Really? There's no better Impulse at level 8 than still using Arial Boomerang?OK one more reason to not do a Dedicated Gate :PWhich they can’t do in an aura of difficult terrain.Forcing enemies to provoke from your allies is also very good.I agree but it's unlikely. Because a Step is enough to get out of the way.Air's difficult terrain aura is the best one. It only effects enemies. 10ft emanation is good enough to waste an extra action getting close as long as the enemy isn't right next to the aura to begin with.
Arial boomerang really gets fun if you get reactions to move from your ancestry.
We have 3d12 electricity dmg
or 5d4 boomerang. So 3-36 damage (avg of 19.5 dmg) or 12.5 avg damage.
But Storm Spiral takes 4 actions while boomerang takes 3. So 4.875 for spiral vs 4.16 per action per target for boomerang. But boomerang is also cast "twice" technically as well and can be cast once per turn. Storm spiral can be cast once every OTHER turn.
Those are our only options.
So I still prefer to stay with dual/universalist in mid to high lvl campaigns.
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The day paizo breaks their own tenants on class balance and makes something truly unbalanced. Just to satisfy power fantasy of the player. Is the day I ban a new class from my table.
I doubt it will happen however.
I'm surprised you think of them so poorly though. Quite a few felt quite nice to me.
If the 3 I've ran through mock scenarios my favorite has been the strength kineticist relying on aura's and support spells.
Class fantasy =/= power fantasy, and a slightly higher power budget doesn't necessarily mean unbalanced either. It is possible that the class gets more 'points' to spend in its power budget and only ends up just barely contributing at around the standard of other classes. The internal design principles were created to ensure classes fulfill their role and don't step on the toes of other class or trivialize encounters. Sometimes there are edge cases which aren't accounted for and making an exception is perfectly appropriate. I'm sure the designers are smart enough to identify these edge cases. I think the kineticist is one where an additional 'point' or two to the power budget wouldn't ruin game balance
Really? There's no better Impulse at level 8 than still using Arial Boomerang?OK one more reason to not do a Dedicated Gate :PWhich they can’t do in an aura of difficult terrain.Forcing enemies to provoke from your allies is also very good.I agree but it's unlikely. Because a Step is enough to get out of the way.Air's difficult terrain aura is the best one. It only effects enemies. 10ft emanation is good enough to waste an extra action getting close as long as the enemy isn't right next to the aura to begin with.
Arial boomerang really gets fun if you get reactions to move from your ancestry.
I didn't realize we were talking level 8. I am saying this is fun at level 1 and it stays a decently annoying option for a while. The main reason it stops being good by level 8 is because you will be flying at level 8 and thus the line isn't such a great area for you anymore. I am not really a fan of the other overflow options for air, but doing barrage blast amped with stoke element from 120ft away in the air was a lot of fun (I play tested it at level 10). Making three attacks (whether by barrage blast and move if there are enough enemies or just standing still and firing at 1 or 2) a round with an agile ranged weapon resulted in 3 crits in 2 encounters . I had a shock rune which was especially fun on those crits.
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Class fantasy =/= power fantasy, and a slightly higher power budget doesn't necessarily mean unbalanced either. It is possible that the class gets more 'points' to spend in its power budget and only ends up just barely contributing at around the standard of other classes. The internal design principles were created to ensure classes fulfill their role and don't step on the toes of other class or trivialize encounters. Sometimes there are edge cases which aren't accounted for and making an exception is perfectly appropriate. I'm sure the designers are smart enough to identify these edge cases. I think the kineticist is one where an additional 'point' or two to the power budget wouldn't ruin game balanceThe day paizo breaks their own tenants on class balance and makes something truly unbalanced. Just to satisfy power fantasy of the player. Is the day I ban a new class from my table.
I doubt it will happen however.
I'm surprised you think of them so poorly though. Quite a few felt quite nice to me.
If the 3 I've ran through mock scenarios my favorite has been the strength kineticist relying on aura's and support spells.
