shroudb wrote: YuriP wrote: Archetype impulses scales equals to half of your level. no, they scale normally, you just can pick an impulse of half your level, but what you pick, is working as a normal impulse. The only thing with the half scaling called out is Base Kinesis... which... is completely inexplicable to me, really. There's no real reason to do that.
Of course, with Expert at 12 and no DC progression past that, you're probably still looking more at utility abilities and such. But an elemental barbarian could easily pick up some healing and buffs and such from it. Someone mentioned the level 4 water aura? And yeah, a barbarian walking around with an aura of automatic off guard actually seems pretty good. And Tidal Hands or a heal at level 4. (Level 6, of course, is AoO, because why not?)
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i can already see it:
a hulking man carrying his tree on his shoulder, sighs, drops down the tree (which somehow now roots itself) and the man starts pummeling. He then picks up his tree again, and continues walking on...
I'm a little sad about how chain blast ended up. Aura shaping wins that level 10 feat with nearly every build that plans to pick up a stance.
aobst128 wrote: I'm a little sad about how chain blast ended up. Aura shaping wins that level 10 feat with nearly every build that plans to pick up a stance. It wins even on many builds that don't, some of the aura infusions are pretty nice anyways. I don't think this version of the chain blast is really any different from the playtest anyways. It's just not realistically going to get past one bounce either way with MAP.
Playtest version was 2-actions no MAP. Current version is 1-action with MAP.
IMO makes sense the nerf. The playtest version competed too much with AoE infusions trivializing most of them with blasts. This final version basically empowers to use it as non-compressed 3rd action blast that usually would be used to complete non-overflow impulses like Air Boomerang/Flying Flame.
Dubious Scholar wrote: aobst128 wrote: I'm a little sad about how chain blast ended up. Aura shaping wins that level 10 feat with nearly every build that plans to pick up a stance. It wins even on many builds that don't, some of the aura infusions are pretty nice anyways. I don't think this version of the chain blast is really any different from the playtest anyways. It's just not realistically going to get past one bounce either way with MAP. The playtest version didn't have map during the chain. Full release does so for the action cost of 2 blasts and assuming you hit with your first 2, you get to make a 3rd blast at -10 against a 3rd target, likely breaking the chain right there. Most of the time, this ability simply won't give you any benefit. Maybe it's good if you're buffed with heroism and have a bunch of targets flatfooted for some reason. Maybe through that water stance.
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YuriP wrote: Playtest version was 2-actions no MAP. Current version is 1-action with MAP.
IMO makes sense the nerf. The playtest version competed too much with AoE infusions trivializing most of them with blasts. This final version basically empowers to use it as non-compressed 3rd action blast that usually would be used to complete non-overflow impulses like Air Boomerang/Flying Flame.
Chain infusion is an infusion so you have to follow it up with a one action blast. Total action cost is 2 so it competes with your other likely more reliable aoe's
You right I didn't pay attention to this.
The only thing that rests for this feat with other 2-actions impulses is Kinetic Pinnacle extra quickened blast.
YuriP wrote: You right I didn't pay attention to this.
The only thing that rests for this feat with other 2-actions impulses is Kinetic Pinnacle extra quickened blast.
Level 20 kineticist goes buck wild with their actions lol free stances, free sustains and free blasts.
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The nerf is a really strange one. Chain Blast was a mediocre ability in the playtest and they took a hammer to it for release. Given that it ends as soon as you miss, there's a not-insignificant chance that it's actually worse than just attacking twice, and a significant likelihood that it's the same. Attacking twice isn't something you really are probably going to want to do a lot of anyways.
... Like, really can't hammer home how bad the odds are: If you have a 70% chance to hit your target (which is high!) there is a 93% chance that the feat does absolutely nothing (and a 30% chance that it's worse than nothing). That's not a good look for a 10th level feat slot.
And again, that's assuming that "attack twice against two targets" is what you would have done with those actions anyways, which probably isn't true.
Squiggit wrote: The nerf is a really strange one. Chain Blast was a mediocre ability in the playtest and they took a hammer to it for release. Given that it ends as soon as you miss, there's a not-insignificant chance that it's actually worse than just attacking twice, and a significant likelihood that it's the same. Attacking twice isn't something you really are probably going to want to do a lot of anyways.
