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It would, I'm saying that's not extra to melee (relative to ranged). If anything it's in favor of ranged, as the extra con option narrows the relative difference between the two proportionally.
One of the things I see here is the raw flexibility. Kineticists don't really care about range or melee in the same way as most folks. Your base hitroll and base damage are the same regardless. You don't provoke. The only difference is that if you happen to be in base-to-base contact, you get to add your strength damage and might get flanking. Now, at the build optimization level, you're going to want to think about how often you're likely to be in direct contact, and that might influence your investment in strength, but as a round-to-round thing, I expect that most kineticists are going to be shifting back and forth depending on whether they're already in base-to-base or whether they strongly want to be (or not want to be) for other reasons.
I also notice the other thing about blasts, which I'd thought was kind of bland before but am now seeing more subtleties in. Air and Fire sacrifice a die size for more range. So first of all, that suggests that those two elements are going to be more built for standing back and blasting, compared to the other available options. If you really like the idea of playing a backline kineticist, then you might want to consider going two-element and taking them both - air giving you more of the mobility hacks that let you stay disengaged, while fire gives you more of the ability to bring pain while you are. Alternately, takign one of those, and one of any other element, means that you have your 1d8 when you're close enough, and can seamlessly switch to 1d6 if and when you're further away. Flexibility isn't a bad thing.
I also keep noticing how the math on those junctions comes out so nicely. Basically, we get six things. At least one of those has to be an element. That means that over the course of your career you can specialize in an element (and get everything, plus an extra level 17 feat) or you can go dual element and get two junctions each or you can pick one kind of junction that you really like and get three of them. It's just really elegant, and I like it.
I suspect that the sweet spot for me is going to be dual element (auras and impulses) but I admit that going three-way for the three auras also has some appeal. The "I am fully immune to six different damage types" schtick is also pretty entertaining. I don't think I actually want it, but it's entertaining.
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It would, I'm saying that's not extra to melee (relative to ranged). If anything it's in favor of ranged, as the extra con option narrows the relative difference between the two proportionally.I don't think it gets extra damage in melee. It gets strength damage in melee, just like everything else.In melee you add your str. If you make a 2 action blast, you add your Con as a status bonus. Neither has qualifiers so I don't see why a melee 2 action blast wouldn't add both. 12:45 of his video has the text for the blast.
... Huh?
Melee literally adds more damage than ranged. How much? Your strength modifier.
Separately, you can add Con as well to both ranged and melee by spending an extra action. That is not being called extra to melee. People are only bringing it up to clarify that melee doesn't lose our on it.
I'm definitely misunderstanding something about what you're saying, though.
I'm pretty sure I've absorbed pretty much every bit of info out there on the class but in case I missed anything; do we know if the impulse trait also imparts the concentrate trait onto impulses? I know manipulate has been separated and is only on some impulses but if concentrate isn't a thing either that would be awesome. A lot of higher level opportunity attacks trigger on concentrate actions and it would leave barb able to use impulses while raging, etc.
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I think things like concentrate and manipulate will be explicitly listed in the future and mit be Hidden in other traits (If I understood it correctly)
Which is a Huge Bonus for readability
I think things like concentrate and manipulate will be explicitly listed in the future and mit be Hidden in other traits (If I understood it correctly)
Which is a Huge Bonus for readability
I hope so too. Would be a bummer if it was only changed for spells.
Yeah nonat's video said at 5th and every 4 levels after you can choose to expand your elements or boost one of the ones you've already got so if you start with two elements you can end at 6 at level 17Here's a question: you can either start with ONE or TWO elements...
Could you end up with more, such as getting all 6 by 20th level?
I get they were super cautious after how omni-gate was in the playtest, but it's kind of a bummer how late the dilettante build actually starts to come together.
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It will be interesting how the "I have every element" is going to compare powerwise to "good ol' rock, nothing beats rock."
But I think the amount of time it takes to get all six is sort of a reflection of "the entire story of TLA or LOK was- the Avatar goes on a journey to master all of the elements." Specifically, they didn't just start that way at level one and they were near full power when they got there.
Most of the benefits for sticking with one element are pretty great too. Resistances/immunities is potentially really strong, extra aura effect (the one we've seen) seems great, critical blast and skill junction seem a little less great but could be good in some builds. And a bonus kineticist feat (not just impulse, but actual kineticist feat) at the end could be huge too.
