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?
Because you only have a 5% chance of a critical hit with the base blast, and taking Improved Crit bumps this to a 10% chance. Improved Critical for Kineticists isn't all that good of a feat. That said, it can be one of the better choices, if only, because Kineticists don't really have a lot of feats to choose from and they can afford to take it.
Here's something I would have done a little differently: I would have made all 3 elements part of an existing one.
Air: Air and Electricity
Earth: Earth and Sound
Fire: Fire and Light
Water: Water and Cold
Aether: Aether and Time
Void: Void and Gravity
Wood: Wood... and a new one
While I'm not complaining at all about having new elements, I feel like they could have been classified into primary ones.
Sound, while being an air distortion, is often associated with Earth, due to the crystal resonance. A Crystal Dragon, an Earth-subtyped creature, has a sonic breath weapon. Many psionic Earth-based powers and creatures were also sound-based. Dude, Shatter is part of a Wizard Earth Elementalist... while Shout and Great Shout are for an Air one... oddly enough.
Light is what an actual fire sheds. Fire deals with the heat, so Light could have dealt with the light source... not to mention that good luck finding a suitable alternate Fire element :P
Time... would have been paired with Aether, with the space-time idea. Aether moves things in space, while Time moves things in time.
Wood could get Acid as a new element. While Acid is a common energy associated with Earth, so is Sonic, apparently. However, Acid could deal with poison and miasma, something that Wood has... with only one infusion, but still.
Like I said, not complaining about new elements, I really like them. I'm just saying that they could work as alternate sources ;)
Except for Acid, which would be a new element :P
I don't think we actually need an acid kineticist, and even Mark wanted to get away from Earth = Acid when he made the class.
|
Here's something I would have done a little differently: I would have made all 3 elements part of an existing one.
Air: Air and Electricity
Earth: Earth and Sound
Fire: Fire and Light
Water: Water and Cold
Aether: Aether and Time
Void: Void and Gravity
Wood: Wood... and a new oneWhile I'm not complaining at all about having new elements, I feel like they could have been classified into primary ones.
Sound, while being an air distortion, is often associated with Earth, due to the crystal resonance. A Crystal Dragon, an Earth-subtyped creature, has a sonic breath weapon. Many psionic Earth-based powers and creatures were also sound-based. Dude, Shatter is part of a Wizard Earth Elementalist... while Shout and Great Shout are for an Air one... oddly enough.
Light is what an actual fire sheds. Fire deals with the heat, so Light could have dealt with the light source... not to mention that good luck finding a suitable alternate Fire element :P
Time... would have been paired with Aether, with the space-time idea. Aether moves things in space, while Time moves things in time.
Wood could get Acid as a new element. While Acid is a common energy associated with Earth, so is Sonic, apparently. However, Acid could deal with poison and miasma, something that Wood has... with only one infusion, but still.
Like I said, not complaining about new elements, I really like them. I'm just saying that they could work as alternate sources ;)
Except for Acid, which would be a new element :P
I do agree that they could have been a part of the same ones, but in the same way (and to a much larger degree), wood could have been a part of earth, and the gravity side of void could have been a part of aether.
For what I wanted to do with these three elements, making them a part of another just wouldn't have worked. I don't even like how void works with negative and gravity as they feel like two disparate concepts, making things like "Negative Blast Singularity" just feel off to me.
This would also involve me having to decide "Do I make new defensive talents? How do I handle that? Would it make sense for a fire kineticist to have light duplicates of themselves? Would it unbalance fire to give them an IMMENSELY better elemental defense?" With new elements, I wasn't tethered to old design, so I didn't have to worry about balance in regards to the other elements.
As for acid, I actually agree with Mark on the fact that it shouldn't be tied to earth. It's why I didn't include an acid blast for earth. Also I just didn't think earth should have an energy blast, especially considering how poorly it would interact with all of their infusions. Basically all of earth's substance infusions are based on being a physical option, so I either would have to add a ton more to fill the gap, or...no, no that's it.
It's amusing that you're saying aether moves things around in space when really, that feels like it'd be gravity (and by extension, void) paired with that. I myself saw the pairings as following:
Fire/Light: Obvious, but I really like them as a pair. It's why light has a few 'fire exclusive' form infusions.
Air/Sound: Sound carries well in air and the two share similarities, like how thundering infusion is air and such.
Aether/Time: This is more because they're both dealing with immaterial concepts rather than space/time, which again would be more void's thing.
For other paired elements, I'd probably put earth/wood together (nearly the same damn element), which as a pairing would leave void/water, but those don't really sync up that well. I suppose you could do water/wood (thematically tied), but earth/void isn't great either.
Personally, if this all goes well, I did have an acid element in mind, although I'd rather not talk too much about that just yet. I can see the train of thought for including elements together, but really, separating them gave me more mechanical freedom.
All right, finally got through your book N. Jolly. I plan on going through each infusion or talent to give a little comment on it or air any concerns I have.
|
|
All right, finally got through your book N. Jolly. I plan on going through each infusion or talent to give a little comment on it or air any concerns I have.
Sounds good, there are some issues that got slightly altered, so there is going to be an edit to the document, a lot of what's been talked about in this thread has been added, so take the contents with a grain of salt. I think I'm just about done compiling errata/edits, but I'm going to wait until the 26th to send it to the publisher to get it updated, which will probably take a few days to get finalized.
Happy holidays all, and I think I might do something special in a bit for the holidays for everyone who's helped support the guide and my other works!
All right, finally got through your book N. Jolly. I plan on going through each infusion or talent to give a little comment on it or air any concerns I have.Sounds good, there are some issues that got slightly altered, so there is going to be an edit to the document, a lot of what's been talked about in this thread has been added, so take the contents with a grain of salt. I think I'm just about done compiling errata/edits, but I'm going to wait until the 26th to send it to the publisher to get it updated, which will probably take a few days to get finalized.
Happy holidays all, and I think I might do something special in a bit for the holidays for everyone who's helped support the guide and my other works!
Yeah, I'm sure some of my comments have already been said, but I haven't been keeping track of what's been said.
I do agree that they could have been a part of the same ones, but in the same way (and to a much larger degree), wood could have been a part of earth, and the gravity side of void could have been a part of aether.
That's another debate :P
In some Asian mythology, Earth, Wood and Metal are all separate elements.I also think that Void is related to blackness and nothingness rather than gravity, not to mention that while gravity is often related to telekinesis, sometimes, it's not. It's more on which side of it you take. Telekinesis/Aether is more about moving objects with your mind, afterall.
For what I wanted to do with these three elements, making them a part of another just wouldn't have worked. I don't even like how void works with negative and gravity as they feel like two disparate concepts, making things like "Negative Blast Singularity" just feel off to me.
Like I said, Void is often associated with a black hole and darkness... and negative energy... is often associated with darkness.
This would also involve me having to decide "Do I make new defensive talents? How do I handle that? Would it make sense for a fire kineticist to have light duplicates of themselves? Would it unbalance fire to give them an IMMENSELY better elemental defense?" With new elements, I wasn't tethered to old design, so I didn't have to worry about balance in regards to the other elements.
Hey, it's your book and your decision. Beside, not complaining one bit about new elements ;)
You could argue the same thing about aerokineticists having electrical affinities or hydrokineticists having glacial affinities. The only connecting factor is that Fire shed light, although, come to think of it, mirages are caused by heat.
As for acid, I actually agree with Mark on the fact that it shouldn't be tied to earth. It's why I didn't include an acid blast for earth. Also I just didn't think earth should have an energy blast, especially considering how poorly it would interact with all of their infusions. Basically all of earth's substance infusions are based on being a physical option, so I either would have to add a ton more to fill the gap, or...no, no that's it.
Hmmm... good point... although Water is physical, while Cold is energy, despite ice being solid...
That's why I think that it would work with Wood, since Acid is often related to poisonous substances.
