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I've read far and wide that kineticists suck. But, I'm playing a (gnome) telekineticist, and I don't feel like I suck at all. On the contrary, the sheer utility of my character often dominates the game. Therefore, to boost the (tele)kineticist image a little, I would like to run some things by you guys.
1. Silver Surfer
Is it just me or does basic telekinesis + extended range + telekinetic haul mean permanent out of combat flight at level 4? The way I see it, just move a plank around while standing on it. You can even carry your buddies this way! And, while it gets better every level, and faster with extreme range, it essentially still remains a level 1 SLA, which means it can be quickened by the feat 'quicken spell-like ability' somewhere around level 10!
2. Elemental overflow + force ward: golden!
Every morning, put a lot of burn in force ward, and you'll have all the good and none of the bad. At level 3: 1pt, lvl 6: 3pts, lvl 11: 5pts, and lvl 16: 7pts. If you're wise enough to boost Con up highest, not once will you have less starting HP than your normal max HP. But you'll have great accuracy, a damage boost and stat boosts (that btw increase your accuracy and damage even more)
3. Really good primary stats
Talking about HP, having con as your main stat nets you a whole lot! Con and Dex as primary stats is insanely good, combat wise. If you like having dumpstats, you can happily dump str, int, and cha!
4. Wow, that familiar!!
So, this one comes at level 6, flies, gives +1 to hit and dam. Has +4 for an aid another action, which essentially means +4 to almost every skill and often a +4 on the first melee attack of a round. Oh, and a last resort immediate healing ability to boot!
5. always invisible
Permanent invisibility for yourself and your familiar. So, even while your party might get ambushed, you're most probably not, and can enter any combat when you want.
6. a versatile healing ability
Firstly, you can set up shop on any battlefield, because even after a hundred heals, you can still do a thousand more. No one needs to bleed to death with you around. And... you have the most inconspicuous assassination ability ever! Heal them to death in their sleep by making them take so much burn that they die of nonlethal damage! And... Your familiar can perform this healing for you.
7. Ride the statue!
At higher levels, having an animate object ability that you can keep up all day with a move action means you can travel in your own fortified tower! This power also means that you can make anything move out of the way for you. And... While you hide invisibly, you can set object after object upon your enemies. This means a city is nothing else than a huge amount of potential weapons! Let them slay the houses (or tables, at lower level) one by one.
8. great battlefield control
From level 5 up (when the first infusion specialization comes online) your options in combat become manifold. Up close, hit in melee. step back, bowl them to the floor, when they run, just keep shooting with the higher range powers. At level 9, creating a whip costs no burn, and still does 5d6+5 base damage for all its attacks and AOO's. And if you have the luxury of gathering power (especially from level 11 onward) why not empower or maximise it, while still spending a free burn point on some nice infusion.
Here would be an example of a human telekineticist build which easily gives all the niceties I just named, and at fairly low level.
1f piranha strike
1f weapon finesse
1i kinetic blade
2u elemental whispers
3f weapon focus: kinetic blast
3i extended range
4u telekinetic haul
5f combat reflexes
5i bowling infusion
6u greater elemental whispers
6 human free talent: kinetic whip
7f extra wild talent: kinetic healing
7 expanded free talent: kinetic invisibility
Edit: just saw my mistake at level 6. Humans don't get a bonus wild talent, but the extra wild talent feat, which is not that good at all... Oh well, just pick kinetic cover or telekinetic finesse. Or don't play a human ;)
So, what do you think? Is my viewing of the telekineticist askew? Whatever makes this class suck?? Aside from a low will save, that is...
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I play an Aether Kineticist in PFS and i's a ton of fun. Lots of utility and decent damage. However, you may have some misconceptions....
1) The rules are sketchy at best when using an up-gunned Mage Hand to give yourself flight. For one, MH doesn't allow lifting living creatures, and you're basically doing that. Second, you have a 3rd level Utility power that's rendered completely redundant under that ruling. You need Self Kenisis to give yourself some air time.
2) Burn does get a little more flak than it deserves, and the bonus temp HP are a real decent trade off. Especially when it blocks riders like Poison and Grab.
