In all the new core book hullabaloo, I feel that this awesome new class coming out in around two and a half months may not be getting the excitement it deserves! Many aspects of it have been discussed to death, to be fair, in the rage of elements area, product page for the book, discord, reddit, etc. But paizocon is just a couple weeks away!
Kineticist is the class that got me interested in pathfinder and ttrpgs in general so I am very biased, but it seems to me that the class might have the biggest amount of changes from playtest to full release. From the retrospective it seems that nearly every aspect of it may be changing, from number tweaking on damage and action cost to fundamental changes like gather element and elemental blast. Not to mention two whole new elements to add to the mix.
As such, I wanted to make a post in general discussion for better visibility (hope that's okay) about what questions people have for the devs when they talk about the class! I believe we get an hour of rage of elements discussion on Friday, may 27th. Of course this thread is not made by a dev or anything, no guarantee that it will be seen, but who knows. With enough discussion it might get some attention.
So, what are your burning kineticist questions?
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The big one for me is unchanged from the playtest: can I put Cold on my basic Elemental Blasts?
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I honestly want to know what else is in the Rage of Elements book aside from Kineticist.
We know we're getting a subclass for Barbarians, and a class archetype for Druids. Aside from that, some details of all the elemental planes, and likely a bunch of new monsters and spells, we got zero intel of what's in the book. Who else is getting options? What new archetypes are in here? What magic items?
There's so much to figure out, and I got a lot of questions to ask over at PaizoCon.
I honestly want to know what else is in the Rage of Elements book aside from Kineticist.
We know we're getting a subclass for Barbarians, and a class archetype for Druids. Aside from that, some details of all the elemental planes, and likely a bunch of new monsters and spells, we got zero intel of what's in the book. Who else is getting options? What new archetypes are in here? What magic items?
There's so much to figure out, and I got a lot of questions to ask over at PaizoCon.
From what I know - were getting the two new geniekin, write ups on elemental planes (bigger ones for metal and wood), write ups on elemental deities, 4 pages of magic items per element, 4 pages of spells per element, a mini bestiary of elemental creatures, kineticist, and some class options (only ones spoiled thus far are elemental barb and metal druid, if I remember correctly).
So this class from what I’ve heard doesn’t have any spellcasting
So do you choose different elements for attacks, or does it have something similar to spell casting but not exactly spellcasting kind of like alchemists thing?
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First, questions on behalf of others. It won't really affect the characters that I'll want to build, so much, but it's things that I want for the health of the community, and because there's a lot of other people who really want this stuff.
- Will it be possible (if we pick our feats very carefully) to pick a damage type (like cold/acid/lightning) and build a character who can act like that is their element?
Or, to put it another way, if my daughter tells me she wants to play Elsa, will I be able to build her a character that can mostly do that?
- Is Elemental Weapon going to be viable as a primary attack type? Is it going to require investment in strength/dex? If it does require investment in stre/dex, is it going to be possible to build viable kineticists that avoid DC-based attacks and dump con to a degree?
- Will it be possible to play a character who is primarily focused on dealing damage via elemental blasting at range? I don't even care if it's "Elemental Barbarian" or "Kineticist with the right feats". I just want to knwo if it's possible.
Now, for the ones about me.
- This next one might actually be a remastered core question, technically, but... will goblins be able to apply Burn It to fire kineticist abilities? Please?
- I'd love to see what some of those wood kineticist heal abilities look like.
- We saw one piece of kineticist gear that was pretty much based on a 1/day effect. Are we going to see any kineticist gear that isn't? What kind of non-daily kineticist gear might we expect to see?
- They said that they were going to have the gather action have other things it could also do at the same time (sort of like gunslinger reloads, I guess). I'm quite curious on how those ended up.
- Auras! Oh my goodness, auras. Will there be any possible way to have more than one running at a time? Will there be any way to devote more character resources to making your aura effects more awesome or powerful beyond just "buy one, and then turn it on"?
