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I think we all agree and understand that master in weapons and legendary in spellcasting goes completely out of the bounds of what a class in PF2E should be able to do.
That said, I don't think there would be any problem in giving Kineticist legendary class DC progression paired with its weapon proficiency. The issue with spells is that they are a giant toolbox and unless their usability is kept in check, they can cause an issue where certain classes are just inferior to others (a caster with caster proficiencies vs a martial with legendary in spell DC and spell slots). There is also the issue of the ever expanding nature of spell list, where they are destined to get more and more tools as the system gets older. Kineticist will never interact directly with those as what can make use of its class DC is accessed through their feats and thus being very limited and controlled.
I think the system can perfectly acomodate a master in weapons/legendary in class DC class and that it wouldn't cause any issues with the current class design.
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it's definitely not out of the question, at least not inherently. casters are only -1 on their spell attack rolls compared to non fighters. attacks and saves are just two sides of the same coin, and being good at both isn't inherently a problem. Assuming they sill use the same set up, with legendary class dc, the kineticists DC is going to be equal to its attack DC. Saves do do half damage on a successful save, but most of the kineticists saves are for big, overflow abilities, so that's probably fine. At absolute most, they might need some sort of singular expertise like ability to stop them from using their dc for other things, but I'm not sure that is needed.
All of the multiclass abilities I've seen that could be an issue either specify you need a specific class DC (Like Scroll Thaumaturgy or Gigavolt) or directly use spell DC (Like monk offensive Ki spells).
It is, yes. May not seem like a big deal, but it's a line paizo won't cross unless it's a major class feature.
I could maybe see an exception if the case was made that this is the kineticists unique 'damage booster' akin to how a fighter gets legendary proficiency in weapons a kineticist is the only martial caster that gets both standard martial and standard caster proficiencies, but I really doubt it
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It is, yes. May not seem like a big deal, but it's a line paizo won't cross unless it's a major class feature.
I could maybe see an exception if the case was made that this is the kineticists unique 'damage booster' akin to how a fighter gets legendary proficiency in weapons a kineticist is the only martial caster that gets both standard martial and standard caster proficiencies, but I really doubt it
Pretty sure the line Paizo will never cross is with spell DC. Class DC and Spell DC have nothing in common in how valuable they are.
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I really do wish that spell DC had master as a baseline endpoint and balanced saves around that, not only so that you could have a theoretical class whos thing was hard saves, but also because it doesnt make "up to par" dc a legendary feature
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It is unless your willing to go to expert with your martial progression. In the very least for attacks.
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Paizo up until now has shown no interest in legendary in class DCs, even with classes that use their DCs fairly frequently like Inventors and Thaumaturges.
When you look at the math, having a 'full' class DC progression only actually matters at a handful of specific levels (and most of those levels are very high, where a lot of people might not ever get) so it doesn't necessarily feel like a balance thing so much as just something Paizo doesn't want.
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Paizo up until now has shown no interest in legendary in class DCs, even with classes that use their DCs fairly frequently like Inventors and Thaumaturges.
When you look at the math, having a 'full' class DC progression only actually matters at a handful of specific levels (and most of those levels are very high, where a lot of people might not ever get) so it doesn't necessarily feel like a balance thing so much as just something Paizo doesn't want.
That's the thing, it just feels like they don't have it for no apparent reason. I can understand why caster dedication feats only go up to master and at a much slower rate, a multiclass wizard being much worse than an actual wizard is by design. A class that deals damage through saves being worse than other class that deals damage through saves on top of doing much more feels bad.
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I'm kinda curious, does math really require legendary proficiency for abilities to work reliably at high levels? Like vs as high as possible master DC(10 + 20 + 7 + 6 if I didn't forget anything), wouldn't level 23 severe soloboss still fail with 8 or lower with low save? That could be better yeah, but its not that bad especially if creature has terrible save instead.
But yeah, I do think paizo could be more charitable with legendary profiencies. Mostly because there are plenty of of classes where only legendary thing they get is skills and I'd like it be little safer to build +4-6 modifier at max builds.