... Like, really can't hammer home how bad the odds are: If you have a 70% chance to hit your target (which is high!) there is a 93% chance that the feat does absolutely nothing (and a 30% chance that it's worse than nothing). That's not a good look for a 10th level feat slot.
And again, that's assuming that "attack twice against two targets" is what you would have done with those actions anyways, which probably isn't true.
I think there was a decent discussion about it before in the playtest. I think in the situation where you do have 5 targets, it's likely they're pretty low level so your odds of landing those hits are better than you might think. But that was considering the mapless playtest version. This stinks unless you're fighting a hoard of zombies or oozes. A lastwall wood kineticist, firing off vitality chain blasts at a zombie hoard could be a cool thing lol.
aobst128 wrote: YuriP wrote: You right I didn't pay attention to this.
The only thing that rests for this feat with other 2-actions impulses is Kinetic Pinnacle extra quickened blast.
Level 20 kineticist goes buck wild with their actions lol free stances, free sustains and free blasts. A number of the free actions do not stack because they all have the same trigger. It's still very good at going nuts on actions though.
Omnikinesis is just silly. One action to swap impulses lets you do some real silver bullet shenanigans if you've got 3+ elements.
Ok, I have a question about Versatile Blasts: I don't see where you have to pick a particular element when you take it so would it apply to each element you have? For instance, if I take a fire/earth dual gate and pick Versatile Blasts, would I gain a Poison on my earth and Cold on my fire? It seems that way IMO, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
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graystone wrote: Ok, I have a question about Versatile Blasts: I don't see where you have to pick a particular element when you take it so would it apply to each element you have? For instance, if I take a fire/earth dual gate and pick Versatile Blasts, would I gain a Poison on my earth and Cold on my fire? It seems that way IMO, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. Yes it applies to all elements you’ve got. A fire/wood/metal would add cold, poison, and electricity to the appropriate range/die combinations.
A fire/air/cold would still get 60’ range option for cold vs the 30’ cold water already gave them.
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aobst128 wrote: This stinks unless you're fighting a hoard of zombies or oozes. A lastwall wood kineticist, firing off vitality chain blasts at a zombie hoard could be a cool thing lol. Even then, they need to be astoundingly weak for the ability to be reliable.
A level 10 kineticist attacking level 2 husk zombies will still fail to land all 5 blasts most of the time (they'll at least break ahead on total action economy more often than not, though).
And if you're fighting enemies that much weaker than you, an actual AoE would probably serve you a lot better than having a slightly above average chance of hitting 3 targets for two actions.
Again like, cannot be emphasized how absolutely horrid they made this.
I misremembered the playtest version then, and yeah, oof.
If you don't want Aura Shaping then I guess you'll be picking up another impulse or something instead then (which isn't really a bad thing, especially for elements like Air with tons of utility buttons)
Dubious Scholar wrote: aobst128 wrote: YuriP wrote: You right I didn't pay attention to this.
The only thing that rests for this feat with other 2-actions impulses is Kinetic Pinnacle extra quickened blast.
Level 20 kineticist goes buck wild with their actions lol free stances, free sustains and free blasts. A number of the free actions do not stack because they all have the same trigger. It's still very good at going nuts on actions though.
Omnikinesis is just silly. One action to swap impulses lets you do some real silver bullet shenanigans if you've got 3+ elements. Final Gate don't have a trigger (there's no trigger line). It's only says "If your kinetict aura is inactive, you automatically the first action of your turn to Channel Elements as free-action". So we can even consider that "If your kinetict aura is inactive" could remotely considered as a trigger but its being an automatically action that you can suppress, this is not a trigger.
Quickened also is a condition that giver you an specific extra action isn't something that have a trigger.
Only Effortless Impulse and Imperious Aura that competes for same trigger. The means that yes, at level 20 you can do things like Channel Elements + Blast/Instance as Final Gate, them Blast/Instance then use your 3 actions and if you ends with a Overflow you can repeat this in your next turn (but usually this costs you your kineticists reactions and other out-of-your-turn aura-effects like Thermal Nimbus.
Squiggit wrote: aobst128 wrote: This stinks unless you're fighting a hoard of zombies or oozes. A lastwall wood kineticist, firing off vitality chain blasts at a zombie hoard could be a cool thing lol. Even then, they need to be astoundingly weak for the ability to be reliable.
