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Five of my core group conducted a level 18 Kineticist playtest, after filling out my surveys i keep going back and forth on some of the multiple choices options in the survey and eventually I realized why: HOW this happens doesn't matter as much as that it DOES, if that makes sense, and my thoughts about each of the options are linked primarily into the possibility that they would fix the problem, and my impression of what might be necessary to get everything situated correctly.
The basic problem that the entire group observed, is that it felt like The kineticist needs more juice, its serviceable against multiple lower end targets, but fighting bosses as a kineticist really hurts because your pop of damage is very small relative to the difficulty of landing a hit-- more so than any class in the game, and what strategies worked for us in our playtest were either too contextual (a cold weakness allowing Sea Glass Guardian to put in obscene work) or too cheesy, their healing feels too low as well (using the water heal we tested anyway). One player expressed wanting an option to 'narrow' some of their moves to single target for a damage boost, another was discussing a desire for an action economy build up of bonuses, the common thread of everyone's feedback is that the Kineticist just can't output enough firepower-- and level 18 is a level where their class DC is equal to spell DC!
When I was considering how I actually felt about survey options like the possibility of cantrips/amps, focus spells, or spell slots, what it came down to is that I do feel like the Kineticist needs a resource to manage so that it can have power spikes by using that resource. At the same time I think that the current design of Strength / Dexterity Strikes and Class DC oriented pseudo spells is pretty good but needs more juice. My only other feedback, besides this big thing, is that I think it should get Medium armor to better support strength builds so they can get by with 12-14 dex, rather than needing 16 for full AC.
So I guess that leaves me with a preference for adding focus point amps or a Focus Point / non divide to the existing impulses to make them more powerful, and maybe adding an option to intensify strike damage for one as well. I'd like Burn, but I think it should be a repeatable version of Strain Mind. With a design like this, particularly with the psychic's recharge mechanics (two point recharge), you can bust out some powerful moves that justify a better damage scaling since they're limited, you're rewarded for CON because you have extra hit points to leverage into additional points, and I feel like it conveys the fantasy of not running out because of the 'Burn' feat (that not everyone is going to want, so it being a feat is apropo) and the fact that 10 minute focus recharges means you get to use them in basically every fight-- I think that's a good compromise between 'all day every day' and 'resources you need to manage' basically just things that you need to sit for quick 10 minute breather before you can do it again, or you can 'overheat' yourself with burn by drawing more to keep spamming your encounter powers.
But the keyest takeaway: we need more juice, if we need to manage a resource to get more juice, then so be it, I just hope its focus points because that's a good, solid mechanic that's already built for being able to do something almost every fight, no need to reinvent the wheel here.
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It's less about a matter of landing the hit, because as you pointed out lv18 has class DC = spell DC, and more about the fact that Kineticist impulses are not balanced like spells, but like martials.
Spells, specifically area spells with basic saves, tend to deal about 3.5 damage per level and act on saving throws vs DCs. A high level martial using two actions to Strike will deal about 2.2 damage per level before damage amplifiers (such as rage, finishers, or sneak attack) and act on strike vs AC.
Kineticist impulses roll between 1.9 and 2.5 damage per level, and act on saves vs spell DC. It's basically the wrong track, and closer to casting spells of 4 levels below your cap. I get that it's a matter of unlimited resources, but if there is one thing we learned from Psychic is that balancing on the whole day rather than a few turns does not feel good at all.
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It's less about a matter of landing the hit, because as you pointed out lv18 has class DC = spell DC, and more about the fact that Kineticist impulses are not balanced like spells, but like martials.
Spells, specifically area spells with basic saves, tend to deal about 3.5 damage per level and act on saving throws vs DCs. A high level martial using two actions to Strike will deal about 2.2 damage per level before damage amplifiers (such as rage, finishers, or sneak attack) and act on strike vs AC.
Kineticist impulses roll between 1.9 and 2.5 damage per level, and act on saves vs spell DC. It's basically the wrong track, and closer to casting spells of 4 levels below your cap. I get that it's a matter of unlimited resources, but if there is one thing we learned from Psychic is that balancing on the whole day rather than a few turns does not feel good at all.
Yeah, it's not an accuracy problem, it's a payoff-when-you-do-hit problem.
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[talky-man do mathy stuff]Yeah, it's not an accuracy problem, it's a payoff-when-you-do-hit problem.
I can see why they shouldn't be balanced like top-tier spells, and that's fine, they're still at-will abilities, but between the increased action cost of overflow/gather and the general principle of turn output, I'd expect at least something close.
Then again, I haven't even started talking about the utility features.
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I don't think it's unreasonable to say that if you spend 3 actions you should get 50% more damage.