It's amusing that you're saying aether moves things around in space when really, that feels like it'd be gravity (and by extension, void) paired with that. I myself saw the pairings as following:
Fire/Light: Obvious, but I really like them as a pair. It's why light has a few 'fire exclusive' form infusions.
Air/Sound: Sound carries well in air and the two share similarities, like how thundering infusion is air and such.
Aether/Time: This is more because they're both dealing with immaterial concepts rather than space/time, which again would be more void's thing.
For other paired elements, I'd probably put earth/wood together (nearly the same damn element), which as a pairing would leave void/water, but those don't really sync up that well. I suppose you could do water/wood (thematically tied), but earth/void isn't great either.
Major issue being Sound, because half the time it's Earth-based, half the other time, it's Air-based... and you would end up with 3 elements for Air, adding Electricity to the mix.
Yeah, a real conundrum here...
Personally, if this all goes well, I did have an acid element in mind, although I'd rather not talk too much about that just yet. I can see the train of thought for including elements together, but really, separating them gave me more mechanical freedom.
Sure thing! Hey, you could pair acid with poison, which has become a separate element in 4e and 5e.
reading over the guide now--i may actually mentally move kinetecist from 'complete trash whose very existence makes me angry' to just something that makes me salty over so much wasted opportunity (i am still dealing with the visceral reaction to having your single combat requirement making you easier to kill).
how paizo could manage to make a more self-flagellating class than the monk is beyond me grumble grumle
I've been reading your guide, and I've been wondering if you would consider adding the missing races to the guide. Here is what is missing:
Featured
- Drow
- Fetchlings
Uncommon
- Changelings
- Gillmen
- Kitsunes
- Nagajis
- Samsarans
- Sulis
- Vanaras
- Vishkanyas
- Wayangs
New
- Androids
- Astomoi
- Deep One Hybrids
- Gathlains
- Ghorans
- Kasathas
- Orang-pendaks
- Reptoids
- Shabti
- Trox
- Wyrwoods
|
|
reading over the guide now--i may actually mentally move kinetecist from 'complete trash whose very existence makes me angry' to just something that makes me salty over so much wasted opportunity (i am still dealing with the visceral reaction to having your single combat requirement making you easier to kill).
how paizo could manage to make a more self-flagellating class than the monk is beyond me grumble grumle
I'm glad I changed your opinion on it. I'll take this as the chance to talk about the class some more.
The kineticist tried to do something different, and in some ways it worked. You have to look at a few things involving it as a 3/4ths BAB class. Now all 3/4ths BAB classes (aside from vanilla rogue) have a way to boost their attack, and most of the time, it's limited to a certain number per day. Alch's mutagen, inquis's judgements, bard's inspire courage, etc. I bring this up because elemental overflow, the kineticist's ability, that's an all day buff. It does have a painful activation requirement, but it's also all day, fitting the theme of the class. By later levels this matters less, but it's still a deviation and an interesting one at that.
Personally, I think the cost of burn is too much HP wise, if it were 1 temp HP per 2 points of burn, I'd be fine with it. The idea of a class that hurts itself never gained much traction in PF (although I've seen TONS of homebrew of 'blood knights' who do things like this), so it's interesting to see the design shift to a class that gains benefits for 'hurting itself.'
I still feel like the initial amount of talents and infusions were lacking, but that's just me, I love options, so it would have been hard for there to have ever been enough. Feats was a really big problem for me, something that should have been addressed better, but I think I've done a decent job of that in KOP.
Really, I think it's a better class than the 3.5 Warlock, it's spiritual predecessor. Burn allows for some interesting design choices and I've been enjoying exploring those. I think Kineticist is a class that you really have to learn how to play WITH burn rather than against it. Some people like filing up at the beginning of the day, others like filling up on the fly, some people burn until they hit their cap, others only like some. Finding a playstyle that works for you will help make this a more enjoyable class.
I've been reading your guide, and I've been wondering if you would consider adding the missing races to the guide. Here is what is missing:
[SNIP]
I could probably stand to add at least drow (I've heard some people talking about a cool nightmare fist elemental ascetic build with it) and fetchling.
For the rest, I try to only include races outside of features/core that are green or better, as well as any that are a trap option to warn others about them. I can check through the races again later, but for the most part if it was good, someone probably would have told me to include it already.
N.Jolly, sent you that email i said i would send.
Just got it, let me respond to the non spelling based points you brought up (at least the ones that are relevant due to how much has been done with the edit doc):
Kinetic Assault/Dual Blades: Prereq added! And for kinetic assault, I think we could go with double damage, I'll talk with my reviewers, see what they think as they currently think it's red with just maximize.
Dual Blades: Duration listed, it's now until the beginning of your next turn, just like kinetic whip.
Epoch blast: Sonic Boom blast still deals with both DR and Energy Resistance (it's not common naturally, but easy enough to get with spells if you know it's coming.) Epoch is now 2d4, and half is non lethal. I wanted Epoch to be weaker like force blast, so this is my compromise.
Illusory Duplicates: You might be the first person I've seen who's called this 'weak.' I'll think about it, but I think if I made it much stronger, people would take it over Earth.
Victorious Aria: I can agree with you with how the bonus isn't terribly thematic, but if it was a morale bonus, it would stack with a cloak of resistance, and that'd make this class almost impossible to fail a save which is something I'm not sure I want. If people think V. Aria could be morale without being overpowered, I could change it.
Arboreal Infestation: For me, con damage is thematic since it's eating your insides. How it stacks is listed, as well as only allowing one tree in its place.
Cacophonous infusion: So far I want to leave this one alone if only because the dispel check isn't guaranteed. If anyone else has an opinion here, I'm completely willing to listen.
Daybreak infusion: At least for light blast, the light is a solid object, it's solid photons, so the darkness presumably shouldn't stop it, but I don't have enough science in my head to validate this one way or another.
Delayed infusion: This has been changed to a form infusion, so it no longer interacts with Time's Echo (only substance infusions do.)
Disorientating infusion: Due to how confusion bomb works, I'm pretty sure this whole thing is sorted already, I'd just trust that ruling for this one too.
Displacing infusion: This is an interesting point to bring up. Really, you could do this with Maze too, surrounding the square and such, but it's something I'll bring up with my reviewers, get a consensus so it's not just me making a ruling here.
High Gravity Infusion: Fair point, save at the beginning of each round added.
Immobilizing infusion: Changed to can't move from their space, and it knocks down fliers if they can't hover.
Obfuscating Infusion: Partial has been removed.
Overload Infusion: Clarified that damage from it doesn't stack with itself.
Nullifying Infusion: I feel safer having a save, I know people who'd consider it broke without one, even at that level.
Reanimating infusion: HD has been listed, you can control 2 HD of undead per kineticist level you possess.
Absolute Silence: It now says you can't be detected by sound based senses, so echolocation against them is a no go.
Chronological Defiance: Now is 1 at a time, and no doubling up on avoidance.
Deceptive Image: I like it at 1st for light, makes them feel more adept at it.
Earth Rider/Greater: For me, this was another thing that I felt earth should be able to do, and now Earth Rider moves at half the speed of flame jet to help balance it more.
Echolocation: I really don't like the short duration of tremorsense, I'm thinking of rating it lower on my guide due to the painfully short duration. I'd rather not be forced to use burn for 1 fight's worth of blind sense, as it isn't even that great. I made it higher for this reason, and it doesn't have Tremorsense's "faux" blindsight against ground bound targets.
Hard Light Illusions: I'd actually say it fools true sight myself. They appear solid, and they're colored with light, so that'd be my ruling on it. I think I'd make that more of an FAQ than an errata though.
Shroud of Shadows: Immune to the darkness? By this point, a kineticist should be able to see through that darkness, so it shouldn't matter.
Temporal Preparation: I'm actually okay with letting them run away, they're still taking burn to do it, so they're not getting away without being hurt, and it's still burn so it's not a large issue to me.
Traceless Light: I wouldn't say it does unless you're already sniping, although I'd say this is more of an FAQ than something I'd change for the text.
