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I GMed for a Telekineticist yesterday, and I'm sort of disappointed (for lack of a better word) in how they can break certain situations so easily. I'm not mad about it, just sort of sad about how some scenarios just can't handle having a Kineticist in the group. Yesterday the group had to cross a rickety bridge. The Kineticist made a rock float, they climbed on the rock and it ferried them across one by one. A 20-foot cliff, with people who all had terrible Strength. Floating rock carried them to the top. Lots of traps were disabled through a form of ranged Disable Device. A fluid leaked from the ceiling. Kineticist formed a cup out of pure aether to contain it.
Okay, other elements of Kineticists have more pure blasting power, but the utility made my cry in a corner. He removed any challenge from the adventure. He explained what powers he was using to do everything and I couldn't fault him for it. Some things were a bit on the creative side, so I gave him some leeway because of the rule of cool, but a lot of things are written vaguely enough that it can apply in a lot of situations.
Sure but a single spell could get those characters across a rickety bridge. If the players bought a bucket, they could have dealt with the fluid on the ceiling. And as for the trap, well a Rogue could have disabled it from close by with a bonus on the check to do so.
Yeah, a telekinetic is great utility for a creative player, but at the same time a wizard or sorcerer can take some fantastic utility abilities as well.
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One path ends up with us spending hours arguing over stupid minutiae on an internet message board, the other involves us going and doing something fun or productive. I know which I'm choosing.
I'm sorry? You speak madness.
We are rules lawyering munchkins with far too much time on our hands. This is what we do for fun.
Also- doing something productive? On the internet? Is this your first day?
One path ends up with us spending hours arguing over stupid minutiae on an internet message board, the other involves us going and doing something fun or productive. I know which I'm choosing.I'm sorry? You speak madness.
We are rules lawyering munchkins with far too much time on our hands. This is what we do for fun.
Also- doing something productive? On the internet? Is this your first day?
I dunno. I guess the number 1 internet use counts as productive. But I'd much rather have a person do an accurate argument. After all, better show a class at their best when you're saying it pales in comparison to another, otherwise you wind up causing arguments!
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I'd like to argue about that.
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I'd like to argue about that.
Please, do! I've got a retirement to fund, and that salt ain't gonna make itself!
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No one mentions that the GM let the other guy two weapon fight with Chainsaws, seems like he has some favoritism thing going, if he's b*&~*ing about the Kineticist and not the broken as s@** fighter.
My question is three fold.
1. Where the frell did the fighter get two chainsaws?
2. What is being used to fuel said chainsaws?
and
3. How on earth is the fighter STARTING the chainsaws if his hands are both occupied with holding a chainsaw?
That's ignoring the fact that you need 2 hands to control a single chainsaw. Ash (from Evil Dead) not withstanding that is. And even he needs his remaining hand to actually control the dang thing. Let alone start it.
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I GMed for a Telekineticist yesterday, and I'm sort of disappointed (for lack of a better word) in how they can break certain situations so easily. I'm not mad about it, just sort of sad about how some scenarios just can't handle having a Kineticist in the group. Yesterday the group had to cross a rickety bridge. The Kineticist made a rock float, they climbed on the rock and it ferried them across one by one. A 20-foot cliff, with people who all had terrible Strength. Floating rock carried them to the top. Lots of traps were disabled through a form of ranged Disable Device. A fluid leaked from the ceiling. Kineticist formed a cup out of pure aether to contain it.
Okay, other elements of Kineticists have more pure blasting power, but the utility made my cry in a corner. He removed any challenge from the adventure. He explained what powers he was using to do everything and I couldn't fault him for it. Some things were a bit on the creative side, so I gave him some leeway because of the rule of cool, but a lot of things are written vaguely enough that it can apply in a lot of situations.
I play an aerokinetic in PFS. Did some interesting things when partnered with a hydrokinetic. Such as him using his hydrokinesis to help push the sail boat we were on faster down stream while I used my Gusting infusion (with zero damage) to push against the sail. There was no natural wind btw.
When I did my level 2 rebuild before playing again I decided to replace Gusting with Extend Range since the party had encountered too many situations where foes were out of my 30 foot reach.
