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Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. This is a place to talk about which ancestries are particularly good at being kineticists (or even just specific kinds of kineticist) and why. First noting the common ancestries, which... honestly have pretty much already been discussed, but it feels weird to leave them out.
Human: First and most obvious. Pretty much *any* dual-element kineticist can come up with some way that they'd love to be able to use an extra level 1 class feat. Being able to get a dedication at level 9 is potentially also worthwhile... and then there's Versatile Heritage. Getting Medium Armor proficiency at level 1 could be pretty appealing for some builds.
Halfling: If for some reason it was really important to you to get that impulse junction at level 1, but you want to branch out at level 5? Cultural Adaptability into human means that you can buy a level 1 impulse at level 5 with a single ancestry feat. The halfling luck tree is also potentially worthwhile.
Goblin: Somewhat niche. Goblin Scuttle can be useful if you aren't interested in any of your in-class reactions. Burn It isn't useful *currently*, but might be with the remaster? There are aerokineticist builds that care about ability to be sneaky, and goblin has a fair number of sneaky feats.
Elf: base movespeed of 30 is a heck of an opener. Of course, losing 2 con is brutal... but we don't have to do that anymore, do we? Then there's Nimble Elf that cranks it up to 35 for an ancestry feat. For those that intend to get into the thick of things, the level 9 Elf Step isn't bad either. If for some reason you don't care about those mobility boosts? No particular reason to be an elf.
Dwarf... tries. +con/+wis/+free/-cha is nice. The movespeed 20 hurts, though. If you're planning on using Earth Armor, then you can pretty much buy that back with Unburdened Iron, at which point it starts being a decently solid choice, but it's still not amazing.
There is no reason whatsoever to be a gnome.
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Moving past that, and on to the uncommons and rares, I'm not going to bother mentioning the ones that I see as having some particular kineticist-based reason to want.
Grippli: Arguably, long tongue (lvl 5) would allow you to deliver Ocean's Balm at reach. That's at least moderately interesting.
Leshy: +con/+wis/+free/-int is a strong combo for kineticist.
Tengu: The Stormtossed Tengu heritage autosucceeds at its flat check against concealment from rain and fog. Both Driving Rain (Water 6) and Impenetrable Fog (Water 8) produce those kinds of concealment in ways that might sometimes benefit your foes. Tengu Feather Fan *wants* to be interesting, but... kineticists are usually going to be better off using their own powers rather than cantrips, even if those cantrips are running off class DC.
Conrasu: +con/+wis/+free/-cha is also a strong combo for a kineticist. Additionally, Ceremony of Growth (level 13 feat) gives you unlimited access to the effects of Enlarge, including an increased reach and a bonus to melee (not just melee weapon) damage.
Poppet: +con/+cha/+free/-dex is potentially interesting for terrakineticists. Having an ancestry feat that can bump you up to base speed 30 is potentially interesting as well, especially for aerokineticists.
Skeleton: Fodder skeleton heritage has base speed of 30.
Goloma: base move speed of 30. Additionally, for those who want to get into the scrum for whatever reason, Watchful Gaze (lvl 1) plus Constant Gaze (lvl 9) makes you immune to flanking by creatures your level and lower. How often are you going to be flanked by two different creatures who are both higher level than you are?
Anandi: Spindly anandi get a move speed of 30.
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...and that's it, really. It's not that there's nothing of value to be gotten from ancestries, it's that so little of it has any real synergy with kineticist. I'll take a look at the versatile heritages next, but I don't hold out a lot of hope there.
There is no reason whatsoever to be a gnome.
Exactly my thoughts….
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Lizardfolk also is also a good option to Kineticist for the same reasons of Leshy (+str/+wis/+free/-int). Wetlander Lizardfolk get a good water movement and breath making them interesting for those wants to flood the things.
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Leaf Leshy has a neat synergy with some of the movement impulses + Rolling Landing: blast yourself up into the air, fall, take no damage, get extra movement as a reaction. Anyone can do this with Cat Fall (which is a prereq anyway) but Leaf Leshy can do it from higher heights much earlier than those relying on Cat Fall. Leshy also has Leshy Glide which can work nicely with some of the terrain building impulses.
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...and on to the versatile heritages. Here's what I found:
Beastkin: Pack Tactics (9) may be worthwhile, for the right parties. Dire Form (13) gives at-will access to Enlarge effects. Animal Shape(17) and/or Animal Swiftness (also 17) are potentially interesting in various ways, mostly for those that are *not* aerokineticists... but they're only available at level 17.