Maybe we will see legendary class dc if mythic ever becomes a thing.*shrugs*
There's two classes that got Legendary attacks and Master class DC. Having a class with Master attacks and Legendary class DC doesn't seem unreasonable.
Maybe for dedicated gate. Gunslinger it's only on guns
Fighter it's only on a single weapon.
There's two classes that got Legendary attacks and Master class DC. Having a class with Master attacks and Legendary class DC doesn't seem unreasonable.Maybe for dedicated gate. Gunslinger it's only on guns
Fighter it's only on a single weapon.
Would make sense for a Dedicated Gate character, since they don't have the flexibility of multiple elements to work with, and gives them some late-game incentive to build towards that.
Fighters have it on a single weapon group at 13th level, which expands to all weapons at 19th level.
There's two classes that got Legendary attacks and Master class DC. Having a class with Master attacks and Legendary class DC doesn't seem unreasonable.Maybe for dedicated gate. Gunslinger it's only on guns
Fighter it's only on a single weapon.
Would make sense for a Dedicated Gate character, since they don't have the flexibility of multiple elements to work with, and gives them some late-game incentive to build towards that.
Fighters have it on a single weapon group at 13th level, which expands to all weapons at 19th level.
Tbf i do not think kineticist needs to have it on all elements on 19th level.
There's two classes that got Legendary attacks and Master class DC. Having a class with Master attacks and Legendary class DC doesn't seem unreasonable.Maybe for dedicated gate. Gunslinger it's only on guns
Fighter it's only on a single weapon.
Fighter ends up with Legendary in all weapons and unarmed at level 19.
You are nigh-unmatched with any weapon. Your proficiency ranks for simple weapons, martial weapons, and unarmed attacks increase to legendary, and your proficiency rank for advanced weapons increases to master. Your proficiency rank for your fighter class DC increases to master.
And kineticists definitely shouldn't.
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I'm kinda curious, does math really require legendary proficiency for abilities to work reliably at high levels? Like vs as high as possible master DC(10 + 20 + 7 + 6 if I didn't forget anything), wouldn't level 23 severe soloboss still fail with 8 or lower with low save? That could be better yeah, but its not that bad especially if creature has terrible save instead.
But yeah, I do think paizo could be more charitable with legendary profiencies. Mostly because there are plenty of of classes where only legendary thing they get is skills and I'd like it be little safer to build +4-6 modifier at max builds.
Maybe we will see legendary class dc if mythic ever becomes a thing.*shrugs*
Not sure what monster you're looking at, but looking at few it looks like the median for saves is around +38. There a couple examples of really low saves, but I wouldn't say they're the norm. So yeah, failing only on a 4 or lower and Crit succeeding on a 14 or higher, to me is kind of a red flag. I would love for that number to be as high as possible
No, I mean kineticist shouldn't get legendary DC for everything.
At most, dedicated.
This class isn't a fighter. It does far more than a fighter does right now.
Does more than a gunslinger too but I could see dedicated only getting it to set itself apart.
Result would be dedicated if the best user of save abilities but the least flexible.
Dual the best user of blast's
Universalist has the most potential options
Outside of the resistance/immunity feature this would be pretty good for incentive between the 3 as far as a leaned playstyle without forcing a playstyle.
Not sure what monster you're looking at, but looking at few it looks like the median for saves is around +38. There a couple examples of really low saves, but I wouldn't say they're the norm. So yeah, failing only on a 4 or lower and Crit succeeding on a 14 or higher, to me is kind of a red flag. I would love for that number to be as high as possibleI'm kinda curious, does math really require legendary proficiency for abilities to work reliably at high levels? Like vs as high as possible master DC(10 + 20 + 7 + 6 if I didn't forget anything), wouldn't level 23 severe soloboss still fail with 8 or lower with low save? That could be better yeah, but its not that bad especially if creature has terrible save instead.
But yeah, I do think paizo could be more charitable with legendary profiencies. Mostly because there are plenty of of classes where only legendary thing they get is skills and I'd like it be little safer to build +4-6 modifier at max builds.
