"Enough with the kineticist archetypes Onyx!" I hear you scream. "You've become mad with your obsession with this class!"
And to you I softly whisper, "Screw you I do what I want."
-----
While most kineticists focus their efforts on learning to control one element and only advance to others later on, the compositionist was blessed from the beginning with the power to wield two elements with equal proficiency, whether because she was chosen as a tool of the elementals to gain a foothold on one another's planes, or fated to become a mediator between the two planes her powers are drawn from, or even simply from being born near a rare spot of power where two elemental anomalies converge. Forsaking the chance to develop her skill with other elemental forces, the compositionist's goal is to blend the power of her elements together seamlessly, no matter how unlikely the combination.
Elemental Duality
At 1st level, the compositionist chooses two elements to act as her primary elements. These elements cannot be the same. The simple blasts associated with them must create a composite blast, and that blast cannot be one used to alter a simple blast (such as aetheric boost). Instead of those granted by her primary elements, she gains Knowledge (nature) and Knowledge (dungeoneering) as class skills, and gains both of her elements' basic utility talents as bonus wild talents.
She also gains a composite blast associated with both of her elements. This kinetic blast costs 0 burn, but deals damage as a simple blast.
This replaces the elemental focus class feature and alters the kinetic blast class feature and the kineticist's class skills.
Divided Focus
Attempting to master two elements simultaneously dampens the compositionist's ability to focus on one or the other. Her kineticist level is treated as -2 (minimum 1) for the purpose of qualifying for wild talents. She also cannot fully master how to use metakinesis.
This alters the wild talents class feature and replaces the metakinetic master class feature.
Entwined Defenses
At 2nd level, the compositionist gains both of her elements' defense wild talents. Only one of these may be active at once; she may switch which one is active as a standard action. If she switches her active defense talent, the burn applied to her previous defense talent benefits the current one instead.
At 10th level, she can have both elemental defense talents active simultaneously, but only one can benefit from burn being accepted to improve it. She may switch which defense talent benefits from the burn that has been spent on it as a standard action.
The compositionist may not take the expanded defense utility wild talent.
This alters the elemental defense class feature and replaces the utility talents gained at 2nd and 10th levels.
Composite Focus
At 7th level, the compositionist may use her composite blast either as a simple blast or a composite blast; she may accept its normal burn cost and allow it to deal damage as normal. In addition, she may apply any infusions to it that could be applied to its prerequisite simple blasts, regardless of if they could normally be used with the composite blast.
The replaces the expanded element class feature learned at 7th level.
Composite Mastery
At 15th level, the compositionist chooses one of the following bonuses.
- She gains one bonus wild talent from each of her primary elements; this may be an infusion or a utility wild talent, and she may choose a universal wild talent instead of one specifically for her element. She also gains a +2 bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, caster level, and DC for her wild talents.
- She may learn the simple blasts from which her composite blast is composed. If she does so, the damage dice of her simple blasts increase to d10s, but this bonus does not apply when she uses her composite blast as a simple blast. In addition, her composite blast's damage dice advance to d8s when it is used as normal.
This replaces the expanded element class feature learned at 15th level.
Two-Plane Scion
At 20th level, the compositionist has incredible control over both of her elements. She chooses one of the following benefits:
- She can push her composite blast to its limits. By accepting 2 burn she can increase its damage dice by one additional step (2d6>2d8>2d10>2d12>2d20). This can be done as an immediate action and may be done as many times as she wishes, but this burn cannot be reduced in any way and cannot exceed the maximum amount of burn she may take in one turn. She may not apply infusion wild talents to a kinetic blast modified in this way.
- She has learned to fuse her elements completely within her body, fully activating the defense each grants her. Whenever she accepts burn with one of her defense wild talents, treat the other as if she'd accepted the same amount of burn with it. Three times per day, as a swift action, she may activate the additional effects of one of her defense talents as if she'd accepted burn on a wild talent of its element without having to do so.
- She becomes an expert at the blending of unlikely combinations of effects. When using her composite blast she may apply two substance infusions to it in addition to one form infusion. If both substance infusions require the same kind of save, the target rolls its save once and applies the result to both.
This ability replaces the omnikinesis class feature and the utility talent learned at 20th.
-----
Note: Because of the nature of this archetype, neither aether nor void can be used with it. If using the Kineticists of Porphyra book, it also cannot be used with the time or sound elements, but can be used with the light element.
