More questions!
Is the smoke from Smoke Infusion supposed to move with the target or simply be generated from the targets square?
More questions!
Is the smoke from Smoke Infusion supposed to move with the target or simply be generated from the targets square?
I don't have the PDF, but unless it states the effect causes the smoke to emanate from the target it shouldn't move.
An emanation spell functions like a burst spell, except that the effect continues to radiate from the point of origin for the duration of the spell. Most emanations are cones or spheres.
Yeah, that's what I figured.
I'm also curious: Was it was intended that the Elemental Scion's simple blast is stepped up if they only have one, but their composite is not?
Currently at level 1 your Simple Blast is stepped up if you have only a single Simple Blast. At level 7 you get your composite (but it is not stepped up), and at level 15 your Simple Blast and Composite Blast are stepped up regardless of how many you have available.
Keep in mind the way lethal and non-lethal damage is healed. If you do 2d4 points of damage, half of which is nonlethal, then you average 2 points of lethal and 2 points of non-lethal damage. A CL 1 Cure Light Wounds is guaranteed to heal away all of the damage because it heals, at minimum, 2 points of damage. When you use magical healing, you heal an equal amount of lethal and non-lethal damage. So healing 2 points of lethal, also heals 2 points of non-lethal.
This makes 2d4, half non-lethal, strictly worse of a damage type than both negative energy simple blast (1d6) and the force damage composite blast (1d6) because the damage they deal doesn't get healed at twice the rate. In addition, 1d6 damage (average 3.5) is only slightly less, on average, than 2d4 damage (average 5).
Just bought your book, now I'm waiting for Paizo's downloader to start working again :(
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Yeah, that's what I figured.
I'm also curious: Was it was intended that the Elemental Scion's simple blast is stepped up if they only have one, but their composite is not?
Currently at level 1 your Simple Blast is stepped up if you have only a single Simple Blast. At level 7 you get your composite (but it is not stepped up), and at level 15 your Simple Blast and Composite Blast are stepped up regardless of how many you have available.
It was, although I feel like some people would like the option, so I might make it an option to either learn both simple blast or increase damage die.
Just bought your book, now I'm waiting for Paizo's downloader to start working again :(
Aces, I provided an email address earlier in the thread to help with issues involving that, hit up Mark if you're having issues.
Also in the edit doc, High Gravity Infusion has been clarified as to how it interacts with flying creatures.
Okay, so I did a rough mock-up of how I'd develop a wood elemental scion. I suspect you may want to add errata as a result of this but a guy can dream, however briefly, right? It's very loose: I really only showed which choices I'd be making for things like feats, infusions, utilities, along with any abilities gained from class and tracking the damage dice on my blast(s).
--1st--
Burn per Round: 1
Elemental Heart: Wood
Kinetic Blast: Wood Blast
Blast Damage: 1d8
Gather Power
Utility: Basic Phytokinesis
Feat: Point-Blank Shot
Trait: Firebug (Combat)
Trait: Focused Mind (Magic)
--2nd--
Burn per Round: 1
Blast Damage: 1d8
Defense: Flesh of Wood
Utility: Kinetic Cover
--3rd--
Burn per Round: 1
Blast Damage: 2d8
Elemental Overflow 1
Infusion: Kinetic Bomb
Feat: Precise Shot
--4th--
Burn per Round: 1
Blast Damage: 2d8
Utility: Kinetic Crafter
Feat: Craft Wondrous Item
--5th--
Burn per Round: 1
Blast Damage: 3d8
Infusion Specialization 1
Metakinesis: Empower
Infusion: Bleeding Infusion
Feat: Concentrated Splash
--6th--
Burn per Round: 2
Blast Damage: 3d8
Elemental Overflow 2
Internal Buffer 1
Utility: Brachiation
--7th--
Burn per Round: 2
Focused Element
Kinetic Blast: Great Oak Blast
Blast Damage: 4d8/8d6
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 10th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 9th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +1
Infusion: Toxic Infusion
Feat: Kinetic Prodigy
--8th--
Burn per Round: 2
Blast Damage: 4d8/8d6
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 11th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 10th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +1
Infusion Specialization 2
Utility: Greensight
--9th--
Burn per Round: 3
Blast Damage: 5d8/10d6
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 12th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 11th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +1
Elemental Overflow 3
Metakinesis: Maximize
Infusion: Deadly Earth
Feat: Fire in the Hole
--10th--
Burn per Round: 3
Blast Damage: 5d8/10d6
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 13th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 12th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +1
Utility: Ride the Blast
--11th--
Burn per Round: 3
Blast Damage: 6d8/12d6
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 14th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 13th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +1
Supercharge
Infusion Specialization 3
Internal Buffer 2
Infusion: Greater Toxic Infusion
Feat: Splash Weapon Mastery
--12th--
Burn per Round: 4
Blast Damage: 6d8/12d6
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 15th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 14th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +1
Elemental Overflow 4
Utility: Wild Growth
--13th--
Burn per Round: 4
Blast Damage: 7d8/14d6
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 16th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 15th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +1
Metakinesis: Quicken
Infusion: Arboreal Infestation
Feat: Throw Anything
--14th--
Burn per Round: 4
Blast Damage: 7d8/14d6
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 17th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 16th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +1
Infusion Specialization 4
Utility: Shape Wood
--15th--
Burn per Round: 5
