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The Elemental Weapon Feat would make the gathered element into a weapon (say a longsword) and if you took that feat, then you could make melee attacks with it without provoking. I think this is similar to the PF1E version of Kinetic Blade. The gathering of the element would provoke, but once gathered, you could move into melee range and use a Strike action with an air/earth/fire/water shaped longsword doing the longsword weapon damage of 1d8 but instead of slashing damage the damage type would match your elemental blast damage type (based on Table 1-2). If you had handwraps of mighty fists with a Striking Rune, it would increase the damage dice based on the level of the Rune.
Using a Strike action with an Elemental Weapon wouldn't expend the gathered element, so you could continue to make Strike attacks with it until you decided to use some other Impulse action with the Overflow trait. The Elemental Blast action doesn't have the Overflow trait, so if the enemy moves out of melee range, you could blast it with a ranged Strike and still maintain your Elemental Weapon.
Fighting Golems is one reason to take the Universal Gate - allowing you access to different elements. Based on the Golem's Antimagic line, each Golem can be Harmed by one damage type. For example, Clay/Fossil Golems are harmed by cold or water and slowed by earth. A Flesh Golem is harmed by fire and slowed by cold. The Iron Golem is harmed by acid and slowed by electricity. So only the fire/water elements can potentially damage a Golem using the standard Elemental Blast action unless a water based Elemental Blast that includes the water trait but does bludgeoning damage doesn't qualify as water damage.
Various Impulse abilities can cause cold or electricity damage, but the playtest doesn't show any way to cause acid damage. Perhaps the final sourcebook: Pathfinder Rage of Elements will include some acid damage capabilities using the elements of metal and/or wood.
Someone please correct me if my understanding is wrong.
If you form an elemental weapon you can only do blasts of the same type (other impulses are not limited that way).
This does have it's benefits either way. As it's usually an increase in damage, you could pick a ranged weapon on earth to have better range if you need it, etc.
Think of it as specializing your blast to a range rather than losing an attack mode, as you can just switch back if you need to for the same action cost as drawing a weapon but better because it kinda also stashes the weapon mode for free rather than you needing to drop a weapon to save the stashing action.
It can also be neat in some combinations. Like if your blast is agile and you aren't at risk of provoking you can swing with bigger weapon then agile melee blast. Or technically if your blast isn't agile you can do the same picking an agile weapon. Perhaps one with the parry trait for extra functionality?
Oo. Dwarf earth Kineticist that forms an earth Clan Dagger and has those Clan Dagger feats could be flavorful now that I think about it.
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Here is my idea for making Elemental Blasts directly as Strikes.
Initial Proficiencies: Attacks
Trained in simple weapons
Trained in blasts
Trained in unarmed attacks
ELEMENTAL BLAST
Your Gathered Element in your hand is a one-hand weapon called a blast in the elemental weapon group. It ceases to be a blast if no longer held by a kineticist. Blasts can make both melee attacks and ranged attacks and use your proficiency in blasts. They automatically create their own ammunition for the ranged attacks. They come in types determined by the element, such as air blasts and water blasts, and each type has its own critical specialization. The damage die, damage type, and traits for both melee and ranger of each elemental blast are listed in the table below.
Blasts do not fall in the unarmed, simple, martial, or advanced weapon categories. They are their own category.
TABLE: ELEMENTAL BLASTS
Air Blast Damage 1d4 slashing; Traits agile, air, versatile B; Melee Traits finesse, reach; Ranged Traits range increment 120 feet; Critical Specialization Stray gales move the target 5 feet in a direction of your choice. This is forced movement.
Earth Blast Damage 1d8 bludgeoning; Traits earth; Melee Traits forceful; Ranged Traits propulsive, range 20 feet; Critical Specialization The earth calls your target to it: if the target is on the ground, it is knocked prone; if it's not on the ground, it descends up to 20 feet (you choose the distance).
Fire Blast Damage 1d6 fire; Traits agile, fire; Melee Traits finesse; Ranged Traits range increment 60 feet; Critical Specialization Flames leap hungrily at your target, dealing 1d6 persistent fire damage. You gain an item bonus to theis fire damage equal to the blast's item bonus to attack rolls.
Water Blast Damage 1d8 bludgeoning; Traits water; Melee Traits sweep; Ranged Traits range 30 feet; Critical Specialization Water sprays violently, dealing splash damage equal to twice the number of weapon damage dice of the blast, of the same damage type, to all squares adjacent to a corner of your choice of the target's square or squares.