Maybe we will see legendary class dc if mythic ever becomes a thing.*shrugs*
Legendary makes it a whopping 6.
This isn't a new thing.
There's two classes that got Legendary attacks and Master class DC. Having a class with Master attacks and Legendary class DC doesn't seem unreasonable.Maybe for dedicated gate. Gunslinger it's only on guns
Fighter it's only on a single weapon.
Fighter ends up with Legendary in all weapons and unarmed at level 19.
You are nigh-unmatched with any weapon. Your proficiency ranks for simple weapons, martial weapons, and unarmed attacks increase to legendary, and your proficiency rank for advanced weapons increases to master. Your proficiency rank for your fighter class DC increases to master.Dedicated needs something I feel as you level to keep up with the lack of versatility and it does make sense from the included fluff that they'd have higher saves since they're better with their single element.
One idea would be to make it to where they start at Expert (maybe tone back a Saving Throw to compensate), and then progress to Legendary at the same rate as a non-Dedicated, meaning they're always +2 ahead to make up for the lack of element versatility.
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Not sure what monster you're looking at, but looking at few it looks like the median for saves is around +38. There a couple examples of really low saves, but I wouldn't say they're the norm. So yeah, failing only on a 4 or lower and Crit succeeding on a 14 or higher, to me is kind of a red flag. I would love for that number to be as high as possibleI'm kinda curious, does math really require legendary proficiency for abilities to work reliably at high levels? Like vs as high as possible master DC(10 + 20 + 7 + 6 if I didn't forget anything), wouldn't level 23 severe soloboss still fail with 8 or lower with low save? That could be better yeah, but its not that bad especially if creature has terrible save instead.
But yeah, I do think paizo could be more charitable with legendary profiencies. Mostly because there are plenty of of classes where only legendary thing they get is skills and I'd like it be little safer to build +4-6 modifier at max builds.
Maybe we will see legendary class dc if mythic ever becomes a thing.*shrugs*
Ah, I looked at building creature guidelines xD I'm aware that not all bestiary monsters actually follow table strictly(note: moderate save for that level is 37 and high save is 40)
I also explicitly discussed the "low" saves because frankly, you don't want to target severe soloboss moderate or high saves if you can. Of course not much of option always, but best case scenario(with DC of 45) is them failing on 7 or 4. In general fighting severe solobosses with DCs is never fun, especially when designers were like "let's give them low save +1 because I don't want to copy numbers from table" x'D
Tbf i do not think kineticist needs to have it on all elements on 19th level.There's two classes that got Legendary attacks and Master class DC. Having a class with Master attacks and Legendary class DC doesn't seem unreasonable.Maybe for dedicated gate. Gunslinger it's only on guns
Fighter it's only on a single weapon.
Would make sense for a Dedicated Gate character, since they don't have the flexibility of multiple elements to work with, and gives them some late-game incentive to build towards that.
Fighters have it on a single weapon group at 13th level, which expands to all weapons at 19th level.
Well, it would only be for the single-element Kineticist, which only ever has one element anyway.
If there are feats that give them access to other elements as a single-element Kineticist, then it should be simple to exclude them from the increased DC.
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It is unless your willing to go to expert with your martial progression. In the very least for attacks.
Why? What is actually that overpowered about being good at your own class's tricks while also being able to actually hit an enemy? I mean let's compare what a caster (let's say a Druid) gets compared to Kineticist.
The Druid is a prepared Primal Caster, who gets Expert in Unarmed Attacks and Simple Weapons, Expert in Unarmored, Light, and Medium Armors, and Legendary Primal proficiency.
At level 20 they have 5 10th-level Cantrips, and either 27 or 28 Spell Slots per day, 3 of each level except 10 which is either 1 or 2 depending on their choice of Capstone, as well as 10 Druid feats, potentially 11 if they went Human. They also can have up to 3 Focus Points they can use each combat.
