Hello !
I'll begin the campaign in a little while and will have a session 0 tonight, so before that i could use some advice on choices to make because Kineticist is pretty confusing.
I've read both N.Jolly's guide and "Sucking counts as airbending, right ?". It looks like water kineticist could give me some useful utility in this campaign, be very fun and have some great fluff being the party's navigator. My party comp looks like this at the moment:
- 2 melee martials (Barbarian and Warpriest (Sacred Fist) with Belier's Bite allowed, going in for extreme damage and low accuracy)
- 1 bard going sea singer or buccaneer, buffing PCs and NPCs
- A gunslinger, and me
I've made peace with my damage being the second lowest in the group, but my DM demands that we optimize our characters well enough for this campaign, so i could use a hand.
PB will likely be 20, maybe 25.
I was thinking of a gnome water kineticist as it sounds like a great character, but i could also go hobgoblin if the attribute bonus is better thzn the size bonus and other neat gnomish racial traits.
1. In this configuration, would kinetic whip be worthwhile ? I won't have extra reach from any enlarge effect, only from my 12th level Fluid Form given by Kinetic invocation. Kinetic blade seems useless until i need to take it to get kinetic whip and the two feats needed might be better spent on something else.
2. Should i take the energy or physical blast ? An early energy blast sounds like it might be too much accuracy and not enough damage, especially if the Bard buffs attack rolls and the Barbarian debuffs enemy AC and saves.
3. At lvl 7, should i expand water or pick up Air ? Picking up Air looks like i'll eventually get even more utility choices, while keeping to a solo element will give me 1 more talent and a good-looking ice blast
4. Finally, won't i end up with less adaptability than a wizard and lower damage except when going nova ? The restricted number of utility tricks i can pull looks like it's not worth being able to pull it off all day, or the water-bound fluff. Grease, Webs, Silent image and other spells might cover up all of the Kinetic's utility and more.
Since kinetic blast's damage doesn't vary based on size a gnome kineticist does just as much damage as a hobgoblin with the same accuracy given the same amount invested in Dex & Con. Of course a hobgoblin gets 30' base speed and darkvision and a gnome can get assorted other bonuses, but the difference there is more about roleplaying than stats.
Kinetic blade and kinetic whip work just fine without extra reach. I'm not sure what you're saying there. Using a kinetic blade or whip with a haste spell or effect (& weapon finesse) is the highest damage a kineticist can get - it can actually be shockingly high.
A blizzard blast or charged water blast does just as much damage as an ice blast. On the other hand you don't get as much utility from expanding into another element as you might think due to the choosing wild talents as if 4 levels lower. I guess it depends whether there's something in particular you want out of air.
Kineticists are a huge step down from a wizard in adaptability, no question about that. They're likely to have higher survivability but if you're min-maxing a wizard wins. A hydrokineticist in particular can be a healer (which isn't what a wizard is good at) if you're looking for a reason to play one over a wizard.
Thanks for your answer.
The main difference between gnome and hobgoblin in stats was the size, hobgoblin having the advantage to get 5' more reach with an Enlarge spell, while the gnome doesn't have that. It is important because while iterative attacks help with whip damage, attacks of opportunity from Combat Reflexes give you several times the number of hits you get on a full-attack, allowing for good battleffield control and a sharp increase in damage. A hobgoblin has easier access to means of increasing reach and 1 more attack from his +2Dex. I don't know how meaningful that will end up being in this campaign, compared to the gnome's +4AC against giants or that Eternal Hope racial trait, +2 to profession(sailor), +1 vs reptiles and other very circumstancial bonuses.
I know the restriction for the second element's talents is pretty hefty, but still, Air as a second element would give me access to Celerity (so haste at will) at lvl10 (or at lvl9 with extra wild talent) helping my damage and my companion's pretty neatly. From what i've seen though, impale is better an infusion than torrent (as whenever i can use torrent i could be using kinetic whip and go crazy with AoOs) and it can only be used with water's composite blast, not with charged water or blizzard. That's where damage counts in the element's choice, and i can't decide which is better.
The choice of energy or physical is also pretty important and depends on what i'll encounter. If enemy ACs are pretty low and i have to fight underwater enough times, water would win over cold.
I'm wondering if water kineticist's utility is sizeable enough in skulls & shackles that i don't end up sad i didn't go wizard. After all, there's quite a lot of water and it's his trick. The healer part could have some minor use but i'd rather give the bard the gold to buy a few wands and take care of that, or leave the healing to an NPC.
Small size gives +1 attack and +1 AC over medium which is much of what +2 dex gives, and everything that's relevant to a kineticist's attack. If you're desperate for reach UMD'ing a wand of long arm will be better than the same with enlarge person - if you're getting both your GM alllows you too much time to buff IMO.
I don't know much about what monsters you fight and where in S&S, but I have read that control water/water manipulator is very good there. Celerity is a standard action for 1 round of haste at will, or for normal haste at a cost of 1 burn (i.e. Not at will). Boots of speed are becoming affordable about that level too. The more usual reason to take air is for at will flight.
