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I realized we are three days into the playtest and we don't have a collected thread for players to show off what they are making, what feats they are taking and how they play or you imagine them to play. What do your Kineticists look like now that we have the mechanics for you to build them?
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Human [Undine], Scores [Str 16, Dex 12, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 10], Background: Amnesiac, Kineticist [dedicated water gate], Ancestry feat [armor prof], Class prof [flexible blast], Impulse Feats [Deflecting Wave, Tidal Hands, Water Dance]
She doesn't know who she is or how she got these water abilities but she feels at home in or near the water. Starts with 20 hp and a AC 18 with a breastplate.Nothing like being able to swim 90' in a round. ;)
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Due to a last minute decision (we are shifting to Foundry instead of in-person play) I'm going to play instead of GMing (I suck at using Foundry). We will play at 5, 9 and 13 (we are also playtesting some custom ancestries at the same time). This will be my character:
Bob the flying seaweed
Kineticist
Dual Gate: Water and Wind
Ancestry: Leshy (Sylph)
Background: martial Disciple (Acrobatics)
Initial Stats: 12STR 16DEX 18CON 14WIS 8INT 10CHA
Stats 5-9: 14STR 18DEX 19CON 16WIS 8INT 10CHA
Stats 13: 16STR 19DEX 20CON 18WIS 8INT 10CHA
Class Feats
Lvl 1: Flexible Blasts
Lvl 1: Aerial Boomerang
Lvl 1: Tidal Hands
Lvl 2: Air Cushion
Lvl 4: Flinging Updraft
Lvl 6: Slippery Sleet
Lvl 8: Wings of Air
Lvl 9: Torrent in the Blood
Lvl 10: Chain Blasts
Lvl 12: Clear as Air
Skills
Stealth (5,7)
Acrobatics (3,9)
Nature (11,13)
Athletics
Warfare Lore
Skill feats
Cat fall
Lvl 2 Trick Magic Item
Lvl 4 Nimble Crawl
Lvl 6 Quick Squeeze
Lvl 8 Swift Sneak
Lvl 10 Foil Senses
Lvl 12 Kip Up
General feats
Fleet (3)
Toughness (7)
Incredible initiative (11)
Ancestry feats
Lvl 1: Swift
Lvl 5: Leshy Superstition
Lvl 9: Lucky Keepsake
Lvl 13: Airy Step
Items
Handwraps
Frost (9) and Shock (13)
Leather armor
Wand of Longstrider lvl 2 (9)
Boots of Bounding (9)
(Few items because they are not why we are here)
My idea is to try out wind utility (which I think it is too strong) and both a bit of pure damage and control impulse feats. Plan is to use Wings of Air every 5 minutes or so, and use Clear as Air as soon as it dissipates. That way the character has permanent fly and invisibility. I also plan to try entering combat with both Air or Water charged to test both out.
At first I wanted to make Bob STR based and pick Sentinel (he has a can stucked to its body or something idk), but in the end i decided against it so I can test it without any archetype.
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I have an Ifrit Dwarf I'm hoping to playtest as an Earth/Fire Kineticist, using STR for ranged attacks with Brutal and Propulsive. She's an Azer!
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I am playing way out of my comfort zone and playing a gnome aerokineticist. Gonna be high DEX, obviously.
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Started up a kitsune acrobat who's going to be either dual air/fire or pure air, haven't decided. Unfortunately this will be my first 2e character period, so I'm having to get back to basics and also find a table.
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Dwarf [forge dwarf], Scores [Str 12, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 10], Background: Driver, Kineticist [dual air/earth gate], Ancestry feat [
Fire Savvy], Class prof [flexible blast], Impulse Feats [Air Cushion, Stone Shield]
She's a test pilot in Dongun Hold and an unfortunate accident piloting a flying contraption that left her falling from a great height caused her latent elemental powers by letting her float to the ground unharmed. She's heading out to adventure to get a handle on her new abilities but will get a vehicle as soon as possible [like a Automated Cycle or Steam Cart].
