Eh, its not as bad of a Feat Tax as Infusion is for the Alchemist; though its really weird as to why it has special exceptions built in. If you never looked at the Feat you would never even know those rules existed.
Kinetic Invocation, one of worst feats ever, completely unnecessary, and a waste of space.
Just my 2 cents here, but I don't think you have to worship ONLY one god in Pathfinder. In fact it makes much more sense to worship multiple gods in Golarion since everybody knows the Gods actually exist. Now Clerics and Paladins and any other religious based class will likely focus on the one God that grants them their power but I'd still imagine that they'd tip their hat to the ones that represent like minded ideals.
Does it say anywhere in any of the rulebooks that you can ONLY worship one god?
Eh, its not as bad of a Feat Tax as Infusion is for the Alchemist; though its really weird as to why it has special exceptions built in. If you never looked at the Feat you would never even know those rules existed.
I think part of the "people of these races can skip kinetic invocation" is partly an acknowledgement that those races were published before the Kineticist existed, so despite the fact that the Oread has "Earth Affinity" (which helps out earth-oriented sorcerers and clerics) they have nothing that makes them better at being geokineticists than any other kind of kineticist.
You would want Oreads to be better Geokineticists than Hydrokineticists and you'd want Gathlains to be better Phytokineticists than Chaokineticists, so instead of amending the racial traits of the especially elemental races one by one in order to give them some mechanical incentive to pick their natural element as kineticists (which would occupy many column inches) we instead can give an appropriate bonus to all the races with an appropriate elemental affinity in a single paragraph.
If you took away the feat requirement, you'd have to consider "Why would I choose wood for the element of my Gathlain Overwhelming Soul and not something else?" (say, Air for example so you can stay far away from anything that wants to hurt you.)
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Thats partly due to bad future-proofing (ie: Ifrit Sorcerers getting no benefit from the Efreeti Bloodline). I agree with you, I just think its a sloppy way to do it.
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Just my 2 cents here, but I don't think you have to worship ONLY one god in Pathfinder. In fact it makes much more sense to worship multiple gods in Golarion since everybody knows the Gods actually exist. Now Clerics and Paladins and any other religious based class will likely focus on the one God that grants them their power but I'd still imagine that they'd tip their hat to the ones that represent like minded ideals.
Does it say anywhere in any of the rulebooks that you can ONLY worship one god?
Not to my knowledge but the game does run on the assumption that you only Worship (I.e. Get mechanical benefits from) one Deity. You can Venerate as many as you want but for the purpose of feats and traits and other options you can only Worship one.
anyways, I've thought on it and I don't see any balance issues, and no one really brought any up, so I'm just going to let kineticists pick off the lists in my game as an option without the feat
Just think about what you would do to compensate Sylph Aerokineticists, Ifrit Pyrokineticists, Undine Hydrokineticists,etc. who are picking their race's element because it's thematic and no longer getting any sort of mechanical benefit from it (because Kinetic Invocation is free for everyone now.)
Those races are literally supposed to be "better at that one element than anybody else" but the rules for implementing this don't otherwise really extend past the base classes.
If you're already Houseruling the Rule out, you can Houserule a new rule in for the Elemental Races.
If you're already Houseruling the Rule out, you can Houserule a new rule in for the Elemental Races.
Sure, but anticipate that you're going to want to make a second rule for that and do it at the same time.
If you're already Houseruling the Rule out, you can Houserule a new rule in for the Elemental Races.Sure, but anticipate that you're going to want to make a second rule for that and do it at the same time.
It's a pretty simple fix though. "Elemental races that retain their elemental racial trait, for instance ifrit retaining fire affinity, add either +1 caster level or treat their spell casting stat as two higher for appropriately themed abilities. The DM is the final arbiter on what is appropriate and which benefit applies."
It's so much easier to have the trait work the same way across the board than ignoring the abilities that's actually meant to make those races "better at that one element than anybody else". As is stands, some races that don't have an affinity can avoid taking the feat and IMO that feels wrong. Gathlain, Ghoran, Caligni and Dhampir's don't have any affinity ability so they aren't assumed to "better at that one element than anybody else" but invocations treats them that way.
PS: This in NO way means I'm against those races getting good/nice things: they can use them as they don't get the 'love' more popular races have. I just don't agree that a thematic link equates into a mechanical affinity. For instance goblins/pyromaniac gnomes love fire but don't get a free pass on invocations even though it's thematically appropriate...
There is no feat tax if you play a thematic race. It's less about balance, and more about making those unusual races feel even more special.
It's the same horrible game philosophy that gives us amazing martial options...that can only be used by members of a specific religion.
It goes back even further than that, to something I've railed against time and again: Tying generic mechanics to highly specific fluff. The most egregious example is Fey Foundling.
