Elemental damage on the base attack feels core to the fantasy

[QuidEst]

The Raven Black wrote:

I remember in PF1 when people were annoyed that water attacks meant cold damage, earth attacks did acid damage, and air attacks were electricity.

Everyone cheered when the PF1 Kineticist gave the feeling that you were actually sending waves, rocks or blasts of wind at your opponents.

And those people (eg. me) are content right now, so they're not posting. PF1 Kineticists were able to do either, so the people who wanted energy damage weren't complaining back then.

[manbearscientist]

shroudb wrote:

manbearscientist wrote:

(for example, no easy way to attack a second time with agile at early levels with 2 actions).

what do you mean?

Blast is not iverflow, you dont lose your impulse.
So you can keep swinging as many times as you want per round once you've gathered.

If I'm using a normal weapon and an agile weapon, I can attack for 1d8, and then at 1d6 without needed an action to Interact to change my attack.

If I'm a dual-gate kineticist, I need to Gather Element after attacking with a non-agile blast to get the benefit of agile. Which defeats the point: getting both a decent damage hit and a likely to connect smaller hit.

[WatersLethe]

As much as I agree that being able to do elemental damage is pretty critical, I also see the option to do appropriate physical damage as equally critical.

I HATED that water forced you to deal cold damage in PF1. I would have happily taken bludgeoning in order to feel like a water-character and not an ice-character.

[shroudb]

manbearscientist wrote:

shroudb wrote:

manbearscientist wrote:

(for example, no easy way to attack a second time with agile at early levels with 2 actions).

what do you mean?

Blast is not iverflow, you dont lose your impulse.
So you can keep swinging as many times as you want per round once you've gathered.

If I'm using a normal weapon and an agile weapon, I can attack for 1d8, and then at 1d6 without needed an action to Interact to change my attack.

If I'm a dual-gate kineticist, I need to Gather Element after attacking with a non-agile blast to get the benefit of agile. Which defeats the point: getting both a decent damage hit and a likely to connect smaller hit.

isnt that exactly the reason for the cycle elements feat though? change your element and blast with a different one in a single action.

and while that comes online at 6, it doesnt need specific magic items to work off (ring to give your secondary weapon the runes) and it only uses one of your hands instead of 2 of your hands.

So i dont actually see this complain.

If you want to spam attacks, you can always go with a d6 agile fire and just do 2 actions from level 1, and then at 6 go with d8->d6 agile.

[Temperans]

WatersLethe wrote:

As much as I agree that being able to do elemental damage is pretty critical, I also see the option to do appropriate physical damage as equally critical.

I HATED that water forced you to deal cold damage in PF1. I would have happily taken bludgeoning in order to feel like a water-character and not an ice-character.

Wait are you forgetting that PF1 had the Water blast (bludgeoning) and cold blast (cold)? What are you talking about it forcing you to deal cold damage?

Unless you are talking about spell overall. But then people just want to pick cold or water, air or electricity, and earth or acid. (No idea what type of energy blast metal would have)

[Verzen]

WatersLethe wrote:

As much as I agree that being able to do elemental damage is pretty critical, I also see the option to do appropriate physical damage as equally critical.

I HATED that water forced you to deal cold damage in PF1. I would have happily taken bludgeoning in order to feel like a water-character and not an ice-character.

In PF1e, you chose water OR ice.

[Verzen]

Temperans wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

As much as I agree that being able to do elemental damage is pretty critical, I also see the option to do appropriate physical damage as equally critical.

I HATED that water forced you to deal cold damage in PF1. I would have happily taken bludgeoning in order to feel like a water-character and not an ice-character.

Wait are you forgetting that PF1 had the Water blast (bludgeoning) and cold blast (cold)? What are you talking about it forcing you to deal cold damage?

Unless you are talking about spell overall. But then people just want to pick cold or water, air or electricity, and earth or acid. (No idea what type of energy blast metal would have)

Metal would have radiation. ;)

[Perpdepog]

Verzen wrote:

Temperans wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

As much as I agree that being able to do elemental damage is pretty critical, I also see the option to do appropriate physical damage as equally critical.

I HATED that water forced you to deal cold damage in PF1. I would have happily taken bludgeoning in order to feel like a water-character and not an ice-character.

Wait are you forgetting that PF1 had the Water blast (bludgeoning) and cold blast (cold)? What are you talking about it forcing you to deal cold damage?

