Blast Proficiency / Weapon Specialization


Kineticist Class


Standard progression for Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Specialization is that Specialization is awarded 2 levels after the class's first strike proficiency boost. Alchemists and Warpriest clerics break this by bumping to Expert at 7 but delaying Specialization to 13, but as both cap at Expert weapon proficiency like full casters that can be thought of as a stopgap balance accommodation.

As listed in the playtest document, Kineticist is the only class to gain Specialization at the same time as their first increase in weapon proficiency (level 7). For consistency, I would suggest they should either delay the Specialization to 9 (making them the only Expert @ 7 class that gains Master proficiency in strikes) or bring Expert proficiency up to 5 (to match other martial classes). As the rest of the attack/specialization progression matches martials, I believe the latter is the better option.


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Weapon Specialization is always at 7.

Warpriest also gets Expert at 7.


Guntermench wrote:
Weapon Specialization is always at 7.

Caster classes, including both cleric doctrines, get Weapon Specialization at 13. Warpriests do not get the damage increase at the same time as the proficiency increase.

The general pattern is that Weapon Specialization (and Greater Weapon Specialization) come at 2 levels after an increase to proficiency (11/13 for casters, and 5/7 + 13/15 for martials). Warpriest and Alchemist both break that which is why I called those out separately, but they do not progress beyond Expert proficiency and get the damage boost at the same time as full casters.

Liberty's Edge

Weapon Specialization doesn't seem to make a definitive call as to if their various Impuses and Blasts are considered to be Unarmed Attacks and/or Weapons for the purpose of benefitting from that damage. I feel this is a HUGE mistake as it's ambiguous at best, and at worst it leaves off the ENTIRE FOCAL SCHICK of the Class if it isn't meant to be used with those and frankly, given that pretty much EVERYTHING Kinetecist-y that one might do is going to always require you keep one or two hands completely free at all times which tells us that Weapons are VERY rarely ever going to be used by the Class.

Also, this isn't EXACTLY about the Weapon Spec but it does relate to Critical Specialization, one effect for Earth in particular.

While being more specific than the general Prone rules, is actually far weaker than the BASE rules for Prone in that creatures that are not already on the ground simply descend 20 feet instead of the existing norm which is that they just straight up fall per the normal falling rules.

I don't know if this is an issue where they were trying to be sure this isn't made too powerful or if the authors were simply unaware of how applying Prone to a flying creature works via baseline RAW but I think it may be worth bringing up.

Also, the Water Crit Spec uses the EXTREMELY ill-defined "Splash damage" which functionally just does not exist or work as written because "Splash" is only ever defined as something that is part of Thrown Weapons and applies to Splash Weapons. If the Water Blasts and other related Impulses WERE considered Splash Weapons, which makes a TON of sense, then this could help patch the problem but it would still be something that points to another example of why Splash NEEDS to be revisited in the CRB and better defined as there are already plenty of questions and issues that have arisen from content that was published since then and I fear that without errata or at LEAST a new sidebar in RoE to further define it then there will only be more confusion that arises.


Themetricsystem wrote:


I don't know if this is an issue where they were trying to be sure this isn't made too powerful or if the authors were simply unaware of how applying Prone to a flying creature works via baseline RAW but I think it may be worth bringing up.

I expect this is because applying the hammer crit specialization to a ranged weapon which can potentially target someone 100 feet up in the air, might be a little too good.

Liberty's Edge

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In addition to my notes about the Water Splash stuff...

There needs to be a serious round-table of the devs to figure out what exactly the Blasts and Impulse-based Attacks are. They're not Unarmed Attacks, they aren't Spells, and they aren't Weapons which pretty much disqualifies them from working with something like 75% of all other offense-based Feats one could gain from Ancestry or Archetype feats.

I am personally in favor of just treating them very specifically as Weapons that possess the Traits appropriate to the Element that is being used/channeled as it will solve sooooo many things. Considering them Unarmed Attacks is also another option though it is worth mentioning that it seems like the team has already explicitly decided that they don't want them to be treated as Unarmed Attacks despite them benefitting from anything that would benefit your Unarmed Attacks.

In short, get off the fence, define it as SOMETHING, be it a Weapon, an Unarmed Attack, A Spell Effect, or hell, invent something new that you very explicitly define how it interacts with all possible effect/feat/ability interactions right out of the gate but leaving it in as a floating ??? will cause an insane amount of table variation in terms how/if certain things work with it.

Lastly, I STRONGLY suggest reformatting Elemental Blast to NOT be a specific Action since that, again, precludes that from ever working with just massive swaths of other content, instead rephrase the ability as a kind of enabler that grants you the ability to make Strikes with it in the same exact manner that it does not but so that one can combine the Blast with things like Spellstrike, Power Attack, and dozens of other specific offensive Actions.


agnelcow wrote:
Guntermench wrote:
Weapon Specialization is always at 7.

Caster classes, including both cleric doctrines, get Weapon Specialization at 13. Warpriests do not get the damage increase at the same time as the proficiency increase.

The general pattern is that Weapon Specialization (and Greater Weapon Specialization) come at 2 levels after an increase to proficiency (11/13 for casters, and 5/7 + 13/15 for martials). Warpriest and Alchemist both break that which is why I called those out separately, but they do not progress beyond Expert proficiency and get the damage boost at the same time as full casters.

Whoops

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