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So seeing this thread about racial archetypes for geniekin kinda inspired me to do this. I feel like it might be a tiny bit OP, but the balance shouldn't be too difficult to tweak.
The source of kineticists' powers has been a mystery since the first of them manifested their abilities. It has been rumored that some are granted the blessings of beings from another plane, some may have been infused with their power upon crossing a weak point connecting the material plane to the elemental planes, some may simply have the power in their blood. There has been speculation that in some regions these powers have even manifested artificially, or been granted by true dragons. In the genie kineticist's case, the cause of one's power is still a mystery, but can be much more easily linked to the power of, predictably enough, genie-kin. These beings are closely linked to the elemental planes, so kinetic powers are a natural fit for them.
Requirements
The genie kineticist must be one of the following races:
Ifrit, Oread, Suli, Sylph, Undine
Suli may only qualify for this archetype if they have the energy strike racial feature. For all genie kineticist class features, they treat themselves as a race corresponding to the energy type chosen for energy strike (oread for acid, undine for cold, sylph for electricity, ifrit for fire).
Native Element
Genie kinesticists are connected strongly by their bloodline to their signature element. When a genie kineticist chooses their elemental focus, they must choose one that corresponds to their race's element (fire for ifrit, earth for oread, air for sylph, water for undine).
In addition, at 1st level, the genie elementalist gains the elemental strike and elemental fist feats as bonus feats. They do not need to meet the requirements for these feats. However, they may only use the elemental fist feat with an energy type corresponding to an element they have chosen as their native or expanded element (pyrokineticists may use fire, geokineticists may use acid, hydrokineticists may use cold, and aerokineticists may use electricity).
A genie kineticist may use their Constitution in place of their Wisdom for any feat for which elemental fist as a prerequisite, and may use a kinetic blast with elemental strike.
This ability replaces elemental focus and the basic utility and infusion wild talents learned at 1st level.
Elemental Lifeblood
Because geniekin utilize their own elemental energies to access their powers, it is more dangerous to do so. Damage taken from accepting burn is lethal rather than nonlethal. Damage incurred from burn cannot be prevented or reduced in any way, and the genie kineticist's hit points cannot be healed above their maximum hit points less the amount of damage incurred by burn. However, genie kineticists who have accepted burn may ignore or alter nonlethal damage. This works in all other ways like and counts as the burn class feature.
This alters burn.
Kinetic Magic
A genie kineticist may choose to learn spells linked to their elemental powers as spell-like abilities. In place of a utility talent, they may choose to learn a single spell from the elemental arcane school (as the wizard class feature) matching their race: ifrit choose spells from the fire school, oread choose from the earth school, sylph choose from the air school, and undine choose from the water school. In addition, a genie kineticist may choose to learn elemental mastery or draconic reservoir. They must be able to learn wild talents of the same level as the spell. Spells learned this way for which you may choose the descriptor may only be used for elements you have access to.
Any ability learned in this way uses the genie kineticist's class level as their caster level and uses the rules for a wild talent to determine its DC. To use any spell learned this way, the genie kineticist must accept 1 burn for every three spell levels (minimum 0).
This alters utility talents.
Elemental Loyalty
A genie kineticist's abilities are so in tune with their native elemental plane that they have difficulty branching out, but are able to use their native element with more proficiency than other kineticists. At 7th level, a genie kineticist must choose their primary element as their expanded element, gaining any additional kinetic blast talents as normal, and they get a +1 bonus to the DCs of wild talents of their native element. They gain their native element's basic utility wild talent as a bonus wild talent, but do not otherwise gain a bonus wild talent from taking the expanded element.
This alters the 7th level expanded element.
Geniekin Empowerment
Starting at 9th level, a genie kineticist may qualify for a style feat associated with their native element without meeting its prerequisites; ifrit qualify for efreeti style, oread qualify for shaitan style, sylph qualify for djinni style, and undine qualify for marid style. They also qualify for any feat for which elemental fist is a requirement, ignoring the requirements of the improved unarmed strike feat and Wisdom, and treats their BAB as equal to their genie kineticist level for the purpose of meeting the prerequisites. They may take these feats as bonus feats in place of learning the maximize, quicken, and twice metakinesis, but otherwise these feats must be learned as normal.
In addition, these feats may be used with a kinetic blast associated with its element as if the kinetic blast was an unarmed strike. Doing so requires the user to accept 1 burn as part of the cost of the blast, plus 1 additional burn for every 2 damage dice the blast deals. This counts as using both a substance and form infusion, and the cost may be reduced by infusion specialization. Metakinesis may not be applied to these feats.