As of a post from three years ago there were 172 spells on the Primal list, though the post does not mention how many are Uncommon or above. Still, Uncommon and above shouldn't be that Common (pardon the pun), so that should still be well over 100 choices of spell, with a wide range of options. And that was 3 years ago, and new spells are released all the time, but I'm not that devoted to go manually count how many spells there are now.
They can pick and choose from that entire list (except said Uncommon+, unless they get Access) which spell goes in which slot every single day, meaning with foreknowledge and prep time they can always bring the best spell to bear.
They get to use their Legendary Primal proficiency for both their spell DCs and their Spell Attacks. Seems pretty cush.
Now let's look at Kineticist. In this theoretical scenario, they get Master in Unarmed Attacks and Simple Weapons, Master in Unarmored and Light Armor, and Legendary Class DC proficiency.
At level 20 they have a Blast that uses Unarmed Attack proficiency, and depending on choice of gate can have 14 to 16 feats, plus one if they went human.
In the playtest, not counting the basic Blast itself, there are 10 Universal Impulses, and 16 Impulses for each of the 4 elements, for a total of 74 Impulses. There are also 13 non-Impulse generic feats that are competing for 11 or 12 of those 14 to 17 feats. Any archetype you take for whatever reason, unless playing with Free Archetype, will also compete for those 11 or 12 feat slots. And while there will definitely be more feats in the finished product, class feats notoriously come out a lot less frequently than spells.
With the exception of 2 feats, 3 if you're a Universal Gate, once you pick an Impulse or generic Feat, it is locked in unless you spend 1 week of downtime. Those 2 or 3 feats are locked to level 1 for the Universal Gate-specific one, level 8 or lower, and level 14 or lower, all must be Impulses, and with the exception of the Universal Gate-specific one must be pulled from the Elemental lists, but you can change them out daily. By spending a level 12 feat you can swap them out with 10 minutes of change, and by spending your capstone feat after doing that, you can swap one out with a single action.
Their Legendary Proficiency in this case would only apply to their Save DC for their own abilities, and maybe a small scattering of other abilities if they use other feats to purchase them. Any Strikes they make, including Strikes made with their Impulses (which always seems to be based off just modifying their basic Blast), must use their Martial proficiency instead.
Oh, and just as a bit of frosting on the cake, Kinetic Activation, the feat they have that does let them activate "Cast a Spell" items and might let them compete with spellcasters for flexibility, if they shell out gold for it (since they have no temporary item production ability)... never actually says they can use their Class DC, so by RAW it would default to the standard Cast a Spell item rules, and use their Spell DC. Their by-default-Untrained Spell DC, unless they buy one from somewhere else. And we thought capping out as Master was bad.
In short, yes, full spellcasters have a reduced martial proficiency to account for their Legendary spellcasting proficiency. Because for a spellcaster their spellcasting proficiency does much more for them than Class DC does even for a class that uses their Class DC as much as Playtest Kineticist does. To be frank, it really does seem more of a valid comparison to the Fighter or Gunslinger getting Legendary Attacks and Master Class DC, or Champion and Monk getting Legendary Defenses and Master Class DC.
Heck, Champion gets Master Attacks, Legendary Defense, Master Class DC and Master Divine Spellcasting all for free in-class. Monks get the same, but have to buy Trained in the first place with one of the Ki Spell-granting feats.
Ah, I misunderstood.
I agree, I think this would be nice to give Dedicated. However it would I think require them getting bumped up levels where they up their DC.
Not necessarily.
They can scale at the same DCs as the other Kineticists, they just start at Expert instead of Trained, and when they get the Expert Save DC increase, they increase to Master instead, and when they get the Master Save DC increase, they increase to Legendary instead.
It's not much different than a Fighter who has +2 to hit compared to any other character with their chosen weapon at all levels (which then equates to all weapons at 19th), but with their non-chosen weapons, they are equal. And that's totally fine.
If Kineticist is meant to be the Blaster class, then they should have to either lower DCs for added versatility/flexibility, or have higher DCs to compensate for the lack thereof.
