Hello All,
I am trying to make a GM PC for a game I plan to run here pretty soon. The theme of the game is a steampunk confederation going to war with a Druid like conclave (think cowboys versus Indians) Technology is advancing, guns are abundant and the PCs are loyalist to the steampunk nation
I would like to make a solid Ranged DPS Air kineticist (open to suggestions on elements, air ha flight and celerity) to travel with them and maybe at some point the party will find out that the GMPC is a deserter from the Druid nation.
Kineticist are hard for me, so I need some help. 25 pt buy. 7th level HELP!
Must haves
- Flight( Would be really nice)
- Good ranged ability
- Party support
- Relatively easy to run
Um you already scored those "must-haves."
For Stats Focus heavily on Constitution and Dexterity. Those are you two most important stats for both offense and defense. Strength is mostly for carrying capacity. Intelligence is for skills so dont dump it. Wisdom is for Will Saves. Charisma is best dumped.
What race are you thinking about? Since youre going for a former magic PC a Half-orc with some semi-magical alternate racila bonuses could help alot. Sacred Tattoos bumps up your already high Fortitude and Reflex but also helps out your low Will. Fate's Favored is a trait that doubles the save bonus from that.
Depending on how you want to run it you can leave weapons behind or keep them to hold back your powers. Chainshirt, hopefully made from mithril is good with no penalties. Magical equipment that is pretty standard would be Cloak of Resistance, Amulet of Natural Armor, Ring of Protection.
For feats early ones benefiting your ranged attacks work well. Point Blank shot and Precise Shot as early as possible.
the Kinetic Blade or Kinetic Whip Infusions are very good whenever you need to be in melee.
If your choosing Air element I would stick to Electric Blast. Its less powerful than the physical blasts options but Touch AC attacks are rare, awesome, and a major reason to pick the Kineticist. Remember your choice also effects your Kinetic melee attacks. Use a lightsaber/whip.
Utility powers like Celerity can be useful. Just remember you cannot reduce utility power costs like kinetic blasts can.
------------------------
My question is how youre going to play really? Are you going to make your abilities as super-science like shooting a tesla coil gun or what?
If youre going incognito with this character it would be a problem as it takes several almost useless(for a kineticist) feats to use guns.
If youre going incognito with this character it would be a problem as it takes several almost useless(for a kineticist) feats to use guns.
Firearm Proficiency: The Exotic Weapon Proficiency (firearms) feat allows you to use all firearms without penalty. A nonproficient character takes the standard –4 penalty on attack rolls with firearms, and a nonproficient character who loads a firearm increases all misfire values by 4 for the shots he loads.
I count one.
Firearm Proficiency, Gunsmithing, Rapid reload(maybe).
That is in addition to usual ranged feats of Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Improved Precise Shot.
Utility to me says "aether" and Flying to me says "Air". So I guess the question is which do you go for first. Aether has the best utility, and builds fairly gradually (TK Finesse at level 2, TK Haul at level 4, TK Invisibility at level 6) but doing this would delay "flying to level 10" (but you can take the good air flying talent instead of the less good aether flying talent).
You give up quite a bit on offense this way, but I've been planning a Kineticist like this for a while and this is my sketch:
25 PB, Dual-Talent Human
7 STR 17+2 DEX, 17+2 CON 12 INT 14 WIS 7 CHA
1) (Aether) Point Blank Shot, Kinetic Blade
2) Telekinetic Finesse
3) Precise Shot, Extended Range
4) Telekinetic Haul
5) Weapon Finesse, Bowling Infusion
6) Telekinetic Invisibility, Human FCB: Elemental Whispers
7) Air (choose Electric Blast), Extra Wild Talent Air's Cushion
8) Greater ELemental Whispers (consider the Emissary familiar archetype since you don't need touch spells or share spells)
9) Improved Initiative, Foe Throw
10) Wings of Air
I'll think about how I'd build going air first, and see if I come up with something good next.
@ Chaos Ticket: Race is open to whatever. I am just looking for builds, I thought air was good but if there is some other awesome kinecticst build out there I am not aware of then I would love to hear about it (i don't know anything about this class.) I think the only must have I gave that is covered the best by air is the flight, so any cool builds I am open to. I am very new to this class.
The character will be played as a magical ability user, magic is still used in the SP nation, it is just starting to fall away to technology.
@ Possible Cabbage: Aether looks cool, I just want to make sure it is a competent DPS that can support the PC's in some way. I will definitely look at this build to see what all the abilities actually are. I would love to see a air build also. I also heard water/earth was a good combo apparently and fire is a solid DPS machine but not much else.
Anyone else with some builds/feedback?
