I ask for only one thing when Psionics / Psychics are added to PF2e

[Natan Linggod 327]

Please DON'T USE SPELL SLOTS !

The biggest disappointment I felt about PF1s version of Psychics was that they used spell slots.

I mean really, one of the biggest appeals of psionics/psychic classes was that they used a point system.

Now we've got the Focus point system maybe use that as a basis. OK so it's limited to 3 points total, but I'm sure we can come up with something creative to do with that.

[QuidEst]

Sorry, but I'm asking for the opposite. I'd like them to use slots; I found the psionic points system very unpleasant for me and I enjoy the flavor of the occult classes.

Fortunately, we're both (probably) going to get what we want (in some fashion).

Secrets of Magic is gonna have some alternative casting stuff, and I believe that's been hinted to include something for folks who aren't a fan of slots.

Of course, that doesn't mean that Psychic, if remade, won't also do something different.

[thenobledrake]

As a long-time psionics fan... it was never the "uses a point system" aspect that appealed to me.

At times is was that the powers themselves were unique - they might do something similar to a spell, but how they did it was different (whether by description alone, or by way of having different mechanical traits like duration, range, number of targets, etc.).

At other times it was the "I don't have to wait until tomorrow" aspect because a couple hours meditation could restore some use of powers.

To be honest, the need to do more resource math than already true of a wizard - which a point-based system would necessitate - is a real big risk of me not wanting to deal with it these days.

Hypothetically, though, an approach that uses the existing Focus Point system and combines an array of useful cantrips with a wider selection of Focus Spells might just be exactly the kind of psionic character I would like to see.

[Lucas Yew]

I would be fine with using slots, but I would not be fine if the creator team actually keep using Verbal and Somatic components (which I trust they'll swap with Emotion and Thought just like PF1, unlike the bigger fish's recent UA blunders).

[Cyder]

I would rather psionics powers work more like focus spells with the option of heightening them using more power points or actions.

I liked the 3.5 psionic focus/expend focus mechanic on feats.

I am a huge fan of psionics but really want them to work mechanically different from the vancian spell system or spells/spellslots in general.

I doubt that Paizo will release an official psionics system for pf2e (unless someone has a source that says otherwise). So it really comes down to 3rd party publishers and homebrew.

[Deadmanwalking]

I have absolute faith that psychic casters in PF2 will use cantrips, Focus Spells, and spell slots just like other casters. And almost certainly use Thought and Emotion components like in PF1.

Which of those three styles of spell they will rely on may vary from Class to Class (I could see Kineticist being all cantrips and Focus Spells really easily, for example), but they're not gonna reinvent the wheel here.

[Vidmaster7]

Now the occultist may need to be reinvented.

[Natan Linggod 327]

I dislike spell slots in general but it's too ingrained into the system to change now.

I'm hoping that psychics at least, get to be more like how casters are depicted in fiction generally, rather than relying on badly adapted idea from Jack Vance novels.

Points would be my preference. It's straight forward. To do X power use Y points. The Occultists Focus powers worked that way.

But something like the old Kineticist works as well.

Or as someone mentioned, something new using cantrips and focus points.

[Claxon]

Natan Linggod 327 wrote:

Please DON'T USE SPELL SLOTS !

The biggest disappointment I felt about PF1s version of Psychics was that they used spell slots.

I mean really, one of the biggest appeals of psionics/psychic classes was that they used a point system.

Now we've got the Focus point system maybe use that as a basis. OK so it's limited to 3 points total, but I'm sure we can come up with something creative to do with that.

I can almost assure you there wont be psionics. They didn't do it in PF1 and instead did psychic magic, which was traditional Vancian magic that focused on mental type stuff.

I am certain it will remain so.

Paizo is almost certain to let 3rd party vendors do their thing with psionic style (power point) magic in this edition.

At best I suspect it would just be classes with focus spells with more focus points to use them on (for 3rd party to design around).

If Paizo designs it, it will probably have some focus spells but remain limited to 3 focus points and still have traditional casting.

[Mellored]

I agree, no more spell slots.

Not that I care specifically about psionics. But we have enough spell slot classes in general. We also have enough martial classes. So I want classes that use different mechanics.

Well, I guess a single psionic class with spell slots for people who want it that way. But ALSO have classes that do things differently.

[Mellored]

Just to throw out some ideas, in case there is only 1 psycic class and they need to have spell slots.

1: Less slots. Similar to the rumored summoner, they have 1-2 slot per level, giving them room for other features.

2: Ability to sacrifice slots. For example, expend your highest level slot to gain 3 focus points.

[Ventnor]

I mean, we already have psychic magic baked into the core rules with the occult magical tradition.

[Stack]

Ventnor wrote:

I mean, we already have psychic magic baked into the core rules with the occult magical tradition.

Half-baked. The change to the components is a big part of psychic magic and you could conceivably have primal or other tradition psychic casters.

[Grankless]

While technically occult magic and psychic casting aren't the same, they are *basically* the same. I would rather see some of the occult classes return as occult casters that get to do unique and cool things. A lot of Phrenic Amplifications and... whatever the subclass-thingy for Psychics was called were super cool.

[manbearscientist]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

I have absolute faith that psychic casters in PF2 will use cantrips, Focus Spells, and spell slots just like other casters. And almost certainly use Thought and Emotion components like in PF1.

Which of those three styles of spell they will rely on may vary from Class to Class (I could see Kineticist being all cantrips and Focus Spells really easily, for example), but they're not gonna reinvent the wheel here.