Maybe but if people's idea is to have martial and caster equivalent proficiency progression they have another thing coming.
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Maybe but if people's idea is to have martial and caster equivalent proficiency progression they have another thing coming.Class fantasy =/= power fantasy, and a slightly higher power budget doesn't necessarily mean unbalanced either. It is possible that the class gets more 'points' to spend in its power budget and only ends up just barely contributing at around the standard of other classes. The internal design principles were created to ensure classes fulfill their role and don't step on the toes of other class or trivialize encounters. Sometimes there are edge cases which aren't accounted for and making an exception is perfectly appropriate. I'm sure the designers are smart enough to identify these edge cases. I think the kineticist is one where an additional 'point' or two to the power budget wouldn't ruin game balanceThe day paizo breaks their own tenants on class balance and makes something truly unbalanced. Just to satisfy power fantasy of the player. Is the day I ban a new class from my table.
I doubt it will happen however.
I'm surprised you think of them so poorly though. Quite a few felt quite nice to me.
If the 3 I've ran through mock scenarios my favorite has been the strength kineticist relying on aura's and support spells.
Well I personally do not think they should get a legendary class DC, high DCs should be a caster thing. Kineticist should be a magical non-caster(wish we had the language to express this, but here we are), damage focused class with additional magic-adjacent abilities on top. The power budget should, imo, be oriented to that direction in order to make the class do what (appears) to be expected of it
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Well I personally do not think they should get a legendary class DC, high DCs should be a caster thing. Kineticist should be a magical non-caster(wish we had the language to express this, but here we are), damage focused class with additional magic-adjacent additional abilities on top. The power budget should, imo, be oriented to that direction in order to make the class do what (appears) to be expected of itMaybe but if people's idea is to have martial and caster equivalent proficiency progression they have another thing coming.Class fantasy =/= power fantasy, and a slightly higher power budget doesn't necessarily mean unbalanced either. It is possible that the class gets more 'points' to spend in its power budget and only ends up just barely contributing at around the standard of other classes. The internal design principles were created to ensure classes fulfill their role and don't step on the toes of other class or trivialize encounters. Sometimes there are edge cases which aren't accounted for and making an exception is perfectly appropriate. I'm sure the designers are smart enough to identify these edge cases. I think the kineticist is one where an additional 'point' or two to the power budget wouldn't ruin game balanceThe day paizo breaks their own tenants on class balance and makes something truly unbalanced. Just to satisfy power fantasy of the player. Is the day I ban a new class from my table.
I doubt it will happen however.
I'm surprised you think of them so poorly though. Quite a few felt quite nice to me.
If the 3 I've ran through mock scenarios my favorite has been the strength kineticist relying on aura's and support spells.
remember also that casters, with their higher dc's STILL often need to be targeting a targets weak save to be consistant, kineticist are a lot more limited in theis regard, earth has 3 fort saves, and air has 2 will saves, but everything else incluting all of what fire and water can do is restricted to reflex saves
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remember also that casters, with their higher dc's STILL often need to be targeting a targets weak save to be consistant, kineticist are a lot more limited in theis regard, earth has 3 fort saves, and air has 2 will...
This is one reason why I said even the non-damage abilities aren't very good on this class. It feels like they are missing points in their power budget for some reason. They have a massive action tax, they have some of the lowest damage in the game, their saves are bad, con being their main stat both puts their accuracy 10%-ish worse than other martials and means they cannot truly max any skills at all, and they are squishy despite the con focus, which without burn or con to damage(like in 1e) they don't get much use out of.
Many of these trade offs I'm a 110% fine with, but they seem to get nothing in return
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And the boomerang makes attacks on the second round as well.Not counting those because look at the practicality of it. People will literally just move out of the way. They know it's coming so they'll move.
Why would they know it's coming. Did they go to air kineticist summer camp? Watch the kineticist olympics?
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I'm sorry for my ignorance but why does a melee blast provoke and AoO?