A level 10 kineticist attacking level 2 husk zombies will still fail to land all 5 blasts most of the time (they'll at least break ahead on total action economy more often than not, though).
And if you're fighting enemies that much weaker than you, an actual AoE would probably serve you a lot better than having a slightly above average chance of hitting 3 targets for two actions.
Again like, cannot be emphasized how absolutely horrid they made this. You got a point. If it was just one-action activity with Blast inside as subordinated action like Flurry of Blows/Hunted Shot/Twin Takedown or was free-action like other Infusions, this MAP consecutive Blasts could worth.
YuriP wrote: The means that yes, at level 20 you can do things like Channel Elements + Blast/Instance as Final Gate, them Blast/Instance then use your 3 actions and if you ends with a Overflow you can repeat this in your next turn (but usually this costs you your kineticists reactions and other out-of-your-turn aura-effects like Thermal Nimbus. You can just change the order a bit and be fine:
Free action channel+blast/stance, 3 action overflow, quickened channel+stance/blast
Depending on if you want your stance during your turn for your overflow, or during the enemy turns for defensive/thermal stances, you decide the order of Blast/Stance above.
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But Final Gate won't have effect in your next turn because your aura is already active.
So you have to choose:
If you will stay with your aura active in the end of your turn (not using an Overflow as last activity) it will have the off-turn effects like Thermal Nimbus damage when someone enters in your aura/starts its turn in your aura is will be able to use reactions with your Impulses. But when your next turn begins you already have the aura active and Final Gate won't have effect.
If you won't stay with your aura active in the end of your turn (using an Overflow as last activity) it won't have the off-turn effects like Thermal Nimbus and won't be able to use reactions with your Impulses (because all Impulses requires the aura). But when your next turn begins you will able to use Final Gate again as free-action.
So because final gate is as the first action of your turn do a free action channel elements am I right in thinking that means you can't use the free action stance feat to turn on a stance so as to use the final gate channel elements to blast
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YuriP wrote: But Final Gate won't have effect in your next turn because your aura is already active.
So you have to choose:
If you will stay with your aura active in the end of your turn (not using an Overflow as last activity) it will have the off-turn effects like Thermal Nimbus damage when someone enters in your aura/starts its turn in your aura is will be able to use reactions with your Impulses. But when your next turn begins you already have the aura active and Final Gate won't have effect.
If you won't stay with your aura active in the end of your turn (using an Overflow as last activity) it won't have the off-turn effects like Thermal Nimbus and won't be able to use reactions with your Impulses (because all Impulses requires the aura). But when your next turn begins you will able to use Final Gate again as free-action.
You could still trigger an overflow reaction in between your turns and continue as normal.
Karneios wrote: So because final gate is as the first action of your turn do a free action channel elements am I right in thinking that means you can't use the free action stance feat to turn on a stance so as to use the final gate channel elements to blast Yes but because you still don't have aura to enter into the stance. Both of them will try to happen at same time in the beginning of your turn but they requirements are oposite. Final Gate requires that you don't have the aura active to have effect while stance impulses requires that you already have the aura activate to be used.
shroudb wrote: YuriP wrote: But Final Gate won't have effect in your next turn because your aura is already active.
So you have to choose:
If you will stay with your aura active in the end of your turn (not using an Overflow as last activity) it will have the off-turn effects like Thermal Nimbus damage when someone enters in your aura/starts its turn in your aura is will be able to use reactions with your Impulses. But when your next turn begins you already have the aura active and Final Gate won't have effect.
If you won't stay with your aura active in the end of your turn (using an Overflow as last activity) it won't have the off-turn effects like Thermal Nimbus and won't be able to use reactions with your Impulses (because all Impulses requires the aura). But when your next turn begins you will able to use Final Gate again as free-action.
You could still trigger an overflow reaction in between your turns and continue as normal.
Yes but still complicated to depend from a strategy that need that someone trigger your reaction.
Volcanic Escape could do this but requires the someone inside your aura damages you.
Calcifying Sand is even more difficult because needs to be a non-reach melee attack.
Body of Air is more easier to trigger because the opponent not even needs to damage you but vapor form (gaseous form) will need to be Dismissed if you want to use impulses in your next turn hurting your action economy.