I actually think Kineticists are more likely to converted to a Sorcerer class archetype that heavily restricts its slots (for example, fire only getting fire trait spells) than anything else. This is mostly because of the number of elemental trait spells that already exist; it is way harder to design a ton of unique cantrips and focus spells than it is to simply allow access to what exists currently and limit focus spells to 3 per element, kinetic blast (cantrip), and a few unique focus spells from feats.

Basically take Sorcerer, replace Bloodline choice with Element choice, carrying most of the same benefits: spell list, skill(s), initial/minor/major powers, additional spells. Add in a kinetic blast cantrip, scale off of Constitution, and make focus spells burn you and you are 95% to a workable chassis.

[Deadmanwalking]

Kineticist was really cool for having a unique ability to do at-will magical damage, and for not having or using spell slot spells at all. These two things are the mechanical heart of the class and fans of it would be very upset if you just reduced it to a Sorcerer Archetype, or indeed gave it spell slots at all.

They've very specifically stated that they will be being very careful about making PF1 Classes into Archetypes going forward, and doing so with one of their more popular Classes from later releases seems vanishingly unlikely. It's not that they'll never do it, but I'd be both shocked and disappointed if they went that route with Kineticist. This is probably particularly true given that Kineticist always seemed to be one of Mark Seifter's more favored creations, and I have no doubt he's interested in converting it properly.

It'd also be a pretty easy Class to make in PF2 as compared to the difficulties of making it in PF1, with Cantrips, Focus Spells, and specific Class Feats adding to the Focus Spell repertoire or enhancing your Kinetic Blast in various ways. You'd have to design new Focus Spells and Cantrips, it's true, but that's not a particularly unwieldy design space for a new Class, and could likely take up a large percentage of their Feat choices. Compared to what it took to make in PF1, that's a vast decrease in difficulty.

[Reticent]

Could probably do psychics entirely separate from the "magic" systems in the game. Make every power a feat, lesser powers balanced on pure action economy. Stronger stuff balanced on "once per minute" or "once per day".

There's some temptation to also implement psychic focus spells- but with all the magic classes already in the game why keep rehashing the same mechanics?

[James Jacobs]

The whole point of us including an occultism wing of magic was to build in room for the occult classes from 1st edition, such as the psychic, even though we knew we weren't going to be putting them in the Core rules. We might tinker and change how some of those classes work if/when we update to 2nd edition, but turning them into a point-based system like psionics isn't something that's really on the table.

[Captain Morgan]

In PF1, psionics was done by a third party, and Paizo was content to leave it to them and focus on things they were more interested in. Now, that third party company is in bad financial straits, so you may not be seeing it from them.

And I think PF2 is not as good a fit for a pool system. The focus pool system allowed you to spend all your points on big castings, rather than have to parse castings between low level and high level slots. That's not a great fit for a system where your top level slots are an extremely limited resource which your lower level slots. Part of the system mastery of PF2 is figuring out what to do with your lower level slots.

[mrspaghetti]

I always thought the concept of psionics was a weird and awkward fit for the game thematically. I won't be disappointed if it never comes back.

[WWHsmackdown]

mrspaghetti wrote:

I always thought the concept of psionics was a weird and awkward fit for the game thematically. I won't be disappointed if it never comes back.

I don't have a horse in this race mechanically, but thematically any wizard or occult caster could load up on divination and telekinetic type spells so yes psionics of some shade (the degree I guess is a matter of opinion) very much has its place in the world. Just as an elemental sorcerer is a blaster, a psionic (standalone class or one of the above mentioned examples) is just a different flavor of magic user with its own thematic niche. Namely, pointing at your head with both hands and making psychic noises as your verbal components........like Cartman in that one South Park episode. At least that's my first thought.

[WatersLethe]

I'd prefer if psychics worked on the same magic principles as the rest of the world, just with more mental focus. If you want a point system, then that should be an optional rules element that all casters have access to.

Personally, I think Words of Power is a far more interesting casting system than generic psionic points.

[AnimatedPaper]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Kineticist was really cool for having a unique ability to do at-will magical damage, and for not having or using spell slot spells at all. These two things are the mechanical heart of the class and fans of it would be very upset if you just reduced it to a Sorcerer Archetype, or indeed gave it spell slots at all.

Yup. I would go so far as to say that I'd rather they dump the entire elemental flavor and replaced it with something else, and retained the cantrip/focus spell only casting. I'm far less invested in any particular flavor or narrative role than I am in the pile of mechanics.

[manbearscientist]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Kineticist was really cool for having a unique ability to do at-will magical damage, and for not having or using spell slot spells at all. These two things are the mechanical heart of the class and fans of it would be very upset if you just reduced it to a Sorcerer Archetype, or indeed gave it spell slots at all.

They've very specifically stated that they will be being very careful about making PF1 Classes into Archetypes going forward, and doing so with one of their more popular Classes from later releases seems vanishingly unlikely. It's not that they'll never do it, but I'd be both shocked and disappointed if they went that route with Kineticist. This is probably particularly true given that Kineticist always seemed to be one of Mark Seifter's more favored creations, and I have no doubt he's interested in converting it properly.

It'd also be a pretty easy Class to make in PF2 as compared to the difficulties of making it in PF1, with Cantrips, Focus Spells, and specific Class Feats adding to the Focus Spell repertoire or enhancing your Kinetic Blast in various ways. You'd have to design new Focus Spells and Cantrips, it's true, but that's not a particularly unwieldy design space for a new Class, and could likely take up a large percentage of their Feat choices. Compared to what it took to make in PF1, that's a vast decrease in difficulty.

