Mastering the Elements: N. Jolly's guide to the Pathfinder Kineticist

[someweirdguy]

N. Jolly wrote:

someweirdguy wrote:

Reading through the guide as you write it, I am seeing one thing that I've seen a lot with people looking at the Kineticist - taking into account the burn of an Infusion without looking at the level of Infusion Specialist you have when that Infusion becomes available.

As I stated in my last comment, Disintegrating Blast is only available a single level before it becomes a free option if you're spending your move to Gather.

Magnetic, which can earliest be obtained by double-Air and double-Earth's at level 7, is immediately free by itself with Gathering. For non-double focused people, you can pick it up at level 9, at which point it will be free without the Gather. You can then use your move action to supply burn for a minor form infusion (blade and extended range seem most likely) or to Empower your blast.

When you get Chain (level 11), you can be doing a Magnetic Chain with Supercharge and Infusion Specialist to make all of your enemies eminently easier to hit for the rest of your party.

Most of the various Infusions need to be looked at with this type of thing in mind. This class has a ton of intricacies and options, and I salute you for undertaking the crazy endeavor of this guide.

Trust me, I've tried to keep those in mind, but even for disintegration, the value of it falls below basic metakineticist usage, making me just not a fan of risking a fort save (most creatures good save) for big damage. It's the same reason the spell of the same name isn't huge.

Really Infusion Specialist is proving to be the MVP of blasting with this class, although comments such as yours are making me wonder why people are having issues with damage. I am trying to keep track of all this, and I thank you for your comments.

Also got the first purple option of the guide, Wings of Air. It's a game changer for sure!

Between the various ridiculous Utility uses, the (in my opinion) great defense talent (a permanent miss chance to all archers and the like, which is going to be good because you fly everywhere, so melee is less of a threat), and how well Air joins in with so many other elements makes me feel that Air is really one of the most versatile and useful elements.

[Sphynx]

Air Cushion needs to be better than red... sorry. :P It may 'say' (Sp), but it describes as (Su). Permanent effect. This is very important for low levels before you get Wings of Air and most people (especially the ones needing this guide), will doubtly spend months playing before being able to fly. :P Once you get Wings of Air, either of its pre-requisites is pointless, but until then, Air Cushion is more life-saving than the ability to leap. ;)

[Sphynx]

Also noticed you skipped attributes, so some suggestions:

Strength: red/dump
Constitution: purple
Dexterity: blue
Intelligence: green
Wisdom: orange (only for will)
Charisma: red

:)

[45ur4]

I'm just pointing out that Internal Buffer can also be used to prevent burn from utility wild talents, which normally cannot benefit from Gather Power nor Infusion Specialization.
It can also be used to prevent burn from feats.

Best thing is, unless misreading, that a Kineticist can store Burn into her Internal Buffer right before going to sleep, and wake up next morning with the burn gone and the Buffer still filled in

[someweirdguy]

45ur4 wrote:

I'm just pointing out that Internal Buffer can also be used to prevent burn from utility wild talents, which normally cannot benefit from Gather Power nor Infusion Specialization.

It can also be used to prevent burn from feats.

Best thing is, unless misreading, that a Kineticist can store Burn into her Internal Buffer right before going to sleep, and wake up next morning with the burn gone and the Buffer still filled in

Yup, that's the great thing about the Internal Buffer.

[N. Jolly]

45ur4 wrote:

I'm just pointing out that Internal Buffer can also be used to prevent burn from utility wild talents, which normally cannot benefit from Gather Power nor Infusion Specialization.

It can also be used to prevent burn from feats.

Best thing is, unless misreading, that a Kineticist can store Burn into her Internal Buffer right before going to sleep, and wake up next morning with the burn gone and the Buffer still filled in

If this is being brought up, I guess it's something I should throw in the guide then, since the ability seems to make it clear that these points are 'permanent' in their own way. But the wild talent thing is a solid catch, I'll be sure to throw it in!

