Depends on party optimization. You might want to look into fire- lots of low-cost or free options. Use your buffer the night before to give yourself some free use of burn when needed.
Never want to accept burn? Normally I'd say use the Overwhelming Soul archetype.
But sounds like you want to be a dwarf and still benefit from ok Con but want to use feats like Diehard and Flagellant...Why would you want to be in the negative hit points range and still standing and be a viable target for GMs everywhere? Sure you can never take burn, but you'd lose out on elemental overflow which would really enhance the Constitution bonus, the biggest advantage of playing a dwarf kineticist. I'm playing a human pyrokineticist at level 10 in PFS and he's pretty much a tank (though with crappy AC). Currently sitting at a 26 Constitution thanks to +4 belt and elemental overflow. At level 11 it'll be a 30 Con with a +6 belt and upgraded overflow. Diehard would be an absolute waste of a feat cuz he hardly ever gets to negatives.
I vote play your dwarf kineticist (I assume it'll be a melee build for you wanting to "tank" and worrying about negative hit points and burn) with some armor proficiency feats to up the AC and be conservative with burn (like EVERY kineticist does when actually played after all the over-worrying theorycrafting is over). Before level 6 you'll probably be tempted to up the flesh of stone defense talent for more DR with burn. By level 6, it's gonna be damn tempting to increase 2 physical stats with +2 size bonuses for a measly 3 burn.
The kineticist doesn't work super well without burn.
Burn is it's bonus damage and accuracy source.
The "solution" for burnless is The CHA archetype, but that's worse for you.
Be the tank but take burn and just not take diehard or flagellant, I've seen many tanks without either of those.
You might want to consider using Elemental Annihilator (you can't use any burn-dependent utility anyway). I gives you some higher attack bonus options for if you're up against something you have trouble hitting.
Don't take overwhelming soul (Just in general, but it's an even worse choice if you're a Dwarf.) It's better to just mitigate burn through the three class features that exist to reduce burn costs and assume burn when you really need to (or to buff your defenses at the start of the day).
I personally think that the incompatibility of burn and flagellant is mostly to prevent a raft of Kineticists who worship Zon-Kuthon, than anything else (to avoid repeating the problem with Potion Glutton). But as it stands, "being able to take burn" is better than what Flagellant gives you IMO.
Think of it this way, you're an earth kineticist, you have a really good defensive talent (it gets even better if you expand into water or aether and take their defense). What's going to make you tankier over the course of a day? Adding DR by taking burn (thus powering up your elemental overflow) or just having that HP? Until 9th level that 1-2 points of burn is going to top off your overflow, and is 1-2 DR extra going to save you more damage than 1-2*level nonlethal costs you? The Kineticist is a con-based "caster" with some really good defensive options, I think you can skip endurance and flagellant and still be pretty tanky.
Everyone is concerned with burn when they first look at the kineticist, but in practice it's really not that bad.
thing is that a kineticist only needs 2 stats for combat, dex and con. I feel an average con for people is 14. As a kineticist, 18 to start. Plus you'll be boosting it more than others, you get size bonuses to it and a belt of it ups your damage.
So a d8+4 = d10+3
so if you take 1 point of burn you're HP is the same as a normal D10 fighter. If you take 2 points you are now the same as the average D8 class, but you don't worry about dying when you're low. If you take 3 points at lv6 you get a +2 size to 2 stats, so putting that into con negates the burn you used to get it, so you're getting "free" accuracy and damage from the dex and con, AND a chance to negate crits from spending that burn. So lv6 starting with an 18 con you're effective HP is the same as other D8 classes.
For AC you want mithral chain, as that will let you make the most of your good DEX and have you're AC be high. Also you can wear a buckler for Shield AC. I feel you never lose that AC, but some think you'd lose it when you gather energy for some reason.
Then there's what you spend your burn on. If you use it to power up your defense you'll have dr 6 at lv6 in addition to all listed above.
Never take Flagellant on a Kineticist, it stops working if you have a point of burn.
A kineticist who has accepted burn never benefits from abilities that allow her to ignore or alter the effects she receives from nonlethal damage.
