So I'm attempting to build a Kinetic Knight (Dwarf), originally planning to stay with an Earth focus... but I'm finding that I'm running out of not just _decent_ infusions to take, but that there don't appear to be enough infusions to work with at all, as I can't take/use form infusions due to Kinetic Knight restrictions.
25 point buy, will be starting at L3.
Str 16, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 8
I need the Int to help provide the Knowledges(!) for the party of 3 (Human Desnan Warpriest, Human Destined Bloodrager and Me).
My L1 and L3 feats are Breadth of Experience and Cosmopolitan in order to support this focus, with Pushing Infusion and Kinetic Cover (prereq for shift earth later) selected so far.
Traits are also tied down with:Arodenite Historian, Forbidden Knowledge, and Guardian of the Forge to grant maximum breadth of knowledge, making my Knowledge (History) essentially also count for Planes, Arcana and Religion.
Any advice/thoughts about future feat selections and possible options for expanded elements and wild talents? Earth Climb and Earth Glide are Locked in for Levels 4 and 10, and Shift Earth at 8 - I'm otherwise open to suggestions.
I'd like to avoid water as an expanded element for various reasons but am otherwise open to anything that lends itself to a thematic and effective 'tough' & knowledgeable earth-based build. All Help is gratefully received.
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Not where I would go with a kineticist... guess all I can say is:
Get elemental whispers, and grab a sage familiar. You could even focus on he real fighting abilities, and let your familiar with INT, 2 skill points per level and bonus to knowledge skills, do he job you decided to take
Hmm, I would start by looking at what you have to work with... Do you know what level your group is looking to end at? i
Feats:
Level 1: Breadth of Experience
Level 3: Cosmopolitan
Level 5: Toughness
Level 7: Armor Focus
Level 9: Poised Bearing
Talents: (You gain these infusions for free blade rush (3) kinetic whip (5 plus kinetic whip has the disarm, performance, and trip weapon qualities) Blade Whirlwind (9) whip hurricane (11).)
L1/Infusion: Pushing Infusion
L2/Wild Talent: Kinetic Cover
L4/Wild Talent: Earth Climb
L5/Infusion: Entangling Infusion
L6/Wild Talent: Tremorsense
L7/Infusion: magnetic infusion
L8/Wild Talent: Earth Shift
L9/Infusion: Rare Earth
L10/Wild Talent: Earth Glide
I would recommend Kinetic Form for a Kinetic Knight, you get a size change that affects your CMB and extra reach for your blade and whip.
A more extreme suggestion would be to take the character as VMC Bard, you lose half your feats but gain Bardic Knowledge as a Bard of your level once you get to level 3... So, from the get go for you. Then if you really want you can take Breadth of Experience still for even higher knowledge checks but you are already at level +5+1/2 Level on three major knowledges with this of build so you might want to spend your remaining feats on Toughness and Weapon Focus at that point.
The Bloodrager and Warpriest will probably be very happy with you throwing out some Magnetic Metal whirlwind Whips across a large area granting a +4 to hit most creatures.
I second elemental whispers for a sage familiar. You should have pushing, bowling, and entangling infusions to use. If you want to avoid water then I'd recommend fire as your second. Earth/fire is thematic for a dwarf (smithing) and is a good element combination.
A sagely Whisper is actually kind of nice, for a single wild talent you effectively gain 2 skill points/level and then gain extra skill points at level 7, 9, 11 and so on. You still basically have Bardic Knowledge too.
Keep in mind that the Familiar starts with INT 6 and all those INT based Skills suffer a -2 from that. You dont get free of a penalty until level 5. It snowballs from there though as once you hit level 7 you can invest in 3 knowledges at once in addition to whichever you've invested in with your regular class skill points and then 4 free skills at level 9 and so on every 2 levels. i do not know if you are supposed to apply that int penalty to skill points gained though so it might actually start slower than i thought. Likewise i do not know if the Familiar gains extra languages for its int score once it starts getting into positive modifiers... Still its cheaper than half your feats.