Again, if there is a feat that gives them access to other elements, they will not benefit from the increased DC. And I will not expect there to be a feature to give them Legendary DC to all their elements, even if they paid for it in the lower levels.
Legit not reading all that I'm sorry.
Druid have to lock out their spells and use limited per day/encounter abilities to even rival the to hit of a martial and usually don't succeed. Otherwise they are expert martial and legendary spell and master class DC.
It's a extremely important baseline metric to hold to for this system.
I'm not even sold on the idea I just mentioned about dedicated being the only one that got legendary. Even though it would help to distinguish it.
Side tangent. Not saying I like this idea but it's amusing.
Do away with gates entirely.
You pick one element to start out expert with your class DC.
Once that one gets to master you select another element you get to expert.
When those reach legendary/master you pick a third to reach expert.
As I said, not saying I like this idea, as I'm generally against legendary class DC. But it's interesting thought. I am more amiable you the notion of only a single element reaching legendary even though I still hold that it breaks the checks and balances paizo has built for their system.
Gates are the most interesting part of the class.
To you. I think they are fine. Though a little limiting.
It's just a preference thing. You like the little boxes more than I do. That's why my favorite two classes and monk she fighter. They are so open ended.
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Legit not reading all that I'm sorry.
Druid have to lock out their spells and use limited per day/encounter abilities to even rival the to hit of a martial and usually don't succeed. Otherwise they are expert martial and legendary spell and master class DC.
It's a extremely important baseline metric to hold to for this system.
I'm not even sold on the idea I just mentioned about dedicated being the only one that got legendary. Even though it would help to distinguish it.
Side tangent. Not saying I like this idea but it's amusing.
Do away with gates entirely.
You pick one element to start out expert with your class DC.
Once that one gets to master you select another element you get to expert.
When those reach legendary/master you pick a third to reach expert.
As I said, not saying I like this idea, as I'm generally against legendary class DC. But it's interesting thought. I am more amiable you the notion of only a single element reaching legendary even though I still hold that it breaks the checks and balances paizo has built for their system.
Heck, Champion gets Master Attacks, Legendary Defense, Master Class DC and Master Divine Spellcasting all for free in-class. Monks get the same, but have to buy Trained in the first place with one of the Ki Spell-granting feats.
How about this part? If two classes are allowed to have 3 Master and a Legendary proficiency, why isn't this one allowed to have 2 Masters, a Legendary, and an Untrained. Especially when one of their own feats even requires they use that Proficiency that is Untrained unless they buy it up elsewhere.
Champions also are the lowest damage output martials in the game.
You want that as well?
Also you act as if all proficiencies are weighted exactly the same.
They are not
Not sure what monster you're looking at, but looking at few it looks like the median for saves is around +38. There a couple examples of really low saves, but I wouldn't say they're the norm. So yeah, failing only on a 4 or lower and Crit succeeding on a 14 or higher, to me is kind of a red flag. I would love for that number to be as high as possibleI'm kinda curious, does math really require legendary proficiency for abilities to work reliably at high levels? Like vs as high as possible master DC(10 + 20 + 7 + 6 if I didn't forget anything), wouldn't level 23 severe soloboss still fail with 8 or lower with low save? That could be better yeah, but its not that bad especially if creature has terrible save instead.
But yeah, I do think paizo could be more charitable with legendary profiencies. Mostly because there are plenty of of classes where only legendary thing they get is skills and I'd like it be little safer to build +4-6 modifier at max builds.
Maybe we will see legendary class dc if mythic ever becomes a thing.*shrugs*
Legendary makes it a whopping 6.
This isn't a new thing.
Right. But that's a 10 percent chance less to fail and another 10 to have the enemy crit succeed. So yeah those extra two points very much do matter.
Though to be clear I feel that either kineticist should be expert martial/legendary casting with at will goodies, or left as it is now. I do think that just upping proficiency from where it is now isn't going to happen.
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Actually right now I'm pretty sure the consensus seems to be that Kineticist is the lowest damage output martials in the game.