That why he was asking about a build that never uses burn to be able to benefit from it.
|
Yeah, I don't see being able to play the class to its fullest without being willing to take some burn. Personally, I'd just bite the bullet here unless you're willing to go Overwhelming Soul, even with the problems that has. Diehard isn't worth missing out on the accuracy and damage boost innate to the class.
How feasible is it to run a Dwarf Kineticist that never wants to take Burn damage?
I ask because I want to make a tanky character based on an Dwarf Earth Kineticist, but I still want to be able to utilize thinks like Diehard and/or Flagellant. But Burn makes them useless.
Does refusing to take Burn neuter the class too hard to make it worthwhile?
I have a ranged person in my party that currently does this. Precise Shot is a pretty important feat and positioning is important (to avoid the -4 for teammates providing soft cover to the enemy) for your build. Wes currently does slightly more damage than my archer.
some people say you can't gain the buckler's AC if you gather energy. I don't know why they think that, but with that idea getting a shield bonus that is always on is better. Plus with the mithral chain and the high dex you're already at ac 10, you can add a +1 to make it 11 for a total of 2400, while mithral breastplate would give you 11 ac for 3500 and you'd need to spend a feat for it. This is why I feel you shouldn't worry about trying to get heavier armor, you're already max or be close to max the DEX of the light armors.
*If anyone can explain why you'd lose buckler AC that'd be great for me.
The problem with avoiding burn entirely is that elemental overblow is not only the class's boost mechanics...it also doubles as your replacement for enchanted weapons.
The stat boosts are the 'rage mechanic' stand in, and the direct application to attack/damage is the fake enhancement bonus.
Now, the question is not 'can I avoid burn entirely?'- it is 'how much can I avoid it?'
My advice- by around level 6, you probably want about 3 burn all the time. How does that feel? Well, if you have 18 CON, you feel like a 14 CON character. 2 burn points counteract 4 CON, and elemental overflow gives you +2 CON is canceled out by the 3rd burn point. So overall- you feel average. But you can build from 'average' hp to 'great, since you can grab favored class bonuses, toughness, and obviously a +CON belt.
And you can also feel tanky because of what you spend those 3 burn on. For earth and water users, they can dump that immediately into their defenses without a care in the world- they get DR or AC, which makes them less likely to lose HP.
But if you want to keep high effective HP, maybe take an aether user. If you dump 2 points of burn into its defense, you get 1 temp HP per hit dice. As in: when using burn for aether defense, the effective hp cut is reduced to half. That way, with 3 burn, you basically feel little to no damage. Due to the con boost and the temp HP you get, you feel like you only took 1/2 con worth of damage, leaving you with more effective HP than a 16 CON character under this scenario.
Raiziel... in regards to Celestial Armor... It states in the description that it is light armor. There does not need to be anything about proficiency at all. It simply is Light Armor. Hopefully that helps!
This +3 chainmail is so fine and light that it can be worn under normal clothing without betraying its presence. It has a maximum Dexterity bonus of +8, an armor check penalty of –2, and an arcane spell failure chance of 15%. It is considered light armor and allows the wearer to use fly on command (as the spell) once per day.
That's because mithral itself doesn't change the armour type or proficiency, just that its treated as one category lighter for movement and other limitations. For example mithral breastplate counts for armour expert trait because it's still medium armour and also can't qualify for light armour only enhancements, like brawling.
Stuff like eleven chain or celestial armour specifically state they're light armour and so don't need medium armour proficiency.
I think you're better off focusing on what infusions and utility wild talents you'd pick at which levels at this point and pick your feats after that. Those are gonna affect your survivability and general sense of fun more than any of your feats beyond toughness and AC. I still can't tell what if you're gonna be melee focused or not from your comments, and if so, combat reflexes by level 7 or so is probably gonna be the most important feat investment with kinetic whip.
I agree with Protoman. There's really only 3 feats that are a requirement for the kineticist (though depends really on the build); Point-Blank Shot (prereq only), Precise Shot, and Weapon Finesse. Those three feats will allow you to be the ultimate Switch-hitter. Toughness is always a bonus to bring up your allowable Burn. Power Attack is an obvious feat for a melee attacker.
If you were human then I would suggest Tribal Scars. That's a really nice feat for kineticists.
