Look at any aoe from casters or martials.
What are the limits?
Range, action cost, uses per day.
Currently a kineticist can do them effectively infinitely. And at massive area of effects. So the damage is low as well as the action cost being restrictive.
We'd probably need drastic range decrease to get better action economy early on.
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I disagree the action tax itself limits the per day use add to that the lower Damage and the much greater chance to critical save thus taking no damage and it effectively renders AOEs for the class useless.
How often are you using aoe against a +1 monster? How often do you fight enough monsters more powerful than your entire party that you would AOE?
Any time my party has had need for aoe it was because it was a large number of weaker but still potentially threatening enemies.
I don't argue that it's less consistent than a sorcerer specializing in spells.
But they have limited slots per day. Kineticists doesn't.
The issue is sure, they can do these 7,200 times per day (given it's basically a two round process).
That's irrelevant if you hit like a noodle and only get the opportunity to do it 6.
Is it? I hear casters complain all the time about AP working days with 7 encounters before getting a chance to rest.
They are out of gas, you haven't broken a sweat and have better single Target performance out the gate. Even if you focused on class DC and Dex.
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Considering you can gather way before combat and there's no reason not to, it rather feels like most of the AoE blasts are designed to be openers. Since they are also at-will, I'm pretty okay with that design space.
If anything were going to change, I'd want more damage rather than better action economy.
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Considering you can gather way before combat and there's no reason not to, it rather feels like most of the AoE blasts are designed to be openers. Since they are also at-will, I'm pretty okay with that design space.
If anything were going to change, I'd want more damage rather than better action economy.
Um... don't these two things kinda go against one another? If they're meant to be openers, why be at will? Just make them focus spells or 1/10 minute abilities so they can actually be stronger the one time you use them per encounter.
If something is at will, it needs to be a good tool to use consistently.
Well, for one, you don't always get ten minutes between combats. And for two, the action economy isn't really that bad. Or rather, it's not the overload ability's fault, imo.
Rather than giving these abilities better action economy, I would rather see Gather made more interesting itself, sorta like gunslinger does with reload. Feats or features that let you mix gathering with another action, for example.
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Look at any aoe from casters or martials.
What are the limits?
Range, action cost, uses per day.
Currently a kineticist can do them effectively infinitely. And at massive area of effects. So the damage is low as well as the action cost being restrictive.
We'd probably need drastic range decrease to get better action economy early on.
Amped Telekinetic Rend is the baseline for doing AoE damage all day. Psychics can do this twice a fight, every fight, and often at a higher Save DC than the Kineticist.
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Amped Telekinetic Rend is the baseline for doing AoE damage all day. Psychics can do this twice a fight, every fight, and often at a higher Save DC than the Kineticist.
This is not entirely accurate - Psychics give up the opportunity cost of using any other amps to do that, and you don't always get ten minutes of downtime between fights.
Overload abilities can be used every other round forever, with no need for a ten minute rest and no restriction on what abilities you can use.
The Kineticist needing to gather power before blasting is a holdover from 1e, where you would spend your move action to gather to offset the burn cost of your standard action to blast. You had other tools to reduce the burn cost (such as "not using anything that requires burn") so you wouldn't need to gather to use weaker blasts (relative to your level) so you could instead use your move action to move.
This is the dynamic they're trying to recreate with overflow and gathering.
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Yeah, that's the big difference. The PF1 got "infusion specialization" which was an action-free way to reduce the burn cost of kinetic blasts. So at level 1 you would need to gather power to use "extended range" but by 7th level you could do it for free with infusion specialization.
Ideally the Kineticist should gain means to reduce or avoid the action taxes as they level.
Look at any aoe from casters or martials.
What are the limits?
Range, action cost, uses per day.
Currently a kineticist can do them effectively infinitely. And at massive area of effects. So the damage is low as well as the action cost being restrictive.
We'd probably need drastic range decrease to get better action economy early on.
A few responses:
1) The area of effect is not massive. Most of the overflow impulses have shorter ranged and worse areas than spells. Some are comparable, but not all, and none approach fireball or chain lightning.2) Focus spells are also infinite per day, but limited per encounter. Currently focus spells are stronger than most overflows despite costing less actions. At low levels these are once/encounter, plus additional times for a 'boss' encounter. At higher levels it becomes 2 or even 3 times per encounter, which isn't much less than what a kineticist is going to be doing considering combats don't last very long and the high action costs here. Especially if the Kineticist is using some of its support abilities/auras (which are great!) mixed in with normal attacks.