Elemental Master
Blast Damage: 8d10/16d8
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 18th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 17th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +2
Elemental Overflow 5
Infusion: Incorporeal Infusion
Feat: Thuvian Grenadier
--16th--
Burn per Round: 5
Blast Damage: 8d10/16d8
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 19th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 18th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +2
Composite Specialization
Internal Buffer 3
Utility: Wood Soldiers
--17th--
Burn per Round: 5
Blast Damage: 9d10/18d8
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 20th
Utility Talent Adjustment: 19th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +2
Infusion Specialization 5
Metakinesis: Twice
Infusion: Wall
Feat: Arcing Lob
--18th--
Burn per Round: 6
Blast Damage: 9d10/18d8
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 21st
Utility Talent Adjustment: 20th
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +2
Elemental Overflow 6
Utility: Forest Siege
--19th--
Burn per Round: 6
Blast Damage: 10d10/20d8
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 22nd
Utility Talent Adjustment: 21st
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +2
Metakinetic Master: Empower
Infusion: Grappling Infusion
Feat: Signature Infusion (Kinetic Bomb)
--20th--
Burn per Round: 6
Blast Damage: 10d10/20d8
Infusion Talent Adjustment: 23rd
Utility Talent Adjustment: 22nd
Wild Talent DC Adjustment: +2
Elemental Embodiment
Infusion Specialization 6
Utility: Reverse Shift
What I did at 5th is pretty much why I don't think this would remain a "legal" build for too long. I can assume concentrated splash doesn't function with alchemist bombs because they deal significantly more damage than the average splash weapon. No such provision was made for kinetic bomb, which means at 5th level I'm essentially applying a free empower to my kinetic blasts that my regular empower can stack onto. Assuming I have... say, 18-19 Con at this point, the least my blast can do should be 12 damage (3 from dice, +3 bonus from being a physical blast, +2 bonus from elemental overload, and +4 from Con mod), while max is 33 (24 from dice plus all the above-listed bonuses), for an average damage of 22.5. If I hit with a kinetic bomb infusion in place and activate concentrated splash, this increases 50%, so we have min 18, max 49.5, average 33.75. If I forgo a substance infusion and use a move action to gather power and use empower, this is buffed even further, up to min 27, max 74.25, average 50.625. Compare this to the previous level, where the maximum was 24. Potential damage is more than doubled now. Granted this isn't considering equipment, the target's DR, or other similar bonuses.
So yeah, something tells me that'll need fixing. You could possibly treat the kinetic blast as the alchemist's bomb feature for the purpose of feats (which would disqualify concentrated splash), cut the damage from kinetic bomb in half (so concentrated splash would end up necessary for kinetic bombers to keep up damage-wise), or raise its level and burn cost so at least this added damage is unavailable until later on and would be harder to augment with infusions. Perhaps the damage from empower and from concentrated splash wouldn't stack.
I dunno, this may not be the problem I'm making it out to be (my math may be off, or I may be underestimating how common enemies with DR for a type other than bludgeoning/slashing/piercing/magic are at this stage), but it kinda feels like it wasn't intended.
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I'll admit I wasn't expecting interaction like that, but with a quick wording change...
Your blast has far more power packed behind it Whenever an infused blast hits a foe and deals damage to them, all adjacent squares to that foe take damage equal to the blast’s minimum damage, allowing a reflex save for half damage.
...and it's no longer a splash weapon! I didn't think of it as a true splash weapon anyways, so I consider this less of an errata and more of a clarification (splash weapon was basically there to describe the mechanics), but I can tell that you put a lot of thought into this build. If you're still happy with it post edit run, I'd be cool throwing it in the guide under 3P builds. I do plan on adding a few after this all gets sorted out.
It's really a shame that through my doc, I can't really add a ton of stuff to Wood, although if this does well enough, I have a few misc ideas to help out with it.
I'm thinking I might make the errata doc public once it's to a point where I'm happy with it, give people a day or so to check it out before sending it in, just to make sure we're hitting a sweet spot with a lot of things.
Pretty sure this is my last question: could you provide more clarification on Reanimating Infusion? Currently it doesn't really give any mechanical details for how the reanimation works. What CR would the zombie be?
I'd also add that in my mind, for the sake of ease of use and balance, it would probably be nice to specify that you can have maybe one higher CR zombie or multiple lower CR zombies. That way groups that don't want to deal with the bookkeeping of multiple zombie pets don't have to, while still making it a good choice.
Oh yeah, and it should probably have the [Evil] descriptor since it deals with undead.
I think Kinetic Bomb not being a splash weapon like Alchemist Bombs is weird and kind of inconsistent.
I'll admit I wasn't expecting interaction like that, but with a quick wording change...
Your blast has far more power packed behind it Whenever an infused blast hits a foe and deals damage to them, all adjacent squares to that foe take damage equal to the blast’s minimum damage, allowing a reflex save for half damage....and it's no longer a splash weapon! I didn't think of it as a true splash weapon anyways, so I consider this less of an errata and more of a clarification (splash weapon was basically there to describe the mechanics), but I can tell that you put a lot of thought into this build. If you're still happy with it post edit run, I'd be cool throwing it in the guide under 3P builds. I do plan on adding a few after this all gets sorted out.
