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GMs familiar with the kineticist, I need your help please!!!
I am running a campaign of non-official Pathfinder Society scenarios mixed with my own content and any other material that works. The party, elf alchemist, dwarf fighter, human cleric, human aether kineticist, is Level 6.
I'm trying to figure out if I'm doing something wrong, like not giving out enough magic. The kineticist does (3d6+13)x1.5 damage without spending any burn, so he can do this all day, or more damage by spending some burn (he has 69 hit points to burn). The cleric, with his vicious mace, does 1d8+2d6+2 damage (taking 1d6 damage himself). The alchemist does 3d6+6 per bomb but is limited to 10 a day. The fighter does only 1d8+4 with his +1 longsword but can add +4 to damage with Power Attack.
As you can see, the kineticist does almost as much damage as the rest of the party combined.
As far as I can tell, the party shouldn't typically have +2 weapons yet so I can't see anything I should have been giving out but missed.
The kineticist's player has optimized his character but the alchemist kind of has as well. The cleric is optimized for healing. The fighter is a new player so is not optimized at all.
Is the kineticist just that much more powerful than other classes? Does it balance well only if I was running an Occult campaign? If it doesn't balance well, I may have to ask the player to retire the character, which may cause him to quit.
The Fighter being poorly built is a big part of this. Fighter is NOT a beginner class when it comes to building, even though it seems like it should be and it can be pretty straightforward when it comes to actually playing it. That said, you're selling the Fighter short with your assessment because they've just gotten their second iterative attack at 6th level. ... but only a +2 Strength is pretty abyssmal (from the +4, I'm assuming a +2 Strength, +1 from the weapon, and +1 from Weapon Training). That will be an issue and I suggest helping the player rebuild.
If the Cleric is built solely for healing and nothing else, they're playing a Cleric wrong. They should be buffing the party to start off, and then helping with combat, debuffing, and healing after that. The Cleric shouldn't be expected to keep up with a Kineticist or Fighter's damage if they're not built to do that, though.
The Alchemist can also support the party with Infusions if they have Infusions, and can buff themself to be better in combat, too, so you shouldn't count only the bombs.
Your Kineticist can only Empower their blast for free if they don't move other than a 5-foot step. Also, a Telekinetic Blast targets regular AC, so creatures providing soft cover to each other by standing in the way might be a real problem (Precise Shot eliminates the penalty for shooting into melee, but not the penalty for that, and even allies count). Additionally, with 6 Burn (they must have that much to get the damage number you quoted), they've effectively reduced their max HP by 36; more than half of that 69 maximum. I would assume that the Telekineticist is moving around a lot to keep out of harm's way and to get a good angle of attack and, as I said, that means no free Empower that round.
Telekineticists are more known for being utility gods rather than damage monsters, so I was a little surprised when this was your problem; from the topic, I expected you to have an issue with the damage being slightly low in comparison to your party.
Well, they can move and empower a blast, but burn adds up really fast when you can't gather power to reduce it.
One more vote for that fighter being too weak; bringing everyone else down to their level is just crippling the party.
The Kineticist has a very high optimization floor, as in "you don't have to do much beyond the obvious to make a Kineticist who is good at its job." The Kineticist also has a very low optimization ceiling- as in "there is not much you can do to make an incredibly powerful Kineticist."
All of the other classes in the party are low floor high ceiling types, by contrast, and this is the main issue.
Why would moving deny him his Empower ability that round?
I said it would deny him a free Empower because he needs to spend a Move Action to Gather Power in order to offset the Empower Metakinesis increasing the blast's cost by 1. He could still Empower it, but a Kineticist that takes Burn mid-day in a situation that isn't a dire emergency isn't too smart.
The party, elf alchemist, dwarf fighter, human cleric, human aether kineticist, is Level 6.
A dwarf fighter is not a high damage option, because of not having a racial bonus to an attack stat. That would probably be more about tanking. A cleric isn’t really a damage class either, but they can do it a little. So, the only real Comparison is the alchemist. It can do some good damage with bombs but has other things going for it, like extracts and discoveries. Also bombs are touch attacks while physical kinetic blasts are not.
