Deriven Firelion wrote: It seems to be one heal per 10 minutes per person. That is insufficient for combat healing in my experience if a monster is going for the kill on a character or some martial is tanking. It didn't seem great to me. It's one heal per healing impulse you buy per 10 minutes per person, not counting Snaguiviolent roots. IIRC, water gets two, Wood gets... I think three? Pretty sure Wood/Wind is another. Now, you have to juggle around them to a degree. Handing out fruits and veggies isn't going to help all that much if your allies don't have free hands to put them in. Still, there's a fair chunk of healing there, if you build for it... and then you can put Blessed One and/or Medic on top of that.
Ravingdork wrote: Wouldn't something like this be easier and do more damage at higher levels?
Assuming 7 Strength modifier, a high level ally could toss 45 feet for 4d6+7 damage plus another 8d6 per square of berm spikes (or an additional 72d6 damage).
76d6+7 = ~272 damage.
Seems high, even for ~18th-level. Am I missing something?
In any case I suspect berms will get nerfed at some point.
Well, you have to be in the right place, the enemy has to be in the right place, the berms have to be in the right place, and then you have to successfully grapple and then throw them. You need to line up a whole lot of things to make that work out right.
Also worth noting that kineticist is actually pretty bad at wrestler in general, since wrestler is big on those moves that let you use martial strikes rather than athletics checks.
Ravingdork wrote: Seems my revised diagram from before may have been a little off. Apologies.
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Wouldn't something like this be easier and do more damage at higher levels?
Assuming 7 Strength modifier, a high level ally could toss 45 feet for 4d6+7 damage plus another 8d6 per square of berm spikes (or an additional 72d6 damage).
76d6+7 = ~272 damage.
Seems high, even for ~18th-level. Am I missing something?
In any case I suspect berms will get nerfed at some point.
The issue with that one is that they have a whole round to walk away in between you conjuring the berms and you grabbing and throwing them through the line of death. Like to here, so you can only toss them through maybe 5-10 spaces of berms rather than 18.
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⬜⬜❎⬛❎❎⬛❎❎⬛❎❎⬛❎❎⬛❎❎⬛❎⬜ ⭕ = My Target
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Or they just walk out of range of whirling throw and the berms entirely:
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You can set up multiple lines of berms so they can't do that as much, but that in turn reduces the overall damage. The build is just a little too susceptible to the monsters deciding "yeah that thing looks scary I'm running away from it and munching on the wizard over there instead".
My 255 number at level 20 was back-of-the-envelope math for two lines of three berms. It's 9 x 8d6 = 252. You can get up to 504 with perfect positioning and dropping all 6 berms in a straight line, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong. The monster could die before you get a chance to fling them, they could walk away, you could miss with your grapple, or you could fail your whirling throw attempt. And if the monster walks away you have to recreate the berms all over again.
Ravingdork wrote: Converted to emoji to make it a little easier to visualize. Hopefully I got it right. Thanks for the emojis, its quite hard to display rectangular zones with just letters. It should actually look as follows, since you only spawn spikes from each side of a mound:
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Calliope5431 wrote: Yeah whirling throw is wacko - I did similar math. At L20 it's like 255 to a single target with 5 actions of setup (3 to activate jagged berms, 1 to switch on Assume Earth's Mantle for grapple bonuses, 1 to grapple). Small correction: Since you mentioned level 20, at that level you enter your stance as part of Channel Element as a free action. But yeah, before level 19, you of course have to pay those mentioned actions.
Regarding the action cost, it is indeed quite high and pays off maybe if you get off a Whirling Throw twice per fight. However, do note that against melee brutes, you also deny them actions with the throw, since they will have to use 1-2 move actions just to get back to you, or 1 action and eat at ton of extra damage by walking through the spikes.