- What's the archetype going to look like? In particular, is "dip kineticist for some magical utility" going to be a thing that makes any sort of sense for martial builds? If I want to have my paladin sprout an elemental aura, how viable is that as an option?
Yes. Yes, I have questions.
I only know kineticist deals with elements
Could someone give me an overview of what the class is about? Is it martial like thaumaturge or no? What are the abilities about? Etc
So this class from what I’ve heard doesn’t have any spellcasting
So do you choose different elements for attacks, or does it have something similar to spell casting but not exactly spellcasting kind of like alchemists thing?
Kineticists have a list of powers. It starts out at 0. You gain individual powers by spending feats, or tokens of roughly equivalent value (you're given enough tokens at level 1 to have a few powers to work with). Every power you have, you can use as many times as you like. Each power has its own element.
Also worth noting that when you start out, the set of elements you can choose from is pretty small (1 or 2) and you can unlock moen later if you want, but might not want to.
It seems plausible that there will be feats that let you change the elemental typing of at least some of your powers, but this is not confirmed one way or the other.
So, basically, a Kineticist uses magical effect, but not spells. They have a pretty constrained list of powers to use (growing slowly as they level) but they can use each of those powers as many times as they like, as long as they're willing to pony up the actions to make it happen.
I only know kineticist deals with elements
Could someone give me an overview of what the class is about? Is it martial like thaumaturge or no? What are the abilities about? Etc
The kineticist is a martial in a sense. Like the thaumaturge it has magical abilities which are not spells. In this case they are directly elemental. If you go to the rage of elements playtest section of this forum you should be able to find the playtest version of the kineticist and look at, and download, the PDF to see what the general shape of what the class might be. Obviously the final version will be different, but it'll give you an idea
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I'm curious if Flexible Blast survived intact [can add finesse to melee blasts and brutal to ranged blasts].
I'm curious if Flexible Blast survived intact [can add finesse to melee blasts and brutal to ranged blasts].
Given that blasts are now con-based (according to our best available info), I don't see how it could.
So this class from what I’ve heard doesn’t have any spellcasting
So do you choose different elements for attacks, or does it have something similar to spell casting but not exactly spellcasting kind of like alchemists thing?
Kineticists have a list of powers. It starts out at 0. You gain individual powers by spending feats, or tokens of roughly equivalent value (you're given enough tokens at level 1 to have a few powers to work with). Every power you have, you can use as many times as you like. Each power has its own element.
Also worth noting that when you start out, the set of elements you can choose from is pretty small (1 or 2) and you can unlock moen later if you want, but might not want to.
It seems plausible that there will be feats that let you change the elemental typing of at least some of your powers, but this is not confirmed one way or the other.
So, basically, a Kineticist uses magical effect, but not spells. They have a pretty constrained list of powers to use (growing slowly as they level) but they can use each of those powers as many times as they like, as long as they're willing to pony up the actions to make it happen.
Yet another unique class for PF that doesn’t rely on spellcasting to be unique. Paizo W WoTC L
I’m super excited, this class sounds super cool!!!!!!
Imagine a badass element wielding kineticist dragon (battlezoo) character, that would be fun
Though I do have a question
Is it focused on solely one element or can you be universal and build around wielding different elements?
Is it focused on solely one element or can you be universal and build around wielding different elements?
The playtest had you choose at chargen between "one and only one element", "two elements", or "all the elements" with each subclass getting different stuff.
Even if the eventual class doesn't work exactly like that, it's clearly not in the premise of the class to limit you to only one thing, if that's what you want. The PF1 version of the class (which was very mathy in a way that PF2 isn't) gave you one element at level 1, another one at 7, and a third one at 15th.
I'm curious if Flexible Blast survived intact [can add finesse to melee blasts and brutal to ranged blasts].Given that blasts are now con-based (according to our best available info), I don't see how it could.
I'd actually forgotten the Kineticist Playtest Analysis said it would "act more like an attack cantrip": What I recalled was "We intend to move any “use your element as a weapon” options into the Elemental Weapon feat so that still remains as an option—especially for melee kineticists. The final form of the Elemental Blast is still to be decided, since it relies on a lot of other moving parts, but we intend to keep it as a versatile option with some variety between the elements."