Yeah, feel free to specialize or not :)
Just... keep a manufactured weapon at hand if you ever encounter something resistant or immune to your Blast :p
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Yeah, feel free to specialize or not :)
Just... keep a manufactured weapon at hand if you ever encounter something resistant or immune to your Blast :p
Nah man if I ever meet something resistant to my blasts i will just complain to my GM that the whole game is rigged against me.
How dare they make monsters immune to fire? I only had 10 levels beforehand to prepare for this one occasion!| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, feel free to specialize or not :)
Just... keep a manufactured weapon at hand if you ever encounter something resistant or immune to your Blast :p
...or find a single Fire impulse that deals some other damage type before you get to the point where immunities are a real problem.
because that's the thing about kineticists. You get one impulse that does a thing, and you can just keep doing that one thing (at a high degree of effectiveness) as much as you want to.
...and there's literally only one element that doesn't immediately have this covered just with their blast.
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Yeah, feel free to specialize or not :)
Just... keep a manufactured weapon at hand if you ever encounter something resistant or immune to your Blast :p
...or find a single Fire impulse that deals some other damage type before you get to the point where immunities are a real problem.
because that's the thing about kineticists. You get one impulse that does a thing, and you can just keep doing that one thing (at a high degree of effectiveness) as much as you want to.
...and there's literally only one element that doesn't immediately have this covered just with their blast.
Metal arguably has this issue to a lesser extent since both it's damage types are physical. From what we've heard though, I suspect there will be electrical impulses immediately available, unlike fire which is less likely to have innate access to another damage type.
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Regardless, I don't think that Paizo is going to just not notice that one of their six kineticist elements only has one blast damage type. I don't think that they're unaware that people might be inclined to play a dedicated single-element fire kineticist, especially given that that's exactly what the kineticist iconic is.
One way or the other, I'm pretty sure they'll have a solid answer to this issue baked into the system somewhere that isn't "this one very specific kind of kineticist gets to feel useless and sad and unable to deal damage in those particular fights"... especially when it's literally the one build most thematically focused on dealing damage.
My guess for that would be that there will be at least one solid, workhorse Fire-element impulse that deals some other damage type relatively early on. It's the easy answer to the problem, and there's plenty of unknown space for that to happen in. Perhaps it will be something else instead.
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I don't think that Paizo is going to just not notice that one of their six kineticist elements only has one blast damage type. I don't think that they're unaware that people might be inclined to play a single-element fire kineticist, especially given that that's exactly what the kineticist iconic is.
One way or the other, I'm pretty sure they'll have a solid answer to this issue baked into the system somewhere that isn't "this one very specific kind of kineticist gets to feel useless and sad and unable to deal damage in those particular fights"... especially when it's the one kineticist build that's most laser-focused on dealing damage.
My guess for that would be that there will be at least one solid, workhorse Fire-element impulse that deals some other damage type relatively early on. It's the easy answer to the problem, and there's plenty of unknown space for that to happen in. Perhaps it will be something else instead.
100% I think you're correct here that they'll have a solid answer built in, we just disagree in our speculation on how it gets solved. My suspicion is the "fix" Paizo designs in for single-focus-fire kineticists will be "remove fire immunity/reduce fire resistance" rather than just switching damage types. We've already seen one element of it in the spoiled aura upgrade. It'll be more in-theme for that element and allow a real pyromancer "BURN IT HARD" feel. Unfortunately I suspect the immunity removal to also be high level, which still leaves a problem until it becomes available. All speculation of course.
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psysical is not an issue since immunity to physical is left for some extremely unique stuff only.
if it wasn't, then 90% of the martials would have a problem.
I think there's plenty of physical resistance out there, but a lot of things with physical resistance have a special material weakness to compensate, at least from the limited amount I experienced in Abom Vaults.
Like I said, don't think it'll be as bad as fire but not having one physical/one energy is definitely a limiter for metal that the other elements don't have to be concerned with at all.
I would have thought fire's alt damage would be slashing. You know, like a lightsaber.
I personally don't really see how fire could go around the resistance/immunity problem outside of the classical "Just burn harder" either by making the resistances go down or diminishing the effectiveness of immunity.
I understand where the idea for concussion comes from to deal bludgeoning damage, but really it sounds more like a composite air/fire to me.
I did the math and it looks like Tidal Hands deals around 56% of the damage of burning hands, but can be used as many times as you want.
Also worth noting that Burning Hands is a 15-foot cone. Tidal Hands is your choice of two (non-overlapping) 15-foot cones or a single 30-foot cone. It also expends your aura, which you'll need to bring back up again... and we don't know (or at least I don't know) what the Water impulse junction is, which is another tasty little boost.