EDIT: Spoilering this, didn't realize how long it'd be.
Everything else has already been addressed in the edit doc which I'll be forwarding along with everything else, thank you for your concerns, I'll hopefully send this in by tomorrow and have the changes implemented sooner rather than later.
Happy holidays all!
|
|
For deceptive im fine with the level, its just veil of mists is overall better and i think the illusion spec should be at least as good. I actually dont mind it being level 1 : p
I can agree with that, and referencing veil saves on word count, so that's edited. I think I'm good with the doc now, I'll look it over some before sending it in.
EDIT: Kinetic Assault is now double dmg, now 6th level and 4 burn to compensate.
I also think that Void is related to blackness and nothingness rather than gravity, not to mention that while gravity is often related to telekinesis, sometimes, it's not. It's more on which side of it you take. Telekinesis/Aether is more about moving objects with your mind, afterall.
Void should have been Negative Energy and Shadow, IMO. I don't think gravity was terribly necessary since it's pretty easily done as aether.
|
|
I also think that Void is related to blackness and nothingness rather than gravity, not to mention that while gravity is often related to telekinesis, sometimes, it's not. It's more on which side of it you take. Telekinesis/Aether is more about moving objects with your mind, afterall.Void should have been Negative Energy and Shadow, IMO. I don't think gravity was terribly necessary since it's pretty easily done as aether.
This is how I felt too, there was a lot more with shadows that could have been done (it could have been the illusion school too), but they went with only darkness and not shadows. Gravity is just such a throw in to me. The way I see it, telekinesis is you directly moving something, while gravity is you creating a force that moves something more independent of yourself, like how singularity works.
Somehow, I think Gravity is associated with Void because of space (as in, "the empty void between the stars", not as in "storage space")...
...which is rather ironic, given that the connection between gravity and space is that space is about the only place where gravity is as good as entirely absent.
It's like giving fire a cold attack - "Fire is about heat, so I can drain heat away too, right?"
Gravity in some systems is considered a 'dark' element, so there's vague ties, but to me gravity could have been its own thing. Maybe not the strongest solo element, but it would have given void more room to grow as shadow/negative. I think that having void be split like that was a mistake, although I also feel that having wood as an element in Occult Origins was a mistake, at least if doing so cut down on void's page count. Void was something I wanted to like more, but it's too much of a grab bag for my taste.
I'm of the opinion that the elements should have been split more, which means lightning, ice, and gravity would have all gotten their own element. Personally the idea of splitting them up is interesting, I might homebrew something like that later as just a fun little project, although as stated, factoring in another elemental defense for each isn't what I'm looking to do with my life. I would have also made metal its own element since I think metal has SO MUCH potential, and seeing it molded into earth doesn't sit perfectly.
I suppose you could do water/wood (thematically tied), but earth/void isn't great either.Near-random, but still somewhat related tidbit...
You've probably at least heard of the Four Heavenly Beasts in East Asian mythology:
The Azure Dragon (representing Wood and the east),
the Vermilion Bird (representing Fire and the south),
the White Tiger (representing Metal and the west),
and the Black Turtle (representing Water and the north).Well, China and Japan have different ideas about what's in the center.
In China, the center has the Yellow Dragon representing Earth.
In Japan, the center is (intentionally) empty, representing Void.
Of course, here "void" represents the serene calm achieved by a mind freed from all distractions, but still...
It would be almost impossible not to know of said heavenly beast, and yeah, I know the chinese elements. The idea of making fusion schools does intrigue me, I have some more ideas to tool around with, but the book that was publish is already pretty big as it is. If I do get the chance to do something else, it'll be probably around half the size, the OO to my initial OA in scope.
EDIT: JiCi, I do already have Drow and Fetchling in the list of reviewed races, they just don't have large entries.
EDIT: The gather power section has been changed to mention that gather power cannot be used on utility wild talents, hopefully that should help clear up some of the confusion.
Triaxans seem to be a good race for Kineticist, with a bonus to Con, a bonus to perception, and a floating bonus feat.
The Kineticist kinda got hit with the problem of needing way more page count than it could reasonably be allowed to have... The Kineticist (the Medium too) could have easily been a book unto itself.
Working on a couple more kineticist builds, but I figured I'd ask for some clarifications involving interactions between elemental ascetic and a few of both the 1st party and KoP abilities:
- Would the elemental ascetic's elemental flurry allow them to qualify for jabbing style or pummeling style? The text does say that the elemental flurry allows you to use flurry of blows, but it doesn't specifically state that it counts as HAVING flurry of blows, and it could be more a situation similar to how being able to, say, use create water as a spell-like ability doesn't mean one can pick up a feat that requires the ability to cast cantrips or orisons.
- Does the effect from attuning blast also affect kinetic blade/whip/fist? And can a blast originating from an attuned creature target that same creature?
- Can you affect yourself with inspiration amp?
- If I use a chrono blast with kinetic fist, will it deal the bonus damage with d6s (as the ability is worded) or would it deal it with d4s (since that's the size of the damage die)?
- Similarly to above, assuming the kinetic fist damage die matches the blast: how would powerful fist be affected if it's used with chrono blast? Would it change the damage die to d8/d10/d12, or increase it to d6/d8/d10? Also, if a blast would normally deal higher damage dice by applying a boost (for example, if I used a gravity blast with gravitic boost), would it increase the damage dice to d8/d10/d12 (therefore having no effect with the first iteration of powerful fist) or to d10/d12/X? And what would the damage die be raised to from d12 in that case?
- If I use enervating infusion with an elemental flurry, do I only get one application of the negative level, or do I get as many chances as there are attacks in the flurry that deal damage?
- Some substance infusions apply their effect only if the blast deals damage. What happens if the portion of damage added to an unarmed strike is nullified, but the damage from the strike itself isn't (for example, if I use a magnetic electric kinetic fist against a foe with immunity to electric damage, but takes full damage from bludgeoning)?
Somehow, I think Gravity is associated with Void because of space (as in, "the empty void between the stars", not as in "storage space")...
...which is rather ironic, given that the connection between gravity and space is that space is about the only place where gravity is as good as entirely absent.
It's like giving fire a cold attack - "Fire is about heat, so I can drain heat away too, right?"
To be fair, the concept of 'cold' is simply the relative absence of heat. If one of the kineticist elements was, in fact, the manipulation of heat, then it would make perfect sense for them to have an ice attack as they are draining heat away. Manipulating fire is not the same as manipulating heat though, fire is a source of thermal energy, but not all thermal energy comes from fire.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am not sure if someone else has had this thought already, but would a throwing weapon build based around Aether Kineticist be somewhat effective?
My thoughts are this:
-Telekinetic Blast can be used to emulate throwing a weapon. However, it has some benefits going for it. A) You don't need to be holding the weapon to throw it. As long as it is in range of your blast you can use it. B) Its keyed off of your main stats, Dex to hit and Con for Damage. C) Range of the weapon does not matter, you can use any 1 handed weapon with which you are proficient. D) You can combine it with some awesome infusions such as...
-Flurry of Blasts. Normally damage wise this infusion isn't so great because you deal damage as a 1st level Kineticist. However, if you use Telekinetic Blast to throw the weapon, it is not dependent on your kineticist level at all for damage. Just stats, feats, and the enhancement bonus of the weapon. Also, you can use the same weapon for every blast in a Flurry of Blasts, so you only need to have 1 good enchanted weapon with you. Also, every blast in this flurry is at your highest BAB and also benefits from Haste. So at level 10, you can get 4 "thrown" attacks in with Haste at your full BAB. Also, Flurry of Blasts has a Range of 120 feet, which is all you should need for most fights. And one of the best parts is all of these attacks come as part of your standard action to blast. So you can use your move action for anything you like. Once you are in the later levels you can also upgrade to...