[Mark Seifter]

N. Jolly wrote:

Really Infusion Specialist is proving to be the MVP of blasting with this class, although comments such as yours are making me wonder why people are having issues with damage. I am trying to keep track of all this, and I thank you for your comments.

It is possible that some of the people who were having issues were either not as creative as I've seen you being in your other guides for ways to use the ability or just had a different level of standard altogether. Even though I do think the class functions well in standard sort of campaigns, or even those with an occasional "WTFpowerful!" opponent that you can burn nova, I've talked to some really cool people who have explained some of this conception to me. One of them was really interested in some of the unexpected combos I mentioned and is eager for a guide. Another had different needs in their campaigns because the fights are consistently much over expected levels, and for them, it basically comes down to the fact that a combo you or I might see for another class as "Oh wow, this combo from five different books is wicked powerful! Now I can drop most challenges I encounter in one round without the rest of my party. That's an amazingly cool hypothetical optimum, but I probably shouldn't build it for that reason." for them might be necessary for survival. In the latter case, the fact that kineticist is different enough causes it not to mesh with many of those pieces they would normally use from different books, so it is a problem for them.

I'm sure there's plenty of other good reasons beyond those two as well. In any case, I'm hoping your guide will help spread some of the coolest combos and ideas. I will certainly be happy to share a few of mine later if they don't wind up in here already.

[Philo Pharynx]

someweirdguy wrote:

Between the various ridiculous Utility uses, the (in my opinion) great defense talent (a permanent miss chance to all archers and the like, which is going to be good because you fly everywhere, so melee is less of a threat), and how well Air joins in with so many other elements makes me feel that Air is really one of the most versatile and useful elements.

In my ranking it's the third best defense, after Aether and Earth As you go up in levels, I find that you face less physical missiles and more rays as ranged attacks. Also, when you do face arrows at higher levels, they are shooting so many that you're only batting a few away.

[Chess Pwn]

45ur4 wrote:

I'm just pointing out that Internal Buffer can also be used to prevent burn from utility wild talents, which normally cannot benefit from Gather Power nor Infusion Specialization.

It can also be used to prevent burn from feats.

Best thing is, unless misreading, that a Kineticist can store Burn into her Internal Buffer right before going to sleep, and wake up next morning with the burn gone and the Buffer still filled in

The Internal buffer doesn't prevent the burn from anything, because you took the burn earlier to power the buffer. It only allows you to spend more burn in a round and to start the day with some extra burn available if you charged it the day before.

[Duskbreaker]

Elemental Overflow should probably be blue, at least once you start getting size bonuses to 2 physical scores.

[Sphynx]

The reason it's not blue is because for it to be effective, you have to suck some burn. It's a costly bonus. Worth it, hence it not being orange, but costly.

[Johnny_Devo]

I think the thing to consider with elemental overflow is that you're not paying burn for the elemental overflow itself. You're paying burn for some other ability that you've decided is useful in that moment, and suddenly elemental overflow kicks in and hands you a nifty bonus on top of that. For that reason, I personally think it's blue.

[Melkiador]

Sphynx wrote:

The reason it's not blue is because for it to be effective, you have to suck some burn. It's a costly bonus. Worth it, hence it not being orange, but costly.

Blue to me means that it's an option you almost have to take/use. Is there ever a day where the kineticist is better off not using its Elemental Overflow?

[Sphynx]

The problem is that people might save burn for offense rather than defense, which means that until you get a couple of blasts under your belt, you're not benefitting. This also means that there are situations where, because you want to make sure you can double-empower as often as possible, you miss out on those con/dex bonuses and attack bonuses.

Cost is very important on rating something, in my opinion. While obviously everybody, at some point ever day, will want their Overflow to be going, it's how you have to get it (either sacrificing half or near half of your burn on mediocre defenses, or waiting til your more cost-effective offenses have had a chance to burn) that makes it less than blue.

