I still disagree with force being a 1 star. You might not being doing more damage but you do still do full damage vs etheral things like wraiths and shadows, something that would only take half damage from everything else. And force damage is one of the least resisted elements.
I used it a lot when with gather power to hit things with high ac but low touch ac, or high damage resistance.
Kinetic healer is not just an emergency heal thing as well. Its something that can help you're party go on longer without having to expend all of the clerics resources. Its not the first choice of healing sure, but you can use to supplement it.
I personally use kinetic healer when I take a large amount of damage because it can heal so much and recharges my force barrier in the process.
Extreme Range - For a Aether Kinetic at least, this is really good still. Yeah, you might not be able to use the 480 constantly with your blast but it makes your mage hand ability now work at long range and increases its speed to 60feet per round.
Force blast has half the damage dies of other composites, so it would be more accurate to say that with it you do the same damage to wraiths and shadows and half damage to everything else.
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Force blast has half the damage dies of other composites, so it would be more accurate to say that with it you do the same damage to wraiths and shadows and half damage to everything else.
Exactly! Counter-intuitively, force blast is not more effective against incorporeals because it has the half-damage penalty built in.
I also don't buy the «high damage resistance» part. DR and energy resistance typically cap out around 15 (unless the enemy has cast Resist Energy, which is rather rare), so as soon as your composite blast does more than 30 damage (which is necessarily does at the level where you get it), it's more worthwhile to eat the resistance than to take half damage without resistance.
Also attached to force blast is the opportunity cost of choosing aether twice. A lot of goodies for the telekineticist are front-loaded (you can have the "world's best mage hand" suite and "at-will invisibility" before your element expands) It's probably not worth getting an extra talent for what you potentially give up (a second defense, an energy blast, good talents in other elements- you can get fly at level 10 if you go air same as if you took greater self-TK.)
Generally speaking, single-element kineticists are not as good as multi-element kineticists, and I feel like composite blasts are very late game considerations.
Attached to Aether once is an opportunity cost don't forget. Taking Aether blast at first option or second option. you are not getting any composite blast damage.
The best you have is the ability to add one more point of damage to your simple blasts per die.
By going Aether at all early on (1 or 7), you're regulated to at least 15 levels of doing 1d6+1 for every odd level of kinetcist+con, with the ability to add +1 more point per every odd level or 1d6(POL)+1/2 con with a +1(POL)
So it would be more accurate to say that you still do half as much damage without force blast if you wanted the world best mage hand and at-will invisibility.
It won't be until level 15 when you get your second expanded element that you'd be able to work yourself out of that hole. At least in most situations, but I don't believe there is any composite blasts that are single element that do not require you to take the same element twice.
Empower is 1.5x damage and is spammable well before composites are(i.e. until you get supercharge). So the telekineticist is only slightly behind for levels 11-15 in terms of normal round damage(rather than nova damage). Since the telekineticist has a great defense taking burn beyond your overflow threshold is not something you will want to do often, in my experience, particularly when empower is free with gather energy and almost as good.
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On the topic of making do with the Wood element: You do get Impale, which is the most damaging AoE available (if you hit). I suppose you could then branch into Fire or Water for an energy blast with a composite. Too bad Terrakineticist locks you into taking Verdant Blast along with it, which manages the heroic feat of being a less useful addition than Aetheric Boost...
So how good are the forest-specific features if you actually are in the forest...?
On the topic of making do with the Wood element: You do get Impale, which is the most damaging AoE available (if you hit). I suppose you could then branch into Fire or Water for an energy blast with a composite. Too bad Terrakineticist locks you into taking Verdant Blast along with it, which manages the heroic feat of being a less useful addition than Aetheric Boost...
So how good are the forest-specific features if you actually are in the forest...?
A lot of them are pretty good, IMO. For example:
Brachiation gives you a climb speed equal to your base speed which you can use to swing from tree to tree. Pretty nice if you're in a forest; easy way to get away from melee attackers so you can blast from a distance, or to get up to people sniping at you from trees.
Greensight allows you to see through 60' of plant material. That's amazing in a forest for spotting potential ambushes, seeing things that have been hidden in the forest, or setting up ambushes yourselves. And if you're in any kind of hedge-maze dungeon set-up (like the goblin lair in Burnt Offerings) you have an almost nuclear advantage to figure out exactly what's waiting for you, and how you can travel to avoid them.