Undine: Mistsoul becomes significantly less niche, and kineticists don't always have good reactions to work with. It's still not amazing, but it's not nothing. Translucent Skin (13) becomes marginally less niche for aquakineticists, as they're in a better position to arrange for water to be available to hide in. I guess that's a synergy?
Tiefling: Nimble Hooves(1) offers a +5 movespeed increase (not cumulative with movespeed increase from ancestry feats)
Talos: Reflective Defense is potentially worthwhile if you're feeling a bit light on reactions.
Sylph: Smokesoul(1) is improved in much the same way that Mistsoul is. Swift(1) is basically Nimble Hooves, but it's a bit more in-theme in some ways, and the fact that you can get both Swift and Smokesoul together is nice. Cloud Gazer (5) lets you ignore concealment from fog/mist/clouds which has some synergies with Impenetrable Fog (Water 8). Inner Breath (9) lets you hold your breath for an extra hour, which makes Swim Through Earth (Earth 8) a bit less limited.
Ifrit: pyrokineticists have a number of ways to trigger Heatwave(5) without hurting themselves. Thermal Nimbus (Fire 4) hands it put pretty much constantly. It wants to be awesome. Sadly, Heatwave is limited to once every ten minutes. So... not terrible?
Changeling: Mist Child (5) makes concealment slightly more effective. It's not a huge boost, but it applies to all sources of concealment, and happens automatically. Mother's Mindfulness (9) is only once per minute, but it's a heck of a way to draw attacks if you're often fighting in close quarters with your allies. Works better for wood or metal impulse junctions than for earth
Ardande: Ambersoul isn't a particularly strong effect, but it is a bit of a tanking boost that works just fine with the various methods of kineticist tanking, kicks in automatically, and isn't limited in times per day.
Aasimar: Halo(1) plus Healer's Halo(5) works pretty well with kineticist healing. It's only 1d6 per target per 10 minutes, and it takes a reaction, but if you're throwing around something like Torrent in the Blood that heals multiple targets at once, you can hand the bonus to all of them in a single shot. Call of Elysium (9) is another one of those nonstacking +5 move speed feats, but this one also hands out +5 movespeed as a status bonus (for the round) to any ally who starts their turn next to you. Flame Jump (13) also qualifies. I don't generally like to consider one-use-per-day spells for this, because they tend not to work so well with kineticist, but pyrokineticists, and especially those with access to the wood/fire composite impulse, have much easier access to "fire larger than you are" than most folks, and "teleport 5 miles" is potentially useful in a strategic way.
/**********/
Conclusions...
Sylphs are surprisingly worthwhile overall, and mostly want to be air/water, which tracks. Being able to ignore concealment from mist while also being harder to see with no problems inside concealment from mist and also being able to create concealment from mist is a nice little combo. Sylphs have advantages for teams where other people are hydrokineticists, too.
Ardande's synergy for Wood kineticists isn't huge, but it's gratifying that it's there. You can totally build a tank-spec phytokineticist Ardande and get a real synergy out of it to feel good about
Ifrit is worth considering if you're a pyrokineticist and none of the other heritage options excite you. It goes a little bit beyond the Ardande thing, in that you don't really have to put in effort to build for it, but it also doesn't kick in immediately. It's okay.
Aasimar and Changeling were both surprises to me, and there's enough there that it's worth being aware of them.
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Lizardfolk also is also a good option to Kineticist for the same reasons of Leshy (+str/+wis/+free/-int). Wetlander Lizardfolk get a good water movement and breath making them interesting for those wants to flood the things.
Good catch on the lizardfolk statline. I'm not as thrilled by the water movement and breathing, though, if only because using flooding as a battlefield strategy is hard, and anyone who was serious about it would have easy access to Return to the Sea. On the other hand, it's true that Scion Transformation (17) gives enlarge, which we like, and I completely missed Terrain Advantage (9) which is potentially very shiny. (Free flat-footed against effectively all targets on difficult terrain? For a class that's especially good at creating difficult terrain?) So yeah. Lizardfolk are definitely worth putting on the list.
I really enjoy androids for pyrokineticist. Lasers anyone?
Automatons are similarly thematic.
A fleshwarp phytokineticist could be a mutant with out of control biology, spontaneously growing healing postules, man eating tumors, generating fleshy formations, or the like.