-Many Throw. Once you get this, you can get Kineticist Level attacks on any target in 120 feet. Same deal, more attacks. Its a bit unclear with this one if you could use the same weapon for all attacks since the fluff says you pick up "Many Objects" and throw them all at once. You could still carry around with you X weapons at this level and slam them all into the same creature at once. I believe you can use a normal telekinetic blast, so why use the weapon option? Crit range. Pick a weapon to throw around with a good crit range and you know a few of those attacks are going to be criticals.
One of the bad things about this build is because it does not use a full attack, we can't apply other nice things like Rapid Shot, Clustered Shots, etc to it.
But the build itself is not feat intensive because of this. Point Blank, Precise, and Deadly Aim are all you really need and you probably would get these feats anyway. You only need the Flurry of Blows infusion and Many Throw infusion to have it take off. So other than that, you can blend this style with any other style of Kineticist that starts off with Aether.
What are your thoughts? Any improvements or comments?
Do composite blasts count as Infusions in terms of Infusion Specialization? and if not, does it suddenly count for it if I attach an infusion to it?
So then could I use Infusion Specialization to lower any of it? Like say, kinetic whip (for example-im pretty sure they arent compatable) but could I get the whip cost down by using it, but not lowering the composite blast burn?
|
|
Normally a Composite Blast costs 2 Burn Points, and the Kinetic Whip Form Infusion costs 2 burn points as well.
In your example, you would have to be level 7 atleast to have a composite blast. At that level, you would have Infusion Specialization 1. That would automatically reduce the burn cost of the Kinetic Whip to 1. Overall cost of 3
If you wanted to totally remove the cost at this point, you would need to Gather Power for 1 full round + a move action to take care of the remaining 3 points. But that's not really practical at that level. So it would be better to just to use the simple blast at that level and use a move action to reduce the cost to 0, or take the burn cost if you really need to. Once you hit level 11 though, you will have Supercharge and Infusion 3, which will allow you to use a move action to remove the composite blast burn off, and the infusion specialization will automatically take care of the Kinetic Whip infusion
I am not sure if someone else has had this thought already, but would a throwing weapon build based around Aether Kineticist be somewhat effective?
My thoughts are this:
-Telekinetic Blast can be used to emulate throwing a weapon. However, it has some benefits going for it. A) You don't need to be holding the weapon to throw it. As long as it is in range of your blast you can use it. B) Its keyed off of your main stats, Dex to hit and Con for Damage. C) Range of the weapon does not matter, you can use any 1 handed weapon with which you are proficient. D) You can combine it with some awesome infusions such as...
-Flurry of Blasts. Normally damage wise this infusion isn't so great because you deal damage as a 1st level Kineticist. However, if you use Telekinetic Blast to throw the weapon, it is not dependent on your kineticist level at all for damage. Just stats, feats, and the enhancement bonus of the weapon. Also, you can use the same weapon for every blast in a Flurry of Blasts, so you only need to have 1 good enchanted weapon with you. Also, every blast in this flurry is at your highest BAB and also benefits from Haste. So at level 10, you can get 4 "thrown" attacks in with Haste at your full BAB. Also, Flurry of Blasts has a Range of 120 feet, which is all you should need for most fights. And one of the best parts is all of these attacks come as part of your standard action to blast. So you can use your move action for anything you like. Once you are in the later levels you can also upgrade to...
-Many Throw. Once you get this, you can get Kineticist Level attacks on any target in 120 feet. Same deal, more attacks. Its a bit unclear with this one if you could use the same weapon for all attacks since the fluff says you pick up "Many Objects" and throw them all at once. You could still carry around with you X weapons at this level and slam them all into the same creature at once. I believe you can use a normal telekinetic blast, so why use the weapon option? Crit range. Pick a weapon to throw...
Honestly, this is pretty much standard offenses for a telekineticist, I think. At first, I assumed you were using telekinetic blast to throw rather than using your hands, in which case I honestly couldn't justify doing anything more than a 1 level dip to get the blast, and even that's hard to justify if you're not using a thrown weapon that deals at least 1d8. Maybe such a thing could be useful on a fighter?
If you're going to make kineticist your class, though, unless you want to exploit some special property of an item, you could really just use anything. Caltraps, shuriken, kunai, handfuls of rocks, snack-sized boxes of cereal, out-of-date sweet rolls, baby doll arms... ANYTHING. You'll do so much more damage just keeping them wrapped in your aetheric tethers than not, even if aether is the weakest element from an offensive standpoint.
I'm not entirely sure how flurry of blasts interacts with the throwing aspect of telekinetic blasts, if at all, but it's kinda garbo for damage. The purpose of it is to spread out afflictions caused by your substance infusions (such as using a flurry of entangling cold blasts to lock down a slew of foes) or to rapid-fire pushing infusions.
Many throw is nice, but the thing is, you're doing exactly with it what a lot of full BAB classes could do with any ranged weapon, only you're using light and one-handed simple weapons instead. You could specifically pick weapons with high crit range, but I believe you'll need weapon proficiency to make it work for them, and you'll be spending a lot of money repairing or replacing the weapons you throw around (remember, you're damaging the items you fling as well). Furthermore, if this isn't enough to kill an enemy, you're just giving them the chance to claim the broken weapons for themselves. Since you're relying on crit chance, you would be wise to pick up improved critical, and possibly pick up critical focus and one of the critical feats as well (such as bleeding critical, impaling critical, or stunning critical).
I won't lie, it's a really cool idea, and if you wanna go for it, awesome. I just don't think it's an effective idea. If you do go for this, I'd suggest rhokas or fauchards; it'll take a feat tax to gain proficiency with a martial weapon first, but the rhoka is the cheapest 18-20 weapon there is, and the fauchard is still fairly cheap and slightly more damaging. If you wanna stick to martial weapons for this, kukris are your cheapest option, and cutlasses are decent damage-wise without breaking the bank. Light picks are super cheap, and while they only have a 5% crit chance, they have a 4x multiplier.
Do composite blasts count as Infusions in terms of Infusion Specialization? and if not, does it suddenly count for it if I attach an infusion to it?
Nope, otherwise there'd be no need for composite specialization. The only things that count as infusions for infusion specialization are your infusion wild talents. A composite blast's cost can still be mitigated with things like gather energy or internal buffer, though.
|
|
The Kineticist kinda got hit with the problem of needing way more page count than it could reasonably be allowed to have... The Kineticist (the Medium too) could have easily been a book unto itself.
I can agree with this, it's just a shame. I know the OO issues were due to page space, and that Kineticist even got preferential treatment here.
Working on a couple more kineticist builds, but I figured I'd ask for some clarifications involving interactions between elemental ascetic and a few of both the 1st party and KoP abilities:
Spoiler:- Would the elemental ascetic's elemental flurry allow them to qualify for jabbing style or pummeling style? The text does say that the elemental flurry allows you to use flurry of blows, but it doesn't specifically state that it counts as HAVING flurry of blows, and it could be more a situation similar to how being able to, say, use create water as a spell-like ability doesn't mean one can pick up a feat that requires the ability to cast cantrips or orisons.- Does the effect from attuning blast also affect kinetic blade/whip/fist? And can a blast originating from an attuned creature target that same creature?
- Can you affect yourself with inspiration amp?
- If I use a chrono blast with kinetic fist, will it deal the bonus damage with d6s (as the ability is worded) or would it deal it with d4s (since that's the size of the damage die)?
- Similarly to above, assuming the kinetic fist damage die matches the blast: how would powerful fist be affected if it's used with chrono blast? Would it change the damage die to d8/d10/d12, or increase it to d6/d8/d10? Also, if a blast would normally deal higher damage dice by applying a boost (for example, if I used a gravity blast with gravitic boost), would it increase the damage dice to d8/d10/d12 (therefore having no effect with the first iteration of powerful fist) or to d10/d12/X? And what would the damage die be raised to from d12 in that case?
- If I use enervating infusion with an elemental flurry, do I only get one application of the negative level, or do I get as many chances as there are attacks in the flurry that deal damage?