[mikkelibob]

I think a little discussion of how a typical combat/blasting would go would be helpful. What are the usual tactics, that sort of thing Most of the kineticist have good mobility and utility. The infusions are situationally useful, but none seems like it would be an every round go-to move. So far so good.

I'm not totally clear on how behind is a aether kineticist do when it comes to damage. Lacking a composite blast would hurts, but it takes a while it seems. Even if you dip into another element at 7, you don't qualify for any higher base damage composite blasts. You can't use infusion specialist to reduce the built in composite burn. Is the typical non-aether blaster only launching a composite blast as a standard (gather power as move) 2-3 times per day (buffer plus maybe 2 burn)? In theory every kineticist attacking at range pretty much relies on an empowered basic blast (or Foe Throw or Bowling) from round to round; with the option for non-aetherists to pop off composite blasts at the cost of a burn At low to mid levels it looks like taking on burn to do a composite blast (instead of an empowered simple blast) isn't worth that much. At level 7 that something like 6d6+15 for an empower simple blast (free with gather) vs 8d6+12 composite blast (1 burn after gather). Basically even, so probably not worth it. At 9th that 7d6+16 vs 10d6+14. Still pretty close. From a blasting perspective Overwhelming Soul doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice for an aether kineticist until later...

At 11th when Supercharge comes online, and a non-aether blaster gets to composite blast with impunity, and they can throw around an empowered composite blast for just 1 burn. At 11th an aester is doing a 6d6+10 (maxed for 52-ish?); while others are doing 12d6+16 (58-ish), but can really bring the hammer down with an empowered composite blasting doing 18d6+24 (87).

[not sure how accurate my math is...]

[Chess Pwn]

One thing I feel about the cost of burn is comparing HP left to other classes. I'm assuming a standard d10 class will have a 14 con and lets say FCB to hp. So he has 13 hp lv1 and gains 9 per level. A Kineticist is a d8 class but lets assume an 18 con. So he starts with 13 hp and gains 10 per level. So if you accept 1 pt of burn your remaining HP is the same as a d10 class. If you get your con higher then you take more burn and still have a remaining HP as a d10.

Skip to lv6, you probably have a Con belt where the d10 has a str belt and you get +2 Con at 3 burn. So now you can have 3 burn and still have remaining HP equal to the d10 class.

For each if you gain 1 more burn then you're the same hp as other d8 classes.

So my point is, I feel that burn isn't really that bad since you have a few uses "for free" before you start to feel the effects of it.

[Runnetib]

dotting for reference

[Imbicatus]

Chess Pwn wrote:

One thing I feel about the cost of burn is comparing HP left to other classes. I'm assuming a standard d10 class will have a 14 con and lets say FCB to hp. So he has 13 hp lv1 and gains 9 per level. A Kineticist is a d8 class but lets assume an 18 con. So he starts with 13 hp and gains 10 per level. So if you accept 1 pt of burn your remaining HP is the same as a d10 class. If you get your con higher then you take more burn and still have a remaining HP as a d10.

Skip to lv6, you probably have a Con belt where the d10 has a str belt and you get +2 Con at 3 burn. So now you can have 3 burn and still have remaining HP equal to the d10 class.

For each if you gain 1 more burn then you're the same hp as other d8 classes.

So my point is, I feel that burn isn't really that bad since you have a few uses "for free" before you start to feel the effects of it.

This is a really good point. Also, while burn does increase the chance of you being knocked out, it reduces the chance of you dying, by giving a very large buffer between when you pass out and when you go under 0 HP and start dying. There is going to be less chance of you needing to roll stabilize checks or need an emergency breath of life than any other character, and most enemies will ignore a fallen foe.

[Duskbreaker]

Hmm, after looking through various races, hobgoblins are nice picks with the +2 to Dex and Con. Dark vision and +4 to stealth is nice too

[Imbicatus]

Yeah, Hobgoblins are great. They are pretty much the Klingons of 3.x in culture and ability. I love em, but there isn't much opportunity to play them as PCs.