3) Strongly disagree on dumping Int. You're playing Aether for the utility, and skills are a big deal. My Telekineticist is a Human with 12 Int and I still feel like I'm barely supporting my rogueish concept.
4) Ehhhhhh. It's neat, and I love having multiple characters at once, but it's facing strong competition from utility talents. I suppose if DMs let you get away with your 2nd level Haul talent hack then it seems like an easier pick-up.
5) .....does Share Spells count for utility talents? Must investigate further.
6) I'm pretty sure the target of your heal has to consent to the burn before you can cast it on them. It works wonders as Lay On Hands With A Catch, but you'll still be sucking on those Cure Light wands like nourishing popsicles between fights. Hope ya got UMD. (Sadly, I don't)
7) A fun idea, but sadly the Illusion school has an experation date. By the time you can animate really big things, creatures tuned for your level will usually have some kind of extra sense that can pick you up, if not outeight True Seeing. Pretty good for terrorizing a village, though.
8) Kinetic Whip won't cost any burn at 9th level, but it sure as hell costs items. Remember that Aether strikes that ise your blast damage will also damage the object. So you can get one good AOO before your whip/clothesline/etc evaporates. Kinetic Blade is a decent emergency weapon for this element, but it's nearly impossible to maintain weapons. My Kineticist wears a pair of Cestuses (Cesti?) just in case he's backed into a corner.
The thing about "floating by standing on a plank" is that yes, you can probably do it but your telekinesis abilities are based on Mage Hand and Mage Hand has a duration of "Concentration". Which is to say that while you can levitate a bench (and stand on it) during combat, it costs a standard action to keep the bench floating which precludes, you know, actually attacking. Want to blast somebody? The bench is now subject to gravity.
So it's not that useful in combat.
But this is nice as an alternative to "I drop my backpack" at the start of combat. If you have a few hundred pounds of junk subject to your TK haul, you're going to let it down (or drop it unceremoniously) automatically once combat starts.
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(1)
Well, on this mage hand thing. If you're going to be that strict, where do you draw the line? You can't lift a 10.000 lb boat out of the water, because there is still a sailor on board? What about a big rock that contains a nest of foxes? That's just weird...
I think, with this power, you can't move creatures or their gear, but you can certainly move everything under them.
As to it making self telekinesis obsolete, I don't think so. Self telekinesis doesn't require you to hold on to something, or balance on top of it. Also, unless you've taken both extended and extreme range, self telekinesis moves you faster and with less hassle. Last but not least, it is a step up to a power that really matters: greater self telekinesis.
And on top of all that. Self telekinesis is a choice you can (but not must) make. If you're fine with flying around using a plank or wooden rocking horse, using a standard action (and/or swift action with quicken SLA at level 11), instead of self-levitation, that's fine! If you're worried about useless talents, look no further than force hook.
The pyro and chao variants of this ability are just more wont to appear in a build then this one, but that's perfectly ok.
(3)
I've not dumped int either. Neither have I entirely dumped cha. But that's just because I like skills and I like to have a character that is neither stupid nor socially awkward (beyond being a gnome). I'm just saying you can dump them, because the class doesn't need them.
(5)
They are SLA's, and SLA's work as spells. Why not?
(6)
You are? And where have you read that? As far as I know, a sleeping/unconscious character normally doesn't resist healing of any kind. Unless they're of the Doomguard faction, or some such.
Of course, a CLW wand still helps. It always does. And yes, I have UMD. I'm a gnome, therefore I tinker ;)
On a related note. telekinesis combines very well with knowledge: engineering :D
(7)
A lot of things have detect invisibility. But not everyone has it permanently. And then again, there's always good old sneak. Remember, your sound is dampened, too! However, you're right, it doesn't always work.
(8)
You had me thinking there... But nowhere does it say that any power stops once the item contained in the strands of either is broken. On the contrary, it doesn't even specify a minimum weight, which makes a grain of sand or a drop of water as good a focus point for your kinetic blast (or whip) as any. And even if your GM is being difficult, I would wonder how much physical damage water can take, before it is destroyed...
