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A Kineticist can only have one element gathered at a time, leaving the other hand free with nothing special to use it for, and Elemental Weapon is restricted to one-handed weapons only (we'll see if the two-hand trait being usable remains for the final release).
Only a few abilities mention using both hands (Tidal Hands, Hurtling Rockfall, Ferocious Cyclone and Fusion Blast) and half of them are only for flavor. That leaves me with the question: Why?
I feel like Kineticist should have more abilities that allow for the usage of both hands to either increase power (when doubling down on one element) or versatility (when wielding a different element in each hand).
Let me channel lightning with both hands. Let me smash people with a rock maul. Let me go full Todoroki and use ice and fire simultaneously.
As is, the heavy lean to one-handed usage feels like a pointless nerf with no thematic reason behind it.
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I don't really get it either. The class's inspiration is a "full body caster" that uses all of their limbs for somatic components.
Though it will be hilarious if the whole reason the class feels undertuned is because they have been fighting with one hand metaphorically tied behind their back this whole time, and then they unleash it for the final version.
The handed-ness issue of this class is complicated by the "martial" or "caster" debate.
In PF2 Casters by and large get away with ignoring it, because only Material components really interact with handedness (somatic components getting away with not requiring a free hand). This was something explored in the original PF2 playtest and players hated having handedness tied into caster spell power.
Martials in PF2 absolutely tie handedness into power of attacks.
So what are impulses with saving throws? It is awkward to have the handedness of impulses tied in arbitrarily to descriptive text that changes from impulse to impulse.
Players are just never going to read close enough to know whether carrying a shield means that they can't use Tidal hands, but they can use Tremor or Arial Boomerang. If handedness is a relevant balancing factor of what impulses do, they need to be more explicit about including that information in the feats.
But the playtest "kinda" gets away without worrying about it by generally not having options where it really matters. This breaks down with elemental weapon, but otherwise, we just know that the class was designed around always needing a free hand.
So, in summary to this PFedX talk, It would be cool for impulses to factor handedness into their design, but it would largely need to be an all or nothing thing if that is the decision, with very clear demarkations about the number of hands impulses use, and it will lead to a lot of debate when that spills over onto utility impulses.
It would also be fine for Kineticists to largely not care about handedness and for everything to just require that one hand be used for gathering and holding the element for simplicity sake, which is mostly where the mechanical design seems to be of the playtest, but it would be good for descriptive text to not confuse that question.
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I don't think having a hand free provides a huge amount of tactical advantage on this particular class. You don't have the action economy to mess with shields, and you can use overflows to cycle free hands for the occasional door or potion or whatever.
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A cool feat would be one that removes the need for a free hand at all.
I'm envisioning the Dragon of the West, chained in iron bonds melting the manacles off of his body immediately prior to his escape.
They might do a dual wield feat in the final release, but I think they left it one hand so that Dedicated didn't get entirely shafted.
They can have a 2handed weapon version; use both hands for bonus size dice!
They might do a dual wield feat in the final release, but I think they left it one hand so that Dedicated didn't get entirely shafted.They can have a 2handed weapon version; use both hands for bonus size dice!
I think that does tie back to why Kineticists are one-handed, it's because they do the damage of a "one-hand" build. I'm hoping that there's a two-handed Kineticist Paizo already has in mind, yet met the power curves well enough they didn't include in the playtest.
Part of the trouble seems to be that many one-handed builds either put a shield in the free hand, parry for defense, or have a damage bonus to make it competitive with a two-handed weapon (or a mix of those). The Kineticist instead gets versatility and utility, which are both hard to develop a rigorous metric for. Do all Kineticists need to be ranged, one-handed, and/or switch-hitters (and thus pay that price in damage)?
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Earth already gets a feat to scale up to a d12 one handed...
At level 18. I'm thinking more like level 4 or 6. Make it a stance where you are only able to make blasts; any other impulse drops you out of the stance and returns you to normal damage die, although you can always take an action to reenter the stance.
On a meta/balance level, this would be taking an action to Change Your Grip to improve your blasts damage.
Earth already gets a feat to scale up to a d12 one handed...At level 18. I'm thinking more like level 4 or 6. Make it a stance where you are only able to make blasts; any other impulse drops you out of the stance and returns you to normal damage die, although you can always take an action to reenter the stance.
On a meta/balance level, this would be taking an action to Change Your Grip to improve your blasts damage.
Better - overflows expend both but gain some sort of bonus for it.
The funny thing is that universal gate kineticists can already have four out at once (in a somewhat more limited way, with a level 10 feat, after taking two actions).
Some sort of "one element in each hand" feels like an appropriate feat for dual-element kineticists, really. In contrast, "I use both hands" feels like a stance feat for dedicated gate kineticists that takes an action to enter, gives some benefit, but you drop out of if you're ever holding anything other than your one gathered element.
In contrast, "I use both hands" feels like a stance feat for dedicated gate kineticists that takes an action to enter, gives some benefit, but you drop out of if you're ever holding anything other than your one gathered element.
I’m not sure if you replied to the wrong post, but to be clear, that was almost exactly what I was proposing.
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In contrast, "I use both hands" feels like a stance feat for dedicated gate kineticists that takes an action to enter, gives some benefit, but you drop out of if you're ever holding anything other than your one gathered element.I’m not sure if you replied to the wrong post, but to be clear, that was almost exactly what I was proposing.
No. I was proposing that it woudl work regardless of which impulses you used, and posibly give bonuses. The only way that my version woudl drop out of stance woudl be if it every used hands for anything other than gathered elements. I also proposed this specifically for the dedicated gate, with a distinct option proposed for the dual gate.