Like flipping the table on your way out.
How petty.
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GMs will have a blast with it.
A subset of players will enjoy it as well. Those who: a) get their burn on in the morning and/or b) want their character to have a memorable death. A few unusual cases as well, such as a character who doesn't want to be raised/posthumously interrogated.
I like (the concept), but I won't take (a crap feat).
I don't know what I think about this feat in particular, but "Don't like, don't take" is a variation off of what overly sensitive writers say when they post their stories on fanfic.net.
The book has next to zero feat support whatsoever for Kineticists, and this is what gets printed?
The feats they do get are really cool, and beyond what I'd normally expect from a feat (Delayed Blast and Interweave Composite Blast in particular). This one makes for characters that will be remembered after they're gone.
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Parting Blast
When you die, your body explodes in one final, destructive
kinetic blast.
Prerequisite: Kinetic blast class feature.
Benefit: You can accept 1 point of burn to prepare a
kinetic blast that automatically triggers upon your death.
If you are killed at any point before your burn is removed,
your body instantly erupts in an explosion that deals an
amount of damage equal to that of your simple blast to
all creatures in a 5-foot radius. A parting blast destroys
your body, which might prevent any magic that requires
an intact corpse.
Want to find out who sent the assassin after you? Too bad. You should have used Non lethal damage.
I actually kind of like this as a DM. It could be fun for mooks?
Its terrible for players though.
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It's for those times when your players say "Ok, combat over, CDG and move on."
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I like (the concept), but I won't take (a crap feat).
I don't know what I think about this feat in particular, but "Don't like, don't take" is a variation off of what overly sensitive writers say when they post their stories on fanfic.net.
I'm pretty sure that overly sensitive writers write a dissertation about why the critic is wrong and their work is obviously great and the critic is just jealous and etc....
That's after the criticism arrives. DL;DR is generally before.
Yeah, 32 damage to all adjacent with no save isn't half bad at that level. What's the damage type?
RAW, untyped damage equal to your simple blast.
RAI, probably whatever your simple blast does.
Personally, I'm a little disappointed. Someone intent on taking their opponent with them to the afterlife in superpowered media generally does catastrophic damage in the attempt. Not "my basic attack against a few people, maybe".
Feats: All feats on pages 128-141 are legal for play, except Alter Binary Mindscape, Lucid Dreamer, Psychic Combatant, Psychic Defender, Shatter Mental Mask, and Third Eye.
Guess what's legal in PFS!
If you've ever wanted to be "that guy" who "unintentionally" PvPs, here's your chance. Just make sure you're a half-orc so you can chase the other players.
Potential house-rule- level 7+ uses composite blast. Keeps the mook nukes low, but lets PCs check out in style.
RAW, untyped damage equal to your simple blast.
RAI, probably whatever your simple blast does.
Personally, I'm a little disappointed. Someone intent on taking their opponent with them to the afterlife in superpowered media generally does catastrophic damage in the attempt. Not "my basic attack against a few people, maybe".
Just run up and fireball your position (or whatever the equivalent is). That's what's nice about this spell: It's basically an immediate action before death.
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I'm thinking I should GM something simply to introduce an evil kineticist cult the PCs will have to face in the near future...
As a player, not a feat I'd be likely to take for most characters.
As a GM, I like it a lot and am glad it's included. It's a no-save death-triggered damage-source, and it'd be a good upgrade for a horde of kineticist mooks working alongside some stronger villain.
Do not forget the Necklace of Fireballs.
I'm going to have to make some caster BBEG who uses fire spells to detonate his minions now. Just set up a huge reaction of Necklace of Fireballs and Parting Blast minions to space juuuuust right so if one goes boom, they all do. The explosion will be glorious.
Reminds me of a good feat.
That is a good NPC feat, I would argue way too good since of how quickly the damage would scale. That feat is much about proactively killing one self (or setting up protection from energy before hand).
