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Okay, so I know that the title sounds negative. I should start off by saying, as a whole, I like the keneticist. It seems fun, lots of room to play around with it, I like it. Wanna build a flying agile wind-blasty guy? You can do that. Wanna build a Naruto-style medical ninja that can also spy by becoming invisible? You can do that. Wanna build a bender from Avatar or a Z fighter from Dragonball? You can do that. But there are some issues here that I think need to be addressed. I'm not talking about errors or minor publishing things, I'm talking about major problems for the class.
1) Golems and Will-O-Wisps: so as others have pointed out:
Impulses are magical, and though they aren’t spells, some things that affect spells also affect impulses. Abilities that restrict you from casting spells (such as being polymorphed into a battle form) or protect against spells (such as a spell that protects against other spells or a creature’s bonus to saves against spells) also apply to impulses.
This gives Keneticists NO recourse against Will-O-Wisps and little recourse against golems unless they just happen to have the right damage type. And guess what, they don't even get every damage type! What happens if your kineticist goes against a glass Golem? No way to do sonic damage, are you just supposed to sit on your hands and do nothing?
What's worse are Will-o-wisps that are just straight up immune to all spells except a small few, and none of those are something kineticists can do. So while a bard can sing to give everyone +1 to hit and damage, and a wizard can haste people and the cleric can ranged heal, what is the kineticist supposed to do?
Listen, I get it, you wanna make a tough antimagic monster. I understand. But is there a reason that the sword I made with real metal summoned from the elemental plane of metal just . . . disappears when it gets near a will-o-wisp? Why I can suck the raw elemental energy out of an earth elemental but not a clay golem? Considering paizo's most famous AP is focused around a large number of Will-o-wisps, having a damage class that can do NOTHING to them other than feebly swinging a real dagger that they are not good with seems like a poor decision.
2) Okay, so, I understand wanting to make the Metal Keneticists Metal Carapace ability on par with the other abilities. Earth doesn't get a shield, Wood's shield has less HP . . . I get that. But here's the thing, having the entire thing fall off on a crit is . . . stupid. Really stupid. Do you know how often people get crit? When your APs and modules constantly send parties up against single monsters that are three levels above the party, crits happen a lot. Like, I am playing through quest for the frozen flame right now, and we just went up against a creature that hit me on a 5 and crit me on a 15, despite the fact that my AC is one off from being max at that level. And, if you do get crit, your armor falls off and the chances go up substancially that the next attack against you will be a crit. You have basically given every monster the free ability "If you crit Steve, reduce his AC by 3 until he can spend two actions to fix his stuff, in which case you can do it again."
I understand you want to bring metal carapace in line with the other two armored ablities, but give it some other downside! Maybe a 10 minute cooldown if you shield block like the shield spell . . . something? As it stands, I can't see ANYONE taking metal carapace.
3)Purify Element: So a minor gripe considering the other two but . . . once you try to counteract something and fail you can NEVER attempt it again? Like, I get the idea that you can't just sit there and spend zero-resource counteract checks until you succeed but . . . like . . . maybe have a ten minute cooldown? Like, other classes can do that. A Paladin can try to counter a clay golem's curse by lay on hands, pray, lay on hands, pray, etc. Heck, give it a cooldown of a day or week. But once you try to purify a well and fail you can never try again even 80 years later?
4) Cyclonic Ascent: Another super minor gripe . . . why does this have a duration? Unless you are fighting full-out for ten minutes, which I never see, there is no reason you can't take 6 seconds (one round) out of that ten seconds and just use the impulse again, resetting the duration and keeping you in the air. I guess it is useful for the upgraded level 14 version, but let's face it, you are an air kineticist, you should have the ability to just have a fly speed.
5) I have to admit this last one is scraping the bottom of the barrel for an idea, I just wanted to have five instead of four, but really? No water keneticist ability to walk on water? Like, you create a new spell called Lotus walk that is literally for walking on water and Water and or Wood kineticists don't get it? I understand there is return to the sea that gives you a swim speed and the ability to breathe underwater, but I'd just like the ability to let my party walk over the lake instead of getting wet swimming through it.
I can't speak to most of this.
But this one I am curious about.
This gives Keneticists NO recourse against Will-O-Wisps and little recourse against golems unless they just happen to have the right damage type.