I like this build because just looking at the single impulse Jagged Berms, every single fight will require you to think about the placement of the mounds. Against casters/ranged, you want to cut of their retreat paths. Against melees, you want to make it as hard as possible reaching you and your party and once they do, you punish them by throwing them into the pain zone.
And yes, you will have fights, where grappling is not an option, but then you are still a Kineticist and can throw around earthquakes, Spike Skin, Weight of Stone etc. and since you have the highest Str of all Kineticists, your melee Blasts (or Thrown with Weapon Infusion) still hurt a bit.
Yeah, it's a fascinating impulse. I can see someone who goes more defensive with it too, locking enemies behind 2 ranks of berms in choke points or giving the party a ring of berms for defense.
Lots of tactical possibilities.
This sort of thing is what I like about the kineticist. Because its stuff is all at-will, you're freer to use the abilities without worrying about running out of spells, which leads to much more interesting tactics, in my opinion.
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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Subutai1 wrote: Thanks for the emojis, its quite hard to display rectangular zones with just letters. You're welcome. It's a system that Gisher and I developed. He has a whole bunch of templates using them set up for people here.
Subutai1 wrote: It should actually look as follows, since you only spawn spikes from each side of a mound: You sure about that? Last I checked, "adjacent" also took into account diagonal squares.
Ravingdork wrote: Subutai1 wrote: It should actually look as follows, since you only spawn spikes from each side of a mound: You sure about that? Last I checked, "adjacent" also took into account diagonal squares.
I'm not 100% sure about it, since the following two sentences in the text are somewhat contradicting for me, might be a translation error on my side:
"Sharpened wooden stakes protrude from each mound into adjacent squares. They can project from any of its sides; you choose which sides for each mound."
The first sentence suggests adjacent, so all 8 squares around it. However, the second sentence suggests that they can only project from it's sides, all of them, so for me sides are the square left/right/top/bottom, no? It is possible that this second sentence is only a descriptor for where the stakes originate, but they go beyond that wall of the mound to cover the diagonal squares as well. Might need some clarification on that.
Just to be safe I went with the fewer damage zones.
If someone mentions "side" alongside "adjacent" they usually mean ortogonal not diagonal.
I agree that to me it seems like it's pointing out to a cross shaped (per mount) rather than full 3*3.
Subutai1 wrote: Ravingdork wrote: Subutai1 wrote: It should actually look as follows, since you only spawn spikes from each side of a mound: You sure about that? Last I checked, "adjacent" also took into account diagonal squares.
I'm not 100% sure about it, since the following two sentences in the text are somewhat contradicting for me, might be a translation error on my side:
"Sharpened wooden stakes protrude from each mound into adjacent squares. They can project from any of its sides; you choose which sides for each mound."
The first sentence suggests adjacent, so all 8 squares around it. However, the second sentence suggests that they can only project from it's sides, all of them, so for me sides are the square left/right/top/bottom, no? It is possible that this second sentence is only a descriptor for where the stakes originate, but they go beyond that wall of the mound to cover the diagonal squares as well. Might need some clarification on that.
Just to be safe I went with the fewer damage zones. Small side note: Technically, the roof of the mound is also a side, so it should also be able to spawn stakes. Might be relevant if your GM rules that Whirling Throw is more of an arc than a line.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
I think the second sentence is there just to let you know that they don't all have to have spikes if you don't want. For example, if creating a defensive line, you probably only want the spikes facing forward towards the threat.
Hmmm, yeah fair. That does make it a bit weaker. Might be for the best given the damage numbers...still a really cool impulse though!
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The weakness of course is that the placement of the Berms is something you want to do first since it's three actions and overflow, then you move in and start grabbing people. In a white room, this is amazing, but in a realistic combat situation where monsters can choose to avoid the spiky areas until you put them there, it's more reasonable.