Honestly I would not risk to do a one less blast/stance in my next turn in trade of a impulse reaction.
YuriP wrote: Karneios wrote: So because final gate is as the first action of your turn do a free action channel elements am I right in thinking that means you can't use the free action stance feat to turn on a stance so as to use the final gate channel elements to blast Yes but because you still don't have aura to enter into the stance. Both of them will try to happen at same time in the beginning of your turn but they requirements are oposite. Final Gate requires that you don't have the aura active to have effect while stance impulses requires that you already have the aura activate to be used.
shroudb wrote: YuriP wrote: But Final Gate won't have effect in your next turn because your aura is already active.
So you have to choose:
If you will stay with your aura active in the end of your turn (not using an Overflow as last activity) it will have the off-turn effects like Thermal Nimbus damage when someone enters in your aura/starts its turn in your aura is will be able to use reactions with your Impulses. But when your next turn begins you already have the aura active and Final Gate won't have effect.
If you won't stay with your aura active in the end of your turn (using an Overflow as last activity) it won't have the off-turn effects like Thermal Nimbus and won't be able to use reactions with your Impulses (because all Impulses requires the aura). But when your next turn begins you will able to use Final Gate again as free-action.
You could still trigger an overflow reaction in between your turns and continue as normal.
Yes but still complicated to depend from a strategy that need that someone trigger your reaction.
Volcanic Escape could do this but requires the someone inside your aura damages you.
Calcifying Sand is even more difficult because needs to be a non-reach melee attack.
Body of Air is more easier to trigger because the opponent not even needs to damage you but vapor form (gaseous form) will need to be Dismissed if you want to use... you aren't missing anything:
what you proposed was:
stance, blast, overflow
even if you DON'T trigger the reaction, you are still in stance, so even without the free gather, you can still do "(you are already in stance), blast, overflow"
so it is only a net positive to end your turn in the Stance:
you get them affected by youir stance, you can do a reaction, and you don't lose any actions either way.
Maybe for short encounters but don't worth for long ones.
Let us simulate. Supposing that you don't need to move or do any other actions and take a lvl 20 DPR Fire Kineticist:
1st round - Final Gate (Free Action: Channel+Blast), Furnace Form (2-actions: Fiery Body), Termal Nimbus, Quickened Blast.
2nd round - All Shall End in Flames, Quickened Channel+Thermal Nimbus
At this point we got a problem due All Shall End in Flames being a Overflow it ends the Aura, without the aura the Thermal Nimbus automatically ends due "Stance Impulses are linked to your kinetic aura and end when the aura deactivates". So if we want to keep the aura out-of-turn to allow Thermal Nimbus to work we need to sacrifice all blasts or forced to use another Overflow with less actions.
But if we sacrifice Termal Nimbus and use All Shall End in Flames as last activity starting from 3rd round we able to blast twice:
New 2nd round - Quickened Blast + All Shall End in Flames (with this the aura deactivates and we are able to use Final Gate again)
3rd round - Final Gate (Free Action: Channel+Blast), Quickened Blast + All Shall End in Flames.
IMO do 2 blasts per round + All Shall End in Flames is more effective even sacrificing impulse reactions and Termal Nimbus.
Another interesting power combination is change All Shall End in Flames to Ignite the Sun, and use Solar Detonation instead (but this will requires another round as preparation to full burst):
1st round - Final Gate (Free Action: Channel+Blast), Furnace Form (2-actions: Fiery Body), Termal Nimbus, Quickened Blast.
2nd round - Ignite the Sun, Blast, Quickened Blast
3rd round - Effortless Impulse (Free Action: Sustain Ignite the Sun), Quickened Blast, Solar Detonation (ends the aura and the instance)
4th round - Final Gate (Free Action: Channel+Blast) + Effortless Impulse (Free Action: Sustain Ignite the Sun), Quickened Blast, Solar Detonation (ends the aura and the instance)
This is more strong but is more progressive but uses Termal Nimbus a bit more.