My understanding of the class is that Kineticist is meant to be the all-day blaster caster that people were wanting Wizard and Sorcerer to be able to do. Martial levels of accuracy, and cool looking energy damage that looks like spells but doesn't ever run out of spell slots to cast them with.
But that comes with a cost. Otherwise the Kineticist would just be a strict upgrade and outshine other spellcasting classes - especially the spontaneous casters like Sorcerer. That cost is versatility. All that a Kineticist is really good at is elemental blasting. And apparently a bit of self buff abilities.
So in comparison, how does Kineticist do against a Glass Golem compared to a Sorcerer that doesn't have any sonic spells in their Repertoire. Which one of those two is going to feel less useless in the fight?
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Basically, it says that impulses ACT LIKE SPELLS when interacting with things that effect spells. So if something is 'immune to all spells except X, Y, and Z' then they are immune to all kinetic impulses.
[quote=Will-o-wisp, bestiary pg. 333)
A will-o’-wisp is immune to all spells except faerie fire, glitterdust, magic missile, and maze.
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I can't speak to most of this.
But this one I am curious about.
This gives Keneticists NO recourse against Will-O-Wisps and little recourse against golems unless they just happen to have the right damage type.My understanding of the class is that Kineticist is meant to be the all-day blaster caster that people were wanting Wizard and Sorcerer to be able to do. Martial levels of accuracy, and cool looking energy damage that looks like spells but doesn't ever run out of spell slots to cast them with.
But that comes with a cost. Otherwise the Kineticist would just be a strict upgrade and outshine other spellcasting classes - especially the spontaneous casters like Sorcerer. That cost is versatility. All that a Kineticist is really good at is elemental blasting. And apparently a bit of self buff abilities.
So in comparison, how does Kineticist do against a Glass Golem compared to a Sorcerer that doesn't have any sonic spells in their Repertoire. Which one of those two is going to feel less useless in the fight?
Sure, I get it, there should be a cost, but that cost' shouldn't be 'Steve doesn't get to play this session.' You want to make the monster harder to hit? Fine. You want to limit the player's options? Fine. You want to make it so they can go run get a pizza because they can't do anything against the monster? Not so fine.
1: Every now and then you face an opponent that you can't do much about. That's why you have a team. That an enemy can completely neutralize one member of the team is rough, but if it's just these two that's not a major concern for me.
2: How many actions does it take to re-apply the ability. Because it's certainly going to be less than the fighter asking for a timeout so she can run back to town and buy a new shield before we continue the fight. ;)
3: Yeah that one does seem odd.
4: I guess they were assuming that you need to take short hops in your travels. But even if it only lasts 10 minutes - if you've flown up 2000 feet, you can apply it again before you hit the ground.
5: Only opinion on that one is that I would make it a hybrid impulse needing both air and water.
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None of these are major problems for the class that NEED fixing.
1. Golem antimagic is gone and Paizo showed us how to Remaster older golems if we still want to use them. Will-o-wisps aren't likely to survive the remaster either, though I'm not sure what to do for older APs yet. But wisps generally burned most casters just as hard.
2. Metal Carapace users probably only lose one AC when they get crit because you're wearing a chain shirt underneath your Carapace and runes are shared between the two. Well, you might lose the shield bonus too, but odds are your shield would have broken anyway from blocking a crit. And when you reset the armor, you've just fully repaired your shield. (Also, let's keep in mind that if your grabbing your junctions the enemy who broke your armor also got zapped for electricity damage when they touched you and is taking a penalty to hit you if using a metal weapon.) I don't think Metal Carapace is going to have a hard time tanking.
3. Who cares
4. This complaint has no practical bearing that I can discern.
5. While being neat, this would in practice just be a weaker version of Return to the Sea which is already a low level impulse. Your party being worried about getting wet when they are traveling with a giant super soaker is silly, especially when you have the power to remove water from them too.
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"It doesn't matter if you run into a miserably boring fight where you can't contribute because another class might also be miserably boring in the same situation and also hopefully you can just sit out the fight and let your teammates take care of it" are some genuinely really scuffed takes.
People get really attached to status quos just for the sake of it.
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1: Every now and then you face an opponent that you can't do much about. That's why you have a team. That an enemy can completely neutralize one member of the team is rough, but if it's just these two that's not a major concern for me.