Those are interesting thematically, but have basically zero crunch synergy, and crunch synergy was what I was looking at here. In particular, the lasers are unarmed attacks, which kineticists are bad at. The fact is that PF2 is crammed full of ways to make your character interestingly flavorful. Actually getting crunch synergies (especially on something like the kineticist, which was designed in part to largely avoid them) takes rather more searching around.
Leaf Leshy has a neat synergy with some of the movement impulses + Rolling Landing: blast yourself up into the air, fall, take no damage, get extra movement as a reaction. Anyone can do this with Cat Fall (which is a prereq anyway) but Leaf Leshy can do it from higher heights much earlier than those relying on Cat Fall. Leshy also has Leshy Glide which can work nicely with some of the terrain building impulses.
Okay... but how high up do the "blast them into the air" impulses really get? Like, I hadn't really thought that many of them were particularly dealing falling damage anyway... and the ones that were, you'd mostly want to target your foes with.
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Those are interesting thematically, but have basically zero crunch synergy, and crunch synergy was what I was looking at here. In particular, the lasers are unarmed attacks, which kineticists are bad at. The fact is that PF2 is crammed full of ways to make your character interestingly flavorful. Actually getting crunch synergies (especially on something like the kineticist, which was designed in part to largely avoid them) takes rather more searching around.I really enjoy androids for pyrokineticist. Lasers anyone?
Automatons are similarly thematic.
A fleshwarp phytokineticist could be a mutant with out of control biology, spontaneously growing healing postules, man eating tumors, generating fleshy formations, or the like.
Why limit yourself to one or the other when you can have both? :P
Also, the lasers I was referring to are your pyrokineticist's fire blasts or flying fire attacks, so they scale just fine.
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Why limit yourself to one or the other? :P
Also, the lasers are your pyrokineticist's fire blasts or flying fire attacks, so they scale just fine.
I don't limit myself to one or the other... but they are different stages in the process... and "hey, this is really cool flavor-wise" doesn't actually say a lot about the crunch.
Like, there's nothing wrong with the idea of playing an automaton pyrokineticist Because It's Cool. If you want to do that thing, you have fun with that. It's not the thing that I'm trying to collect stuff on here, though.
Like, if the lasers are from the kineticist, it sounds like the combo you're describing doesn't actually get anything at all (crunch-wise) from its automaton side.
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Why limit yourself to one or the other? :P
Also, the lasers are your pyrokineticist's fire blasts or flying fire attacks, so they scale just fine.
I don't limit myself to one or the other... but they are different stages in the process... and "hey, this is really cool flavor-wise" doesn't actually say a lot about the crunch.
Like, there's nothing wrong with the idea of playing an automaton pyrokineticist Because It's Cool. If you want to do that thing, you have fun with that. It's not the thing that I'm trying to collect stuff on here, though.
Well, alright. I'll move on then out of respect for your request. Shame you can't edit your thread title to clarify what it was you were looking for.
Well, alright. I'll move on then out of respect for your request. Shame you can't edit your thread title to clarify what it was you were looking for.
Well, okay. Fair. In retrospect it's true that my title was not at all clear on that matter. You have my apologies on that one.
Elves are incredible for air Kineticists which start out with a single gate. With Nimble Elf and Fleet you can have 20 feet of free movement every time you use a two-action air impulse. At level 5 you either can expand the gate and get the aura junction or pick up Kinetic Activation at level 2 and get a 2nd lvl wand of Tailwinds for another 10 feet of movement, making your free movement 25 feet, i.e. what other people get as their standard stride movement.
Kobolds can make decent kineticists, I think. At low levels, their Kobold Breath feat can give an AoE attack to kineticists who want to use their Impulses on other options, an attack which scales with their Class DC. Cringe is a nice reaction to have since critical hits will eventually happen. There are also some impulses which create difficult terrain, which might be able to synergize with the Briar Battler feat. Also, they can get a fly speed even if the never get the air element.
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Kobolds can make decent kineticists, I think. At low levels, their Kobold Breath feat can give an AoE attack to kineticists who want to use their Impulses on other options, an attack which scales with their Class DC. Cringe is a nice reaction to have since critical hits will eventually happen. There are also some impulses which create difficult terrain, which might be able to synergize with the Briar Battler feat. Also, they can get a fly speed even if the never get the air element.
Anyone can be a decent anything, though. The point is to see what works well together... and I'm not seeing it from kobold.
- Kobold Breath: This is, in effect, a way for other people to play with the stuff that the kineticist is good at. I'm not saying that it's useless, but it's less useful to a kineticist than it is to almost any other class.
