Personally, I'd rather take HP damage similar to burn to use gather element as a free action.
Sure, but I don't have a good idea on what the correct balance on that would be, but there's 3 or 4 examples off the top of my head where a focus point essentially equaled an action cost reduction off the normal activity. A focus spell that makes gather a free action is pretty good way of conceptualizing my other point, which is that the action penalty of gather should justify overflow abilities to be at the level of focus spells of equivalent actions (not counting the gather).
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But you don’t want this class because this is not a single target striker class.
What if a majority want it to be that? (I don't have data just asking as a hypothetical)
But you don’t want this class because this is not a single target striker class.What if a majority want it to be that? (I don't have data just asking as a hypothetical)
Then you pray paizo can gather metrics on that.
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I mean, what you are supposed to do against a single enemy is probably "your basic blast". Which does about as much damage as a normal weapon, which works for other people. You just don't have a lot of ways to improve your basic blast.
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I mean, what you are supposed to do against a single enemy is probably "your basic blast". Which does about as much damage as a normal weapon, which works for other people. You just don't have a lot of ways to improve your basic blast.
Yup. Give me Fire Ray or Force Bolt as an overflow ability, and I'd be happier.
But like I said upthread, there's no real need to playtest single target focus spells; that data they have. This other thing they're doing with aoe effects that have 1-3 riders attached, that probably needs more play data.
As well as the basic gather-overflow cycle. I know you prefer not to engage with it, but I'm kind of enjoying it.
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I mean, what you are supposed to do against a single enemy is probably "your basic blast". Which does about as much damage as a normal weapon, which works for other people. You just don't have a lot of ways to improve your basic blast.
Specifically, you don't have a lot of ways to improve your basic blast against a single target (Fusion blast is one and it can be about as valuable as precision ranger damage, it just folds the hunt prey action into the blast and if the enemy doesn't die, then you have to keep spending actions to do it).
So far my favorite builds were the ones that ignored overflow abilities.
Auras, blast's, rock wall. Etc. Overflow gives me no real incentive to use these abilities personally, even if they were substantially stronger.
Heck, even if they were so strong it was better to use them every round instead of blast.
That's how I feel about negative only action economy limiters.
I haven't talked about it yet because I've taken to the idea that I just probably won't fully enjoy classes as much as I enjoy the monk. King of action economy.
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I would not be surprised to see them introduce some way to make gathering the element have a rider that makes it more interesting than just a spent action. Maybe built into the class, maybe available as a feat, maybe related to the kind of gate you use. They probably already have more and better ideas about how to do that than I am worried about.
So, with focus spells like cackle, lingering composition, extend boost, amped guidance, and amped warp step, it seems like one focus spell is about equal to one action. So, assuming an impulse takes one more action to use (either through overflow or just having a more action activity) it should be roughly balanced for impulses and focus spells to have an equal effect. At most, impulses could be considered a bit more versatile than the example focus spells, and impulses would have to be slightly weaker than focus spells.
That's a veeeeery limited list of focus spells there. Tons of focus spells take 2 actions, especially the big offensive ones.
Like the real issue I saw (as I saw up thread) is that I just didn't see many turns where I could hit very enemies with a small burst or a line. I don't know if that was just "the game I was in" or if that's normal. Like a 20' burst you can absolutely hit things, but the low level ones look to me like the Barbarian Feat "Swipe" which I would never take because I might get to use it like 2 times in a campaign. I'm sure there are other people who consider it amazing so I don't know what to think here.
Yes, but those where the ones that more or less directly traded a focus point for an action. that was my point. so a 3 action impulse should be about equal to a 2 action focus spell, becouse one focus point is about equal to an actionSo, with focus spells like cackle, lingering composition, extend boost, amped guidance, and amped warp step, it seems like one focus spell is about equal to one action. So, assuming an impulse takes one more action to use (either through overflow or just having a more action activity) it should be roughly balanced for impulses and focus spells to have an equal effect. At most, impulses could be considered a bit more versatile than the example focus spells, and impulses would have to be slightly weaker than focus spells.That's a veeeeery limited list of focus spells there. Tons of focus spells take 2 actions, especially the big offensive ones.