PossibleCabbage wrote: The weakness of course is that the placement of the Berms is something you want to do first since it's three actions and overflow, then you move in and start grabbing people. In a white room, this is amazing, but in a realistic combat situation where monsters can choose to avoid the spiky areas until you put them there, it's more reasonable. That's why you have to adjust your strategy on the fly for each fight individually. If your party has the range superiority over the enemy, then you want to use the Berms as a barricade to make it more difficult for your enemy to reach you, or to eat damage, if he wants to take shortcuts. Your party would of course hug parts of your Berm formation on the other side. So once the enemies reach you, both you and your enemies are exactly at the position you want them to be and you can start throwing.
If your enemy has the range superiority, then you use your Berms to cut of escape routes, so he either gets engaged in melee with your party members and therefore, eats AoOs or gets grappled by you. Spoilers: casters and ranged attackers do not like getting grappled. The alternative is he runs through your spikes and eats damage to get away from you, which is also fine. You always have the option to recast your Berms, which despawns the old ones and creates new ones.
You might of course also face any combination in between and also, the natural terrain of the battle map will vary every single time, so feel free to be creative with your placement.
Good thing is, as an Earth Kineticist Wrestler, you are both great in melee and range and should have plenty of tools at your disposal to adjust to the situation at hand.
There's also the option of just building around berms. For example, the local fighter with the shove feat line to just push creatures into the berms, particularly larger ones that can be devastated just with a 5 or 10ft push by hitting them at multiple elevation levels.
This is a team game after all. Why try to do it all yourself when you can abuse things to much greater effect as a group?
gesalt wrote: There's also the option of just building around berms. For example, the local fighter with the shove feat line to just push creatures into the berms, particularly larger ones that can be devastated just with a 5 or 10ft push by hitting them at multiple elevation levels.
This is a team game after all. Why try to do it all yourself when you can abuse things to much greater effect as a group?
It's an option. Forced movement in general is gated by Fortitude, meaning that unfortunately lots of monsters are fairly good at it. But it's an option. And again, do ask your GM if whirling throw can even throw people into damaging places, since rules-as-written it can't as it's not a push or pull.
It's honestly pretty similar to what we already have with the chromatic walls , prismatic wall and wall of fire . The difference with the berms is that they're shapeable and deal damage for each 5-foot-square people move through rather than only every time you pass through the wall. On the other hand, they deal piercing damage (which monsters more commonly resist, and which really cripples the build since resistance reduces every 5-foot instance of it separately) and they deal a lot less damage than a prismatic wall would.
Shoving builds + damaging terrain aren't new, and they're often quite effective when the whole party synergizes around them (as is generally true - party synergy is extremely strong). Berms are probably the best incarnation of hazardous terrain to use them on, though.
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Calliope5431 wrote: And again, do ask your GM if whirling throw can even throw people into damaging places, since rules-as-written it can't as it's not a push or pull. Wait. What? Not being a push or pull means that you can't throw people into damaging places? Where did this come from?
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Sanityfaerie wrote: Calliope5431 wrote: And again, do ask your GM if whirling throw can even throw people into damaging places, since rules-as-written it can't as it's not a push or pull. Wait. What? Not being a push or pull means that you can't throw people into damaging places? Where did this come from? Rules for forced movement.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=451
Quote:
If you’re pushed or pulled, you can usually be moved through hazardous terrain, pushed off a ledge, or the like. Abilities that reposition you in some other way can’t put you in such dangerous places unless they specify otherwise. In all cases, the GM makes the final call if there’s doubt on where forced movement can move a creature.
Whirling throw is neither a push nor pull, it is an "ability that repositions you in some other way".
Hence, ask your GM. It's potentially, even probably, fine. But the rules absolutely do not want you to be able to throw people off cliffs with all forced movement.
(also, you should make sure to ask your GM about berms in particular because GMs can get annoyed about zone abuse, but that's just common courtesy)
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I think the hazardous terrain forced movement rules are for "you can't cheese the boss fight by hurling them off a cliff/into the lava/other instant death scenario" (and likewise that NPCs can't do this to PCs.) I think generally cases of "I throw them at the dangerous thing where they will take damage, but not necessarily die" are within the way the game is supposed to work.
