Not sure I like CON mod/d6 to next Overflow action. Would be different if that gets added to all Overflow actions for the day.
Or maybe at the beginning of the day/at any point when you choose to Gather Energy you can take on Drained +1, or a similar condition specific to the Kineticist so it doesn't interact directly with other things that do things to the Drained condition, to add Con mod damage to all Impulses that deal damage, not just Elemental Blast but also things like Overflow actions and Auras and such. And maybe let you either take on further levels of "Drained" at the start of the day or at later times when you Gather Element to get additional levels of CON mod to damage. So "Drained" 2 for 2xCON mod damage.
Though going for something like this for Burn/Elemental Overload kind of thing would probably require the class to be 10 or 12 hp per level.
There is a lot of options for increased reason to have high con.
An active ability used times per day equal to your con mod is ok if it supports all playstyles.
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This sounds a lot like burn. Burn is bad, M'kay...
This sounds a lot like burn. Burn is bad, M'kay...
I never got into 1e much due to the myriad of trap options. Though it was fun to build characters as thought exercises. So I don't know what this is. Further it hurt your health?
This sounds a lot like burn. Burn is bad, M'kay...I never got into 1e much due to the myriad of trap options. Though it was fun to build characters as thought exercises. So I don't know what this is. Further it hurt your health?
Burn was take your level in unhealable damage to make your abilities work and gather could offset that for attack abilities but not utility abilities. It was also linked to your hit [+6], damage [+12] and stats [+6 1 physical stat, +4 to another physical stat and +2 to last one] so your 'best' option was to self injure yourself for 7 burn [7xlevel unhealable damage] and then never burn again for the rest of the day.
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Yeah a separate condition that works vaguely like Drained but isn't Drained that lowers your max hp for the day, but also all goes away at the start of the next day, to get a substantial bonus to damage on all your Impulses for the day might be a good idea. The actual Drained condition is probably bad because of how some things can interact with it, and how Drained only reduces by 1 per day.
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1) Burn was optional for everything but the utility talents and many utility talents didn't cost burn in the first place.
Burn was NEVER EVER optional unless you didn't want +6 to hit, +12 damage and 12 extra stat points... :P
2) The best option for burn was not to use it at the start, it depended a lot more on the type of character you were building. Things like Aether that got regenerable temp HP by spending burn on their defensive ability did want to use burn because they were getting the HP back as temp HP that negated effects.
No, you ALWAYS wanted those bonuses from the start of the day. Did you want to try to spend 7 burn in your first round if your first fight is a tough one?
3) It literally didn't matter when you used burn. So you could not use burn to fight the mooks, then spend burn on high power abilities vs the boss. It also double as getting free scaling fortification rune.
LOL 'no please, don't force me to take +12 stats and a pile of bonuses... Let me wait!' really?
4) Its no different then a Barbarian using rage permanently. Instead of decreased AC it was decreased HP.
It's totally and completely different. It was pretty much the only option if you wanted to fight like a martial instead of a hybrid without any accuracy enhancers.
I'm not completely against Burn like graystone but for PF2 I still that it isn't feel...right.
A full daily HP penalty to improve your damage it's just like a must have feature. To do something like this it's better to reduce the base HP of the chassis to 6 and give give some +4 or Con bonus as additional damage permanently.
IMO just add Con bonus to damage as part of Gather Element and remove the Impulse trait from Elemental Blast and allows it to work even without an element at hand but if you have the element you receive the Con bonus is the best solution for this.
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I'm not completely against Burn like graystone
I don't think this fully expresses the depth of my disdain for the feature.
“I say we take off and nuke [it] from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
All of that was literally a bonus on top of using your other abilities.
No, it's what kept the class competitive: it's ludicrous to call +6 hit, +12 damage and 12 stat points just a bonus on top of things.
You are speaking as if that was all burn did when in reality you spent it on something and then got that as an extra, not the other way around.
You maxed out your defences and got your bonuses... yeah, that was about it.
Also we are talking about the PF1 burn where they were targeting touch AC, got a bunch of ways to increase to hit, and overall didn't could do without that bonus and still do plenty of damage (10d6+10+Con is a lot).
Not every blast was touch AC and we're talking about a class with a medium BAB [max 15]: a gunslinger was using a full BAB with touch attack. You fall WAY behind the curve without spending burn [I've tried with underwhelming soul].
I think that's the difference you and I have. To me burn was a cost for your strongest abilities, and in exchange for the HP loss you were compensated with some bonus damage/stats. Meanwhile, you are seeing the use of burn as a full on mandatory thing regardless of what ability you want to use.
I have NEVER seen someone play the class without spending the minimum burn to max out overflow on things that lasted all day like defenses. For using abilities you couldn't mitigate fully, you used your buffer. It was just silly to start the day without all your bonuses and lacking your full defense. No one wants to start off with 4 less AC, 7 less DC, 35% more miss chance, 3.5x your level in temp hp and +3 regen rate, +5 natural AC, ect. That's like saying your fighter waits until a few encounters before they pull out their magic sword and armor... Sure you CAN do it but I can't fathom why you'd do so.
If what you are going for is a kineticist that relies on the basic blast for everything sure you might spend all the burn on your defenses and all day abilities. But if you want to use the big explosions you would have to pace yourself and think about when to use burn. The fact you didn't see it does not mean it didn't exist I know very well that I had character that went with both styles of play.
