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I am beginning a home campaign with a friend as the DM with a group of people we know from our LGS.
He mentioned to me that the other players are making "squishy" characters, so I resolved to make a more heavily armored target. I eventually settled on a Kineticist with the Kinetic Knight archetype, because who doesn't love benders?
I have run into a few snags though:
1) I usually play traditional casters, so I'm not that familiar with many good builds for what will essentially be a melee tank.
2) I currently run a game where one of my players is a heavily armored Tower Shield specialist fighter with a whip. As I looked at the Kinetic Knight, as well as threads about it, I realized that most builds pointed in this direction for a Kinetic Knight. I emphatically don't want to play a clone of this character as I have been dealing with it every week for well over a year.
So, in summation, I'd like advice for feat choices that allow me to play a Kinetic Knight as a tank without relying on the kinetic whip features once he gets them.
If it helps, he is a water kineticist, and I'm no willing to change that.
Thanks in advance.
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Grab entangling infusion and use that instead of the whip to try and lock down an enemy. It's only form infusions kinetic knights can't use, substance infusions are fair game.
The basic feats you'll want as a kineticist, especially the knight, are Weapon Focus (kinetic blast), Toughness, and Iron Will. You might drop toughness if you're going to have a great Con anyway. After those 2-3 feats you have options.
Shield Focus & Guarded Charge helps you start on a combat maneuver which gives you another option for controlling the immediate area about your knight.
If you accept that being able to substitute Con for Int, and Int for Dex allows you to sub Con for Dex, then Artful Dodge and Redirect Attack could be fun.
Kinetic Invocation opens up other uses for your wild talents. Most of the water options are worth considering.
If you go for a second element at level 7 rather than expanding back into water it may be worth taking Extra Wild Talent to make better use of that second element.
You could go down the Combat Reflexes - Bodyguard - (other stuff to boost Aid Another) path in order to protect your adjacent allies.
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Note that the kinetic knight gains resolve, which can help with the Will save issue. Iron Will is still probably solid, of course. ^_^
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Did you go with the water blast or ice blast? That will affect what substance infusions you can use.
Weapon focus(kinetic blast) and iron will are good. Step up could be good as well. Kineticists generally don't have a high demand for feats, so if you wanted to you could go nature soul+animal ally+boon companion and get a full animal companion that scales with character level.
Also, get a cestus to wear. It lets you threaten, for flanking and AOOs, while also keeping your hand empty so it doesn't hinder your gather power or kinetic blades.
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Thanks to everyone who has responded so far!
Did you go with the water blast or ice blast? That will affect what substance infusions you can use.
Weapon focus(kinetic blast) and iron will are good. Step up could be good as well. Kineticists generally don't have a high demand for feats, so if you wanted to you could go nature soul+animal ally+boon companion and get a full animal companion that scales with character level.
Also, get a cestus to wear. It lets you threaten, for flanking and AOOs, while also keeping your hand empty so it doesn't hinder your gather power or kinetic blades.
I went with the water physical blast for my first type of blast.
Regarding the animal companion, I and another player decided that we are IC cousins as we are both Undines. She's playing a druid and seems very excited about her viper animal companion, so I don't want to steal her thunder with one of my own.
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Ah. You won't need kinetic invocation then, you can just choose from the options under the feat (unless you traded out the water affinity ability for an alternate racial trait). And with water blast, entangling infusion isn't an option. Is there anything else you've chosen already? Feats or something?
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Here is the level 1 stat block I submitted to my GM for consideration:
Male undine hydrokineticist 1 (kinetic knight) (Pathfinder Player Companion: Psychic Anthology 25, Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 275, Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures 10)
NG Medium outsider (native)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +5
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Defense
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AC 17, touch 13, flat-footed 14 (+4 armor, +3 Dex)
hp 11 (1d8+3)
Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +1
Resist cold 5
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft.
Ranged light crossbow +3 (1d8/19-20)
Special Attacks kinetic blast
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 1st; concentration +0)
. . 1/day—hydraulic push[APG]
Kineticist Wild Talents Known
. . Defense—shroud of water (at level 4)
. . Infusions—kinetic blade, pushing infusion
. . Blasts—water blast (1d6+3)
. . Utility—basic hydrokinesis
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Statistics
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Str 13, Dex 17, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 9
Base Atk +0; CMB +1; CMD 14
Feats Weapon Finesse
Traits marid's fury, reckless
Skills Acrobatics +6, Knowledge (nature) +6, Knowledge (planes) +3, Perception +5, Sense Motive +5, Swim +11
Languages Aquan, Common, Gnome, Ignan
SQ burn (1 point/round, max 5), elemental blade, gather power, hydrated vitality[ARG]
Other Gear chain shirt, crossbow bolts (10), light crossbow, backpack, belt pouch, flint and steel, hemp rope (50 ft.), trail rations (5), 7 gp, 2 sp
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Special Abilities
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Burn 1/round (1 nonlethal/burn, 5/day) Burn HP to gain greater effects on your wild talents.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only).