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my favorite playtlest build ive made
human for medium armor feat tax (ugh)
STR focused, high con
dual gate, earth/water (yes i know they are both bludgeoning/no agile im not that concerned)
1- flexible blasts, witches clutch
STR to hit on my ranged attacks and a difficult terrain aura that also does per level damage every round to everyone inside it at no save or hit chance.
2- deflecting wave
could take stone shield instead but the class on its own has no reaction as it is and is therefore less taxing imo.
4-blast barrage
this one might be a dud, idea was to leverage sweep/forceful traits depending on the scenario, but no agile and 16 strength indeed makes this harder
6-cycling blast
this will enable my playstyle as i get to a higher level
8- aura shaping
bigger witches clutch, exempt people from taking damage.
9- elemental flexibility
outside of when i need something specific, standing surf. scaling wall of water is very nice battlefield control. with cycling blast the overflow is less of an issue.
10-chain blast
Quite good for either earth or water even with the shorter ranges
12- rock rampart
my other wall spell
14- assume earths mantle
15- improved elemental flexibility
unless i need something else my defaul will be fusion blast to help punch through bludgeon immune things i turned into resistance with extract element
16- effortless impulse
free sustain on a wall makes it feasible for me to run two walls maybe?
18- rebirth in living stone
20-flawless elements (earth)
2 action assume mantle!
thoughts, in the mock fights ive done. this has been a decent character. level 1 im doing 1d8+3 in damage and +1 to anyone in my aura
level 2 deflecting wave seems pretty strong and broad in application, overflow becomes less of an issue at level 6 with cycling blast.
level 4 blast barrage, its pretty hit or miss (lol) and i feel like, given our accuracy issues, this feat could be changed/made better. maybe if it was just 2 different targets at the same map for 2 actions?
level 6 feels great with cycling blast, making deflecting wave far less of an issue.
level 8 aura shaping is great to expand my constant area of effect and make it so im a better team player and do not afflict my teammates.
level 10 chain blast is truly nice to have.
beyond that its just gravy
overall impressions, yes they could use a bit of a damage boost. im just not sure how. if you do a static con to damage, strength+con=+7 damage at level 1. for not cost, where a barbarian has to sink a limited resource to get 4+2 (ok, more if giant instinct or dragon instinct).
this was a fun build to control the battle and keep damage flowing though. i actually like blasts a good bit for their flexibility.
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overflow becomes less of an issue at level 6 with cycling blastHow so?
I think people miss the impulse trait on it and what that means.
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I think people miss the impulse trait on it and what that means.overflow becomes less of an issue at level 6 with cycling blastHow so?
To clarify for those that did indeed miss it, it means that it can't be used without a Gathered Element. Cycling Blast is a switching tool, not an action economy enhancer for Overflow actions.
To clarify for those that did indeed miss it, it means that it can't be used without a Gathered Element. Cycling Blast is a switching tool, not an action economy enhancer for Overflow actions.I think people miss the impulse trait on it and what that means.overflow becomes less of an issue at level 6 with cycling blastHow so?
Wich is fair. Still nice to have though.
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Fra Vanya Livgrace; Skeleton (Fodder), Magical Experiment
Dedicated Fire Kineticist 6
I will revise this to be an NPC stat block when I do a feedback post
Speed 30, HP 78
Blast +13 2d6 fire, DC 22
AC 14; Fort +14; Ref +14; Will +12. Perc +10, Senses Darkvision, Tremorsense (imprecise)
Feats: 1) As in life, so in Death (a), Eternal Torch, Burning Jet, Flame Eruption, Warming Nimbus, 2) Thaumaturge MC, Stitch Flesh, 3) Ancestral Paragon (Undead Empathy), 4) Blast Wave, Battle Medicine 5) Past Life, 6) Blast Barrage, Godless Healing
Proficiencies:
Expert) Reflex, Fort, Scribing Lore, Medicine, Will, Deception
Trained) Stealth, Occultism, Academia Lore, Nature, Religion, Perception, Diplomacy, Class DC, Attacks, Light Armor
Str 10, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 14
The 4th son of an already minor noble (being only distant cousins of the ruling noble), Vanya did not place much stock in being of the Karcau Livgraces, but instead found a position within a druidic monastery fairly young in life. And there he would have happily remained, but for the small fact that his refuge was the front for a death worshiping aspect of the Green Faith that liked to experiment, and he seemed a safe enough target.