Woodland Step and Wild Growth at will are a great combo in forests. You can make large areas of terrain difficult for enemies to move through, and trivially move through it yourself, making it easy to set up hit-and-run tactics, or escape.
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On the topic of making do with the Wood element: You do get Impale, which is the most damaging AoE available (if you hit). I suppose you could then branch into Fire or Water for an energy blast with a composite. Too bad Terrakineticist locks you into taking Verdant Blast along with it, which manages the heroic feat of being a less useful addition than Aetheric Boost...
So how good are the forest-specific features if you actually are in the forest...?
While I'm not sure how good the forest stuff is, I think Wood is at least a decent element if you pick the right wild talents. I've been meaning to try a Wood/Water(Ice) because the winter theme is cool and their combined defenses are a great pairing that's only second to Aether/Earth. Besides a Belt and Cloak, you're basically getting Automatic Bonus Progression for free.
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One note on Kinetic Healer that has come up quite often in PFS scenarios, it is great for free healing of NPCs. Just have them take the burn and you can heal a whole town if necessary. Came up in a few scenarios where we wanted to communicate with an unconscious friendly NPC and rather than blow charges from the Wand, just dropped Kinetic Healer on them.
There are some advantages to going Aether/Aether. I am playing one in PFS right now and he is a blast (pun!) to play. Since he went Aether/Aether he was able to grab foe throw at level 7, something you otherwise can't get til 9. This led to some awesome combats, throwing undead at each other, using a construct to batter down a door and getting to shoot a gunslinger with another gunslinger. I recommend grabbing as a high a Con as possible to boost DC's and maneuvers. Some great options I have used:
Foe Throw
TK Maneuvers - Grapple at range or push people over ledges.
Lifting up a heavy rock with TK Haul and then having people jump on it to lift them over ledges.
Force Ward - Let's see, I have avoided Energy Drain, Con Drain, Paralyzing Touch just because they didn't do enough damage. Even avoiding an attach plus domination effect since the attach "missed".
Confused a group of enemies by attacking with a Sheet and TK Boomerang as my 'phantom' while pretending to be a spiritualist.
TK has a lot of options other then just straight damage. One thing to consider grabbing is Expanded Metakinesis - Furious, it adds additional damage to the blast and when you get supercharge you can add both empower and furious for a damage increase. Having done the math you will actually do more damage that way then with a composite:
Assuming 18 Starting Con, level 11, +4 Dex/Con Belt, plus level ups in Con and boosting Con by +4 with elemental overflow gives you a Con of 28.
Regular composite would do 12d6+4+6 for energy or 12d6+12++9+6 for physical. That's an average damage of 52 for energy and 69 for physical.
An empowered TK blast would do 6d6+6+9+6 empowered for 63 damage. If you spend a feat and added furious it would do 6d6+6+9+6+12 empowered for 81 points of damage.
Now if you want to spend burn then an empowered composite will pull ahead, doing 78 for energy (still touch) and 103 for physical. Trying to boost aether would only do 78 damage for 1 burn or 96 for two.
One thing to note, the more you can push your Con higher the better off you empowered vs. composite blast will be.
Keep also in mind that Aetherkineticist melee will be on even footing with other build except for AoE potential but then similar numbers to composite vs. empowered will apply.
Post level 16 this difference is much more apparent as empowered composites become the norm with Aether falling further behind at this point. By level 19 when you can drop a furious, empowered composite blast for no burn, the damage will definitely not be as competitive but you can just metakinetic master Quicken and do something like:
Move Action: Empower
Swift Action: Quicken Blast
Standard Action: Force Barrier
and just spend their turn behind a fresh wall of force.
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I have had no complaints yet on my Aether/Aether in PFS and he is almost 10th. In fact, with the exception of GMs rolling really well on saves, he has always had something to do and I have not missed the extra options.
Keep in mind that going Aether/Anything really doesn't change the composite problem. You might ended up getting an energy blast, but I find that so far has not been something I missed. I did consider Aether/Earth but that was for the stacking defense, Flesh of Stone plus Force Ward work very well together and make spectre, wraith and vampires completely non-threatening.
