Hello,
Some friends have talked me into trying PFS play, and I've got it in my head to try a Kinetic Knight. The concept sounds good, but I don't know what to do with it. Any advice on how to build one? I'm thinking Fire for his primary, then branch into aether.
Thanks.
Later on,
Ghorrin Redblade
My recommendation would be to go aether before fire, since you get the defensive talent for your first element for free and aether has a very good defense (and is front loaded on utility). Pick up the touch attack at level 7 right before you get your first iterative.
Also, are you sold on fire? A lot of things are fire resistant/immune, and you can also get a touch attack with the electric blast.
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Lots of things are electricity resistant/immune as well (though not as quite as many as fire). One of the advantages of a Fire Kineticist is that he gets Fan of Flames, which is very helpfull vs swarms.
Ghorrin, I suggest you go to the Guide of Guides sticky and look up Kineticists. You'll get a lot of advice & explanations there.
As a personal note, I think that if you chose to be a ranged striker, rather than a melee striker, the guides underestimate the value of Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot.
Honestly of the two, fire seems to have more tools to deal with resistance and immunity than electricity does.
Egil, I've looked the guides over, and didn't see much that specifically pertained to the Kinetic Knight.
One of the other reasons I like Aether first for the Kinetic Knight is that it lets you take telekinetic maneuvers at level 8, giving you an interesting ranged option for when you can't close to melee.
As for swarms, your kinetic blade (as it is a kinetic blast) does full damage to swarms anyway. An advantage to going Air 2nd is that the "always be flying" talent is available as a 3rd level air talent, the same character level that inferior flying would be available for aether, fire, or void.
Cabbage, what level do you have to wait until if aether is your expanded pick? I get what you're saying but I really want whichever element as the first pick, be it fire, cold or electricity.
EDIT just looked it up. 12th would be hard.
Basically you are two spell-levels back on your Wild talents for your second element. So if you go air first you can be flying at 6th level (it's a 3rd level talent) or if you go air second you will be flying at 10th level (as it's a 3rd level talent in your 2nd element). Likewise "invisible at will" is available for telekineticists at 6th level, but people who expand into aether have to wait for 10th. Since tk maneuvers is a 4th level talent in aether, you couldn't take it until the end of your PFS career if you started elsewhere.
I'd break it down, the advantages for going each element first are-
Aether
- Best defensive talent (so good you might want to buy it with expanded defense)
- At-will invisibility at 6th level
- Ranged combat maneuvers at 8th level
- Basic telekinesis + telekinetic finesse + telekinetic haul is a monstrously useful suite of powers out of combat - your basic kinesis rocks
Fire
- touch attack
- Fire Sight at 6th level lets you see see through smoke and flames, so you can generate concealment while you close to melee (eversmoking bottle, the smoke storm talent)
- Good damage with the burning infusion + fire's fury talents
Air
- touch attack
- Best flying in the game at 6th level
- Probably the best of the 2nd tier defensive talents (aether and earth are top tier, water too for non-knight kineticists)
- your friends will love you for magnetic infusions
- Greater Windsight and Body of Air are good scouting powers (perhaps better than invisibility since you'll probably be wearing plate mail).
I'm sure I've missed a few things, so others can feel free to chime in.
Okay, this is all good and useful stuff, but actually, stuff like choice of element wasn't even why I was here. I'm more stumped by "What does a KKnight do in combat besides Blade dudes?". What sort of combat feats do folks tend to use for them?
Being able to completely skip Combat Expertise/Dirty Fighting (plus having a kinetic whip with the disarm/trip property) might be something to think about. I know one of my PFS builds started with Gang Up and the Amanandar Militia trait, for an easy +3 to hit with her non-touch attacks. ^_^
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Kinetic Knight is pretty great, but there are a few things you should know going into it. Namely, the problem with Infusions. See, you're locked into Kinetic Blade and Blade-like Form Infusions for the rest of your career, so you can only learn and make use of Substance Infusions. The big issue is that not every element has enough Substance to actually fill in every slot that you learn. Thankfully, Aether mostly has you covered. Fire, sadly, is mostly known for it's AoE Form Infusions. You'll want to take it as a secondary if you take it at all.
Also of note, Aether's blast 'backfires' and damages the object used. So unless you want to cover yourself in clubs and take Quick Draw, you'll want to grab a rope. Rope is specifically called out for being immune to bludgeoning damage, which means it won't explode when you use it. As an extra bonus, you can use varying lengths for Kinetic Whip when you want, and you can probably tie it around your wrist to provide insurance against disarming.
As an oddball little trick, take note that you can learn other Form Infusions, you just can't use them. Why is this important? Well, your Kinetic Haul utility specifically gains range if you know the range extending infusions. So while you won't gain any huge range of use, it does allow you to manipulate objects at a much greater distance. Plus, it helps you fill in some of those 'dead slot' infusions.