It's really a shame that through my doc, I can't really add a ton of stuff to Wood, although if this does well enough, I have a few misc ideas to help out with it.
I'm thinking I might make the errata doc public once it's to a point where I'm happy with it, give people a day or so to check it out before sending it in, just to make sure we're hitting a sweet spot with a lot of things.
Awwww you made me sad. :C
But yeah, I kinda figured it wasn't intended as such, but now it acts completely differently from a splash weapon. Sure, if it hits a creature of Medium size or smaller, it's pretty much the same thing. However, if it hits a Large or larger creature, now it's automatically acting as if you've used it with arcing lob (normally hitting a Large creature with a splash weapon makes the splash damage only affect squares adjacent to one of the squares the creature occupies, while arcing lob allows you to do your splash damage to everything surrounding it). Also, while splash weapons actually do something when they miss or when you intentionally hit an empty square, this does nothing; the splash only triggers when a "foe" is hit (which I would assume to be a creature you've targeted). On the other hand, if a splash weapon misses, it usually still has the chance to deal its splash damage to your target. Splash weapons themselves are also rather dangerous to use when you have allies in melee without taking feats such as Thuvian grenadier to limit the squares your splash hits, and even then you run the risk of hitting an ally in an adjacent square when you miss (as there's a 1/8 chance of hitting any adjacent square with the splash weapon itself).
Personally, I really like when things have odd synergies like what I described. What I'd do is errata it to be treated as an alchemist's bomb class feature for the purposes of feats, but also halve the initial and splash damage. This eliminates the synergy with concentrated splash (which can't be used with alchemists' bombs) but otherwise have it work mechanically as a splash weapon, and it'd put your composite blasts' damage in line with alchemist bombs.
A potential downside to this is that you're adding on more feats the kineticist could use with kinetic bomb in this way, so I'll go over the ones I see that could function with it:
Sundering Bomb - This isn't that bad: your target takes splash damage instead of full damage, and in trade you attempt a ranged sunder on them. Many infusions already attempt combat maneuvers (pushing, grappling, pulling, bowling), so this isn't treading new ground. The problem on this is that those are all substance infusions, and this is working off of a form infusion. Still I don't see too many kinetic bombers doing this if they could instead just kill an enemy outright and take their equipment from the charred corpses.
Reliable Bombs - +2 to DC to resist effects and damage. Not seeing too much of an issue with taking a feat to bump your DCs up a bit.
Deafening Explosion - This is actually not too shabby I don't think, but has the same problem as sundering bomb in that its basically adding the effect of a substance infusion to a form infusion. The problem with this is that (assuming we kept kinetic blast damage at full) bombs deal damage similar to simple blasts, and this could be used with composite blasts too. It also basically allows anyone who utilizes fire as either a primary or expanded element to deafen foes, where it's ordinarily in the realm of sonic and air (via thundering infusion), and it renders the point of taking thundering for sound rather moot. It makes force blast a little more worth using, though. It does help a bit that this is locked into the hobgoblin race, but unless you're running an elemental ascetic, cerebral kineticist, or overwhelming soul, Hobgoblin is actually ideal for kineticists due to having a bonus to both Dex and Con.
Flame Heart - Goblin-only feat, and it'd only function for fire blasts and related composites, plus it requires another feat. Still, it's something one might wish to use if they specifically want a goblin kineticist, as it'd advance the damage dice on even numbers instead of odd, so a 20th level goblin kineticist would be dealing 11d6 with a fire blast and 22d6 with a fire-based composite blast (or an elemental scion would deal 11d10 and 22d8 with fire and blue flame blasts, respectively).
And I saw nothing else featwise that'd work, and the only trait that specifically affects splash weapons is firebug (+1 attack roll IIRC, so not a huge enough boost to care about unless you're minmaxing). A lot of alchemist bomb feats require certain discoveries (as with remote bomb), already work with kinetic blasts (as with close-quarters thrower) or for the character to have bombs per day, which for a kineticist is effectively 0 (as with suicide bomber). The fact that two of these feats (and in fact the two more powerful ones) are gated behind a race choice helps out a lot I think.
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Pretty sure this is my last question: could you provide more clarification on Reanimating Infusion? Currently it doesn't really give any mechanical details for how the reanimation works. What CR would the zombie be?
I'd also add that in my mind, for the sake of ease of use and balance, it would probably be nice to specify that you can have maybe one higher CR zombie or multiple lower CR zombies. That way groups that don't want to deal with the bookkeeping of multiple zombie pets don't have to, while still making it a good choice.
Oh yeah, and it should probably have the [Evil] descriptor since it deals with undead.
Sorry, I actually made sure to edit this particularly. The reanimated zombies have a number of hit dice equal to the amount they had when they died, so you'd just check the template chart to see what CR it would be. The ability has been changed so you can now control 2 hit dice of zombie per kineticist level you have, so now you're more in control of if you want a ton of smaller ones or a few larger ones. Also it'd be the only infusion with a tag, so I think I'll leave that off. It's 3p, so technically they could be neutral zombies.
I think Kinetic Bomb not being a splash weapon like Alchemist Bombs is weird and kind of inconsistent.
Huh, didn't think people would mind this change much. Really, I just wanted to to work like a splash weapon, but let me discuss Onyx's post to get into more detail.
