| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, I had seen people talking about the Kineticist here on the boards, and it was always about the burn. Did some uber high level reading on the class, basically saw "Spellcaster that takes damage to power up their spells" and tossed it aside without a further glance.
Other day I was at the book store with a friend that, ahem, did terrible things to the bathroom which made me feel obliged to buy something, and saw Occult Adventures and decided to pick it up.
Got it home, started reading, and holy cow. Kineticist is a Last Avatar style bender/elemental super hero class. Heck, a Terra (Teen Titans)/Earth Bender geomancer has long been one of my "Can I make this?" barometer builds on how good a mechanics set was, and here it is specifically built out as a single class sub-option.
We've got Last Avatar monk style benders in here, we've got Iceman/Human Torch style superheroes, and they actually power up more the more burn damage they take.
So much better than I thought it was, so yeah. I feel I owe an apology to everybody that gushed over the Kineticist that I silently derided in my ignorance. It really is all that and a bag of chips.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For my part, I love the idea of the Kineticist but hated the execution. As a melee character, kinetic blade/whip + Kinetic form is pretty awesome, but as ranged characters they seem pretty awful. The big issue I have is their lack of versatility outside of combat, and that you can really only have one element at a time. An elementalist should be able to choose powers from any element right from the beginning instead of just one. That would actually make them worth playing.
Also, I intensely dislike how restrictive the advancement process is: choose an infusion on odd levels and a utility on even levels. Advancement should be "choose a power every level". The vast majority of Kineticist powers are pure awful, it would have helped mitigate that awfulness if we had more freedom to choose the ones that aren't bad. Just my opinion though, there are definitely plenty of Kineticist fans out there.
Fire and water can fly too. Admittedly, they aren't really stealthy. Fire has jets that work like the aether skill, and water gets air walk but with Iceman style ice ramps.
Many of the elements have abilities useful outside of combat, although it is usually only a couple per element. Aether is the king in that regard. Earth can climb, earthglide, and even stone shape so dungeons are their play things (oh, and they have limited tremor sense- still useful for spotting an ambush if done methodically). All kineticists actually have the ability to get stupid speed with 'ride the blast' (since that can be 480' per round, and they still ahve a move action).
Ranged damage... not the greatest, but not terrible. Lacks multiple stat/damage boosters, but has a lot going on and can be done as a standrd action (ie- can be done on the move). Could have used something like the blade, or maybe even the elemental annihilator's "it is now just archery". Heck, even letting the first vital strike feat would have even things up
I would complain less if they hadn't locked the powers away in an odd manner, and if they made it easier to access the midlevel powers that are your mainstay. Waiting to get Foe Throw until level seven, or level 9 if you go multiple elements is just punishing, and really discourages taking a second element. They really need to reward single element Kineticists more, and have more options for powers. When your kineticist has only three or four options at a given level, and only one of those is clearly the right pick, it just feels like underwhelming design.
"Going multiple elements is punishing"
"They need to reward single element kineticists more"Um ... that's how the class rewards single element kineticists, dude. You get the higher-level abilities in place of lower-level secondary element abilities.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, I had seen people talking about the Kineticist here on the boards, and it was always about the burn. Did some uber high level reading on the class, basically saw "Spellcaster that takes damage to power up their spells" and tossed it aside without a further glance.
Other day I was at the book store with a friend that, ahem, did terrible things to the bathroom which made me feel obliged to buy something, and saw Occult Adventures and decided to pick it up.
Got it home, started reading, and holy cow. Kineticist is a Last Avatar style bender/elemental super hero class. Heck, a Terra (Teen Titans)/Earth Bender geomancer has long been one of my "Can I make this?" barometer builds on how good a mechanics set was, and here it is specifically built out as a single class sub-option.
We've got Last Avatar monk style benders in here, we've got Iceman/Human Torch style superheroes, and they actually power up more the more burn damage they take.
So much better than I thought it was, so yeah. I feel I owe an apology to everybody that gushed over the Kineticist that I silently derided in my ignorance. It really is all that and a bag of chips.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the class. With a few more books of rule support, and it will really come into its own I think.
