Stone Shield and Elemental Weapon at the same time?

[Ravingdork]

Can you use Stone Shield and Elemental Weapon at the same time? It mostly reads like it could work, but both also seem to BE your gathered element. How can that work at the same time? Also, the shield is described as floating, whereas the weapon says it is expended if released. If they are one and the same, how does that work?

[aobst128]

I don't see why not. Might run into issues if you try striking after you raise your shield but that's easy enough to avoid. Blocking will destroy the weapon though.

[Guntermench]

Hmm. I think you'd make the weapon when you gather element, then turn it into the shield instead when you use stone shield.

[Ravingdork]

Behold! My flail shield!

[PossibleCabbage]

You have one big aggregate of rock you've pulled from the elemental plane of earth through your internal gate, then you divide it into two smaller aggregates of rock- one of which is a shield and one of which is a weapon.

Like it's really easy to imagine doing that with water. The Avatar shows show [hydrokineticists] with a ball of water controlled by each hand all the time- you just take one ball of water and split it in half.

[Ravingdork]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

You have one big aggregate of rock you've pulled from the elemental plane of earth through your internal gate, then you divide it into two smaller aggregates of rock- one of which is a shield and one of which is a weapon.

Like it's really easy to imagine doing that with water. The Avatar shows show [hydrokineticists] with a ball of water controlled by each hand all the time- you just take one ball of water and split it in half.

You can really do that? I thought you could only have one Gathered Element at a time, and it takes up one hand. Having two, even of the same element, seems like skirting the rules to me.

On the other hand, not being able to use the shield power in conjunction with the weapon power strikes me as Too Bad To Be True.

[Guntermench]

I mean, you lose it either way if you block.

[PossibleCabbage]

Isn't that how it works any time you use an impulse that's not an overflow impulse? You use some portion of the stuff you have gathered for whatever it is, but you still keep enough of the stuff you have gathered to do other things with it? Like my ball of healing mud comes out of the aggregate I've gathered, but I still have enough of it to also make a shield out of.

If you block with your stone shield, you lose your element so your rock sword also disappears somehow.

The one I'm really unclear on what happens is:
- You start the round with your element gathered.
- You use your first action for Stone Shield
- You use your second and third action for a 2 action overflow impulse (e.g. Tremor)

Do you still have your shield? Can you block with it? Is blocking with it now costless since you already lost your gathered element?

[graystone]

Ravingdork wrote:

Like it's really easy to imagine doing that with water. The Avatar shows show [hydrokineticists] with a ball of water controlled by each hand all the time- you just take one ball of water and split it in half.

You can really do that? I thought you could only have one Gathered Element at a time, and it takes up one hand. Having two, even of the same element, seems like skirting the rules to me.

This is how it looks to me: you can only gather energy in one hand as "Gathering an Element again causes any element you’ve already gathered to dissipate" and both abilities alter your gather energy.

There IS an interesting thing with Stone Shield: "You raise a floating shield of stone, orbiting around you": so does this mean that the Gathered Element no longer takes up your hand? It says "You can still use this shield for anything requiring a gathered element)" and the shield isn't in your hand anymore...

[PossibleCabbage]

I assume the gathered element is not actually in your hand (it hurts to hold fire) you just need one hand free in order to control it. This applies even if it's orbiting you.

[graystone]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I assume the gathered element is not actually in your hand (it hurts to hold fire) you just need one hand free in order to control it. This applies even if it's orbiting you.

"A mass of that element appears in your open hand. Your hand is occupied by the element you’ve channeled, and you can’t use it for anything other than elemental impulse abilities to shape and direct the gathered element."

It shows up in your hand, it doesn't say it leaves your hand and it says your hand is occupied: sounds like it's in my hand like I'm holding it which is different from it floating around me. It also says "You can Gather an Element, hold it, and use it even in environments where this normally wouldn’t be possible." If it's not meant to physically in your hand, the wording need tightened up.

[PossibleCabbage]

Since you can't hold air in your hand (alternatively you can't not hold air in your hand) I think "occupied" clearly means "your hand is needed to control the elemental matter" not "there's a ball of water making contact with your skin- don't drop it."

The second bolded "hold" is clearly in the same sense as the 1e Magus could "hold" the charge even though the shocking grasp was in their scimitar. It's in the sense of "keep" rather than "grasp".

[graystone]

Ah, I see the non-mechanical section on Gather goes into this and I missed it when rechecking it: we are both kind of right.

"The form of the gathered element depends on the individual kineticist, but some examples include a chaotic wind orbiting the body, a rotating ball of compressed gravel, a flickering flame, or a swirling globe of water. The way the element occupies your hand can also vary; you might simply hold the element, or you might make swirling gestures with the hand to make the element orbit your body." So you could be holding ball of air or have a floating bubble orbiting you.

[Tweezer]

You could argue that a dedicated earth kineticist would be able to have both at the same time.

But it's kind of disappointing that a dual kineticist doesn't seem able to have a stone shield and sword of fire, for instance.

[Aswaarg]

I was under the impresion that the earth element you gathered transformed into the shield until the start of your next turn, then it transformed again to the earth element. Relevant part:

You Raise a Shield, turning your gathered element
into the shield and gaining a +2 circumstance bonus to AC
until the start of your next turn. (You can still use this shield
for anything requiring a gathered element).

Reinforcing that idea is the mechanic that if you use it to block, you lose the shield and so the element.

I was talking with some friends about using a earth weapon and the shield, and some of them thought that you could have both at the same time (start with the weapon on hand, use stone shield, getting the element from the sword). We had some troubles trying to solve if it is intended for the shield to count as the gathered element so you can´t have a shield and a weapon, or if the "transformation of the element" is just flavor text. In any case, it would be so could to be abale to have a stone shield (or another elemntal shield) and having a weapon at the same time (from the same element or from another element).