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My intuition is that any maximum DPR fire build is going to want Ignite the Sun - 7d8 for one (potentially free) action per turn, plus 1d8 per strike. It's hard to beat that for pure action economy I think. (and the 1d8 is party-wide, so you should be contributing at least a couple of those per round that way in most setups too)
Since you can also just roll out multiple suns I'm curious how that works out. At 2 suns you can still fire a 2-action overflow to end the turn, and then start each turn with a double blast. (Thermal Nimbus doesn't matter here, and you get the weakness aura without it). That would be a routine of:
Final Gate (Blast), Effortless Impulse (sustain a sun), Blast (quickened from Kinetic Pinnacle), Sustain a Sun (action 1), Blazing Wave (the only two-action overflow).
That deals... two blasts with +2d8 fire (Furnace Form is up, I assume). 14d8 with two basic reflex saves from the suns, and then 12d8 from Blazing Wave (as a third reflex save). This is five distinct damage instances, so an extra 50 damage from weakness aura potentially on top of that.
Solar Detonation only does 12d8 at level 20 so it's not more damage than Blazing Wave unless you're against undead, but it does have a better AoE to place at range and brings crowd control with it. All Shall End in Flames is 15d8 for three actions, but sustaining a second sun+Blazing Wave is a total of 19d8 for the same actions (but it has ridiculous range and also a better AoE pattern).
Scorching Column does only 7d8 at 20, but it marks the area with 9 points of hazardous terrain, which can apply the weakness aura per step I believe. But at only a 10-diameter (so uh... 5' burst?) you're not likely to actually get many hits of that, but the 9 damage is basically another 2d8 per square, and the weakness proc for that square is a bit more than 2d8, so it's roughly 11d8 total if they trigger hazardous terrain, which is actually pretty good, and doubly so if you've got a chokepoint for your weakness aura to abuse. (I think this is ultimately a completely different build, but it has potential with Thermal Nimbus and such)
i think it will depend on the encounter on what's optimal.
it's hard to pass 20 non saving throw damage from Thermal in an aoe situation, hitting just 3 targets that's already 60 pure damage that doesnt allow saves and doesnt need a check to do.
In general, i think you still want to stay away from 3 action overflows to maximize damage.
Since you want Quicken as your capstone, you are also limited to a single level 18 impulse, and Ignite the sun is the stronger one for damage due to the free sustain.
So we might see something like:
t1: Final gate+nimbus, Ignite the Sun, blast, blast
t2: Free sustain, Ignite, blast, blast
t3: free sustain, sustain, 2 action impulse, quickened blast
now, the real question is about which 2 action impulse to push for damage:
blazing wave is our 2 action overflow and it does 2 more dices than Flying flame.
So, the question is "at how many targets does 2d8+ a 2nd MAP blast becomes less than 20*X where X are the targets"
that's easy to calculate:
a 2nd MAP blast at level 20 will be at 20+8+7+2-5 = +32 for 7d8+14 (45.5) vs AC of 45. So a hit on a 13 and a crit on 20, so (0.35*45.5 + 0.05*91)~= 20.5 plus give or take another 9 damage from the extra 2d8 of Blazing wave over Flying flame.
So, as long as there are 2 targets in your area, it's better to keep Thermal active and use Flying blade rather than using an overflow and not using Thermal.
Dubious Scholar wrote:
Solar Detonation only does 12d8 at level 20 so it's not more damage than Blazing Wave unless you're against undead, but it does have a better AoE to place at range and brings crowd control with it. All Shall End in Flames is 15d8 for three actions, but sustaining a second sun+Blazing Wave is a total of 19d8 for the same actions (but it has ridiculous range and also a better AoE pattern).
keep in mind tht Solar is Incap and as written, that incap is also for the damage, not only for the blindness.
How's the wall spamming from the playtest hold up now?
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aobst128 wrote: How's the wall spamming from the playtest hold up now? Unfortunately the earth wall is now overflow and 3 actions instead of 2. On the other hand, the action tax to re-channel is less onerous but you can't recast it literally every turn until 19th level.
My playtest geokineticist at 18th level would usually run a routine of "blast, drop earth wall" every round. Now that's much more difficult.
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Yeah, I have to expect Solar Detonation will get errata that only the blindness part is incap.
Edit: Your geokineticist can still blast and earth wall every round, you just have to wait for Final Gate at 19 to do it.
There's no point to earth walling every round, you can only have two of them out, since it's three action and sustained. Once the second one is being sustained and eating into your three freely usable actions you can't cast a third one.