Dual Talent Human is nice as always, and the human FCB is fantastic. Although I'm not sure if it's better to use the FCB for more wild talents, or for HP and be able to mitigate more burn.

[Duskbreaker]

It would be good if it was additional Utility talents, because I believe the real power of the class to reside mostly in those talents.

[Sphynx]

Imbicatus wrote:

This is a really good point. Also, while burn does increase the chance of you being knocked out, it reduces the chance of you dying, by giving a very large buffer between when you pass out and when you go under 0 HP and start dying.

This.

This has happened to my character twice now. Should have died, but thanks to the buffer, was just KO'd and over-looked for the rest of the battle.

[Duskbreaker]

What the class seems to be missing is a way to mitigate burn from using utility talents. Your only option to reduce it is from internal buffer, which seems kind of lame.

[Duskbreaker]

Also it seems that doubling up on your original chosen element is really tempting thanks to the extra utility or infusion wild talent.

[Sphynx]

Duskbreaker wrote:

What the class seems to be missing is a way to mitigate burn from using utility talents. Your only option to reduce it is from internal buffer, which seems kind of lame.

There is a mitigation of burn... It's called "0 burn". Let's not overlook that nearly ALL the utility talents are free. Personally, I go invis at will, I fly at will, I lift hundreds of pounds at will. I only burn when I have to lift thousands. The ones that let you spend burn for duration, also work without the burn if you concentrate instead (just reuse it every round). If there was a way to lessen utility burn at all, there wouldn't be any utility burn at all.

[Duskbreaker]

Yeah but it makes Kinetic healing rough to use, especially at lvl 1.

[Sphynx]

Kinetic Healer at level 1 costs your target 1 non-lethal HP in order to heal 1d6+1+ConMod.

That's not a bad tradeoff.

Remember, THEY can take the burn for a heal. :)

[Seth Dresari]

Everything after a certain point says it has a burn of 0.

[Duskbreaker]

As long as you don't have more than a couple of encounters a day I suppose it wouldn't be so bad at lvl 1, but eating 3 or 4 would be dangerous, especially if they are melee.

[Torbyne]

I keep going back and forth about my first kineticist being a cold based melee specialist or an air based sniper. as far as i can tell Burn heavily favors ranged builds. In melee you cant really sacrifice your movement to gather power and your infusion specialization is eaten up just powering your melee form; substance infusions and empowering are inevitably burn inducing until very late game. Taking Burn is more noticeable as a melee specialist too, those HP are going to be scary low for a front liner. At range you can far more often afford to gather energy which has a scaling benefit. you are left with a greater choice in forms, substance and cost reductions. If a ranged Kineticist has to take Burn they can get a lot more oomph out of it and have dropped their HP they are less likely to be in a position to suffer for it.

TO be more on point, Burn is a much different option for a melee build while a ranged character should have that nice screen of front liners between the baddies and their HP making Burn a much safer bet and more tempting choice.

[QuidEst]

Duskbreaker wrote:

Yeah but it makes Kinetic healing rough to use, especially at lvl 1.

Level 1 is actually the best time to use it. Your hit die is maxed out, it's an odd level, and your burn is a measly one point. Of course, you need the archetype to get it before 2, but it's pretty good.

[Duskbreaker]

Extended Range and Air's Reach make sniping obscenely easy, and for even more shenanigans use Extreme Range with Air's Reach for a 960ft range blast

[Philo Pharynx]

Duskbreaker wrote:

As long as you don't have more than a couple of encounters a day I suppose it wouldn't be so bad at lvl 1, but eating 3 or 4 would be dangerous, especially if they are melee.

At level 1 everybody is crunchy. You shouldn't use a lot of burn at low levels. On the other hand, you can blast much longer than any of the 1st level spellcasters.