Unless you are talking about spell overall. But then people just want to pick cold or water, air or electricity, and earth or acid. (No idea what type of energy blast metal would have)

Metal would have radiation. ;)

So poison or fire? Radiation didn't do damage in PF1E, it was treated as a special kind of poison. Radiation is treated as fire damage with extra riders on it in Starfinder; I'm confused where the idea that radiation was its own damage type came from.

[WatersLethe]

Temperans wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

As much as I agree that being able to do elemental damage is pretty critical, I also see the option to do appropriate physical damage as equally critical.

I HATED that water forced you to deal cold damage in PF1. I would have happily taken bludgeoning in order to feel like a water-character and not an ice-character.

Wait are you forgetting that PF1 had the Water blast (bludgeoning) and cold blast (cold)? What are you talking about it forcing you to deal cold damage?

Unless you are talking about spell overall. But then people just want to pick cold or water, air or electricity, and earth or acid. (No idea what type of energy blast metal would have)

I'm referring to spells overall, since I actually never played or ran with a PF1 Kineticist. I had multiple players try to do a water themed spellcaster and felt railroaded into cold.

[Temperans]

WatersLethe wrote:

Temperans wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

As much as I agree that being able to do elemental damage is pretty critical, I also see the option to do appropriate physical damage as equally critical.

I HATED that water forced you to deal cold damage in PF1. I would have happily taken bludgeoning in order to feel like a water-character and not an ice-character.

Wait are you forgetting that PF1 had the Water blast (bludgeoning) and cold blast (cold)? What are you talking about it forcing you to deal cold damage?

Unless you are talking about spell overall. But then people just want to pick cold or water, air or electricity, and earth or acid. (No idea what type of energy blast metal would have)

I'm referring to spells overall, since I actually never played or ran with a PF1 Kineticist. I had multiple players try to do a water themed spellcaster and felt railroaded into cold.

Yeah spells were often rail roaded that way. Kineticist was better given it had blasts for water and water talents. But I will admit, much like this playtest it had a lot of ice based things.

[Nothing To See Here]

I am behind the idea of having water and air get access to cold and electricity damage, either through a level 1 choice or a low level feat. The one thing I want to make sure of is that the other elements don't get left behind by that. Maybe fire gets a bludgeoning damage explosive blast and earth gets the other physical damage types.

[graystone]

I think the easiest way is to give a feat that adds versatile [element] trait to the elemental blast.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Want to throw my agreement in here, and perhaps go even further. On the one hand, I kind of love the simplicity of the lore reasoning behind kineticists having 'internal gates' which they can tap for raw elemental power, and which they might gain for a variety of reasons. It's like they read my personal gripes with all kinetic powers being 'weird innate magic only a rare few are born with'.

On the other, I worry that this neat lore idea of tying each gate directly to a plane of the same name runs a very serious risk of limiting the maximum possible number of kineticist themes to the number of existing elemental planes. If Wood and Steel planes need to be written into the setting to give kineticists the ability to throw flowers and steel, what would it take to get back telekineticists, if they're ever coming? Chaokineticists? Maybe post RoE kineticists reveal that other inner planes, such as Ethereal, Negative, First World etc are also viable fountains of inner element, but this seems like a thing that could be futureproofed now by having a slightly less 1:1 relationship between gates and planes.

Granted, I'm not decided whether it would be worth losing the harmony of having lists of powers clearly tailored to each elemental plane.

Even so, when it comes to elemental powers, I can definitely think of a concept or two that wants to wield only the powers of lightning, or only the powers of ice, for whom even the technical ability to wield liquid water or air feels like a waste because the only part they want or need is the part that involves cold. If it is possible, I want a hydro-kineticists who would be able to choose not even to have water attacks and focus entirely on the ice techniques, and same for a dedicated lightning aerokineticist. I got a lightning-shooting robot concept I still want to get a crack at.

[keftiu]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

-snip-

I honestly think it would be perfectly on-theme for later Kineticist subclasses to be bound to other, non-elemental planes... though the massive number of Feats involved makes that a fair bit harder than, say, a new Oracle Mystery.

Quote:

Even so, when it comes to elemental powers, I can definitely think of a concept or two that wants to wield only the powers of lightning, or only the powers of ice, for whom even the technical ability to wield liquid water or air feels like a waste because the only part they want or need is the part that involves cold. If it is possible, I want a hydro-kineticists who would be able to choose not even to have water attacks and focus entirely on the ice techniques, and same for a dedicated lightning aerokineticist. I got a lightning-shooting robot concept I still want to get a crack at.