Still, getting to use Foe Throw in Bonekeep 2 was incredibly useful. It turns out if you throw a caster at his minions, most defensive buffs won't come into play, plus having a caster prone in front of your barbarian can really shorten a fight.
I think people overrate composite blasts anyway. In my experience, you very rarely use composites before level 11 when you get supercharge, and the campaign might honestly be almost over by then. Maybe other people's games are structured differently, but I find "more damage on one blast" is almost never something I want to actually take burn to do.
So I would recommend just mixing elements however you like without worrying about composites. The notable exception is probably Gathlain Kineticists, who can start spamming composite blasts as soon as they get them, which is probably why that FCB isn't allowed in PFS.
On the topic of making do with the Wood element: You do get Impale, which is the most damaging AoE available (if you hit). I suppose you could then branch into Fire or Water for an energy blast with a composite. Too bad Terrakineticist locks you into taking Verdant Blast along with it, which manages the heroic feat of being a less useful addition than Aetheric Boost...
So how good are the forest-specific features if you actually are in the forest...?
A lot of them are pretty good, IMO. For example:
Brachiation gives you a climb speed equal to your base speed which you can use to swing from tree to tree. Pretty nice if you're in a forest; easy way to get away from melee attackers so you can blast from a distance, or to get up to people sniping at you from trees.
Greensight allows you to see through 60' of plant material. That's amazing in a forest for spotting potential ambushes, seeing things that have been hidden in the forest, or setting up ambushes yourselves. And if you're in any kind of hedge-maze dungeon set-up (like the goblin lair in Burnt Offerings) you have an almost nuclear advantage to figure out exactly what's waiting for you, and how you can travel to avoid them.
Woodland Step and Wild Growth at will are a great combo in forests. You can make large areas of terrain difficult for enemies to move through, and trivially move through it yourself, making it easy to set up hit-and-run tactics, or escape.
I would consider all these situational powers even in a forest. If these where my 3 utility powers for the first 7 levels I would quickly get bored of the character.
Greensight is the utility version of new spell no one has ever needed. Does anyone have an instance of ever being told that they can't see the enemy because they are hiding in a bush?
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I've got an Aether/Aether guy at 9th level in PFS and he's actually pretty good. I even used my 7th level wild talent on the poor man's flight, giving him the amazing Invisibility+Fly combo for greater scouting and shenanigans.
Waiting 2 more levels for Foe Throw was painful, but ultimately worth it. The utility is really nice.
I have had no complaints yet on my Aether/Aether in PFS and he is almost 10th. In fact, with the exception of GMs rolling really well on saves, he has always had something to do and I have not missed the extra options.
Keep in mind that going Aether/Anything really doesn't change the composite problem. You might ended up getting an energy blast, but I find that so far has not been something I missed. I did consider Aether/Earth but that was for the stacking defense, Flesh of Stone plus Force Ward work very well together and make spectre, wraith and vampires completely non-threatening.
Still, getting to use Foe Throw in Bonekeep 2 was incredibly useful. It turns out if you throw a caster at his minions, most defensive buffs won't come into play, plus having a caster prone in front of your barbarian can really shorten a fight.
With my Aether Kineticist that when Aether/Aether as well, I had gotten to 12. Granted, most of those levels were skipped because the rest of the party was finishing up stuff.
Extra elements doesn't do a whole lot for me. Its like being a sorcerer and getting a lot of new spells you can choose from, but do you really ever use spells like Skin Send? Do you pick up Fireball, Lighting Bolt and whatever other 3rd level evocation spells there are? I know some do, others don't.
I mean if you really wanna mess some stuff up via elements, pick up Alchemy with an Aether Kineticist. There is a weird interaction with using alchemical weapons and the standard method of the Telekinetic Blast (The you do 1d6+1 per each odd level + con) where you may or may not also get the alchemical effect, but TK Blast has the second method.
In this case, the object’s special effects apply (including effects from its materials), and if the object is a weapon, you must be proficient with it and able to wield it with one hand; otherwise, the item deals damage as a one-handed improvised weapon for a creature of your size.
This would allow you to do things like hurl Perfect Ice at enemies or other alchemical items.