Burn is totally manageable, since it's a Constitution-based "caster." Still, be sure to get as many hit points as you can. If you have a high Constitution, take Toughness, put your favored class bonus into hit points, and retrain your hit points to max out all your rolls, then you will have more hit points then the party barbarians/tanks even after you've maxed out your elemental overflow with burn.
Is the Kineticist really that bad?
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Not at all. I'm having a blast(hehe) playing mine.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"Going multiple elements is punishing"
"They need to reward single element kineticists more"Um ... that's how the class rewards single element kineticists, dude. You get the higher-level abilities in place of lower-level secondary element abilities.
I think my issue is that this doesn't feel like it's rewarding enough. For just about every element, their 3rd level infusion (aside from foe throw and MAYBE kinetic whip) isn't worth the investment, and the -2 level thing ends up making lower level talents far more important in the design space of 'what secondary will I pick?' One additional infusion/utility wild talent (and maybe a better composite in metal/blue flame blast) in place of an entirely new element as well as the possibility of getting a new elemental defense, a new basic blast (including possibly a new type of attack in touch or normal AC), and a composite and a new basic utility wild talent is not a good enough trade off in my opinion.
The only issue with that is the absolutely linear decision process for most elements. Like void HAS to select 'skilled kineticist', which while I admit void didn't have a lot of room to grow isn't the best situation to be in for something that's to be considered a fully fledged element. I thought OO should have only had 1 new element (wood as it stands is a mistake), but QSS.
I think lack of content is seriously the biggest thing holding the class back. As it's obviously compared to the 3.5 warlock, the previous class didn't have elements, so there wasn't restrictions on what invocations/wild talents could be selected, so while the initial offering of utility talents by the kineticist was probably about equal to the 3.5 warlock, locking them into 5/7 elements makes it feel like it has WAY less choice than the warlock, who could select whichever invocation they wanted while only needing prereqs. Due to the elemental limiting, while there may be tons of talents, most of them are locked off from you, and the expanded element only serves to lock off even more due to the -2 level stipulation. Even the feat needed to take more has the same -2 level issue, making the lower level wild talents that much more important, which is a problem when there's so few lower level talents.
I like this class, I think that's probably pretty obvious to anyone who knows of me. But with how much I learned and worked with this class, I know where the issues lie. Personal errata on my part would involve both the extra wild talent feat and expanded element only giving -1 level instead of -2 to help open up the talent list a bit and make it feel less limited. Well that, and wait for new content, but seeing as the last hardcover we received had only 5 (pretty solid) wild talents, it feels like it's going to be a slow road waiting for more content to make its way out to us.
But aside from that and some other minor gripes, I think the class is aces, I don't mind burn that much, and everything else has a fun flow to it. If you are looking to learn more, check out my guide to the kineticist, which also has links to Alexander Augunas's post for beginners and intermediate players of the class, both of which are very helpful.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Unlike you Edymnion, I can't get over my dislike of burn. My wizard doesn't have to get 'dumber' by trading skill ranks to power up so why does my Kineticist have to punch themselves in the face?
If there was a non-burn option that wasn't just awful, I think I'd like the class. Since there isn't though, Kineticists are still on my no play list.
Ravingdork "Burn is totally manageable": Oh, I'm sure it is given the number of people that seem to be enjoying the class. It's not the kind of optimization that I enjoy though.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Heck, back in Dragonlance Raistlin got more and more tired with each casting of his spells. There is a precedent for it.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I get that you don't like treating hp like a resource pool, but you don't *have* to take burn if you really don't want to.
That's like saying a fighter doesn't have to use magic weapons or armor. In practice neither is true in the average game.
Heck, back in Dragonlance Raistlin got more and more tired with each casting of his spells. There is a precedent for it.
I refuse to accept anything related to kenders as proof of intelligent/sane design practices...
I just had a player with kineticist in the campaign I am running.
It was the first time any of us saw it in action.
Unfortunately, the player running it didn't do the class any favors... Between never really seeming to understand the intricacies of how his own class worked, rarely being clear on weather he was doing a regular AC blast or a Touch AC blast until after rolling his die (come on man!), and constantly reminding people that "Whatever. That last hit didn't do any real damage to me due to my force ward", most of the table just found the class to be annoying...
hmm.. in retrospect, it's possible we all just found the player to be annoying.... I guess I should have someone else play the class before I pass final judgement.