- Some substance infusions apply their effect only if the blast deals damage. What happens if the portion of damage added to an unarmed strike is nullified, but the damage from the strike itself isn't (for example, if I use a magnetic electric kinetic fist against a foe with immunity to electric damage, but takes full damage from bludgeoning)?
Spoilering for size, and spoilering my response too.
-I'd say yes myself due to how it reads, it feels like it should to me.
-No, it says it's the point of origin, but you can't use your allies limbs to make it for you, which would be needed to make this work.
-Yes, I was fearful that was a bit too strong, but you're eating burn to do it for any reasonable amount of time, so I'm okay with it.
-It would go d6/d8/d10 in increase. The second part could use an official answer, so I can only answer for how I myself would rule it here. My ruling is that it would go d10/d12/2d8, since I believe that's proper weapon damage scaling.
-I'd say you get as many as you land, since each use of it is an individual application, in the same way that you would get multiple for kinetic blade. If Mark wants to chime in on this, that'd be appreciated, but that's how I see it being ruled.
-I would say that the elemental or blast part of the damage has to deal damage. Say you're using electric kinetic fist; if the electric damage is negated, I'd say no application. Now for earth kinetic fist, as long as you do damage at all it should go through since they're both physical damage, and you can't really say which part was the blast and which was the fist.
Edit doc has been sent, lots of changes, might have a smidge of new content, some of the bigger changes were helping out Kinetic Duelist a bit, balancing Elemental Embodiment, and a few clarifications.
I'm confused Velxir. First you said no, then you used infusion to minimize it.
The reason I ask is it seems silly that an infused composite blast costs less to use than just the regular blast if you add something that costs 0 burn to it, or 1 Point with infusion specialist. Plus if you do both a form and substance infusion at the same time, you'd need infusion specialist and gather energy and composite Specialization to survive the burn
|
|
I'm confused Velxir. First you said no, then you used infusion to minimize it.
The reason I ask is it seems silly that an infused composite blast costs less to use than just the regular blast if you add something that costs 0 burn to it, or 1 Point with infusion specialist. Plus if you do both a form and substance infusion at the same time, you'd need infusion specialist and gather energy and composite Specialization to survive the burn
Let me see if I can help here:
Composites can be reduced by gather power, internal buffer, or composite blast specialist.
Infusions (substance and form) can be reduced by gather power, internal buffer, or infusion specialist.
Until you get composite specialist, you have to use gather power to reduce the cost, and until you get supercharge, you need to gather power for at least a full round to use them without accepting burn unless you use your internal buffer.
Even if you added something that cost 0 burn to it, it wouldn't make it cheaper, since you're unable to reduce the cost with infusion specialist since infusion specialist can't reduce the burn cost of an infusion below 0, which is what it would be doing if you expected it to reduce the total burn cost while applying a composite blast.
Assuming an infusion with 0 burn cost and infusion specialist 1 while using a composite blast, it would look like this:
Blast: 0 cost base
Infusion: 0 cost increase (infusion specialist won't lower this)
Composite: 2 cost increase
Burn cost total: 2
I hope I got all of this right for what you were asking.
You did, but I'm just not sure where it says composite comes after you do the infusion reduction, as the infusion modifies the blast, which is already composite. Then it reduces the burn ź or at least, that appears how its written. Nowhere that I have found does it say you can't modify the composite blast with infusion specialist once you make it an infusion.
I get the thought process. I just don't see where its written otherwise
You did, but I'm just not sure where it says composite comes after you do the infusion reduction, as the infusion modifies the blast, which is already composite. Then it reduces the burn ź or at least, that appears how its written. Nowhere that I have found does it say you can't modify the composite blast with infusion specialist once you make it an infusion.
I get the thought process. I just don't see where its written otherwise
Infusion Spec can only ever reduce the burn of the cost of infusions, nothing more.
If you use a Composite blaste (+2 burn) and Empower (+1 burn) and an infusion costing +1 burn your total burn is 4. If you have Infusion Specilization 3, you can only reduce the burn cost by 1 because you have only opted to take 1 point of infusion burn.
Infusion Spec only reduces Infusion burn, no other source of burn.
It's because Infusion specialization only modifies the cost of the Infusion you are adding to the Composite Blast. It cannot modify anything else. The same with Composite Specialization. It does not specifically say it does not reduce the cost of other things, because it is pretty implicit that it cannot modify the Burn cost of anything else beyond Infusions. Does that make sense to you?
Here's a breakdown of the math at level 7
Composite Blast (Blue Flame) - Burn 2
Burning Infusion (Substance) - Burn 1
Eruption Infusion (Form) - Burn 2
Total Burn Cost = 5 (2 from Your Composite blast and 3 from your infusions)
Infusion specialization 1 - Subtract 1 Burn from your infusion cost (3-1=2)
Burn Cost after Infusion = 4. From there you can Gather Power to further reduce the cost.
It also helps to examine the wording of the ability
At 5th level, whenever a kineticist uses one or more infusions with a blast, she reduces the combined burn cost of the infusions by 1. This can’t reduce the total cost of the infusions used below 0. She reduces the burn cost by 1 additional point at 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 20th levels.
Notice that it does not say "reduces the combined burn cost of the blast by", only the Infusion portion of the blast. I believe you are thinking that a blast becomes an infusion once they are added, but they do not. Blasts are always blasts. Infusions augment the blasts and add a Burn cost.
...N. Jolly, I'm so sorry, I think I broke it.
Race: Vanara
Str: 12 (1 mod)
Dex: 14 (+2) (1 mod)
Con: 13 (2 mod)
Int: 13 (1 mod)
Wis: 17 (+2) (4 mod)
Cha: 12 (-2) (0 mod)
--1st--
Burn per Round: 1
Burn per Day: 4
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d3
Kinetic Blast Damage: 1d4/1d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6
Elemental Heart: Sound
Kinetic Blast: Sonic Blast
Kinetic Blast: Vibration Blast
Gather Power
Infusion: Kinetic Fist
Utility: Basic Vibrokinesis
Feat: Improved Unarmed Strike
Feat: Weapon Finesse
Trait: Quain Martial Artist [Region]
Trait: Ear for Music [Religion]
Trait: Passionate Inertia [Social]
Drawback: Doubt
--2nd--
Burn per Round: 1
Burn per Day: 4
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d3
Kinetic Blast Damage: 1d4/1d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6
AC Bonus: 4
Utility: Sound's Intensity
--3rd--
Burn per Round: 1
Burn per Day: 4
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d6
Kinetic Blast Damage: 2d4/2d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6
AC Bonus: 4
Infusion: Attuning Infusion
--4th--
Ability Score Increase: Wis
Burn per Round: 1
Burn per Day: 4
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d6
Kinetic Blast Damage: 2d4/2d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6
AC Bonus: 5
Utility: Distant Voice
--5th--
Burn per Round: 1
Burn per Day: 4
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d6
Kinetic Blast Damage: 3d4/3d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6
AC Bonus: 5
Infusion Specialization 1
Powerful Fist: d8
Metakinesis: Empower
Feat: Combat Reflexes
--6th--
Burn per Round: 2
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 1
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d8
Kinetic Blast Damage: 3d4/3d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6
AC Bonus: 6
Infusion Specialization 1
Utility: Inspiration Amp
--7th--
Burn per Round: 2
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 1
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d8
Kinetic Blast Damage: 4d4/4d6/8d4
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6/2d4
AC Bonus: 6
Infusion Specialization 1
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (9th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +1
Evasion
Focused Element
Kinetic Blast: Dischordant Augmentation
Kinetic Blast: Resonant Amplification
Kinetic Blast: Sonic Boom Blast
Infusion: Kinetic Blade
--8th--
Ability Score Increase: Wis
Burn per Round: 2
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 1
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d8
Kinetic Blast Damage: 4d4/4d6/8d4
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6/2d4
AC Bonus: 6
Infusion Specialization 2
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (10th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +1
