The playtest version was more of a martial, the printed version is more of a caster.
It's still it's own thing, and is sturdier than other casters, but I wouldn't consider it a martial. It has caster progressions for things like Impulse DC and Armor, and Martial progressions for saves.
It is not a caster. It doesn't have any spells.
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It's neither. The kineticist's role in the party is 'Main Character'. Everyone else is a sidekick compared to that beast.
But...
To break this down.
You have a caster's attack scaling. You have a martials hit points and AC (if you take one of the armor impulses). If you take the weapon impulse you have a huge pile of the martials weapons that you can't drop and can swap around as a free action with no reloads or ammo.
You have the attacks of a caster's "max spell rank - 0.5" - but unlimited slots per day. Including AoEs that only suffer a 1-action action tax.
You have the skill versatility somewhere in the middle of the pack.
You do LACK the "magic powers" versatility of a prepared caster. You're just below a spontaneous caster except all of your abilities are scaled up. No low rank "powers" for you.
So... You're either both, or neither.
Whether or not you feel this 'new space' it occupies is 'main character' or just a new spot depends on how potent you think all of the above ends up being.
Given the cantrip nerf - I'm back to thinking it's a "main character".
What does main character mean in this context
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It is not a caster. It doesn't have any spells.
This is at best semantics. If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. The things kineticist does are not called spells, but they are functionally spells. This is a caster class that uses a different resource system. It's not a martial
If magus and Summoner are 75% martial, 25% caster...
Kineticist is 75% caster, 25% martial.
IMO Kineticist is more to 50%, 50% martial/caster.
While Magus and Summoner are strongly focused in their main abilities (spellstrike and eidolon) that's primary martial but strongly magic assisted. Kineticist have a big mix between save impulses, short aura, long/short range blasts the self-integrates almost perfectly (its obvious and easily to understand the idea of alternate between blasts and save impulses).
The other mid-term point that shows that kineticist becomes between the martial and caster concept is that main defensive chassis is basically from a default martial just 2 levels later to get expert and master in proficiency also being easily getting access to medium and even heavy armor bonuses and many strong defensive impuses added with the fact that with the dump of dex it can invest in str at same time that have a good ammount of HP due the Con be the main attribute makes them pretty effective at closer distances and without risk to take an AoO (now RS in remaster) is something that any caster can do that good while for other side getting legendary class DC progression equals to casters put them pretty effective with ranged and AoE impulses.
This mix makes it becomes in middle of a martial and caster chassis and options.
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I don't agree with determining whether something is a martial or caster could or should be determined by whether or not their progression looks more like one or the other. The thing the class does is make big magical effects. Summoning, throwing fire balls, freezing dudes, healing, getting a familiar, conjuring a ballista, conjuring armor, I believe they can go invisible, create the effects of the grease spell, fly and so on. The things the class does is create the effects of spells but they are not literally spells within the codified terminology of the game. However everything the class actually does is "spell-like-abilities"
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I don't agree with determining whether something is a martial or caster could or should be determined by whether or not their progression looks more like one or the other. The thing the class does is make big magical effects. Summoning, throwing fire balls, freezing dudes, healing, getting a familiar, conjuring a ballista, conjuring armor, I believe they can go invisible, create the effects of the grease spell, fly and so on. The things the class does is create the effects of spells but they are not literally spells within the codified terminology of the game. However everything the class actually does is "spell-like-abilities"
Like it or not pf2e is designed with chassis progression in mind
This is why there is a hard no to master weapon proficiency casters and legendary spell DC martials
So not only can you
You also should, because that's what paizo is doing mechanically
I don't agree with determining whether something is a martial or caster could or should be determined by whether or not their progression looks more like one or the other. The thing the class does is make big magical effects. Summoning, throwing fire balls, freezing dudes, healing, getting a familiar, conjuring a ballista, conjuring armor, I believe they can go invisible, create the effects of the grease spell, fly and so on. The things the class does is create the effects of spells but they are not literally spells within the codified terminology of the game. However everything the class actually does is "spell-like-abilities"Like it or not pf2e is designed with chassis progression in mind
This is why there is a hard no to master weapon proficiency casters and legendary spell DC martials
So not only can you
You also should, because that's what paizo is doing mechanically
This is really in conversation with what I was saying. The progression can look like anything really, but what we see the class doing is clearly like a spellcaster and nothing about how proficiency progression was laid out in classes before counteracts this fact
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They're a spellcaster that "plays like" a martial. Just like the fighter has feats to give them action options, the kin does as well - the kins are just more magical in affect (healing, using sand to grapple instead of athletics, etc). I'd argue the magus is a martial that "plays like" a spellcaster too (spell selection etc).