Unlike N. Jolly, I can't imagine mixing elements, since it seems to me you give up far too much over staying with a single element.
I wonder if our differing views is an indication of balance?
Mark seems to design using "balance through sufficiently conflicted opinions".
|
|
Unlike N. Jolly, I can't imagine mixing elements, since it seems to me you give up far too much over staying with a single element.
I wonder if our differing views is an indication of balance?
I would be fine with mono elemental builds if there was enough choice to make them unique, but there isn't. There's a straight line on talent choice with slight detours for universal talents. Most of them are okay at best (blast get way better universals than utility, which mostly gets ride the blast and kinetic form), so the stifling feel of going mono elemental feels far too limiting to me.
More content will make for a better class, but as far as things are now, mixed elemental at least gives a hint more uniqueness to builds, even if it's limited by the -2 level issue.
What -2 level issue?
I am actually a rather large fan of the Kineticist. I find them to fill the nuker role in a party just fine, with the caveat that you have to have at least a plan to deal with resistances/DR (depending on the type of energy you throw about). You can go single element, but I would recommend that if you are doing that you pick a physical blast as opposed to a energy blast, as they will be dealing with DR, which doesn't tend to go higher than 15.
Unlike you Edymnion, I can't get over my dislike of burn. My wizard doesn't have to get 'dumber' by trading skill ranks to power up so why does my Kineticist have to punch themselves in the face?
If there was a non-burn option that wasn't just awful, I think I'd like the class. Since there isn't though, Kineticists are still on my no play list.
Ravingdork "Burn is totally manageable": Oh, I'm sure it is given the number of people that seem to be enjoying the class. It's not the kind of optimization that I enjoy though.
I'm in the same boat with you. The kineticist could have been my absolute favorite class - elemental blasting is generally my favorite thing to do in a game - but even though I can deal with burn, I really do not want to, which makes the class go from "must play" to "bottom ranking" for me. Alas.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks to the OP for giving it a try, and I'm really glad you're enjoying!
As to Extra Wild Talent, I'm not in favor of feat taxes. When the data indicated that the kineticist needed to learn more wild talents from the playtest, as I suspected, I could have kicked up Extra Wild Talent to any wild talent and forced kineticists to acquire the needed talents by taking it. That's what some people asked for to fix the concern, since there wasn't another obvious option on the table, and other than being a big feat tax for every kineticist, it would have worked fine. But instead I decided to get the OK to just more-or-less double the wild talents known without spending any feats, with a similar result to spending everything on full level Extra Wild Talent with the playtest version, because if you need more stuff, you should just get what you need for free, and Extra should be a true extra, picking up the power you left behind at early levels because you feel like it, not picking up a top tier power that you need because you don't get enough of them. This way, you're not locked into a (optimization guide color code) "deep blue" cookie cutter feat loop like witches and alchemists and instead have a variety of feats to suit your concept, even some longer chains like Eldritch Heritage if you can meet the prereqs, available for diversification. I've been watching a lot of times that a new player asks "Is there a feat build I have to take for my kineticist" and time and people are usually advising "You only need a few feats and afterwards you have lots of feats to spare, so find a flavorful feat chain that you like and go for it," and I'm happy each time I hear it (so if you're one of the people who made that kind of suggestion, thanks!).
The design team definitely seems to be leaning away from Extra X feats after all the others being so good they are often seen as feat taxes.
|
"Going multiple elements is punishing"
"They need to reward single element kineticists more"Um ... that's how the class rewards single element kineticists, dude. You get the higher-level abilities in place of lower-level secondary element abilities.
In my time toying with the class and some builds, I find level 7 to be the hardest pill to swallow, no matter how you go. A fair number of Kineticists get a useful and Iconic infusiuon at that level. (Foe Throw for Aether, Eruption for Fire, and Kinetic Whip for melee) However, as N.Jolly explained, you're missing out on the chance at giving your portfolio some much needed diversity. Nevermind that delaying that infusion to level 4 leads to some stunted save DCs.