Ohh, talking about feats, if you use a Sage than the Sage can roll with its own skills or using your skill ranks but they dont get your floating bonuses or class bonuses or the rest when they do so which means that investing all of your traits and those feats towards skills is duplicate effort.
Alright, let's look at the rules:
She can’t use her kinetic blast without the kinetic blade form infusion or an infusion that lists kinetic blade as a prerequisite.
This means you cannot "use" your kinetic blast without the kinetic blade infusion (or blade rush, or kinetic whip, or blade whirlwind, or whip hurricane).
No restriction on what infusions you can "choose".
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Onward, to the actual choices that matter!
1st - You get kinetic blade for free, but you still have to pick a normal 1st level infusion.
For Earth, you have Pushing Infusion and Draining Infusion available (and extended range/kinetic fist, but you couldn't ever use those, so...)
3rd - your infusion is replaced by the archetype.
5th - For Earth, you have Bowling Infusion(free trip attempt), Entangling Infusion(free entangle/root effect),
7th - For Earth/Earth, you have Magnetic Infusion, Rare-Metal Infusion.
9th - If you are still Earth/Earth, you have to pick up one of the lower-level choices.
11th - see above
13th - see above; you have now exhausted the available substance infusions for Earth/Earth
15th - another element and no infusion!
17th - pick a substance infusion from your new element
19th - see above
Sage does not gain your skills, its 2 skill points per level are not modified by INT, but its skill checks are modified by its INT, so when you first get it, it's going to be pretty bad, still it's an almost free option to get some knowledge skills without giving up all your feats and traits for it.
In the end, with a single utility talent investment, you get Alertness, a bonus feat of some kind, and bardic knowledge.
Also, if knowledge skills are so important, maybe your two team mates could take care of one or two of them, the warpriest should at least have some know (Religion) and the Bloodrager has Arcana as a class skill, they're also human so naturally have at least one more skill point than a dwarf.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend sticking with any one element for the Kinetic Knight, since the kinetic knight isn't a ranged attacker and can full attack if something is within reach, so you don't have move actions to spare to gather power to fund composite blasts. So don't worry about the composite blast, just take any other element at level 7 that offers something you like.
Going Air at level 7 to be able to target touch AC with your blades and whips is nice, plus you can get all-you-ever-want flying at level 10 for two wild talents (take "air cushion" with the extra wild talent feat and wings of air at level 10.) Plus the infusions for earth and electric blasts don't line up much so there won't be so much overlap. Sure, Earth/Earth gets you magnetic blast, but so does Earth/Air; and you'll hardly ever find yourself using metal blast.
Going Aether at level 7 would let you be the toughest thing around if you take their expanded defense. Plus it's always fun to have the world's best mage hand at your disposal.
PossibleCabbage wrote: I wouldn't necessarily recommend sticking with any one element for the Kinetic Knight, since the kinetic knight isn't a ranged attacker and can full attack if something is within reach, so you don't have move actions to spare to gather power to fund composite blasts. So don't worry about the composite blast, just take any other element at level 7 that offers something you like.
Going Air at level 7 to be able to target touch AC with your blades and whips is nice, plus you can get all-you-ever-want flying at level 10 for two wild talents (take "air cushion" with the extra wild talent feat and wings of air at level 10.) Plus the infusions for earth and electric blasts don't line up much so there won't be so much overlap. Sure, Earth/Earth gets you magnetic blast, but so does Earth/Air; and you'll hardly ever find yourself using metal blast.
Going Aether at level 7 would let you be the toughest thing around if you take their expanded defense. Plus it's always fun to have the world's best mage hand at your disposal.
Yes and no, you would have to take burn in two categories to power up the different defensive talents... i would need to break out a spread sheet to see where the best balance is between DR and Temp HP
Steel soul is never a bad choice if you didn't trade out the hardy racial feature.