2) It doesn't matter if something has infinite uses per day if the rest of the party has already finished the encounter with the kineticist not contributing much. Or if the party dies because the kineticist couldn't pull its weight.
All this reads to me is instead of overflow people just want a hard limit per day on uses of these aoe attacks.
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All this reads to me is instead of overflow people just want a hard limit per day on uses of these aoe attacks.Look at any aoe from casters or martials.
What are the limits?
Range, action cost, uses per day.
Currently a kineticist can do them effectively infinitely. And at massive area of effects. So the damage is low as well as the action cost being restrictive.
We'd probably need drastic range decrease to get better action economy early on.
A few responses:
1) The area of effect is not massive. Most of the overflow impulses have shorter ranged and worse areas than spells. Some are comparable, but not all, and none approach fireball or chain lightning.2) Focus spells are also infinite per day, but limited per encounter. Currently focus spells are stronger than most overflows despite costing less actions. At low levels these are once/encounter, plus additional times for a 'boss' encounter. At higher levels it becomes 2 or even 3 times per encounter, which isn't much less than what a kineticist is going to be doing considering combats don't last very long and the high action costs here. Especially if the Kineticist is using some of its support abilities/auras (which are great!) mixed in with normal attacks.
2) It doesn't matter if something has infinite uses per day if the rest of the party has already finished the encounter with the kineticist not contributing much. Or if the party dies because the kineticist couldn't pull its weight.
no they want an action economy that makes the action actually worth performing
no they want an action economy that makes the action actually worth performingAll this reads to me is instead of overflow people just want a hard limit per day on uses of these aoe attacks.Look at any aoe from casters or martials.
What are the limits?
Range, action cost, uses per day.
Currently a kineticist can do them effectively infinitely. And at massive area of effects. So the damage is low as well as the action cost being restrictive.
We'd probably need drastic range decrease to get better action economy early on.
A few responses:
1) The area of effect is not massive. Most of the overflow impulses have shorter ranged and worse areas than spells. Some are comparable, but not all, and none approach fireball or chain lightning.2) Focus spells are also infinite per day, but limited per encounter. Currently focus spells are stronger than most overflows despite costing less actions. At low levels these are once/encounter, plus additional times for a 'boss' encounter. At higher levels it becomes 2 or even 3 times per encounter, which isn't much less than what a kineticist is going to be doing considering combats don't last very long and the high action costs here. Especially if the Kineticist is using some of its support abilities/auras (which are great!) mixed in with normal attacks.
2) It doesn't matter if something has infinite uses per day if the rest of the party has already finished the encounter with the kineticist not contributing much. Or if the party dies because the kineticist couldn't pull its weight.
Same thing actually. Something has to give. You want more damage. Expect less uses per day.
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Same thing actually. Something has to give. You want more damage. Expect less uses per day.no they want an action economy that makes the action actually worth performingAll this reads to me is instead of overflow people just want a hard limit per day on uses of these aoe attacks.Look at any aoe from casters or martials.
What are the limits?
Range, action cost, uses per day.
Currently a kineticist can do them effectively infinitely. And at massive area of effects. So the damage is low as well as the action cost being restrictive.
We'd probably need drastic range decrease to get better action economy early on.
A few responses:
1) The area of effect is not massive. Most of the overflow impulses have shorter ranged and worse areas than spells. Some are comparable, but not all, and none approach fireball or chain lightning.2) Focus spells are also infinite per day, but limited per encounter. Currently focus spells are stronger than most overflows despite costing less actions. At low levels these are once/encounter, plus additional times for a 'boss' encounter. At higher levels it becomes 2 or even 3 times per encounter, which isn't much less than what a kineticist is going to be doing considering combats don't last very long and the high action costs here. Especially if the Kineticist is using some of its support abilities/auras (which are great!) mixed in with normal attacks.
2) It doesn't matter if something has infinite uses per day if the rest of the party has already finished the encounter with the kineticist not contributing much. Or if the party dies because the kineticist couldn't pull its weight.