Awwww you made me sad. :C
But yeah, I kinda figured it wasn't intended as such, but now it acts completely differently from a splash weapon. Sure, if it hits a creature of Medium size or smaller, it's pretty much the same thing. However, if it hits a Large or larger creature, now it's automatically acting as if you've used it with arcing lob (normally hitting a Large creature with a splash weapon makes the splash damage only affect squares adjacent to one of the squares the creature occupies, while arcing lob allows you to do your splash damage to everything surrounding it). Also, while splash weapons actually do something when they miss or when you intentionally hit an empty square, this does nothing; the splash only triggers when a "foe" is hit (which I would assume to be a creature you've...
I think you've convinced me Onyx that this is a solid solution. I mean I did find it pretty clever when you used Firebug, so let me take a sec to edit things again (thankfully nothing's in stone)
Your blast has far more power packed behind it Whenever an infused blast hits a foe and deals damage to them, it is treated as though it is a splash weapon, dealing splash damage to all adjacent squares. Splash damage from this infusion is always equal to the infusion’s minimum damage. This infusion is treated as an alchemist's bomb for the purposes of which feats may be applied to it.
Really, I just don't want concentrated splash working with this, as you'd imagine. Let me know if this wording works better for everyone.
Hmm... Concentrated Splash... I like this feat. Definitely need to incorporate it into my Bomber Rogue build.
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Hey!
Just saying that I was able to download my copy ^_^
N. Jolly, what is the duration of duel blades for the duelist?
For my reading, the same as Kinetic Blade, because the infusion basically duplicates your Blade.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh...
Can you... mix Elemental Scion and Duelist into ONE archetyped class? I keep reading and re-reading these two archetypes... and they DON'T clash with each other...
Please tell me that's possible :D
but JiCi, kinetic blade for duelists is pretty much until you no longer want to have them up.
Hmm... it doesn't state anywhere that the Kinetic Blade remains upon activation...
On a sidenote, Kinetic Fist isn't mentioned anywhere about it, compared to what was writtedn for the Elemental Ascetic... Was that an omittion?
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Hey!
Just saying that I was able to download my copy ^_^
Aces, glad it's finally working!
If I go Aether Kineticist and use aether puppet to animate large or huger suits of armor, could I "pilot" it like a large mech suit?
You could, but it'd be pretty action intensive without taking burn, so it's something to consider when you're trying to pilot a Zaku.
N. Jolly, what is the duration of duel blades for the duelist?
Another thing that got cut, they should last until the beginning of your next turn, akin to kinetic whip.
More progress made on the edit run, a few things were buffed or nerfed as needed, and can I say I wasn't expecting nearly as many people to be as into Arboreal Infestation as I thought they would be. I just thought it was neat, but it's cool seeing how people want to just run with it.
JiCi, page 8, 2nd line of kinetic blade. "As a free action, they can channel their power into one of their hands for as long as they wish, dismissing it as a free action."
Whoops...
I assume that the Dual Blades lasts only 1 rounds, as all form infusions.
On a sidenote, Kinetic Fist isn't mentioned anywhere about it, compared to what was writtedn for the Elemental Ascetic... Was that an omittion?
I've teased N. Jolly a few times that Kinetic Fist isn't mentioned, but I am pretty sure it's because he didn't really want it in the archetype. Humorously, you need ranged infusion to get it.
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On a sidenote, Kinetic Fist isn't mentioned anywhere about it, compared to what was writted for the Elemental Ascetic... Was that an omittion?I've teased N. Jolly a few times that Kinetic Fist isn't mentioned, but I am pretty sure it's because he didn't really want it in the archetype. Humorously, you need ranged infusion to get it.
Might I add that I deserved none of that teasing, as I just really don't care for Kinetic Fist. Although I would actually consider building a Skinwalker (ragebred) build around it and the 6 possible natural attacks, combine those with a few choice debuffs, and just RAIN PAIN DOWN!
And yeah, I just don't want it a part of the archetype since we have elemental ascetic for that.
On a sidenote, Kinetic Fist isn't mentioned anywhere about it, compared to what was writted for the Elemental Ascetic... Was that an omittion?I've teased N. Jolly a few times that Kinetic Fist isn't mentioned, but I am pretty sure it's because he didn't really want it in the archetype. Humorously, you need ranged infusion to get it.Might I add that I deserved none of that teasing, as I just really don't care for Kinetic Fist. Although I would actually consider building a Skinwalker (ragebred) build around it and the 6 possible natural attacks, combine those with a few choice debuffs, and just RAIN PAIN DOWN!
And yeah, I just don't want it a part of the archetype since we have elemental ascetic for that.
Oh ok, so basically, a wielded-weapon-based archetype... to get something like a "light" saber XD
(Hey, everyone is making Star Wars references these days, so...)
I eel like you can combine it with Elemetnal Scion since none of the two archetypes clash woith each other :P
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Oh ok, so basically, a wielded-weapon-based archetype... to get something like a "light" saber XD
(Hey, everyone is making Star Wars references these days, so...)
I eel like you can combine it with Elemetnal Scion since none of the two archetypes clash woith each other :P
That was actually the aim for it, yeah. Since it's kinetic blade, it's still not 'wielded', but it's fake wielded, which I thought was good enough. And trust me, there was a reason why the light iconic for the book was a kinetic duelist.