I don't think that tracks. Focus cantrips do not follow the same rules as other focus spells, where most cost a focus point in addition to one or more actions.
The range on earth abilities are generally pretty short range.
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I don't think that tracks. Focus cantrips do not follow the same rules as other focus spells, where most cost a focus point in addition to one or more actions.Yes, but those where the ones that more or less directly traded a focus point for an action. that was my point. so a 3 action impulse should be about equal to a 2 action focus spell, becouse one focus point is about equal to an actionSo, with focus spells like cackle, lingering composition, extend boost, amped guidance, and amped warp step, it seems like one focus spell is about equal to one action. So, assuming an impulse takes one more action to use (either through overflow or just having a more action activity) it should be roughly balanced for impulses and focus spells to have an equal effect. At most, impulses could be considered a bit more versatile than the example focus spells, and impulses would have to be slightly weaker than focus spells.That's a veeeeery limited list of focus spells there. Tons of focus spells take 2 actions, especially the big offensive ones.
But focus cantrips cost only those actions. If you're saying overflow abilities should be equivalent to focus cantrips in power, due to also only costing actions, then I'd want to see them be 1 action better than a focus cantrip of the same power, due to the inherent 1 action penalty of regathering your Element.
Non-overflow impulse actions, those I would agree should be roughly equivalent to a focus cantrip of the same action cost, as I do not think the gather penalty fully applies to those.
The range on earth abilities are generally pretty short range.
You're also supposed to be the Kineticist who is more comfortable close to danger.
I'm sort of making peace with the blast mechanic as it is, though I do think this is worth exploring. How about a 1 action cantrip that does not innately scale, but instead can gain any bonus or penalties as if it were an unarmed strike, including fundamental runes (but not other runes, just to keep things sane)? Mostly same mechanics, but removes some of the annoying bits like needing to have your element gathered and the manipulate tag, and it could scale off your spell attack instead of weapon attack except you also get the benefit of fundamental weapon runes. This would probably require the sacrifice of the class's first level class feat, but it would probably be worth it.The MC version should be nerfed, probably making it an impulse at least, but that's not unusual.
So this was a random, off the cuff suggestion, but I ran the numbers for it and it actually came out not bad. There's some weird parts, like at levels 19 and 20 you pass being as competent as Off Martials (like the Inventor and Thaum) and hit fighter attack rolls, but given that it is levels 19 and 20, it's kind of whatever.
Second to last column is the class as it is, and the final column is what it would be if blast instead ran off spell attacks that had access to runes.
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Fortunately none of the Lines are 3-actions, since they're so particular on placement. Also 2 of the 3 are Air, so they do have the Air speed boosts going for them.
Then there's Maelstrom Blast and Ride the Tsunami, the Three Action, and in 3 out of 5 cases sizeable area (Tsunami's 60-foot, Fire Maelstrom 60-foot, Air Maelstrom 120-foot), Cones. You have to either have a particular buff (namely Haste), or spend a separate feat to have any hope of adjusting your position for these, which sucks when they are forced to come from your position, while they take up so much area that unless you did either luck into being in just the right position, or spend feats or other resources, they are very likely to hit at least one ally in the process of hitting your enemies.
Also, as far as hitting allies being a "skill issue", when melee allies and melee enemies are all trying to flank each other, I'm not sure it's possible to get any standard shape that will hit multiple enemies but also won't hit at least one ally. Which is just another place where it would be nice to have more Single Target stuff.
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The AoE solution for fire is resist energy. 5 or 10 points of resistance making hitting your Allie’s with it not too big of a deal. There is no easy “resist water/air/earth” though, at least not yet.
I’ve seen it with inventors and fire already
Was going to say Flowing Kinetics could help a little with positioning if you can manage to fit it in to your build. Except that doesn't come online until 14th level, and by that point you are probably extremely strapped for feats.