Very unreasonable. Actions have different values - the corresponding amplification for adding a third action would be about +15%. Most 1-action spells are overtuned in this matter, but three-action activities tend to follow the maths.
The issue isn't that impulses aren't worth their third action - it's that they're not worth their second.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I hope they become focus spells
Ive mentioned before but i would prefer a check ala the inventor, to sort of simulate the aspect of straining to channel more power. the backfire chance of deviant abilities in dark archive is a good model of how i think it could work
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I personally think the big issue is that Kineticist scales too linearly. A fighter at level 6 and a fighter at level 16 are not only different in the accuracy they have and the damage they deal per hit, but also in how powerful their actions are (Strike and trip vs Knockdown vs Improved Knowdown for example). Same happens with spells, it is rare that a heightened damaging spell can compete with on level damaging spells (compare a level 3 Burning hands with a Fireball, or a level 6 Fireball with Chain Lightning).
Meanwhile, Kineticist barely gets to do anything more powerful with their base tools until the very, very end of the level spectrum. Damage may be low, for sure, but that their way to do damage is functionally the same at level 1 and at level 15 is worse than the low damage they have. The only actual upgrade they get in this regard are their level 10 feats. Not enough.
I had a level 14 encounter against a level 18 magma dragon. Kineticist felt like dead weight there, not only because the damage was absurdly low, but because they barely got to do anything at all during their turns. How I am supposed to be happy expending all my actions at level 14 to do the same Aerial Boomerang I've been using for the last 13 levels?
I think that Kineticist at low levels is fine as it is if you add some form of CON to damage, but as you level the action economy needs to improve drastically with the current design if they want the class to feel useful at all (the effects of some abilities as well, feats like Tremor staying as a 5ft burst feels like a bad joke).
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No focus spells. If people want to use focus make it a class archetype and rebalance that to use focus spells.
Overflow itself is already optional. So not hard to do
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I hope they become focus spellsI hope nothing in kineticist deals with focus spells. I hate them. When everything has focus spells, it creates lazy design choices.
I don't care that you hate them
I'd still prefer them as it solves pretty much all the issues aside from you yourself not liking them
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I hope they become focus spellsI hope nothing in kineticist deals with focus spells. I hate them. When everything has focus spells, it creates lazy design choices.I don't care that you hate them
I'd still prefer them as it solves pretty much all the issues aside from you yourself not liking them
Yep and as a bonus it has nothing to do with burn and plays nice with other multiclasses/archetypes that also use focus. ;)
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Yep and as a bonus it has nothing to do with burn and plays nice with other multiclasses/archetypes that also use focus. ;)I hope they become focus spellsI hope nothing in kineticist deals with focus spells. I hate them. When everything has focus spells, it creates lazy design choices.I don't care that you hate them
I'd still prefer them as it solves pretty much all the issues aside from you yourself not liking them
It would be a much better fit in the system itself yes.
But then I generally really like focus spells in general.
Either way it would give excuse to up the power of the spell like abilities. And since most people here who seem to argue that at will all day powers are meaningless because you only average x number of rounds an encounter... It only serves to buff your playstyle and table experience.
I see no downsides other than those that wanted both powers as strong as focus spells but also never to run out of gas in a fight m
One downside of focus spells I would see (as somebody who generally likes the concept of focus spells) is that if they're like most existing focus spells, they would have to be one bespoke ability (or a handful) per element such that when the Kineticist wanted to reach for their over-the-top power, it would always come down to firing off one or two of the same ability. This wouldn't to me feel like an, "elemental character reaches deeper, spends some resource, and unleashes a mighty blast over and above their standard" but more like an, "elemental character falls back on their one stronger blasting attack they've presumably had since level 1, which has always had the same particular set of effects and might either just be a load of elemental damage or come with a trip attack".
On the other hand, a focus spell which might be more worth the page count, might be an all-element spell which perhaps for 1-action charges up the damage of the next impulse used, and perhaps acts as a free Gather Power. This would allow kineticists the choice how to spend their power-boost resource, so the ability itself wouldn't get stale, while still serving the job of a once-per-fight resource.
Granted a focus spell like this would on its own be very unglamorous, but the spell itself isn't the focus (heh), it's just the dramatic charge up sequence before a big blast gets unleashed.
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I'll be honest, I don't have a lot of patience for the "focus spells are lazy" argument, because they're a tool, like spell slots or attack rolls, they're built into the basic structure of the game-- I think they should be thought of in an entirely utility oriented way, where the determining factor of whether they're there is "resource that we want to be limited, but come back after a short breather" and they're really nice because once a player learns what they are how they work, they can use a focus spell from any class and how the class interacts with the points and what the powers do lend them definition, they also coexist with existing options, like Gnomish and familiar focus recharge-- which is a GOOD thing.