My immediate reaction to Composite Mastery is "Wow, that's strong." Although having looked a little more closely, since you're not getting the extra wild talent at level 7 it's actually just catching up. Nonetheless, +2 to all those things for that is perhaps a little strong, especially considering that even a super specialised vanilla kineticist only gets +1. Since normally a dual elemental kineticist gets nothing, any bonus at all on top of the wild talents seems good.
It took me a little while to catch on to the fact that you don't actually get the simple blasts for both elements and you just have the composite blast. I'd suggest clarifying that.
You've done a pretty good job with the Entwined Defence.
The first option of two-plane scion is terrible. Really. Since it's an immediate action to increase it by one step, you can't ever increase it by more than one step. Not being able to reduce the burn in any way or apply infusions is pretty harsh. Don't quote me on this, but I'm also relatively certain that the dice step increases you have there aren't the conventional ones.
That said, the other two options are sweet and make good capstones.
Overall, I think you've done pretty well with some of the major problems that result with giving a kineticist multiple elements at level 1. I especially like Divided Focus. The composite blast issue is dealt with to my satisfaction (even if it needs clarification).
Haven't read. Just wanted to say that I love your opening. Nothing wrong with more Kineticist archetypes. It is my favourite class. Kinda sucky they went with burn over a resource pool though. Good flavour, terrible mechanic. Only real use is keeping you alive from a tpk, in most situations. Will read later.
Thanks XD Suffice it to say kineticist is my favorite class by far. Hope to read what you think whenever you have the chance to read it.
My immediate reaction to Composite Mastery is "Wow, that's strong." Although having looked a little more closely, since you're not getting the extra wild talent at level 7 it's actually just catching up. Nonetheless, +2 to all those things for that is perhaps a little strong, especially considering that even a super specialised vanilla kineticist only gets +1. Since normally a dual elemental kineticist gets nothing, any bonus at all on top of the wild talents seems good.
I included that +2 since, in getting it, you're not only never going to have a simple blast beyond the weakened version of your composite, but you'll be dealing less damage overall anyway. Perhaps changing it to a +1 would be the better option.
It took me a little while to catch on to the fact that you don't actually get the simple blasts for both elements and you just have the composite blast. I'd suggest clarifying that.
Can do. Simple fix in wording. Instead of "She also gets..." I can be "Instead of receiving any simple blasts from her primary elements, she receives..."
You've done a pretty good job with the Entwined Defence.
Thanks! I originally was just going to have the player pick one defense and be allowed to pick the other up with expanded defense, but that didn't really fit with the theme I'm going for here. A compositionist might favor one element over the other, but I wanted them to still need to use both. Two utility talents seems a decent sacrifice here to essentially be able to switch elemental defense on the fly without losing the burn you've put into it.
The first option of two-plane scion is terrible. Really. Since it's an immediate action to increase it by one step, you can't ever increase it by more than one step. Not being able to reduce the burn in any way or apply infusions is pretty harsh. Don't quote me on this, but I'm also relatively certain that the dice step increases you have there aren't the conventional ones.
That said, the other two options are sweet and make good capstones.
Huh. I thought one could take multiple immediate actions... maybe I'm just getting my wording weird. Anyway, the intent is to basically use your burn to pump the blast up as high as you're able to get it, make it a massive damage bomb against something that you need to be dealing higher damage to. Do you think it'd be more fair if I reduced the cost to 1 burn, limited it to 3 uses per individual blast, and allowed for the burn to be reduced?
Also yes, I'm pretty sure that's not conventional, but I wanted to keep the number of damage dice the same no matter how powerful the blast got. The way I did it, I believe the damage caps out at 2d20, which assumes you've taken the damage die buff at 15th and put the full amount of burn into this. If you took the bonus feats instead, yeah, this would be absolute trash. It's that jump from d12s to d20s that really boosts it up. I'll admit I have no clue if there's another way to increase the kinetic blast's damage die (keep in mind that gravitic boost is out of the question since you can't use void for this), and if so, I don't know where the damage would go once it surpasses 2d20... this is probably something I should look into.
I may go ahead and allow infusions with this, too. If I'm going to throw out 20d20+20 damage, I may as well throw out 20d20+20 damage that also does something else as well.