Kinetic Duelist was actually made to be able to mesh with a lot of archetypes since it's a unique style of play, and I didn't feel like it should be limited to one style or another. Wish it worked with elemental avatar, but wielding a different elemental blade each round just sounds awesome to me.
EDIT: Also, this may be just me, but I think the best jedi/sith character would probably be an aether/sound kinetic duelist just due to the influencing ability of sound with the package aether gives.
Oh ok, so basically, a wielded-weapon-based archetype... to get something like a "light" saber XD
(Hey, everyone is making Star Wars references these days, so...)
I feel like you can combine it with Elemetnal Scion since none of the two archetypes clash woith each other :P
That was actually the aim for it, yeah. Since it's kinetic blade, it's still not 'wielded', but it's fake wielded, which I thought was good enough. And trust me, there was a reason why the light iconic for the book was a kinetic duelist.
Kinetic Duelist was actually made to be able to mesh with a lot of archetypes since it's a unique style of play, and I didn't feel like it should be limited to one style or another. Wish it worked with elemental avatar, but wielding a different elemental blade each round just sounds awesome to me.
EDIT: Also, this may be just me, but I think the best jedi/sith character would probably be an aether/sound kinetic duelist just due to the influencing ability of sound with the package aether gives.
- Actually...
You form a weapon using your kinetic abilities. You create a nonreach, light or one-handed weapon in your hand formed of pure energy or elemental matter. (If you’re a telekineticist, you instead transfer the power of your kinetic blast to any object held in one hand.) The kinetic blade’s shape is purely cosmetic and doesn’t affect the damage dice, critical threat range, or critical multiplier of the kinetic blade, nor does it grant the kinetic blade any weapon special features. The object held by a telekineticist for this form infusion doesn’t prevent her from using gather power.
You are wielding something when using Kinetic Blade/Whip; it just doesn't look like a blade that sticks out of a normal handle.
- You... might want to double-check both the Avatar and Dueling archetypes, because it does work with the Avatar, just like it does with the Scion. Kinetic Blast, Supercharge, Metakinesis (quicken) and Metakinesis (double) aren't replaced in both other archetypes ;)
- There are more than one way to create a Jedi/Sith afterall ^_^
I like Aether/Air (Lightning) for Sith... Ya know... Force Lightning and all that jazz.
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Actually...
You form a weapon using your kinetic abilities. You create a nonreach, light or one-handed weapon in your hand formed of pure energy or elemental matter. (If you’re a telekineticist, you instead transfer the power of your kinetic blast to any object held in one hand.) The kinetic blade’s shape is purely cosmetic and doesn’t affect the damage dice, critical threat range, or critical multiplier of the kinetic blade, nor does it grant the kinetic blade any weapon special features. The object held by a telekineticist for this form infusion doesn’t prevent her from using gather power.You are wielding something when using Kinetic Blade/Whip; it just doesn't look like a blade that sticks out of a normal handle.
- You... might want to double-check both the Avatar and Dueling archetypes, because it does work with the Avatar, just like it does with the Scion. Kinetic...
What I was talking about was this:
...The kineticist is never considered to be wielding or gripping the kinetic blast (regardless of effects from form infusions; see Infusion)...
That it was 'fake wielding'.
And damn, for some reason I thought Universal Focus conflicted with Kinetic Blade Mastery, guess I was wrong. It's over 10k words, I can forget a few.
And yeah, you could go force wielder in a lot of ways, but sound/aether is probably my preferred one.
I think Kinetic Bomb not being a splash weapon like Alchemist Bombs is weird and kind of inconsistent.Huh, didn't think people would mind this change much. Really, I just wanted to to work like a splash weapon, but let me discuss Onyx's post to get into more detail.
Awwww you made me sad. :CBut yeah, I kinda figured it wasn't intended as such, but now it acts completely differently from a splash weapon. Sure, if it hits a creature of Medium size or smaller, it's pretty much the same thing. However, if it hits a Large or larger creature, now it's automatically acting as if you've used it with arcing lob (normally hitting a Large creature with a splash weapon makes the splash damage only affect squares adjacent to one of the squares the creature occupies, while arcing lob allows you to do your splash damage to everything surrounding it). Also, while splash weapons actually do something when they miss or when you intentionally hit an empty square, this does nothing; the splash only triggers when a "foe" is hit (which I would assume to be a creature you've...
I think you've convinced me Onyx that this is a solid solution. I mean I did find it pretty clever when you used Firebug, so let me take a sec to edit things again (thankfully nothing's in stone)
Really, I just don't want concentrated splash working with this, as you'd imagine. Let me know if this wording works better for everyone.
Your blast has far more power packed behind it Whenever an infused blast hits a foe and deals damage to them, it is treated as though it is a splash weapon, dealing splash damage to all adjacent squares. Splash damage from this infusion is always equal to the infusion’s minimum damage. This infusion is treated as an alchemist's bomb for the purposes of which feats may be applied to it.
Awesome~ Quite glad you agree with me. I do think it'd still be fair to raise it to 2nd level and 2 burn if you like, because at present I believe this is the lowest-level AoE infusion possible, and is insanely useful for dealing damage to clustered enemies or getting a second chance to hit with your substance infusion (should it be something that does some special effect like bleeding or thundering infusions). It does seem fair to keep it 1st level and 1 burn too, though. I'll leave that to you to balance, I won't try and sway you one way or the other.