Beyond the technical answer given (impulse traits), it's also because Paizo's recent design philosophy (Magus, Inventor, Thamauturge) absolutely loves classes who constantly trigger reactions in melee combat with basic combat abilities.
If need be, but right now those appear to suck in the playtest too. This class appears to have spent its power budget in such a way that it does nothing well.
I guess we should drastically nerf/remove all those interesting support and utility feats then
The difficult terrain, healing(+condition removal/temp HP/whatever), movement, and wall/otehr control are very good.
Flinging Updraft is revolting at 10th level, just toss your entire party and some enemies into a new configuration. It's not even overflow.
At 8th level an air kineticst can do 10 minutes of flight with sustained invisibility while they fly up to see what's going on in the local zip code.
Stepping Stones lets you erase some difficult terrain or make it quick to get over a wall, building, or low cliff with normal movement speed.
Igneogenesis is instant cover, an obstacle for a large/huge creature who has to squeeze around it, or total blockage of a 5' corridor.
Fire...is there. You can do some stuff for yourself, although other than Burning Jet for mobility I don't really know what.
Water Dance can move an ally without requiring a reaction from them.
Slippery Sleet makes everyone in a 20' burst flatfooted for a turn and prone if the fail a balance DC of 15. Lots of creatures don't have acrobatics, so.
They get wall of water and wall of ice. And aqueous orb.
Ok, I don't care for the fog and glacial prison with both overflow and incapacitation probably isn't worth it. But the rest is great.
Because it's an impulse and has the manipulate trait.
"Impulse: The primary magical actions kineticists use are
called impulses. To use an impulse action, you must have an
element gathered, which is typically done with the Gather
Element kineticist action. The element must be appropriate
to the element trait of the impulse you use; for example,
you must have water gathered to use an impulse that has
the water trait. Using an impulse requires gesturing and
focusing on your powers. The impulse trait also means the
action has the concentrate and manipulate traits unless
another ability changes this"
Thanks. I guess I didn't read that section closely enough. I wish they would more clearly mark traits in those sections similar to abilities. I really hope that this doesn't make it through the playtest or at least a melee blast would be one of those abilities that changed it.
Tonight I'll be trying out a Dedicated Gate Earth Kineticist. They're a level 1 half-orc with General Training-Armor Proficiency. I'll be sure to leave feedback later.
Thanks. I guess I didn't read that section closely enough. I wish they would more clearly mark traits in those sections similar to abilities. I really hope that this doesn't make it through the playtest or at least a melee blast would be one of those abilities that changed it.
Making it this way seems deliberate to prevent multi-classing shenanigans for the blast. (I think as an embedded strike you can't use this with Thamauturge main class to boost the damage of something like the air blast from 120' away?)
Elemental Weapon feat seems to be the way to avoid triggering reactions if you want melee.
The difficult terrain, healing(+condition removal/temp HP/whatever), movement, and wall/otehr control are very good.
Flinging Updraft is revolting at 10th level, just toss your entire party and some enemies into a new configuration. It's not even overflow.
At 8th level an air kineticst can do 10 minutes of flight with sustained invisibility while they fly up to see what's going on in the local zip code.
Stepping Stones lets you erase some difficult terrain or make it quick to get over a wall, building, or low cliff with normal movement speed.
Igneogenesis is instant cover, an obstacle for a large/huge creature who has to squeeze around it, or total blockage of a 5' corridor.
Fire...is there. You can do some stuff for yourself, although other than Burning Jet for mobility I don't really know what.
Water Dance can move an ally without requiring a reaction from them.
Slippery Sleet makes everyone in a 20' burst flatfooted for a turn and prone if the fail a balance DC of 15. Lots of creatures don't have acrobatics, so.
They get wall of water and wall of ice. And aqueous orb.
Ok, I don't care for the fog and glacial prison with both overflow and incapacitation probably isn't worth it. But the rest is great.