I've literally made both versions of the class as homebrew, so I'm speaking from experience when I say that it is hard to make the class work with just feats and not spell slots.

I'll also note that they've stayed mum on class archetypes, which are mechanically different from turning a full class into a barebones set of optional feats anyone can take.

Kineticist is a hard class to make. It was an intensive class in PF1, and it is even more so in PF2. My original variant which had no spell slots, and focused on converting as much as possible from 1E had well over a 100 class feats just to cover air, earth, fire, and water.

This is because elements require far more feats than a typical subclass to feel fleshed out. A dragon barbarian and a fury barbarian are both at their core about getting angry and hitting things really hard, but an air kineticist is thematically a distinct entity from an earth kineticist outside of specifically blasting.

Spells reduce this considerably; my spellcasting variant had just under 80 feats for all 7 elements. That is still more work than a normal class, nearly double the available feats for the APG classes.

It's really hard to design a full complement of new, unique, and mechanically balanced options. There are 18 fire trait spells for instance, and many 1E fire kineticist options were literally just casting versions of those spells at a burn cost. How many fire spells can you make that aren't just Burning Hands, Fire Ray, Fireball, or Wall of Fire?

And now you are adding in an additional balancing constraint: making the class feel good despite going impotent after doing 3 focus spells in a single combat. No other class goes from having class features to doing nothing but cantrips in that way. I solved this by letting them convert full spells into cantrips with a unique burn mechanic, but if it is JUST regular cantrips, new cantrips, and new focus spells you are in for a world of balancing issues just to make the class feel playable. While the concept of an everyday caster is cool, from my tests it wasn't worthwhile to make a caster that fundamentally taps out early in every combat. It ends up feeling more like a firecracker than a flamethrower.

And then you have burn. Burn is seen by many as a must preserve mechanic, core to the class. Like D&D 3.5 psionics, burn was in essence a non-Vanican casting system designed to limit what a kineticist could do in a day. You could do the same thing in 2E as 1E, but it would run counter to many basic gameplay philosophies of this edition.

Let me give two examples: Non-linear health increases by level (more at 1), and the full-health assumption. Try making a burn system that isn't either overly rewarding or punishing at both 1 and 20. It is hard to do so without being clunky. And even if you did, you run into the problem of the 'all-day' burn preventing the kineticist from entering fights at the assumed full health, making them fundamentally likely to be one-shot even compared to normal casters.

Burn makes much more sense as an all-day limiting mechanism (or some weird non-linear per-fight limiter like I used in my first edition) when you shift away from Vancian magic. It can be relatively minor (even falling off at full health a la Wounded) if your main limitation is spell slots.

That's where I'm coming from when I say a Sorcerer-esque chassis would work more cleanly and require less work. You'd still have to come up with new spells (I came up with 42 for the spellcaster, for instance), but at least it lets you re-use existing material without coming up with new ways to balance their unintended perpetual use.

[Temperans]

Honestly, any kineticist that has a spell slot outside multiclassing is a lie and immediate grounds for me abandoning PF2.

********************

As for the two versions you made.

The first one was problematic because you tried to make spells into feats. While that works fine as a brute force approach it ignores the fact that the original Kinericist had easily 30+ infusions or talents. That would be 120 feats just for the 4 basic elements if you tried to do each ability independently.

But that was not how Paizo did it originally. What they did was to generalize as many of the abilities and to add specific abilities as needed. Ex: Each element doesnt need a feat to make a wall, push, get defense, etc. you just need 1 feat that works for all elements that have access to it: If needed just make it into a focus spell and the feat just gives you that relevant spell.

As for your second approach. Its exactly that type of casting that I dont want from a Kineticist. A kineticist is a class that is not limited in how often they can attack. Its a class that is limited in how often they can quickly modify said attacks. Which is why they used to get Gathering Power which allowed you to infinetly spam a certain level of abilities.

**********************

Back to the subject of the thread.

I think its fine if Paizo doesnt use a point system to cast spells. However, I did like that Psychics could spend point to use their Phrenic Amplifications.

It really would be nice if Psychic had that. Even if it does mean having a new type of pool system just for them.

[Squiggit]

manbearscientist wrote:

I've literally made both versions of the class as homebrew

Whatever troubles you may have had homebrewing I don't think really matter. A version of the kineticist with spell slots is going to kill the heart and soul of the class for a lot of people, because that's a big core of the class' identity.

[Natan Linggod 327]

James Jacobs wrote:

The whole point of us including an occultism wing of magic was to build in room for the occult classes from 1st edition, such as the psychic, even though we knew we weren't going to be putting them in the Core rules. We might tinker and change how some of those classes work if/when we update to 2nd edition, but turning them into a point-based system like psionics isn't something that's really on the table.

:(

Still, as long as they aren't vancian, I would probably be ok with it. Spell slots for mental power are the biggest immersion breaker for me. Something about having discrete packets of 'ammunition' just clashes so badly with the image of mental power users. I can't think of a single example in fiction of a psychic whose abilities works that way.

[Claxon]

Natan Linggod 327 wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

The whole point of us including an occultism wing of magic was to build in room for the occult classes from 1st edition, such as the psychic, even though we knew we weren't going to be putting them in the Core rules. We might tinker and change how some of those classes work if/when we update to 2nd edition, but turning them into a point-based system like psionics isn't something that's really on the table.