Elemental Blade (Su) Gain Kinetic Blade and other infusions, but can't use blasts without them.
Energy Resistance, Cold (5) You have the specified Energy Resistance against Cold attacks.
Gather Power (Su) Move: reduce the burn cost of a blast by 1 or Full-round: reduce the burn cost of a blast by 2
Hydrated Vitality (2 HP/day) Gain fast healing 2 when submerged completely in natural, flowing, water.
Kinetic Blade (Light Weapon) Create a blade of pure energy.
Kinetic Blast (Sp) The kineticist can unleash her kinetic blast at a range of 30 feet at will.
Pushing Infusion (CMB +2) Your kinetic blasts makes Bull Rush CMB using Con.
Swim (30 feet) You have a Swim speed.
Water Blast (Sp) Level 0; Burn 0
His stats were generated using 4d6 drop the lowest with an array of 15, 15, 15, 14, 10, 9. I did take Hydrated Vitality over Water Affinity because it seemed useless at the time. Are the powers offered by Kinetic Invocation good enough that I should switch back?
I also have another question- when I attack with a kinetic blade, do I get iterative attacks as per my base attack bonus, or just one attack as if I were using the regular kinetic blast as a spell-like?
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Iterative attacks. That's the main benefit of Kinetic Blade.
EDIT:
You can use this form infusion once as part of an attack action, a charge action, or a full-attack action in order to make melee attacks with your kinetic blade. Since it’s part of another action (and isn’t an action itself), using this wild talent doesn’t provoke any additional attacks of opportunity. The kinetic blade deals your kinetic blast damage on each hit (applying any modifiers to your kinetic blast’s damage as normal, but not your Strength modifier).
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Iterative attacks. That's the main benefit of Kinetic Blade.
EDIT:
You can use this form infusion once as part of an attack action, a charge action, or a full-attack action in order to make melee attacks with your kinetic blade. Since it’s part of another action (and isn’t an action itself), using this wild talent doesn’t provoke any additional attacks of opportunity. The kinetic blade deals your kinetic blast damage on each hit (applying any modifiers to your kinetic blast’s damage as normal, but not your Strength modifier).
Hmm, given the huge amount of d6's that a kinetic blast, especially the level 7 versions, can roll, it seemed a little OP, which was why I was skeptical that I was reading it correctly.
Though taking a second look at it, an average hit for Ivar will yield 35 points of damage at level 7, which is respectable but not insane.
Here's what kinetic invocation offers a hydrokineticist as possible wild talents:
Water: Fluid form (6th), ride the waves (4th), silent image (2nd; 0 burn), sleet storm (3rd), water breathing (3rd).
Where not noted they cost 1 burn. At-will silent image with no verbal or somatic components is obviously nice, sleet storm is battlefield control at range, fluid form is a handy buff which would make up for not using the whip. If you want any of these, even just one, then don't get hydrated vitality.
IMO your Con isn't high enough that you'd want to do without toughness. Being an outsider, and the resolve ability which Isabelle Lee reminded me of, mean that iron will might well be unnecessary. If you take toughness and weapon focus next, your next free feat is at level 7.
Going into a combat maneuver will be slow for you with a Dex rather than Str focus, starting then is late to head down the Bodyguard path (though Combat Reflexes is useful on its own so... maybe), but you could take Redirect Attack then Agile Maneuvers. Or Extra Wild Talent if you start a second element, or if you want wild talents from both kinetic invocation and the standard list.
Hmm, given the huge amount of d6's that a kinetic blast, especially the level 7 versions, can roll, it seemed a little OP, which was why I was skeptical that I was reading it correctly.
Though taking a second look at it, an average hit for Ivar will yield 35 points of damage at level 7, which is respectable but not insane.
The biggest problem the Kineticist in general, and the Kinetic Knight in particular face in practice is accuracy. You're a 3/4 BAB class, and elemental overflow will put you around full BAB in terms of accuracy, but in general it's more difficult for your to boost your attack bonus than it is for classes that use weapons or natural attacks.