But Champions don't need the big damage output because that's not the thing they're intended to be great at. The thing they're intended to be great at is defense, so they get the Legendary defense. On top of that they get to be Master proficiency in literally everything else except for Reflex Saves and Skills.
Fighters are the Attack class, so they get to be Legendary in their Attacks, Master in everything else they get except Will Saves and Skills. Heck, while I can't say with 100% certainty, after seeing Champion and Monk I feel like if Fighter had been written to have access to Focus Spells they would get Master in the relevant Spellcasting.
...and actually on that note, if Legendary in one offense and Master in another is so bad, why can Fighter and Gunslinger do it? Through caster Multiclassing a Fighter or Gunslinger can have Legendary Attacks, Master Defenses, Master Class DC, and Master Spellcasting, with 14 spell slots of up to 8th level and 4 Cantrips, and for the Prepared options can change any of those out every day.
EDIT: Oh, and as for Casters having to "lock out their spells", one of the things I mentioned in my earlier response you didn't read, prepared casters can change up their entire spell loadout every day. Kineticists get 2 level-limited floating feats, three for Universal Gate, and everything else takes a full week to change out.
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I don't really care if the Kineticist goes from trained to Legendary in Class DC from any balance sense. The game has rails. It is not that no class can ever have legendary class DC for any reason or the game breaks...the issue is whether accuracy or damage and rider effects are more important.
The class that eventually gets Legendary Class DC would see the the damage of the abilities or the rider effects of the ability scaled back to what an extra 10% accuracy at the end of the game would look like. With Master there is probably more wiggle room for increasing damage and rider effects.
For all we know, the developers could be testing to see whether players complain more about not being able to land their abilities that ride on Class DC, or if players complain more about the damage and boringness of those abilities.
My order of operations would be:
1. Focus on boosting cool riders and other effects from overflow abilities.
2. Boost damage numbers for when the effect lands.
3. boost accuracy on the ability.
3 and 2 are super directly connected so one will inevitably effect the other in a very concrete way, so I don't really care about the order there, but if boosting the accuracy means keeping the overflow abilities primarily damage focused with minor debuffing/battlefield control, then I would much rather the class keep master class DC but get some more interesting riders that still do something on a successful save.
That would really make the overflow abilities more worth considering.
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Also you act as if all proficiencies are weighted exactly the same.
They are not
..okay I was trying not to double post... but... if you literally had bothered to read my original post, legit the entire point of it was saying that different proficiencies are weighted differently, and that Class DC should not be weighted as high as Spellcasting Proficiency.
If anything it should be weighted closer to Defense proficiency because the only things it affects are how easily your enemies can bypass your class tricks.
EDIT: Thank you Unicore for making it not a double post.
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Selective proficiency sounds like an annoying solution, not a fan.
I am more amiable you the notion of only a single element reaching legendary even though I still hold that it breaks the checks and balances paizo has built for their system.
How can it break the system when it's only even relevant for a handful of levels?
The average player's kineticist will spend the vast majority of the campaign with the exact same proficiency as a caster.
Tbh to some extent this whole conversation about class DC almost feels like a distraction, because it's going to be so rarely relevant for most games. It's six levels, and four of those are backloaded where many campaigns might not even reach.
Kineticists being fractionally worse at exactly levels 7 or 8 is not some secret balance lynchpin.
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Gates are the most interesting part of the class.
The gates can be interesting, but they need to be done correctly to make them meaningful choices. (It would also be cool to treat them as retrainable, so that players who don't like their initial choice can change it.)
The universalist gate is the most versatile gate there is, simply because you get access to all 4 elements, and a flexible 1st level feat feat. You can't go wrong with this gate choice outside of not having enough feats to do everything, which is fine. I feel like this is the "de facto" experience for Kineticist, and would play closest to PF1's Kineticist, since you can essentially "focus" on your element of choice through feat choices and personal use of elements. The player is the specialization factor here, not the mechanics.