Co-signed, emphatically. Cold and electricity at a minimum should be able to be the entire heart of a character, and I'd be glad to see any number of acid, poison, and sonic get in here, too. I know some folks would love negative as an option.

[Squiggit]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

If Wood and Steel planes need to be written into the setting to give kineticists the ability to throw flowers and steel, what would it take to get back telekineticists, if they're ever coming? Chaokineticists?

I mean, the drawing energy directly from a plane thing isn't new. PF1 telekineticsts tapped into the ethereal plane and Chaokineticists tapped into the negative energy plane. I don't see anything stopping them from doing that again, assuming they ever want to add those elements back. I'm not convinced they will, both because of the book space required for a kineticist element and the way they're tightening the class' themes, but if they want to the path's open.

The only real change here is that they're moving wood kineticists from the first world to the new plane of wood.

[Perpdepog]

I like the possibilities the new kineticist power source explanation gives us. If people can have gates inside them that link to elemental planes, why not other planes as well? A kineticist who channels the raw power of the Abyss, for example, or the Eternal City of Axis. What could happen if a kineticist could channel power from the Dimension of Dreams?

[RiverMesa]

A friend of mine had suggested that these more esoteric elemental options could be linked to uncommon or rare inner gate options - hell, you could do a "blood gate" if you want to bring back the blood kineticist.

(It would also solve the potential weirdness of universal gate kineticists inexplicably growing in scope as new elements might be introduced, if they were to be limited to 'just' the six main elemental planes.)

Outer plane-based kineticists are also extremely tempting, but the footprint necessary for each would be quite beefy pagecount-wise, so I'm not expecting a whole lot of those from Paizo at least.

[Perpdepog]

RiverMesa wrote:

Outer plane-based kineticists are also extremely tempting, but the footprint necessary for each would be quite beefy pagecount-wise, so I'm not expecting a whole lot of those from Paizo at least.

Absolutely. There are over twenty planes; if Paizo tried to make gates for even half of them ... the whole book would just be the kineticist. This definitely feels like fertile ground for 3P material though.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

I actually think making the additional damage types available with 1st level feats would be the best fix, since a single element kineticist isn't completely screwed out of a fight against an enemy resistant/immune to their chosen damage type, provides added flexibility for dual element kineticists, and is just something you can opt into with universal kineticists to exploit weaknesses, similar to Alchemist.

I'll continue reading the class write-up to be sure and consider different perspectives, but this is my initial take so far.

[Temperans]

Why charge a feat and not just free? You have 1 element you get both blast of that element. You have 2 elements you get your choice of blast for each. You have all elements, you get the choice of 4 blasts.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Temperans wrote:

Why charge a feat and not just free? You have 1 element you get both blast of that element. You have 2 elements you get your choice of blast for each. You have all elements, you get the choice of 4 blasts.

In my opinion, doing it for free is too much of a power boon for the class. Like, they would have more freedom of damage type than Alchemist if it was just for free. Being able to change the type of damage you do on the fly should have a cost associated with it, but nothing too egregious to make it too costly to invest in. Plus, some players might not even care that they can/can't do two types of damage with their blasting, so it's required to be an opt-in thing to account for them.

With single gate characters having more feats to play with starting out, that means they aren't affected or "taxed" nearly as bad as someone who is a universal, who has to spend their flex feat to get access to a third type of damage instead of sticking with the basic Fire/Bludgeoning types, which can be resisted against, or immune to.

I suppose one could make it a "free" thing instead for the single gates, but the problem then stems from it being effectively "exclusive" to them if it's not available with a feat. So, compromise suggests to make it a 1st level feat choice, selectable with their starting feats.

And keep in mind that feats increase in value as you level, meaning a universal or dual gate character will be paying for it more in the higher levels if they're burning higher level feats for lower level ones that change damage type like this instead of earning access to a different power with their elements.

[Lucas Yew]

As my evergoing rant against the awful abundance of bootstrapped bludgeoning damage, they should have had water, air, earth damage types defined from the very start...

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Lucas Yew wrote:

As my evergoing rant against the awful abundance of bootstrapped bludgeoning damage, they should have had water, air, earth damage types defined from the very start...

Well sure, but how does a mass of water, air, or earth damage a creature it strikes? Usually with blunt force unless it is given a particular shape. Water damage as a thing distinct from bludgeoning damage doesn't really matter for the majority of creatures battered and bruised from a torrent of water, and for those creature to whom it does matter, a weakness to the water trait already does that job.