No one mentions that the GM let the other guy two weapon fight with Chainsaws, seems like he has some favoritism thing going, if he's b*&~*ing about the Kineticist and not the broken as s@** fighter.My question is three fold.
1. Where the frell did the fighter get two chainsaws?
2. What is being used to fuel said chainsaws?
and
3. How on earth is the fighter STARTING the chainsaws if his hands are both occupied with holding a chainsaw?That's ignoring the fact that you need 2 hands to control a single chainsaw. Ash (from Evil Dead) not withstanding that is. And even he needs his remaining hand to actually control the dang thing. Let alone start it.
Maybe he has 4 arms? Those races/feat/alchemist discoveries exist.
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Maybe he has 4 arms? Those races/feat/alchemist discoveries exist.No one mentions that the GM let the other guy two weapon fight with Chainsaws, seems like he has some favoritism thing going, if he's b*&~*ing about the Kineticist and not the broken as s@** fighter.My question is three fold.
1. Where the frell did the fighter get two chainsaws?
2. What is being used to fuel said chainsaws?
and
3. How on earth is the fighter STARTING the chainsaws if his hands are both occupied with holding a chainsaw?That's ignoring the fact that you need 2 hands to control a single chainsaw. Ash (from Evil Dead) not withstanding that is. And even he needs his remaining hand to actually control the dang thing. Let alone start it.
Still doesn't explain where the modern logging tools and fuel came from.
The Iron Gods AP has three chainsaws available. One in the 2nd book, two (dual wielded by a four armed bad guy) in the 6th book. Anyone playing with the Tech Guide can introduce them, of course.
The Tech Guide version run of super batteries, of course.
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Don't get why a kineticists damage is being argued against a fighter. Or why its ever argued at all. A well rounded kineticist does way more than damage anyways. Hitting for less damage is okay when you can also target a save and CMD at the same time against a group of enemies, possibly from the sky no less. Add in aforementioned utility and it doing damage comparable to a fighter would actually be broken.
I think it was already summed up that the kineticist is in between the high DPR of great sword bros and the ultra utility a full caster provides, which ultimately means it is a very well balanced class.
Sure, a caster can do it better, but do we need more classes like those or less?
All day long!
That's a big sticker for many people.
Except that it's not all day long. The party stops when overall resources are down. HP and spells are much more limiting.
But let's look at an extreme case. A party of kineticists that all have Aether as primary or secondary element. One of them has a good UMD score and a bunch of CLW wands. (because they don't need to buy so much other stuff. They can blast all day long. Their force ward means that they can recover almost all of their damage after a combat, and the CLW wands take care of what gets through the force ward.
What does that buy them? A long adventuring day. Most games it doesn't matter at all. Only in a game where there's some sort of time pressure does this kame a difference.
Kineticist is broken?? Broken as in too weak/terrible maybe, certainly not broken as in too powerful. Someone said the most broken classes are all in the core book and I totally agree. Paladins, Wizards/Sorcerers, Clerics and Druids, all horrendously broken.
Meanwhile I get all kinds of crap from people for wanting to play newer classes, none of which are crazy broken like the "classics".
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All day long!
That's a big sticker for many people.
Except that it's not all day long. The party stops when overall resources are down. HP and spells are much more limiting.
But let's look at an extreme case. A party of kineticists that all have Aether as primary or secondary element. One of them has a good UMD score and a bunch of CLW wands. (because they don't need to buy so much other stuff. They can blast all day long. Their force ward means that they can recover almost all of their damage after a combat, and the CLW wands take care of what gets through the force ward.
What does that buy them? A long adventuring day. Most games it doesn't matter at all. Only in a game where there's some sort of time pressure does this kame a difference.
Not to mention, sure a kineticist can fly and launch their basic blasts all day long (cue the singing). However everything else is limited to 3+con modifier worth of burn. At high levels you can negate most of the burn cost. But not all of it. Kinetic Healing for example you can't reduce with infusion specialization. And I'm still unclear on if you can gather power to lower the cost of kinetic healing, for example. Since it specifically says "wild blast talent", I'm thinking it only works with infusions.