Things I picked up with my guy:
Touch sight/reactive touch sight. While touchsight is normally not that useful.. remember its any time the enemy takes damage from your blast. So something like a using TK blast with a wall, would allow you to see the enemy. (Something I just now realized I could have used.. :/)
Self-TK/Greater Self-TK - This is honestly a weird power.. Do you make fly checks at all for anything?
Force Choke - Gonna be Darth Vader. Sadly, we immediately went into an undead dungeon as I picked this one up and ended the campaign there. So I never got to use it
Extended Range/Extreame Range - Cause the basic TK power needs to be able to move further. Being able to pick up stuff at 400+ feet away, move it at 60 feet a round is pretty useful.
Telekinetic Haul - There is soooo many time were are like "Oh no! What are we going to do with all this loot!" and I'm like Elf please, I got this. Granted its not something one can do on a constant basis but being able to pick up really heavy things is really useful.
Telekinetic Finesse - While mostly useless on the surface, when your DM asks you "Are you trying to tell me that your telekineses is capable of doing things beyond just picking up heavy stuff" as your trying to do something crazy like tie ropes around poles and such, you can say Yes, yes it is.
Telekinetic Maneuvers - Honestly.. This is a bit of an odd one. I cannot for the life of me, figure out why they decided to use Telekinesis vs the spell with the same name, beyond trying to gate two options behind Telekinetic Finesse. There are some useful Maneuvers like reposition and such that would be very useful to have.
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I think people overrate composite blasts anyway. In my experience, you very rarely use composites before level 11 when you get supercharge, and the campaign might honestly be almost over by then. Maybe other people's games are structured differently, but I find "more damage on one blast" is almost never something I want to actually take burn to do.
I agree. If I'm using a composite blast in the Kingmaker game I'm in then 1) I can safely Gather Power and 2) I think it is really needed. Like a fight with an advanced Will o' Wisp >.>
Question, not sure if this would work. Water kineticist, kinetic healer, draining infusion, spark of Life. Summon elemental, drain it, use burn to heal. Rinse, repeat.
Interesting idea, I'm not sure how it works because of the wording of the infusion.
You can drain elemental energy and matter from your foes to strengthen your next attack. When you use this infusion, your kinetic blast affects only creatures with a subtype matching your kinetic blast’s element (for instance, a fire blast would damage only creatures of the fire subtype). Against such creatures, your blast targets touch AC (if it requires an attack roll) and always allows spell resistance. Because you are draining energy from the target, your blast doesn’t apply your elemental overflow bonuses or Constitution modifier. The target can attempt a Fortitude save to take 1/4 the normal amount of damage. Draining infusion ignores any damage reduction, resistances, and immunities the creature might possess. If at least one creature fails its saving throw against your draining infusion, you can reduce the total burn cost of any one blast wild talent used before the end of your next turn by 1, or by 2 if you have the supercharge ability. If you use draining infusion again before applying this reduction, you still deal the damage from that draining infusion, but the burn reductions don’t stack.
It only applies to blast wild talents. So the question becomes, is kinetic healer a "blast" wild talent? There is a good argument for both sides as kinetic healer is directly tied to the strength of your blast; bigger boom = more healing. At the same time, it's equally plausible that, basically, only infusion talents are affected.
From a RAW point of view, I'd argue against it since, strictly speaking, Kinetic Healer is a Utility Wild Talent not a Blast Wild Talent.
From a cool combination of talents point of view, I'd allow it at my table.
I don't think that Disintegrating Infusion is given that fair of a shake.
It seems to go red just cause its 4 burn and has a saving throw. Both of which do suck, don't get me wrong, but by level 12 (Or rather 13) which is the earliest you can get it, you've got 3 points of burn reduction with Infusions.
So at a bare minimum to use it, you'll take 3 points of burn. (2 for force, 1 for it.) Throw in a full around action to use your super charge gather energy, and you can do it for free. Then you could charge again as a move action the next round to get 2 more points of burn to work with.
Initially, this lets you use A disintegrating Kinetic Blade, Kinetic Whip, Mobile Blast, or Snake without issue by spending that time.
At level 14, you'll be able to use a move action to charge, and fire of disintegrating force blasts every round
At level 16, the cost for the force blast drops to 1.