The singular gate is the least versatile gate there is, as you only get one element, even with the most 1st level bonus feats available. Those bonus feats do not scale, and that's a problem. I think if some of them scaled up (even to something as "half level (minimum 1)"), it wouldn't be so bad of a discrepancy, especially considering that their specialization also cuts them off from a boatload of feats that other elements can pick from (even if it means they get more feats to compensate). But it's too front-loaded (due to lack of feat level/choice scaling, and availability of feats to choose) and doesn't make up for its lack of elemental versatility that way (since doing only one type of damage means you're very easily able to be useless in a given fight, mostly true for Fire Kineticists, given the high amount of enemies with resistances/immunities to Fire available). Hence why the proposition of "increase their Save DCs by 1 proficiency step" would do a lot to alleviate that. There's also the concept of adding access to an additional damage type to the singular gate to compensate for this, but that's for a whole other thread.
The dual gate is a compromise of the two previous options, which gives you 2 bonus 1st level feats and access to 2 elements. This runs into some of the problems of the singular gate option, but to a lesser degree. Depending on element choices, you can overcome resistances or exploit weaknesses more often, and you have an adequate pool of feats to choose from, and the previous "half your level (minimum 1)" solution for the singular gate characters can apply here without feeling egregious. The problem then stems from a lack of scaling options, and feeling like "less" of a universal gate option without much to compensate for it besides a couple bonus feats. This might be fine for a player who really knows what they're doing and what they want, but it can feel like a trap option for someone less experienced or has less understanding of the class' options or capabilities compared to the universal gate, where they have true freedom of choice. Another issue is that we can't just give them the same treatment as the singular gate option, because then they just become vastly superior to the singular gate option.
Each option needs to be properly balanced against one another to warrant these benefits and/or drawbacks. You want to be a single element Kineticist? You need to be the absolute best at it, and nobody can match you unless they are also the same single element specialist. You want to be a universal element Kineticist? You need to be the most versatile/flexible character there is. You want to be a dual element Kineticist? You need to thread yourself between those two pre-established lines, otherwise you'll be just like one or the other, but better.
**EDIT** Removed a reference to scaling flex feats for the universal gate, which was wrong.
The universalist gate is the most versatile gate there is, simply because you get access to all 4 elements, and a scaling flexible feat; having access to 2 level 20 feats at once, one of which you can change each day, is quite powerful, even more flexible than Fighter's "Flexible Feat" capstone.
...But it doesn't scale? Universal Gate is pretty specific about you getting "one 1st-level impulse feat" and nothing anywhere ever changes that.
The universalist gate is the most versatile gate there is, simply because you get access to all 4 elements, and a scaling flexible feat; having access to 2 level 20 feats at once, one of which you can change each day, is quite powerful, even more flexible than Fighter's "Flexible Feat" capstone....But it doesn't scale? Universal Gate is pretty specific about you getting "one 1st-level impulse feat" and nothing anywhere ever changes that.
It's scaling in that you get more and more available choices.
I think there is definitely a tendency in playtesting for some theory crafting to focus way to much of structural ideas than actual play experience and what the root of the issues are. Arguing solutions on the forums rarely seems to lead to much more than a couple of people getting to say "Ah ha! My ideas were the same as the ones the developers decided to use." Most likely they already have 4 or 5 ideas for each potential problem that is getting identified by playtesters and so it is very unlikely that anyone's "Hey I have an idea..." posts change very much about the final design. I mean maybe they hadn't though of your idea, but I don't think we have ever, in any of the playtests heard of the developers giving credit to a specific play tester or theory crafter for giving the lightbulb moment to the class.
Which isn't to say tossing out those ideas is useless, sometimes those ideas are what help other play testers see the pain points in the class from a different light and get them to test out different options to see if they alleviate it, which does help the over all playtest in the long run because it means players actually test some of the options that they pass over at first glance.
But I think the accuracy and the damage conversations that pop up tend more often, at their best, just to get some player to invest several hours of their time looking deep enough into the numbers to come to the same understanding of what the class is being designed to do as the developers intended, and don't often lead to much valuable play testing.
