|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
Hey guys, I'm a guy who has done a lot of homebrewing and information organizing for Kineticists and today I've got a homebrewed version of the class for 2E to share with you. To build some credibility, in 1st Edition I made this 229 page Google Doc for my own games.
After a couple rounds of comments and a playtest game of my own, I've finished my current work on a second edition version of Kineticists. For now, I've stripped it down to the base 5 elements: Aether, Air, Earth, Fire, Water.
I decided to do something different this time by making PDFs. I have a "pretty" version that essentially tries to do its best job looking like an official product, but what I'm going to share is something that is more printer-friendly and I believe free of any Paizo trademarked art or logos:
Homebrewed Kineticist for 2E
This PDF includes:
5 Elements
2 new 'disciplines'
115 class feats
11 kineticist-related general feats
13 kineticist-related skill feats
3 kineticist-related items
14 new spells
1 kineticist multiclass archetype
As well as full 1-20 set of class features as you would expect written in a way that should by fully functional in the game and a few minor gameplay hints, such as how to implement a kineticist in a game without a bunch of kineticist's diadems floating around to make their attack rolls work.
Most of this is retreading ground from 1E, but the disciplines are new. I've leave this by briefly explaining their purpose. When making this class, I had to decide whether the class was a 'Focus Point' class like the Playtest Oracle, or a class that tried to copy some sort of burn mechanic to cast spells. Overwhelmingly, my feedback said to keep the burn mechanic. This is problematic, because burn from 1E simply would not work in 2E for the following reasons:
* it was only mechanic viable because of Elemental Overflow, and that type of stat boost wouldn't work in 2E
* it conflicted with the short-rest/long-rest gameplay structure of 2E
* players often felt conflicted between going all-out and sitting at the happy zone of max elemental overflow benefit, leading to two different playstyles in 1E that wouldn't be ported over to 2E
This is by far the mechanic that went through the most revisions in my playtests. Generally, people seemed happy with the idea of the playstyles but it took a lot of feedback to get them to work. Right now, they consist of the following:
Cautious - You get a pool equal to 3 + Constitution (if you are afraid of the class being too SAD, make this pool draw on Wisdom in your games) that lets you cast spells without raising your burn. After that, you can use Cool Off to avoid downsides at a cost to your action economy. Later on you can use the Disrupting Vent to weaken opponents, which was added to give kineticists another 'thing to do' at a level where most casters start to heavily beat them in spell utility. This discipline is intended for newcomers to the class or for those that like 'burn as a cost', or for those that simply want to spam abilities all day.
Reckless - You can go up to Overcharged for more DAMAGE and your burn won't drop you below half health. You gain two abilities to help you get more burn more quickly, Fast Charge which lets you go up with no action economy cost while gaining some THP, and Overcharge which lets you go straight to max or maintain your maximum level of burn. Later on, you get Offsetting Ejection to weaken up creatures with resistances, because it is a little more difficult for the Burnitator 5000 to switch to a different tactic than a normal martial or caster when faced with a skeleton. This is intended for those that liked the living on the edge feeling of a high-burn kineticist in 1E and prefer 'burn as a powerup'.
When running this class, I recommend having some sort of utility handy to show the benefits and downsides to various levels of burn. I used 4 business card sized pieces of paper which had green outlines for unburned, yellow for burned, orange for blazing, and red for overcharged and effects on the front and the cooling off conditions at the back. I kept the cards stabled together.
what about implenting burn by applying a condition such as Drained?
we have a homebrewed magic ranged blasty class (think spellfire) that does this
we went for standard conditions as it's less custom rules
krobrina wrote: what about implenting burn by applying a condition such as Drained?
we have a homebrewed magic ranged blasty class (think spellfire) that does this
we went for standard conditions as it's less custom rules
An alternative way to play this is totally ignore the long conditions and used burned X which reduces max health by 5 per X, but I'm not sure it would play well.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Some feedback (some of this might be nit-picky, but since you mentioned trying to go for a professional look...):
-The Unburned condition mentions how it interacts with Cool Off, the Burned condition doesn't mention how it interacts with Cool Off, and then Cool Off mentions both conditions. That's inconsistent and a little confusing. Since Cool Off is specific to one discipline, you probably only need to mention the bonus there.