I will try to help fire... somehow...
uhhhh
Solar Detonation causes mass blind, even casters don't have mass blind until they are like lvl 13 with Sunburst. It's incapacitation, but if you want mass blind then you are fighting at max creatures of your lvl anyway.
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If need be, but right now those appear to suck in the playtest too. This class appears to have spent its power budget in such a way that it does nothing well.
I guess we should drastically nerf/remove all those interesting support and utility feats then
The difficult terrain, healing(+condition removal/temp HP/whatever), movement, and wall/otehr control are very good.
Flinging Updraft is revolting at 10th level, just toss your entire party and some enemies into a new configuration. It's not even overflow.
At 8th level an air kineticst can do 10 minutes of flight with sustained invisibility while they fly up to see what's going on in the local zip code.
Stepping Stones lets you erase some difficult terrain or make it quick to get over a wall, building, or low cliff with normal movement speed.
Igneogenesis is instant cover, an obstacle for a large/huge creature who has to squeeze around it, or total blockage of a 5' corridor.
Fire...is there. You can do some stuff for yourself, although other than Burning Jet for mobility I don't really know what.
Water Dance can move an ally without requiring a reaction from them.
Slippery Sleet makes everyone in a 20' burst flatfooted for a turn and prone if the fail a balance DC of 15. Lots of creatures don't have acrobatics, so.
They get wall of water and wall of ice. And aqueous orb.
Ok, I don't care for the fog and glacial prison with both overflow and incapacitation probably isn't worth it. But the rest is great.
The other thing to note is Elemental Flexibility. While it looks like they can only use so many of these tricks on any given build, with a day's notice a universalist can spec into any of them much like a prepared caster.
We definitely aren't going to get Fighter/Ranger/Gunslinger single target damage while also retaining all that.
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We definitely aren't going to get Fighter/Ranger/Gunslinger single target damage while also retaining all that.
Then I would rather give up some of that, honestly. Utility, battlefield control and most of these things are all stuff any caster can already do. I'd rather not have the Kineticist be yet another caster, but with weaker and with lower cooldowns.
If need be, but right now those appear to suck in the playtest too. This class appears to have spent its power budget in such a way that it does nothing well.
I guess we should drastically nerf/remove all those interesting support and utility feats then
The difficult terrain, healing(+condition removal/temp HP/whatever), movement, and wall/otehr control are very good.
Flinging Updraft is revolting at 10th level, just toss your entire party and some enemies into a new configuration. It's not even overflow.
At 8th level an air kineticst can do 10 minutes of flight with sustained invisibility while they fly up to see what's going on in the local zip code.
Stepping Stones lets you erase some difficult terrain or make it quick to get over a wall, building, or low cliff with normal movement speed.
Igneogenesis is instant cover, an obstacle for a large/huge creature who has to squeeze around it, or total blockage of a 5' corridor.
Fire...is there. You can do some stuff for yourself, although other than Burning Jet for mobility I don't really know what.
Water Dance can move an ally without requiring a reaction from them.
Slippery Sleet makes everyone in a 20' burst flatfooted for a turn and prone if the fail a balance DC of 15. Lots of creatures don't have acrobatics, so.
They get wall of water and wall of ice. And aqueous orb.
Ok, I don't care for the fog and glacial prison with both overflow and incapacitation probably isn't worth it. But the rest is great.
The other thing to note is Elemental Flexibility. While it looks like they can only use so many of these tricks on any given build, with a day's notice a universalist can spec into any of them much like a prepared caster.
We definitely aren't going to get Fighter/Ranger/Gunslinger single target damage while also retaining all that.
yeah it feels like universal will need to have a drawback of some kind, or else dedicated and dual gates will suffer being balanced with the same brush as universalist with all its options,
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It would be cool if the free starting feats for inner gate could always be retrained up to half the character level or something similar.
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We definitely aren't going to get Fighter/Ranger/Gunslinger single target damage while also retaining all that.Then I would rather give up some of that, honestly. Utility, battlefield control and most of these things are all stuff any caster can already do. I'd rather not have the Kineticist be yet another caster, but with weaker and with lower cooldowns.
