Spheres of Power Telekinetic character help

[Archmage Joda]

My group is gearing up to try playing the Kingmaker AP again (our first attempt ended in the second session due to tpk by way of boar, a recurring theme in our group somehow), and we're going to be using the Spheres of Power system for magic as 75% of the group hates vancian casting and the remaining 25% is neutral toward it.

I was wanting to make a character who specialized most in Telekinesis sphere, with possibly side use of Destruction and/or Warp. Would I be better served going for Incanter for the loads of sweet sweet talents, or Telekinetic Warrior Symbiat for more emphasis on the TK, but less ability to load up on talents and use teleportation or hyper beam?

How would I max out my TK mojo in spheres of power?

[GM Rednal]

Symbiats tend to make good 'Leader' characters thanks to their Psionics ability, even if you would be losing battlefield relay. Incanter is more of the 'pure' caster that lets you build however you want. XD So it all depends on the kind of character you want to build, really.

That said, going Incanter would make it easier to pick up the Protokinesis feats for flavor, and specializing in the Telekinesis Sphere would functionally replace some of psionics. You can also look at the Telekinesis-focused feats to get a little more utility.

As for maxing out your mojo, grab a Telekinesis Staff as early as you can. That said, if you do go Incanter, I recommend spending no more than 1 Talent/Level in Telekinesis (not counting the two Bonus Talents you get the first time you get the casting class feature - that is, at level one). Unless you're fine with the reduced flexibility, of course. XD Destruction is a good side for everyone even with just the basic investment, and is more-or-less inherently better at damage than anything Telekinesis does - but you could certainly flavor it the same, as a better 'Bludgeon' than the base TK ability.

[Stack]

If you want TK to be your primary offense on an incanter, I would plan to use destruction more passively, using blast shapes with durations to help your action economy. Of course, if you want to focus on those two spheres, the electrokinetic elementalist archetype for the Telekinetic's Handbook combines them neatly and has medium BAB to help with the bludgeon attacks.

At low levels, it is hard to get the CL to lift enemies, so you are probably using a dagger or similar weapon as a bludgeon. Once you can lift enemies, just putting them in the air is a huge debuff, but you need CL5 to lift a medium creature (with powerful telekinesis). A thaumaturge with the overcharge boon can do this at level 1, but everyone else has to wait unless you have a lot of boons and are willing to be in risky positions to use them (low health, low SP, burning SP and increasing casting time for metamagic, etc). Telekinetic maneuvers are also an option, though you will want forceful telekinesis to reduce the penalty.

Dipping warp can be enough for personal mobility, lost CL there won't hurt much if you aren't using it offensively or playing group taxi, so any of the build ideas can grab it easily enough.

Really comes down to what you want to do. Incanters will be the most versatile, but if you mainly want to play with TK there are a number of good options.

[AmberVael]

There's a couple of different ways to use telekinesis, and generally you'll need different builds for them.

The first thing to keep in mind is that however you approach telekinesis, you will absolutely want to be a high caster with it (at least for most purposes). Without being a high caster, telekinesis is substantially worse, and you'll struggle to lift anything of note. Even with that, basically every telekinetic will want the powerful telekinesis talent so that they can lift larger objects.

Incanter can get a lot of versatility out of telekinesis, and is good if you want to use it mostly for utility or battlefield control. Divided Mind is almost essential for a telekinetic Incanter, and allows you to do things like animate an entire workshop of tools or fill a battlefield with knives.
The downside of Incanter is that their low BAB means that they're limited in using telekinesis for direct offense. They can pick up a big object and smash someone with it, but can't ever get many attacks. With incanter it is better to focus on talents like friction field or gravity well, or else get Combat Reflexes (along with dancing weapon and flair) so that your field of knives becomes a meatgrinder.

The more direct combat style is better left to the telekinetic warrior archetype you mentioned, or the armorist archetype soaring blade. Both of these get better BAB, and thus more attacks when using an object of a bludgeon. The advantage of telekinetic warrior is that it is a midcaster for all purposes and has highcasting for telekinesis, while its downside is having medium BAB. The advantage of Soaring Blade is that it gets full BAB, and can summon massive magic weaponry to use with its telekinesis, while its downside is less talents, and being focused on telekinetic weaponry rather than the sphere in general.
Anyway, with this direct style you should focus on picking up the largest objects possible and bludgeoning people with them repeatedly. Mobile Bludgeon gives you an advantage over Divided Mind by allowing you to make full attacks with a single massive bludgeon rather than needing a separate bludgeon for each attack.

[Archmage Joda]

Well, this time I want to primarily telekinetic and also able to fight well with it, so I was looking at Electrokineticist (Elementalist archetype) and Telekinetic Warrior. First, when gaining telekinesis from Electrokineticist and buying off the "Metal Only" drawback, would I still only have full caster level when tk-ing metal things, or have full caster level for all uses of telekinesis?

Secondly, it seems like telekinetic warrior doesn't get that much tk-focus over the base symbiat, but also only has the one full CL sphere with everything else being mid, am I wrong? Sell me on Telekinetic Warrior, perhaps?

[GM Rednal]

1) "She uses her class level as her caster level when using a destructive blast to deal electricity damage and when using telekinesis on metal objects." Not when using those Spheres to do anything, but when using them for those specific uses. It's an Archetype, after all. XD It's meant to be flavorful that way. Essentially, the idea is that you're taking the drawbacks on the Spheres not for bonus Talents, but for a higher Caster Level with them. You can still buy off the drawbacks and learn to do other things, but would not get the CL benefit.

2) The Telekinetic Warrior basically gives you full BAB to Bludgeon things with, and is a more directly offensive version of the normal Symbiat.

[AmberVael]

As Rednal stated, the electrokineticist's higher caster level is not affected by buying off the drawback. Buying off the drawback will let you use telekinesis in other ways, but not with a higher caster level.

That said, I'm pretty sure Rednal is confusing Telekinetic Warrior with Soaring Blade. Telekinetic Warrior does not get full BAB, for one.
The best way to look at Telekinetic Warrior is that it loses one talent (the bonus Mind talent) and instead gains full CL with telekinesis. Given that, as mentioned previously, full CL is basically mandatory to be a competent telekinetic, this is a fantastic deal. It means being able to pick up bigger weapons, gaining the ability to fly and lift enemies earlier, or pick up more items with Divided Mind. Higher CL is crucial to lifting more and larger items, and the best stuff about telekinesis comes from being able to lift bigger and bigger things.

Think about it this way - wouldn't you spend 1 talent for +5 caster level with a sphere? Its a pretty good deal.

[GM Rednal]

No, no. o wo/ I'm not confused. I said "basically" for a reason - namely, in that you get a boost to your attack rolls with it when you're using your Psionics for that, maxing out at +5, which is effectively (but not actually) an increase to their BAB for that specific use of the ability. It's not as useful as an actual increase to their Base Attack Bonus would be, though, especially because it has limited rounds per day.