Definitely hope for cold/electric blasts at least. We do also know there will a different blast for each elemental duo (ie mud blast for earth/water kineticist, that specific one isn't confirmed but that's the idea) but I hope the only way to get a cold blast isn't to be an air/water kineticist for example.
I get the impression that kinetic blasts are going to scale off of con in both damage and attack, and both blasts and impulses will use class DC (or class DC -10 for attacks). If so I very much hope that we get up to legendary class DC scaling, even if it means going down to caster level martial abilities (hopefully at least keep master armor proficiency). If blasts change to not be a normal strike, it would be a little silly for the classes proficiency budget, for lack of a better term, to be spent on being better at strikes when nothing in your kit is designed to work with them except to conjure a weapon.
Is it focused on solely one element or can you be universal and build around wielding different elements?
As I said, the most recent information that I've seen says that you start with either one or two elements out of six (your choice) and then will have the option to add more elements later if you choose to. Single-element will presumably offer some sort of benefits of specialization.
My biggest questions are:
* How flexible are the options?
* Will I be able to highly customize blasts?
* Will abilities be open to multiple elements?And most importantly
* Will burn make a return?
Care to elaborate on the first two points? By highly customize blasts do you mean substance/form infusions of 1e or something else?
As for your third point, I'm all for it, especially if it saves page space and gets us more feats. I think there's a good chunk of abilities that any/multiple elements could use, like a generic tidal blasts or flight.
As far as balancing goes, looking back at the playtest and playset retrospective (especially the graphics of all the elements and what their strengths and weaknesses are), the thing that really stands out to me that I hope gets looked at is fire being good at damage. I'm pretty darned sure it's the worst of the four in terms of damage potential so yeah, I hope that gets corrected.
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And most importantly
* Will burn make a return?
“Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Seriously, that'd kill it for me... :P
Probably too niche for it to matter but I really want to know if they did anything for matching a thematic ancestry/heritage to an element. Like say if I went for a fire elemental theme and fitted it in with an elemental heritage (like say... ifrit..) that the overlapped fire resistance feels a little less bad. But it's probably too weird a thing to figure out, is already present in other places (ie draconic sorcerer claws) and at least it's not completely wasted like 5e's static advantage. But i'd still be curious if they considered it at all.
What, if anything, will be done to make up for the lag in skills. Since no skill keys off of CON, will there be a special skill (such as the Thaumaturge's Esoteric Lore) that will key off of CON.
I just want something I can be best at during skill challenges and out of combat RP.
AHHH yes that's my other burning question too! Skills! There's no CON skills so my biggest concern is they'll have nothing to shine with on skills, and skills are such a big chunk of the system it'll feel kinda bad.
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AHHH yes that's my other burning question too! Skills! There's no CON skills so my biggest concern is they'll have nothing to shine with on skills, and skills are such a big chunk of the system it'll feel kinda bad.What, if anything, will be done to make up for the lag in skills. Since no skill keys off of CON, will there be a special skill (such as the Thaumaturge's Esoteric Lore) that will key off of CON.
I just want something I can be best at during skill challenges and out of combat RP.
I'm okay if Kineticist plays second fiddle to someone on all their skills, so long as their utility ability really lets them do enough cool stuff outside combat. We'll have to see about that.
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I'm okay if Kineticist plays second fiddle to someone on all their skills, so long as their utility ability really lets them do enough cool stuff outside combat. We'll have to see about that.AHHH yes that's my other burning question too! Skills! There's no CON skills so my biggest concern is they'll have nothing to shine with on skills, and skills are such a big chunk of the system it'll feel kinda bad.What, if anything, will be done to make up for the lag in skills. Since no skill keys off of CON, will there be a special skill (such as the Thaumaturge's Esoteric Lore) that will key off of CON.
I just want something I can be best at during skill challenges and out of combat RP.