Some? Try most. What aoe support or utility features does a fighter, ranger, gunslinger provide?
I agree though the class may be trying to go too much to fully satisfy any one party.
At this point I'm just waiting to see a second playtest with damage adjustments. And not caring about damage at all anymore for this run.
Universalist definitely needs a nerf of some kind. Or the whole being immune thing needs rethinking. That class feature alone is enough to make it near folly to play anything else.
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So I'm going to throw out some sloppy numbers here, ignoring chances of success, just baseline damage. Level 6 Air Kineticist vs Draconic Sorcerer across 3 turns.
Blast (2d4) + Boomerang (4d4)
Boomerang returns (4d4), Gather, Blast x2 (4d4)
Storm Spiral (3d12)
totals 54.5 on average if everything lands normally.
Lightning Bolt (4d12)
Dragon Breath (5d6)
Electric Arc (3d4+4)
Totals 55 damage. But the sorcerer has a third action each turn, and with Dangerous Sorcery, Bespell Weapon, and shortbow proficiency from ancestry can tack on another 13.5, 10.5, and 7 damage with them.
The only substantial advantages I see for the Kineticist are in longevity-- both casters have probably been closed on by this point and the kineticist has better HP and probably AC, and obviously didn't expend a limited resource.
Now the kineticist gets a buff next level with expert proficiency and weapon specialization, but then the sorcerer also gets 4th level spells and I don't see an overflow easy to compare there.
I actually think draconic sorcerers deal great blasting damage, and the shortbow is optimizing pretty hard, so I don't see a need for the kineticist to necessarily surpass this... But it should probably be able to catch up with optimal play.
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Some? Try most. What aoe support or utility features does a fighter, ranger, gunslinger provide?
I think people downplay a lot how much utility Fighter has, and Gunslinger even more.
Have you guys seen the debuffing monstrosity that is an Intimidating Strike + Shatter Defenses Fighter? Or just replace Intimidating Strike with Demoralize if you're going high Cha. With Improved Knockdown you can constantly make people prone, or less consistently but basically for free by simply wielding a Hammer. Snagging Strike + Combat Grab + Dazing Blow Fighter is a god of single target lockdown, and you can opt to barely lose damage in this build by wielding a Bastard Sword with Dual Handed Assault. Hell, archer Fighter has a 2 action metastrike that makes people slowed 1 on hit, and doesn't even count as two strikes for MAP.
Gunslinger, between stunning people on crits, having a lot of debuff options like Called Shot, and the SS+ Tier support feat that is Fake Out, is probably better than an offensive support than an actual damage dealer.
Ranger... I'll give you that, I'm not a huge fan of the class honestly.
Some? Try most. What aoe support or utility features does a fighter, ranger, gunslinger provide?I think people downplay a lot how much utility Fighter has, and Gunslinger even more.
Have you guys seen the debuffing monstrosity that is an Intimidating Strike + Shatter Defenses Fighter? Or just replace Intimidating Strike with Demoralize if you're going high Cha. With Improved Knockdown you can constantly make people prone, or less consistently but basically for free by simply wielding a Hammer. Snagging Strike + Combat Grab + Dazing Blow Fighter is a god of single target lockdown, and you can opt to barely lose damage in this build by wielding a Bastard Sword with Dual Handed Assault. Hell, archer Fighter has a 2 action metastrike that makes people slowed 1 on hit, and doesn't even count as two strikes for MAP.
Gunslinger, between stunning people on crits, having a lot of debuff options like Called Shot, and the SS+ Tier support feat that is Fake Out, is probably better than an offensive support than an actual damage dealer.
Ranger... I'll give you that, I'm not a huge fan of the class honestly.
That's all single Target.
I said aoe specifically.
Some? Try most. What aoe support or utility features does a fighter, ranger, gunslinger provide?I think people downplay a lot how much utility Fighter has, and Gunslinger even more.