:(

Still, as long as they aren't vancian, I would probably be ok with it. Spell slots for mental power are the biggest immersion breaker for me. Something about having discrete packets of 'ammunition' just clashes so badly with the image of mental power users. I can't think of a single example in fiction of a psychic whose abilities works that way.

Aside from Jack Vance's seminal works and stuff written about D&D/Pathfinder I can't think of representations of magic that work the way spell slots do.

But that's the system we have and it's not going to go away.

The only real options in PF2 are Vancian casting or focus spells, but you can't really make a whole class around only having focus spells because you just don't have enough focus points (unless the class mechanics breaks the normal rules) to be a proper adventurer.

[Deadmanwalking]

manbearscientist wrote:

I've literally made both versions of the class as homebrew, so I'm speaking from experience when I say that it is hard to make the class work with just feats and not spell slots.

You appear to have misunderstood my point, please allow me to clarify since I apparently failed to communicate my perspective properly:

Of course the non spell-slot version is harder to create than the 'Sorcerer Archetype' version is, and I was not trying to claim differently. What I was saying was that such a thing is much easier to do in PF2, than it used to be in PF1.

And since they already did it in PF1 (in fact, Mark Seifter specifically did a lot of it in PF1), and getting rid of the 'no spell slots' element would rob the class of mechanical uniqueness and the things that made people like it in the first place, I see no reason they wouldn't undertake the same task again now that it's easier than it was the first time.

[manbearscientist]

There are a couple of things I found when I worked with the class. The first is the issue of chassis.

My original idea was a martial chassis. Lots of class abilities, pick your focus spells a la monk. Kinetic blasts as a special Strike.

This somewhat works, but you run into an issue with DCs. Since you scale 2 levels slower than a spellcaster, your DCs won't be good.

Alternatively, you can go spellcaster proficiencies but that comes at the cost of class features. If you go grab-bag spell features, you get into a different problem.

One iteration I tried had a focus point system, and gathering power to extend focus points and avoid burn. Problem is, gather power > focus spell every turn felt like a poor gameplay loop. This is extremely counter to 2E design.

You also have to consider archetypes. If everything is a focus spell, you run the risk of an archetyped character matching or exceeding a Kineticist (example, a full spellcaster could have higher DCs using the same level of focus spell.).

And then you have the adventuring day, finishing early, and level 1 issues. These are also big breaks from what 2E is about.

Altogether, I think that presents a pretty large challenge towards bringing the Kineticist to print as a spell-like ability spammer. Considering that it was essentially using burn as a way to get around Vancian casting to begin with, and has a lot of major game play issues I just think you are much more likely to see an elementalist class archetype for sorcerer. Full-blown Kineticist will take a desire to rebuild a non-Vancian casting system, likely requiring some clunky workarounds to the issues I mention and major design effort.

The other Occult classes from 1E should be easier. Occultist could work with a paladin's level of magic so long as the implements were diverse and interesting. Psychic is an easy full caster with subclasses (and lots of feat support, Druid/Bard style not Wizard). Spiritualist and Medium could be Magus-style casters, whatever that means. Mentalist is more difficult, because so much of their class identity shares space with Bard in this edition, but I could see them as 10th level casters with strong class cantrips despite the similarity to Bard.

[Martialmasters]

my group has never used either, id be surprised if we ever do.

[Deadmanwalking]

manbearscientist wrote:

Altogether, I think that presents a pretty large challenge towards bringing the Kineticist to print as a spell-like ability spammer. Considering that it was essentially using burn as a way to get around Vancian casting to begin with, and has a lot of major game play issues I just think you are much more likely to see an elementalist class archetype for sorcerer. Full-blown Kineticist will take a desire to rebuild a non-Vancian casting system, likely requiring some clunky workarounds to the issues I mention and major design effort.

The easiest path is not always the correct one. Personally, I think you're overestimating how hard it is to design a proper Kineticist (I can think of several solutions to a number of the problems you list, just for example), but even if you're not, there are still a few other factors in play:

#1: The design team at Paizo have significantly more design experience than either you or I do. Unless you're a published designer of numerous PF2 Classes, anyway. The fact that you or I might have difficulties does not mean that they will, or that they don't already have ideas for solutions to those issues even if they do. It could mean that, and they certainly might still have problems, but I wouldn't assume that they will just because you did.

#2. The fact that a task is difficult doesn't mean it's a task that shouldn't be attempted or can't be succeeded at. Even ignoring point #1 and assuming this is super difficult and tricky...that was no less true in PF1. Indeed, it was more so, and it didn't stop them then. Why would it do so now?

#3. From a business perspective, promising people one thing and giving them another is a bad mistake and will create anger and resentment. Saying that they will do a PF2 Kineticist and then having it just be another spell slot caster would be seen as such an action, and is thus a terrible idea. The folks at Paizo are too smart to do this. It's possible you're right and the problems are unsolvable, but if that's true I'd expect we just won't get a PF2 Kineticist at all. Paizo simply won't make one that uses spell slots, as it would be a bad business decision.

[manbearscientist]

That is why I used the term elementalist to describe a class archetype. It wouldn't be promising a Kineticist and getting a spell slot caster, it would be promising a caster who focuses on elements and delivering.

The core concept of 'element bending' is much 'sexier' than a specific combination of mechanics. Given how out of place the Kineticist's mechanics are, I just think it is more likely we see an elementalist class with a strong Blast cantrip which slots that fits in nicely with 2E balancing philosophy rather than a unique chassis that takes tons of extra effort to make/balance and is focused on bringing back authentic 1E mechanics.