Utility: Echolocation
--9th--
Burn per Round: 3
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 1
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d8
Kinetic Blast Damage: 5d4/5d6/10d4
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6/3d4
AC Bonus: 6
Infusion Specialization 2
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (11th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +1
Powerful Fist: d10
Metakinesis: Maximize
Feat: Scorpion Style
--10th--
Burn per Round: 3
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 1
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d10
Kinetic Blast Damage: 5d4/5d6/10d4
Kinetic Fist Damage: 1d4/1d6/3d4
AC Bonus: 7
Infusion Specialization 2
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (12th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +1
Utility: Ride the Blast
--11th--
Burn per Round: 3
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 2
Ki Pool: 5
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d10
Kinetic Blast Damage: 6d4/6d6/12d4
Kinetic Fist Damage: 2d4/2d6/4d4
AC Bonus: 7
Infusion Specialization 3
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (13th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +1
Supercharge
Ki Strike: Magic
Ki Strike: Cold Iron
Ki Strike: Silver
Infusion: Kinetic Whip
--12th--
Ability Score Increase: Wis
Burn per Round: 4
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 2
Ki Pool: 6
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d10
Kinetic Blast Damage: 6d4/6d6/12d4
Kinetic Fist Damage: 2d4/2d6/4d4
AC Bonus: 8
Infusion Specialization 3
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (14th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +1
Ki Strike: Lawful
Utility: Kinetic Form
--13th--
Burn per Round: 4
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 2
Ki Pool: 6
Unarmed Strike Damage: 1d10
Kinetic Blast Damage: 7d4/7d6/14d4
Kinetic Fist Damage: 2d4/2d6/4d4
AC Bonus: 8
Infusion Specialization 3
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (15th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +1
Powerful Fist: d12
Metakinesis: Quicken
Feat: Gorgon's Fist
--14th--
Burn per Round: 4
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 2
Ki Pool: 7
Unarmed Strike Damage: 2d6
Kinetic Blast Damage: 7d4/7d6/14d4
Kinetic Fist Damage: 2d4/2d6/4d4
AC Bonus: 9
Infusion Specialization 4
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (16th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +1
Utility: Greater Inspiration Amp
--15th--
Burn per Round: 5
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 2
Ki Pool: 7
Unarmed Strike Damage: 2d6
Kinetic Blast Damage: 8d6/8d8/16d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 2d6/2d8/5d6
AC Bonus: 12
Infusion Specialization 4
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (17th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +2
Elemental Master
Infusion: Destabilizing Infusion
--16th--
Ability Score Increase: Wis
Burn per Round: 5
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 3
Ki Pool: 8
Unarmed Strike Damage: 2d6
Kinetic Blast Damage: 8d6/8d8/16d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 2d6/2d8/5d6
AC Bonus: 12
Infusion Specialization 4
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (18th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +2
Composite Specialization
Utility: Sound Chamber
--17th--
Burn per Round: 6
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 3
Ki Pool: 8
Unarmed Strike Damage: 2d6
Kinetic Blast Damage: 9d6/9d8/18d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 3d6/3d8/6d6
AC Bonus: 12
Infusion Specialization 5
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (19th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +2
Metakinesis: Twice
Infusion: Sickening Infusion
Feat: Medusa's Wrath
--18th--
Burn per Round: 6
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 3
Ki Pool: 9
Unarmed Strike Damage: 2d8
Kinetic Blast Damage: 9d6/9d8/18d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 3d6/3d8/6d6
AC Bonus: 13
Infusion Specialization 5
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (20th)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +2
Ki Strike: Adamantine
Utility: Greater Echolocation
--19th--
Burn per Round: 6
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 3
Ki Pool: 9
Unarmed Strike Damage: 2d8
Kinetic Blast Damage: 10d6/10d8/20d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 3d6/3d8/6d6
AC Bonus: 13
Infusion Specialization 5
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (21st)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +2
Improved Evasion
Metakinetic Master: Empower
--20th--
Ability Score Increase: Wis
Burn per Round: 7
Burn per Day: 4
Internal Buffer: 3
Ki Pool: 10
Unarmed Strike Damage: 2d8
Kinetic Blast Damage: 10d6/10d8/20d6
Kinetic Fist Damage: 3d6/3d8/6d6
AC Bonus: 14
Infusion Specialization 6
Wild Talent Level Adjustment: +2 (22nd)
Wild Talent DC Bonus: +2
Elemental Embodiment
Utility: Auditory Hallucination
-----
So. Remember how you noted earlier that if I use ride the blast with a sound blast on an attuned enemy, my path of travel will start where that enemy is? Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaah...
So here's what's happening. Because elemental ascetic and elemental scion don't replace any common kineticist features, I can use both archetypes simultaneously. Also, because kineticists aren't generally feat-intensive, I figured I could give up enough to allow me to variant multiclass as monk, allowing me to get ki strike and an advancing hit die for my unarmed attacks.
Starting out is fairly boring, to be honest. He picks up weapon finesse so I don't have to deal with strength, then attuning infusion at 3rd. Starting at 5th, I can apply attuning for free, and if I'm right that I can have the blast originating from the attuned creature hit that same creature, this sets things up so that as long as I've damaged an enemy at least once, I can basically warp my punches through space-time to sock them from the same range I could have used a regular blast from. What's nice is that if I don't need to move around, I'm pretty safe to start making heavy use of elemental flurry from this range. I plan the build to use burn as more of an emergency resource, so picking up kinetic blade is pointless early on. You'll note that I ran on the assumption that the bonus damage from a sonic kinetic fist is going to drop a step in the same way the regular sonic blast will.
Until I get focused element at 7th, my attack options are pretty slim. Elemental flurry when I can afford a full-round attack, just pop 'em in the jaw with a single attack if I need to move more than five feet. Once I get kinetic blade, though, it replaces kinetic fist as my single-attack action, always dealing a significantly higher amount than a single punch could and having the benefit of not having to include bludgeoning. I get composite blasts at this point, but until I have supercharge at the bare minimum, it's not even an option I can consider. Standard attack use a kinetic blade, full-round attacks use elemental flurry.
At 9th I pick up scorpion style. Maybe not the absolute best choice, as I think jabbing style would be far more effective for raw damage, but I don't know for sure if jabbing style works with elemental flurry. Ride the blast comes in at 10th to complete the combo; now, as long as I can ride each hit of my flurry individually, I can use it to zip around to any enemy I've attuned with. Granted this isn't an especially easy task and requires a good bit of setup, but it makes for a pretty fun mobility trick. How ride the blast and elemental flurry work together is slightly foggy though, as I may only be able to ride the first hit, but even that's sufficient. Just not as cool as being able to blink all over the place between strikes.
At 11th I get two incredible tools: kinetic whip and supercharge. The former is going to let me smack enemies from further away, and the latter is going to make composite blasts potentially viable. I think it's worth it to math things out to see, though. There's two possibilities here: either I'm using gather power as a move and then using sonic boom kinetic whip, or I'm using a vibration elemental flurry. In both cases we'll assume we have inspiration amp on us (which will grant +2 to damage). Here's how each works out:
-Sonic Boom Whip- This only benefits from the attack's base damage and from inspiration amp.
12d4+12+2
Min 26, Max 62, Average 44
-Vibration Flurry- This benefits from unarmed strike damage, kinetic fist's bonus damage, the Quain martial artist trait, and inspiration amp. We get five attacks in our flurry, plus an additional one granted by spending a point from our ki pool. We also increase our damage dice two steps since we can apply the second level of powerful fist for free.
(2d8+2+2d6+1+2)*6
12d8+12d6+30
Min 54 (9 per hit), Max 198 (33 per hit), Average 126 (21 per hit)
I'll grant that it's unrealistic to expect all six hits to connect, but even if half of them make it through, that'll be a higher average damage than the sonic boom whip.
In other words, composites are garbo on this build. They'll have their uses later, but for now, kinetic whip is best left as a simple blast used to attune enemies.