In a case like this, using them to draw out more power then we're comfortable being completely at-will without going to daily resources (and not spell slots since elemental blasting with spell slots is already super well supported)-- we have a mechanic for that, in fact the most appropriate mechanic, the amps, have only been used once in the game so far.
I love Focus Spells, and would be open to them on the Kineticist (and advocated so before the playtest). But not to solve this problem (and not a flood of them either!). If there's such a gap which requires the Focus Spells to solve, then it'd also make them and the 12th/18th level feats to recharge one's Focus Points mandatory. And building those latter feats into the chassis would requiring overhauling what seems a popular framework. It'd be a step backward in the development cycle IMO.
So if Paizo doesn't have a mathed-out ability/-ies for single targets waiting in the wings, what might be solutions? And would they be mandatory enough to be in the chassis, or a set of feat options to choose from?
Brainstorming...
-Persistent damage seems like a good damage boost that can't go too overboard, yet would be nice against bosses w/ their tough defenses. This could also be some echoing effect, like normal damage on a hit then half damage the next round. (As a bonus, the amount of this damage could be linked to Con.)
-Debuffs are extra effective on tougher targets, especially single ones taking on a whole party. The class has some already, but maybe add ones that are harder for enemies to avoid, i.e. Debilitating Shot.
-A circumstance bonus to attack and/or DC seems like a good boost vs. single targets, much like Incredible Aim. It seems a shame Kineticists seem to have to resort to DCs to get that half-damage on a Success and leave their Attack rolls behind (sometimes).
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One downside of focus spells I would see (as somebody who generally likes the concept of focus spells) is that if they're like most existing focus spells, they would have to be one bespoke ability (or a handful) per element such that when the Kineticist wanted to reach for their over-the-top power, it would always come down to firing off one or two of the same ability. This wouldn't to me feel like an, "elemental character reaches deeper, spends some resource, and unleashes a mighty blast over and above their standard" but more like an, "elemental character falls back on their one stronger blasting attack they've presumably had since level 1, which has always had the same particular set of effects and might either just be a load of elemental damage or come with a trip attack".
On the other hand, a focus spell which might be more worth the page count, might be an all-element spell which perhaps for 1-action charges up the damage of the next impulse used, and perhaps acts as a free Gather Power. This would allow kineticists the choice how to spend their power-boost resource, so the ability itself wouldn't get stale, while still serving the job of a once-per-fight resource.
Granted a focus spell like this would on its own be very unglamorous, but the spell itself isn't the focus (heh), it's just the dramatic charge up sequence before a big blast gets unleashed.
Those ideas would be cool, they could also just add amps to existing disciplines, so you could take something like Tidal Hands, and there's an amp line increasing its power for a focus point, but applied to all/most/some of them. Hell, you could even just bake a class feature in that says you can spend a point on any damage dealing impulse to add +1 or +2 to your level for the purposes of calculating damage, and the existing heightens on them would take care of it by adding an extra die or two.
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we have a mechanic for that, in fact the most appropriate mechanic, the amps, have only been used once in the game so far.
That just seems like a bad direction to take the class. Like you said, Amps are already a thing. People who want to play a psychic can just go play a psychic.
Pushing into new territory is the major appeal of the kineticist for a lot of people.
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we have a mechanic for that, in fact the most appropriate mechanic, the amps, have only been used once in the game so far.That just seems like a bad direction to take the class. Like you said, Amps are already a thing. People who want to play a psychic can just go play a psychic.
Pushing into new territory is the major appeal of the kineticist for a lot of people.
I mean, I hope we're not just going to use the amp mechanic once, prepared spell casting gets a bunch of classes, as does spontaneous casting. Besides Psychic has spell slots and the occult spell list, so itd be pretty different in that respect too. Plus I don't think anyone is really looking for 'pushing into new territory' from the kineticist, I think they're looking for 'elemental blasting' maybe a 'dedicated blaster' or an 'ATLA Bender Simulation.'
I kind of like the idea floated around here of gathering multiple charges but I would add to it and make the scaling of overflow abilities depend on how many charges you spent. I would also make overflow basically just say can spend charges instead of just losing all of them. Finally I would set a limit to the charges that uses level.
