Kinetic Cover
Element(s) aether, earth, or water; Type utility (Sp); Level 1; Burn 0
You call up elemental matter to defend yourself and your allies from attacks. As a standard action, you can select one face of a square within 30 feet of you and move elemental matter to block that face, providing total cover from that direction. The face you select must be supported by the ground, and the kinetic cover cannot support more than 5 pounds of weight. Water, ice, and telekinetic force are translucent, but earth, metal, mud, and the like are opaque and block line of sight. A creature who strikes the cover can easily destroy it. Regardless of its composition, the cover has hardness 0, AC 5, and 2 hit points per kineticist level you possess. You can have a number of kinetic covers in existence equal to your Constitution modifier + 1/2 your kineticist level.
I have some questions about this ability:
1) How high are these covers?
2) How long do these covers last? Do they last forever if not destroyed?
3) What happens if a kineticist has her maximum of covers in existence? Does she have to destroy one before she can create a new one? If so, can she simple dismiss them (and what kind of action is this), or will they have to be physically destroyed? Or will one of them vanish if she creates a new one? if so, which one?
1) They are 5 feet high and 5 feet wide.
2) I believe they last until destroyed, or until you refresh your Burn.
3) Based on the wording of the ability it does not appear to be dismissible, so you would have to physically destroy one.
Do you have any source for your answers to 1 and 2, or are you just stating your own interpretation?
For the 3rd one I would think the oldest one would be dismissed as you create a new one when you're at the max. Just look at wall and deadly earth infusions. You can only have 1 of either of those up at a time and as soon as you do another one the current one is auto dismissed.
That sounds reasonable, although no such provision is made in the actual rules. I wonder if that is intentional.
Do you have any source for your answers to 1 and 2, or are you just stating your own interpretation?
There's no source for any of the answers you are seeking, so all of this will be interpretation. Based off the wording of the ability, 5'x5' would be a reasonable dimension for Kinetic Cover. It does state it covers one face of a square, which is 5' wide and therefore one can assume the cover would be 5' wide. Given that it provides Total Cover, I would assume that it is at least as tall as it is wide.
I would agree with being a permanent fixture until destroyed or burn is removed. That seems like a reasonable interpretation.
It should give total cover to a Medium creature, so being 5 ft. high wouldn't work, that would only provide partial cover to a Medium creature usually.
It should give total cover to a Medium creature, so being 5 ft. high wouldn't work, that would only provide partial cover to a Medium creature usually.
True. Hence why I suggested it should be *at least* 5' high. I would say you can make the Cover as high as you need to provide Total Cover to the creature in that square.
It should give total cover to a Medium creature, so being 5 ft. high wouldn't work, that would only provide partial cover to a Medium creature usually.Much less than half of a Medium creature would be visible with 5ft of wall in between you and them. It would still provide total cover.
So you say you cannot attack a Medium creature behind a 5 ft. high wall? That is silly. I think the "half visible" is about cover vs. partial cover, not total cover.