And again, it is really important to point out 2E game balance. 1E had chained rogues and monks and Arcanists in the same system. 2E has a very tight set of balancing ideals. That they can balance abilities between three different types of spell doesn't change how hard the basic idea of Kineticist is to fit into 2E.

Other classes are using the same tools, and either a stronger martial chassis or spell slots. Kineticist has to be fun to play despite having just the spare dagger equivalents for those classes, along with the assumption that they are gated by a life lowering mechanic that limits their adventuring day. So whatever heuristics are being used need scrapped. Kineticist need stronger variants, but not so strong (or so weakly limited) that they are dramatically better than casters at early levels or that other classes get big boosts from archetyping in.

Making Kineticist be balanced, and fun to play, and authentic to 1E might require more work than the APG. I think they are most likely to retire the name and the idea of tying any sort of element focus to spell-slot independence, and focus on delivering the thematic beat while explicitly not promising that it an authentic Kineticist.

In other words, I think the likelihood is elementalist > nothing > Kineticist (focus/at will spells/cantrips). Elementalist sold as Kineticist is even less likely than that.

[Temperans]

Gather Power every turn is the same as Investigator doing casing every turn or Swashbuckler tumbling every turn. It is part of the regular game loop. Also burn effectively is a way to save an action. Its a lot like Cackle instead of saving an action concentrating, its spending an action to enhance a blast.

And as said before, Paizo has all the liberty to make any new mechanics they like. They really are not bound by any of the rules we know off.

Also have you ever considered that a Kinetic Blast could have its own unique proficiency. Heck a Kineticist could be balanced like a ranged Fighter. Meaning that they could be getting Legendary in Kinetic Blast while everyone else is only getting Expert. What you described is again a problem of treating Kinetic Blasts and Infusions as spells instead of their own unique mechanic.

[Squiggit]

manbearscientist wrote:

The core concept of 'element bending' is much 'sexier' than a specific combination of mechanics.

This presupposes that mechanics and concepts are entirely divorced from each other, which couldn't be further from the truth.

The notions of longevity and flexibility that can't be duplicated by spell slots are fundamentally part of the conceptual space being explored, which is why "just play a sorcerer" isn't a satisfying conclusion.

Don't get me wrong, sorcerers are all well and good and if that's what you're comfortable playing, more power to you, but there's a lot more design space that could be developed and I sincerely hope that Paizo's developers aren't as disinterested in moving beyond the basic assumptions set forth by the CRB as you are.

[Lucas Yew]

By the way, I thought Burn was just there to somehow penalize Kinnies for using CON as their main stat (lore notwithstanding), is my guess correct?

[Lanathar]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Kineticist was really cool for having a unique ability to do at-will magical damage, and for not having or using spell slot spells at all. These two things are the mechanical heart of the class and fans of it would be very upset if you just reduced it to a Sorcerer Archetype, or indeed gave it spell slots at all.

They've very specifically stated that they will be being very careful about making PF1 Classes into Archetypes going forward, and doing so with one of their more popular Classes from later releases seems vanishingly unlikely. It's not that they'll never do it, but I'd be both shocked and disappointed if they went that route with Kineticist. This is probably particularly true given that Kineticist always seemed to be one of Mark Seifter's more favored creations, and I have no doubt he's interested in converting it properly.

It'd also be a pretty easy Class to make in PF2 as compared to the difficulties of making it in PF1, with Cantrips, Focus Spells, and specific Class Feats adding to the Focus Spell repertoire or enhancing your Kinetic Blast in various ways. You'd have to design new Focus Spells and Cantrips, it's true, but that's not a particularly unwieldy design space for a new Class, and could likely take up a large percentage of their Feat choices. Compared to what it took to make in PF1, that's a vast decrease in difficulty.

I often maintain that the original Kineticist has some prototype PF2 stuff in it . The basic kinetic blast scales like cantrips do now (if we for the moment ignore the riders that added through infusions)

There is a bunch of scaling attack and damage boosts through overflow that is now taken by Weapon specialisation and proficiency increases (albeit casters don’t add specialisation to spells - perhaps they should?)

They got talents at every level they didn’t get a feat which very roughly mirrors the class feat / skill feat base chassis . Indeed i would quite like to see some unique Kineticist skill feats that have element theme

*

There is a lot in your point about Mark Seifter being the original designer and therefore it will be it’s own class.

*

Can I ask where the statement on “one of their more popular classes from later releases” comes from? Is there any evidence of this other than these forums - which are not representative and could easily just reflect that Kineticists fans shout pretty loudly (as it seems, to wizard fans). Not disputing the claim necessarily but I can’t say I am prepared to accept it without question

If it was super popular then it doesn’t quite track that it would not make the cut for secrets of magic ? It would fit well there and it already seems odd that there are only 2 classes in it. As it stands it’s earlier release seems to be Summer 2022. But I accept that position is somewhat flawed as gunslinger is certainly popular and there doesn’t seem to be obvious space for that class until summer 2022 either (I am of course assuming that classes come out in the gen con books)

For what it is worth I don’t agree with the “it should be a sorcerer archetype” claim. But have been in the camp of “if you want to play in 2E and had a Kineticist then use primal sorcerer for now - scaling cantrips and reskinned elemental spells make it closer than you would think”. Not as a permanent solution mind you. The blow back has been staggering and not being a Kineticist player (or fan) is not something I can get my head around at all. I will continue to try and understand but I am not sure I will be able to get there given the way the discourse around the class always goes

- I hope they go somewhere new with them and do a monk / sorcerer combo with various elemental stances . No idea how it would work.