2: How many actions does it take to re-apply the ability. Because it's certainly going to be less than the fighter asking for a timeout so she can run back to town and buy a new shield before we continue the fight. ;)
3: Yeah that one does seem odd.
4: I guess they were assuming that you need to take short hops in your travels. But even if it only lasts 10 minutes - if you've flown up 2000 feet, you can apply it again before you hit the ground.
5: Only opinion on that one is that I would make it a hybrid impulse needing both air and water.
2. It takes one action to reapply your metal armor and a second action to raise your new shield.
The problem is that if you ended a turn with your shield raised and an enemy crits you anyway, you're down 5 AC (2 from shield, 3 from armor) until the start of your turn. That's such a huge detriment, compared to the relatively tame downsides of the other two elements (wood has a slightly weaker shield, and earth has heavier armor but no shield).| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
you're down 5 AC (2 from shield, 3 from armor) until the start of your turn.
I don't think this is how people are going to use metal carapace. It has a dex cap of two, so you'll have 14 dex. It transfers runes from your base armor, so you're going to want to be wearing some light armor anyway, pick a light armor with an AC of 2. So when your carapace breaks you're only down 1 from armor instead of 3 (2+2 down from 3+2). You'll still use your shield, but the point of the ability is kind of "it's one action to repair your shield."
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"It doesn't matter if you run into a miserably boring fight where you can't contribute because another class might also be miserably boring in the same situation and also hopefully you can just sit out the fight and let your teammates take care of it" are some genuinely really scuffed takes.
People get really attached to status quos just for the sake of it.
The status quo is being thrown out anyway. Golem antimagic is out, and will-o-wisps will likely be purged and replaced to.
In relation to this thread, the kineticist doesn't need to be fixed on these fronts. The monsters do, and by all accounts so far are.
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"It doesn't matter if you run into a miserably boring fight where you can't contribute because another class might also be miserably boring in the same situation and also hopefully you can just sit out the fight and let your teammates take care of it" are some genuinely really scuffed takes.
People get really attached to status quos just for the sake of it.
The status quo is being thrown out anyway. Golem antimagic is out, and will-o-wisps will likely be purged and replaced to.
In relation to this thread, the kineticist doesn't need to be fixed on these fronts. The monsters do, and by all accounts so far are.
We think golems will be fixed. Just pointing out that we have yet to see Monster Core and won't for months.
If Brass Bastion is representative, though...yep!
I am 99% sure we will not have golem antimagic in monster core. I will eat my hat if we do.
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you're down 5 AC (2 from shield, 3 from armor) until the start of your turn.I don't think this is how people are going to use metal carapace. It has a dex cap of two, so you'll have 14 dex. It transfers runes from your base armor, so you're going to want to be wearing some light armor anyway, pick a light armor with an AC of 2. So when your carapace breaks you're only down 1 from armor instead of 3 (2+2 down from 3+2). You'll still use your shield, but the point of the ability is kind of "it's one action to repair your shield."
Except the shield is part of the same infusion, so if you eat a crit your shield is gone too.
I'll grant you the armor part, tho. It probably makes sense not to be running around naked under your carapace armor.
I am 99% sure we will not have golem antimagic in monster core. I will eat my hat if we do.Hey, send over some salt and pepper. I'll eat your hat too.
I agree it's highly likely. Just saying it's not official yet, and don't want to get people too hyped.
Fair, but I think people should assume this is the case until we have evidence otherwise, because this is like the 10th thread complaining about golem antimagic at length since Rage dropped. People can stop beating the dead horse. Leave that horse alone.
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The shield impulses are questionable. The break threshold doesn't scale nearly fast enough to be able to handle even a single hit from at level creatures past the first few levels.
It's still one action to replace your shield with a new one, so being able to soak up even 10-20 damage is meaningful.
Wouldn’t Extract Element still work against a golem?
Target a creature within 30 feet that has a trait matching one of your kinetic elements or is made of one of your kinetic elements. The target takes 2d4 damage (with no damage type) and becomes susceptible to your impulses, depending on its Fortitude save against your class DC.
I would think that a Metal Kineticist could use this to deal with a brass or iron golem. Clay golem it should be an earth kineticist. I would think the ability that allows a fire kineticist to get past fire immunity would allow other kineticists to get past immunities as well.
The whole point of the Extract Element is to get past immunities and resistances when there are matching traits.
That doesn’t fix the issue with being a kineticist without a matching element. I do think some sort of FAQ or errata would be good for the more general case.