Have you guys seen the debuffing monstrosity that is an Intimidating Strike + Shatter Defenses Fighter? Or just replace Intimidating Strike with Demoralize if you're going high Cha. With Improved Knockdown you can constantly make people prone, or less consistently but basically for free by simply wielding a Hammer. Snagging Strike + Combat Grab + Dazing Blow Fighter is a god of single target lockdown, and you can opt to barely lose damage in this build by wielding a Bastard Sword with Dual Handed Assault. Hell, archer Fighter has a 2 action metastrike that makes people slowed 1 on hit, and doesn't even count as two strikes for MAP.
Gunslinger, between stunning people on crits, having a lot of debuff options like Called Shot, and the SS+ Tier support feat that is Fake Out, is probably better than an offensive support than an actual damage dealer.
Ranger... I'll give you that, I'm not a huge fan of the class honestly.
That's all single Target.
I said aoe specifically.
Technically you said AoE OR utility. Dmercelss listed things they believe qualify as utility. I think you two are talking past each other because what they are referencing as utility you or I would probably call battlefield control. I (and I suspect you) consider utility to be problem solving beyond the norms of standard combat. Bypassing environmental obstacles, scouting, revealing invisible enemies, and so forth.
Technically you said AoE OR utility. Dmercelss listed things they believe qualify as utility. I think you two are talking past each other because what they are referencing as utility you or I would probably call battlefield control. I (and I suspect you) consider utility to be problem solving beyond the norms of standard combat. Bypassing environmental obstacles, scouting, revealing invisible enemies, and so forth.Some? Try most. What aoe support or utility features does a fighter, ranger, gunslinger provide?I think people downplay a lot how much utility Fighter has, and Gunslinger even more.
Have you guys seen the debuffing monstrosity that is an Intimidating Strike + Shatter Defenses Fighter? Or just replace Intimidating Strike with Demoralize if you're going high Cha. With Improved Knockdown you can constantly make people prone, or less consistently but basically for free by simply wielding a Hammer. Snagging Strike + Combat Grab + Dazing Blow Fighter is a god of single target lockdown, and you can opt to barely lose damage in this build by wielding a Bastard Sword with Dual Handed Assault. Hell, archer Fighter has a 2 action metastrike that makes people slowed 1 on hit, and doesn't even count as two strikes for MAP.
Gunslinger, between stunning people on crits, having a lot of debuff options like Called Shot, and the SS+ Tier support feat that is Fake Out, is probably better than an offensive support than an actual damage dealer.
Ranger... I'll give you that, I'm not a huge fan of the class honestly.
That's all single Target.
I said aoe specifically.
Aoe support/utility my bad
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I said aoe specifically.
I'll admit the lack of commas separating the thingies might have got me confused, so sorry if I misinterpreted what you were asking. However, utility is utility, and it cannot be disconsidered. And while yes, Kineticist's stuff in general have the potential to affect more targets, there is a subtle but very important detail to consider. While Kineticist has a lot of options, most of them are things you do instead of doing damage. Since every single option I mentioned for the martials is a Strike with a rider (except Fake Out but that only costs a reaction), you're applying all that CC/debuffing/supporting while doing your high-ass damage.
Do we need fireballs that give out the sleep affect?
Or blast feats with riders
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Do we need fireballs that give out the sleep affect?
Or blast feats with riders
Hm... honestly, I don't think so. Especially cause with the way spells and spell-like effects are balanced, they never really gain utility without losing damage (I mean, just look at the Overflows that have riders themselves).
I used this mostly to illustrate why I really dislike "martials do nothing but damage so anything that does as much damage as them can also do nothing but damage" as a talking point. That's only true if you completely ignore that martials also have feats, or if someone purposefully makes the most basic martial build possible while avoiding anything that's not damage (and doing that in PF2 is a terrible idea because the game hardcaps how much extra damage you can get via feats at a very low margin).