So while getting iterative attacks with the kinetic blade seems great, getting those secondary and tertiary attacks to land might be tough. A lot of people will recommend getting a touch attack with your expanded element at level 7 for just that reason. Water has a composite with the energy blast in water, air, and fire but the kinetic knight is going to struggle using composite blasts as much as the vanilla kineticists (since the KK can rarely justify a move action to gather power.)
But in general you worry about three things with a kineticist:
1) Raw attributes (specifically CON and DEX or STR)
2) Defense (the Knight has class features to help with this)
3) Accuracy (anything that reliably boosts to-hit is your friend, since your damage is already big.)
I wonder how long till we get something like the amulet of mighty fists for kineticists. It reminds me of the old days of 3.0 monk, where you had big damage attacks, but not good chances of hitting with them.
Obviously not relevant to the OP, but I've been kicking around the idea of a Dwarven Kinetic Knight who uses Dwarven Hatred style- you'd get +2 to hit anybody who hits you after level 7 and you can build a Kinetic Knight that can really take a hit.
So I'm assuming you're going Dex based because you're conceptually sold on the undine (+2 Dex -2 Str).
What's your plan for armour? Remember you don't get to use your elemental defense talent unless you're using heavy armour and a shield, but that'll limit your Dex to AC pretty sharply.
Mithral Tatami-Do with that new armor mod in Adventurer's Armory 2 will give you a max dex bonus of +7 (and AC of +6). That should suffice if you can manage to carry it around (it weighs 22.5 lbs.) Just the basic Tatami-Do costs 1k gold and has a +3 max dex bonus, which is achievable by level 4, though lugging it around might be an issue.
I mean, the Undine in silver samurai armor is kind a cool mental image, but I have to wonder how many dex-based kinetic knight ideas wouldn't be better off as vanilla kineticists.
So I'm assuming you're going Dex based because you're conceptually sold on the undine (+2 Dex -2 Str).
What's your plan for armour? Remember you don't get to use your elemental defense talent unless you're using heavy armour and a shield, but that'll limit your Dex to AC pretty sharply.
Mithral Tatami-Do with that new armor mod in Adventurer's Armory 2 will give you a max dex bonus of +7 (and AC of +6). That should suffice if you can manage to carry it around (it weighs 22.5 lbs.) Just the basic Tatami-Do costs 1k gold and has a +3 max dex bonus, which is achievable by level 4, though lugging it around might be an issue.
I mean, the Undine in silver samurai armor is kind a cool mental image, but I have to wonder how many dex-based kinetic knight ideas wouldn't be better off as vanilla kineticists.
Hide + armored kilt costs 35gp, has an AC +5 and max dex +4.
If we add mithril, medium armor + kilt and the new armor mods, you can an impressive Max dex.
I wonder if Double Plated and Armored Kilt stack, so you could have Double Plated Silken Ceremonial Armor with an Armored Kilt that counts as heavy armor but has no max dex.
If variant multiclassing is available, you could use it to pick up some fighter armor training. Kineticist doesn't need the extra feats that bad anyway. Unfortunately, I don't think the blast fits in any weapon group yet.
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Thanks to everyone for their help so far.
Regarding armor, I'm planning on convincing the GM to let me get a custom non-belt magic item on it that gives me permanent ant haul. Does this armor kit spoken of make mithral armor back into heavy armor? Right now HeroLab is not letting me make use of Shroud of Water with mithral heavy armor. I will look into the tatami-do, but I'm not actually that concerned about dex to AC; I had written it off as just a loss.
Here is a projected lvl 15 Ivar based on feedback and what looked good to me. I don't know if we'll even get this far, but let me know if you see any flaws. The equipment on it is just for purposes of allowing me to make use of Shroud of Water for prereqs, etc.
Male undine hydrokineticist (kinetic knight) 15 (Pathfinder Player Companion: Psychic Anthology 25, Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 275, Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures 10)
NG Medium outsider (native)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +19
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Defense
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AC 23, touch 11, flat-footed 22 (+9 armor, +1 Dex, +3 shield)
hp 153 (15d8+75)
Fort +12, Ref +13, Will +6
Defensive Abilities greater resolve 7/day; Resist cold 5
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft. (20 ft. in armor), swim 30 ft.