- Cringe is... okay? It doesn't seem to me to be particularly *more* useful to a kineticist than it is to other folks.
- Briar Battler only applies to difficult terrain from environmental features. I'm not convinced that kineticist impulses get to count for that. Also, it's pretty much worse than just carrying a shield, and kineticists aren't generally as strained for hands as other classes are.
Don't get me wrong. I love kobolds. Kobolds are cool... but they don't have a lot to offer that specifically sweetens the pot for kineticists.
Elves are incredible for air Kineticists which start out with a single gate. With Nimble Elf and Fleet you can have 20 feet of free movement every time you use a two-action air impulse. At level 5 you either can expand the gate and get the aura junction or pick up Kinetic Activation at level 2 and get a 2nd lvl wand of Tailwinds for another 10 feet of movement, making your free movement 25 feet, i.e. what other people get as their standard stride movement.They are also great for fire and fire/metal which have various abilities which let you leap based on your speed. Boots of Bounding become a must.
Uhh... Fire has jump.
Fire/Earth has jump.Fire/Water has jump.
Fire/Metal?
Torch Goblin has a fun interaction with Consume Power - light yourself on fire and just keep letting persistent damage trigger the reaction.
The frustrating thing about Torch Goblin is that it's so poorly designed. Like, your heritage means that you have a better than even odds chance to extinguish the flames every turn whether you like it or not, and it's really hard to find efficient ways to burst into flames. Spending an action to light yourself on fire with a torch just isn't worth it.
Also, if you really want to consistently take fire damage each turn so that you can consume it, there's a much easier trick than that. Take Thermal Nimbus. Take Safe Elements. Designate yourself as not receiving the benefits of your own aura. You'll take half your level in damage every round like clockwork, with no actions needed.
Hmm. Might be some grey area there - since Consume Power and Thermal Nimbus grant equal amounts of resistance, can you choose to use Consume Power anyways without Safe Elements?Torch Goblin has a fun interaction with Consume Power - light yourself on fire and just keep letting persistent damage trigger the reaction.The frustrating thing about Torch Goblin is that it's so poorly designed. Like, your heritage means that you have a better than even odds chance to extinguish the flames every turn whether you like it or not, and it's really hard to find efficient ways to burst into flames. Spending an action to light yourself on fire with a torch just isn't worth it.
Also, if you really want to consistently take fire damage each turn so that you can consume it, there's a much easier trick than that. Take Thermal Nimbus. Take Safe Elements. Designate yourself as not receiving the benefits of your own aura. You'll take half your level in damage every round like clockwork, with no actions needed.
Consume power triggers off of "you would take damage". If you have resists that are equal to or greater than the damage dealt, that never triggers, because you're never in a state such that you actually would take damage.
Also, you are incorrect. Thermal Nimbus provides equal amounts of resistance and damage, but Consume Power actually offers twice as much resistance as that.
Don't worry you gnomes are still good with all that spell casting things, illusions and other magical shenanigans.
Oread's Fortify Shield combines decently with Metal Carapace's "free" shield and virtual Shield Block feat. It's even better with a sturdy shield, Effortless Impulse, and Alloy of Flesh and Steel at 14th+ level.
Those are interesting thematically, but have basically zero crunch synergy, and crunch synergy was what I was looking at here. In particular, the lasers are unarmed attacks, which kineticists are bad at. The fact is that PF2 is crammed full of ways to make your character interestingly flavorful. Actually getting crunch synergies (especially on something like the kineticist, which was designed in part to largely avoid them) takes rather more searching around.I really enjoy androids for pyrokineticist. Lasers anyone?
Automatons are similarly thematic.
A fleshwarp phytokineticist could be a mutant with out of control biology, spontaneously growing healing postules, man eating tumors, generating fleshy formations, or the like.
Why limit yourself to one or the other when you can have both? :P
Also, the lasers I was referring to are your pyrokineticist's fire blasts or flying fire attacks, so they scale just fine.
As a player, I am much more likely to remember another character that has a cool, evocative description like the construct with laser eyes than some mechanical benefit. There are times when the mechanics don’t work with a concept, but if the concept is interesting I think it is worthy of discussion.
I think the laser eyed construct could make for a very memorable and reasonably effective character.
A Toy or Windup Poppet with Shiney Button Eyes to shoot the lasers out of could also be a fun variant of this idea.
Although builds should be mechanically sound, they also need to be fun and memorable.