Like if there's a wall of spikes, and the monster grabbed your PC and threw them at the wall of spikes, from which they would take damage, that wouldn't necessarily seem unreasonable would it? But if the monster grabs your PC, and hurls them into a yawning abyss that instantly kills them, you'd probably think that was unreasonable.
PossibleCabbage wrote: I think the hazardous terrain forced movement rules are for "you can't cheese the boss fight by hurling them off a cliff/into the lava/other instant death scenario" (and likewise that NPCs can't do this to PCs.) I think generally cases of "I throw them at the dangerous thing where they will take damage, but not necessarily die" are within the way the game is supposed to work.
Like if there's a wall of spikes, and the monster grabbed your PC and threw them at the wall of spikes, from which they would take damage, that wouldn't necessarily seem unreasonable would it? But if the monster grabs your PC, and hurls them into a yawning abyss that instantly kills them, you'd probably think that was unreasonable.
Yeah I absolutely agree.
In fairness. "Throw you at a wall of spikes that deals 500 points of damage in neat 5 foot intervals that will vaporize your dying levels faster than you can say 'nerfbat'" and "throw you into a yawning abyss that instantly kills you" don't have much to differentiate them besides one of them spelling out exactly how you die mechanically and the other just being sort of assumed.
The thing about the Berms though is that the "you can throw them so that they hit every berm" is a thing that's going to happen *sometimes* Which you'd allow because "letting the PCs feel awesome sometimes" is good.
You should also run the opposition in such a way that this does not happen regularly which is doable via "choosing where to stand" or "destroying the berms"(they're really not that tough). As the GM you want the monsters to lose, but you also want them to put up a good fight.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Another great way to se the the berms: divide rooms and create choke points for you and your allies to stack up on.
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Calliope5431 wrote: Rules for forced movement.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=451
Huh. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty straightforward. It just doesn't work
It also makes Whirling Throw way, way less cool in general. Like, if you can't throw people off of cliffs and battlements with it, then what's even the point?
Now, the air impulses that force your enemies to jump... those are a little less clear as to how they work with these rules. Whirling Throw is pretty clearly limited, though.
Calliope5431 wrote:
It's an option. Forced movement in general is gated by Fortitude, meaning that unfortunately lots of monsters are fairly good at it. But it's an option. And again, do ask your GM if whirling throw can even throw people into damaging places, since rules-as-written it can't as it's not a push or pull.
See that's the best part about fighter's pushing feats. Not a save in sight and it's a push so you ignore all those symantics about forced movement.
As for the rest, you actually need to hit fairly high resistance before berms fall behind damaging walls considering how likely it is for enemies to make their saves. That you can redeploy the berms infinitely instead of spending a daily resource is another large bonus over previous options.
I really do think that, with a bare minimum of party support, jagged berm kineticist could be a top-tier build even before you consider support options like the tree or picking up air impulses or optioning for funny earth+wood prone+pin blast crits.
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Sanityfaerie wrote: Calliope5431 wrote: Rules for forced movement.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=451
Huh. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty straightforward. It just doesn't work
It also makes Whirling Throw way, way less cool in general. Like, if you can't throw people off of cliffs and battlements with it, then what's even the point? I think the "I am the GM so I get to make up rules" way to handle whirling throwing someone off the battlements, is to just give the NPC a chance to grab a ledge.
Throwing them at the wall of rusty meathooks would simply do more damage.
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Sanityfaerie wrote: Calliope5431 wrote: Rules for forced movement.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=451
Huh. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty straightforward. It just doesn't work
It also makes Whirling Throw way, way less cool in general. Like, if you can't throw people off of cliffs and battlements with it, then what's even the point?