At risk of being a pessimist I'm sort of expecting to be underwhelmed. At least from what I remember of the playtest, most of the utility stuff were things that were really nice if you were playing with multiple elements as they had one option for each element, but effectively 1/4th effective if you wanted to focus on one. As my interest in largely with playing with one element, I don't know if what they give for a single element user will make up for it.
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There is this snippet from a Wargamer article with Logan Bonner;
*snip* But each element has a skill specialisation option you can choose, which is an element-specific add-on. And we also put in more alternate uses for some abilities that make it more interesting outside of combat. For example, there’s a wood impulse you can use outside of combat to make a cosy cabin spell. You can do that if you spend more time using the impulse. *Snip*
Not sure what skill specialization means, whether it's just being trained or something else. Interesting tidbit though
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There is this snippet from a Wargamer article with Logan Bonner;
*snip* But each element has a skill specialisation option you can choose, which is an element-specific add-on. And we also put in more alternate uses for some abilities that make it more interesting outside of combat. For example, there’s a wood impulse you can use outside of combat to make a cosy cabin spell. You can do that if you spend more time using the impulse. *Snip*
Not sure what skill specialization means, whether it's just being trained or something else. Interesting tidbit though
Really hope the skill specialization isn't just trained. Seems odd to point it out of it is as that is pretty common among classes. Maybe 1 skill that uses CON as its ability? Maybe one skill that is expert/master/legendary a bit faster? A skill that gets some additional uses?
You have piqued my interest.
Getting to use con with a skill would be really cool, but yeah not going to count chickens just yet
Really hope the skill specialization isn't just trained. Seems odd to point it out of it is as that is pretty common among classes. Maybe 1 skill that uses CON as its ability? Maybe one skill that is expert/master/legendary a bit faster? A skill that gets some additional uses?
You have piqued my interest.
Ya I remember in our playtest out of combat...anything seemed to be a pretty big issue even at level 10. I wonder if they made CON your accuracy stat with your blasts you would be freed up to boost another ability score to help with out of combat contributions.
If we do end up getting a CON based skill I really hope it ends up being nature. As-is the class has very little reason to invest in wisdom/nature beyond what anyone else would, despite being pushed flavorfully to resolve problems regarding the elements (which would require high nature prof).
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That's like totally your opinion man... :PAnd most importantly
* Will burn make a return?
“Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Seriously, that'd kill it for me... :P
*slow clap* Was it when I said "for me" that clued you in? :P
That line (your opinion thing) was meant as a joke.*slow clap* Was it when I said "for me" that clued you in? :PThat's like totally your opinion man... :PAnd most importantly
* Will burn make a return?
“Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Seriously, that'd kill it for me... :P
Swing and a miss?
My only question would be "what does this class excel at" in the sense of what should I expect to be good at when playing the class. The playtest wanted to be a support character which didn't use spells and spell slots for the spell-like effects and as such had low damage, but the 1e class was trying to be a blaster, a damage dealer. I want to know if this class is meant to be great at doing damage or at being a support. I just want my expectations tempered for the release
For those who may not have seen the Playtest Analysis post, or would simply like to review what we know about the class already, Here's a clicky
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I missed the Part about the blasts being more like cantrips
I would really live to keep them as unarmed attacks for a Brunch of reasons
And 'caster Martial Prophiciency' would be a total dealbreaker for me
A few of the Posts here do really dampen my hopes
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My two biggest questions are:
1 - How will their accuracy progression scale, exactly? Blasts will use Con and be "more like cantrips", but will they follow the same 7/15/19 progression with no items as spell attacks? That would be pretty disappointing, given that a big chunk of the community thinks spell attack accuracy is NOT okay. And I really hope they get boosted to Legendary Class DC, cause even full casters with full progression can struggle with targeting the super high saves monsters tend to have, let alone a 9/17 class that has a hard time targeting one of the three saves (Will).
2 - How is Paizo looking to achieve a balance between Kineticist and Spellcasters? With everything on Kineticist being at-will, it's worrying that they might pay such a high tax for it that they're just "spellcasters, but worse" on short adventuring days.