Torbyne wrote:

I keep going back and forth about my first kineticist being a cold based melee specialist or an air based sniper. as far as i can tell Burn heavily favors ranged builds. In melee you cant really sacrifice your movement to gather power and your infusion specialization is eaten up just powering your melee form; substance infusions and empowering are inevitably burn inducing until very late game. Taking Burn is more noticeable as a melee specialist too, those HP are going to be scary low for a front liner. At range you can far more often afford to gather energy which has a scaling benefit. you are left with a greater choice in forms, substance and cost reductions. If a ranged Kineticist has to take Burn they can get a lot more oomph out of it and have dropped their HP they are less likely to be in a position to suffer for it.

TO be more on point, Burn is a much different option for a melee build while a ranged character should have that nice screen of front liners between the baddies and their HP making Burn a much safer bet and more tempting choice.

Definitely. Melee kineticists do much better once they have some infusion specialization. Then they use multiple attacks to get more damage instead of burning.

[CalethosVB]

You can be the primary healer but not a frontliner, or you can be a frontliner but have to get someone else to be the primary healer. Dump everything you got into Con and HP and you can heal all day long.

Really, I don't get why people were excited about the Witch's Healing He'd working once a day per person but having unlimited charges, but this is as many charges as you have burn left for the day but heals for more, and can heal the same person for their own NLHP as well as yours.

Except for the trading out spell slots for Cure spells, you have more healing than an equal level Cleric, and you can still blast all day for free, including infusions and metakinesis.

[Duskbreaker]

Clerics specialized in healing will rofl stomp and equal lvl Kineticist easily once they hit 8th lvl. The thing is Kineticists trade the raw upfront power of normal full progression casters for the ability to pull stuff off all day long. So while they can pull off some shenanigans, don't expect them to outshine a full progression caster with all their resources unspent.

[Torbyne]

Philo Pharynx wrote:

Duskbreaker wrote:

As long as you don't have more than a couple of encounters a day I suppose it wouldn't be so bad at lvl 1, but eating 3 or 4 would be dangerous, especially if they are melee.

At level 1 everybody is crunchy. You shouldn't use a lot of burn at low levels. On the other hand, you can blast much longer than any of the 1st level spellcasters.

Torbyne wrote:

I keep going back and forth about my first kineticist being a cold based melee specialist or an air based sniper. as far as i can tell Burn heavily favors ranged builds. In melee you cant really sacrifice your movement to gather power and your infusion specialization is eaten up just powering your melee form; substance infusions and empowering are inevitably burn inducing until very late game. Taking Burn is more noticeable as a melee specialist too, those HP are going to be scary low for a front liner. At range you can far more often afford to gather energy which has a scaling benefit. you are left with a greater choice in forms, substance and cost reductions. If a ranged Kineticist has to take Burn they can get a lot more oomph out of it and have dropped their HP they are less likely to be in a position to suffer for it.

TO be more on point, Burn is a much different option for a melee build while a ranged character should have that nice screen of front liners between the baddies and their HP making Burn a much safer bet and more tempting choice.

Definitely. Melee kineticists do much better once they have some infusion specialization. Then they use multiple attacks to get more damage instead of burning.

Yeah, but its a somewhat off putting situation, for a melee character you can do some nice damage but it sucks up all of your burn control to just be in melee. It is really only in the late game that a melee kineticist can play with substance infusions whereas ranged gets much more latitude in form and substance with gather energy and infusion specialization freed up. And as i mentioned, burn isnt equal between build themes, ranged characters need less HP but will get away with having more since they dont need to take Burn as often.