Ranged light crossbow +15 (1d8/19-20)
Special Attacks kinetic blast
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 15th; concentration +14)
. . 1/day—hydraulic push[APG]
Kineticist Wild Talents Known
. . Defense—shroud of water
. . Infusions—blade rush, blade whirlwind, chilling infusion (DC 20), draining infusion (DC 20), entangling infusion (DC 20), kinetic blade, kinetic whip, pushing infusion, slick infusion, whip hurricane
. . Blasts—cold blast (8d6+2 cold), ice blast (16d6+20 ½ cold and ½ piercing), water blast (8d6+12)
. . Utility—basic hydrokinesis, cold adaptation, cold snap, kinetic cover, kinetic invocation: fluid form, kinetic invocation: sleet storm, kinetic restoration, shimmering mirage, waterdancer, waterdancer, greater
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Statistics
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Str 14, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 9
Base Atk +11; CMB +13 (+17 bull rush); CMD 27 (29 vs. bull rush)
Feats Artful Dodge, Guarded Charge, Improved Bull Rush, Redirect Attack, Shield Focus, Toughness, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (kineticist blast)
Traits marid's fury, reckless
Skills Acrobatics +17 (+13 to jump), Knowledge (nature) +20, Knowledge (planes) +17, Perception +19, Sense Motive +19, Swim +22
Languages Aquan, Common, Gnome, Ignan
SQ burn (4 points/round, max 6), elemental bastion, elemental blade, elemental overflow +5, expanded element (water, water), expanded element (water, water), gather power, infusion specialization 4, internal buffer 2
Other Gear mwk full plate, mwk heavy steel shield, crossbow bolts (10), light crossbow, heavyload belt[UE], backpack, belt pouch, flint and steel, hemp rope (50 ft.), trail rations (5), 5 gp, 2 sp
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Special Abilities
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Artful Dodge Gain +1 dodge bonus to AC vs. opponent only you threaten.
Blade Rush Move 30 feet, manifest kinetic blade and attack once.
Blade Whirlwind Create and swinging it in an arc around you, making one attack against all foes in reach.
Burn 4/round (15 nonlethal/burn, 6/day) Burn HP to gain greater effects on your wild talents.
Chilling Infusion (DC 20) Blast staggers its targets
Cold Adaptation (Sp) Endure elements against cold, and gain Cold Resistance = 2x current burn
Cold Blast (Sp) Level 7; Burn 0
Cold Snap (-75°F) (Sp) 30' radius cold aura, which can impose a -4 Dex on creatures in the area
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only).
Draining Infusion (DC 20) Blast only effects targets with the same subtype as your blast, but ignores DR, immunities or resistances
Elemental Bastion (- Custom / magic armor -, - Custom / magic armor -) (Ex) At 2nd level, the kinetic knight becomes proficient with medium and heavy armor and shields (except tower shields). In addition, the kinetic knight can accept 1 point of burn to attune herself to a specific light or heavy shield until the next time h
Elemental Blade (Su) Gain Kinetic Blade and other infusions, but can't use blasts without them.
Elemental Overflow (Ex) Gain a bonus to hit and damage with your blast when you use burn.
Energy Resistance, Cold (5) You have the specified Energy Resistance against Cold attacks.
Entangling Infusion (DC 20) Your blast can entangle a foe.
Expanded Element This is a dummy ability to consolidate the expanded elements into a single entry in the statblock. We can't do this through the normal channels, because both primary and expanded elements are added to the same table on the class.
Expanded Element This is a dummy ability to consolidate the expanded elements into a single entry in the statblock. We can't do this through the normal channels, because both primary and expanded elements are added to the same table on the class.
Gather Power (Su) Move: reduce the burn cost of a blast by 1 or Full-round: reduce the burn cost of a blast by 2
Greater Resolve (7/day) (Ex) Your resolve can remove effects, reroll saves, or ignore crits.
Guarded Charge No AoO when bull rush/overrun on charge. Extra +2 if have the improved feat for maneuver.
Ice Blast (Sp) Level 7; Burn 2
Improved Bull Rush You don't provoke attacks of opportunity when bull rushing.
Infusion Specialization 4 (Ex) Reduce burn cost of blasts with infusions by 4
Internal Buffer 2 (Su) Store burn for use later
Kinetic Blade (Light Weapon) Create a blade of pure energy.
Kinetic Blast (Sp) The kineticist can unleash her kinetic blast at a range of 30 feet at will.
Kinetic Cover (Sp) A wall for one face of a square within 30 ft appears.
Kinetic Invocation: Fluid Form (Sp) Cast fluid form as a utility wild talent.