It would, I'm saying that's not extra to melee (relative to ranged). If anything it's in favor of ranged, as the extra con option narrows the relative difference between the two proportionally.I don't think it gets extra damage in melee. It gets strength damage in melee, just like everything else.In melee you add your str. If you make a 2 action blast, you add your Con as a status bonus. Neither has qualifiers so I don't see why a melee 2 action blast wouldn't add both. 12:45 of his video has the text for the blast.... Huh?
Melee literally adds more damage than ranged. How much? Your strength modifier.
Yes, that's true of every melee attack in the game.
I love that Kineticist gets extra damage in melee!
The Kineticists as Kineticist isn't getting extra damage in melee, that's just normal.
I did the math and it looks like Tidal Hands deals around 56% of the damage of burning hands, but can be used as many times as you want.
You did it wrong, it's 64% - average of 4.5 per spell rank equivalent on Tidal Hands, divided by average of 7 per spell rank on Burning Hands. Plus better area on Tidal Hands and the crit fail push.
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... Huh?Melee literally adds more damage than ranged. How much? Your strength modifier.
Yes, that's true of every melee attack in the game.
I love that Kineticist gets extra damage in melee!The Kineticists as Kineticist isn't getting extra damage in melee, that's just normal.
Produce Flame doesn't add strength, and that's one of the most similar things in the game. PF1 Kineticist didn't, so this is a nice addition. Nothing in PF2 hit with Con before, so we didn't really have precedent. I'm happy that "wade in with heavy armor and a good strength score, keeping enemies in your aura" gets some strength to damage, unlike spellcasters.
But if you're comparing it to something
like switch-hitter Ranger, yeah, that's normal.
Thanks, that clears things up.
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I personally find the pace quite good.
It's not terrible if you're okay playing into the progression aspect of it. But if you just want to play a character who freely uses all the elements, that's gone from a level 1 thing to a level 17 thing.
I love that Kineticist gets extra damage in melee!The Kineticists as Kineticist isn't getting extra damage in melee, that's just normal.
Arguably Kineticist is actually somewhat short changed on melee damage. The premiere high damage melee weapons are consistently several die sizes higher than the premiere high damage ranged weapons. Only getting your strength modifier added to your damage is contextually kind of a bad deal, especially as levels increase and modifier damage becomes less impactful.
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As a ranged character, I'll deal 1d8 damage or 4.5 on avg damage at level 1 with a level 1 strike.
Barbarians deal 11 damage at level 1 minimum. Avg of 16.5 damage.
Kineticists deal slightly above 1/4th of the barbarians damage potential with their normal strikes. I'm hoping the bells and whistles make up for it.
Leaving aside the math errors, that's not an entirely fair comparison.
First, if you're talking Barbarian minimum 11, max 16.5, you're saying that they're wieldign a d12 weapon. That's fair, but it means that both of their hands are full, and they cant' do other things with them. The kineticist does not have this problem.
Second, you're talking about melee damage on the barb. Melee damage on a metal/water/eart/wood kineticist is going to add in strength. now, I suspect that most kineticists will be running a 12 or a 14 there rather than a 16, but that's still 5.5 or 6.5. They also have two damage types to pick from. The barbarian *could* pull a versatile P/S with a greatsword, but most of the kineticist versatile pairs are better than that.
Third, the Barbarian's ability to deal damage goes *way* down when they go to range. The kineticists's... doesn't. It drops by whatever small bonus it was they were getting from strength. That matters.
Fourth... it's pretty clear that the standard attack rotation for the kineticist is supposed to be something like (one action blast)+(two-action damaging impulse). The two-action damaging impulse is unlikely to be an attack, or otherwise interact with MAP. The barbarian's ability to turn actions into damage starts dropping off pretty rapidly after that first attack. The Kineticist's holds a lot more steady.
It's not terrible if you're okay playing into the progression aspect of it. But if you just want to play a character who freely uses all the elements, that's gone from a level 1 thing to a level 17 thing.
It was *never* a level 1 thing, though. At bare minimum, you'd need 6 impulses to be able to wield 6 elements, and that takes at least a little while to accumulate all by itself. Sure, the playtest tried to slip through by giving you a flexible slot, but low-level universal types felt horribly constrained.
Still, yeah, there are definitely places where they've cut off some possibilities in order to give the others more shape and heft and structure.