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If I was on the design team I think I would make a chassis which was able to do damage comparable to other damage classes and then from there add the other abilities and test various downsides, costs and power levels of these abilities. So maybe I might have them within the ballpark of a damage class using a bow and then to do AoE damage I would work on some cost or limiting factor. One idea I have influence by burn is straight up just paying for powerful abilities with HP. Not drained or that non lethal damage whatever, but actually damaging yourself as you would be damaged by anything else to go Nova or extent the damage to multiple targets. Not sure how frequent this should be. Already we have Con main stat and probably the absolute worst skill user in the game, and I think these two things are a fair trade as a baseline and fairly unique. So adding the self damage on top both satisfies the making con matter part and gives another drawback to give us more power budget. Now, I haven't thought this through as deeply as the devs will and I definitely don't have their experience, but this is kinda the area I would personally like to play with starting out
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If I was on the design team I think I would make a chassis which was able to do damage comparable to other damage classes and then from there add the other abilities and test various downsides, costs and power levels of these abilities. So maybe I might have them within the ballpark of a damage class using a bow and then to do AoE damage I would work on some cost or limiting factor. One idea I have influence by burn is straight up just paying for powerful abilities with HP. Not drained or that non lethal damage whatever, but actually damaging yourself as you would be damaged by anything else to go Nova or extent the damage to multiple targets. Not sure how frequent this should be. Already we have Con main stat and probably the absolute worst skill user in the game, and I think these two things are a fair trade as a baseline and fairly unique. So adding the self damage on top both satisfies the making con matter part and gives another drawback to give us more power budget. Now, I haven't thought this through as deeply as the devs will and I definitely don't have their experience, but this is kinda the area I would personally like to play with starting out
I second this. Someone who's a very competent damage dealer with their magic pew pews and can occasionally do AoE, burst damage or weird utility stuff with some kind of limiter, like focus points, cooldowns or Burn, is a direction I'd like much more for the class than the current one.
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I think there are three classes that make especially useful comparasons.
First and closest is magus, specifically but not exclusivly starlight span, they share the distinction of somewhat clunky economy, the ability to use AOE on a martial chasis, and spellstrike has similer, if supirior damage scaling to impulses.
Second we have rogue, which has about as much utility as a "pure" martial can, almost every problem has a solution in the rogues kit wether through skills, or feats, they do lack aoe however.
Lastly we have the monk, who can either build focused around a single fighting style, or dip into multiple, transitioning between them depending on which offers the best options for a given situation, the shift in options is not as drastic as shifting elements can be for a kineticist but i think its still a worthwhile comparason.
I said aoe specifically.I'll admit the lack of commas separating the thingies might have got me confused, so sorry if I misinterpreted what you were asking. However, utility is utility, and it cannot be disconsidered. And while yes, Kineticist's stuff in general have the potential to affect more targets, there is a subtle but very important detail to consider. While Kineticist has a lot of options, most of them are things you do instead of doing damage. Since every single option I mentioned for the martials is a Strike with a rider (except Fake Out but that only costs a reaction), you're applying all that CC/debuffing/supporting while doing your high-ass damage.
I don't think that's true though? Almost every overflow blast seems to pack a battlefield control effect of some kind of another.
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I am in favor, ultimately. Of being focused around our blast's. With the option to take various AOE and support feats. And have those options be strong. Provided they have some kind of daily or encounter limiter.
Because I actually do agree with many, that being show to aoe forever, while novel. Comes at too high a cost for competency.
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I think that the class to compare would be actually Inventor.
Have AoE options on unstable like Explosion and Megavolt, though those are basically once per battle.
The main stat is not an attack one, though Con main start is miles better than intelligence or charisma as it's a save stat.
So basically what is missing is some kinda of overdrive to increase damage of Kineticist strikes.
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I don't think that's true though? Almost every overflow blast seems to pack a battlefield control effect of some kind of another.