-The wording on the skill bonus from Overcharged is a bit confusing. It's also pretty strong at higher levels; a +4 status bonus is not something that gets handed out lightly. I wouldn't say it's unbalancing, but you could simplify things and just give a +2 and it would probably be fine.
-Initial Proficiencies is listed twice.
-The Element class feature should probably tell you where to look to find your choice of elements ("see the list of elements on page 8"); as is, it's rather confusing if you are reading through the class features in order. Alternatively, it might be even better to just list the elements here, and then say "see page 8 for the full details of the benefits of each element" or some such.
-"Ranged kinetic blast attacks shoot out of the free hand" - there's no mechanical reason to include this detail and it's arguably limiting flavor wise (maybe my kineticist uses his free hand to direct the blast, but shoots mind lightning from his forehead! :P ).
-The wording on melee kinetic blasts is a bit janky. I'm assuming that it summons a weapon so that you can make attacks of opportunity with it and the like. It might be more clear to give a free action ability "form kinetic weapon" or something like that, just to more clearly structure how "manifest[ing] a weapon in [your] free hand that lasts until the start of your next turn" works.
-I'm definitely a bit concerned about how SAD the class is. Attack and damage both based on Con might be a bit much, although if there aren't the equivalent of weapon runes for kinetic blasts then it could be okay. Still really good for a weapon that can be used both melee and ranged. In particular, it makes Strength an obvious dump stat for kineticists.
-Under Kinetic Cantrips and Spells, the amount of damage you list in the example is definitely wrong for an 18th level kineticist. Blazing is 2+level, and they spend 2 rounds blazing and one burning, so it should be 20+20+19 damage.
-Instead of hiding away the spell attack roll and spell DCs in that class feature and confusingly tying it to their class DC, why not just add "Kineticist innate spell DCs" and "Kineticist innate spell attack rolls" to the list of initial proficiencies?
Stopping there for now, will look at the rest later. Hope this is helpful. I really like this writeup so far. :)
MaxAstro wrote: Some feedback (some of this might be nit-picky, but since you mentioned trying to go for a professional look...):
-The Unburned condition mentions how it interacts with Cool Off, the Burned condition doesn't mention how it interacts with Cool Off, and then Cool Off mentions both conditions. That's inconsistent and a little confusing. Since Cool Off is specific to one discipline, you probably only need to mention the bonus there.
-The wording on the skill bonus from Overcharged is a bit confusing. It's also pretty strong at higher levels; a +4 status bonus is not something that gets handed out lightly. I wouldn't say it's unbalancing, but you could simplify things and just give a +2 and it would probably be fine.
-Initial Proficiencies is listed twice.
-The Element class feature should probably tell you where to look to find your choice of elements ("see the list of elements on page 8"); as is, it's rather confusing if you are reading through the class features in order. Alternatively, it might be even better to just list the elements here, and then say "see page 8 for the full details of the benefits of each element" or some such.
-"Ranged kinetic blast attacks shoot out of the free hand" - there's no mechanical reason to include this detail and it's arguably limiting flavor wise (maybe my kineticist uses his free hand to direct the blast, but shoots mind lightning from his forehead! :P ).
-The wording on melee kinetic blasts is a bit janky. I'm assuming that it summons a weapon so that you can make attacks of opportunity with it and the like. It might be more clear to give a free action ability "form kinetic weapon" or something like that, just to more clearly structure how "manifest[ing] a weapon in [your] free hand that lasts until the start of your next turn" works.
-I'm definitely a bit concerned about how SAD the class is. Attack and damage both based on Con might be a bit much, although if there aren't the equivalent of weapon runes for kinetic blasts then it...