You are ignoring that 'big blasts' require a save and you're missing out on +3 to their DC by not filling overload out. So I saw it but I understand that a 3 difference in DC's is fairly substantial if I actually want them to fail the saves.
Does it really matter if you are missing +5 to hit when you are dealing 10x more base damage?
Yes, yes it does. If it misses, x1 and x1000 deal the same damage: 0.
Burn let you pick at any point what you wanted to do, but instead of spending feats you were spending your HP. You like it being passive abilities and not deal with the HP loss. I liked being able to use the active abilities as needed while getting stronger from the sacrifice.
LOL IMO this just isn't true. You lose bonuses to hit, damage, DC on your saves, elemental defences, 2 saving throws and a 35% chance to ignore crits... These aren't trivial things no matter if you are using your base blasts or using big blasts. Burn reducers like Infusion Specialization, Supercharge, gather power, Composite Specialization and Metakinetic Master are what allows you to spend burn on big blasts and stuff, not hoarding your burn for a rainy day and ignoring your overflow bonuses and Elemental Defense.
A +3 they wouldn't get in PF2 because very few things get that bonus in PF2.
We don't know what bonus it would or wouldn't have as we're talking about a hypothetical PF2 burn now.
In PF1 a +15 really wasn't that bad a to-hit except vs the toughest opponent. At which point you would use a save based ability. In PF2 that point is mute since everyone has the same to-hit and burn isn't likely to get a bonus to hit.
+15 wasn't great and you're betting it all on one attack and as we've established you're save based ability is -3 your boosted amount too so it's a wash really as you're down in both abilities because you didn't pre-burn. And of course, we don't know what a hypothetical PF2 burn could do.
Finally, I never said ignore it. I said I wouldn't rush it and treat it as necessary like you do, there is a big difference between the two. The abilities to decrease burn cost was a way to do what PF2 does by level gating and having more strict control over what you can do when.
Not pre-burning means you'll take more damage since your elemental defenses aren't maxed and saves are less, your save and hit abilities are diminished in ability to affect and damage your targets, you're more likely to be crit, ect: really you're just worse at pretty much everything until you max overload. And of course, we don't know what a hypothetical PF2 burn could do.
I feel like a significant kind of burn mechanic is unlikely to make it to the full release since it's entirely absent in the playtest. My guess is if they do add a mechanic it'll be something similar to focus point powers or inventors unstable actions. And if it does hurt to use it, it probably won't be too drastic.
You never know: alchemist changed a lot from playtest to final version so I wouldn't count on anything until it's in print.
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If what you are going for is a kineticist that relies on the basic blast for everything sure you might spend all the burn on your defenses and all day abilities. But if you want to use the big explosions you would have to pace yourself and think about when to use burn. The fact you didn't see it does not mean it didn't exist I know very well that I had character that went with both styles of play.You are ignoring that 'big blasts' require a save and you're missing out on +3 to their DC by not filling overload out. So I saw it but I understand that a 3 difference in DC's is fairly substantial if I actually want them to fail the saves.
Does it really matter if you are missing +5 to hit when you are dealing 10x more base damage?Yes, yes it does. If it misses, x1 and x1000 deal the same damage: 0.
Burn let you pick at any point what you wanted to do, but instead of spending feats you were spending your HP. You like it being passive abilities and not deal with the HP loss. I liked being able to use the active abilities as needed while getting stronger from the sacrifice.LOL IMO this just isn't true. You lose bonuses to hit, damage, DC on your saves, elemental defences, 2 saving throws and a 35% chance to ignore crits... These aren't trivial things no matter if you are using your base blasts or using big blasts. Burn reducers like Infusion Specialization, Supercharge, gather power, Composite Specialization and Metakinetic Master are what allows you to spend burn on big blasts and stuff, not hoarding your burn for a rainy day and ignoring your overflow bonuses and Elemental Defense.A +3 they wouldn't get in PF2 because very few things get that bonus in PF2.
In PF1 a +15 really wasn't that bad a to-hit except vs the toughest opponent. At which point you would use a save based ability. In PF2 that point is mute since everyone has the same to-hit and burn isn't likely to get a bonus to hit....
I have to completely agree with graystone on this. Not having your burn buffs up made you worse than most other characters of the same level as the class was balanced around the burn buffs. I love the kineticist, had a blood one that just died sadly, but without the burn I wouldn’t have been able to even be competitive in the later levels.
Also you mention how much damage the kineticist does but it really wasn’t that much. About 50 damage in one attack give or take in your example, and that’s all you’ve got. Unless you were using kinetic blade that was all your attacks. Any form of archer or gunslinger would blow that out of the water. Full attacks were just too good.
That’s what the elemental overflow was for. A bonus to hit was to ensure your only attack each turn didn’t miss, bonus damage to help you keep up with the damage of a full attack, and a bonus to your stats to help both of those things and give you some added defense.
But I’ll stop this discussion here as it doesn’t any use when talking about 2e. I personally hope there is no burn added to 2e. It just feels too inelegant for pathfinder 2e.
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Just the whole idea of burn seems inelegant in 2e. I actually kinda liked it in 1e. It made kineticists die less since you were taking nonlethal. You would end up going unconscious long before you hit 0 so you wouldn’t bleed out. The only time you had to worry about dying was massive damage, or an enemy coup de grace while you were unconscious. So it wasn’t nearly as much of an issue.
In 2e without having nonlethal damage you actually are more likely to die when you accept burn. I feel like it would be way to hard to get the balance just right of what’s worth the risk without being too much.