A few primal rituals later, Fra Livgrace found himself reborn without flesh, but infused with fire. After teaching his former fellow "monks" the error of their ways, Vanya has aimlessly wandered ever since. He has by now far outlived every member of his family and anyone that knew him in life.
While not particularly intelligent, Vanya is something of an intellectual dabbler in many subjects, and his primary activity is that of archiving and research. He has recently found a copy of something from a "Dark Archive", and looks forward to taking it to his rented quarters to see what secrets it might hold.
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Going to run him as a solo character through the Dark Archive adventures. Ironically, that is probably the best case scenario for the kineticist's current mechanics, so hopefully I'll enjoy it despite my displeasure on the basic chassis. I'm slightly concerned that I didn't find a way to cram Survival or Arcana into him, but we'll see how it goes. I'll probably pick up Untrained Improvisation at 7th.
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My currently Playtest Kineticist.
This char is made to playtest low-level kineticist (at moment) replaying some Plaguestone's battles.
Here I'm putting current the simplified char sheet. Soon I you put the battle results.
Follow the currently test char:
* We choosed Amnesic to improve the Str diminishing the Str MAP a little
Str 14, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 10, Wiz 12, Cha 8 - LvL 1
HP 22, Speed 20, Blast +5/+6 - 1d8+2/1d8+1 (melee/range), DC 17
AC 18 (20 with Stone Shield), For +E9; Ref +E8; Will +T4, Perception 4 - Dark Vision, Tremorsense (imprecise) (if Geologic Attunement Aura is enabled)
Class Feats: All 4 Earth Impulses
Ancestry Feats: Rock Runner
Trained Skills: Occultism, Stealth, Acrobatics, Thievery
Party members: Human Champion Paladin, Elf Thief Rogue, Human Oscillating Wave Psychic*
* I'm GMing this tests while a friend will control the chars. The both Paladin and Thief are Seelah and Merisiel iconics that we are using to not loosing too much time building but Psychic was purposely build to work as comparison basis against the Kineticist as a similar "unlimited resources caster" DD.
Kineticist Playtest - LvL 1 Severe - Fight versus 3 Mangy Wolves + Caustic Wolf in a Ambush:
- Wolf 3:
- Moves near to Psychic
- Attack Psychic with jaws and crits = 6 dmg
- Paladin reaction protects diminish the damage in 3; Paladin Step and Strike with Punch = 4 non-letal
- Attack again with jaws and miss
- Earth Kineticist:
- Gather Element
- Attacks the Wolf 3 = 4 dmg; KO
- Cast Stone Shied
- Wolf 2:
- Moves near to Psychic
- Attack Psychic with jaws and crits = 4 dmg + sickened 1
- Attack again with jaws and miss
- Psychic:
- Psychic uses an action to recover from sickened
- Attacks the Wolf 2 with Produce Flame but miss
- Thief:
- Draw the rapier
- Move to flan the Wolf 2
- Attack the Wolf 2 with the Rapier = 14 de dmg; Kills the Wolf
- Wolf 1:
- Moves near to Psychic
- Attack with jaws and miss
- Attack again with jaws and miss
- Paladin:
- Draw a Long Sword
- Move to Flank the Wolf 1
- Strike with a Long Sword = 6 dmg
Round 2: Wolf Caustic enters in the Initiative
- Earth Kineticist:
- Attacks the Wolf 1 with a Blast, crits just = 10 dmg/Kill
- Attacks the Caustic Wolf, but miss
- Rise the Stone Shield
- Caustic Wolf
- Moves closer to Psychic
- Use a 2-action especial action that's tryies to demoralize all
- Psychic fails and become Frightened 1
- Thief pass
- Paladin crit failures and become Frightened 2
- Earth Kineticist failures and become Frightened 1
- Psychic:
- Unleash
- Feint Wolf Caustic, flat-footing it
- Attacks with an Produce Flame but have a bad roll and used a hero point to roll again, this time hiting = 9 dmg
- Thief:
- Draw a dagger in off-hand
- Move to flank the Caustic Wolf with the Paladin
- Strikes with the rapier, causing 15 dmg!