Now, the air impulses that force your enemies to jump... those are a little less clear as to how they work with these rules. Whirling Throw is pretty clearly limited, though. Reading that too literally is a bad idea imo. Did you know that none of the weapon specializations actually say push? A number say "knock back" instead, polearm says "move". And yet I'm fairly sure most people would interpret those as equivalent to the Shove action.
I'm of the opinion that if physical force is involved you can put them in a bad spot.
For whirling throw specifically most gms I've played allow throwing people off cliffs although often allowing a grab a ledge reaction.
As far as the specific impulse is concerned, I admit I would be hard pressed to allow someone to throw "through" all 6 spaces for 12d6 at 6.
I would probably rule that it takes the damage of where he lands (and having to walk through the rest to come back).
Sanityfaerie wrote:
Now, the air impulses that force your enemies to jump... those are a little less clear as to how they work with these rules.
They put a PFS clarification on it.
PossibleCabbage wrote:
I think the "I am the GM so I get to make up rules" way to handle whirling throwing someone off the battlements, is to just give the NPC a chance to grab a ledge.
Throwing them at the wall of rusty meathooks would simply do more damage.
Yeah I'd say whirling throw depends vastly on GM ruling. Since I'd generally agree you can toss them, but I'd think very carefully about whether they get a save, and how much damage they actually take from getting thrown through the berms.
Honestly, given the 5-action setup and the fact that the damage isn't actually that outrageously high (especially if the berms only get one spike per face and no diagonal spikes) I'd be tempted to allow it. Sure, you can deal decent damage to goons. Good luck dealing with the Gargantuan-sized ancient dragon three levels higher than you in the same way (I think at level 15 you're rolling at +15 levels + 5 Str + 8 prof + 2 item + 2 status - 4 size = +28 against an ancient blue's DC 42 Fortitude to get off the throw, which is doable, but unlikely to happen consistently, especially since you have to grapple the dragon first and that takes another Athletics roll).
But as a GM you could also just say "no", or give it a save to not go into the berms, or reduce the damage. This is not the sort of thing a polite player should spring on their GM without telling the GM beforehand.
And then there's also the idiocy of "technically a Large/Huge/Gargantuan creature enters 2/3/4 squares of spike every 5 feet of movement they get tossed/shoved and therefore takes 2/3/4 times the damage per 5 feet of movement" but that's pretty clearly not intended and a nightmare to have to deal with because the multiplication breaks the game in half.
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Xenocrat wrote: Sanityfaerie wrote:
Now, the air impulses that force your enemies to jump... those are a little less clear as to how they work with these rules.
They put a PFS clarification on it. The forced movement rules cover a few different things. Among them is the universal "doesn't trigger reactions". Doesn't mean the impulse isn't pushing someone with wind.
Calliope5431 wrote: Honestly, given the 5-action setup and the fact that the damage isn't actually that outrageously high (especially if the berms only get one spike per face and no diagonal spikes) I'd be tempted to allow it. Sure, you can deal decent damage to goons. Good luck dealing with the Gargantuan-sized ancient dragon three levels higher than you in the same way (I think at level 15 you're rolling at +15 levels + 5 Str + 8 prof + 2 item + 2 status - 4 size = +28 against an ancient blue's DC 42 Fortitude to get off the throw, which is doable, but unlikely to happen consistently, especially since you have to grapple the dragon first and that takes another Athletics roll). Some correction to your math: At level 15, your Str is +6 thanks to Assume Earths Mantle. Also an Ancient Blue Dragon is huge and since you are large, you only take -2 instead of -4 for the throw. So your Grapple value is 33 and your Whirling Throw value is 31. Grabbed on a 9+ (60%), Restrained on a 19+ (10%), and throwing on a 11+ (50%) are actually not that bad odds against a severe boss level creature.