Wishful Thinking
At 16th level, a genie kineticist may use limited wish (as the spell) as a spell-like ability once per day by accepting 3 points of burn, treating their caster level as their genie kineticist level -4. For the purpose of duplicating spells, treat any element among earth, air, water, and fire that you do not have access to as an opposition school.
In addition, at 20th level, a genie kineticist may use wish (as the spell) as a spell-like ability once per week by accepting 5 points of burn, treating their caster level as their genie kineticist level -4 and treating elements they do not have access to as if they were opposition schools for the purpose of duplicating spells.
This replaces composite specialization and omnikinesis.
FAQ
although at this point no questions have been asked, much less on a frequent basis- How exactly does the genie kineticist's burn work? Let's assume you have a 12th level genie kineticist with 100 hit points, and she accepts 1 point of burn. A baseline kineticist would incur 12 points of nonlethal damage. A genie kineticist, however, takes 12 points of lethal damage, and like all burn damage, you cannot reduce or prevent that damage through any means. Assuming this is her only burn, she can only be healed to a maximum of 88 hit points (which is her maximum of 100 minus the 12 from burn). If she takes a second point of burn, this is reduced to 66 hit points she can be healed up to. This damage is only healed when she has a full night's rest, at which point she can be healed back up to 100 hit points.
- Can I have a suli geokineticist learn flaming sphere in place of a utility talent if she's chosen fire for her 15th level expanded element? No. A suli geokineticist counts as an oread for the purposes of all class abilities, so she would only qualify to learn spells from the wizard's earth school. However, if she was to learn elemental aura, she could choose to use it as either acid or fire.
- How much burn do spells cost? It's one burn per three spell levels. That means cantrips and 1st-2nd level spells cost 0 burn, 3rd-5th level spells cost 1 burn, 6th-8th level spells cost 2 burn, and 9th level spells cost 3 burn.
- What happens when a suli chooses to learn elemental mastery? Since using a utility talent is still a kineticist class ability, they would be treated as the race matching their native element rather than as a suli. So, for example, a geokineticist suli would use elemental mastery as if she was an oread, only being able to grant herself the oread boon but also having the same duration as an oread rather than a suli's reduced duration.
- Would my sylph genie kineticist automatically get djinni style at 9th level? No. You only qualify for it without needing to meet its requirements. You would need to either take it as your 9th level feat or replace the maximize metakinesis to get it as a bonus feat (or you could take it later by replacing the quicken or twice metakinesis or by taking it as a feat at any later odd level, assuming nothing interferes with normal feat progression).
- If I'm using marid spirit, since I use my class level as my BAB, does that mean that at 15th level I'd get cold resistance 15 from it? No. Your BAB is only treated as equal to your class level for the purpose of qualifying for this feat. A 15th level genie kineticist (assuming no levels in another class) would have BAB +11, and thus would gain cold resistance 11. Similarly, the ice created by it would have 33 hit points and a break DC of 26, where a full BAB class or monk would give it 45 hit points and a break DC of 30.
- How exactly would something like shaitan earthblast work if I use it with a kinetic blast? You would be able to use the damage from earth blast and any blast for which earth is a requirement (such as metal, sandstorm, or mud) with shaitan earthblast in place of that of an unarmed strike. As such a geokineticist at 15th level would be dealing 8d6+8+Con of a type of their choice rather than their unarmed damage by using it with earth blast, or 16d8+16+Con of bludgeoning if they used it with mud blast (in addition to the damage added from elemental fist). However, in addition to the two uses of elemental fist she expends, she also needs to add 4 burn if it's used with earth blast, or 8 if it's used with a composite blast. Infusion specialization would reduce this, though, bringing the earth blast variant down to 0 burn, but requiring a total of 6 burn to use it with a composite.
- Can I use limited wish to have a geokineticist duplicate the sirocco spell? Normally, no. Since sirocco is in the air school (as per the wizard's arcane school class feature), it is limited to aerokineticists. If your geokineticist picked up air as her 15th level expanded element, however, then you'd be able to. You would be able to duplicate it with wish, however, regardless of whether you can use air, or you could duplicate any 5th level and under wizard spell or any 4th level and under spell at all.
- Shouldn't the geniekin empowerment class feature say it replaces maximize/quicken/twice metakinesis? No, because it doesn't necessarily do so. Granted, I don't believe there's any archetypes that could combine with this, but in the event there are, on that alters metakinesis could be taken with this archetype so long as the kineticist doesn't replace any of the metakinesis that the second archetype alters or replaces. Kinetic magic actually falls in the same category since one doesn't necessarily have to replace any of their utility talents with spells, so if your DM was to allow it you might be able to take an archetype that alters utility talents so long as you don't make use of kinetic magic.