Every time I play around with a Kineticist concept that isn't pure fire, level 7 gives me more trouble than the rest of the build combined.
wood as it stands is a mistake
Wood is a fantastic element when you realize its shining moment: a fire-and-forget Expanded Element for energy using Water Kineticists who want to be able to take Expanded Defense and have 2 burn sponges that free up magic item slots as well as a Physical/Energy combination of blasts. I'd even rate it above the classic Earth+Aether (or Aether+Earth) in terms of the return for your investment.
While 'I don't like burn' is a valid opinion, I wonder whether it will become less prominent over the coming years. Oracle first might have frightened away a lot of people (well, at least me) with her curse, but nowadays it seems to be an accepted class feature. So with more reports of actual kineticist play, more guidelines and new mechanics burn might become much more accepted.
See, here's the problem.
You did exactly what you wanted to avoid. Especially with Aether. You created a class with a lot of "options" but not a lot of options, if you follow my meaning. And now, we have a class that makes me want to do the exact opposite of what you hoped for. Why would I take a second element when I lose out on a wild talent? When I'm already strapped for good talents? And there's no way to make up my loss until level 9 or level 11? What would possibly possess me to take some of these wild talents? I mean, Skilled Kineticist? Really? We're really going to waste one of our already limited talents on that?
If you took Extra Wild Talent, removed the utterly pointless level penalty, and instead just limited the number of times it could be taken, there might actually be a reason to take it. As it is, it's the most useless Extra Class Feature feat ever printed. So I guess you got what you wanted there, it's certainly not competing with anything else for your feat slots.
Honestly, the biggest problem I have here is that I actually like this class. I really like it, and I want it to be good. And it's really... Not. Anything that's good about it is in spite of everything you've done to it, not because of it. The choices you've made have limited options, shrunk the pool of choices, and left folks with a tiny pool of actual talents worth taking.
Hell, add some new talents. Add talents only accessible by multi-element Kineticists. Fix Extra Wild Talent. Just give us more options in general, so there's not one correct talent to take at any given level. Figure it out, because this could be a great class, but as it is it's actually pretty punishingly monobuild, and that's because of choices that you made. Choices that you made, that created the exact problem you were trying to avoid.
As more and more talents get published(please, Mark, make more) Extra Wild Talent will get stronger. I recently made a build progression for a Kineticist using Kineticists of Porphyra 1 & 2 and took Extra Wild Talent so many times I had only three feels left to pick over twenty levels. Weapon Finesse, Dodge, and Leadership. Every single feat besides those three was Extra Wild Talent. Luckily the -2 is only for what you can pick and doesn't apply to things like caster level or DC of the wild talent picked.
Here's the thing about burn: You don't use it that often (at least I don't). Between gather power and infusion specialization, my 13th level PSF aether/void kineticist flat out doesn't use burn (other than the burn used to boost my defensive talents/max out elemental overflow).
|
As more and more talents get published(please, Mark, make more) Extra Wild Talent will get stronger. I recently made a build progression for a Kineticist...That's great for you, but third party solutions are no solution for those of us who play PFS. If it's going to be fixed, it needs to be Mark doing the fixing.
There are people doing just fine in PFS, thank you.
Everyone would like more options, but those take time and paper. Luckily, Mark isn't the only person who can work on them. Maybe you should lobby Owen for an Expanded Elements Player Companion.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As to Extra Wild Talent, I'm not in favor of feat taxes. When the data indicated that the kineticist needed to learn more wild talents from the playtest, as I suspected, I could have kicked up Extra Wild Talent and forced kineticists to acquire the needed talents by taking it. That's what some people asked for to fix the concern, since there wasn't another obvious option on the table, and other than being a big feat tax for every kineticist, it would have worked fine. But instead I decided to get the OK to just more-or-less double the wild talents known without spending any feats, with a similar result to spending everything on full level Extra Wild Talent with the playtest version, because if you need more stuff, you should just get what you need for free, and Extra should be a true extra, picking up the power you left behind at early levels because you feel like it, not picking up a top tier power that you need because you don't get enough of them.