Extract Element has the Impulse and the Primal trait. EIther of which means that is counts as magic and is stopped by a Golems Anti Magic. At least as written currently.
About the OP. The feeling I had is that he is looking for faults in the class, which honestly turned out very well in my opinion.
The
Captain Morgan already responded perfect it and Golem Anti-magic/Will-o-wisp wasn't a problem exclusive of Kineticist but that in practice affects every magic user and depending from interpretation even magic weapons. But it's an issue that will likely go away if it goes into the remaster.
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Other commonly noticed issues include:-The fact that kineticist 19 changes the class dramatically and does not interact favorably with having a stance up at all, and it being ambiguous exactly when this happens.
-Fire kineticist aura arguably not working with overflow fire impulses.
-No rules for having impulses as exploration activities
1. I don't think that Final Gate restricting and forcing to choose between it or others Free-Actions that needs to trigger in the beginning of the turn was unintended. Maybe could better explained but I think this is right.
2. Sorry but overflow impulses don't disable the aura effect before they are resolved. Impulses requires aura to work and the Impulse trait is clear about it. If the aura ends during your overflow channeling you will loose the control over it. Theres nothing "arguably not working" here. But yes, I believe that this could be better clarified.
3. In practice don't need specific rules for exploration activities. The lack of a negative and Improvising New Activities already predicts and rules over things that isn't a pre-made exploration activity. Actions and activities are governed from the inside out you can do encounter actions during exploration mode and exploration activities can be made during downtime just the opposite that's forbidden. These are just abstractions to make the GM narrative more easier not a JRPG stupid mechanic like "you can only use this healing ability in battle but when you are in the map you cannot".
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IMO the main "problem" of Kineticist aren't in class but in its archetype. This is the third "worst" MC archetype in the game just bellow the Summoner and Swashbuckler archetypes because its effectiveness is limited to some utility, buff and healing impulses what is not bad but doesn't integrate well with other classes. It deserves at last a lvl 18 master in kineticist class DC to allow blasts and damage impulses to work as "sub-weapon".
I feel like there should be SEVERAL feats that allow a Blast to become a line, cone, burst, emanation and whatnot. I dunno, I just think that locking areas of effect to specific elements is more of a curse than a blessing.
Access to damage types like Mental, Divine and Sonic would be useful too ^^;
I feel like there should be SEVERAL feats that allow a Blast to become a line, cone, burst, emanation and whatnot. I dunno, I just think that locking areas of effect to specific elements is more of a curse than a blessing.
Access to damage types like Mental, Divine and Sonic would be useful too ^^;
The first seems tough to balance around andmisses the point of blasts being the single target option. The second is pretty off theme. I think you'd need at minimum a class archetype to do those effectively, but probably should have a new class.
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Maybe. But even maxed out, you only have a hardness of 11 with metal carapace. By that point, not sure the action economy is worth it when your shield breaks in one hit. It's probably better to not shield block to keep the extra ac. Once you get that 14th level metal impulse that gives you ferrous form and a free shield raise when you sustain, shield blocking is gonna hurt your sustainability except in the most dire circumstances. It's nice that it counts as a free hand for impulses though so you could hold staves or scrolls with a shield if you go for kinetic activation.The shield impulses are questionable. The break threshold doesn't scale nearly fast enough to be able to handle even a single hit from at level creatures past the first few levels.It's still one action to replace your shield with a new one, so being able to soak up even 10-20 damage is meaningful.
I don't entirely understand your criticism.
Shield blocking is an option, but not a mandatory one. Given you don't block until you know how much damage you've taken, you can always make the more tactically advantageous choice. Given the crit rider there are times where you'll be forced to use it anyway.
Even if the shield block itself drops off in usage once you get Alloy Flesh and Steel, you're still benefiting from the impulse via the shield AC.
Also, let's keep in mind that retraining is a built-in assumption of the class. At high levels, you may find you can afford enough dexterity to not need medium armor or a sturdy shield and shield block instead of relying on the freebie. In which case, you just Reflow that particular element.
The first seems tough to balance around and misses the point of blasts being the single target option.
Some elements get lines, others get cones and a few get bursts via feats and impulses. I just wished that instead of making areas of effect exclusive to certain elements, just make impulses that apply to all elements.