You've mentioned on these forums that you're planning on leaving CON low on the playtest kineticists you build and focusing exclusively on the blasts instead of the other impulses. Given that, why do you think there's not room to make the overflow impulses better without any other nerfs?
You've mentioned on these forums that you're planning on leaving CON low on the playtest kineticists you build and focusing exclusively on the blasts instead of the other impulses. Given that, why do you think there's not...Same thing actually. Something has to give. You want more damage. Expect less uses per day.no they want an action economy that makes the action actually worth performingAll this reads to me is instead of overflow people just want a hard limit per day on uses of these aoe attacks.Look at any aoe from casters or martials.
What are the limits?
Range, action cost, uses per day.
Currently a kineticist can do them effectively infinitely. And at massive area of effects. So the damage is low as well as the action cost being restrictive.
We'd probably need drastic range decrease to get better action economy early on.
A few responses:
1) The area of effect is not massive. Most of the overflow impulses have shorter ranged and worse areas than spells. Some are comparable, but not all, and none approach fireball or chain lightning.2) Focus spells are also infinite per day, but limited per encounter. Currently focus spells are stronger than most overflows despite costing less actions. At low levels these are once/encounter, plus additional times for a 'boss' encounter. At higher levels it becomes 2 or even 3 times per encounter, which isn't much less than what a kineticist is going to be doing considering combats don't last very long and the high action costs here. Especially if the Kineticist is using some of its support abilities/auras (which are great!) mixed in with normal attacks.
2) It doesn't matter if something has infinite uses per day if the rest of the party has already finished the encounter with the kineticist not contributing much. Or if the party dies because the kineticist couldn't pull its weight.
Existing classes and what they can do with spells and spell like abilities.
Me needing con low is more because I saw myself dying if I build a strength kineticist at level 1 and tank my AC. It's very easy to go to dying 1 in a single hit at that level. Especially if you are easily crit.
So my issue is I value my ability to not die at level 1 moreso than my competency with class DC.
Wich honestly is a sucky feeling to have. If I started a campaign at a slightly higher level though, I'd be just annoyed at the mandatory feat tax for medium armor.
And if medium armor somehow became baseline I'd likely never complain about that issue again. Though I think there are more interesting solutions.
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My thinking is that currently the aoes have bad damage, bad action economy and bad DC, they also have bad area compared to aoe spells but thats less of an issue, and i just think something there has to give; they can be clunky to use and easy to save but hit harder, they can have a better dc so what damage they have actually sticks, or they could have less pressure on the action economy, making their low damage and easy saves more forgivable, i would be happy with any of these solutions but as things stand i only ever see myself using impulses as an opener in large group fights where the enemies happen to be clumped up, since that feels like the only time you will be hitting enough people to get your actions worth with them as they are
My thinking is that currently the aoes have bad damage, bad action economy and bad DC, they also have bad area compared to aoe spells but thats less of an issue, and i just think something there has to give; they can be clunky to use and easy to save but hit harder, they can have a better dc so what damage they have actually sticks, or they could have less pressure on the action economy, making their low damage and easy saves more forgivable, i would be happy with any of these solutions but as things stand i only ever see myself using impulses as an opener in large group fights where the enemies happen to be clumped up, since that feels like the only time you will be hitting enough people to get your actions worth with them as they are
It sounds to me we are in agreement that a shuffling things around with them to result in a better feeling performance. It's just a question of how.
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If the lowest performing overflow abilities were brought up to the level of higher ones through better scaling, I think those abilities would be in a good spot. I understand that low level abilities shouldn't be as good as near max level abilities, but a big part of things scaling in 2e is not having to keep printing similar spells and such every few levels. Let's compare a couple overflow feats.
Tremor - 5ft burst within 30ft, 2d4 bludgeoning damage and prone on crit fail, +1d4 every 2 levels. The area is difficult terrain until the start of your next turn. 2 actions.
At max level we're looking at 11d4 damage, roughly 27.5 on average.
The Shattered Mountain Weeps - 20ft burst within 120ft, 9d10 damage and prone on a fail. +1d10 to this and damage over time at 20. The area is difficult terrain for a minute and 2d10 damage to any creature that starts it's turn in the area. 3 actions.