Dubious Scholar wrote:
Scorching Column does only 7d8 at 20, but it marks the area with 9 points of hazardous terrain, which can apply the weakness aura per step I believe.
It's actually 13 points of hazardous damage. Starts at 1, adds 2 per +3 levels.
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So I'm not sure I've seen this rules case before. What happens if you take Elemental Overlap at 8th level, but then fork the gate at 9th level? Do you have to retrain Elemental Overlap, or is the fact that you qualified for the prerequisite for the feat when you took it good enough?
Normally you'd lose a prerequisite by like "retraining something so you no longer have whatever training or feat" but in this case you'd lose the prerequisite because you added something new to your character (specifically another element.)
PossibleCabbage wrote: So I'm not sure I've seen this rules case before. What happens if you take Elemental Overlap at 8th level, but then fork the gate at 9th level? Do you have to retrain Elemental Overlap, or is the fact that you qualified for the prerequisite for the feat when you took it good enough?
Normally you'd lose a prerequisite by like "retraining something so you no longer have whatever training or feat" but in this case you'd lose the prerequisite because you added something new to your character (specifically another element.)
I assume the prerequisite is only relevant at the time you took it. Simplist solution really. It would create too awkward of a situation otherwise that I don't think was intended.
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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
RAW is ambiguous, because the only time prerequisites are mentioned in such a way is in reference to the retraining rules.
It does not seem intentional though that you can bypass the restrictions on feats by juggling order of operations.
And in other cases beyond the kineticist I think it's pretty clear that this is not something the game wants to happen. Like you wouldn't expect to be able to take a feat related to a deity and then change deities.
aobst128 wrote:
I assume the prerequisite is only relevant at the time you took it. Simplist solution really. It would create too awkward of a situation otherwise that I don't think was intended.
I disagree that it's the simplest solution. If the pre-requisite only matters once, it means you can fundamentally change your build by manipulating the order in which you take different options. That does not seem like something Paizo would want to bake into kineticist optimization.
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It feels like you can accidentally end up in the "elemental overlap+fork gate" situation.
Like take for example a mono-fire kineticist who at level 5 wants the fire aura. Then you take, say, steam knight with elemental overlap then at 9th you look around and notice that you you're going to be awfully close to people and the resistance/skill/critical junctions for fire aren't really what you need so you fork to earth or metal to grab some defense (and a pretty good composite.)
Like I think this needs clarification, since if you don't allow it you can't straight up say "you can't fork the gate ever because of the level 8 feat you took" you could say that you need to retrain the feat once you take the feat, but retraining requires downtime and you might level up in the middle of a dungeon.
And order of operations already matters in some cases. Consider the general feat "Armor Proficiency" and the Sentinel Dedication. If you get Armor Proficiency" first giving you medium proficiency, then Sentinel will peg your progression in medium and heavy armor to your progression in light armor. If you take the Sentinel dedication before you have the Armor Proficiency Feat you will only peg your progression in medium armor to your progression in light armor. So it pays to be a versatile human.
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One can retrain their skills so their skill feats no longer works, so how I see it you'd still have Overlap but it won't work since you no longer have the pre-requisite
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PossibleCabbage wrote: It feels like you can accidentally end up in the "elemental overlap+fork gate" situation. I don't see how you can call making two contradictory choices 'accidental' ... like you have to buy into this specifically.
Quote: Like I think this needs clarification, since if you don't allow it you can't straight up say "you can't fork the gate ever because of the level 8 feat you took" you could say that you need to retrain the feat once you take the feat, but retraining requires downtime and you might level up in the middle of a dungeon. That would never be correct though, because Fork has no prerequisites.
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You fork, you no longer meet the prereqs of the various mono element feats, they don’t work. Retrain them when you can.
Gobhaggo wrote: One can retrain their skills so their skill feats no longer works, so how I see it you'd still have Overlap but it won't work since you no longer have the pre-requisite I don't think you lose a feat you qualified for if you no longer meet the prerequisites.
Like Halcyon Speaker Dedication has as a prerequisite "Magaambyan Attendant Dedication; member of the Magaambya of conversant rank".