The second is pretty off theme. I think you'd need at minimum a class archetype to do those effectively, but probably should have a new class.
I've seen Sonic being associated with Earth ever since crystals can be used. The idea of holy water and "divine fire" sounds plausible. Mental... is likely a residual from P1E's Kineticist, which Aether was an element.
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I'm not sure how big of a downside this in practice because I just got my copy last night, but on first glance it's a microbummer that a fair chunk of metal impulses seem to expect you to be fighting metallic enemies, or at least ones in metallic armor. I know that will be a fair chunk of NPC-type enemies you encounter, but not all of them, and almost no monsters, which are the bulk of what I expect most people will be facing.
It just feels a bit overly niche, and without a power to let them combo off of, say one to magnetize your enemies and make them count as having metal on them or something.
Again, no idea how much of a problem this actually is, that was just my first impression.
They don't expect you to fight metal, they just excel against those. The baseline damage is in line with or slightly better than what the other good damage elements do against non-metal. Only fire boosted by junction investment is going to beat it against average targets, and of course Flying Flame has great AOE shape.
The magnetic aura is the only one I can think of that is metal only in application. I guess Plate in Treasure is sort of the same, and they are both 6th level, so that's unfortunate.
Where did you hear this?Rumor has it about a Void kineticist coming later on, which would be very cool.
Access to damage types like Mental, Divine and Sonic would be useful too ^^;
First time I hear this... but P1E did have Void Kineticist... and they could tie it to The Void (the not-Plane of Shadows) :p
I don't think they're likely to do new kineticist elements any time soon. There are allusions to it in the first chapter of RoE, and tying it to "the overlapping planes" rather than the inner planes would let you get another set of four, but that would eat up a lot of page space in a future book.
I mean, a new Barbarian Instinct takes up a lot less space than a Kineticist element and we've only added 2 of those in the entire life of PF2.
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Where did you hear this?Rumor has it about a Void kineticist coming later on, which would be very cool.
Access to damage types like Mental, Divine and Sonic would be useful too ^^;
From baseless hopium and wishcasting by random dudes on this forum.
Sure, I get it, there should be a cost, but that cost' shouldn't be 'Steve doesn't get to play this session.' You want to make the monster harder to hit? Fine. You want to limit the player's options? Fine. You want to make it so they can go run get a pizza because they can't do anything against the monster? Not so fine.This gives Keneticists NO recourse against Will-O-Wisps and little recourse against golems unless they just happen to have the right damage type.My understanding of the class is that Kineticist is meant to be the all-day blaster caster that people were wanting Wizard and Sorcerer to be able to do. Martial levels of accuracy, and cool looking energy damage that looks like spells but doesn't ever run out of spell slots to cast them with.
But that comes with a cost. Otherwise the Kineticist would just be a strict upgrade and outshine other spellcasting classes - especially the spontaneous casters like Sorcerer. That cost is versatility. All that a Kineticist is really good at is elemental blasting. And apparently a bit of self buff abilities.
So in comparison, how does Kineticist do against a Glass Golem compared to a Sorcerer that doesn't have any sonic spells in their Repertoire. Which one of those two is going to feel less useless in the fight?
But again, that isn't a problem with Kineticist specifically. It isn't like Kineticist is getting special, unique, and unfair treatment.
This is instead a problem with Will-o-wisp and Golems shutting down any character that relies solely on spells in combat. Kineticist happens to be one of those types of characters. But there are already plenty of other classes that tend towards that style of character build.
Be real nice if they fix golem antimagic and spell immune creatures to not turn casters or kineticists into wallflowers.
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Be real nice if they fix golem antimagic and spell immune creatures to not turn casters or kineticists into wallflowers.
Do people just like... Not read my posts? Am I that guy?
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I read it.
But the remaster and new golems aren't available at this exact moment. And some people may still use the old golems and Golem Antimagic even after the remaster is available.
But even with the current state of things, Kineticist isn't the problem that means that Steve steps out to grab a pizza during combat.
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Be real nice if they fix golem antimagic and spell immune creatures to not turn casters or kineticists into wallflowers.Do people just like... Not read my posts? Am I that guy?
I often find myself asking the same question, "Am I that unicorn?"
But then I realize my problem is I write really long posts that no one wants to read in full and then it at least makes sense in my case.
Your posts are usually much more succinct, but also, in fast moving threads, some people will just mist posts.