Which would mean that your utility talents can't have the costs reduced. Which again would provide a hard limit on how much you could spam your utility talents.
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Kineticist is broken?? Broken as in too weak/terrible maybe, certainly not broken as in too powerful. Someone said the most broken classes are all in the core book and I totally agree. Paladins, Wizards/Sorcerers, Clerics and Druids, all horrendously broken.
Meanwhile I get all kinds of crap from people for wanting to play newer classes, none of which are crazy broken like the "classics".
*coughs* Alchemist. Synergist summoners also are fairly powerful. Although after tinkering with one, I'm not sure how much of the power I saw came from a player cheating and abusing the GM not knowing much about the class.
I do tend to agree though. The classes in Occult Adventures especially tend to be middle of the road in power, or maybe a bit underwhelming. Occultist for example looks like an interesting class, but as a spell caster would leave much to be desired. That, and an occultist wouldn't really get to shine unless the GM is specifically including things that would let them shine.
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Pathfinder's Infallible Rule of Thumb*: Is it a Summoner or full caster?
Yes: Probably overpowered. Specially if it uses vancian casting.
No: Then it it's not overpowered. Period. Unless you're comparing them to Fighters, core Rogues and core Monks.
*
- - -
Anyway... Kineticists have a few tricks that are really good... But overall, they are rarely above mediocrity.
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And there isn't anything wrong with mediocrity. Not when your comparisons are all things that can (eventually) go toe to toe with dragons and have a decent chance at surviving. I did a diced out battle between a young adult red dragon and a level 5 spiritualist/level 3 hydrokinetic for a story I'm writing. No backup for the hydrokinetic. And sure I ended up rolling low for to-hit with the dragon. But the hydrokinetic was able to hold their own. Mostly was just using the kineticist abilities too.
On a whim I then did a diced out battle between the same dragon and an 8th level fighter, 8th level ranger, and 8th level sorcerer (each one fighting on their own). Of them all, the kineticist was firmly in the middle of the pack for how well they did. The fighter was able to avoid more melee attacks, but got torn to pieces by the breath weapon. The ranger did better versus the breath weapon, but had trouble if the dragon got too close. And the sorcerer just kind of curbstomped the dragon via high damage output ranged touch spells, spells to make it harder to be hit, spells to increase chance to hit, and fire resistance/protection spells.
Mind you, this was with each character build having equipment equal to their wealth by level. The sorcerer and spiritualist/kineticist had MORE gear then the others due to crafting feats allowing for cheaper magic gear.
Oh, and let me tell you... I'd imagine a red dragon would be REALLY surprised by it's breath weapon getting negated by a quenching water blast :)
Kinetic Healing for example you can't reduce with infusion specialization. And I'm still unclear on if you can gather power to lower the cost of kinetic healing, for example. Since it specifically says "wild blast talent", I'm thinking it only works with infusions.
Which would mean that your utility talents can't have the costs reduced. Which again would provide a hard limit on how much you could spam your utility talents.
Gather power only works for actual blasting. Kinetic healer would add in the elemental overflow bonuses though. And yea, the only way to "reduce" utility wild talent cost is with internal buffer.
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that's what I was thinking from the way things are worded. And the thing people need to remember about Internal Buffer is that it's a one shot use each time. That, and you have to charge it by taking burn to begin with. In fact, you have to take burn specifically to fill the buffer. So it's really not going to affect things as much as someone might think.
Granted, a kineticist (other then overwhleming soul) does want to take burn. They get bonuses to hit and damage from doing so. And eventually they get physical stat boosts from taking enough burn. Yet burn IS a double edged sword. For each point of burn you take, that's 1 point of con bonus you don't have keeping you in the fight. It might take only 3 or 4 points of burn to negate your con's boost to hit points for the day. Which makes it increasingly more likely you'll get KO'd in a fight. Maybe not killed, but KO'd.
A character I played in an Emerald SPire campaign for example had 18 constitution. If I took maximum burn though, that's 7 points of burn. Or 21/33 hit points taken as non-lethal damage. One good hit could knock out the character.
In fact, you have to take burn specifically to fill the buffer. So it's really not going to affect things as much as someone might think.