At max level we're looking at 10d10 damage, roughly 55 on the initial hit, and then 3d10 if they stay in the area, another 16.5.
While one is a level one ability and only costs 2 actions and the other is a level 18 ability and costs three, the shattered mountain weeps is so, so much better in every way. I don't expect tremor to compete with it, but it definitely needs a buff.
The issue is sure, they can do these 7,200 times per day (given it's basically a two round process).
That's irrelevant if you hit like a noodle and only get the opportunity to do it 6.
It's irrelevant to PCs that fight on level or higher level opponents exclusively.
It's very relevant to NPCs who can go forth and lay waste to armies of scrubs. There needs to be a reason why this doesn't happen or isn't cost effective vs hiring sorcerers/wizards to do the same thing.
Something like Soothing Breeze can do 50 mass heals over separate 20' bursts (44 medium creatures standing in ranks) over the course of 10 minutes (44 x 50 = 2,200 creatures healed), then start over again as the temporary immunity wears off. A couple of thousand level 1 guys can be fully healed in half an hour or so (average 22.5 HP healed with three applications) by a level 4 kineticist. (Onward, conquering hobgoblin legions!)
Because they can do that, the amount of HP they can heal three allies in 10 minutes is strictly limited. The same applies to damaging abilities. You as PC may not fight hordes of level -5 enemies for hours every day without needing 10 minutes uninterrupted to recover, but a kineticist could if he wanted to go out and perform mass conquest or slaughter. The wizard or sorcerer can't.
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The issue is sure, they can do these 7,200 times per day (given it's basically a two round process).
That's irrelevant if you hit like a noodle and only get the opportunity to do it 6.
It's irrelevant to PCs that fight on level or higher level opponents exclusively.
It's very relevant to NPCs who can go forth and lay waste to armies of scrubs. There needs to be a reason why this doesn't happen or isn't cost effective vs hiring sorcerers/wizards to do the same thing.
Something like Soothing Breeze can do 50 mass heals over separate 20' bursts (44 medium creatures standing in ranks) over the course of 10 minutes, then start over again as the temporary immunity wears off. A thousand level 1 guys can be fully healed in half an hour or so by a level 4 kineticist. Because they can do that, the amount of HP they can heal three allies in 10 minutes is strictly limited.
A level 4 kineticist healing one thousand first level troops just isn't something that the game is designed to model, is the issue. It's worth looking at the consequences of the abilities from an in-universe perspective to make sure they're not straining believability, but something like this can't be a balance point for a class, because it's not relevant to gameplay. The vast, vast, vast majority of fights have somewhere from one to 10 enemy combatants, ~3-5 other PCs, and maybe a couple of allies. If an ability is extremely powerful with 1000 allies and noticeably weak in the situation I've just outlined, the reality is that it's an underpowered ability for the game we're playing.
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If you want at will abilities, they're going to be balanced as at will abilities. Something has to give. Do you want to get rid of at will abilities or do you want to accept low damage?
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If you want at will abilities, they're going to be balanced as at will abilities. Something has to give. Do you want to get rid of at will abilities or do you want to accept low damage?
an ability has to be worth using in the first place no matter how many times you can use it, the average combat will give you 9-15 actions, using 3 of those actions to do negligable damage is not a worthwile use of anyones time unless you have a ton of enemies crammed together
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When the Kineticist was described I was picturing a class with two effective roles a striking type and a blaster but that’s not what we got.
You're picturing these as two different builds when every kineticist is meant to fill both roles. You're not supposed to AoE overflow every round. If you want to hit multiple enemies every round, alternate with Blast Barrage or Chain Blasts.
You're using half the class otherwise.
If you want at will abilities, they're going to be balanced as at will abilities. Something has to give. Do you want to get rid of at will abilities or do you want to accept low damage?an ability has to be worth using in the first place no matter how many times you can use it, the average combat will give you 9-15 actions, using 3 of those actions to do negligable damage is not a worthwile use of anyones time unless you have a ton of enemies crammed together
I'm really starting to think replacing overflow with just a limited times per day in some fashion is the way to go here more power with largely no drawback given how people often play.