Subutai1 wrote: Calliope5431 wrote: Honestly, given the 5-action setup and the fact that the damage isn't actually that outrageously high (especially if the berms only get one spike per face and no diagonal spikes) I'd be tempted to allow it. Sure, you can deal decent damage to goons. Good luck dealing with the Gargantuan-sized ancient dragon three levels higher than you in the same way (I think at level 15 you're rolling at +15 levels + 5 Str + 8 prof + 2 item + 2 status - 4 size = +28 against an ancient blue's DC 42 Fortitude to get off the throw, which is doable, but unlikely to happen consistently, especially since you have to grapple the dragon first and that takes another Athletics roll). Some correction to your math: At level 15, your Str is +6 thanks to Assume Earths Mantle. Also an Ancient Blue Dragon is huge and since you are large, you only take -2 instead of -4 for the throw. So your Grapple value is 33 and your Whirling Throw value is 31. Grabbed on a 9+ (60%), Restrained on a 19+ (10%), and throwing on a 11+ (50%) are actually not that bad odds against a severe boss level creature. Worth to mention that the actual damage if GM decides you take each square of damage, using the most punishing for the player reading of Berns (cross shaped and not 3x3) at that level, for this combo, would be 39d6+6 (142.5)
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I have to say though "I pick up the dragon and throw them at the spikes" would rank very highly on the all-time "I feel awesome for having done this" scale for RPGs.
PossibleCabbage wrote: I have to say though "I pick up the dragon and throw them at the spikes" would rank very highly on the all-time "I feel awesome for having done this" scale for RPGs. Useful to note that vs Huge targets like targets you can either way shape "kill pits" to toss them in.
__BB
Bxxx
Bx_xB
Bx
(b = Bern, x= spike, d= dragon)
Easily covers a dragon for 6 spikes.
As for actions, while its "5 actions for the combo" you can after that keep repeating the damage for just 2 actions.
shroudb wrote: PossibleCabbage wrote: I have to say though "I pick up the dragon and throw them at the spikes" would rank very highly on the all-time "I feel awesome for having done this" scale for RPGs. Useful to note that vs Huge targets like targets you can either way shape "kill pits" to toss them in.
BB
Bxxx
BxxxB
Bx
(b = Bern, x= spike, d= dragon)
Easily covers a dragon for 6 spikes.
As for actions, while its "5 actions for the combo" you can after that keep repeating the damage for just 2 actions. True. Sort of. Though the monsters can always walk away. Not much you can do about that.
Calliope5431 wrote: True. Sort of. Though the monsters can always walk away. Not much you can do about that. Well, the berms serve as physical barriers. You and your allies can also serve as physical barriers. All of the above can be attacked, of course, but I'd count it as a bit more than "not much".
True. But if they're serving as barriers against the monsters leaving they're less likely to be clumped in a way that lets you do massive damage with them.
It depends on the environment and encounter setup, I think. A dragon with 180 foot fly speed in an open field is unlikely to be stopped, for instance. On the other hand, it's more effective indoors with choke points.
And on a third hand, if you're fighting in extremely dense areas you can barely conjure the berms at all. There are some modules with extremely tight and twisting tunnels where you can barely throw something ten feet without hitting a wall.
I'd enjoy seeing it in play to see exactly how fiddly the positioning winds up being.
Calliope5431 wrote:
And on a third hand, if you're fighting in extremely dense areas you can barely conjure the berms at all. There are some modules with extremely tight and twisting tunnels where you can barely throw something ten feet without hitting a wall.
I'd enjoy seeing it in play to see exactly how fiddly the positioning winds up being.
I think dense areas are in the Berns favor because they allow you to hard close areas without spikes.
Think a simple 10ft wide corridor, now you can put them like:
Wwwwwwwwwwwww
XbxxxbxxxbxxC
Axxbxxxbxxxbx
Wwwwwwwwwwwww
(w = wall, b = Bern, X = spike)
And now someone to go from A to C needs to pass through 16 squares of spikes...