Neither impale nor torrent look very good to me. Short range and having to line enemies up isn't great. Magnetic infusion (to help the barbarian or warpriest) looks better at the same level, or if youwant to hit a couple of enemies maybe spindle. Good AoEs for either element are higher level.
asking if you'll be disappointed because you chose a kineticist compared to a wizard is like asking if you'll be disappointed choosing fruit instead of chocolate. Probably!! but everyones disappointed they didnt choose chocolate, and if all we ate was chocolate, well, we'd be a fatter society than we already are.
my point (very badly made as it was) is that they're not really made for the same thing. A hydrokineticists big shtick is usually the ability to heal (and with stamina to do so far past your party healer) in addition to very solid damage, where a wizard doesnt really offer either of those. Theres some definite other utility offered, like the idea of grease on the edge of a ship, combined with one of your party members pushing someone over, or say, a blast with a pushing infusion from yourself. Water isnt the most powerful element in terms of what they gave it, but thats because it got healing. Just being frank, there.
Because you have both buffs and debuffs helping you to hit, I'd actually recommend the physical blast. I haven't specifically played this AP, but it certainly seems like cold resistance would be a reasonably prominent thing later on, given water based enemies. just logic. Bludgeoning damage serves you better, and you have both the bard and barbarian helping you to hit. If you didnt have support, I'd go with the energy blast.
lastly, race choice. Honestly up to you. I feel that hobgoblin kineticists are pretty overplayed, because the stat choices make them obvious, so I like the gnome idea. You dont lose much unless you want to mix it up in melee so much, and with this character it may be better to hang back and help out with crowd control/healing and damage from range. just my 2cp. Other elements like earth play much better in melee because they have more solid defensive talents, but water less so.
my 2 copper. i'm a huge huge kineticist fan, with a lot of experience playing them, but its definitely just an opinion, and water is probably my least played element.
Thanks for the infusion advice, i did miss Spindle before i reread the pfsrd infusion and i'm changing up my choices in there. Magnetic isn't that great since the Warpriest is going Sacred Fist.
Ice path will give me a form of flight at pretty much the same level if i keep to Water than if i branch out to Air at 7, so air would pretty much only be useful for manipulating winds, just for the fun of telling myself that i'm the best navigator of the whole Shackles and bragging about it in every tavern. Water manipulator could be enough for that though.
I do suppose i'll have the occasion to play a hobgoblin kineticist another day since they go together so well, and it's true that the melee capability i sacrifice isn't too big a loss. A gnome looks like it would be a blast in this campaign, from the race description to the racial traits, and fun is the main reason to play a kineticist anyway. I wonder how i'll manage piracy to get the funds to go exploring, maybe attacking Cheliax ships without killing or something. Gnomes like to find common interests anyway, so finding an arrangement with other PCs will do.
Merfolk won't do, my DM has asked that we don't take races that are too much at ease with water at the beginning of the campaign.
It sounds like i wouldn't get truly useful/impressive manipulation of the winds until it's too late to matter with Air as a second element, i'd rather not ask my DM to be lenient.
It was actually a pretty helpful comparison Weables, i mean chocolate is great but i can have it anytime, whereas i don't get to eat that fruit so often. Plus optimizing a wizard is so extreme it makes me feel guilty and shameful afterwards, like binging on chocolate.
I thought Kinetic Healer was just making the kineticist a jack of-all trades even less efficient at what he should be doing, but after what you've said i've taken a closer look and it could be very useful, espzcially in the very beginning of the campaign since we don't have any healer in the group. It's also a very good argument to choose the physical blast first. Between that, my party's accuracy boosts, the expectation of underwater combat and the fun of saying the ship's fireman, i might have the best possible reasons to take the water blast (fully underwater campaign aside).
I've looked up tables someone made of ene
gmp0m0y resistance in every campaign (i would link it but posting here on smartphone isn't the easiest, i'll edit it in later) and suprisingly cold isn't more resisted than other elements in this campaign, and very few enemies are immune to it. Also S&S has less problems of energy resistance for every element than most other campaigns, making it pretty nice for energy kineticists.
Thanks a bunch, i think i have a good balance of fun and power for the campaign with all that.
Yeah, kinetic healer is disgustingly good at the start of the game, because you can shunt the burn off onto your melee for very minimal loss to their hp. It actually makes it safer in a lot of ways for them, by providing a few hp cushion where they'll fall unconscious but not bleed out, due to the way lethal and non lethal damage work.
But your full blast in healing (which is pretty much a full hp bar for half your party, with a solid roll) for 1 pt of non lethal brings your parties lasting power through your roof. Sure you can take the burn yourself, but only as a last resort
I was skeptical on the value of at-will casting in this campaign (won't attack 3 or more boats a day for example), but you're right that it has wide enough utility to be invaluable.
I really didn't consider the full value of air's reach on long-range encounters. At lvl 15, repeatedly creating a Cloud right in the way of an enemy boat could effectively be unavoidable and destroy a crew. Still, you could use siege weapons at that range, even if with a sizeable attack penalty (up to -10 for a catapult or -12 for a heavy ballista). I'll figure out whether this extreme-range firepower could be useful to me before level 7, i'll update this if i do get that far or if i think of some other point.
I think i'll need to get further into the game to make my mind on whether or not i should be taking air for permaflight at lvl 10. With a speed this augmented and no weakness (like a destroyable path of ice) it might be too powerful. I'd essentially turn into a bomber with this much reach and mobility, which might prove too much for my GM and/or this campaign. I'll ask him what's his opinion on the matter