Kinetic Invocation: Sleet Storm (Sp) Cast sleet storm as a utility wild talent.
Kinetic Restoration (Su) Heal 1d4 dam to physical ability score and reduce fatigue/exhaustion 1 step.
Kinetic Whip Form a kinetic blade with reach.
Pushing Infusion (CMB +18) Your kinetic blasts makes Bull Rush CMB using Con.
Redirect Attack Once a turn redirect a failed attack from opoonent to another target.
Shimmering Mirage (Sp) You gain a 20% miss chance due to concealment.
Slick Infusion (DC 21) Your blast leaves behind slippery water or ice whle the blast is in that area and 1 rnd after.
Swim (30 feet) You have a Swim speed.
Water Blast (Sp) Level 7; Burn 0
Waterdancer (Sp) Act as if constantly under the effects of slipstream.
Waterdancer, Greater (Su) You can water walk at will and breathe underwater.
Whip Hurricane
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Lvl 1 Elemental Blast: Water Blast
Lvl 1 Infusion: Pushing
Lvl 1 Feat: Weapon Finesse
Lvl 2 Utility: Cold Adaptation
Lvl 3 Feat: Toughness
Lvl 4 Utility: Kinetic Cover
Lvl 5 Infusion: Slick
Lvl 5 Feat: Weapon Focus (Kineticist Blast)
Lvl 6 Utility: Cold Snap
Lvl 7 Expanded Element: Water (Cold Blast, Ice Blast)
Lv 7 Utility: Kinetic Restoration
Lvl 7 Feat: Artful Dodge
Lvl 8 Utility: Waterdancer
Lvl 9 Infustion: Entangling
Lvl 9 Feat: Redirect Attack
Lvl 10 Utility: Shimmering Mirage
Lvl 11 Infusion: Chilling
Lvl 11 Feat: Shield Focus
Lvl 12 Utility: Kinetic Infusion: Sleet Storm
Lvl 13 Feat: Guarded Charge
Lvl 14 Utility: Kinetic Infusion: Fluid Form
Lvl 15 Expanded Element: Water
Lvl 15 Utility: Greater Waterdancer
Lvl 15 Talent: Improved Bull Rush
Since you have higher Dex than I was imagining back at the start, you could take dodge rather than artful dodge. Its +1 AC is less conditional and you don't need to sub Int for Dex at all.
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I double-checked the FAQ for mithral armour and it looks like it does still work for abilities that require heavy armour. That makes it easier than I thought - and means the Hero Lab thing is probably a bug, unless it thinks you're trying to stack two armour bonuses?
Disclaimer: I am not invested with official rules authority. All I can do is share my personal opinion about content I wrote.
So... the Mithral FAQ made things more complicated than they used to be. I've spoken about this particular case elsewhere. Basically, since the kinetic knight requirement is a class feature (similar to those referenced in the FAQ), I'm inclined to treat mithral heavy armor as medium for that purpose. (Hero Lab apparently agrees.)
Since I also wrote the double-plated armor modification mentioned above, let's look at that as well. This one... might not work here. The Mithral FAQ instructs us to treat the armor as its original category for certain equipment-based purposes, such as the viability of enchantments limited to certain armor types. As such, this might cause double-plated mithral tatami-do to trigger the restriction associated with double-plated heavy armor, rendering it unusable without the appropriate feat (at which point you're treating it as medium again anyway). I'm not sure about that yet - I'll have to review the exact wording of both the FAQ and the armor modification system.
That said, since this is for a home campaign, it would be a very reasonable houserule to allow. And failing that, I'm pretty sure the armored kilt solution still works. ^_^
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Disclaimer: I am not invested with official rules authority. All I can do is share my personal opinion about content I wrote.
So... the Mithral FAQ made things more complicated than they used to be. I've spoken about this particular case elsewhere. Basically, since the kinetic knight requirement is a class feature (similar to those referenced in the FAQ), I'm inclined to treat mithral heavy armor as medium for that purpose. (Hero Lab apparently agrees.
That was also my thinking, when I raised the question about how to handle the armour.
But reading the precise wording I believe that since the wording of the FAQ is "mithral armor allows its wearer to use it when her own class features or special abilities demand her to wear lighter armor" it does not change the category of the armour when her own class features demand her to wear heavier armor.
Does that affect your thinking?
I considered it the last time this came up, so it doesn't change much. That said, it's admittedly a complicated issue, and the FAQ only seems to add to the confusion.
It's too early in the morning for me to think any harder about this, I'm afraid. ^_^