RUNE INSCRIPTION
A blast is a temporary weapon and real runes and talismans cannot be attached to it. When you Gather Elements while you hold an enchanted weapon in the other hand or wear Handwraps of Mighty Blows, you can copy the item bonus and link the runes from that item to your elemental blast. The elemental blast gains the effects of the runes if appropriate. Only the from a single weapon or handwraps can be linked. A shifting rune cannot change the weapon type.
Note: Also modify the Elemental Weapon feat to copy the item bonus and rune effects to the Elemental Weapon.
Modify all features and feats that use Elemental Blasts to make a Strike with an elemental blast instead.
I thought I would list the main issues with kinetic blasts as I could see them, this isn't about damage just some practicality issues I thought I could highlight in one place.
First they count as spells for all defensive features this means that golums are mostly immune entirely to kinetesist (apart from golums who effected by fire). The kinetsist doesn't at the moment have much alternatives to impulses driven offence and they have a lot elemental flexibility than the casters which help them counter golem.
Elemental blasts become purely Strikes instead of spells.
Second melee kinetic blasts provokes, its minor but there seems limited reason to massive disentive kinetists from going into melee.
The Strikes with elemental blasts become no longer impulses, so they lack the manipulate trait. Not everything associated with a kineticist has to be an impulse, especially when it is already elemental.
Third it doesn't benefit from haste because it's a separate action rather than a strike (even though it includes a strike).
Strikes with an elemental blast could be made as a quickened action or an attack of opportunity.
I think the easiest solution to all of these is to simply consider a gathered element a weapon (with the statistics ofa kinetic blast) that you can strike with.
As you can see, I agree completely. Furthermore, I disliked the way elemental blasts were treated as using unarmed attack items and proficiencies without being unarmed attacks. That kind of borderline half-and-half rule leads to rules conflicts due to fringe cases.
Some problems with Elemental Blasts as Strikes relate to CrypticSplicer's thread Elemental Blast would be stronger for Fighters than Kineticists. I have dodged that partly with the restriction, "Blasts do not fall in the unarmed, simple, martial, or advanced weapon categories. They are their own category," but I have a separate Constitution-based solution that I will put elsewhere.
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I'm not against any changes like that but I'm not sure those are really the 'main' issues with them. Problems with traits, damage typing, and overall output are going to come up way more frequently than golems or AOOs.
I'm not against any changes like that but I'm not sure those are really the 'main' issues with them. Problems with traits, damage typing, and overall output are going to come up way more frequently than golems or AOOs.
Problems with damage output can be resolved through Paizo's private playtesting to fine-tune the numbers. Fixing the wrong weapon traits and damage types could benefit from player input. Do you have suggestions?
Changing Elemental Blasts to Strikes with blasts is a fundamental change and would affect fine tuning, so I want Paizo to first consider the fundamental change.
Attacks of opportunity are a big problem with elemental blasts. Elemental blasts are impulses, and the definition of Impulse in the Key Terms sidebar on page 4 says that impulses have the concentration and manipulate traits. Thus, attacking with an elemental blast, even a melee blast, provokes an attack of opportunity. This would be a big disappointment to a melee kineticist going against an enemy with Attack of Opportunity, such as a Hobgoblin Soldier or Marilith.
Making an attack of opportunity with an elemental blast is a rare issue, since kineticists lack AoO. They would have to multiclass for it, but then not being able to combine AoO with their primary attack would be disappointing. Golems are also a rare issue.
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The more common concern with making them standard strikes would be tying into other attack types. Like, if blasts were unarmed attacks then you could MC into monk for Flurry of Blows on them, or other thigns of like nature. As soon as they open up the door to something like that, they *have* to balance them against every other weapon out there, at which point they suddenly get a lot more samey, while also requiring archetypes to use to full potential.
So... I admit that I'm not a huge fan of that.
At the same time, there really ought to be a way to throw around melee-range Elemental Blasts without taking opportunity attacks.
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The more common concern with making them standard strikes would be tying into other attack types. Like, if blasts were unarmed attacks then you could MC into monk for Flurry of Blows on them, or other thigns of like nature. As soon as they open up the door to something like that, they *have* to balance them against every other weapon out there, at which point they suddenly get a lot more samey, while also requiring archetypes to use to full potential.
So... I admit that I'm not a huge fan of that.
At the same time, there really ought to be a way to throw around melee-range Elemental Blasts without taking opportunity attacks.
The simplest way to do that is just remove the 'Manipulate' trait of the basic Blast. That's the outstanding issue, if that trait went away everything would be smooth sailing. You can still have it on the bigger Impulses, but the most fundamental version, it could honestly stand without that trait and nothing would happen other than not provoking AoO anymore (maybe being usable with bound hands..? but that's not the hugest of concerns imo)
The simplest way to do that is just remove the 'Manipulate' trait of the basic Blast. That's the outstanding issue, if that trait went away everything would be smooth sailing. You can still have it on the bigger Impulses, but the most fundamental version, it could honestly stand without that trait and nothing would happen other than not provoking AoO anymore (maybe being usable with bound hands..? but that's not the hugest of concerns imo)
Have Manipulate be part of Overflow, perhaps... and specifically nto on gathering
Earth kineticists pulling AOOs on their "raise a shield" equivalent is also not ideal.