Stack wrote: Steel soul is never a bad choice if you didn't trade out the hardy racial feature. Good reminder on steel soul.
Re: the others I'll consider fire or aether or air and work up some builds. Thematically, I had already considered a familiar via elemental whispers, so I might revisit an ioun wyrd sage, which would prove a useful scout too.
Thanks all. Excellent food for thought.
I'd consider taking water or Aether at 7 as both offer brilliant defensive wild talents if you're gonna be in melee.
In fact when I make melee kineticists I take earth as my expanded element because both of these grant pseudo flight and I don't think earth does so I find having them as a second element and thus delaying when you get flight too painful.
obviously if you take either of these it opens up a lot of infusion options.
Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote: I'd consider taking water or Aether at 7 as both offer brilliant defensive wild talents if you're gonna be in melee.
In fact when I make melee kineticists I take earth as my expanded element because both of these grant pseudo flight and I don't think earth does so I find having them as a second element and thus delaying when you get flight too painful.
obviously if you take either of these it opens up a lot of infusion options.
I am leaning towards aether at the moment.
One thing with the wording of elemental whispers: it never actually says that you gain a familiar - just that you can create a body does this mean that my 'not familiar' can or cannot take archetypes (such as sage?) Despite this, language used later in the elemental whispers refers to 'the familiar' so it's a little unclear to me. For what it's worth, hero labs falls on the "it's a familiar" side of the camp.
Regarding Elemental Whispers and Familiars, the talent includes this line, "The familiar gains abilities as usual for a familiar of its type, though it never gains the ability to speak with animals of its kind." So they do gain all attributes of a familiar aside from Speak with Animals meaning they have all of the abilities they need to trade away for the artchetype so long as it doesnt replace Speak with Animals which Sage doesnt touch.
Regarding the benefits of an expanded element for the extra Defense Wild Talent; Expanded Element by itself does not grant that element's defensive talent, you need to burn your level 8 utility talent to pick it up.
Separately, a level 8 Geokineticist with 20 CON can take up to 8 points of Burn. Assume they put Favored Class Bonus to HP and took Toughness for 92 total HP. Lets look at their defensive options for single and expanded element options. The Earth-Earth Kineticist has a base DR of 4/Adamantine and can take 4 burn to raise that to DR 8/Adamantine while dropping their HP to 60. If they had expanded their element at 7 and took the extra defense for Aether at 8 they also have Force Ward granting 8 Temp HP. You could take up to an additional 4 Burn to power Force Ward up to 24 Temp HP with DR 8/Adamantine... and your functional HP drops to 28.
Order of operations is a little wonky but best case scenario, you get the DR to apply to your Temp HP as well. Average damage for a CR 8 is 30 and a CR 10 is 40. So against the common enemies you will fight the first hit should just about knock out your Force Ward and the second hit will leave you in the low teens or single digits. against a tough encounter your Force ward is down after the first hit as well as taking some HP and your dropped on the second.
If you just went with the DR 8 and 60 HP you have a larger buffer between you and KO at least and have burn to spare if you need to use some composite blasts and you are up two talents as a whole. I would not say dont use expanded element but perhaps dont make the decision based solely on the defense you might gain? Three elements offer a good means of flight, Air gives you haste, Aether gives you invisibility, which extra talents would you want to grab?
EDIT: I forgot that a Kinetic Knight has a Burn tax to attune their shield so drop the Force Ward max by 4 or the DR by 1 in the considerations above.
I think the calculation for "burn invested in defense" should be at the "amount you need to top off overflow" not "the max you can take" since investing max burn into your defense is a good way to make yourself fragile.
So 3 points of burn at level 6, 5 at level 11, 7 at level 16.
The thing about a second defense on a kinetic knight is that you get both when you attune your shield, so an 8th level k. knight is going to invest 1 burn in their shield, and will want to invest 2 more burn into their defenses to top off their elemental overflow bonus.