Edit: Also, don't forget to pick up Disable Device as a class skill through a trait so you can make the best of your telekinesis. I know the Exchange faction has you covered for that.
If you go dex-based then weapon finesse is your feat tax of course, and combat reflexes isn't unlikely once you get the kinetic whip. Toughness and weapon focus are standard for any kineticist but not actually required if you've got some cunning idea. Mobile gathering is useful enough you probably want it though. You're not going to take feats which impose an attack penalty (e.g. power attack) except as prereqs.
You could take armor focus and armor mastery feats like ironclad reactions. Making use of your shield with shield focus/missile shield might work too. If you're going the dex route then bodyguard builds usefully on combat reflexes. Str-based you might usefully build around overrun with guarded charge, bulette charge style, charge through etc.
Fire isn't all that difficult to use if you take draining infusion, penetrating infusion and flash infusion. Sure there are some fire-immune outsiders which don't have the fire type, but they're not that common and flash blinds regardless of any immunity. The statement above about there not being enough substance infusions is nonsense, at least in PFS levels.
Kinetic Knight basically forces you to be in heavy armor (you need it to get your defensive talent) so isn't going dex-based going to be a bit of an issue (particularly with low strength, because your armor is heavy)?
I kind of suspect the "kinetic whip/combat reflexes" build is better off as a vanilla kineticist that just fights at range until kinetic whip comes online.
Also of note, Aether's blast 'backfires' and damages the object used. So unless you want to cover yourself in clubs and take Quick Draw, you'll want to grab a rope.
This whole bit is precisely why I'm all but certain to not take aether as my first element. A little too ridiculous for my taste (YMMV).
Some of the defensive talents (looking at you, fire; water's almost as bad for a kinetic knight) are so forgettable that you won't miss them. The kinetic knight does get a bunch of relevant form infusions for free, the samurai's resolve class feature, a special deal on some feats, and can function perfectly well in a mithral breastplate besides missing the defensive talent.
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Fire isn't all that difficult to use if you take draining infusion...
[What Rosc said] about there not being enough substance infusions is nonsense, at least in PFS levels.
(Entire response edited because I'm a dingbat)
Ahem. Okay, so apparently I thought Draining Infusion was a Substance thing, not a Form thing. Silly me. So, turns out Fire is actually an okay element to use for Kinetic Knight. That's neat. Thanks for coaxing me into redoing my research, Avr.I still say you'll have a little more choice starting with a physical blast's element, if only because everyone and their grandmother gets access to Pushing Infusion and that goes a long way to fill dead space. Also, Water and Air have interesting mobility options, if you're like me and you think that the low mobility of plate armor can be super frustrating to play with.
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I run a Kinetic Knight that is Dex based. It's not so bad, but I don't think it is as good in PFS. I use the Armored Kilt w/ mithral heavy armor....
Just to confirm, and since the OP specified that this is for PFS, armored kilt is not legal for PFS, per Additional Resources.
In the last major Kinetic Knight thread the takeaway on "Can I count Mithral armor in the heavier category if it would be beneficial to do so?" was "expect table variation" and "we should probably get an official response on this".
Has an official response been obtained?
I would imagine that most things that benefit from heavier armor hinge on the fact that it is thick, protective, and covers all over not the actual weight.
It has not, I'm afraid.
Part of me wants to try using whip infusions for tripping, but I'm afraid I just won't put enough CMB on the table. You're 3/4 Bab, you don't have a weapon that can have the trip quality or the leveraging enhancement, I just don't see enough ways to win the combat maneuver arms race apart from telekinetic maneuvers.
...you don't have a weapon that can have the trip quality...
CORRECTION: The Kinetic Whip has the trip quality, but generally the plus of a trip weapon IIRC is that its enhancement bonus can join the party. Kinetic Blades have no enhancement bonuses.
From what I've seen of PFS, the foes lean towards regular CMD levels even at the higher tiers (lots of humanoids, relatively few Huge foes, etc.) As for CMB... you'll never reach autosuccess levels, but with elemental overflow (both the attack bonus and the ability score bonuses) and Improved/Greater Trip, I think you'll do all right. ^_^
(Truth be told, I wrote those qualities in there mostly for flavor, as well as to make it clear to reticent GMs that the whip could make combat maneuvers despite being potentially made of energy.)
Giving the Kinetic Whip the trip trait was also sort of required for sensibility purposes, since "you cannot drop your weapon in response to a bad roll, even though it is a tendril of air/water/fire/void/aether with no permanent existence" makes very little sense.
Since that FAQ from a while back, the only benefit to giving a weapon the trip property is "you don't fall prone if you miss by 10 or more" which is the only sensible way to handle "tendril of energy" as a weapon.
If you do a one level dip in samurai you can take unconquerable resolve which can be a pretty nice.
@Isabelle, I was noodling over the numbers a bit, and it might not be a slam-dunk every time, but it's probably usable enough to, well, use. :)
Thanks!