I'm glad you liked the other two options. The second one basically perfects entwined defenses, while the third one offers a good alternative if you're more focused on afflicting conditions or making combat maneuvers than dealing damage to others or preventing it from being dealt to you.
Overall, I think you've done pretty well with some of the major problems that result with giving a kineticist multiple elements at level 1. I especially like Divided Focus. The composite blast issue is dealt with to my satisfaction (even if it needs clarification).
I figured divided focus works regarding the reduction to effective kineticist level because normally, if you take a secondary element, it's -4 level when getting talents, so average that with the +0 level adjustment from your primary element and there ya go. And since it cuts off access to 9th level utilities, you really only get one of your elements' uber-abilities, and I think it'd be unfair to be able to nab them both.
Alrighty, reworking the wording:
Elemental Duality
At 1st level, the compositionist chooses two elements to act as her primary elements. These elements cannot be the same. The simple blasts associated with them must create a composite blast, and that blast cannot be one used to alter a simple blast (such as aetheric boost).
Instead of those granted by her primary elements, she gains Knowledge (nature) and Knowledge (dungeoneering) as class skills, and gains both of her elements' basic utility talents as bonus wild talents.
Instead of gaining one of her primary elements' simple blasts, she gains the use of a composite blast associated with both of her elements, but may only access it in a weakened form. This kinetic blast costs 0 burn and deals damage as a simple blast. She does not gain access to the normal version of this composite blast until 7th level.
This replaces the elemental focus class feature and alters the kinetic blast class feature and the kineticist's class skills.
Just a fix to the wording to clarify that a.) you don't get your element's simple blasts and b.) your composite blast becomes your simple blast.
Composite Mastery
At 15th level, the compositionist chooses one of the following benefits:
- She gains one bonus wild talent from each of her primary elements; this may be an infusion or a utility wild talent, and she may choose a universal wild talent instead of one specifically for her element. She also gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, caster level, and DC for her wild talents.
- She may learn the simple blasts from which her composite blast is composed. If she does so, the damage dice of her simple blasts increase by two steps, but this bonus does not apply when she uses her composite blast as a simple blast. In addition, her composite blast's damage dice advance by one step when it is used as normal. Use the following scale to determine damage die increase: d3 > d4 > d6 > d8 > d10 > d12 > d20.
This replaces the expanded element class feature learned at 15th level.
The first bonus is being adjusted to be in line with picking a single element with a vanilla kineticist (grants a +1 bonus rather than +2). The second is just reworded to specify the full damage die advancement I want used here.
Two-World Scion
At 20th level, the compositionist has incredible control over both of her elements. She chooses one of the following benefits:
- She can push her composite blast to its limits. When using her composite blast she may accept up to three additional burn to advance its damage die one step for each point of burn accepted this way (using the scale as detailed in composite mastery).
- She has learned to fuse her elements completely within her body, fully activating the defense each grants her. Whenever she accepts burn with one of her defense wild talents, treat the other as if she'd accepted the same amount of burn with it. Three times per day, as a swift action, she may activate the additional effects of one of her defense talents as if she'd accepted burn on a wild talent of its element without having to do so.
- She becomes an expert at the blending of unlikely combinations of effects. When using her composite blast she may apply two substance infusions to it in addition to one form infusion. If both substance infusions require the same kind of save, the target rolls its save once and applies the result to both.
This ability replaces the omnikinesis class feature and the utility talent learned at 20th.
Reworked the first benefit. Basically you're being allowed to apply up to three gravitic boosts to it now without changing its elements or blocking it out of taking infusions other than universal.
These things aside, I did have a balance question that this archetype would bring up. How do you think the balance for chain infusion would work? As it is, chain infusion would allow someone who takes charged water blast to hit up to twenty targets when it's applied. You think that's fair, or should it reduce the damage dice per hit by 2 instead of 1, keeping it at a cap of ten targets? (Also note, this is the main reason I didn't want to advance damage dice traditonally, from 1d10 to 2d8 or 2d10 to 3d8 or so on; it'd give chain infusion additional hits, as well as similarly affecting other effects that rely on how many damage dice a blast has)
Some notes:
1) Limit the elements, let it state "except Aether or Void" in the list of acceptable elements.