The next level brings another interesting toy to play with: kinetic form. Our AC is incredibly high already, helping mitigate the downsides of the size increase, and the upsides include adding another 10 feet to our kinetic whip, threatening out to 10 feet, and best of all, increasing our unarmed damage a step. This is made even better by 14th level, when we have enough infusion specialization to perform a flurry with our fists increased three steps without having to worry about taking burn. 15th also gives us destabilizing infusion, allowing us to do some real damage to constructs if we are willing to sacrifice that boost to our kinetic fist damage from powerful blow, especially if we attune to a construct and follow up next turn with a flurry. Furthermore, our AC bonus takes a pretty huge jump thanks to essentially having the full bonus monks normally get from our elemental ascetic archetype plus an extra three on top of it from having monk secondary.
17th brings us the final piece of our huge setup combo in the form of medusa's wrath. Everything else is pretty much just icing.
So, now we're at 20th, and ready to set up this massive, unlikely-to-ever-happen-unless-the-GM-was-excited-to-see-it-in-action maneuver. We have one enemy who has AC just low enough that we can easily land all the hits from our flurry of blows, we're huge size thanks to kinetic form, and we've got a full pool of internal buffer to spend on various things, the first of which is a greater inspiration amp. What we're going to do first is use a sonic kinetic fist to both attune the enemy and apply scorpion style's effect. In the next round, since the enemy's speed is reduced to 5, he can't get out of our range, so we jump in with a second sonic kinetic fist, applying gorgon's fist in the process and staggering him. Now everything's set up and ready to go. Next round, we spend another point of internal buffer to pay for sonic boom blast, which we're already empowering, and take an extra burn to advance it with a discordant augmentation. Also remember that we have that three-stage boost to our kinetic blasts' damage die via powerful fist, plus another buff through elemental mastery. All things said our blast damage is three steps higher than the average vibrokineticist, and our unarmed damage is two steps higher thanks to our size. Math time again... hope I get all these damage die advancements right...
-Huge Discordant Empowered Sonic Boom Flurry- Applies unarmed strike damage, kinetic fist damage, Quain martial artist boost, and greater inspiration amp boost. Seven hits for our elemental flurry, plus one via ki pool, plus two via medusa's wrath
[(4d8+2+1+4)+(4d8+2)*3*1.5]*10
[(4d8+7)+(18d8+9)]*10
(22d8+16)*10
220d8+160
Min 380 (38 per hit), Max 1920 (192 per hit), Average 1150 (115 per hit)
...gods help us all if my math is right.
Now, granted, this is a three turn setup, so it's very unlikely this'll get off the ground. So what if we just use an empowered vibration blast, and don't rely on medusa's wrath or the ki pool to add hits?
-Huge Empowered Vibration Flurry- Applies unarmed strike damage, kinetic fist damage, Quain martial artist boost, and greater inspiration amp boost. Seven hits for our elemental flurry.
[(4d8+2+1+4)+(2d8+1)*3*1.5]*7
[(4d8+7)+(9d8+4.5)]*7
(13d8+11.5)*7
91d8+80.5
Min 171.5 (24.5 per hit), Max 808.5 (115.5 per hit), Average 490 (70 per hit)
...gods help us all if my math is right.
And this is with the assumption that the capstone does nothing at all since I didn't want to make assumptions on its mechanics...
|
|
@Onyx: Bravo! Nothing you're saying here is anything that I'm 'terrified' about, since optimization is a part of the game. You've used a lot of tools to build this and it SHOULD be good, so there's nothing here that I think is innately broken. No more so than any other 'chimera' build, and in that sense, I think you've done a really good job here!
I mean a focused Barb will do comparable damage with better defenses (assuming we're going Super/Invul), so while this is comparable to that, it's nothing that I think is outside of the bounds of what should be possible.
Really, you're just showing what a top level highly optimized character can do, same as a fast bombing focused alch or any other character that invest heavily into damage.
EDIT: In your opinion, do you think Elemental Scion should say that the damage can't increase past a certain point? I mean really you're just making the elemental ascetic playable, which to me is a victory in and of itself.
Thanks~ I'm honestly pretty sure elemental scion shouldn't need to worry about a limit unless there's some means to raise damage dice even further. I think I probably ended up going as far as they possibly could, maybe a step short? I think the only way he could have done more was if I'd made him void instead of sound, in which case I believe the kinetic fist's damage would go up to 4d10 form the 4d8 I listed? Either that or up to 5d6... I was basing these numbers off of the damage die advancement listed in the page for enlarge person, since we were getting outside the range listed for the individual abilities.
But part of all that complicated math was down to kinetic fist screwing with blast damage. From what I can tell, elemental scion also pairs with kinetic duelist and overwhelming soul, and while the latter option may or may not work well, the former could prove frightening. I don't know, I honestly haven't had much interest in fooling around with kinetic duelist. The only thing that disappoints me about elemental scion is that it's a pure element, so a lot of characters I'd want multiple elements for I can't use it with.
Anyway, I think the biggest problem with elemental ascetic is that, without VMCing as monk, they don't get much damage advancement. They'd ordinarily be stuck with a 1d3 unarmed strike which goes to 1d4 or 1d6 with the large or huge iteration of kinetic form, and their kinetic fist takes up burn to get better before 11th (and even then, barely). I don't think it's quite as horrible as a lot of people give it credit for, but it needs to be combined with monk variant multiclass, if not gestalted.
I do wonder if the jabbing style line of feats might not be better than the scorpion style line for that build, though. On one hand I can't get up to jabbing master, and jabbing dancer does literally exactly what ride the blast does if used with a kinetic fist. It'd only add up to 6d6 versus medusa's wrath adding two whole attacks... but at the same time, it's far less setup, and opens up two other feats to learn.
Back to your question: no, elemental scion shouldn't say their damage hits a limit. If a player is willing to break the damage dice progression, they should be willing to look up what it'd progress to. And losing access to all but your own element's wild talents is enough I think. It does stink though that certain elements get the short end of the stick, and it really shows with this archetype. *glares at wood*
Anyway, I'm rambling. Aside from the capstone scion is just fine methinks.
I don't think it's quite as horrible as a lot of people give it credit for, but it needs to be combined with monk variant multiclass, if not gestalted.
I wrote an entire article on how I think it needs a Monk dip and which archetypes from Monk, so kinda agreed.
Maybe just a heads-up: Kinetic Duelist can be combined with the following archetypes:
- Cerebral Kineticist
- Elemental Avatar
- Elemental Scion
- Blood Kineticist
- Elemental Annihilator (yes, you could have an Omnicide Blade... or two... ouch...)
- Overwhelming Soul
And since we're keeping track, kinetic duelist is the only archetype cerebral kineticist can pair with, since everything else either replaces the 1st level infusion or ability scores. Elemental avatar combines with kinetic duelist or overwhelming soul. Of course, considering the capstone uses burn, it's pretty much useless with overwhelming soul...
I'm thinking of looking into elemental avatar builds, although I'm honestly not especially enamored with the archetype. It doesn't feel like there's as much variety to them, despite them having access to such a wide array of abilities. I honestly don't think expanded basics is worthwhile, even for not taking away anything, and don't see anyone not taking flesh of stone and shroud of water as their defenses and ignoring the others. Those who prefer to pump up their defenses at the start of the day are more likely to be pumping 2 into each, since I assume the bonus imaginary burn on the other defense talent triggers elemental overflow? Then one more point into whatever. But then, apex state favors a low-burn playstyle instead so you can maintain it for longer. Hmm...
To me Elemental Avatar is extremely strong, but only in raw fighting power. If your goal is interesting, it is a much more lackluster archetype.
Yep. The only thing really good to use during apex is a gather power into a twice empowered avatar blast or twice empowered spirit blast. Maybe with a kinetic duelist/elemental avatar start with an imprisoning ranged chain empowered spirit blast, then casually pick off your enemies with full attacks of entangling empowered spirit dual blades.
Hmmm... here's something I'd like to know: for the Duelist's Kinetic Blade, if the blast require Burn points, such as a composite blast, does the Duelist need to Burn every round the blade is activate, or is it just upon activation?
