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We finished up or level 6 playtest adventure stress test last night. I ran my players through a stress test gauntlet of 500 Xp worth of encounters without even a single 10 minute break. Many of the encounters erupting on to each other as enemies fled or called in reinforcements the boss was a level 8 demonologist who we had to stop before they fought, and probably would have TPK’d against, but not if I had been kind enough to give them even one full 10 minute break after fighting a slew of demons (babau, Brimorak, and dretch fodder), level 5 elementals of all types scattered liberally through a massive tower complex, and Drow priests.
My players party was a thaumaturge, a Flurry Ranger, and 2 Kineticists.
Stone shield was absolutely amazing in play as the fire/earth kineticist must have absorbed 150 hp and made the lesser enemies miss over and over again in what was essentially a 30 to 40 round encounter. The one concession I may have made to make that possible was letting the kineticist extract fire from the Brimoraks, since their blood boils and everything they do is fire. Player would often (every two or 3 rounds), extract element, cycle blast to earth and the shield raise while focusing on fighting a Babau.
I would like to see the ability to extract element made a little more clear in the Rage of Elements book, but I think any action booster that lets kineticist do a thing and extract an element is going to be very, very popular and make Kineticists happy to use overflow abilities.
Also, melee damage on Kineticists is very good. Both my Kineticists were STR Kineticists (although one had a 16 dex and the other 18 at level 6), but did the most damage when surrounded by enemies up close, which happened a lot in this encounter. Barrage blast in melee was an absolute minion sweeper. Sweep and forceful are cool traits for blasts.
Thaumaturge and Kineticists are also a brutal combo against enemies with a weakness to something like water or fire.
Even though we had to end the encounter before the big fight that certainly would have killed the whole party, the players had a ton of fun with the encounters and party build. The setting was a little over the top with 50 ft cliffs over deep water and narrow slick planks connecting them, and both the ranger and Thaumaturge ran into issues with mobility and being stuck until a kineticist helped make a path more accessible, usually while having to fight off teleporting demons.
Overall, they are very excited about the rage of elements book and the design space opened up by the class. Extracting elements and talking down the water elementals in the pool below were the two activities that miserly felt like something completely new and different, although the expanded mobility and damage mitigation of the Kineticists in tandem worked very well. It just felt more like how the party worked together previously with a shield champion.
If Kineticists could use extract element on terrain to cause a minor secondary effect such as difficult terrain or minor damage in a line between the character and the source of their extraction I think it would feel more satisfying to gather.
That is a neat idea.