Arguably Kineticist is actually somewhat short changed on melee damage. The premiere high damage melee weapons are consistently several die sizes higher than the premiere high damage ranged weapons. Only getting your strength modifier added to your damage is contextually kind of a bad deal, especially as levels increase and modifier damage becomes less impactful.
If you're considering them as a purely melee character... while ignoring their impulses... and their class feats... and their various other power-ups... yes? The Kineticist chassis is pretty clearly a flexible midrange character, with feats and impulses that allow you to specialize. Melee is clearly intended to be an option but we haven't yet seen the bits that are intended to make it competitive.
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It's not terrible if you're okay playing into the progression aspect of it. But if you just want to play a character who freely uses all the elements, that's gone from a level 1 thing to a level 17 thing.
I personally find the pace quite good.
That feels a little unfair. A master of four elements has gone from level 1 to level 9.
Third, the Barbarian's ability to deal damage goes *way* down when they go to range. The kineticists's... doesn't. It drops by whatever small bonus it was they were getting from strength. That matters.
This one is sort of tricky, because while it's a big boon for the kineticist in an objective sense "you can just be a ranged combatant with basically no downside" isn't a very helpful answer for someone who genuinely wants to play a melee character.
Hope Paizo considers this and confers some options to make focused melee builds more interesting, instead of just being a backup option for a ranged build like finesse weapons tend to be.
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and their class feats...
Sort of an aside but I'm really curious to see how effective a 'baseline' kineticist is going to be.
If I make a Fighter, I can almost select my feats purely at random and still end up with a reasonably effective character if I just throw a maul or greatsword into their hands. While Fighters have good feats, the core mechanics are solid enough that it doesn't feel too bad if I end up, I dunno, taking Dandy or Lumberjack instead of building up my core.
Will a kineticist who decides they want to take medic archetype or sentinel feel like they're being forced to abandon parts of their class identity, or will there be enough meat in the chassis alone to make the character still feel good?
Will be interesting to see.
Hope Paizo considers this and confers some options to make focused melee builds more interesting, instead of just being a backup option for a ranged build like finesse weapons tend to be.
I'm pretty sure that the "close-in scrum" love is coming in Earth and Wood (the most defensive, least mobile elements) and maybe metal. We have tank builds coming. We just haven't seen them yet. If you just take the blast as-is and don't augment it any further, it's serves as a nice, effective secondary attack of the kind that melee types would really like to have, but often can't afford to spare the stat assignment for.
I'd also suspect that Air and Fire will have a fair bit of ranged damage on their list.
Also - I don't think martial kineticists are going to be very viable. I'd love to be wrong, though.
I'm pretty sure you're not. If "kineticists wielding weapons" was supposed to be a thing, I'm pretty sure we'd have seen signs of it by now.
You might be able to get there with feats. I don't think so, though. If they wanted to do that, they'd want it to be a level 1 feat (so it could be a part of the character identity) and I don't think there's enough space in the kineticist chassis for a level 1 feat on top of all of the other stuff that we already know we're getting at level 1.
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Also - I don't think martial kineticists are going to be very viable. I'd love to be wrong, though.
I'm thinking about making a martial Kineticist, what's giving you this impression?
Clarification: a MELEE kineticist. Still no manufactured weapon. Thinking metal element should be most interesting for it.
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I think you guys should clarify if you are talking about just any Melee based kineticist, a weapon infusion akin to what was available in pf1 or the playtest, or a kineticist wielding actual manufactured weapons, lest you get confused about who is talking about what
and their class feats...Sort of an aside but I'm really curious to see how effective a 'baseline' kineticist is going to be.
If I make a Fighter, I can almost select my feats purely at random and still end up with a reasonably effective character if I just throw a maul or greatsword into their hands. While Fighters have good feats, the core mechanics are solid enough that it doesn't feel too bad if I end up, I dunno, taking Dandy or Lumberjack instead of building up my core.
Will a kineticist who decides they want to take medic archetype or sentinel feel like they're being forced to abandon parts of their class identity, or will there be enough meat in the chassis alone to make the character still feel good?
Will be interesting to see.
Well... the chassis itself includes 6 impulses over the course of your career. The only way to avoid getting useful junction effects is to do 6-element. Now, kineticist does give a *lot* of build flexibility, and I'm pretty sure that that means that if you work hard at making yourself as weaksauce as possible, you can make yourself pretty weak... but it's not going to be as simple as "The archetypes... they call to me."
That said... if I'm playing a kineticist, I know that I am not going to want to spend any feats anywhere else. That's not so much a feeling of "forced to abandon", though. That's greed.