So if your character is a member of the Magaambya of sufficient rank, but you get kicked out for some reason, you don't lose what the dedication gave you IMO. It's just training, not investiture. You might not be able to take more feats in the dedication if you lost that prerequisite, but losing the prerequisite doesn't mean the feat doesn't work anymore IMO.
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I don't think there is any clarification required and you guys are overthinking it. The game only cares that you meet the prerequisites at the time and level you take the feat. There is no 'check' at a higher level that you continue to meet the prerequisites because there is no way for a higher level feature to impact your meeting prerequisites at that lower level. Simply said, you can select elemental overlap at L8 and then fork because not matter what you do at L9+ you are always and forever meeting the pre-requisites at L8 in your build whether you look back at L9, L12, L17, L20, or any other level above L8. The only thing that would impact this is if you tried to retrain your L1 or L5 gate/element selections, which is covered by the retraining rules.
If that wasn't true and the design philosophy then you would be able to retrain a lower feat to a higher level feat because NOW at your higher level you meet the pre-reqs regardless of whether you met them originally at the lower level.
Reading Rules says:
Prerequisites:Any minimum ability scores, feats, proficiency ranks, or other prerequisites you must have before you can access this rule element are listed here. Feats also have a level prerequisite, which appears above.
Note meeting the pre-req gives you access at the level to take it and there isn't anything saying you must continue to meet the pre-req to maintain access (i.e., open the door but no closing that door)
Retraining further supports this by stating:
When retraining, you generally can’t make choices you couldn’t make when you selected the original option. For instance, you can’t exchange a 2nd-level skill feat for a 4th-level one, or for one that requires prerequisites you didn’t meet at the time you took the original feat. If you don’t remember whether you met the prerequisites at the time, ask your GM to make the call. If you cease to meet the prerequisites for an ability due to retraining, you can’t use that ability. You might need to retrain several abilities in sequence in order to get all the abilities you want.
Note only cares about the level you take it as a 'timeline superposition' of your build. So long as at L8 your character was a single element kineticist only then you're fine. You can retrain anything you want except anything that impacts on that 'state' of your build (i.e., couldn't touch L1/L5 gate/element selection without first retraining the L8 feat in serial fashion).
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Dubious Scholar wrote: Yeah, I have to expect Solar Detonation will get errata that only the blindness part is incap.
Edit: Your geokineticist can still blast and earth wall every round, you just have to wait for Final Gate at 19 to do it.
Oh I completely forget that Solar Detonation has incap. I also hope this was an error and the Paizo changes it to Blindness only.
Red Griffyn wrote: Retraining further supports this by stating:
When retraining, you generally can’t make choices you couldn’t make when you selected the original option. For instance, you can’t exchange a 2nd-level skill feat for a 4th-level one, or for one that requires prerequisites you didn’t meet at the time you took the original feat. If you don’t remember whether you met the prerequisites at the time, ask your GM to make the call. If you cease to meet the prerequisites for an...
Yeah, I think this clarifies how I'd rule on it. If you take elemental overlap at level 8 and then fork the path, you are fine. If you want to retrain elemental overlap to get a different composite impulse, you can't.
Still, it's weird for the game to have as a prerequisite the lack of something you could later acquire. I guess the only previous example of this is the Godless/Mortal Healing feats which require you to lack a patron deity/follow the laws of mortality. Hypothetically you could learn those feats and later find religion. I think that's a parallel situation.
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This is probably evidence that Elemental Overlap should have a requirement, rather than a prerequisite, i.e. meaning you can't use the ability if you don't meet the requirements. It doesn't make sense that an ability you can only have if you dedicate yourself to one element still works when you aren't dedicated to one element.
Sibelius Eos Owm wrote: This is probably evidence that Elemental Overlap should have a requirement, rather than a prerequisite, i.e. meaning you can't use the ability if you don't meet the requirements. It doesn't make sense that an ability you can only have if you dedicate yourself to one element still works when you aren't dedicated to one element. It makes sense to me, even narratively. You were able to get a taste of the other elements and find it very attractive so then you fork at your next available chance! You still 'obtained' that composite blast knowledge no matter what you do later on and its not like someone can 'strip that knowledge or ability from you' even if you fork into another element. I think this is on-purpose design. If they wanted to make it harder it would be a L10 feat forcing you to stay 1 element until L13/late game. L8 is a very clear feat level selection for me and this all seems intended.