The current method is to accept burn the "day before" and fill the internal buffer. Internal buffer doesn't get emptied when you rest and lose the regular burn, so it's meant to be stockpiled.
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True, but that's not always an option. A rough day may have you hitting your burn limits before resting. I like to accept the burn for boosting my elemental defense in the morning, then if possible fill my internal buffer in the evening. Doesn't always work though.
Also, while kinetic healing lets you push the burn cost onto the person you're healing, always check with the other player if that's okay with them first.
I know this topic of Kineticist has been discussed but not for a while and I am of the opinion this class is Broken. Perhaps I am missing something but recently ran a level 13 game and a new player has a Kineticist Air Kinetics and seems to be able to gather power about every other round and deal 13d6, 12d6, 11d6 etc with Maximize etc and had they not rolled a Nat 1 in the chain would have done over 900 points of total damage. This character seems to be able to do this without any significant limit. I am trying to find an error in his application of the ability but nothing seems to come up. The other players are basically ready to quite as why are they needed. If this is indeed possible with this class then I do not see how this class can continue to be supported?? Am I missing a limit with the burn and the ability to recover burn??
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I know this topic of Kineticist has been discussed but not for a while and I am of the opinion this class is Broken. Perhaps I am missing something but recently ran a level 13 game and a new player has a Kineticist Air Kinetics and seems to be able to gather power about every other round and deal 13d6, 12d6, 11d6 etc with Maximize etc and had they not rolled a Nat 1 in the chain would have done over 900 points of total damage. This character seems to be able to do this without any significant limit. I am trying to find an error in his application of the ability but nothing seems to come up. The other players are basically ready to quite as why are they needed. If this is indeed possible with this class then I do not see how this class can continue to be supported?? Am I missing a limit with the burn and the ability to recover burn??
I'm not exactly an expert on this, but let's run some numbers for level 13:
Simple Blasts (Free):- Physical - Ranged attack against AC, 7d6+1+7+ Con Modifier dmg., DR applies
- Energy - Ranged attack against Touch AC, 7d6 + half of Con Modifier dmg, Spell and Energy Resistances may apply.
- Physical - Ranged attack against AC, 14d6+14+Con Modifier dmg, DR applies
- Energy - Ranged attack against Touch AC, 14d6+ half of Con Modifier dmg., Spell and Energy Resistances may apply.
- 'At 9th level, by accepting 2 points of burn, she can maximize her kinetic blast as if using Maximize Spell'
- Move action to reduce Burn by 2
- Full Round to reduce Burn by 3 for a Blast the next round.
- Full Round + Move Action on the next turn to reduce the Burn by 3 (bit of a gap in the rules here: At level 11, Supercharge improves the move and full round options to the values listed here, but makes no mention of combining the two as specifically laid out in the 'Gather Power' entry. Logically, this option would reduce burn by 5, but this might not be intended)
It sounds like your player is using a Maximized Composite Energy Blast every other round, which costs either 1 burn (if Overcharge is taken strictly RAW) or 0 burn (if Overcharge is extrapolated). I think you'd get slightly higher average damage by just forgoing the maximization and just using a non-augmented blast every round (move action to reduce burn by 2, average damage of 49 each round vs 84 every other round (not including half con modifier in either roll)), although energy resistance would favor the maximized version.
With a strict interpretation of Supercharge, the 1 burn cost limits the player to a handful or two of maximized composite blasts per day. With a looser interpretation, the player should probably be throwing an Empower on each blast as well.
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Metakinesis's burn cost can't be reduced with gather power, so every time you use a maximized kinetic blast at level 9 you take 18 nonlethal damage that can't be healed, and that's 2 points of burn towards your 3+CON limit.
Let's say your kineticist really goes all out with their CON stat and has 22 con. That's 3+6 for their burn limit, or 9.
Every maximized kinetic blast uses up about 25% of your burn limit for the day in addition to reducing your effective HP by 18 or more for the rest of the day, so that's your big trick, four times a day to do damage that a similarly optimized martial can do all day long WITHOUT killing themselves. How is that not a "limit?"