I can imagine a lot of hobgoblin vibrokineticists and goblin pyrokineticists rolling kinetic bomb builds. A goblin pyro would be especially fun I think!
Hmm... Concentrated Splash... I like this feat. Definitely need to incorporate it into my Bomber Rogue build.
Yep. Empower splash weapons AND allow them to hit enemies my allies are next to without endangering them (at least in most cases)? Yes please. It's kinda why it was a bit imbalanced for kinetic bomb to just count a kinetic blast as a splash weapon; it's just plain OP to basically be able to empower your blasts twice in a row.
I'm sure someone has asked this before, but there's a lot of pages to go through here, so I figure I'll just ask- to get ahold of both the cold and the water simple blasts, do I need to take water as my Expanded Element at level 7? Or is there a way to get ahold of it sooner?
I'm sure someone has asked this before, but there's a lot of pages to go through here, so I figure I'll just ask- to get ahold of both the cold and the water simple blasts, do I need to take water as my Expanded Element at level 7?
Yes.
Or is there a way to get ahold of it sooner?
No. Unless you allow 3P. In which case N. Jolly has a book with an archetype that does.
That's what I thought, but that works, as I was looking into being a water bender primarily anyway.
Also, a question about Kinetic Healer-is it my imagination, or can I use a move action to Gather Power, reducing my burn cost by 1, then use a standard to perform Kinetic Healer, essentially giving free out-of-combat healing? Cause that's kind of what it looks like, which sounds a lot better than orange text, which is what I believe it received in the guide itself.
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That's what I thought, but that works, as I was looking into being a water bender primarily anyway.
Also, a question about Kinetic Healer-is it my imagination, or can I use a move action to Gather Power, reducing my burn cost by 1, then use a standard to perform Kinetic Healer, essentially giving free out-of-combat healing? Cause that's kind of what it looks like, which sounds a lot better than orange text, which is what I believe it received in the guide itself.
Nope, common misconception though. Gather Power doesn't work on utility wild talents like Kinetic Healer or you'd be right and it'd be purple.
Gather power only affects the burn cost of kinetic blast.
Again, if you're willing to go 3p, Elemental Scion is quite nice for a mono elemental kineticist.
DM Wouldnt allow it, otherwise I'd give it a go.
Since I have your attention, quick question-I could've sworn I read somewhere in the Kineticist chapter that, at a certain level, your burn decreases by 1. Or something similar. So that way a level, say, 20 kineticist doesnt take burn using one of his weakest possible attacks. Or am I crazy?
I should probably ask a few questions now myself, now that I'm getting more deep into this document:
- How does attuning infusion work with ride the blast? I would assume that to "ride" a blast it'd have to originate fro you, and without these rules it always does, but with attuning infusion it originates from somewhere else instead. I suppose technically this is a flavor thing, but it just seems weird that you would instantly teleport to the enemy's location then ride your blast over to the next target. It is a nice jump in in-battle movement though, especially if something you've hit with attuning moved further away without leaving your line of sight or you can bring it back into line of sight by moving.
- About blast damage: I noticed that all of your new composite blasts that are two types of damage state that the damage is "X and Y" as opposed to "half X, half Y". Might just be a matter of semantics, but it strikes me as pretty important for energy damage especially. For example, the way it's worded, solar blast wouldn't deal any damage to something immune to fire, because all of the damage carries both the fire and bludgeoning descriptors. This is opposed to, say, steam blast, which would do half its damage to something immune to fire, because half of those points of damage are fire damage while half of them are bludgeoning. Similarly, suppose a creature has DR 10/piercing and you've hit it with a crystal blast, as opposed to hitting such a creature with a spring blast you've chosen as a slashing attack. The crystal blast would only lose 10 of its damage (since the entire lump of damage is considered both slashing and bludgeoning, and thus not qualifying to bypass the creature's DR), whereas the spring blast would lose 20 (since it'd lose 10 points of the bludgeoning half of its damage, then 10 of the slashing half of its damage). Am I just completely missing how the damage is supposed to work, and both phrasings mean that all the damage carries both descriptors? Or does "X and Y" imply that half the damage is X and half the damage is Y? Or is my interpretation correct? This actually applies even outside of the scope of this, since there's one 1st party blast - sandstorm blast - that carries the "X and Y" phrasing, whereas the rest of the dual-typed ones carry the "half X, half Y" phrasing.
DM Wouldnt allow it, otherwise I'd give it a go.
Since I have your attention, quick question-I could've sworn I read somewhere in the Kineticist chapter that, at a certain level, your burn decreases by 1. Or something similar. So that way a level, say, 20 kineticist doesnt take burn using one of his weakest possible attacks. Or am I crazy?
There is a lot of ways to reduce burn, from blasts going down to gather power to supercharge, but aside from infusions there is no way to truely cheat it. Despite which an attack from a lvl 20 might look something like, gather power as a move to use a composite + whatever they can throw in thanks to their "free" burn.
DM Wouldnt allow it, otherwise I'd give it a go.