[AnimatedPaper]

manbearscientist wrote:

There are a couple of things I found when I worked with the class. The first is the issue of chassis.

My original idea was a martial chassis. Lots of class abilities, pick your focus spells a la monk. Kinetic blasts as a special Strike.

This somewhat works, but you run into an issue with DCs. Since you scale 2 levels slower than a spellcaster, your DCs won't be good.

Alternatively, you can go spellcaster proficiencies but that comes at the cost of class features. If you go grab-bag spell features, you get into a different problem.

So use a non-standard chassis. (Edit:) Or apply one of the dozen or so alternatives to just giving Magi Master Weapon proficiency being suggested in one of those threads, except apply it to Kinetic Blasts. PF1 had Elemental Overflow, so that'd probably fly.

All the "rules" are made up, and subject to change without notice, cause, or need.

As someone that also homebrewed a class along these lines, the way I got around it was making a focus cantrip, and allowed you to select a way to modify that cantrip at every odd level, changing the range, energy type, shape, damage, and action cost. That freed up all the class feats for a slew of focus spells and innate spells was the class's utility.

Which is more or less how the kineticist worked in PF1, so I felt I was on firm ground there.

Since I dislike burn, I made no effort to maintain it, but I think the Oracle, both the playtest and APG versions, give good examples of how it might function.

Circling back to the original topic, I kind of dug the 4e version of Psionics, with at-will powers you could spend a point to boost up to an encounter power. I think that would work extremely well in PF2. That may be too close to Spheres of Magic, but hewing close to the limits they self-imposed for Focus might allay that.

[AnimatedPaper]

Lanathar wrote:

I will continue to try and understand but I am not sure I will be able to get there given the way the discourse around the class always goes

Many classes are attractive because of a certain class fantasy rather than any specific mechanic. Kineticists are exactly the opposite for many; the ability to be a spell caster that never runs dry, and built around never running dry, IS the entire appeal of the class. Attaching spell slots ruins the appeal for those fans.

It's really not any more complicated than that.

[Lanathar]

Temperans wrote:

Gather Power every turn is the same as Investigator doing casing every turn or Swashbuckler tumbling every turn. It is part of the regular game loop. Also burn effectively is a way to save an action. Its a lot like Cackle instead of saving an action concentrating, its spending an action to enhance a blast.

And as said before, Paizo has all the liberty to make any new mechanics they like. They really are not bound by any of the rules we know off.

Also have you ever considered that a Kinetic Blast could have its own unique proficiency. Heck a Kineticist could be balanced like a ranged Fighter. Meaning that they could be getting Legendary in Kinetic Blast while everyone else is only getting Expert. What you described is again a problem of treating Kinetic Blasts and Infusions as spells instead of their own unique mechanic.

Cackle is now a focus power so can’t be used every turn. So if that is the action saver balance point you are looking at then it doesn’t seem like it could be every turn

I see where you are coming from though

As to legendary proficiency I am not sure what you are saying. All classes with a caster chassis eventually get to legendary proficiency with them. Are you suggesting their proficiency matches a fighter ? If so then of course the person you are responding to hasn’t considered that as an option. For a very good reason

[Lanathar]

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Lanathar wrote:

I will continue to try and understand but I am not sure I will be able to get there given the way the discourse around the class always goes

Many classes are attractive because of a certain class fantasy rather than any specific mechanic. Kineticists are exactly the opposite for many; the ability to be a spell caster that never runs dry, and built around never running dry, IS the entire appeal of the class. Attaching spell slots ruins the appeal for those fans.

It's really not any more complicated than that.

Interesting . Reversing the perspective is not a view I had taken and not how I tend to view the game which explains my troubles

The challenge and complexity comes with balancing that in a game where other casters do run dry. And trying to discuss what potential trade offs said fans are prepared to accept to allow what they like.

Burn is universally complained about so that clearly wasn’t the answer (it wasn’t well implemented in 1E and didn’t really work as intended).

Maybe if the new magic book does have an alternative system to Vance then that might help?

[Deadmanwalking]

I'm not finding the original thing that lead me to believe that Kineticist was highly popular among the later released Classes (there were a couple, and this is several years ago). That said, I believe this is indicative.

That's just one survey, but it was a highly popular Class in comparison to many other later Classes. Never as popular as corebook and APG classes, of course, but popular.

I also remember it being more popular than I expected in this survey, but the final data lumps all the Occult Classes (and all but the top 20 non-Occult ones) together, making it hard to evaluate that. I think I saw a more in-depth breakdown of it somewhere that showed Kineticists doing pretty well among the '7.8%' that are Paizo Classes not in the top 20, but I can't find it now, and I'm not really up for going through the raw data right now.

[Lanathar]

Thanks. Always difficult to judge from self selecting populations like reddit and this forum but it isn’t nothing.

My main interest would be where they come in the data the design team used. But I guess even that is distorted because isn’t it every register PFS character ever? So never ones will struggle unless they have registration dates and can filter by everything post OA.