As far as I get it, telekineticists just need something to wrap their strands of aether around, because their ethereal-based element doesn't create something out of nothing, like the others do.
Possible Cabbage,
I agree. It's an out of combat power unitil quicken SLA comes by.
(8) Air Molecules! You have an infinite supply, but need to explain how a renaissance era person knows about them.
Or just pretend you're a teacher from a cartoon and throw overpowered chalk at people. One hundred pieces of chalk only costs one gold piece.
It's a great class, but you ARE taking some liberties.
1. No, it's an attended object, so it's an invalid target.
2. Yep! Now, keep in mind that leaving some "useful" burn free is nice because when you take burn, you refill your ward by your level. In-combat healing while attacking.
3. You can, but it's really boring out of combat if you dump Int and Cha.
4. Combat Aid Another is tricky when you don't threaten adjacent squares, so I wouldn't count on that.
5. Aether Wysps don't get invisibility, so no combining 4 and 5. You can't use Telekinetic Invisibility on it without a small house rule extending Share Spells to SLAs (one I myself use). Normally abilities must specify both separately. And remember that it only lasts 1 min/level, even if you have infinite uses.
6. If someone is unconscious, you can CDG them. Burning out their body by channeling energy through it is going to guarantee you get caught afterward, since it's such a specific form of murder. I see nothing about your familiar being able to do the healing, though.
7. Animating an object requires burn or concentration. Turning invisible requires a standard action every few minutes. Your minion will de-animate every so often so you can refresh your invisibility if you want both active all the time.
8. Yep! You've got a ton of really fun abilities.
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QuidEst (like your name)
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While that makes sense on small objects (what the spell is written for), it really gets weird with big ones. So that 3000 lb block of stone can be moved no problem, but that one can't be budged, because some 10 lbs pixie is lounging on it... This needs FAQ, I'll make a thread for it...
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Good point, but that choice can be made whether or not you max out in the morning. It could still be an interesting trade-off.
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I would assume my familiar to ride my shoulder, and then make a 5' step into the enemy square. Won't always work, but often enough. And if you have a feat to spare, evolved companion could increase its range :)
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Why would share spells not work for SLA's? Is there some FAQ answer for that? In essence, this is a spell (-like ability) with a target of personal.
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Familiar doing the healing is the same assumption as above: deliver touch spell(-like ability). I'm still assuming that's possible, unless proven wrong. The familiar explicitly has the powers of a wizard familiar. I think it would be weird if the two "spells" you have that fit the description, wouldn't work.
Is it a sure way to get caught, though? What does this death look like? It's up to the GM's discretion. I would say you just see someone with no wounds, who seemingly died for no reason.
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Invisibility requires a standard action every 10-20 minutes (depending on level), while this animate object requires a move action to maintain. They don't bite each other.
@Azten
Lol @ the teacher with chalk :D
I'd draw the line at things unnoticeable, like atoms ;)
4. Five-foot steps into enemy spaces provoke. FAQ covered that one.
5. Abilities list what they work with, and spells certainly seem to be treated differently- that's why you have abilities granting bonuses on both saves vs. spells and vs. SLAs.
6. For the SLA, see above.
It's death from too many points of burn. That sounds really obvious and distinct to me.
7. Ah, good. Didn't realize it was a move action. That's really good!
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While that makes sense on small objects (what the spell is written for), it really gets weird with big ones. So that 3000 lb block of stone can be moved no problem, but that one can't be budged, because some 10 lbs pixie is lounging on it... This needs FAQ, I'll make a thread for it...
I think that may be the easiest distinction to work with, actually: is the object you're lifting larger than who's in it?
Either way, the fact that the object itself is being moved, and not the passengers, means anybody actually riding on or in it are going to experience some degree of turbulence. The Acrobatics check to manage the Silver Surfer trick is going to be insane. Making people sit in a box and levitating that seems easier, though less impressive.
I'd also say that riding the board would at least require concentration checks for Vigorous Motion, which would be 10 + spell level, which you'd need to do every round you maintain the spell. Now, if you are riding something more chair-like, then those checks may be reduced or removed, depending on the DM and situation.