Actually, per Mark Seifter, Gather Power does work on Metakinesis:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2st1r?Gather-Power-Infusions-and-Metakinesis#2
How does doing less damage than an archer does over two rounds every other round and having to beat SR to do it qualify as broken?
They're not broken, there are better ways to do damage, their are better ways to be the utility guy, they fall somewhere in the middle.
Year and a half later and still not "broken", especially given the much limited options over casters or the sustained damage of archers.
The high damage, touch AC thing can be tough to get past at face value.
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As a GM who has a 13th level Telekineticist/Aerokineticist in his weekly group, I agree that kineticists are a solid class, but not brokenly overpowered.
First, make sure as a GM you and your player are clear on the rules for calculating burn. This is the kineticist's hard daily limit on all things cool. Keep track of it and know how much burn your player can spend in one round at their level.
Second, remember that they're at the mercy of a concentration check when they're threatened or take damage during their gather power action or blast attack. A few reach enemies or archery goons with readied actions can really mess up their day.
Finally, if all else fails, punch 'em in the will save. Hold Person, Confusion, and a bunch of other really nasty stuff on one of their weakest saves will wreck their day. As my player just discovered when he took a DC 22 Symbol of Insanity to the face with his whopping +5 Will save modifier.
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How does doing less damage than an archer does over two rounds every other round and having to beat SR to do it qualify as broken?
They're not broken, there are better ways to do damage, their are better ways to be the utility guy, they fall somewhere in the middle.
Actually, rethinking the Kane's post, it sounds like the Chain Infusion was also in play (as I said, not an expert on kineticists), so he would have done 84 to one target, then 78 to the next, 72 to the one after that, 66 to the next one, etc... until he hit his 14th target or missed an attack roll against touch AC (Again, that's just the dice, not the static bonuses which might be in the +10 range?), so it's a fair amount of damage (300+ total damage to the first four targets alone). I'm not seeing 900 damage from it, though...
A real spell AoE would probably do a lot more damage against tightly packed opponents (an Intensified Consecrated Fireball would do 78 to every evil creature in the AoE) but the Chain Infusion lets you 'snake' the blast over a large area (each target only needs to be within 30' of the previous target, so the last victim could be up to 390' from the initial target) and completely avoid hitting allies.
With infusions in play, the 'maximized every other round' vs. 'normal attack every round' argument shifts slightly: If he is over 30' away from his initial target, he can't chain every round (Extended Range Infusion costs another 1 Burn, and Chaining uses up his entire Infusion Specialization bonus at 13th level. I'm guessing the math is:
- +2 Burn - Composite Blast
- +2 Burn - Maximize
- +3 Burn - Chain Infusion
- +1 Burn - Extended Range Infusion
- -3 Burn - Infusion Specialization
- -3 Burn - One Full Round of Supercharged Gather Energy
- -2 Burn - One Move Action of Supercharged Gather Energy
- =0 Burn - Final Cost of a Maximized Extended Range Chain Composite Blast every other round
So, the legality of Kane's kineticist comes down to the Supercharge / Gather Energy rules, and I have no idea how that is supposed to work.
On the topic of gathering uninterrupted, hopefully the kineticist is within 5' of cover (a hallway corner would be fine in most cases), so he can step behind cover to gather, then step out to actually attack, so the only real danger of the gathering being interrupted is if opponents readied an action to make a ranged attack when the kineticist steps out, which seems unlikely (assuming the rest of the party keeps those opponents from getting up close).
I mean I feel like arguing all the attacks added together in an AOE makes a big number is disingenuous, If that's the argument he's making.
Also taking the 4 round standard combat they're doing that once per combat before the mopping up round occurs. That doesn't sound overpowered, honestly I'm surprised the player isn't getting bored of doing literally nothing half the combat.
And wondering why people aren't interrupting him spending a turn gathering power.
I feel like this necro tangent shows that the real issue with the Kineticist is largely that it is somewhat mechanically intricate (which is the tradeoff for making "you can do stuff all day" not broken.)
