Kineticist, What races match what element?

[Merellin]

So, I was thinking, A Kineticist who's race matches their element! A few are easy, Fire is Ifrit, Water is Undine, Earth is Oread and Air is Sylph...

Wood is a bit harder, Maybe Gathlain or Ghoran..? But what about Aether and Void? And does any other races match the other elements?

Has anyone else thought about matching up race and kineticist element like this..?

[Melkiador]

The elemental races are obvious, but there are other options. Dwarf matches Earth very well. I'd maybe pair gnomes with wood. For Void, I think I'd go with Wayang.

Aether is open ended enough to be anything. I'd pair them with halflings, since so many of the powers are thief related. And halflings are so often associated with thievs.

[VoodistMonk]

I chose Wayang for my Void Kineticist. Exact right amount of creepy. Went with the Greater Darkness Infusion and Greater Eyes of the Void Utility Talent. Wood was my Expanded Element, but I didn't do much with that.

A Lashvine Leshy could be good for Wood... use Kinetic Whip, obviously... take the Prehensile Whip trait. Could be fun. Also for Wood, a Treeborn Gathlain has flight and no Con penaltly... which is always a good choice. And you can still have Body Thorns with Treeborn, which is cool, but gives up your scaling Damage Reduction.

[Chell Raighn]

Fire: Ifrit, Suli, Aasimar (Periblood), Goblin
Earth: Oread, Suli, Dwarf
Water: Undine, Suli, Naiad, Merfolk, Aquatic Elf, Gillman, Changeling (Brine/Virga/Snow May)
Air: Sylph, Suli, Changeling (Virga May)
Wood: Ghoran, Gathlain, Wyrwood, Elf
Void: Fetchling, Wyang, Tiefling
Aether: Any, All, and None…

[Merellin]

Good suggestions, Thanks everyone! More good choices then I was expecting. :)

[Sysryke]

I love character concepts like this! I would tend to agree with most of the pairings above, but I also like to mix and match against type sometimes.

For me, the most fun would be mixing and matching the various beastial races with the elements. Really, any combo could be justified, but at first thought:

Vanarran = Wood
Ratfolk = Earth
Tengu = Air
Kitsune = Aether
Grippli = Water
Samsarran = Fire
Catfolk = Void

I was already debating with myself as I typed those out. I can see many alternate combos there. As there are many more animal kin races, I'd also want to dip toes into the 3rd party elements; or at least break the elements down between their physical and energetic manifestations.

Big ol' Tyger themed catfolk, with a giant crystaline hammer, using Earth magics for my personal favorite.

[Temperans]

There is actually a feat that handles this already.

Kinetic Invocation lists any character with the corresponding elemental affinity racial trait or the corresponding elemental subtype to get special free access to the feat. Then it also says that Caligni and Dhampir gain access to void invocations, while Gathlain and Ghoran get access to wood.

However it says nothing about Aether. Which makes sense because that is effectively just a mix of all 4 elemental planes mixing with the ethereal plane. There are only a handful of creatures with the aether subtype.

Leshy ofcourse get special mention because of Leshykineticist archetype. But, other races thinking idk it would probably depend on what their major connection to the world is. Ex: water/arctic wlves would be water, but wood elves would be wood, and cavern elves would be earth/void.

[McDaygo]

I normally have a Drow Geokintetist as a NPC innmy drow raiding partys

[Temperans]

Btw I should say Sand Dwarfs are a thing. Which Psammokineticist is Air/Earth element.

[VoodistMonk]

Bringing this back up.

Just [mostly] finished putting together a Living Machine Wyrwood Ioun Kineticist. Wyrwood are wooden constructs fueled by ioun stones, so Ioun Kineticist made sense to me. This archetype chooses Aether as your first element, but I chose Machine and Wood as his Expanded Elements at 7 and 15, respectively. Wild Talents of note include Basic Iounkinesis, Kinetic Healer, Healing Burst, Kinetic Revivification, Emergency Repairs, Construct Crafter, Nanite Evolution, Warp Wood, and Shape Wood.

Not at all the most potent Kineticist, but I figure he fully represents all that is Wyrwood.

[Merellin]

@VoodistMonk That sounds like a cool and flavorful build! :D

[Dragon78]

Dhampir and Void go very well together....especially with that archetype where use Cha instead of Con.

Personally any element could fit Catfolk...except maybe Water.

Machine element?