Whether or not they put that all in DR (for DR 6) they're still going to have a regenerating pool of 8 temp HP. The other extreme your DR is only 4, but you have a temp HP pool of 16 which regenerates twice as fast.
Considering how this scales, this is probably worth doing if you stack aether and earth, even if you have to wait a bit to grab it with a feat.
The order in which damage is assigned between earth and aether defenses is definitely a problem. While the rules would have you reduce the damage with DR and then take the rest with temp hp or hp, this does not work well with the concept of a force ward surrounding you, plus that "these hit points are lost first, even before other temp hp". So, dunnow how they work.
At lvl 8 with both defenses you wake up with DR 4 and 8 temp hp, you then might want to spend 3 burn to activate elemental overflow, you are down only 24 hp, and you could for example have 16 temp hp from force ward (which heals 2 hp per minute) and DR 5. A much better deal than burning yourself to unconsciousness.
Sure, a single hit will probably knock out your ward, but it's one less hit you have to worry about, and it will fill itself up by the next fight, negating another hit.
PossibleCabbage wrote: I think the calculation for "burn invested in defense" should be at the "amount you need to top off overflow" not "the max you can take" since investing max burn into your defense is a good way to make yourself fragile.
So 3 points of burn at level 6, 5 at level 11, 7 at level 16.
The thing about a second defense on a kinetic knight is that you get both when you attune your shield, so an 8th level k. knight is going to invest 1 burn in their shield, and will want to invest 2 more burn into their defenses to top off their elemental overflow bonus.
Whether or not they put that all in DR (for DR 6) they're still going to have a regenerating pool of 8 temp HP. The other extreme your DR is only 4, but you have a temp HP pool of 16 which regenerates twice as fast.
Considering how this scales, this is probably worth doing if you stack aether and earth, even if you have to wait a bit to grab it with a feat.
While that leaves your HP in a better place, it still comes down to the cost of two talents for an extra 8 HP. I think its more important to look at the other talents you gain access too in exchange for that investment. I think Air is actually the over all better choice for Flight, Haste and a Miss Chance for ranged attacks but that isnt the most thematic for a dwarven knight.
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Torbyne having looked at some of those calculation it will entirely depend on how often versus how much you are getting hit for, and more importantly what you are getting hit with.
I generally recommend putting all of it into THP, maybe one in DR, but not all right away for a number of reasons.
Lets Say at level 8 (when you can start this) you want to have 3 burn to activate Elemental Overflow. Lets put 1 in DR and 2 in Force Ward. That gives us DR 5/adamantine and 16 THP, regen 2/minute.
You get into a fight, you take all your THP in damage. You can wait 8 min to heal up or pop 2 more burn into Force Ward. This recovers your base 16 THP, give you 8 more (24 total) effectively healing yourself for more than you took (you were down 16 THP, now you are down 16 more non-lethal, but have 24 THP) and can immediately go into a fight. If you have time, just let the hp regen.
Taenia wrote: Torbyne having looked at some of those calculation it will entirely depend on how often versus how much you are getting hit for, and more importantly what you are getting hit with.
I generally recommend putting all of it into THP, maybe one in DR, but not all right away for a number of reasons.
Lets Say at level 8 (when you can start this) you want to have 3 burn to activate Elemental Overflow. Lets put 1 in DR and 2 in Force Ward. That gives us DR 5/adamantine and 16 THP, regen 2/minute.
You get into a fight, you take all your THP in damage. You can wait 8 min to heal up or pop 2 more burn into Force Ward. This recovers your base 16 THP, give you 8 more (24 total) effectively healing yourself for more than you took (you were down 16 THP, now you are down 16 more non-lethal, but have 24 THP) and can immediately go into a fight. If you have time, just let the hp regen.