2) You seem far more focused on mechanics than theme. There is a LOT of interest in dual-elements. My Zephyr Archetype being one such example. You spend a lot of effort merging the mechanics, but it comes across (at least to me) as an effort focused solely on that. When you go through Archetypes of different classes, theme comes first. That's admittedly almost impossible to do while keeping the expansion open to all elements. I ran into similar problems when I tried doing the exact same thing until I realized that the reason I was doing it was so I could create what I ended up making in the Zephyr class (Air/Aether).
Not saying you should scrap the project, rather stating that more theme needs to be brought into it...
3) 10th level defense is weaker than an actual dual-element defense (who can put burn in both defenses). Maybe let them both be active at 7th level, the level any other dual-element could get the 2nd elemental defense (Extra Wild Talent), and at 15th level, any burn spent applies to both (this makes it worth having lost Metakinesis Mastery).
4) Composite Mastery is over the top. 3 Wild Talents in total, and a boost to her attack/damage, -or- better simple blasts (and composite blasts) than non-composite experts in those simple blasts (which goes completely against the whole 'we are better at composite stuff' since they're now also better at non-composite stuff..., that and you should go to 2d6 after 1d12). I really think you should stick to just giving them the 1st option, and with only 2 Wild Talents at best (which is still way better than a regular composite mastery, not sure why they wouldn't just get the normal level 15 same-element)
Apologies ahead of time, but this is gonna be pretty defensive, as I couldn't disagree with you more on most points you bring up.
1.) The only reason it's worded as such is to be inclusive of 3pp and homebrew elements and composite blasts. Used solely to expand Paizo content, it'd probably be worded as "Choose two different elements from air, earth, fire, water, and wood."
2.) This seems more of an opinion, honestly. There's no specific two elements I'm looking to merge here; I just feel like this could be a fun concept, to have someone stuck equally between two elements rather than primarily latched onto one. What kind of theme would you have in mind that doesn't limit the choices one can make here?
3.) 8th level, actually. Expanded defense is a 4th level talent. Even if it wasn't, to access it you'd have to have two elements by 7th, and if you don't pick your primary element at 7th you don't get the bonus talent. Semantics aside, I feel like being able to flip your defenses from the get-go is plenty enough to sacrifice two levels of having two active defenses. Or perhaps I could change the swapping to a swift or immediate action, so even from 2nd level the character can react swiftly to incoming threats?
4.) The first option only gives you two wild talents. They have to be one from each element, or replace an element one with a universal. For example a charged water blast compositionist would be able to pick an air and a water talent, an air and a universal, a water and a universal, or two universals. They wouldn't, however, be able to pick two airs or two waters.
The simple blasts are meant to replace the low-grade composite in the event the opponent has, say, a high DR you can't penetrate or immunity to an element and you can't rely on your higher-grade composite, but I can understand why increasing their damage wouldn't be quite fitting. Perhaps just have the compositionist learn her simple blasts with the normal damage value? I'd also considered giving each one a 1 burn cost, but with composite specialization coming one level later that seems rather pointless.
Also, it makes no sense to go to 2d6 after 1d12, at least in my opinion. Firstly, that's not increasing the maximum damage at all, only upping minimum damage by 1 point and average damage by 1/2 point. Going up to 2 dice would bring it to 2d8 if anything. Second, it's difficult to get that far up to begin with; even with the damage die increases, at 20th, your simple blasts would do 10d10 and your weak composite would be 10d6 (or 10d12 if you fully activate the first bonus from two-world scion). The only way to exceed that is using the full two-world scion offense bonus with a full composite blast, bringing it up to 20d20 for a cost of 3 burn. That's part of why I initially didn't want that burn to be something you could mitigate at all (and even now, I would rather at the minimum change that boost to a move action rather than free, so it can't have a move gather power applied to it by those who count the extra burn as part of the blast's cost). I also don't want to move up to 2d8s because that alters how things work when they are affected by how many damage dice a blast has. One example of this would be kinetic fist. Using my method of bringing in d20s, a composite blast kinetic fist remains at 8d6 no matter how high you pump the blast with offensive two-world scion (or 9d6 if you account for a kineticist's diadem). Using yours, since it's now dealing 40d8, that brings you to 14d6 for a kinetic fist (15d6 with diadem). It'd also allow a chain charged water blast to go on for an obscene amount of time, even if we adjust chain to lose two damage dice per hit on composite blasts.