Normally, Kinetic Blade lasts just for one round, but here, it's dismissable as the wielder's command. If my Composited Blade would cost me 3 Burn points as a regular Kineticist, how much would it cost me as a Duelist? 2 Burn points on the round I activate it (2 for a Plasma Blast + 0 for the Blade) or 2 Burn points on every round the Blade is activated?
Simple Blasts don't require Burn, so a "Simple" Blade doesn't require Burn as well, but a Composite Blast costs 2 Burn points, thus a regular "Composited" Blade should require the same cost.
|
|
Hmmm... here's something I'd like to know: for the Duelist's Kinetic Blade, if the blast require Burn points, such as a composite blast, does the Duelist need to Burn every round the blade is activate, or is it just upon activation?
Normally, Kinetic Blade lasts just for one round, but here, it's dismissable as the wielder's command. If my Composited Blade would cost me 3 Burn points as a regular Kineticist, how much would it cost me as a Duelist? 2 Burn points on the round I activate it (2 for a Plasma Blast + 0 for the Blade) or 2 Burn points on every round the Blade is activated?
Simple Blasts don't require Burn, so a "Simple" Blade doesn't require Burn as well, but a Composite Blast costs 2 Burn points, thus a regular "Composited" Blade should require the same cost.
Fair question, although this goes into FAQ more than 'alter text' territory for me.
The effects last until the end of your round normally, although one of the new abilities of the Kinetic Duelist exclusive to them will allow it to last until the beginning of your next round. I present Kinetic Whip Mastery:
Kinetic Whip Mastery (EX): At 10th level, a kinetic duelist can select the following utility wild talent:
Kinetic Whip Mastery
Element(s) universal; Type utility (Sp) Level 5; Burn 1 Prerequisite(s) kinetic whip
Until the next time you recover burn, your kinetic blade mastery class feature is treated as though you were using the kinetic whip infusion instead of kinetic blade.
This ability and others will be included in the new update.
I don't know why I'm so dense, I thought pushing infusion (and pulling) were only use able with Flurry of Blasts if you wanted to move someone more than 5' without taking burn. It's not.
"You can increase the burn cost of this infusion to increase the maximum distance..."
This means you can also use infusion specialization to *decrease* that cost afterwards, since it's part of the cost of the infusion not a separate source of burn. The infusions get stronger when used at higher levels, with gather power, or with no/weak form infusions.
At level 20, 6 points of infusion specialization with 4 points of gathering, 1 point from buffer, flurry of blasts for 6 (haste) hits, and taking 6 points of burn... I can push someone 5+15+20+5+25+30...
100 feet as a 2 turn action if I hit all 6 times. Granted I'm much more likely to just use a regular blast from 30 feet away and spend the 6 points of infusion specialization to make it a 30 foot push as a standard, but if you really, really need them to be somewhere else...
Or does my check still need to exceed their CMD by a god awful amount to make it work that way? I feel like it shouldn't have to given the cost and all the other things I could be killing them with in that time/effort but this system really tries to make moving people around more difficult than it should be.
Maximum distance would be the limit you could potentially move them. You would still need to succeed on the opposed check to actually move them that far (at least from what it sounds like you are saying), barring any other wording or ability that grants you automatic success or something like that.
As for it being more difficult than it should be... Denial tactics suck all round. That is why so many SoD spells were readjusted and why the CMD systems was modified (size adjustments scaled back etc.) Every encounter with a cliff or lethal environment shouldn't become a bull rush competition nor should tactical choices you make be easily ruined because "forced" movement is too simple to accomplish. It easily becomes a death sentence in a game like this.
Unintended/undesirable movement deserves its difficulty for many reasons.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't know why I'm so dense, I thought pushing infusion (and pulling) were only use able with Flurry of Blasts if you wanted to move someone more than 5' without taking burn. It's not.
"You can increase the burn cost of this infusion to increase the maximum distance..."
This means you can also use infusion specialization to *decrease* that cost afterwards, since it's part of the cost of the infusion not a separate source of burn. The infusions get stronger when used at higher levels, with gather power, or with no/weak form infusions.
At level 20, 6 points of infusion specialization with 4 points of gathering, 1 point from buffer, flurry of blasts for 6 (haste) hits, and taking 6 points of burn... I can push someone 5+15+20+5+25+30...
100 feet as a 2 turn action if I hit all 6 times. Granted I'm much more likely to just use a regular blast from 30 feet away and spend the 6 points of infusion specialization to make it a 30 foot push as a standard, but if you really, really need them to be somewhere else...
Or does my check still need to exceed their CMD by a god awful amount to make it work that way? I feel like it shouldn't have to given the cost and all the other things I could be killing them with in that time/effort but this system really tries to make moving people around more difficult than it should be.
Maximum distance would be the limit you could potentially move them. You would still need to succeed on the opposed check to actually move them that far (at least from what it sounds like you are saying), barring any other wording or ability that grants you automatic success or something like that.
As for it being more difficult than it should be... Denial tactics suck all round. That is why so many SoD spells were readjusted and why the CMD systems was modified (size adjustments scaled back etc.) Every encounter with a cliff or lethal environment shouldn't become a bull rush competition nor should tactical choices you make be easily ruined because...
Okay so Pushing Infusion says this: The momentum of your kinetic blast knocks foes back. Attempt a bull rush combat maneuver check against each target damaged by your infused blast, using your Constitution modifier instead of your Strength modifier to determine your bonus. This infusion can push a foe back by a maximum of 5 feet. You can increase the burn cost of this infusion to increase the maximum distance pushed by 5 feet per additional point of burn accepted. You can't use this infusion with a form infusion such as cloud that causes your kinetic blast to lack a clear direction to push.
Flurry of Blasts has a specific interaction with Pushing Infusion as follows: If you are using a substance infusion that requires a caster level check or combat maneuver check, you roll the check only once against each target, but you gain a bonus on the check equal to the number of times that target was hit beyond the first. If you are using the pushing substance infusion, the maximum distance of the push increases by 5 feet for each time the target was hit beyond the first.
So, Pushing Infusion, theoretically, has no limit on the amount of distance it can push, except for the limit on the amount of burn invested in it. You can accept 1 point of burn per 3 kineticist levels, which effectively caps at 18th level with 6 points of burn, maximum.
Infusion Spec has a maximum reduction of 6. Gather power lets you reduce up to 5 points over the course of two rounds, and buffer for another 1 point of burn. Theoretically, one could pump 18 points worth of burn into a single Pushing Infusion (12 reduced by abilities, 6 points max per turn) which translates into a 90 ft. knockback (5 ft. for the initial cost of Pushing Infusion and another 85 ft. for the additional 17 points of burn).
Now, say we reduce 2 points from Pushing (single push of 80 ft.) for Flurry of Blasts. The specific rule for Flurry says +5 ft. for each additional Pushing blast that hits the same target. So if you hit with the other 5 attacks (total of 6 attacks using haste) you get a maximum distance of 105 ft. knocked backwards. It's worth noting, that if if you use Flurry, you would gain a +5 bonus on your CMB check to succeed with the bull rush.
So a maximum distance of 90 ft. knockback without using Flurry, 105 ft. knockback using flurry with a +5 bonus on the CMB check. As a single turn attack, one could use only a move action Gather Power for a maximum burn investment of 15 (a reduction of 9 while accepting 6 points of burn), for a knockback potential of 75. ft as a single blast, or a 90 ft. knockback using Flurry.
Also, to be fair, every single fight near a ledge in any movie, video game, book, comic, manga etc. that I've ever come across is extremely deadly and, more often than not, involves attempts from either side to push the other over the edge.
Fighting near ledges should be extremely dangerous because of the danger of falling. However, Pathfinder has made it fairly easy to resist falling off the ledge by so drastically restricting methods of forcibly moving a target.
Honestly, you're probably safer fighting near the ledge if the enemy tries to knock you off because it takes so much more effort to succeed at doing so, than if they were just trying to kill you in the first place.