Need help: NPC aether kineticist


Advice


Trying to quickly build an NPC aether kineticist, but have no familiarity with kineticists at all. So, help welcome!

Third level, tiefling, part of an NPC group. 15 point build, I guess. His schtick is (1) ranged attack blast for lots of damage, (2) push people and things around, and (3) grab things. That's pretty much it. It would be nice if he could levitate or something similar, but I don't think that's on the menu. Might be recurring if he survives.

Anyone?

Doug M.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

A 3rd level nonhuman ranged aether kineticist has just three choices to make. His feats are point blank shot and precise shot, that's not one of them. The choices are two 1st level infusions and one 1st level utility wild talent. One of the infusions is pushing infusion from what you say, the other might as well be extended range - there aren't a lot of choices. He probably wants telekinetic finesse as the wild talent for stealing stuff out of combat.

Dex to attack with, Con to do damage and to soak burn, that's about all the ability scores he actually needs. Some Wis for saves, possibly. Anything else can be dumped to the extent you feel comfortable with for the character.


As far as bloodlines go, devils are the best due to sweet, sweet con/wis/-cha. That provides a really easy stat spread (before you consider dumps)- you dump 10 pts into dex, and 5 into con, and you then have 16 dex/con- perfectly workable for a low point buy kineticist. It even allows you to get will saves up a bit due to extra wis.

If you don't want to go with devil, then maybe just go without any bloodline- there are a couple other con/wis bloodlines, but they don't seem like they are worth the complication of your players asking 'what are those?' and grabbing the bestiary. Dex/Int/-cha isn't a bad set of scores either.

Scaled skin trait is also good- more AC, after all. You lose some resistances, you can still grab the every common fire resist.


Douglas Muir 406 wrote:
(1) ranged attack blast for lots of damage

As a Physical Blast, Telekinetic Blast will do more than Energy Blasts. Starting the fight with one point of Burn will give you +1 to to-hit and +2 damage from Overflow. I'd suggest that the Burn should be taken in your Elemental Defense, to offset the self-damage a bit.

Quote:
(2) push people and things around

As mentioned, the only combat option right now is Pushing Infusion, but if the character survives to show up again later on, they can throw people into other people

Quote:
(3) grab things.

Basic Telekinesis will be a given. Like a scaling Mage Hand, but it also acts as Scoop and Open/Close. Telekinetic Finesse will let you manipulate objects at range.

Quote:
It would be nice if he could levitate or something similar

You would need Self-Telekinesis at level 6. I've seen it argued that Telekinetic Haul should be able to lift an object a creature is standing on, but even then, that's still one level too high for this character.


General advice here: DO NOT EAT BURN ON YOUR ATTACKS. Stacking up burn for Elemental Overflow at the start of the day by improving your Elemental Defense talent and activating all-day abilities is all the burn you want to take unless it's an emergency. Gather Power is your friend when you don't want to move more than a 5-foot step in the same turn and, as long as the character's allies make sure the Kineticist doesn't get hit before it's used (only a real problem if you use the full-round gather beforehand), it is far better than eating more burn than actually benefits you.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Need help: NPC aether kineticist All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Advice
Druid Gear