Since I have your attention, quick question-I could've sworn I read somewhere in the Kineticist chapter that, at a certain level, your burn decreases by 1. Or something similar. So that way a level, say, 20 kineticist doesnt take burn using one of his weakest possible attacks. Or am I crazy?
There's actually several points where the burn cost of several different types of actions gets reduced for a baseline kineticist. I'll drop it under a spoiler to save room:
- At 16th level, you get composite specialization to reduce the cost of composite blasts by 1 point. This is simple enough for the most part, since most composites cost 2 points, so they would just cost 1 burn each. It only gets complicated if you add both aetheric boost and negative admixture or both aetheric boost and gravitic boost to a composite blast. The wording is a bit odd, but basically if you apply these to a simple blast they cost 2 burn, but applying them to a composite blast costs 1 burn each in addition to the 2 burn it costs to apply them. So for example, a cold blast with aetheric boost costs 2 burn initially; a fire blast with both aetheric boost and negative admixture costs 3 burn (2 for one of them, then 1 for the other, since it becomes a composite blast when either is applied); a metal blast with gravitic boost costs 3 burn (2 for metal blast itself and 1 for gravitic boost) and finally a spring blast with both aetheric boost and gravitic boost costs 4 (2 for spring blast, 1 for aetheric, 1 for gravitic). In all of these cases, 1 point would be taken from the total cost (so the aetheric cold blast would cost 1, the aetheric negative fire blast would cost 2, the gravitic metal blast would cost 2, and the aetheric gravitic spring blast would cost 3). This would also apply to omnicide, a special composite blast learned by the elemental annihilator archetype, so while it's listed as costing 4 burn, it's actually only 3 burn.
- At 19th level, you can reduce the cost of any one metakinesis by 1. This doesn't apply to them all, unfortunately, and you have to make the choice when you get the class feature, so if you choose to reduce the cost of, say, empower, and yo later use a kinetic blast with the quicken metakinesis, you still have to pay 3 burn for the quicken. IMO empower is the best option since it means empowering your blast is free, and buffing blast damage by 50% for nothing is hard to turn down.
That's the only passive ways you can reduce burn. There are a few active ways, though.
- Gather power reduces a kinetic blast's burn by 1 if used as a move action or by 2 on your next turn if used as a full-round action, assuming you pass all concentration checks for being hit between the time you gather power and the time you actually use the blast. This reduction increases to 2/3 at 11th. This reduction applies to the entire sum of your blast's cost, so you take it off after you've added together everything, including the blast's initial cost, the cost of infusions, and the cost of metakinesis. So if you use gather power at 11th level, you could just as easily use an unmodified composite blast, a simple blast modified by extended range and draining infusion, a simple blast modified by extended range and empower metakinesis, or a simple blast with the maximize metakinesis, and in all cases the burn drops to 0.
- Internal buffer reduces burn of any wild talent when you expend a charge of burn you've put in. You only get as many as three points here, and can only use one per turn, but it's the only way to reduce the cost of a utility wild talent. So you could, for example, use this if you're one point of burn from your daily limit but need to activate from the ashes, or if you need to use kinetic healer but are uncomfortable with either accepting burn yourself or giving your target any burn. It's more of an emergency reserve.
- If you hit an enemy with a blast with the draining infusion, your next blast (until the next turn) gets reduced by 1 burn from its total (or 2 at 11th level or higher). This is the least reliable IMO since you need to hit something with the same subtype as your blast, and because you can only use it with a simple blast, you can't use, say, a winter blast to ensure it works on both water and wood subtypes. If you're in an elemental-heavy campaign, though, and said elementals match one of the elements you have access to, you're in for a good time.
Beyond those methods, there's also a few ways to reduce burn cost in archetypes as well, but nothing groundbreaking.
- Elemental ascetic automatically gets kinetic fist and reduces its cost to 0. This is more a balancing issue, since it's essentially forced upon you, and it wouldn't make sense to force the burn onto you as well.
- Overwhelming soul gets an alternate to internal buffer that they don't need to expend burn to fill and can be used multiple times on a single talent (or at least the wording implies it can be used that way). However, this is to make up for the fact that they can't actually take burn, and is a poor substitute for that.
Also, addressing N. Jolly's book again. I don't know why I didn't think about it earlier, but if signature infusion can be taken multiple times, it's an absolute godsend for overwhelming souls who can survive until 11th level since it opens up several higher-cost infusions to them. Since my overwhelming soul character is an aerokineticist, he'll also benefit a lot from accelerated gathering, especially against terrestrial enemies without a means of ranged attack. Also, overwhelming soul would pair amazingly with elemental scion, so it's a bit of a shame he's air/earth/air.
So, dumb question, but how would one go about making an Aether/Void kineticist that didn't suck at their job? It seems like a cool and appropriate element combo, but looking at the guide, they both look a little...I dunno, underwhelming?
Play to their strengths. An Aether/Void Kineticist should focus a lot on utility and control effects. Instead of blasting people for damage, like fire, or hitting them with your beatstick, like earth, push, pull, trip and tumble them around. Throw up kinetic barriers, areas of different gravity, areas they can't see into. Make it difficult for enemies to do anything.
In the meantime, outside of combat, you do things like disarm traps and pick locks from a distance. Use darkness and your ability to see in it to sneak around guards or fortifications and gather information before reporting back to the party.