Yeah and most of them look like they do sacrifice something for it. The ones with the best damage/scaling that aren't 3+1 actions and very high level have either no utility or a little crit fail rider at best (Tidal Hands, Blazing Wave, etc).
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I think that the class to compare would be actually Inventor.
Have AoE options on unstable like Explosion and Megavolt, though those are basically once per battle.
The main stat is not an attack one, though Con main start is miles better than intelligence or charisma as it's a save stat.
So basically what is missing is some kinda of overdrive to increase damage of Kineticist strikes.
i mean, inventor at least gets damage out of int
i mean, inventor at least gets damage out of intI think that the class to compare would be actually Inventor.
Have AoE options on unstable like Explosion and Megavolt, though those are basically once per battle.
The main stat is not an attack one, though Con main start is miles better than intelligence or charisma as it's a save stat.
So basically what is missing is some kinda of overdrive to increase damage of Kineticist strikes.
So basically what is missing is some kinda of overdrive to increase damage of Kineticist strikes.
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i mean, inventor at least gets damage out of intI think that the class to compare would be actually Inventor.
Have AoE options on unstable like Explosion and Megavolt, though those are basically once per battle.
The main stat is not an attack one, though Con main start is miles better than intelligence or charisma as it's a save stat.
So basically what is missing is some kinda of overdrive to increase damage of Kineticist strikes.
So basically what is missing is some kinda of overdrive to increase damage of Kineticist strikes.
I appologize apparently i am just blind
I think that the class to compare would be actually Inventor.
Have AoE options on unstable like Explosion and Megavolt, though those are basically once per battle.
The main stat is not an attack one, though Con main start is miles better than intelligence or charisma as it's a save stat.
So basically what is missing is some kinda of overdrive to increase damage of Kineticist strikes.
int and Cha are fairly big skill stats tho. Cha in particular has Bon Mot and Demoralize which are pretty big deals from what I hear. Fort save? Who needs them. I eat poison for breakfast (sugar)
If I was on the design team I think I would make a chassis which was able to do damage comparable to other damage classes and then from there add the other abilities and test various downsides, costs and power levels of these abilities. So maybe I might have them within the ballpark of a damage class using a bow and then to do AoE damage I would work on some cost or limiting factor. One idea I have influence by burn is straight up just paying for powerful abilities with HP. Not drained or that non lethal damage whatever, but actually damaging yourself as you would be damaged by anything else to go Nova or extent the damage to multiple targets. Not sure how frequent this should be. Already we have Con main stat and probably the absolute worst skill user in the game, and I think these two things are a fair trade as a baseline and fairly unique. So adding the self damage on top both satisfies the making con matter part and gives another drawback to give us more power budget. Now, I haven't thought this through as deeply as the devs will and I definitely don't have their experience, but this is kinda the area I would personally like to play with starting out"One idea I have influence by burn is straight up just paying for powerful abilities with HP. Not drained or that non lethal damage whatever, but actually damaging yourself as you would be damaged by anything else to go Nova or extent the damage to multiple targets"
100% agreed.
Allow them to just do it all the time. The more they do it without a healer, the riskier it becomes. It has its own risk/reward system built in that's reset if I get a heal. But that uses someone ELSES resource to keep me going.
I will acknowledge one downside which actually ties into my favor for the system. I play MTG and one of my favorite colors to play is black. In MTG black has a lot of "pay life for more powerful effects" which have over time been reigned in because frankly every point of life(or in this case HP) does not matter except the last one. Obviously in a TTRPG life totals carry over from combat to combat in a way they don't from game to game in MTG, I still think without limits on this... Uh, limit, we'll see a space ripe for abuse/exploitation. We don't want to accidentally introduce a Necropotence here
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It's very sad to me that so many want kineticist to be stripped of it's unique 'at will' gameplay style and become another martial with focus spells. The flavor and mechanics of the class are great as is, in my opinion. Some lower end damage impulses could use a boost, but 1d6/2 levels isn't bad at all.