I think my only big issue here is -2 level was too much for me. If it had been -1, I don't think I would have had as much of an issue. I mean I saw Azten's build (which I plan on getting back to you on once I clear out some stuff), and yeah, it took EWT a ton because...well, I've said this in other threads, and I'll say it here: The reason 'extra x' feats are considered so good are because class abilities > feats, that's just how it is. Rage powers, discoveries, wild talents, all of them are better than feats, so something that lets you take a stronger option with a weaker one (like the weapon training rogue talent) is always going to be an up swing. I think polling people and seeing what they think of Extra Wild Talent would be a good idea, it'd be nice to feel like an errata was decided upon by direct conversation with a developer rather than being told "this is what we heard you wanted" like with some things.
You've seen my guide and seen me talk about it, I agree that the kineticist is very free to pick its own feats. I both do an don't like this. I do like it because as you said, it gives it a lot of freedom in feat choice. I don't like it because it makes the class lack direction in that respect. Overall I'd say it's a good thing, but there is problems there.
While we're talking, can I ask why utility wild talent DCs don't scale with level like infusions (and just about every other ability like this), as it makes certain talents have a hard expiration date. Like Slick past level 5 or so becomes not worth the effort, while hexes/discoveries/etc continue to scale.
Wood is a fantastic element when you realize its shining moment: a fire-and-forget Expanded Element for energy using Water Kineticists who want to be able to take Expanded Defense and have 2 burn sponges that free up magic item slots as well as a Physical/Energy combination of blasts. I'd even rate it above the classic Earth+Aether (or Aether+Earth) in terms of the return for your investment.
I don't like the idea of doing that with a bonus that's really just a magic item away. Both Aether and Earth's defenses can't be bought, making Wood weak in that respect and VERY weak in its talent list.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That's great for you, but third party solutions are no solution for those of us who play PFS. If it's going to be fixed, it needs to be Mark doing the fixing.
Way to miss my point entirely.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks to the OP for giving it a try, and I'm really glad you're enjoying!
As to Extra Wild Talent, I'm not in favor of feat taxes. When the data indicated that the kineticist needed to learn more wild talents from the playtest, as I suspected, I could have kicked up Extra Wild Talent and forced kineticists to acquire the needed talents by taking it. That's what some people asked for to fix the concern, since there wasn't another obvious option on the table, and other than being a big feat tax for every kineticist, it would have worked fine. But instead I decided to get the OK to just more-or-less double the wild talents known without spending any feats, with a similar result to spending everything on full level Extra Wild Talent with the playtest version, because if you need more stuff, you should just get what you need for free, and Extra should be a true extra, picking up the power you left behind at early levels because you feel like it, not picking up a top tier power that you need because you don't get enough of them. This way, you're not locked into a (optimization guide color code) "deep blue" cookie cutter feat loop like witches and alchemists and instead have a variety of feats to suit your concept, even some longer chains like Eldritch Heritage if you can meet the prereqs, available for diversification. I've been watching a lot of times that a new player asks "Is there a feat build I have to take for my kineticist" and time and people are usually advising "You only need a few feats and afterwards you have lots of feats to spare, so find a flavorful feat chain that you like and go for it," and I'm happy each time I hear it (so if you're one of the people who made that kind of suggestion, thanks!).
This...greatly confuses me.
A Feat being good does not make it a Feat tax. Exactly the opposite, in fact.It makes it a good Feat, which are in sadly short supply in this game.
Witches and Alchemists and Barbarians don't take Extra Hex/Discovery/Rage Power because they HAVE to, they take it because, shockingly, they like their class abilities, the thing the entire class is based around, and want MORE of them.
You were correct in the "problem" (Kineticists don't qualify for or benefit from the vast majority of good Feats) but somehow took a left turn in the execution by turning a good Feat into a bad one. Leaving a Kineticist with LESS choice, not more.
Being able to take Feats you don't need, but are nice, is neat and all, but that ancillary benefit doesn't really wipe the "I can only do that because I don't NEED any Feats because 90% of them are useless to me".
"Extra" is Extra no matter what, so long as it is on top of your already existing number of whatever you have. Whether it is a top tier ability or lower one is irrelevant to how extra it is...all limiting the level of ability you can take does is reduce the VALUE of the ability, not change its base concept.
