The first edition kineticist had a chance to ignore critical hits based on how much burn they had accrued. Here's an idea to bring that forward into Second Edition and give Constitution something special for the class.
Elemental Fortification: Whenever the kineticist would be critically hit, the attacking creature must make a flat check with a DC equal to the kineticist's Constitution modifier. On a failure, the attack is instead a normal hit.
I'd rather not introduce subtraction into a mechanic any more than necessary.
If you wanted to let the player roll the check (which gets Hero Points in the equation), I would call it a DC 21 Constitution check. But PF2 doesn't really have a concept of ability checks.
Oh, I'm definitely with you on not adding any subtraction unless you really need to, but there's precedent for flat checks having some added math. Recovery checks being the most common, at DC 10 + your dying value.
Yes, a little math on a flat check DC is fine. Adjusting the DC of checks to hit concealed creatures comes up sometimes, too. But, when you start introducing subtraction, that's a sign that a flat check is probably not the best mechanic to use.
Another alternative: The check is a Fortitude check against the Incredibly Hard DC of your level. At level 9, it is equivalent to a fortification rune for a kineticist that maxes Constitution (requires a 17 on the die). By level 20 it gets just a little better than a greater fortification rune (requiring a 12 on the die for a max Con kineticist with an apex item)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What is the downside ? Because in the first edition this was something you got from taking burn. Right now the proposal is to give a free version of a very expensive armour rune just for legacy reasons. And not even reflecting the legacy ability completely but choosing the positives
An indication of how this sort of thing could work is with oracle curses where they add negatives and get positives. Do any of those give the equivalent of fortification? I don’t know off hand. Some give miss chances don’t they ? But for pretty nasty downsides
It very much seems like the design intent for this class is not “well the first edition version had this”. Which was where a lot of the homebrew ones made very soon after release fell down - I saw versions that basically tried to directly port all the abilities over including the math and stat boosters - in that case clearly written so early that the author did not understand the math of the system
Edit : could be a feat as mentioned in a reply but I don’t recall this in the first post. And I fear would be a no brainer. Are there many other feats out there that directly replicate runes? Closest I can immediately think of are the flying ones but I don’t recall how they differ from the runes / items. There could well be others
Thank you for your feedback, Lanathar. This idea sprung up mostly as a reason to care about your Con modifier or roll a Con check. I don't think that every ability from first edition should be brought forward, but the previous incarnation does provide a place for inspiration. Mitigating the risk of Attacks of Opportunity was also on my mind. You are correct that I did not give much consideration to the costs.
The only other feats I know that replicate runes are the champion blade ally feats. Those grant some much lower-level runes.
Free fortification is too much for an always-on ability. But, it could be part of a transformation (such as Assume Earth's Mantle), or require activation and take up your kinetic aura, or most generously require that you have an element gathered.
Possible downsides might be conditions such as drained or enfeebled for a few rounds after negating a crit.
|
Assuming this ability is granted by a feat, the downside is the opportunity cost, same as Steady Spellcasting for the various casters. If you wanted more tradeoffs, you could give it a duration and action cost. I'd hesitate to add more, since you're already using a feat for a benefit that only sometimes applies to a fraction of a fraction of attacks against a character with the ability.
As for other feats/features that duplicate runes, there's quite a few. The first two that come to mind are the Champion's Blade Ally feature (and the feats that add more options to it) or the Magus's Runic Impression feat/focus spell.