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Calliope5431 wrote: Ed Reppert wrote: Ravingdork posted a pretty interesting aerokineticist who picks up water as a second element (IOW not a dual gate character from the start). At 16th level, he seems to have one water impulse feat, all the rest being air. I'm still trying to get my head around it. :-) That's fairly common, really. The reason you switch is because you want to pilfer something neat and you ran out of impulses in your primary element. Which you will. No primary element has all the toys you could want. Every time I try to build a mono-element kineticist I always want to diversify eventually.
One? Where did you get that idea? He has four Water impulses, one of which is a composite water/air.
- Call the Hurricane
- Deflecting Wave
- Driving Rain
- Rising Hurricane (composite)
Here is the character for anyone interested in seeing it: Raijin Perun (male Bonuwat human hired killer kineticist 16)
shroudb wrote: PossibleCabbage wrote: I have to say though "I pick up the dragon and throw them at the spikes" would rank very highly on the all-time "I feel awesome for having done this" scale for RPGs. Useful to note that vs Huge targets like targets you can either way shape "kill pits" to toss them in.
⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬛
⬛⬜⬜❎❎⬜⬜⬛
⬛❎❌❌❌⬜⬜⬛
⬛❎❌⬜❌❎⬜⬛
⬛❎❌️️⬜⬜⬜⬜⬛
⬛⬜㊗️㊗️㊗️Ⓜ️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️⬜⬛
⬛⬜㊗️㊗️㊗️⬜⬜⬛
⬛⬜㊗️㊗️㊗️⬜⬜⬛
⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛
(⬛ = Wall, ❎ = Bern, ❌ = Spike, ㊗️ 3x3 = Dragon, Ⓜ️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️ = Monk)
Easily covers a dragon for 6 spikes.
As for actions, while its "5 actions for the combo" you can after that keep repeating the damage for just 2 actions.
This ought to make it a little bit easier on folks.
shroudb wrote: Calliope5431 wrote: And on a third hand, if you're fighting in extremely dense areas you can barely conjure the berms at all. There are some modules with extremely tight and twisting tunnels where you can barely throw something ten feet without hitting a wall.
I'd enjoy seeing it in play to see exactly how fiddly the positioning winds up being.
I think dense areas are in the Berns favor because they allow you to hard close areas without spikes.
Think a simple 10ft wide corridor, now you can put them like:
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
❌❎❌❌❌❎❌❌❌❎❌❌⚪
⚫❌❌❎❌❌❌❎❌❌❌❎❌
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
(⬛ = wall, ❎ = Bern, ❌ = spike)
And now someone to go from ⚫ to ⚪ needs to pass through 16 squares of spikes...
Cleaned it up a bit for ya'.
shroudb wrote:
I think dense areas are in the Berns favor because they allow you to hard close areas without spikes.
Think a simple 10ft wide corridor, now you can put them like:
Wwwwwwwwwwwww
XbxxxbxxxbxxC
Axxbxxxbxxxbx
Wwwwwwwwwwwww
(w = wall, b = Bern, X = spike)
And now someone to go from A to C needs to pass through 16 squares of spikes... True, but that also makes it somewhat impassable to your party. Which is a downside if they have ranged attacks and your crew is mostly melee.
Picturing some other areas...
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬜⬜⬜⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛⬜⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬛
Sure, you can put together some choke points. But you're not throwing anyone that far through berms (in fact, since berms occupy 5 foot cubes, you can only ever get one tick of damage from them). That was more my point.
Anyway, that's really the only thing I wanted to say. I'm honestly hugely uncertain how a build like this will actually play. The theoretical ceiling is quite large, but who knows how often you'll hit it. Might be rare or it might be pretty common.
I am excited to find out, though, because berms seems like it could be pretty cool. And I do hope if people in the thread wind up playing a berm build they'll post here, since I'm really curious to hear how it plays (sadly I'm locked in to fire/earth kineticist for a while, or I'd try it out myself...)
