Advice on Aether Elemental Annihilator with Shikigami Style


Advice


Dear community,
I'm looking for your aid with my build. The idea is to make a viable switchhitting aether kineticist using shikigami style to increase damage of telekinetic blast (with loosing the strands).
Hinyasi makes all improvised damage d6, Shikigami style increases it three sizes to 4d6 eventually. I plan on using rocks from the ground or simple sling bullets as they will break on impact. Down the line Gloves of Improvised Might should increase damage but probably don't give their bonus on to-hit. Things like Enlarge Person or increased unarmed brawler damage (Monk's Robe) could be added.
The levels of Mutation Warrior are for access to Mutagen and Iron Caster stuff as Elemental Annihilator looses versatility. Fighter levels give me straight BAB increases that work well for the character. The trade-off seems fine for me.

Brawler Hinyasi 1 / Kineticist Elemental Annihilator 6 / Fighter Mutation Warrior 5 / Kineticist Elemental Annihilator X

Str 14 Dex 16 Con 18 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 8

Feats (Human)
1 Throw anything, Shikigami Style, Shikigami Mimicry
3 Deadly Aim, Rapid shot
5 Shikigami Manipulation
7 Iron Will
8 Power Attack
9 Vital Strike, Weapon Focus (Blast)

My questions are: Do you think this is a viable (non-PFS) build? How do you see the Iron Caster addition ... Do I loose to much from Elemental Annihilator? Should I go into pushing infusion? What further feats would you pick? I'm not looking for deeper Shikigami Style abuse.

Thanks everyone!


Annihilator isn’t good for going deep, but it can be pretty good for dipping, like you’re doing here.

I’m not 100% sure the build works with annihilator though.

Quote:
A devastating infusion always deals an amount of damage equal to 1d8 + the elemental annihilator’s Constitution modifier, regardless of the annihilator’s class level or use of composite blasts.

I could see some GMs taking this to mean that your loosened telekinetic blast still just does 1d8+ damage, even with those feats.


Well this is a thing I'm conflicted about, too. The damage in my character is not modified by "annihilator’s class level or use of composite blasts" but by the simple blast itself. And it doesn't add to the damage but replaces the complete blast damage with something else (the object and improvised damage).
It says "instead of dealing your normal blast damage".
Normal blast damage would still be fixed by Devastating Infusion. The change happens somewhere else than specified in the ability.
What do you think?


Three sizes from a d6 is 3d6 (d6-d8-2d6-3d6) not 4d6 BTW.

Devastating infusion doesn't specify this exact scenario but it's not looking good. The damage is given as 1d8, then a couple of means of increasing that damage are ruled out. Does that mean that another means not specified but very similar can increase it? Not necessarily.


Ultimately, you’ll want to ask your GM about it. It could logically be interpreted to work either way.

As advice to GM, I don’t think it’d be overpowering to allow this to work. It’s a lot of investment and shouldn’t allow you to deal too much damage for whatever level you can get it.


Hinyasi gain Improvisiational Training in place of a 2nd level combat feat. So you'd need 2 levels of Hinyasi to gain that ability. At first level your thrown objects would do normal base damage.

Also you can't benefit from Rapid Shot unless you use a ranged weapon. Blasts are not ranged weapons, even if you are using the loosened strand form of the blast. It is a SU ability.

Using the kinetic blasts to throw objects carries all of the restrictions on kinetic blasts, including the action being a standard action, explicitly not being eligible for vital strike.

While using the aether blast would give you better range than throwing improvised weapons, in the long run you'd get better performance out of taking full round attack actions or eventually doing normal kinetic blasts.


Thanks for the insights and corrections to damage. I'll have a talk with my GM. Maybe I'll try to get to the desired concept differently. Maybe more melee oriented with one level of Kinetic Knight and rest in Hinyasi (+5 Fighter for Iron Caster). I'll have to think about it.

@meirril: Pathbuilder lists Improvisational Training as level 1 and the original text just says that it replaces the second level bonus feat but the text doesn't start with "At level 2, ...".
Elemental Annihilator gives access to Rapid Shot as a bonus feat. Flurry of Devastion explicitly mentions it. It also explicitly says that you can use Vital Strike in Devasting Infusion. Check Archive of Nethys.


Hinyasi does not stack with shikigami style. Its a case of warpriest weapon and impact im afraid.

Good news is that basically any one handed improvised weapon does 1d6 damage, so you can just cut hinyasi out of the build entirely.

Shadow Lodge

Hmm. Its a bit of a roundabout way, but that does appear to be the case. Shikigami increases damage based on size, but Hinyasi doesn't care about the weapon's size at all.


To be precise, Shikigami Style increases the improvised weapon's damage, but Hinyasi makes you use your unarmed strike damage instead of the improvised weapon's damage. So Shikigami Style does increase the damage, only a Hinyasi never uses that damage (and indeed can't, as you can't turn the ability off).


If I am getting it right, the plan is to use lose strands from Telekinetic Blast to deal damage using improvised weapons, which then get modified by Shikigami style. If so, how you get Catch Off-Guard or Throw Anything doesnt really matter as long as you like it.

One potential is Monk of the Free Hand. Effectively, all weapons (except shurikens and fists) are now improvised weapons.

************
For feats.

Grab and Go would allow you to pick up items as a free action which can then be used to attack. Useful is situations where the battlefield might change and you want to keep some ammunitions.

I dont think Deadly Aim and Power Attack helps you. You are losing accuracy for a small increase in static damage. Which means you could go for other feats.

Point Blank Shot (works much better with thrown builds) and Precise shot are actually needed for any ranged build to deal with penalties.

Disposable Weapon is useful since it will get destroyed anyways, so this make any potential critical very deadly. Similarly, Nature's Weapon would allow you to always have melee ammunition at the moments notice (quick draw is important for this one).

Otherwise, I would say look around maybe you might find an interesting feat, specially when you take into account infusions.

* PS. If you are getting Flurry of Blows or Brawler's Fury consider Elemental Ki. It makes your burn worth 2 ki points and might be useful in case of emergency.

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