Thanks for the thorough nitpicking. Unfortunately, it is really hard to do yourself since most of this is piecing from dozens of revisions and it is easy to gloss over something I've read before. Most of my playtesting was focused on game experience with little time for my group to proofread the document.
I will keep in mind most of this and make some revisions. Particularly in any matter that has typos, inconsistency between two areas, or a oddities in formatting.
For power level circumstances, I will note that my party kept pushing me to make CON more dominant and to make Overcharged worth more. I think do think the class needs incentives to spec into other attributes, but my party noted that it felt punishing to invest in a stat that contributes solely to HP and fort saves for most classes and to always be behind in attack rolls. I do like making the Cautious pool Wisdom based.
I do agree with having melee Kinetic blasts being better represented by a manifest free action. However, I don't necessarily like Kinetic blasts by default being free hand agnostic. This would make then more action efficient than normal options that require you to Interact to draw a ranged weapon or switch between melee and ranged and less weak to things like grappling or being tied up. I do think that it would make for a good first level universal feat however.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
To clarify on the ranged blast thing - I wasn't saying that blasts shouldn't require a free hand. I was saying that there's no need to detail what part of the body the blast physically originates from. "Needs a free hand" is the only mechanically relevant bit. :)
EDIT: For the Con thing... what might make sense is to balance ranged blasts like Cantrips, instead of weapons (since Cantrips already are single-stat), and then have melee blasts just plain work like weapons for attack rolls (call them finesse weapons so you can use Str or Dex as appropriate), but keep Con for damage. Maybe still "better of Str or Con" for melee damage.
I unfortunately don't have any comments on balance, but I do have a question. How did you decide what levels to include proficiency increases? I've been working on a class of my own and this has been giving me difficulty.
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
Salamileg wrote: I unfortunately don't have any comments on balance, but I do have a question. How did you decide what levels to include proficiency increases? I've been working on a class of my own and this has been giving me difficulty. I compared this class to Rogue and Barbarian. Like Barbarian, it is on the 'best track' for Fortitude saves and a poor track for Perception. Like Rogue, it is on the non-Fighter simple/class specific weapon track and decent but not great light armor progression.
I used sneak attack progression for the damage ups and I believe the class DC is similar to what most martials get. Unique parts of the kit were taken from Alchemist and Barbarian points. For instance, elemental resistance is similar to raging resistance bug I may have moved it back 2 levels because I didn't want to steal the spotlight.
If I repeated the process for a new class, the first thing I'd do is determine if it is a caster or martial. Most casters have similar progressions and I would copy that (high will, slow armor/unarmored, up to legendary spell DC).
If I was a martial, I'd determine my two expert saves and figure out which is on a faster track. I'd also take that time to figure out if I'm a 'best in class' class at my best save, like Rogue's with Reflex and Barbarian's with Fortitude or more generalized. The most specialized get their master in their great save 7 and their expert in their poor save at 9, while more generalized character reach expert in everything at level 3. If you reach master at 7,you reach legendary at 13, and if reach master at 9 you reach master in your second save at 15 and probably never reach legendary.
I'd do the same with Perception. Am I bets in class, like Rogue and Ranger, good like Fighter, bad like Barbarian, or worst in class like Alchemist?
Weapons are easy. 5 you hit expert in whatever matters for your class, 13 you hit master.
Armor is typically 13/19, but those more specialty get 11/17 and best in class is 7/13/17.
Skills should be 4 + INT for most classes, 6 for high skill martial, 8 for those on Rogue progression (double skill increases/feats). 1 to 2 skills should be prechosen based on class or subclass decisions.
Class DC is either 11/19 or 9/17.
Can you use the Magic Weapon innate arcane spell from the Energize Weapon Universal feat on your Kinetic Blast? or is it limited to standard physical weapons? What is the action economy for using the Blade Rush Universal feat? How high is the cover created using the Kinetic Cover feat?
New update here!
Included are a lot of small consistency fixes, some typographical changes, a lot of new spells and items, and a few new feats.