Your kineticist build is pretty much entirely dependent upon what you want to do with them. Given your "must-haves" list, then I would highly suggest going with Air/Aether. You can get Flight at 6th and then start building up your lower level Aether supports. I would avoid not going water/earth if you want Flight and Party support as you won't get much from that. Water/Earth is a great Tank combo as you get high AC w/ Water and DR from Earth.
For an Air Build I would suggest the following...
1st - Extended Range
2nd - Air's Cushion
3rd - Thundering Infusion
4th - Air' Reach
5th - Kinetic Blade (because there really isn't anything else that's good)
6th - Wings of Air
7th - Extreme Range
8th - Celerity
9th - Snake or Kinetic Whip
10th - Engulfing Winds
11th - Chain Infusion
12th - Suffocate or Ride the Blast (I would take Ride the Blast personally for ridiculous mobility.)
13th - Wall
14th - Suffocate or Ride the Blast (Whichever one you do not chose at 12th)
If you need further after that, just let me know. Otherwise that should be enough to really get you started. The basic idea behind Air is to get up high enough in the air to be able to blast away with impunity!
Aether does as much damage as any other element till lv7. Then it's basic full round action of empowered blast damage is still equivalent, but it's bust potential is lower. It's not till lv11 when composite blasts become your new basic full round action that Aether finally notices a little lack of damage compared to other elements.
Remember, rapid shot doesn't help you with blasts.
If guns are common place, then at 7th, I'd branch into either Aether or Earth. At 8th, you pick up the expanded defense. That will give you two stacking defenses against bullets. First the miss chance and then either small enduring soak or large ablative soak.
For flavor, Air/Earth can be dealing with dust clouds and such. Air/Aether is focusing on the intangible. Both of them also give you a hard hitting physical blast to go with your touch electric blast.
apparently and fire is a solid DPS machine but not much else.
Mostly the opposite. Fire's strengths are its different infusions and the fact that Fire's Fury brings the damage a little closer to how much physical blasts can deal. Fire is the only element that gets a Dispel Magic effect, the only element that can remove an enemy's resistance to its energy type, it's the only energy blast that has an infusion that entirely bypasses SR, it can inflict blindness, it can create a smoke cloud to obscure vision and sicken enemies, it gets one of the only two cone form infusions, and it can inflict a damage-over-time that increases the chance of your abilities having an effect.
The physical blasts are what deal loads of damage. They have better damage to begin with, and they can use the Deadly Aim feat because they're not touch attacks like the energy blasts are.
@Faelyn- Thank you for the build. That looks pretty solid to me and would fill the role of a ranged blaster pretty well. What is great about aether?
@Philo- That is a good idea. Luckily, the players shouldn't be dealing with guns that much being the druid conclave is adherents to the old ways, but that would be a good idea for some baddies I am looking to have them face.
@Bloodrealm- That is a good amount of versatility, I wonder why the guide I read said they are DPS
So how would a Air/Aether function in play, do you not "full attack" with blasts, just empower them?
The thing is that Fire is versatile in combat. It doesn't have a ton of non-combat versatility like some of the others do.
@Faelyn- Thank you for the build. That looks pretty solid to me and would fill the role of a ranged blaster pretty well. What is great about aether?
You are welcome.
Aether grants you At-Will invisibility with a 3rd level Utility talent, you can really do some interesting things w/ Telekinetic Haul, you get ranged Sleight of Hand and Disable Device with no penalty, and you get a self-recharging pool of temporary HP. The downside is the damage isn't great compared to other elements simply because the composite blasts you get with Aether are pretty much lackluster.
Aether- at-will semi-invisibility and at-will telekinetic abilities. Those are the big draws.
What's great about aether is the out of combat utility, with two wild talents you have the world's best Mage Hand, with the ability to move 100 lbs/level as well as perform subtle manipulations (like picking pockets) from medium range (you also get the "turn invisible whenever you want" talent at level 6). You also get one of the strongest elemental defenses. What's weak about Aether is that you don't get good composite blasts (instead you'd spend the burn from gathering power on empowering) and its infusions are few and not especially strong (though foe throw is hilarious).
What's great about fire is the in-combat utility as you have a wide variety of battlefield control, with the ability to create lots of concealment (and ignore it yourself) and to attack a in a variety of shapes (you have the best AoE.) The downside is that your elemental defense is pretty weak and you're basically incapable of solving any problems that can't be resolved by burning something.
Air is sort of a nice compromise between the two since it's got good out of combat utility (particularly the best flight ability and the windsight talents for recon) and has some nice combat tricks (though you have to choose between electric for touch attacks and magnetic infusion, which your pals will love, and air for the cloud and cyclone infusions).