*EDIT*
Since you want to pretty much stick to melee, then I would suggest the following:
1st - Weapon Finesse
3rd - Toughness
5th - Power Attack
That combo looks pretty good, just remember to really keep an eye on how much non-lethal damage you're taking as it will affect your Burn capabilities.
Shame the Annihilator gives up all utility talents, since the alternative for carrying stuff is to expand into aether and just put all your stuff on a sled or in a crate and carry it around with your mind. Just put the crate down when you need to concentrate on other stuff.
Telekinetic Haul is at least the most amusing way of dealing with encumbrance in terms of the mental image it evokes. You can fill the remaining capacity of your telekinetic haul with anvils in case you run out of other stuff to throw at people.
If I'm going to be fairly melee-focused, would Annihilator be recommended? I know that it gives up utilities, and that can be a major hindrance to the flexibility of the class, but I do want to be a potent enough threat to draw attention.
Are there any utilities that I should be interested in that add to the toughness/survivsbility of the character? Or would giving up random utilities for some more offensive capabilities be recommended?
To answer that question, look at what utility wild talents you might want. If that list has a number of items greater than 3, you'd probably wanna skip the archetype. Regular kineticists do fine with damage (even the energy-based blasts) that they earn the ire of players and GMs alike when they don't know enough of the class to know how hard you're working to avoid over-accumulation of burn and the action economy you're working to ensure decent damage (gather enery + metakinesis).
The biggest utility you give up with Elemental Annihilator is expanded defense, which allows you to take the defensive talent of the elements you expand into, which is key if you want to be a maximally tanky kineticist (a level 20 earth/aether/water kineticist would have DR20/adamantium, a regenerating ablative pool of 20 temporary HP, and a +6 shield bonus to AC).
You can be plenty damaging as a vanilla melee focused kineticist just with an AoO build as soon as you can use Kinetic Whip without taking burn. Just get weapon finesse, combat reflexes, have a high dex, and get that burn cost to 0 so you can stand in the middle of things and make unusually damaging AoOs. I personally wouldn't give up extra defenses, at-will invisibility, a levitating crate of anvils, hover as a free action, expanding in size to increase the reach of your kinetic whip, the ability to take a 5' step into the ground to gather power safely, etc. for d8s instead of d6s.
I found that for the levels I'll play at 1-12, and planning on going earth for my secondary for the talent and the metal infusion, there wasn't much of a reason NOT to be an Annihilator.
if going air yes, Annihilator probably not worth. Earth, which is what he OP is planning on, depends if you're going to branch out at lv7 or stay single. If you stay single I feel that Earth doesn't have much lvs 1-12 that you'd care to lose.
If you're going mono-earth, the first really nice utility comes at level 8 with shift earth, but that's not useful in combat (though it's really useful if you're creative), but earth glide at level 10 is quite fun. It's not like tremorsense or earth climb are bad either. Earth though is a stronger combat element than utility.
So Annihilator is a fine choice, but keep in mind that the Kineticist is already of somewhat limited utility out of combat (you're a class that doesn't feature INT or CHA and you have a good set of class skills, just not a broad set of class skills), and the Annihilator is even more limited. This might or might not be a problem depending on your group.
A light load for you is 12 lbs. How do you deal with that?Hehe, very very carefully! Pathfinder pouch instead of handy haversack, because the haversack is too heavy. Mithril chain shirt 6.25lbs, peasant's outfit .25lbs, belt of constitution 1lbs, cloak of resistance 1 lbs, corset of vishkanya 1lbs = 10.5 lbs. rings are negligible, as are ioun stones. my wands, maps, and any tool are in the pouch.
I like having something like this define my character though. Needing to be very careful about something most people take for granted.
As someone who has both GM'd for and played with this character, one of my favorite things to hear is "This letter is too heavy, someone else needs to carry it."
I just pictured the character being crushed to death by a blanket when they try to sleep at night :D
It's ok, he'd just Power Attack it with a dirt tuna.
One level on Indominable Fighter will get you both Endurance and Diehard and Medium Armor Proficiency. Plus d10 hit dice, a quick BaB bump, and +2 Fort. Not bad if you want Stalwart online easier.
Just remember Power Attcak, Deadly Aim, and Pirahna Strike don't work with touch attacks if you decided to expand out.