The domineering weapon trait was changed to act as an untyped +1 attack bonus if you have 16 or more Constitution with constitution for damage. This was added largely to reduce the SAD nature of the class, making an investment in Strength or Dexterity more important. Each Discipline now has a feature that scales off Wisdom as well.
Melee kinetic blasts are now manifested kinetic weapons with their own traits, to make them a little more rules friendly.
Unorthodox blasting now allows for blasts that don't require a free hand, and removes restrictions on focused hand.
The update should provide clarity on most of the previous questions but to directly answer some questions:
Energize Weapon can be used to augment manifested kinetic weapons, but not ranged kinetic blasts. This isn't super useful as the weapons don't last very long, but if you invest in conduit gloves you can keep a manifested weapon up indefinitely.
Blade rush is a 2 action Activity.
Kinetic Cover is 6 feet tall (this didn't make it into the latest update but will be in the next, which will focus on any remaining typos and inconsistent wordings.)
I know this is not likely to be a popular opinion, but the fact that the kineticist gets spell damage that scales off of constitution (a physical attribute) just never sat well with me. I believe that physical ability scaling should be kept for the martial classes and caster classes should only scale off of mental abilities. If your powers come from a connection to natural forces, use wisdom. If your powers come from within, use charisma.
Snes wrote: I know this is not likely to be a popular opinion, but the fact that the kineticist gets spell damage that scales off of constitution (a physical attribute) just never sat well with me. I believe that physical ability scaling should be kept for the martial classes and caster classes should only scale off of mental abilities. If your powers come from a connection to natural forces, use wisdom. If your powers come from within, use charisma. I don't think that is an unpopular opinion, but I think that following that design philosophy would have left a class that distinctly felt different from 1E. Feel free to use Wisdom or Charisma instead, but I felt I changed enough that I needed to keep some core principles.
Keeping some core principles is all well and good but the I am not sure I ever understood the Con basis anyway. They specifically errata'd a Con based caster. I can only assume because it was considered too strong
So Kineticist getting it never made sense to me. And then we get Burn as a way to try and balance and counteract it in 1E. And that cannot work the same way in 2E. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets changed in 2E
All that said I do wonder how they fit with the way magic traditions work in this edition. As yet there is no indication of drawing power from the ethereal / astral plane like in 1E.
Was this where they got their power from in 1E? Or was that just the rest of the Occult book?
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
1e says ethereal plane in the Elemental Focus feature.
As for Con based damage, I always liked it as it. Do keep in mind that in PF1 Kinetic Blast use dex for the ranged attack and Str/Dex (finesse) for the melee attack. So its wasnt as SAD.
Be careful how much focus you place on Wisdom/Charisma. Those stats should be the bread and butter of the Psychokineticist and Overwhelming Soul archetypes (which I assume will eventually be ported for Wisdom and Charisma to damage).
Watch out for typos. Ex: You have Air's Reach as a feat title twice, the second is over Air's Bubble.
*****************
Aether Constructs doesnt make sense, for the sole reason that you arent actually making any constructs. Not to mention Unseen Aether Servant is literally Summon Construct. You should rename Aether Constructs to "Telekinetic Haul", and instead of the Resilient Sphere increase the weight and capacity of the Floating Disk.
That will let you create Force Barrier as a level 8 feat, using Resilient Sphere. Upgrade it to Telekinetic Sphere at level 16 (which has the ability to move).
This also means that you can use the title Aether Construct/s for the feat that actually lets you use constructs.
************
I am personally unsure on whether Metakinesis should be in every name, or if it should be its own trait. There are certainly benefits to both sides.
I personaly had trouble tryingbto find how many actions Kinetic Blasts took. The balance of the class would need to change a lot depending on the number of actions. (From my reading each blast is a single action which works quite well).
Temperans wrote: 1e says ethereal plane in the Elemental Focus feature.
As for Con based damage, I always liked it as it. Do keep in mind that in PF1 Kinetic Blast use dex for the ranged attack and Str/Dex (finesse) for the melee attack. So its wasnt as SAD.