As you get up closer to level 20, You're looking at 6 points for infusions, 1burn cost for Force Blast, and up to 5 points for a full round + move of gather energy.
Combine it with something like Kinetic Whip or Whip Hurricane, to rather quickly remove the enemy from the world.
Throw in a full around action to use your super charge gather energy, and you can do it for free. Then you could charge again as a move action the next round to get 2 more points of burn to work with.
This is not a defense of an ability. Charging for a full round is something a player never wants to do.
You do nothing over a round which gives opponents a free turn and the kineticist class makes a point of highlighting that you make yourself a big target while charging that can lose it all to a hit and take burn.
Even after all that what you may get to use on turn 2 is not as good as someone who just spent 2 turns attacking.
I feel like, also when a kineticist has 6 points of burn to throw around you have better things to do with it than "really mess up a single target". Like "empowered bowling walls" or "empowered thunderstorm clouds"or "grappling walls", that sort of thing.
Sure, it's nice to have a good option vs. a hard single target, but I wouldn't want to commit a lot of resources to it.
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Its not like I'm trying to say this is a "OMG why didn't you have this power!" level ability. But it is at least more useful than red. /especially/ if you're a Aether focused Kineticist.
It's really not more useful than red. It's a fort save for a high burn cost with the opportunity cost of not using your burn reduction for something more useful, such as more utility infusions. Aether kineticist has far better options than a possible large sum of damage, and this rating reflects that.
When using telekinetic maneuvers to grapple you use just your CMD as the DC for them to escape? In other words even though you use your con mod instead strength for CMB you do not use con instead of strength for your CMD?
I don't think that Disintegrating Infusion is given that fair of a shake.
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So at a bare minimum to use it, you'll take 3 points of burn. (2 for force, 1 for it.)
Except your Infusion specialization would cover the Disintegrate cost, as by the level you can you Disintegrate, you have Infusion Specialization 3, meaning that your infusions cost 3 less burn. Combine that with a move-action gather power and you can disintegrate every round, even if you need to throw extreme range or snaking on it.
Except your Infusion specialization would cover the Disintegrate cost, as by the level you can you Disintegrate, you have Infusion Specialization 3, meaning that your infusions cost 3 less burn. Combine that with a move-action gather power and you can disintegrate every round, even if you need to throw extreme range or snaking on it.I don't think that Disintegrating Infusion is given that fair of a shake.
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So at a bare minimum to use it, you'll take 3 points of burn. (2 for force, 1 for it.)
Disintegrate requires using the Force blast, which costs 2 burn, and the infusion itself is 4 burn, for a total cost of 6 burn. With infusion specialization 3 and gather energy, you can reduce the cost by 4, or you can reduce the cost by 5 if you have supercharge; either way, you are still taking burn each round. You can't fire off disintigrate without taking burn until 14th level, when I fusion specialization ignores the total cost of disintigrate itself.
If you're a telekineticist looking to disable a single target based on a fort save, why not just use suffocate and take the 1 burn? Doesn't work on golems, but golems are pretty easy to land a foe throw on...
If you're a telekineticist looking to disable a single target based on a fort save, why not just use suffocate and take the 1 burn? Doesn't work on golems, but golems are pretty easy to land a foe throw on...
That's kind of the point, disintegrate is red because it's almost never worth it. There is almost always something you can do better in a given situation than disintegrate.
If you're a telekineticist looking to disable a single target based on a fort save, why not just use suffocate and take the 1 burn? Doesn't work on golems, but golems are pretty easy to land a foe throw on...
Doesn't work on, Golems, undead, oozes, elementals..
I took suffocate to be a totally rad "Darth Vader" going around and force choking enemies.. everything we fought from that point on was undead. The one enemy I could have used it on my kineticist died. (Had to teleport into the battlefield.. which was covered with black tentacles, and I hadn't been able to purchase a ring of freedom of movement due to 'stop the final boss' time crunch that started when I joined)
In fact now that I think about it, that dungeon would have been perfect with Disintergrating Blast as all the undead kept rising back up after a few hours.
If you're a telekineticist looking to disable a single target based on a fort save, why not just use suffocate and take the 1 burn? Doesn't work on golems, but golems are pretty easy to land a foe throw on...