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level 8 could just be because all of the composite are level 4/6.
so basically, balance wise, it's just making you delay them by 2 levels which is the same difference as when you take a feat from a specific archetype (like picking an archery related feat from archer archetype comes 2 levels later than being the class that gives it initially)
i am of the camp that the intent is that when you no longer meet the prerequisite, you lose access to the feat, but i guess we will have to wait for clarification when the book releases.
after all, there are plenty of errors with the composite impulses that need immediate attention (1 missing duration, another one missing range and area, and now this as a 3rd problem with composites)
Yeah some of the composites need an immediate errata because we just don't know how they work.
The other thing that I think is worth noting, re level 19, is how much it changes your entire build. Things like hell of a million needles or The Shattered Mountain Weeps are just so much better than anything else you get that it's going to be really weird to go from "use 2 action non overflow plus stance" to "blast blast 3 action overflow" (or blast stance 3 action overflow for something like wood 8 drifting pollen, which doesn't need to be up off-turn). I suspect retraining is often going to be a good idea
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Are folks REALLY trying to use the obvious Skill Feat/Training exploit that they haven't explicitly patched out yet despite it CLEARLY being a case of TGTBT and obviously unintended as evidence that you can benefit from options that you can only take/use if you meet a certain condition/state even if you later break those pre-reqs?
You must live on the ring of fire if you're comfortable with such shaky footing...
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So I think it's a mistake to allow players to take a feat that a player runs the risk of "turning off" when they take a different feat or other player option. This doesn't even involve retraining, it's just "I get to pick a feat at 8th level, and I get a Gate's Threshold at level 9" and these are independent choices.
Ideally the feat you take at 8th level should not restrict your choices at 9th level, and your choice at 9th level should not run the risk of invalidating your 8th level feat. None of this even interacts with the retraining rules it's just "picking stuff when you're entitled to pick stuff."
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Its just pretty clear it doesn't need clarification on RAW or RAI.
Lets use a plain English language example with ladders, trees, and cats:
I need to get a cat down from a tree and it is 30ft up. I have a ladder worth 20ft of height (that I can clime really fast) but because I had the ladder for ~20 years I climb the branches slowly (since I never practised climbing trees for my entire life). Alternatively, I never bought a ladder 20 years ago so I climb branches at a moderate speed because all moments in my life to date where ascending trees has been required I essentially practised the skill.
Option 1: I can climb fast on the ladder for 20ft and then slowly for 10ft to save the cat
Option 2: I can climb the tree 30ft at moderate speed to save the cat.
Both options 1 and 2 are valid linear sequences of events/history. You can always, with no discontinuities trace a line from year 0 to today.
What is not valid is Option 3:
Option 3: I climb the ladder fast, then pseudo re-write history so I never had a ladder (yet remain in the tree and now acquire moderate climbing speed capabilities) so I can climb the remaining 10ft at moderate speed.
This is clearly the 'fastest' option but allows for exploitative optimization and narrative breaking event sequences. You can no longer draw a line from year 0 to now because there is a discontinuity after climbing the ladder yet then getting rid of it.
You guys are all arguing about whether option 1 and 2 are valid. They both are! The retraining rules and RAI are super clear that they are fine with Option 1 and 2 but want to prevent option 3. Hence why you'd have to retrain every sequence of skill, feat, etc. backwards so that narrative continuity remains.
Taking that L8 feat and the associated pre-reqs are dependant on the narrative sequence of events from L1-L8 and not anything after L8. Its like saying mid way through the tree there is a jet pack. My buying and climbing a ladder has nothing to do with me finding a jet pack in the tree and using that to jet 10ft higher. Just because climbing the tree might not reveal the jetpack to you because the natural starting point for climbing vs. natural place to put the ladder is different (i.e., the jet pack is well hidden to those that start climbing on the other side of the tree with thick low level branches) is irrelevant.
You guys don't have to 'like the feat'. You can find it annoying, OP, unsatisfying, etc. But RAW and RAI its doing exactly what its supposed to do.
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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
PossibleCabbage wrote: So I think it's a mistake to allow players to take a feat that a player runs the risk of "turning off" when they take a different feat or other player option. 'Runs the risk of' implies some kind of happenstance here. You cannot end up in this scenario unless you actively choose to cause it to happen.
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