Think less "elemental damage dealer" and more "magical rogue". Your biggest strength is utility and cleverness, so play to it and focus on finding unique or unexpected ways to attack your foes.
So, dumb question, but how would one go about making an Aether/Void kineticist that didn't suck at their job? It seems like a cool and appropriate element combo, but looking at the guide, they both look a little...I dunno, underwhelming?
To add my opinion onto Tels' advice, even though aether's utility talents are more useful, I'd say make void the primary element. Force blast is meh, IMO, and you could still use telekinetic blast with foe throw late-game. I'm guessing your goal is to have an aetheric gravitic void blast, right? Fun as it seems, it'd be hella expensive, and even after composite specialization you'll be needing to gather power as a full-round action to use it without taking burn. You'd get slightly better damage for a point less burn by using an empowered void blast.
Aetheric Gravitic Void Blast = 20d8+40 (Min 60, Max 200, Average 130)
Empowered Void Blast = (20d6+20)*1.5 (Min 60, Max 210, Average 135)
Granted, after 19th you'll be empowering that aetheric gravitic void blast too, but that's gonna still be 3 burn, while the regular empowered void blast is free, and you'll be able to afford to make it either aetheric of gravitic. Of course there's also the option of applying these to telekinetic or gravity blasts but... well.
Empowered Aetheric Gravitic Void Blast = (20d8+40)*1.5 (Min 90, Max 300, Average 195)
Empowered Aetheric Void Blast = (20d6+40)*1.5 (Min 90, Max 240, Average 165)
Empowered Gravitic Void Blast = (20d8+20)*1.5 (Min 60, Max 270, Average 165)
Empowered Gravitic Aetheric Simple Blast = (10d8+20)*1.5 (Min 45, Max 150, Average 97.5)
Thing is, this does open up a ton of options as you increase level. I'd say start with gravity blast so you're not useless against early undeads. It'd probably be best to grab aether at 7th and void again at 15th unless you really want void blast. You'll be doing the regular progression up until you can supercharge (simple blast at 1st through 4th, empowered simple blast at 5th through 10th). Lemme go over the options for 11th level here for attacking:
Void Blast = 14d6+14 (Min 28, Max 98, Average 63)
Aetheric Simple Blast = 7d6+14 (Min 21, Max 56, Average 38.5)
Gravitic Simple Blast = 7d8+7 (Min 14, Max 63, Average 38.5)
So basically, if you reeeeeeally want the damage you can do void twice, but keep in mind you're missing out on a lot of utility, so you may be better still picking void at 7th and going with whichever boost you want (gravitic being riskier, aetheric being more stable, both with identical average damage).
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@Onyx
That's really how I wanted attuning infusion to work. It's seriously one of the cooler powers for just a neat little piece of utility.
As for composites, it should be half X/half Y, that will be changed in the next update. With a new class, it's easy to forget the more 'fiddly' bits of things, which has shown here. Everything said in this thread is word of god about KOP though.
There are some that are staying as they are, like Great Oak. Great Oak NEEDS to be better, it's my chance to give Wood something. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the half X/half Y way of doing damage for composites, but I'd rather not have this product push that boundary. Also Sonic Boom Blast will also be doing both to validate the damage die drop. It's something to help make it a tad more special.
Part of me wonders if I should show the edit doc before turning it in, I'll decide later on that.
So, dumb question, but how would one go about making an Aether/Void kineticist that didn't suck at their job? It seems like a cool and appropriate element combo, but looking at the guide, they both look a little...I dunno, underwhelming?
It's not dumb, but you are right, it is underwhelming. I'm really not a fan of how void was parsed out. Having two blast that are VERY different in concept both as simple blast makes choosing one almost entirely separate play styles, something that isn't really the case with every other element. Things like cold and water play somewhat differently, but not nearly to the extent that gravity and negative do, making the choice all the more important.
Remember that Aether isn't a damage element, it's a trickster element. You can't go into it wanting to do huge damage, and void isn't going to help it out a lot in that department. You have to go gravity blast to even have a composite for telekinetic blast (not like gravity's bad), but a lot of gravity's tricks feel very similar to Aether's, making the combination weak. This is mostly due to Foe Throw being the bread and butter of Aether's offense. Negative blast doesn't provide a composite and has weak infusions that don't really end up helping Aether out that much.
Personally with Kineticist of Porphyra, thanks to thinks like high/low gravity infusion and a few other things, you can do a more satisfying battlefield controller, but even then, it's not an amazing combination.
It all depends on which blast you take... If you take the physical avoid blast, pretty much any element will work except for Fire. If you take the energy Void blast, then take anything except Aether or Earth.
Void/Air would be a really good combo I think.
I can see that. Oh, you can see me? Well now I'm dozens of feet in the air still shooting dark lightning at you.
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More of a general question....but what is the worth of the Improved Criticsl feat for kineticists?
Seems more useful the higher level you are and the more dice you have on your blast especially on a composite. unlike vital strike, a crit doubles all of our damage dice. Doubling the chance of that happening seems like a good idea.
Our stacks of dice are supposed to be a semi replacement for not being able to full attack. Only having to crit once to double our entire damage pool instead of each attack individually seems like a another good point towards the IC feat being good. Its not like we have that many feat options that are good or useful to us anyway.
Thoughts?