[Helcack]

Just my opinions on races:

CORE
Elves: Red
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Good
FCB: use HP

Dwarves: Orange
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Good
FCB: Okay

Gnomes: Orange
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Great
FCB: use HP

Half-Elves: Green
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Okay
FCB(use human): Good

Half-Orcs: Blue
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilites: Good
FCB(use human): Good

Halflings: Purple
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Good
FCB: Great

Humans: Blue
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Good
FCB: Good

EXPANDED(not all other races, there are too many)
Aasimar(Archon/Azata/Garuda): Blue
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Good
FCB(use human): Good

Catfolk: Green
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Good

Dhampir: Orange
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Good

Drow: Green
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Good

Fetchling: Blue
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Great

Goblin: Blue
Stat Bonus: Good
Racial Abilities: Good

Hobgoblin: Purple
Stat Bonus: Great
Racial Abilities: Good

Ifrit: Orange
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Okay

Kobold: Red
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Okay

Orc: Red
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Okay

Oread: Orange
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Good

Ratfolk: Green
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Good

Sylph: Red
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Bad

Tengu: Red
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Okay

Tiefling(no Oni or Qlippoth): Orange
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Okay

Changeling: Red
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Good

Duergar: Green
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilitie: Good

Grippli: Orange
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Okay

Kitsune: Green
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Good

Merfolk: Blue-for water campaign merfolk would be the purpliest
Stat Bonus: Great
Racial Abilities: Okay

Nagaji: Red
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Okay

Samsaran: Red
Stat Bonus: Bad
Racial Abilities: Okay

Svirfneblin: Green
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Good

Vanara: Orange
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Okay

Vishkanya: Orange
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Okay

Wayang: Orange
Stat Bonus: Okay
Racial Abilities: Okay

Other Thoughts:
Maybe provide options that give temp HP? Temp HP is very useful to the Kineticist as it allows them to nova a bit harder and stay in the fight, it can also get them up after they've been knocked out. I would also suggest looking at useful alchemical items for the Kineticist(I am biased), but one in particular stands out Boulderhead Bock.

[45ur4]

Chess Pwn wrote:

45ur4 wrote:

I'm just pointing out that Internal Buffer can also be used to prevent burn from utility wild talents, which normally cannot benefit from Gather Power nor Infusion Specialization.

It can also be used to prevent burn from feats.

Best thing is, unless misreading, that a Kineticist can store Burn into her Internal Buffer right before going to sleep, and wake up next morning with the burn gone and the Buffer still filled in

The Internal buffer doesn't prevent the burn from anything, because you took the burn earlier to power the buffer. It only allows you to spend more burn in a round and to start the day with some extra burn available if you charged it the day before.

A kineticist can fill her Internal Buffer at the end of the adventuring day and wake up the next day with no burn damage, effectively suffering 0 burn on the most relevant part of adventuring day.

[MusicAddict]

I love your alchemist guide, and I'm a bit jealous that you finished this up while I'm still piecing together stuff for a guide of my own for kineticist( partially inspired by your alchemist guide even), but good job!

I want to disagree with some of your choices(for example, Force Ward is very likely the weakest of the defenses, best left at orange , but Searing Flesh is VERY strong, and can easily punch through resistances on creatures mid-late game for a fair amount of damage with only a few points of burn investment, even if immunity still ignores all damage and avoiding fire for campaigns where you'll expect a heavy amount of fire immunity is still smart practice), but I think I'll leave most of that to my own guide, when I find more time for it.

[Azten]

Why is the halfling FCB considered good? You can't even benefit from it until level 11, unless the FCB FAQ was changed.

[Serisan]

Azten wrote:

Why is the halfling FCB considered good? You can't even benefit from it until level 11, unless the FCB FAQ was changed.

It hasn't and you're right.

[Johnny_Devo]

What? I'm a little confused. Do you not get your favored class bonus for 5 levels? Why shouldn't you benefit from it at level 6?

[SyrusRayne]

"If an alternate favored class option modifies a class
feature or ability, it can’t be taken before the character has
that class feature or ability. For example, if a class gains a
class feature at 6th level, a character couldn’t take a racial
favored class option that applies to that class feature until
6th level, even if the benefit from that option wouldn’t be
high enough to add a bonus until a later level."

From the text on Page 84 of Occult Adventures. It's very unfortunate.