Doesn't work on, Golems, undead, oozes, elementals..
I took suffocate to be a totally rad "Darth Vader" going around and force choking enemies.. everything we fought from that point on was undead. The one enemy I could have used it on my kineticist died. (Had to teleport into the battlefield.. which was covered with black tentacles, and I hadn't been able to purchase a ring of freedom of movement due to 'stop the final boss' time crunch that started when I joined)
In fact now that I think about it, that dungeon would have been perfect with Disintergrating Blast as all the undead kept rising back up after a few hours.
One infusion I never did use was blade rush. There honestly never seemed to be a point. And it may be because the group I was with with my kineticist was particular on things (Like I couldn't propel 10,000 pounds of water at 480 feet per 3 seconds at an enemy with the kinetic blast because it couldn't do lethal damage... but they'd let me use a grain of dried ice instead.) And it was that particularity that made me assume it'd never let me escape grapples or move through anything difficult.
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You are a dex based class.Take the trait that makes escape artist a class skill.
Round 1 Free yourself from tentacles then use your move action to fly.
Round 2 Blast everything.
A good idea on paper, but the grappled condition gives a Dex penalty. And more importantly monster CMDs start to explode around that level and a mostly linear skill progression can't keep up.
A Void Kineticist with the skill boosting utility talent? Maybe.
Maybe I am not being clear
I am playing a kineticist(aether)
I used my telekinetic maneuvers to grapple someone but they easily escape even though my CMB bonus with this ability is +15 but my CMD is only 18. I was wondering if this is right. Since you use your Con mod instead of Str to for your CMB why don't you use your Con mod instead of Str to determine your CMD (or basically your DC for them to break/escape grapple)for this purpose?
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Maybe I am not being clear
I am playing a kineticist(aether)
I used my telekinetic maneuvers to grapple someone but they easily escape even though my CMB bonus with this ability is +15 but my CMD is only 18. I was wondering if this is right. Since you use your Con mod instead of Str to for your CMB why don't you use your Con mod instead of Str to determine your CMD (or basically your DC for them to break/escape grapple)for this purpose?
Rules as written you only use Con (and full caster level) for CMB, not CMD. So yes, your grapples are easy to escape. If you're in a home game, this is worth discussing and fixing with your GM's cooperation. In Society play, you'd best use your telekinesis for one-and-done maneuvers.
One amusing side effect is that grapples creatues are pulled to an adjacent square as per grapple rules. While this is likely to get you bitten by big bad beasties, it's an amusing exploit to pull that smug enemy wizard across the room and over to your team. Talk with your GM (be it home game or PFS) before using this move. It's high grade cheddar.
I feel like the real tactical value of telekinetic grappling is in trading your standard action for the standard action of an enemy spellcaster, since either way they have to spend a standard action to escape the grapple or they have to pass a concentration check (scaling on your CMB) to cast.
Since telekinesis requires concentration, you'd be spending a standard action each round to maintain the grapple so you don't necessarily lose a lot if the enemy has to keep wasting their standard actions to keep escaping.
You are a dex based class.Take the trait that makes escape artist a class skill.
Round 1 Free yourself from tentacles then use your move action to fly.
Round 2 Blast everything.
Ps : Fly part only works at high levels unless you are an air kineticist.
I was already stretched thin on my skills to begin with. Only had an int of 12, so that was Perc, Slight of hand, Stealth, Acrobatics and intimidate.
Even so I still had a pretty high escape artist check due to the high dex. Tried to escape twice, failed both times. While the enemy launched chain lighting that likely due to a house rule, I wasn't allowed to make a reflex save for.
Sounds like you have a s@&#ty GM, to be honest.
Well, They are at least consistent with that ruling between both GMs in that group. So I might be taking advantage of that house rule with the new campaign we're in.
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Question: with a physical element.. Should I get a belt of dex, or a belt of con?
You need to get both.Dex and Con for dc for starters.Dex will give you attack bonuses which a kineticist need a lot for physical blast.Con is well Con.Health fort save and more survivability after taking burn for overflow then some because of other talents that requires burn + damage.
Been a while since I've messed around with Pathfinder. Is this guide still up to date for any new stuff that may have come out for Kineticists? Is there even any new stuff for them?