As-is taking a lower level ability is almost never worth it...mostly because you probably already HAVE almost all of them. All of the good ones, anyway.
Most Kineticists, as mentioned, look pretty much the same. They're largely limited in their abilities by their element, and besides some weird ones made entirely because their player was bored ("Well I don't have any Feats to take so I guess I'll take Magical Tail 9 times..."), most Feat choices will look the same as well. Toughness, Dodge, Blind-Fight...mostly boring static bonuses, in other words, because almost none of the active Feats work for the Kinetic Blast.
Every time I go to make a Kineticist I think "What can I do to make combat fun with this class?"
First I look at the Talents...but most of them don't significantly change your playstyle. Partly because the idea of taking incurable damage*level every time I want to do something as simple as blind somebody for the majority of levels is unappealing (and partly partly there because many effects of Infusions can be done for free with say Dirty Trick in the previous example), and partly because I'm missing out on some of the great stuff a normal martial can do now.
For example, Ace Trip now makes Bowling Infusion sad in the pants. I thought "Okay, so let's just take Ranged Trip and Ace trip!".
But, no, for some reason Ranged Trip is limited to a Full-Round action while a Blast takes a standard, so no go.
That same process occurred for quite a few other interesting Feats.
In essence, there are many many many many MANY more things you CAN'T do with a Kineticist than there are things you CAN, while there is only really one thing a Kineticist CAN do that other classes CAN'T (toss large amounts of elemental damage all day). The trade-off is...not worth it, IMO.
Anyway, I think I've rambled on long enough at this point.
TL;DR: The class just frustrates me. I DESPERATELY want to like it, but it's so flawed and more importantly LIMITED that I can't.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Honestly I don't mind Burn, I actually like that mechanic and think it's cool thematically as well. My issue with the class is the complete lack of utility. Yes, Earth Kineticists get Earth Glide and Stone Shape,but they get them really late (10th lvl and later), later than casters get the equivalent spells. And unlike the equivalent spells, most of the decent Kineticist powers (and there are very few of those) require you to take awful pre-requisite powers first.
I totally understand that the developers were inspired by Avatar the Last Airbender, and I love that show as well, but I think the Kineticist class really suffered by sticking too close to that show. As elementalists, Kineticists should be unparalleled in their mastery over all the classic elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), not just one element. Currently, Elemental bloodline Sorcerers and Elemental school Wizards are far better elementalists than the Kineticist is. As it stands, Kineticists are just decent melee fighters and sub-par blasters with few useful non combat abilities.
I actually really like Skilled Kineticist. True, it sucks in terms of the power of a build, but it's a bonus that gets to be fairly heavy. Basically you are buying about a skill rank per level. That's decent enough even if most builds don't want it at all.
I really want to like the kineticist. I'm even a fan of the burn mechanic in principle. But when I look at the talent lists they just look really sparse. The layout on the Archive of Nethys makes this starkly visible.
For many of the elements, some levels have between 0 and 1 choices for either infusions of utility talents; and that's if you count all the talents that are sort of traps.
I think that each decision point in a class should have at least 3 good options if you want this to be a primary point of differentiation for builds. Thinking about this, I think this is why the 3.5 warlock had the least/lesser/greater/greatest invocation division instead of levels. Since its harder to make up tons of new invocations having fewer groupings let you keep the power of the invocations less granular and made it easier to fill each group.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The problem with number of Kineticist Talents at any particular level was inevitable guys. Complaining about it is like complaining about getting wet when you go out in the rain.
Kineticist has by far (about 10 pages, I believe) the longest Class Description of any Class ever written by Paizo (and is more like 20 pages longer than most of them). The lion's share of that is the Talents. There simply weren't ever going to be many more of them than there were given that page count is a real and existent thing.
Now, as time progresses, we'll get more and the whole class will thus be better (which was Azten's point, for reference). But complaining we don't have them already demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the way RPG Publishing functions. A few years from now, there will likely be a lot more Talents available, but expecting there to be that many already is just not a reasonable thing to be doing.
