combat and reduces the issue of burn without making burn ineffectual.
+1
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Personally I think the fastest fix would be to increase to Full BAB and d10 HD. Makes them better at combat and reduces the issue of burn without making burn ineffectual.
This would probably have helped a midge. It changes none of the math for Touch attack Blasts, but gives the Physical blasts a hefty boost.
This would probably have helped a midge. It changes none of the math for Touch attack Blasts, but gives the Physical blasts a hefty boost.
I should help with meeting BAB prerequisites though, even with full BAB from annihilator I had to wait forever till I could meet some prerequisites.
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Yeah I messed up and thought torrent worked with cold instead of blizzard, guess I have to wait until 12th to drop staggering walls every turn.
That's a bit late in the game, my friend, for such a weak option. And that's still 1 Burn per use.
3 Wall, 3 Chilling, -2 Supercharge, -3 Infusion Spec.
So you need to wait all the way to 14th for it to be free. Which is coming up on "This game's over in a couple of levels" territory.
At 12th that's a DC what, 23 save? On average, a CR 11 (so CR-1 challenge) monster saves that on a 9 if it has a good Fort save, 13 if it doesn't. So it's not even that spectacular to begin with.
Nifty trick every now and then, but not super reliable, and definitely not at-will for about 3/4 of your career (assuming you even go to 20, and not stop at 15 or 16 like an AP), so what else ya got?
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If "late blooming" means they don't blossom until you're out of the playable levels, then it doesn't really matter.
Entangling is neat, but it's not really a game-changer condition.
Flash infusion is cool, but that's a whole new element.
The only Save or Die I know of is Suffocate, and it's really not unless you take Burn, so it's still not all this stuff at-will like you keep claiming. But Suffocate is always nice to have.
"All sorts of Combat Maneuvers" is again a whole new element, unless Bull Rush is "all sorts".
And none of it really addresses the complaint I had about not being able to deal good damage at range. Where the Kineticist should be dealing good damage. Not in f$@%ing melee.
It should have been a simple matter to keep the other stuff in and make sure I could still murder people with a big honkin' bolt of lightning. Make the whole class work like Kinetic Blade. Problem Solved.
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Personally I think the fixes for the class would be:
Allow Full Attacking With Blasts based on BAB, but no extra's allowed through stuff like TWF or Haste(that's what kinetic blade is for)
Open up all infusions to more blast types
Reduce all burn costs for all wild talents related to an element by 1 when you select the same element for expanded element and you get expanded element at levels 3, 7, 11, 15, & 19