I would have liked another feat in place of Parting Shot it really does feel like an feat appropriate for NPCs who would likely get use out of the feat as opposed to PC who quite possibily never see it used.
I also prefer parting shot because it is a passive attack rather than an option I have to initiate during a fight.
It occurs to me a cursed item that blows up all your flammable objects at once would be pretty awesome.
Don't like, don't take.How, exactly, does this excuse poor design again? I seem to have missed the part where not being forced to take an option means that it's alright for literally worthless abilities to be printed instead of something that would make the class at least worth something.
It is cool and mechanically feasible. Seems like good game design to me. Of course, I mainly GM. Still, saying a feat you don't like is poor game design is a bit much. Different feats serve different purposes in the game.
It exists to frustrate players, not to be used by them, but some feats are for the DM. Now you can have a group of kinetic hitmen whose bodies incinerate on death leaving no corpse to interrogate with Speak with Dead. This would definitely annoy my players and would enrage them if I used it too much. Most of their detective work is done with Speak with Dead or Blood Biography. In fights they even declare this to opponents who might have important information: "Speak with Dead yields the same answers as interrogation, so your call..."
Actually you probably get more truthful answers with Speak with Dead, interrogation never works and we all know how effective Waterboarding is at extracting the truth:-D
Oh you definitely get better info with Speak with Dead, but you never tell the other guy that if you are trying to get him to surrender. The thing is my party had gotten to a point where the only time they "talked" with enemies was when they were pulling 411 from their slowly-cooling corpses. They haven't been particularly careful about capturing NPCs because a dead one answers questions as well as a live one. I already hit them with a pixie whose head exploded, like a Cronenberg effect, showering the party with brains and bits of butterfly wing, when he was about to give up the name of the fey queen BBEG. Maybe a couple of self-incinerating enemies will drive home the point that there are times when kill first, ask questions later, will cost you the information you were seeking.
Even as an NPC feat this thing seems pretty meh.
I mean the effect is outright pathetic. Most opponents literally aren't going to even care that much if you explode when you die because the damage on a standard blast is so... not good.
Honestly, this feat could be a very amusing or even downright effective GM tool, or a decent last-ditch effort for a party with the right kind of members... if it wasn't so depressingly weak. It should do a LOT more damage, and have at least a 10 ft. blast so that it can actually catch someone (and/or their allies) in the explosion who would actually be able to kill you (even if the damage gradually decreased with distance from the body like with Detonate or other effects it could still be somewhat useful; hell, if they want it simple, they could just have it straight-up duplicate the Detonate spell when you die!).
For PC party uses, it really depends on how much of the body is left over (assuming it gets better damage and reach as noted above). Are there bloody chunklets or a pile of ashes left over, or do you completely atomize when you blow up? If there's enough left over for the Resurrection spell, then I could see some use. Both the Songhealer Bard Archetype (at 20th level) and the Life Giver Grand Hex (and possibly other things; this is off the top of my head) can duplicate the effects of Resurrection without the material cost; the Songhealer can do it by using 20 consecutive rounds of Bardic Performance, and Life Giver is once per day for nothing. Therefore, if Parting Blast was made significantly more powerful (perhaps gaining a high-level prerequisite in exchange for dealing enough damage to trigger a Fort save vs. massive damage as well as a status affliction based on your element?), a high level party could pull it as their trump card at the cost of not having their Kineticist for a while and said Kineticist later having a negative level until removed. I'm not saying it'd be optimal, but 1000gp worth of diamond dust for Restoration is a lot better than a 10000gp diamond for Resurrection.
For an added twist, a Kineticist could multiclass into Barbarian or Primalist Bloodrager (or something else that can get Rage Powers) to get a Linnorm Death Curse or two (4 levels for all but Tor, which requires 8). The curses also trigger when you get knocked unconscious (not just on death) which is something they'd risk more often than dying, and means it's far more reusable. Furthermore, the save for the curses is Cha-based, so an OSoul Kineticist would be using their good stat!