[N. Jolly]

Mark Seifter wrote:

N. Jolly wrote:

Really Infusion Specialist is proving to be the MVP of blasting with this class, although comments such as yours are making me wonder why people are having issues with damage. I am trying to keep track of all this, and I thank you for your comments.

It is possible that some of the people who were having issues were either not as creative as I've seen you being in your other guides for ways to use the ability or just had a different level of standard altogether. Even though I do think the class functions well in standard sort of campaigns, or even those with an occasional "WTFpowerful!" opponent that you can burn nova, I've talked to some really cool people who have explained some of this conception to me. One of them was really interested in some of the unexpected combos I mentioned and is eager for a guide. Another had different needs in their campaigns because the fights are consistently much over expected levels, and for them, it basically comes down to the fact that a combo you or I might see for another class as "Oh wow, this combo from five different books is wicked powerful! Now I can drop most challenges I encounter in one round without the rest of my party. That's an amazingly cool hypothetical optimum, but I probably shouldn't build it for that reason." for them might be necessary for survival. In the latter case, the fact that kineticist is different enough causes it not to mesh with many of those pieces they would normally use from different books, so it is a problem for them.

I'm sure there's plenty of other good reasons beyond those two as well. In any case, I'm hoping your guide will help spread some of the coolest combos and ideas. I will certainly be happy to share a few of mine later if they don't wind up in here already.

Trust me, I love me some five book combos, they make for fun hypotheticals because I really enjoy putting together pieces that just interlock perfectly. I think some of the confusion involving the class might have added to people's damage issues, so I'm hoping to clear up any confusion with this guide, although if I don't hit on any of your combos, I'd love to see what you have up your sleeve, since while I am creative and amazing, I can't think of EVERYTHING.

Sphynx wrote:

The problem is that people might save burn for offense rather than defense, which means that until you get a couple of blasts under your belt, you're not benefitting. This also means that there are situations where, because you want to make sure you can double-empower as often as possible, you miss out on those con/dex bonuses and attack bonuses.

Cost is very important on rating something, in my opinion. While obviously everybody, at some point ever day, will want their Overflow to be going, it's how you have to get it (either sacrificing half or near half of your burn on mediocre defenses, or waiting til your more cost-effective offenses have had a chance to burn) that makes it less than blue.

Sphynx his the nail on the head here for why this isn't blue. To me, if I were to rate it blue, it'd be because it were amazing to go out of your way to rack up extra burn to activate. While starting the day off with a burn to start things off right, I wouldn't race to the cap to get full benefits, instead deciding to more organically reach any cap after the first one.

As for why I haven't done ability scores/races yet, I want to fully see the list of talents to make sure that I'm not leaving anything undone first. I'm almost thinking I could do a melee/ranged split for this class, although I doubt I would do it in the fashion of my Alchemist Guide.

Duskbreaker wrote:

Extended Range and Air's Reach make sniping obscenely easy, and for even more shenanigans use Extreme Range with Air's Reach for a 960ft range blast

I REALLY like Air's Reach, it's almost close to purple too, Air is really an MVP element, and if I didn't dislike Aetheric Boost so much, I'd say Air/Aether or Aether/Air would be my favorite combination. It's probably for the best though, keeping me from having a direct favorite.\

MusicAddict wrote:

I love your alchemist guide, and I'm a bit jealous that you finished this up while I'm still piecing together stuff for a guide of my own for kineticist( partially inspired by your alchemist guide even), but good job!

I want to disagree with some of your choices(for example, Force Ward is very likely the weakest of the defenses, best left at orange , but Searing Flesh is VERY strong, and can easily punch through resistances on creatures mid-late game for a fair amount of damage with only a few points of burn investment, even if immunity still ignores all damage and avoiding fire for campaigns where you'll expect a heavy amount of fire immunity is still smart practice), but I think I'll leave most of that to my own guide, when I find more time for it.

Thank you, and I'm of the same opinion as Mark here that more guides would only help make things better. I myself am just a quick study, and I'm able to absorb new material relatively fast, which is why I'm already working on this guide. I'd love to see (and help with if you wanted) your guide once you start work on it.