At least Fire has the Salamnder spell. That's an amazing thing to have for 0 burn.
It goes back even further than that, to something I've railed against time and again: Tying generic mechanics to highly specific fluff. The most egregious example is Fey Foundling.There is no feat tax if you play a thematic race. It's less about balance, and more about making those unusual races feel even more special.
It's the same horrible game philosophy that gives us amazing martial options...that can only be used by members of a specific religion.
Myself I don't mind "highly specific" as long a it stays in the fluff. For the most part, the fluff is mutable and you can change it as needed most times. it's a rare game when I have someone say anything when I re-fluff. For instance, fey foundling could be having the blood of a fey, shadow demon, Jackalwere, hag, Succubus... Could be something like an oracles curse. Could be an eldritch experiment on the first world that went wrong. I feel no reason to tie myself to fluff.
It's when the "highly specific" wanders into the mechanics that it irks me.
I feel like it's every bit as easy to refluff bladed brush to work for any sort of deity whose followers care about gracefulness and finesse that likes glaives as it is to refluff fey foundling to apply to people with a different backstory.
Which is to say, it's not remotely hard.
It goes back even further than that, to something I've railed against time and again: Tying generic mechanics to highly specific fluff. The most egregious example is Fey Foundling.There is no feat tax if you play a thematic race. It's less about balance, and more about making those unusual races feel even more special.
It's the same horrible game philosophy that gives us amazing martial options...that can only be used by members of a specific religion.
Myself I don't mind "highly specific" as long a it stays in the fluff. For the most part, the fluff is mutable and you can change it as needed most times. it's a rare game when I have someone say anything when I re-fluff. For instance, fey foundling could be having the blood of a fey, shadow demon, Jackalwere, hag, Succubus... Could be something like an oracles curse. Could be an eldritch experiment on the first world that went wrong. I feel no reason to tie myself to fluff.
It's when the "highly specific" wanders into the mechanics that it irks me.
Same here.
I feel like it's every bit as easy to refluff bladed brush to work for any sort of deity whose followers care about gracefulness and finesse that likes glaives as it is to refluff fey foundling to apply to people with a different backstory.
Which is to say, it's not remotely hard.
The issue there is the god/alignment needed aren't fluff so it's literally impossible to refluff them to use another deity.
Now if you meant 'it's easy to house-rule another diety', I agree but houseruling isn't always on the table. Now what IS fluff is "You know how to balance a polearm perfectly, striking with artful, yet deadly precision." So "deity whose followers care about gracefulness and finesse" could easily be dropped and refluffed to ANY deity that uses glaives. After all any deity's followers are going to try to use their gods weapon well.
The issue there is the god/alignment needed aren't fluff so it's literally impossible to refluff them to use another deity.
To me there's absolutlely nothing fluffier in these sorts of games than "gods and alignment" because it's all just metaphysics that can be changed whole cloth without upsetting anything else.
Like if you want to remove the whole Shelyn/Zon-Kuthon story out of Golarion, it's trivial to do so. Or if you want to pick up the Feat and put it in a setting with no gods in common.
The thing about "other deities who use glaives", I'm not sure that the followers of Baphomet are all that interested in grace and subtlety (I mean "Strength" is one of the domains he grants.) In a perfect world you could have a different feat for people who want to hit really hard and ferociously with glaives (perhaps while charging) then that would be a good thing to get the Baphomites. I admit to not knowing the first thing about Crocell though.
To me there's absolutlely nothing fluffier in these sorts of games than "gods and alignment"
I might be able to agree if it wasn't something in the prerequisites. Even if you switch out gods, it will most likely require a new mechanic [deity/alignment] to replace what's takes out. And I can't really call something that can make me lose all my class abilities if it changes [alignment] and/or feat [deity] as fluff.
The thing about "other deities who use glaives", I'm not sure that the followers of Baphomet are all that interested in grace and subtlety (I mean "Strength" is one of the domains he grants.)
"grace and subtlety" isn't in the mechanics of the feat so... Note his humanoid followers are conspirators and secret societies. Not people squarely in the 'hulk smash' category. " They always keep their allegiances to the demon lord Baphomet concealed and the secret societies they found often appear harmless or innocuous." A weak looking dude suddenly whipping out a glaive around being surprisingly good at it sounds like s VERY good fit. IMO strength is more for the minotaurs and glabrezu demons that ARE 'hulk smash'.
In a perfect world you could have a different feat for people who want to hit really hard and ferociously with glaives (perhaps while charging) then that would be a good thing to get the Baphomites.
Sounds awesome for a minotaur but not so much for a sneaky, stealthy cultist that's trying to look "harmless or innocuous".
PS: Check Baphomet/Templars of the Ivory Labyrinth on pathfinder wiki for more info.