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The more common concern with making them standard strikes would be tying into other attack types. Like, if blasts were unarmed attacks then you could MC into monk for Flurry of Blows on them, or other thigns of like nature. As soon as they open up the door to something like that, they *have* to balance them against every other weapon out there, at which point they suddenly get a lot more samey, while also requiring archetypes to use to full potential.
So... I admit that I'm not a huge fan of that.
At the same time, there really ought to be a way to throw around melee-range Elemental Blasts without taking opportunity attacks.
Right now, the only advantages I see for elemental blasts are:
(1) they deal as much damage as one-handed martial weapons or martial bows with similar weapon traits,(2) they can make both melee and ranged attacks without switching weapons,
(3) they have unlimited ammunition for ranged attacks,
(4) if disarmed, the kineticist can Gather Element again, and
(5) fire blast deals energy damage.
Have I missed something else about putting elemental blasts in the hands of other classes?
Elemental blasts are not unarmed strikes.
Though it's not actually an unarmed attack, an elemental blast uses your proficiency with unarmed attacks, gets any bonuses and penalties that apply to unarmed attacks, and uses weapon damage dice and weapon traits in the same way an unarmed attack does. The blast can benefit from runes granted by handwraps of mighty blows. If you have weapon specialization, the blast gains extra damage as if it were an unarmed attack.
Er, actually I hate rules written in that style of it's not an unarmed attack but benefits as if it were one. I can't tell which monk abilities would combine with elemental blasts. I would prefer giving blasts their own weapon proficiency, but that would require treating them as weapons like I did in comment #5.
I like temperans' idea minus the diadem part. Handwraps are fine.
The whole way they set up blasts is pretty obviously designed to prevent anyone from effectively using them with other game options, so there are plenty of ways to hamstring it. Making it the fake unarmed strike that it is closed off strike enhancers, flurry and all manner of striking feats while still leaving it accessible via (theoretical) archetype by tying it to unarmed proficiency. Not quite an elegant solution but a fairly complete one.
Unless they choose to allow blasts to work with those things in the final release, diadems or proficiency types aren't going to lock kineticists or kinetic archetype characters out of the options they want restricted. Not without kinetic weapon at least which is probably super intentional.
A couple things... what if Melee Elemental Blasts had the stipulation that the manipulate trait is removed (or probably cleaner remove it from Elemental Blasts as a main-line and have them add the Manipulate trait to the Elemental Blast to make it a ranged strike) This would make them comparable to other ranged attacks.
Also I don't mind the idea of having Elemental Blasts be their own category of attacks.. that actually seems to be the potentially cleanest way to have them work.
For Archetypes, have an 8th level archetype feat that gives them expert proficiency in blasts and a 6th level impulse. 14th level Archetype feat would grant Master proficiency in blasts and up to a 12th level impulse. Basically, advancing your proficiency in blasts would require investment, but that investment would still grant you some other flexible, and likely needed benefits and not limited to simply advancing your existing ability to updated expectations.
What if a Kineticist Diadem allowed you to apply the rune (up to a power level of the diadem) or set of runes coming from one wielded/worn weapon with which they are proficient to their Elemental Blasts. I.e. allow them to be able to leverage a rune applied to hand wraps, or some other simple weapon for instance. I'd suggest they cost less than a doubling ring. (alternately, you simply use the ABP rules for them otherwise to insure they can get their expected striking bonuses)
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The Low level AoE blasts are nothing like getting access to point blank shot, power attack, reactive shield, double slice.
Fighter feats all build on things other classes can do, giving the player options that fit into their builds. The dedication might feel weak for some classes, but the feats of a fighter are excellent and I see a lot of MC fighters for the feats.
Without getting access to kinetic blasts with the dedication, and having those blasts worth using, the entire MC of Kineticist is going to be trap option. Kineticists have to walk around with an element gathered in one hand, so if you want to be able to do anything as an MC Kineticist, you are going to have to be able to justify having a hand that can't be used for anything else.
Elemental weapon uses the blast proficiency currently, so even it would be useless for a fighter if the blasts were not something that scaled with their unarmed proficiency.
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I feel that all the theorizing about how a MC kineticist will work is premature. We really don't know how it's going to shape up. We don't even know how the final class will turn out, much less what the multiclass archetype will give.