Kineticists use a SLA, thus from lv 1-20 you're only every making 1 attack. Thus Kineticists don't "full attack" by default, you'd need to use kinetic blade/whip to full attack and that's putting you into melee-ish range. But you will get multiple attacks off.
So the standard "full attack" is to move action gather power and standard action blast. Yes it's still only 1 attack, but this is the replacement, relying on one blast to do a full attacks worth of damage.
so levels 1-4 you're adding an infusion without burn to your blast. From 5-10 you're using it to empower your blast without burn.
From 11-? you start using it to use composite blasts without burn.
From lv7 you can use composites for burn and could empower a composite for more burn. This is "going nova" aether's nove is lower because it's composite blast isn't as good as the other elements. But until composites are the standard option at lv11+ you wont see an average use damage difference, just a lower nova damage.
Kineticists use a SLA, thus from lv 1-20 you're only every making 1 attack. Thus Kineticists don't "full attack" by default, you'd need to use kinetic blade/whip to full attack and that's putting you into melee-ish range. But you will get multiple attacks off.
So the standard "full attack" is to move action gather power and standard action blast. Yes it's still only 1 attack, but this is the replacement, relying on one blast to do a full attacks worth of damage.
so levels 1-4 you're adding an infusion without burn to your blast. From 5-10 you're using it to empower your blast without burn.
From 11-? you start using it to use composite blasts without burn.From lv7 you can use composites for burn and could empower a composite for more burn. This is "going nova" aether's nove is lower because it's composite blast isn't as good as the other elements. But until composites are the standard option at lv11+ you wont see an average use damage difference, just a lower nova damage.
I think it's best to think of it less as "only one attack" and more as a spell. Kineticist can actually fill some spellcasting tropes better than spellcasters can. The standard action for your blast also makes Kineticists more flexible: you can gather power to soak up more burn for a more complex blast, or you can use a less complicated blast and still take a move action (for movement, using items, directing a previously-created Mobile Blast or Spark of Life elemental, etc.) while still doing a lot more than a normal attack can in one standard action.
The Kineticist doesnt have multiple attacks at range without using a certain Metakinesis/magic feat later. Its still pretty high damage as a class. 1d6+half your constitution bonus every 2 levels for energy blasts.
Air is my favorite element because of several abilities to aim towards. Air's Reach doubles your attack range. Wings of Air gives you free and permanent flight. Celerity lets you caste Haste.
Physical Blasts are not appealing to me as yes you only ever have the one attack so more damage from you constitution bonus in exchange for targeting regularly instead of Touch AC.
Composite Blasts are sort of worth it. The physical composite blasts do twice as much damage as regular physical blasts. Theyre circumstantial but also very powerful if you can actually hit.
In terms of Leveling I would put Extended Range as you level 1 infusion as it turns 30foot maximum to 120foot allowing you to stay away from direct combat. Kinetic Whip or Blade are for later when you actually start to get enough Infusion Specialization to freely use them without burn and multiple attacks. Otherwise you might as well take a 5-foot-step and just blast again.
The issue with staying more than 30 feet away is that you can only use one form infusion on a blast, it does require 1 point of burn that you'll have to mitigate, and you're likely going to have Point Blank Shot since it's a prerequisite to Precise Shot. The real reason to get Extended Range is because it's a prerequisite for several good form infusions and because it will increase the usefulness of Ride the Blast later on.
Remember that energy blasts have to deal with energy resistance and SR, while physical blasts deal with DR and full AC rather than touch AC. Physical blasts can also be used with Deadly Aim, whereas energy blasts cannot, increasing the gap in straight-up damage numbers between the two. Obviously, physical blast builds are slightly more feat-intensive, mostly due to picking up Deadly Aim as well as Reckless Aim to help offset it.
Supercharge at 11th level starts making composite blasts more commonly useful, but it still won't make simple blasts obsolete.
Are we arguing or not? I get confused when people arent making clear opposition points.
Its High hit spells or low hit physical attacks. I would pick Energy for basic attacks and save it the physical composite blasts as the damage difference feels worth the much higher risk of missing. Also energy composite blasts are rare. IF you could somehow gain Pinpoint Targeting to combine with Composite Blasts then that would solve alot.
Point Blank Shot is not a very useful feat by itself. Its a gateway/junk feat for the other more important feats.
(Un)fortunately feats are really open on a Kineticist as its not compatible with most of the usual fighting style or spell feats. Toughness is a little useful but not as much because on of the primary stats is Constitution. Iron Will is always good but especially for a low Will class.