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I kind of like the idea floated around here of gathering multiple charges but I would add to it and make the scaling of overflow abilities depend on how many charges you spent. I would also make overflow basically just say can spend charges instead of just losing all of them. Finally I would set a limit to the charges that uses level.
yeah "gather elements" sounds like it should entail charging up, rather than "slightly different draw weapon"
I'd prefer having the playtest kineticist with numbers bumped slightly up (not too much better than a cantrip) over having a focus power class that's markedly stronger. The playtest mechanics we have are interesting and thematic, they just need a little polish
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I'd prefer having the playtest kineticist with numbers bumped slightly up (not too much better than a cantrip) over having a focus power class that's markedly stronger. The playtest mechanics we have are interesting and thematic, they just need a little polish
I still stand by the idea that they should make gathered elements a "two handed" """weapon""" and scale it accordingly both for blasts and impulses, if blasts where d6-d10, and base impulses where rolling d6-d8 or d8-d10 with the same cantrip scaling that would feel a lot meater without derailing into outside what is reasonable to be free, at level 20 that might be 20 more damage on average than a cantrip, but its nowhere close to being a focus or slot spell
-idle thoughts| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I really hope focus spells don't become a part of the class. They stripped nearly every mechanic of kineticist down to being able to do their thing as much as they want without spending resources - if even that is gone all we have left is an extremely loose concept.
Focus spells are awesome on some classes, hell my elemental sorc has a ton of fun elemental blasting. But I think focus spells will make the kineticist lose what makes them special and take power budget out of the at will powers and put it into the focus spells.
There are ways to increase power and keep at will. Maybe cooldowns or something, I dunno, but I think paizo can find a way.
Or maybe have the option to gather power in one or both hands. Both hands being more powerful and one hand being more versatile.I'd prefer having the playtest kineticist with numbers bumped slightly up (not too much better than a cantrip) over having a focus power class that's markedly stronger. The playtest mechanics we have are interesting and thematic, they just need a little polishI still stand by the idea that they should make gathered elements a "two handed" """weapon""" and scale it accordingly both for blasts and impulses, if blasts where d6-d10, and base impulses where rolling d6-d8 or d8-d10 with the same cantrip scaling that would feel a lot meater without derailing into outside what is reasonable to be free, at level 20 that might be 20 more damage on average than a cantrip, but its nowhere close to being a focus or slot spell
-idle thoughts
Versatile, or one-handed could give a defensive bonus, much like one-handed fighters can get with a parry/Stance/Raise Shield.
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If the price we have to pay for everything being at will is those things being very low power, having bad action economy, or both, I'd rather have focus points as well. Or any other resource, really.
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If the price we have to pay for everything being at will is those things being very low power, having bad action economy, or both, I'd rather have focus points as well. Or any other resource, really.
Or instead of focus infusions literally any other resource and infusions.
Seriously, it doesn't hurt the game if Kineticist is one of 3 classes to have a unique pool of resources.
As long as it's not burn/drain or 4+ actions for it, I'm fine with it. That said, I'd rather it be focus as that mixes well with other things as opposed to something new that makes it so it's much harder to multiclass/archetype with it. I don't think we need to find a different way JUST for the sake of making it different.
Yeah, lets not rehash the burn talk we both know we won't meet eye to eye on that one.
You brought it up in a roundabout way when you were talking about "a unique pool of resources". With how vocal you've been about burn, it's not a leap of logic to infer you mean burn.
But as for using focus points, its not a matter of making it different for the sake of being different. Its a matter of focus points always being based on mental stats, when kineticist should be based on Con.
So? I fail to see how it's relevant. IMO, THAT sounds like something unique with a resource pool.
So I would rather that they create a unique mechanic to replace burn than for them to just tag in focus points.
Sure, but it have to be better than focus or what's the point other than unique to be ubique. I'm fine with a non-focus resource as long as it's worth the time of learning/using it.
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I prefer a multi charge system with some of the low level feats being "do a thing" gain a charge. Then have Impulse feats be a place to dump charges for an effect. It would give a balance between single target stuff, utility, and AoE things. Would also feel like you are opening your gatte wider and wider until you simply let it flow into your opponent to (hopefully) devastating effect.
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I prefer a multi charge system with some of the low level feats being "do a thing" gain a charge. Then have Impulse feats be a place to dump charges for an effect. It would give a balance between single target stuff, utility, and AoE things. Would also feel like you are opening your gatte wider and wider until you simply let it flow into your opponent to (hopefully) devastating effect.
thats probobly a bit too complecated to be realistically implement
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I don't think focus spells have to be mental stats, spells period have been mental statted, I think it's ok if kineticist uses con for theirs-- It's just going to be class dc anyway if they go that route.
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Someone in one of these threads, don't remember who or which thread sadly, had the multi charge idea as well. With Gather Power gathering charges of element equal to Con mod, and then Overflow Impulses would list how many charges they used, or buffs they get based off the number of charges expended when using them.
If we needed a resource that sounds like a reasonable take. Though admittedly I also like the idea floated in another thread about variable action costs for Impulses, possibly in place of Overflow.