- Seehla:
- Move to enter in range of Caustic Wolf
- Attacks the Wolf Caustic with a long sword but miss
- Attacks the Wolf Caustic with a long sword but miss
Round 3:
- Earth Kineticist:
- Attacks the Wolf Caustic but miss
- Attacks the Wolf Caustic but miss
- Casts a Stone Shield
- Caustic Wolf
- Caustic Wolf thrown acid breath on Psychic and Earth Kineticist causing 10 dmg
- Psychic failures, taking all dmg
- Seehla protects the Psychic reducing 3 points of the damage to 7 and tries to counter but fail.
- Earth Kineticist fails, taking all dmg
- Caustic Wolf attacks Psychic = 8 DMG and Psychic is down and dying 1
- Psychic:
- Rolls d20 plain check to recover and pass, being no more dying but wounded 1
- Thief:
- Thief moves to flat-foot the with Caustic Wolf Paladin
- Thief attacks the o Caustic Wolf with the rapier but miss
- Thief attacks the o Caustic Wolf with the dagger but miss
- Seehla:
- Step to become closer to the Psychic
- Uses Lay on Hands and heals the Psychic in 6 HPs, waking up the Psychic
- Attacks Caustic Wolf with the Longsword but miss
Round 4:
- Earth Kineticist:
- Attack the Caustic Wolf but miss
- Attacks the Caustic Wolf but miss
- Rises the Stone Shield
- Caustic Wolf:
- Attacks the Psychic hitting = 7 dmg
- Seehla reaction protects reducing the dmg by 3 and counter with longsword hitting = 5 dmg
- Attacks the Psychic but miss
- The Caustic Wolf moves to try to avoid flanking*
- Psychic:
- Get up
- Psychic uses his 2 actions to flee.
- Thief
- Move to flank the Caustic Wolf with Seehla again
- Attacks with a rapier and hits = 9 dmg and killing the Wolf
* In a normal game battle after suffer so much damage I usually make the animal to run for its life. But here I made it to fight until dead
Notes on Kineticist in this fight:
-In a battle with no opponents capable of inflicting attacks of opportunity, his position allowed him to perform a large amount of attacks without worrying about moving even with only 6m range. So it was just a tower.
-Because of the bad luck of the dice, he ended up hitting very little even though he was attacking the most.
-The few times he hit was the one that did the least damage, even with the crit, this was less than the rogue's non-critical attacks, contributing little to the reduction of opponents' HP.
- The player does not use earth aura in this scenario. He said it's not worth it due to the range being too small to significantly affect the wolves' movement and due to the initial location of the players it would end up making it difficult for allies to move.
- Using Tremor (Overflow AoE), also proved to be unfeasible because opponents were not in suitable positions for it, even when they were side by side the Thief would kill the wolf before and because of Overflow the high action consumption prevented him from raising his shield, in the end it was better to use Elemental Blast.
- The class's high HP made it less of a potential target for opponents who preferred to focus on the weakest and easiest target (the Psychic).
- Overall the player who played with the class said the experience was good, much like the experience of playing a Paladin with a returning thrown weapon, but the Paladin at least had useful reactions that the Kineticist didn't so he says that in the end, Kinetic was less helpful than a champion.