Really, it's suffering all the problems you'd expect of a Class whose powers can't be supplemented by previously published material. And is still a pretty fun and effective class with something over a dozen good builds (there's at least two for each element in the basic 5, IMO).
If a class requires supplements to be viable, then its design is already flawed.
Every other class has had versatile, viable builds out of the box. The Kineticist suffers from trying to do too much in one class, but simultaneously limiting those things to certain sub-sections of the class.
Not unlike the playtest Vigilante, come to think of it.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If a class requires supplements to be viable, then its design is already flawed.
Well, yeah, but only having half a dozen (or a dozen) 'best' builds doesn't make a Class not viable.
Every other class has had versatile, viable builds out of the box.
Kineticist has versatile, viable, builds out of the box. Several of them. There aren't as many of them as there eventually will be, but they sure exist.
There's pretty clearly a very defensive/utility oriented Aether/Earth build. A somewhat more offensive Earth build. A pure utility Aether build. A super-offensive Fire build (which has a big problem with Devils, but can manage a few tricks even vs.them). A nice balanced Water build. And a very effective Air build. I think there are a few more varieties as well, personally, but those are all pretty indisputable as workable and good.
And all also have a melee/switch hitter version as well as the pure ranged variant.
The Kineticist suffers from trying to do too much in one class, but simultaneously limiting those things to certain sub-sections of the class.
There's not really another good way to make the concept that was being aimed for, though. And, as noted, it's not like it doesn't work. It just has a few issues with many builds winding up looking the same.
Not unlike the playtest Vigilante, come to think of it.
That was not, IMO, the main problem with the playtest Vigilante. Raw power level, and overly enforced flavor at the expense of realism and balance (ie: not being able to use Vigilante Talents in social identity even if it was that or death) were way more of an issue there.
It was an issue in some ways, sure, but far from the main problem.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Witches and Alchemists and Barbarians don't take Extra Hex/Discovery/Rage Power because they HAVE to, they take it because, shockingly, they like their class abilities, the thing the entire class is based around, and want MORE of them.
This is really a good point. It might be a really common feat pick, but there's a league of difference between "I will never use this feat but I need it to pick up something better" feat tax and "This feat is amazing and fun and lets me do cool things" feat tax.
Extra X definitely falls into the latter case and frankly "everyone wants to take this feat because it's so cool" seems like a pretty good problem to have.
And while I don't want to seem too dramatic, "This is way more fun and interesting than the other options... let's nerf it" seems like a worrying design philosophy to me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Burn mecanic needs to be seen like a Metamagic feat: the cost can be high, but it's optional.
What I really, but REALLY hates about the class is the fact that you HAVE to fight unarmed. What's the point of having weapon proficiencies if nothing can be done to enhance them, let alone use them?
I can't hold an item, or a weapon, if you want to gather power... yeah... very practical...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Burn mecanic needs to be seen like a Metamagic feat: the cost can be high, but it's optional.
What I really, but REALLY hates about the class is the fact that you HAVE to fight unarmed. What's the point of having weapon proficiencies if nothing can be done to enhance them, let alone use them?
I can't hold an item, or a weapon, if you want to gather power... yeah... very practical...
I was sure I've heard of people who used conductive bows with kineticist.....
No, it was not inevitable. They chose to create an entirely new class, with an entirely new mechanic, give it five subclasses before archetypes, and then not dedicate the page space that was needed to supporting it. Yes, I know Mark got extra space in the book for more talents. There should have been more still. There should never be a level where you're obligated to take Skilled Kineticist, or really any other universal talent, because you don't have an option from your element.
I expect, not unreasonably, that each spell level for each element should contain three good choices to pick from. Not three choices, but three good ones. I should not have to look at an element and either have one option, like Void Kineticist 2 or Aetherkineticist 5, or a single obviously better choice like Air 6.
As to good builds, there are not over a dozen good builds. There are essentially two good builds, because each of these elements is basically a different archetype. So, each version of this class has essentially two good builds, which is generally considered to be rather bad. Unless you like your Kineticist looking generally like each other Kineticist of the same role and element, in which case good on you.
Dude calm down. Yes, we know it's low on material. It was inevitable unless it was the only new class in the entire book.