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I'm really starting to think replacing overflow with just a limited times per day in some fashion is the way to go here more power with largely no drawback given how people often play.If you want at will abilities, they're going to be balanced as at will abilities. Something has to give. Do you want to get rid of at will abilities or do you want to accept low damage?an ability has to be worth using in the first place no matter how many times you can use it, the average combat will give you 9-15 actions, using 3 of those actions to do negligable damage is not a worthwile use of anyones time unless you have a ton of enemies crammed together
Yeah at this point it would be better to give a resource like focus points and make that it can refocus more from the start.
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i mean overload actions are competative with 2 target cantrips 90% of the time, why would they need to be limited? there are the occasions where you get 4+ mobs at once and thats sweet but outside those situations i dont think the majoraty of overload actions are good enough to require any restriction at all
i mean overload actions are competative with 2 target cantrips 90% of the time, why would they need to be limited? there are the occasions where you get 4+ mobs at once and thats sweet but outside those situations i dont think the majoraty of overload actions are good enough to require any restriction at all
You have to balance for all scenarios. Not just the ones you GM throws your way.
Well, there's not really any single-target nuke impulses,
Why should there be? Blasts seem to do that just fine. They aren't playing the "which defense do I target game" like casters are.
and your "strikes" are bad compared to other martials.
Are they? Outside of level 5 and 6 proficiency lagging (which I'll admit feels bad) they get the martial package for accuracy, and their blasts fill out a variety of niches. They also seem like solid switch hitters if they AoO isn't in play, which becomes nicer as you level up and runes get more expensive.
Overflow needs to compete with 2-blast routines and Chain Blasts and I don't even know if it's worth using most overflows instead of Chain Blasts.
Chain Blast is a 10th level feat, so only 10+ Overflows should really compare and they seem to pretty well. Also, even when they have lower damage they get rider effects that can make up the difference. And Overflow option that blinds becomes better than blasts if a rogue is in play, and a repositioning Overflow becomes better with things like Wall of Fire in play. Blasts (chain and otherwise) can be your bread and butter damage dealers and Overflows can be situational.
i mean overload actions are competative with 2 target cantrips 90% of the time, why would they need to be limited? there are the occasions where you get 4+ mobs at once and thats sweet but outside those situations i dont think the majoraty of overload actions are good enough to require any restriction at allYou have to balance for all scenarios. Not just the ones you GM throws your way.
So how is "you might be decent (not necessarily impressive, that might be overreaching, just decent) in this extremely rare scenario of a bunch of mobs, if your GM doesn't just skip that fight outright because the power level of the individual enemies to allow that without it being a 'Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies' scenario means they're basically not a threat" and "you are virtually useless against the single-big-boss-enemy that pretty much every adventure ever has because your class is only able to be decent in the former scenario" balancing for all scenarios.
And yes, that part of the GM just skipping the one encounter with the horde of weaker enemies did happen to me in a game, and yes I'm a bit salty about that even though I wasn't even an AoE user at the time, and no that probably shouldn't impact my opinions this much, but given I have no reason to expect such things won't happen again and that is the one place it seems Kineticist is supposed to shine... it's impacting my opinions this much.
*extremely rare*
I wasn't aware you only ever fight bosses.
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Rather than giving these abilities better action economy, I would rather see Gather made more interesting itself, sorta like gunslinger does with reload.
This tbh, making reload more interesting was a core part of the gunslinger, and also the reason magi have conflux spells.
I don't mind the idea of gathering power to unleash something, but either gathering itself should feel better or the payoff should feel really good.
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An idea: so in pf1 gather energy was a way to mitigate burn, you didnt need it for your basic blast, so what if overflow left you with "lingering power" of a specific element, which allowed you to use your blast and assigned it an element but locked you out of other impulses until you gathered power again? It would free up the action economy a lot without breaking the 2+reload action requirments for overload feats, mirroring the magus?
An idea: so in pf1 gather energy was a way to mitigate burn, you didnt need it for your basic blast, so what if overflow left you with "lingering power" of a specific element, which allowed you to use your blast and assigned it an element but locked you out of other impulses until you gathered power again? It would free up the action economy a lot without breaking the 2+reload action requirments for overload feats, mirroring the magus?
Don't think I'm a fan.
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Honestly I would like to see a quick gather(like quick draw) action that gathers and kinetic blasts in 1 action.
Absolutely mandatory feats seem a bit silly.
Need something more baseline.