Kineticist Playtest - LvL 1 Trivial - Fight versus a Bee Swarm in a surprise attack:
Round 1:
- Thief:
- Take out the rapier
- Pull out a dagger
- Attempts to recall knowledge about bees, but fails without obtaining useful information
- Swarm:
- Using 2 move actions moves to players square (they are all together)
- Uses Swarming Stings on players and takes 1 damage for using this action
- Psychic fails DC 16 reflexes and takes 4 piercing damage and fails DC 16 Fortitude taking 2 poison damage and is clumsy 1 for 1 minute
- The rest of the characters pass the reflex check taking only 2 piercing damage each
- Kineticist:
- Moves 20ft away from the swarm
- Attacks the swarm using Impulse Blast and crits, dealing 6 damage to the swarm which reduces 2 due to bashing damage resistance
- Attack again the swarm using Impulse Blast, but misses
- Paladin:
- Moves outside the swarm, but adjacent to it to the psychic
- Uses Lay on Hands and heals 6 HP of the psychic
- Draw the long sword
- Psychic:
- Moves to 7.5m away from the swarm
- Casts Electric Arc on swarm that fails the reflex check and takes 8 damage
Round 2:
- Thief:
- Takes a step away from the swarm
- Attacks the swarm with the rapier hitting dealing 9 piercing damage, which is reduced by 5 by the swarm
- After realizing that the exam reduces piercing damage more than bludgeoning, tries a second unarmed attack against the exam, but misses
- Swarm:
- Move to stand on the thief
- Attacks the thief with Swarming Stingers taking 1 damage and killing itself in the process
- The thief passes a DC 16 reflex check taking only 2 damage
Note: This was just a small trivial encounter that serves to see the behavior of the Kineticist in small quick combats.
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Play testing a lvl 3 fire kineticist made me wish horrid ignition was a lvl 1 impulse that scaled from 1d6 to 3 or or 4 at endgame since setting stuff on fire seems pretty core to the fantasy
Kineticist Playtest - LvL 1 Moderate - Fight versus 4 Bloodseekers:
Round 1:
Round 2:
Note:
Easy, fast battle, bloodseekers have very little HP so the damage was almost irrelevant. This time there were no significant differences between the kineticist and the Martials, as damage mattered little and he fought melee. Interestingly it was better than the psychic this time as the Electric Arc failed and did little damage.
Kineticist Playtest - LvL 1 Low - Fight versus Boar:
Psychic:
Thief:
Paladin:
Kineticist:
Boar:
Round 2:
Psychic:
Paladin:
Kineticist:
Thief:
Boar:
Round 3:
Psychic:
Paladin:
Kineticist:
Thief:
Boar:
Round 4:
Psychic (2):
Paladin:
Note:
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I'm not going to transcribe the fights anymore because it's too much work for me. I'll just put the notes now.
LvL 1 Party vs Hallod (Plaguestone mini boss):
Result: TPK!!!
Obs.: In this fight, rarely long because of the TPK (12 rounds), the Kineticist was the last to fall due to the high HP, high dex and the Stone Shield.
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Sienna Hensworth, beast tamer and wind witch (CG female versatile heritage human outrider kineticist 6)
“You really think you can keep up with the two of us?”
Sienna Hensworth is a Tian merchant that specializes in the capture and sale of rare and exotic beasts. Known to many in her homeland as a “wind witch,” Sienna possesses a unique ability to control the air around her—a power that she has leveraged many times to lull many unsuspecting creatures into an oxygen deprived sleep before their capture. She does not know why she possesses this power, only that she has had it for as long as she can remember. She suspects that her family may possess a remnant of djinni blood, though that is merely speculation on her part.
In her free time, Sienna also happens to be an avid terror bird jockey, racing her majestic birds in professional competition. Though her career is only beginning to take off, her ability to put the wind at the back of her steed while simultaneously using it to slow her competitors has served to give her quite a leg up on the game. Even without the boon of her wind powers, however, her skills in animal husbandry and training alone would make her a formidable opponent on the track.
Unfortunately, both her successful business and the winning streak in her hobby have put her under the scrutiny of organized crime. Local crime syndicates wish for her to supply them with beasts that will aid them in their larcenous pursuits, and for her to further rig the races on their behalf. Instilled with a strong sense of right and wrong at an early age by her parents, Sienna’s lack of cooperation has earned her the enmity of these syndicates.