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"Caster" and "martial" have been useful clear-cut distinctions up until now. Casters had A and B, while martials had C and D. It didn't matter if you thought it was A or B that made a caster a caster because they had both. Well, now we have a class with B and C. You could insist on putting it in one of the old bins for some reason, but what does it matter?
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The question is fundamentally ill-formed. It makes an unstated assumption that simply isn't true.
Kineticist is, by design, neither. It is its own third thing. "Caster" and "Martial" describe real things in this game with fairly involved definitions, and kineticist isn't either one. Attempting to stretch either to fit is a mistake, and will do more damage to the caster/martial dichotomy than it's worth.
I'd say that prior to this, Thaumaturge and Inventor had chunks of this third thing as well (and Alchemist had a big chunk of its own fourth thing). It's just that there were enough bits of martial in there that we could pretend that it was just a weirdly shaped martial. Kineticist doesn't have any martial or any caster... and personally, I'm very happy about that.
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"Caster" and "martial" have been useful clear-cut distinctions up until now. Casters had A and B, while martials had C and D. It didn't matter if you thought it was A or B that made a caster a caster because they had both. Well, now we have a class with B and C. You could insist on putting it in one of the old bins for some reason, but what does it matter?
I feel this is just not true. Other classes were outside the strictest definition of Martial vs Caster already : Alchemist, Thaumaturge, Summoner, Magus.
So the assumptions of caster that Kineticist breaks are:
-Involves managing a resource.
-Somewhat squishy.
-Can attack any defense.
-Has tools to address a wide variety of situations.
The assumptions of martial that a kineticist breaks are:
- High single target damage
- Almost always targets AC
- Doesn't shoot that much fire, really.
- No real tools for corralling enemies
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"Caster" and "martial" have been useful clear-cut distinctions up until now. Casters had A and B, while martials had C and D. It didn't matter if you thought it was A or B that made a caster a caster because they had both. Well, now we have a class with B and C. You could insist on putting it in one of the old bins for some reason, but what does it matter?I feel this is just not true. Other classes were outside the strictest definition of Martial vs Caster already : Alchemist, Thaumaturge, Summoner, Magus.
So, the first answer is that this has become a disagreement about semantics. Arguments about semantics are... generally unfruitful. There's no real Truth behind them to appeal to - just arguments about what definitions are, grounded in nothing but personal assertion.
As such, I'd say that the only even potentially productive path would be to switch from what the definitions are (there is no answer to that question) to what they should be. What woudl be useful?
Personally, I think the most useful thing to do is to let them be a third thing. The significant majority of classes out there are clearly Martial (Cares about MAP, targets with dex or str, primarily uses weapon-based damage progression with runes and everything, robust chassis) or clearly Caster (Does almost everything they do with spells, cares about two-action and three-action activities, targets with wis/cha/int, primarily uses a damage progression based on individual powers that adds dice as your spells rank up, lots of flexibility and utility, cares about spell slots, fragile chassis). Summoner and Magus are pretty clearly a 50/50 hybrid between the two (in very different ways). These are strong distinctions, strongly grouped, and apply in one way or another to the significant majority of PCs. As a conversational shorthand, they're useful, for immediate clarity of explanation. Attempting to force Kineticist into either one would stretch it to the point of diminishing its usefulness as a descriptor.
Now, I'll admit that if we were somehow forced to pick on, it would make more sense to declare them casters than martials, for various reasons, but I think it's a mistake to do that. I don't see any reason to, and I see plenty of reason to not.
"Caster" and "martial" have been useful clear-cut distinctions up until now. Casters had A and B, while martials had C and D. It didn't matter if you thought it was A or B that made a caster a caster because they had both. Well, now we have a class with B and C. You could insist on putting it in one of the old bins for some reason, but what does it matter?I feel this is just not true. Other classes were outside the strictest definition of Martial vs Caster already : Alchemist, Thaumaturge, Summoner, Magus.
Sure, that's reasonable. If the usefulness of the distinction broke down earlier, that doesn't change what I'm saying. Kineticist breaks it down in a new way.