Right, i was discounting the chance of being hit and a KKnight has a good AC so it may not be that easy to land a full attack on them but the average damages i cited come from Paizo's stats. Based on that the 16 Temp HP wont even cover a single hit landing. And you are already at 4 Burn in your example (1 to attune and 3 to boost defenses) so that costs you 32 Nonlethal, 60 isnt that bad a place to be at for level 8 but you dont really get that much for it. I think DR is a better place to put the burn, especially if you already have the talent, if you are going to pay the cost.
to put it another way, pay three Burn to get 16 Temp HP and that is basically DR 16/- once per fight. Pay three Burn to get DR 6/Adamantine and that is up all day, after three hits land it is already more effective than the Temp HP. You could argue that the Temp HP can save you some Poison/drain rider effects but thats not too great a concern with the phenomenal Fort saves and Knight's Resolve allowing you two rolls against the effect.
I think it is pretty hard to come up with a better use of defensive burn on a Knight than the DR from Earth... but i have posted that in different words for three or four posts now so i dont think i am shocking anyone with that statement anymore.
Keep in mind that it's not a true familiar for elemental whispers as it returns to your mind whenever you stop concentrating which can be annoying.
The wysp from the greater version is pretty busted though. You get a +1 to attack and damage on your blast, and when it uses aid another you get a +4 instead of a +2. It gets really dumb if you make it a bodyguard with you getting a +4 to AC and splitting damage with your familiar that may have higher HP than some party members.
As for the Aether expanded defense, it may depend on what you're getting hit with. If you're in a campaign with a lot of on-hit effects (poison, bleed, disease, etc.) the force ward gets a lot better since it can stop those from being applied. On top of that, enemies that have those type of on-hit effects typically do less HP damage to offset the bonus effects, so the force ward becomes longer lasting.
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Don't forget those THP do regenerate. If you have your level in minutes between fights you can go in with DR/THP every fight, but that also force misses.
Also the THP work versus other things, magic damage for example. At high levels that THP might prevent a Polar Ray from doing dex damage.
FYI, you can't normally give an Improved Familiar the protector Archetype. So Wysp is quite handy, but not quite that cool. :) You can't give the Lesser Whispers familiar Protector either, as it lacks Speak with Animals of Its Own Kind. :(
@Torbyne, at level 8, 3 burn to Force ward is 20 Temp HP (8+4+4+4.) I think Taenia was suggesting 3 total burn (enough for full Size bonuses) which would be 16 (8+4+4) Temp HP vs 24 nonlethal from burn.
Taenia wrote: Don't forget those THP do regenerate. If you have your level in minutes between fights you can go in with DR/THP every fight, but that also force misses.
Also the THP work versus other things, magic damage for example. At high levels that THP might prevent a Polar Ray from doing dex damage.
I give Temp HP credit for that, that is how you end up with the Temp HP value for each fight which is a point in the Force Wards favor but also doesnt take into account enemies that have multiple attacks in comparison to DR. 40 damage from 4 hits still destroy's force ward and gets a big chunk of damage though. But 40 damamge from 4 hits against DR 6+ loses a lot of its sting.
I also recognize that force ward can negate rider effects too but those arent nearly as important for Kinetic Knights who have the actions to burn for double rolls on Resolve and probably the best Fort saves in the game.
Markov Spiked Chain wrote: FYI, you can't normally give an Improved Familiar the protector Archetype. So Wysp is quite handy, but not quite that cool. :) You can't give the Lesser Whispers familiar Protector either, as it lacks Speak with Animals of Its Own Kind. :(
@Torbyne, at level 8, 3 burn to Force ward is 20 Temp HP (8+4+4+4.) I think Taenia was suggesting 3 total burn (enough for full Size bonuses) which would be 16 (8+4+4) Temp HP vs 24 nonlethal from burn.
Kinetic Knight alters the Elemental Defense and requires a point of Burn every day just to turn on the basic effects so 3 Burn at level 8 grants 16 Temp HP (8+4+4) or DR 6 (4+1+1) both at the cost of 24 Nonlethal.
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Yah I had forgotten the extra point for the shield.
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