Tactics: Learn as much about potential enemies with your familiar spy (directing it via Whisper of the Wind) as you can prior to any confrontation. When battle is joined, use the superior speed of your terror bird mount in conjunction with Fair Wind to keep your distance from potential threats whenever possible. Pelt your foes with ranged Air Blast (when focus firing), Blast Barrage (against swarms of weaker enemies), or Aerial Boomerangs (alternate with the other two attack forms). In a single round, your mount should be able to carry you 100 feet as a single action, or 50 feet for no actions at all. That leaves you with two to three actions to use your boomerang or blast barrage, or to make normal blasts and maybe Gather Element if it is needed.
When focus firing a single powerful foe, consider dismounting and using multiple Air Blasts, rather than Barrage Blast, in conjunction with your agile trait and terror bird Support Benefit. Between agile reducing your penalties and your animal companion making your target flat-footed, the likelihood of landing your iterative blasts is much higher than is traditional for other kineticists.
If forced into tight areas against especially dangerous foes (such as those with reaction attacks) where high mobility isn't much of an option, rely instead on your steed's natural attacks for offense or your own melee reach to avoid the enemy reactions.
The AoO thing stood out to me as being problematic from the beginning. At the very least, the Kineticist's melee attacks shouldn't be triggering AoO.
After after we recreated the party and make some characters optimization we tested in LvL 2 encounters. In general they was too similar to LvL 1, kineticist was boring and low damage in general. But we finnally had one interesting battle to coment. The first battle where the Earth kineticist finally could use Tremor! But again was terrible! kkk
LvL 2 Party vs 3 Bloodlash Bushes - Severe encounter!
Notes: Usually the kineticist gameplay resumes to something like Blast, Blast, move/rise Stone Shield. But this time curiously because the opponents had reach attacks they were perfectly aligned and no melee allies too close to be friend-fired by AoO, allowing the Kineticist to use Tremor 2x in a row!!!
That said it was a shame. Next to him was the Oscillating Wave Psychic that accompanies the kineticist in the party and even in the ideal situation the difference was stark! While the kineticist used 2+1 actions with Tremor to deal 2-8 damage and make a difficult terrain that endures 1 round which in the end didn't matter to the creatures as they didn't need to walk because of the reach (and therefore remained in the correct position to AoE), the Psychic, without using Unleash, did 5-8 damage with Electric Arc, and to top it off, he still firing an arrow with the remaining action! I don't even need to comment on how it went after Unleash.
It was ridiculous. So far I'm trying to understand what went through the designer's mind when he created Overflows whose damage and efficiency is lower than a Cantrip and still spends one more action. But this was probably done without much thought, because as it's a playtest the designer shouldn't have stopped to balance too much here. But I really hope they consider the minimum expected of a 2-action Overflow is that it is at least more powerful than 1 Cantrip+Strike otherwise we'll end up with a Kineticist who in the end will be worse than any caster with a bow, or some ability to deal damage in a third action like Psi Burst or some sustainable Spell.
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Frozen sea, level 3 earth/water lizardfolk.
Flexible blasts, winters clutch, stone shield, tidal hands.
4 encounters so far. First was spent just trying not to hit friendlies with my aura, two round fight so I did nothing.
Second was over before I entered the room, I was last in almost every fight.
Third was rough, a little ranged damage in a small space, failed to judge when to stone block(second enemy didn't attack me), standing still and trying to block to avoid AoO, finally tidal hands and enemy rolled a one so felt great. With nearly any other roll it would have been much less enjoyable I think.
Fourth(boss) fight was brutal, put up aura then was downed before second turn. Group basically TPKd if not for GM allowing sly player idea to work, so poorly made fight that doesn't really reflect anything.
I like the things I can do, but so far feels like I'm fighting against handcuffs to do them. I can't start with my aura or an aoe and then raise shield, so I'm rather squishy as a con/str based character. Hard to decide to block first attack that hits you and thus lose the shield protection that might deflect other attacks.
Battles to short right now to get my kit rolling.
In a mostly ranged group, so my damage shouldn't feel low, but with at least one gun user critting per combat or the ranger swapping to a reach weapon, it does feel a bit underwhelming so far.
Hopefully some better fights next time.