I can easily accept that you'd disagree with me on some things, it'd be strange if you didn't, and as I've said before, I'm willing to listen to all critique and commentary anyone may have on this this guide so I can help keep it as comprehensive as possible.

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Starting the Fire infusions now, although I might have to say this could be the weakest element, which is a shame. I suppose there's always a bottom, and know that I consider Earth high green on utility, although I feel Aether is still solidly deserving of being ranked higher than it. I welcome any and all comments and discussion about the guide or the class though, as well as things you would like to have included.

[Johnny_Devo]

N. Jolly wrote:

Starting the Fire infusions now, although I might have to say this could be the weakest element, which is a shame.

And then everyone was minorly inconvenienced when the fire kinetecists attacked.

[MusicAddict]

Just a few snacks for thought for fire stuff.

Fire as an element is honestly probably the weakest one, piece by piece, but when its abilities are weaved together properly, it becomes incredibly strong in its own right, and it has some fairly strong synergies in different areas with Earth, Water and Air. Burning is a weak infusion on its own, but with searing flame it's one of the biggest things to make a Pyrokineticist viable, and the increased to hit and DCs lead into its other infusions coming out much stronger, including entangling or grappling magma attacks. And then a Fire/Earth kineticist has the DR+retribution synergy.

Personally I don't put too much stock into the Pure-Flame infusion, it comes too late into a pyrokinetic's life, and they're bound to have picked up Spell Penetration and Greater Spell penetration instead of PBS and Precise and probably picked up a few more ways to deal with spell resistance.

((Also I should probably get around to asking if Elemental focus applies to Kineticist blasts...))

[Duskbreaker]

For traits, it would likely be dependent on your play style. If you are concerned about Will saves Indomitable Faith and Auspicious Tattoo both give you +1. Reactive would be good too since an extra +2 to initiative couldn't hurt.
As for feats, Iron Will, Improved Initiative, and Toughness seem like good picks. If Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration worked with your talents I'd say roll with them. I'd also stick in Skill Focus, Alertness, and Any of the item creation feats.

[Duskbreaker]

Bah, forgot that they have the mandatory point blank and precise shot feat tax. I also suppose that weapon focus on their blast wouldn't be a bad idea either

[Helcack]

Azten wrote:

Why is the halfling FCB considered good? You can't even benefit from it until level 11, unless the FCB FAQ was changed.

It's still good because there is currently no way to expand the internal buffer otherwise, think of it as giving essentially +40 NL HP usable 1/day for burn which doesn't count against your maximum amount of burn for that round. It is really, really good. Taking the HP fcb gives you 20 HP in the end which is very good, that is why I tended to improve my suggested colour choice only if the fcb is better than that, and didn't reduce it for bad ones(but rated them anyway because guides have to make sure that you don't pick trap options, which of course aren't traps for some campaigns and in those campaigns are very good) You are essentially getting 2.5 burn/day from being a halfling which is really nice. Also being small is only a buff for the kineticist as the damage does not change based on size(so being the smallest character possible is a benefit, it is also why smaller races got higher ratings)

[MusicAddict]

Duskbreaker wrote:

For traits, it would likely be dependent on your play style. If you are concerned about Will saves Indomitable Faith and Auspicious Tattoo both give you +1. Reactive would be good too since an extra +2 to initiative couldn't hurt.

As for feats, Iron Will, Improved Initiative, and Toughness seem like good picks. If Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration worked with your talents I'd say roll with them. I'd also stick in Skill Focus, Alertness, and Any of the item creation feats.

Spell penetration is essentially the less necessary PBS/Precise feat for pure pyros, since everyone else will be hitting standard AC with no spell resistance for most of their career, and for those who start energy, spell resistance isn't really an issue early on, and will pick up phys later on if they want to be strong, so for everyone other than PurePyro, go PBS/Precise, PurePyros, take Spell pen/Greater