I'm not saying you're wrong about there being a problem with 3/4 elements being relegated to bludgeoning damage, but I don't think having a rock thrown at you can really be anything but a physical damage, whether that rock's shape is suited to blunt or sharp force.

[Kekkres]

yeah this isnt pokemon, damage types represent the way in which something is harmed, not some elemental alignment.

[Temperans]

Kekkres wrote:

yeah this isnt pokemon, damage types represent the way in which something is harmed, not some elemental alignment.

This is why people want electric air blast and cold water blast.

[PossibleCabbage]

I would appreciate some sharp rocks.

[_shredder_]

I just want to play an offensive character who is 100% acid themed. So far I can't build something like this in pf2e, because all the acid spells just suck compared to the fire or lighting ones. I hoped the kineticist would change that, but I personally don't care at all about earthbending and throwing rocks around, I just want to blast acid every single turn and deal good single target damage.

[Dweller13]

Temperans wrote:

Yeah picking favorites like that just seems bad. Also I agree that there should be the option for what type of damage you deal with your blast it makes no sense for only fire to deal thematic damage.

Earth should be able to pick between piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing.

I agree with this 100%. Personally, I'd be fine if they had a level 1 feat the gave each elemental blast a variant damage type. Air gets electricity, earth gets all the physical damage types, water gets cold, fire gets poison or acid (representing the toxic substances associated with volcanoes and smoke), wood gets poison for toxic plants, and metal gets acid (there are numerous metals that produce acids as they decay).

[Baron Ulfhamr]

I understand the desire to diversify the damage types, but I HATED the PF1 system:
Fire = Fire damage, obviously
Air = electrical damage. Maybe? Lightning is in the air, but...
Water = cold damage- yeah, ice, but what about hot water? Steam?
Earth = acid damage!?!? Straight-up NO from me! It felt very bluntly like 4 elements into 4 damage types was just another square peg forced a into a round hole for mechanical balance.

I will ALWAYS favor theme and cool over balance e3very time- the four elements may not all dish the same damage. Some should be more utilitarian or defensive imho. But hey, I don't work here, I just play here, haha

[Squiggit]

Baron Ulfhamr wrote:

I will ALWAYS favor theme and cool over balance e3very time

Cool and thematic like three different flavors of bludgeoning damage? Not buying it.

[Baron Ulfhamr]

Squiggit wrote:

Baron Ulfhamr wrote:

I will ALWAYS favor theme and cool over balance e3very time

Cool and thematic like three different flavors of bludgeoning damage? Not buying it.

No no, THIS treatment isn't right either, my point is that THAT one wasn't either. We need an option 3 (which, I guess, is why I included it in the middle of the word "every")

[Squiggit]

Oh, fair.

I think the best option 3 is to jsut let people choose. A spray of bludgeoning water is fine, but no reason to shut out the ice mages to let it happen.

[Baron Ulfhamr]

Squiggit wrote:

Oh, fair.

I think the best option 3 is to jsut let people choose. A spray of bludgeoning water is fine, but no reason to shut out the ice mages to let it happen.

I completely agree. I feel like these are possibly subdomains of the water element, as lightning could be seen as being of air OR arguably fire. See also Azula.

[Temperans]

Baron Ulfhamr wrote:

I understand the desire to diversify the damage types, but I HATED the PF1 system:

Fire = Fire damage, obviously
Air = electrical damage. Maybe? Lightning is in the air, but...
Water = cold damage- yeah, ice, but what about hot water? Steam?
Earth = acid damage!?!? Straight-up NO from me! It felt very bluntly like 4 elements into 4 damage types was just another square peg forced a into a round hole for mechanical balance.

I will ALWAYS favor theme and cool over balance e3very time- the four elements may not all dish the same damage. Some should be more utilitarian or defensive imho. But hey, I don't work here, I just play here, haha

What? Did you even read what the PF1 blast were?

Water had physical (cause obviously) and cold, but if you had fire element you could make steam. Earth didn't have acid, acid was more of a vudrani kineticist thing. That is not even considering that PF1 was based on 5 primary elements, then wood and void added in as extras. So the whole "4 element 4 damage types" doesn't even fit.

If you are talking about damage types outside of kineticist, acid is a pretty good representation of corrosion of metal and erosion of earth. While steam was a thing (there is a literal metamagic feat that makes your spells into steam). So again your complaint makes no sense.

[Errenor]

Squiggit wrote:

A spray of bludgeoning water is fine

And piercing.

Wikipedia: Water jet cutter
(Just as an example for everyone, I'm sure most people know)