The other thing to keep in mind if you do have players who are doing the "full round gather power" is-
If the kineticist takes damage during or after gathering power and before using the kinetic blast that releases it, she must succeed at a concentration check (DC = 10 + damage taken + effective spell level of her kinetic blast) or lose the energy in a wild surge that forces her to accept a number of points of burn equal to the number of points by which her gathered power would have reduced the burn cost.
So the full round gather power is *really* dangerous if anything you're up against can hit you where you're standing.
The kinetcists I have played with are not really the game breakers that I have played with. One problem is they can be quite feat starved. In pathfinder society I took gm credit for to level up to level 3 as I knew I would not have fun without precise shot as a dwarf geokineticist that hits normal AC.
Well all day earth climb can be fun when taking terrain into account to be able to shoot over my party without soft cover.
Lousy necromancers. bringing back year old threads.
The kinetcists I have played with are not really the game breakers that I have played with.
I believe Kineticists do break some very core assumptions in the Core Rulebook that are help causing problems with how people perceive the kineticist.
One basic example is Wings of Air
Wings of Air
Element air; Type utility (Sp); Level 3; Burn 0
Prerequisite air cushion or air's leap
The air bends to your will, allowing you to soar to great heights. You are constantly under the effects of fly. If this effect is dispelled, you can call it forth again as a standard action.
By my reading (and I'm no expert on kineticists) I can choose Wings of Air at level 4, which will give me a fly spell all day long (and dispel magic only costs me a standard action to undo). In comparison wizards can only get fly at level 5 (1 full level later than the kineticist) and it only lasts 5 minutes per casting. In order for a wizard to get full day flight, he will have to wait until level 9 (overland flight). Any challenge that relies on flight at level 4, will be circumvented at no meaningful cost to the kineticist by the kineticist, a full 5 levels earlier than the game otherwise ordinarily assumes.
That said, this doesn't mean the kineticist is overpowered. Only that it changes the default assumptions of the core game. If you're okay with all day flight being available at level 4 vs level 9 than you won't have a problem with this wild talent. But I can understand why many GMs do have an issue with it.
For the fact it gives the player many utility abilities at a significantly lower level than a PC would otherwise get, and the fact it's so fiddly, I'd probably disallow the kineticist. That said, I'm currently playing with one and do not feel overshadowed by the kineticist.
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Calling people names for commenting to old threads doesn't help the community, it drives poeple away from it. Worse, If said poster made a new thread everyone would be up in arms screaming "this has been discussed so much before".
It also comes with a uwt tax, of which the prerequisite air cushion or air leap is (almost) completely invalidated by Wings of Air. So it essentially costs those two uwts. Still well worth it for perma-fly though, and they probably could have pushed it to level 8 min, especially compared to the hydro kineticist that has to wait until level 12 min for air walk abilities. It would be interesting to see the design discussion for keeping it at level 6 min, especially since air also has a lot of other good utility.
I don't want to turn this into another caster-marital disparity thread, but some people do call those things suboptimal. They find in their games the rogue is worse than the wizard at stealth because invisibility is more effective than having stealth as a class skill. They find that a wizard is a lot better at getting around than the monk because the ability to fly beats jumping 20 feet. For their campaigns, the wizard's spells-per-day limitation isn't enough of a limit to balance those things out.Kineticists arent wizards. Just in the same way that rogues aren't wizards, and gunslingers aren't wizards.
Wizards are wizards.
A rogue could use his high level stealth to move around unnoticed, but we dont say this is suboptimal because you can cast "Invisibility".
A Monk could use his ki powers to Jump 20 feet in the air to reach a ledge, but we dont call him suboptimal because a wizard can cast levitate.
In my experience, most of the people complaining are running a 15 minute adventuring day.
On topic: The campaign I run includes a 13th level kineticist.
He is very useful and fulfills his role well, but he is far from broken.
- He deals respectable damage, but less than either the fighter or barbarian in the group.
- He has quirky special abilities that have saved the party on several occasions, but are useless the rest of the time.
- He can keep up with an extended adventuring day, but lacks the flexibility of either the party witch or the party arcanist.
...How does doing less damage than an archer does over two rounds every other round and having to beat SR to do it qualify as broken?
They're not broken, there are better ways to do damage, their are better ways to be the utility guy, they fall somewhere in the middle.