Probably worth shelving the Kineticist chat within this thread at least

On Psionics:

- they won’t be made by paizo
- Psychics will use the occult spell list and almost certainly spell slots
- hopefully there is some kind of alternative system to slots proposed in the new magic book

[Xenocrat]

The Kineticist was definitely the most popular "bad" class. No other class that received so much grief for its math and so many disparaging guides (itself an indicator - no one bothered making lots of OG rogue guides, I think) and nicknames had so many fans.

[manbearscientist]

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Many classes are attractive because of a certain class fantasy rather than any specific mechanic. Kineticists are exactly the opposite for many; the ability to be a spell caster that never runs dry, and built around never running dry, IS the entire appeal of the class. Attaching spell slots ruins the appeal for those fans.

It's really not any more complicated than that.

Sorcerers are also somewhat thematically tied to the idea of being a spellcaster with an unlimited font of power, even if mechanically they don't quite reach that height. The issue I see is that your ideal is a character that can use cantrips and focus spells all day. The thing is, Sorcerer can do that already. Cutting out spell slots doesn't give it more longevity, it makes it have less power and forces the class to use a clunkier way to get its supernatural effects (feats).

An alternative I've thought of is the ability to cast regular spells as a focus spell (for a burn cost) as a core class feature. Even if the casting is exclusively limited to trait spells and thematic add-ons (fly for air kineticists for example), that change alone gives you the ability to be a spellcaster that literally never runs dry, as opposed to the Sorcerer's normal limitations.

Throw in some form of kinetic blast, and you have a fairly intuitive setup that scratches most of the important itches. Maybe it is still elementalist if it can cast spells normally as well, but this way you stay inside explored space regarding balance and can reuse existing material by picking spells off a list. Leveling up and just picking fireball off a list is better in my view than having to spend feat-space to acquire the spell or making a focus spell ball of fire a class feature. Being able to cast spells normally (even at a magus's 2 slots, 9th level casting) gives you noteworthy things to do after burning through your Focus Points, which by itself solves the firecracker issue.

As far as balance goes, my earlier point was about DCs, not spell attacks. An advantage spellcasters have over martial characters is that they scale their DCs 2 levels quicker and one degree higher (7 expert, 15 master, 19 legendary vs 9, 17) than the quickest martials, monks. Kineticists are going to thrown down a lot of effects that require a saving throw. Progressing as spellcasters is an easy way to make their DCs land. A pseudo-martial, even one with Fighter proficiency levels in kinetic blast would require some sort of workaround for their AoEs.

Temperans wrote:

Gather Power every turn is the same as Investigator doing casing every turn or Swashbuckler tumbling every turn. It is part of the regular game loop. Also burn effectively is a way to save an action. Its a lot like Cackle instead of saving an action concentrating, its spending an action to enhance a blast.

An Investigator can Devise a Stratagem as a free action, and a Swashbuckler's Tumbling is one of several options for the same effect and only takes up 1/3 of the turn. That lets you do a lot of different things with the 2-3 actions you have left, even if you are using a class feature every turn. Gather Power > Spell is doing the exact same thing every turn, not even moving and possibly not even using different spells. And yeah, that was how it worked in 1E, I get that, but the best feature of 2E is the three action system.

Honestly, my preference is not having a way to discount burn costs, but to make them matter on an encounter scale without impacting a full adventuring day. The methods I used for that were a clunky damage-over-time effect, and a more elegant burned X condition that functioned per drained but only effected Hit Points and went away after 10 minutes at full health. An alternative would be to have each element increment through unique stages like Oracle.

[Natan Linggod 327]

To the guys arguing about how difficult it would be to recreate Kineticists in PF2.

Someones already done it.
https://paizo.com/products/btq024xz?Legendary-Kineticists-Second-Edition

And they do a pretty good job of it too I think.

[AnimatedPaper]

manbearscientist wrote:

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Many classes are attractive because of a certain class fantasy rather than any specific mechanic. Kineticists are exactly the opposite for many; the ability to be a spell caster that never runs dry, and built around never running dry, IS the entire appeal of the class. Attaching spell slots ruins the appeal for those fans.

It's really not any more complicated than that.

Sorcerers are also somewhat thematically tied to the idea of being a spellcaster with an unlimited font of power, even if mechanically they don't quite reach that height. The issue I see is that your ideal is a character that can use cantrips and focus spells all day. The thing is, Sorcerer can do that already. Cutting out spell slots doesn't give it more longevity, it makes it have less power and forces the class to use a clunkier way to get its supernatural effects (feats).

I really don't think you're getting this.

Logic does not matter. Ease of design does not matter. If you put slots on a kineticist, it will not appeal to the demographic I'm talking about. Every other design consideration has to have that limitation in mind. This is about as critical to the design as weapons are to a fighter and magic to a wizard.

If it can't be done, then they should not bother trying. And since legendary games has already put out a version, that is strongly suggestive that Paizo can pull of their own, isn't it?

manbearscientist wrote:

As far as balance goes, my earlier point was about DCs, not spell attacks. An advantage spellcasters have over martial characters is that they scale their DCs 2 levels quicker and one degree higher (7 expert, 15 master, 19 legendary vs 9, 17) than the quickest martials, monks. Kineticists are going to thrown down a lot of effects that require a saving throw. Progressing as spellcasters is an easy way to make their DCs land. A pseudo-martial, even one with Fighter proficiency levels in kinetic blast would require some sort of workaround for their AoEs.

I was also talking about DCs. I had thought that was obvious, but I'll be clearer next time. Though to be honest, spell attacks should be a high consideration as well, considering Kinetic Blasts will almost certainly be a spell attack by default.