Right now, from my somewhat limited playtesting experience, overflow damage abilities rarely feel worth doing unless you can get 4 or 5 enemies in them, which is pretty rare. When I see players use them, the individual damage on them is sometimes as little as half of what a cantrip can do.
But the ones that create difficult terrain, or create a condition on the battlefield that causes enemies to want to move have been more worth while as action stealers than as damaging abilities. I really hope the final class leans into more of that than slightly boosting the damage on them (either through accuracy or through damage die numbers).
Selective proficiency sounds like an annoying solution, not a fan.
What makes it an annoying solution? Because of the added bookkeeping or tracking of different proficiencies? It would really only apply to the single element Kineticist, who gets the biggest shaft of each gate selection. Dual element Kineticist can still have the option to change damage types to avoid immunities/resistances, or exploit weaknesses (if any), so it makes sense they don't get this. Just give them the added scaling flexible feats, and it's fine.
As it stands, there isn't much reason to select a single or dual element Kineticist outside of specific builds or frontloading options. They'd be powerful for one-shots at early levels, but over the course of a career, there will be encounters that they are practically useless (even more useless than a spellcaster with cantrips), and they need options to compensate for that. Having an increased proficiency (at least especially for the single element kineticist) would help make up for that, making them more powerful in the encounters where they can reasonably contribute. After all, plenty of encounters where certain classes are either very weak or completely useless (golems for casters, oozes/plants for rogues/investigators, etc).
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It's scaling in that you get more and more available choices.The universalist gate is the most versatile gate there is, simply because you get access to all 4 elements, and a scaling flexible feat; having access to 2 level 20 feats at once, one of which you can change each day, is quite powerful, even more flexible than Fighter's "Flexible Feat" capstone....But it doesn't scale? Universal Gate is pretty specific about you getting "one 1st-level impulse feat" and nothing anywhere ever changes that.
They definitely referenced getting 2 level 20 feats though, which is quantifiably false. Also barring the release of new books mid-campaign that happen to add additional level 1 Impulse feats, or the addition of Uncommon+ level 1 Impulse feats for you to gain access to, it literally doesn't scale at all in the lifetime of a character. A level 1 Universal Gate Kineticist has the exact same options of level 1 Impulse feats as a level 20 Universal Gate Kineticist.
The universalist gate is the most versatile gate there is, simply because you get access to all 4 elements, and a scaling flexible feat; having access to 2 level 20 feats at once, one of which you can change each day, is quite powerful, even more flexible than Fighter's "Flexible Feat" capstone....But it doesn't scale? Universal Gate is pretty specific about you getting "one 1st-level impulse feat" and nothing anywhere ever changes that.
Whoops. I must have misread something somewhere. Makes it less of a glaring power discrepancy, though, so that's a plus.
Would still be nice to give the single gate Kineticists a Legendary Class DC, though, since they're still shafted by lack of versatility.
**EDIT** I'd also like their Impulse feats to be able to scale and change each day. So if the single gets 3 feats, have one be equal to their level, one be equal to half their level, and one be at 1st level. This gives them the 3 1st level feats we all know, but now they can select the higher impulse feats at a staggered progression, signifying their singular expertise.
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Blasts not getting to Legendary prof is a FAR bigger problem than the Class DC only hitting Master IMO.
Just kill the Elemental Immunity Class Ability altogether in exchange for Blast Legend. With gaining Resistance equal to your Character level as-is that's plenty powerful and if people REALLY want to be able to get Immunity you can just print a level 18 Class Feat that offers this as an option among the manifold other Feats you have to choose from.
I guess the thing is that "even interacting with your class DC" is kind of optional for the Kineticist. So if you're not inclined to take those AoE impulses (because you prefer like the defensive or utility ones), how much of your class budget are you willing to commit to legendary class DC?
It's different with spellcasters since sure you can cast spells without DCs, but you can also choose to learn/prepare spells that do target DCs, and you get a lot of spells. The Kineticist gets like 8-10 impulses over their career and less than half of those have anything to do with the DC.