The kineticist does (3d6+13)x1.5 damage without spending any burn, so he can do this all day, or more damage by spending some burn (he has 69 hit points to burn).
To get that kind of damage bonus you’d have to take 3 points of burn at level 6 and have a constitution around 18. So, first I have to question how accurate this guy is. Did he get a great dexterity too? Does he seem to miss a lot? Next you have to consider how rough that burn is. At level 6, 3 points of burn is 18 unhealable nonlethal damage, making his effective hit points just 51. If he wants to use any abilities that use burn later in the day, he’ll just be making that number worse.
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Correction: With Power Attack and Vital Strike active, the fighter does 2D8 + 8 damage with his +1 longsword.
I think this is a situation where the kineticist is optimized for maximum damage and fills that role. The cleric is optimized for healing and fills that role. The Alchemist is actually optimized for what the player wants, but he seems to be going for a mix of bomb damage and mutagen abilities. Admittedly, the fighter is not optimized, primarily because the player has ended up going in three different directions with his feats (Combat Expertise, Power Attack, and Shield Bash).
As some said, the kineticist is automatically optimized for damage. But this also means you can’t do much more than the baseline damage for a kineticist when trying to optimize more. It’s like on a scale of 1 to 10, the kineticist is about a 5 to 6 no matter what you do. While Depending on optimization, the alchemist could be a 4 to 8 and the fighter could be a 2 to 7. That’s what people mean about high floors and low ceilings.
One thing you could do to try to level the playing field (short of "helping people rebuild their characters" which is valid, but sometimes comes across the wrong way) is to push loot a little big more.
Kineticists benefit very little from gear offensively. You're going to spend pretty much all of your money on stat boosters, defensive items, and utility. Other classes (who can get like enhancement bonuses on attacks) benefit a lot more.
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It's definitely the fighter that needs the help. I take it (s)he sees
him(her)self as the party tank?
I don't think he knows what he sees himself as. With the Combat Expertise and Improved Shield Bash feats, as well as Shield of Bashing, I'm wondering if I should get him to swap Vital Strike for something like Shield Focus. However, the cleric has better stats and the Dodge feat to give himself a better AC with virtually the same armor. The other option is to go with combat maneuver feats, he has Combat Expertise and Deft Maneuvers, although his 14 Strength and 13 Dexterity (his best stat is his 18 Con) make that a possibly poor choice.
This is pointing to the big difference. To make a fighter good at damage you have to make specific choices to finagle the best weapons with the highest bonuses in the most efficient manner (and building these characters can be super fun.)
To make a kineticist good at damage you basically just show up, having made obvious choices and you invest some burn in your defense to get the elemental overflow bonus.
The archer fighter with a hornbow or the Orc Bloodline Peri-Blooded Aasimar Blood Arcanist with Spell Perfection (Delayed Blast Fireball) are going to blow the Kineticist out of the water. It's just that the kineticist is easy to make work, the fighter is somewhat intricate and the arcanist is significantly intricate.
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It's very easy for an inexperienced player to make a bad build. I suggest allowing the fighter to rebuild his character — swapping strength and constitution would be a good place to start. In general, two-handed weapons are better for strength-oriented characters than one-handed weapons in Pathfinder, especially for beginners (high strength + power attack + big two-handed weapon = decent damage).
If the fighter didn't trade away weapon training with an archetype, then you could drops some gloves of dueling. It's a pretty good upgrade for a fighter of that level.
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Okay so he is doing a Sword & Shield build, which is one of the hardest and most feat intensive builds in the game. You need both Two Weapon Fighting and Shield feats, and overall it's a late mid to very late game build.
Unfortunately, with only a 13 Dex, he doesn't qualify for Two Weapon Fighting. We did the 4d6 stat generation method so, other than his 18 Con, his best stat is 14 Strength.
Some of the feats he has do sound dubious, but ask him what his goals are, and help him build towards it. Dont just tell him to switch his play style to 2-handed Fighter.
He told me that he's trying to be the tank. He has Improved Shield Bash simply because he found a +1 Shield of Bashing on a previous adventure.
Since he can't have Two Weapon Fighting, I'm suggesting adding the Shielded Fighter as a retcon, then maybe the Dodge feat for Level 6.