[manbearscientist]

The guy arguing how difficult it would be to recreate Kineticists in Pathfinder has already done it. Twice.

Which is just to say, I'm not shooting from the hip here. I've taken community surveys, had brainstorming sessions, done rounds of playtesting, etc. I've written 57 pages of material for homebrew kineticists.

That's where I'm coming from when I talk about shooting your stuff early with focus points or gather power feeling clunky. Experience, not theory.

I've had versions that simply obsoleted casters in practice because my downsides weren't strict enough (better saves/HP/infinite spells), and I've had versions that ended up having too much power in focus powers/cantrips that could be picked up through archetypes.

Legendary kineticist gets around some of the issues I mention by focusing hard on the odd levels of kineticist (infusions, kinetic blast). By going that route, they don't really compete in the same space as spellcasters despite having essentially caster-based progressions. And they have a wider variation in turns even with Gather Power, as Gather Power > Infusion > Kinetic Blast can be many different final effects.

But they have still challenges that would make it difficult to use the same approach in 1E. RAI vs RAW approaches for converting spell attacks to DCs, the same mega-proliferation of feats I had (100+ is more than fighter after two core books), balance issues regarding infusions and archetypes, etc.

Like I said, I'm aware of the approaches that can be taken because I've made a kineticist that is independent of spell slots, and playtested many variations along the way. But I haven't seen or developed an approach that is all of the following: intuitive, balanced, concise, diverse, fun, and easy to work within 2E's rules and action economy. And that's what I feel it would take to bring to print.

[Temperans]

@Lanathar

I was thinking something like:

* A Kinetic Blast is a 1 action Flourish that requires both hands to be free. A Composite Blast takes burn to cast.

* Kinetic Blast is a type of Unique Weapon similar to Unarmed Strikes. As such the only one who can get Legendary Proficiency is the Kineticist. People taking it as an Archetype would only get Expert proficiency.

* Modifying a Kinetic Blast takes a number of points of Burn and an action. Taking a point of Burn deals unhealable damage equal to your level until you rest.

* Gather Power being a 1-3 action multi round activity to reduce number of Burn from the next Kinetic Blast by 1-3 points respectively until end of the next round. Higher level might make this more efficient.

So a turn could be: Spend an action to Gather Power, then spend an action to modify the Blast, finally blast the target. Or move as an action, then Modify the Blast, and final action Blast. Or spend 3 actions Gathering Power on the first round; Then on the second round modify the Blast with some high cost Infusions, Blast the target, and start Gathering power or move.

That type of economy would be very flexible. Would allow the player to choose how much power they want to spend and how quickly. Does not mess with the balance of any other class as its entirely self contained. And it perfectly captures the Magic of PF1 Kineticists.

There really is no need for new special effects, weird gimmicks, or even using the Oracle version (which I do not like).

[manbearscientist]

Temperans wrote:

@Lanathar

I was thinking something like:

* A Kinetic Blast is a 1 action Flourish that requires both hands to be free. A Composite Blast takes burn to cast.

* Kinetic Blast is a type of Unique Weapon similar to Unarmed Strikes. As such the only one who can get Legendary Proficiency is the Kineticist. People taking it as an Archetype would only get Expert proficiency.

* Modifying a Kinetic Blast takes a number of points of Burn and an action. Taking a point of Burn deals unhealable damage equal to your level until you rest.

* Gather Power being a 1-3 action multi round activity to reduce number of Burn from the next Kinetic Blast by 1-3 points respectively until end of the next round. Higher level might make this more efficient.

So a turn could be: Spend an action to Gather Power, then spend an action to modify the Blast, finally blast the target. Or move as an action, then Modify the Blast, and final action Blast. Or spend 3 actions Gathering Power on the first round; Then on the second round modify the Blast with some high cost Infusions, Blast the target, and start Gathering power or move.

That type of economy would be very flexible. Would allow the player to choose how much power they want to spend and how quickly. Does not mess with the balance of any other class as its entirely self contained. And it perfectly captures the Magic of PF1 Kineticists.

There really is no need for new special effects, weird gimmicks, or even using the Oracle version (which I do not like).

Let me bring up my playtest experience. No feature rated more poorly than Gather Power. Why? My players did not like 'doing nothing'. Even more than in 1E, they felt that giving up an action was a prohibitive cost. In 1E, it is 'just' your move action, while in 2E it could be another Strike, Demoralize attempt, etc. Paradoxically, my players were happier being forced to take burn than any even having the option to spend actions negating it.

They also didn't like having Flourish on kinetic blast. They felt it was an arbitrary 1Eism and eventually I agreed and removed it.

The Gather/Modify/Blast | Move/Modify/Blast design is essentially what the legendary kineticist design does, and what I originally had in version that didn't make it to print. It still ended up fairly repetitive, though to be fair that was a major criticism of 1E Kineticist (even if you could use other infusions, the tendency was to use your strongest free infusions every round).

Another thing that came up very early was how onerous all-day burn was. It became obvious that 2E expects a full-life party for its encounter math after the kineticists were downed quickly in subsequent encounters. Those that invested in healing also felt worse because their investments had less value.

Burn also ended up being very funky thanks to ancestry HP. If it is meaningful at level 1, it suddenly becomes a giant burden at 2. If it is alright at 2 and at 3 after taking toughness, it was basically not a factor at 1. It was probably the clunkiest thing to make work as a main class feature (particularly because a sizable percentage of 1E kineticists want burn as pure cost and another group wants it as a cost/benefit).