Actually, rethinking the Kane's post, it sounds like the Chain Infusion was also in play (as I said, not an expert on kineticists), so he would have done 84 to one target, then 78 to the next, 72 to the one after that, 66 to the next one, etc... until he hit his 14th target or missed an attack roll against touch AC (Again, that's just the dice, not the static bonuses which might be in the +10 range?), so it's a fair amount of damage (300+ total damage to the first four targets alone). I'm not seeing 900 damage from it, though...
A real spell AoE would probably do a lot more damage against tightly packed opponents (an Intensified Consecrated Fireball would do 78 to every evil creature in the AoE) but the Chain Infusion lets you 'snake' the blast over a large area (each target only needs to be within 30' of the previous target, so the last victim could be up to 390' from the initial target) and completely avoid hitting allies.
With infusions in play, the 'maximized every other round' vs. 'normal attack every round' argument shifts slightly: If he is over 30' away from his initial target, he can't chain every round (Extended Range Infusion costs another 1 Burn, and Chaining uses up his entire Infusion Specialization bonus at 13th level. I'm guessing the math is:
- +2 Burn - Composite Blast
- +2 Burn - Maximize
- +3 Burn - Chain Infusion
- +1 Burn - Extended Range Infusion
- -3 Burn - Infusion Specialization
- -3 Burn - One Full Round of Supercharged Gather
You have it exactly Taja. Chain Infusion, get burn back as a Move action State of Impossibility etc but zero burn with the archetype, maximized etc. Yes the class is a one trick pony and if facing ranged creatures can be at the mercy of concentration but when the attack is released the damage is huge. A wizard would get this perhaps once and done per day. This could be every round for 10 rounds while in a State of Impossibility unless I am missing something?? I admit I am No expert and I am having to learn this class in a crash course.
Yep, when bench-marked against a blaster-caster of the same level, kineticists come out poorer in comparison. They're very much a one-trick pony (ranged damage dealer) without the oodles of party utility that a caster also brings to the table.
At 13th level, a sorcerer that really wanted to focus on blasting could cast a Chain Lightning that does 13d6+39 damage to up to 13 targets. Unlike the kineticist, he does not need to make an attack roll to do this, and all thirteen targets must make a reflex save.
The ranges involved are more or less identical, but the Chain Lightning's damage doesn't decrease against the secondary targets, only its save DC (and even then only by -2, and a blaster sorc has VERY good save DCs) and it can hit more targets.
The Sorcerer can do this at LEAST six times a day, but probably more, and he doesn't have to spend one turn doing nothing and another turn not moving beyond a free five-foot step to do it. The only opportunity to interrupt the Sorcerer casting this spell is the very second he casts it.
The Kineticist's big move can do some damage, no doubting it, but this isn't something a caster of similar level could only do once a day.
I've actually made a character similar to this, early levels suck but yeah, at high levels blasting sorc with perfect spell chain lightning is the best AoE in the game and makes that Kineticist look weak.
Also he cast overland flight at the start of the day so that at will flight thing isn't impressing anyone.
I love Kineticists, but they aint that strong.
Wings of air requires level 6 to take (wild talents require their level x 2 to buy because intuitiveness is for squares I guess).
That does explain why "3" is a pre-requisite despite the fact you get no utility powers at level 3.
kenetisists are not over powered they are very under powered.....a blaster caster who is only doing 13d6+x per level isnt good at their job they should have at least +3cl to the spell they specialize in and be empowering that spell as well as empowering it so a sorc specialized in chain lightning would be doing 24d6+72 damage minimum at level 13 and damaging 16 targets minimum assuming there is a surplus of things to actually hit in the area
Someone's tolerance for kineticists will also depend on what optional rules they allow. I personally do not allow spell specialization in my game because (IMO) it boosts the power level of sorcerers and wizards (two of the most powerful classes in the game) even higher than they already are as per the default rules.
So for me it isn't a case where "a sorcerer whose only doing 13d6+x per level isn't good at their job". That could (depending on level) very well be the expected power level for my game. That will impact how weak/strong I perceive the kineticist to be.