And @Ravingdork, thanks a bundle for all the formatting icons!
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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Calliope5431 wrote: And @Ravingdork, thanks a bundle for all the formatting icons! You're welcome! I love seeing what people can do with them.
I simply got bored one day and decided to copy over every. single. emoji. from. Discord. Just to see which ones would work. Took about three hours. Turns out it's surprisingly few, though we sure can make the ones we have work for us. Perhaps with the coming forum upgrade we will be able to utilize even more of them?
For those who are interested, here are my forum emoji testing results!
Gisher liked them so much, he even set up numerous area effect templates for us forum users to copy in play-by-posts or in rules discussions like this one!
Elemental Blast question. The ranged listed for each element, are these absolute ranges like spells or range increments like ranged weapons? I fear that I already know the answer. The answer will change Weapon Infusion's usefulness to me.
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Ravingdork wrote: Calliope5431 wrote: Ed Reppert wrote: Ravingdork posted a pretty interesting aerokineticist who picks up water as a second element (IOW not a dual gate character from the start). At 16th level, he seems to have one water impulse feat, all the rest being air. I'm still trying to get my head around it. :-) That's fairly common, really. The reason you switch is because you want to pilfer something neat and you ran out of impulses in your primary element. Which you will. No primary element has all the toys you could want. Every time I try to build a mono-element kineticist I always want to diversify eventually.
One? Where did you get that idea? He has four Water impulses, one of which is a composite water/air.
- Call the Hurricane
- Deflecting Wave
- Driving Rain
- Rising Hurricane (composite)
Here is the character for anyone interested in seeing it: Raijin Perun (male Bonuwat human hired killer kineticist 16)
Apparently either I'm blind, or I can't count. Or maybe both. :-)
I'm still trying to build him in Herolab, but I'm missing something. Ah, well, I'll figure it out eventually.
Zero the Nothing wrote: Elemental Blast question. The ranged listed for each element, are these absolute ranges like spells or range increments like ranged weapons? I fear that I already know the answer. The answer will change Weapon Infusion's usefulness to me. It looks like it's just flat range.
Yeah I really like Weapon Infusion.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Ed Reppert wrote: I'm still trying to build him in Herolab, but I'm missing something. Ah, well, I'll figure it out eventually. Maybe this will help?
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Thanks, that will definitely help. :-)
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Calliope5431 wrote: It looks like it's just flat range.
Yeah I really like Weapon Infusion.
So does my BLM build with 100' range increment fire blasts
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
HenshinFanatic wrote: Calliope5431 wrote: It looks like it's just flat range.
Yeah I really like Weapon Infusion.
So does my BLM build with 100' range increment fire blasts BLM Build?
Ravingdork wrote: HenshinFanatic wrote: Calliope5431 wrote: It looks like it's just flat range.
Yeah I really like Weapon Infusion.
So does my BLM build with 100' range increment fire blasts BLM Build? Black Mage. The abbreviation is from FFXIV.
...and now it occurs to me you can get that online pretty quickly. Dual gate water/fire and you've got cold and fire impulses/blasts at level 1. Fork the path at 5 to add air and you've got electric too, and can pick up Lightning Dash as another impulse.
Only downside is that there's not a lot of cold impulses available, but eh.
kineticist still doesn't look like they have good damage
even 3 action overflow have lower damage than some good 2 action focus spell but are better at aoe
which is less valuable compare to focus down one enemy first or debuff multiple enemy
but as archetype it have massive and versatile level 2 to level 8 feat pool
competition for feat slot is fierce
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
I really like this latest version of Raijin Perun. One thing bothers me, though: RAW, it looks to me like his personal staff isn't legal. The RAW says "you can cast a spell from a staff only if it's on your spell list," and a kineticist doesn't have a spell list. I suppose the question is whether Kinetic Activation gets around this limitation. I hope so, 'cause I really want him to have that staff. :-)
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