My two biggest questions are:
1 - How will their accuracy progression scale, exactly? Blasts will use Con and be "more like cantrips", but will they follow the same 7/15/19 progression with no items as spell attacks? That would be pretty disappointing, given that a big chunk of the community thinks spell attack accuracy is NOT okay. And I really hope they get boosted to Legendary Class DC, cause even full casters with full progression can struggle with targeting the super high saves monsters tend to have, let alone a 9/17 class that has a hard time targeting one of the three saves (Will).
2 - How is Paizo looking to achieve a balance between Kineticist and Spellcasters? With everything on Kineticist being at-will, it's worrying that they might pay such a high tax for it that they're just "spellcasters, but worse" on short adventuring days.
Apparently according to the link above their spell-like effects should be better than spells because they have fewer of these abilities. Such as how their fly ability was just simply better than the fly spell. Apparently this was intended and will remain
I missed the Part about the blasts being more like cantrips
I would really live to keep them as unarmed attacks for a Brunch of reasonsAnd 'caster Martial Prophiciency' would be a total dealbreaker for me
A few of the Posts here do really dampen my hopes
I also liked them being ranged unarmed attacks. There was design space to do cool things by either taking this as a dedication or the magus. I already was trying to make a magus that uses the laser beams of the automaton
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Apparently according to the link above their spell-like effects should be better than spells because they have fewer of these abilities. Such as how their fly ability was just simply better than the fly spell. Apparently this was intended and will remain
To me it looks like utility wise, some impulses are stronger than an equivalent spell in some ways. Stone shield is better than the shield spell in some ways, wings of air has some benefits over the fly spell, drowning sphere has benefits over aqueous orb. They cost more actions because of gather element/being overflow for the most part, but being able to do some of the wall spells over and over is potentially really strong.
Where Dmerceless is coming from, I believe, is more on the damage numbers side of things. I share the same worry. There's few impulses in the playtest that compare well to a blasting spell of equivalent level, especially if you take into account how many actions each impulse eats up. So yeah, it's nice to hear from the retrospective that some impulses will be stronger than their spell counterpart, but it remains to be seen on any non utility impulses.
And it is tricky, for sure. Blaster casters already struggle with doing a lot of damage compared to a martial. Casters pull ahead when they get a chance to damage a lot of enemies at once or other more specific scenarios, but they can only do that so many times per day. Will kineticist do more damage, making people complain more about casters and how weak they are in the damage department? Or will kineticist do less damage, and then casters come out on top since they can do more damage and have a ton of spells for utility on top of that? As cool as the at will nature of kineticist is (and I don't mean to undersell it, it's the main reason I'm excited for the class), it has a lot less value if your party has a caster in it. A group needs to take breaks as often as their casters need anyway, even if their fighter/rogue/etc can keep going.
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Will SOME FORM of Burn return, at least as an optional Feat or chain of Feats?
I know the majority either don't care about Burn or actively dislike how it functioned in PF1 but that was one of my personal favorite things about them so I'd be pleased if I saw at least something along those lines, if not mechanically, in terms of flavor exchanging your own physical energies and energy to empower your abilities.
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How have you ensured that the kineticist will play fluidly within the 3-action economy? Will we see a substantial change from the very underwhelming effect most impulses had during the playtest?
And one that was asked earlier - will my martial character be able to reasonably pick up some cool but limited tricks via the multiclass feats? Even when I don't have a free hand?
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How have you ensured that the kineticist will play fluidly within the 3-action economy? Will we see a substantial change from the very underwhelming effect most impulses had during the playtest?
Also very curious about this. We've been teased with gather element possibly going away and being replaced by having your aura up instead (which doesn't seem too different to me? Maybe it will cut down on actions somehow or give you a bigger benefit than simply having your element on hand). Overflow impulses are supposedly being limited to only very powerful impulses, and lesser impulses will lose the overflow trait. And it sounds like damage will get boosted across the board.
But I would love specifics, for sure.