Hello.
I have been following these forums for a while now but for the life of me I cant seem to find an answer to my question. Which is:
As a kineticist, if you take GEW (Greater Elemental Whispers), do you lose access to EW (normal Elemental Whispers)? Or do both feats(talents) exist simultaneously?
To elaborate:
Normally, when a feat (or anything else) has a Greater version, that Greater version is a direct upgrade of the basic feat. For example, Weapon Focus increases attack by +1, and then Greater Weapon Focus increases it by another +1, which stacks with WF, for a total increase of +2 to attack. The original +1 from WF is already included in this total bonus, and you'd be crazy to want to only use the basic +1 from WF instead of the total +2 from having both.
Likewise, if you have feats like Cleave: Greater Cleave allows you to attack more targets, but the first target (granted by Cleave) is included in these additional targets.
Further, almost any Combat Maneuver normally carries some penalty, but if you take the Improved [combat maneuver] feat, the penalty is negated and you sometimes get bonuses to its CMB. Then the Greater [combat maneuver] feat further increases those bonuses and sometimes adds additional effects.
And another example: the "Sniping" magic weapon special ability gives a +5 bonus to Stealth checks in its base version, the Improved version gives +10 and Greater gives +15.
In all of these examples, the Improved and Greater versions improve the bonuses from the basic version. Nowhere does it say that by taking the Greater version, you lose access to the normal version. In fact, it could be said that you can never get the Greater version without the normal one, and that you even lose access to the Greater version if you somehow lose the normal version - which is also the reason that temporary feats (like ones gained from equipment) cant be used to qualify for Greater feats. Therefore we can conclude that in all these cases, the Greater version doesnt "overwrite" the normal version, instead they both exist simultaneously. In theory, you could then use "Cleave" instead "Greater Cleave" if you wanted to, but in practice, you'd never ever want to, because the bonus of the base feat is included (and expanded upon) in the Greater feat, making the Greater feat a superior choice all the time (as it should be).
However, that doesnt seem to be the case with EW/GEW. GEW is not a direct improvement of EW, it gives somewhat different benefits.
EW gives you a mind figment (its not a familiar - its not even a creature as far as I can tell) that you can "manifest" at will (requires concentration while manifested), but it returns to your mind as soon as it takes any damage. It grants you a skill/save bonus depending on its type, and while in your mind, you also get Alertness.
GEW on the other hand, gives you a fully functional familiar that doesnt require concentration, it gets its own stats including HP, and obviously it can also die, in which case you need to wait a whole week and also pony up some serious cash in order to bring it back, which is a considerable drawback. You can still get Alertness while its dead (but not at will like with EW), however you also dont get the skill/save bonus that you got from EW's type.
This is clearly not a straightforward improvement from EW, but almost a whole different mechanic. Sure, in many situations you're better off with a fully functional improved familiar than with a figment of your mind, so it is an improvement in that sense, however this makes it pretty different than the feats I talked about above. GEW not only works differently, but also takes away some of the bonuses that EW provided, which is unlike any of those feats above. As such, I am not sure I even want to upgrade to GEW (there are other good talents to consider at that level), but if I do, I'd like to have the option to keep on using EW if I decide that GEW's downsides are too much for me.
From the examples above I've concluded that both feats exist simultaneously, you just wouldnt normally want to use the lesser one. If both EW and GEW also exist simultaneously, then it should be possible to choose which one to use, right? I mean, obviously you cant have both "manifested" at the same time, or even EW in your mind while GEW is manifested, but if GEW dies (or you somehow deactivate it, which should be possible I guess), shouldnt you then be able to use EW instead?