Be careful how much focus you place on Wisdom/Charisma. Those stats should be the bread and butter of the Psychokineticist and Overwhelming Soul archetypes (which I assume will eventually be ported for Wisdom and Charisma to damage).
Watch out for typos. Ex: You have Air's Reach as a feat title twice, the second is over Air's Bubble.
*****************
Aether Constructs doesnt make sense, for the sole reason that you arent actually making any constructs. Not to mention Unseen Aether Servant is literally Summon Construct. You should rename Aether Constructs to "Telekinetic Haul", and instead of the Resilient Sphere increase the weight and capacity of the Floating Disk.
That will let you create Force Barrier as a level 8 feat, using Resilient Sphere. Upgrade it to Telekinetic Sphere at level 16 (which has the ability to move).
This also means that you can use the title Aether Construct/s for the feat that actually lets you use constructs.
************
I am personally unsure on whether Metakinesis should be in every name, or if it should be its own trait. There are certainly benefits to both sides.
I personaly had trouble tryingbto find how many actions Kinetic Blasts took. The balance of the class would need to change a lot depending on the number of actions. (From my reading each blast is a single action which works quite well).
I will correct typos in the next update. I had to port over the document for easier editing, which involved largely recreating it from scratch. My guess is that most typos will be of that form, IE duplicated names.
Note that telekinetic haul is already a spell, but I like the gist of your Aether comments and will look to incorporate them.
My plan for archetypes is to add them at a later date, but they will likely replace the Cautious/Reckless Discipline with the Wisdom payoffs with some other new mechanism. Currently that is the only part of the class scaled off an alternate stat.
The action to use kinetic blasts is typically a Strike action, or a Shove/Trip action. Melee attacks require manifesting a weapon, but that is a free action that triggers at the start of your turn.
I've gone back to the woodshed. I may update the original kineticist and fix typos at a later date.
This variant is wholly different. Whereas the first kineticist was a martial with a tacked on system to cast spells ad nauseam, this variant is a more traditional spellcaster. The first was an attempt to brute force as much of the old kineticist as possible into an unreceptive new system, shoehorning in some new systems to appeal to the vastly different preferences in 1E kineticist players.
The second could be understood as a class archetype of sorcerer, and having played around with it I think it is highly likely this is how kineticist will be implemented if it is ever ported officially to 2E. Essentially, both are spontaneous casters heavily based on a 1st level subclass choice.
Here's the breakdown:
* Constitution key ability
* d8 HP
* Simple weapons
* Light armor
* Element choice (Aether/Air/Earth/Fire/Void/Water/Wood)
* Spontaneous casting with first three slots restricted
* 2 focus powers (Overcharge + element based) + kinetic blast cantrip at level 1, others through feats
* Burned - Similar to drained but only affects Hit Points. Goes up by 1 with each Focus Point spent. Most focus powers are slightly stronger than normal as a result.
* Overcharge - Basically, a generic damage boost
* Kinetic Blast - 1-3 action cantrip, single target. Specifics based on element. Higher dice size per action spent. Scales more like a weapon than a normal cantrip.
* Initial focus spells - Basically focus variants of cantrips like Produce Flame, which are replaced by kinetic blast (can't normally access). The idea being that you could focus power/spell + kinetic blast some turns for more oomph. But didn't want electric arc + kinetic blast to be the default every turn.
* Spells - First 3 slots restricted to trait spells from chosen tradition + an additional thematic list. 4th slot unrestricted. All spells either have your trait already, or gain it. Some feats expand the extra list but give specifics as to how the spell is changed (such as obscuring mist dealing 1d6 fire damage, as opposed to simply getting the fire trait).
* No signature spells. The list is small enough as-is that signature spells make some levels incredibly sparse. Can simply add-in if you prefer.
* To make up for burn and somewhat play towards a melee build, Elemental Resistances give some specific padding similar to what Barbarian gets.
I have to say, I love your original Kineticist! As we have transitioned to Pathfinder 2E, that has been the only homebrew class I have just allowed anyone to take. Thank you so much for the work you have put into it!
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules
|