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As a player, I am much more likely to remember another character that has a cool, evocative description like the construct with laser eyes than some mechanical benefit. There are times when the mechanics don’t work with a concept, but if the concept is interesting I think it is worthy of discussion.
I think the laser eyed construct could make for a very memorable and reasonably effective character.
A Toy or Windup Poppet with Shiney Button Eyes to shoot the lasers out of could also be a fun variant of this idea.
Although builds should be mechanically sound, they also need to be fun and memorable.
We have a thread for that now.
Oread's Fortify Shield combines decently with Metal Carapace's "free" shield and virtual Shield Block feat. It's even better with a sturdy shield, Effortless Impulse, and Alloy of Flesh and Steel at 14th+ level.
Fortify Shield is only once per day... and doesn't actually work with the free raise from Alloy Flesh and Steel.
Unexpected shift + Fortuitous Shift is still one of the best ancestry reactions in the game. I would consider gnome on any class without a good reaction for it, kineticist included.
Hmm.
Okay. Maybe there is a reason to be a gnome. Unexpected isn't that great, but fortuitous starts being pretty solid.
The Dwarf feat Sheltering Slab is really good on a class that can create 5 foot stone blocks at will.
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Are gnomes really that bad?
A lot of the most noteworthy gnome stuff seems to assume "you are a magic person, you are interested in casting spells."
The Dwarf feat Sheltering Slab is really good on a class that can create 5 foot stone blocks at will.
It's not, though. Igenogenesis takes two actions to create that block, and the thing it does is protect you from flanking, as long as your'e standing next to it. So, first round... what? You spend one action to move into place and then another action to drop a cube, and then let the enemy batter at you? Sure, you won't get flanked, but as a way to prevent flanking, that's not cheap.
Alternately, you could have it as a reaction to later in the fight - like, if you get flanked, then maybe you spend two actions to raise yourself a friendly slab.
Though igneogenesis does raise at least one interesting possibility. There's potential advantage for an entire party of fairies when one of them can spend two actions to produce enough cover for everyone. Admittedly, it becomes a bit less exciting a bit later on when wall impulses become generally available, but "two action" is still not the same as "three action overflow with sustain"
I mean, it's not that you spend two actions to make yourself immune to flanking, it's that you have this ability to spend actions to alter the terrain to your benefit and now also negate flanking when you do.
I mean, it's not that you spend two actions to make yourself immune to flanking, it's that you have this ability to spend actions to alter the terrain to your benefit and now also negate flanking when you do.
I can see the shape of that argument, but I'm not sure I buy it.
I mean, you're positing that you'd be using igneogenesis in combat even without the flanking benefits. So let's look at that. When would you be using igneogenesis?
- Provide pop-up cover. The enemy is some distance away, you intend to spend some time plinking at them, and you want to make it harder for them to plink at you while you do. Cool. It's not generally going to lead to a situation where you being flanked is a major concern, though.
- Provide a height advantage. You can use it under yourself to grab elevation for whatever reason - possibly to get you out of reach of the enemy, and let you blast them from safety. Does not actually trigger Sheltering Slab.
- Choke a chokepoint further. Starting with a corridor that's 10-20 feet wide and slimming it down a little can do some very nice things for forcing the enemy into chokepoints that can then be efficiently defended. At that point, though... how are they supposed to flank you? Like, choking them down to the point where they cant' do things like flank you is the entire point of the exercise.
Do you have a use case to offer that I haven't thought of? One where a non-dwarf might wish to use igneogenesis to create something to improve their situation in combat, but flanking was reasonably likely even after they had done so, and sheltering slab would help? Can you come up with one that is anything other than desperately niche?
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I mean, it's not that you spend two actions to make yourself immune to flanking, it's that you have this ability to spend actions to alter the terrain to your benefit and now also negate flanking when you do.
I'm pretty sure that "a solid 5' cube of rock" would constitute greater cover in most circumstances, too.
The suli heritage is nice of you are looking to do a dual gate kineticists. You can get your resistances straight from the heritage
Okay. How are those resistances any more useful for the kineticist than for anyone else? Like, kineticists can get resists from their class, and that can be cool and fun to play with, but how does getting resists from outside of the class make it better? I suppose it would make it somewhat less bad to include yourself in your own area effects, but half your level in damage resist still isn't enough to make that a good idea most of the time.
Oread's Fortify Shield combines decently with Metal Carapace's "free" shield and virtual Shield Block feat. It's even better with a sturdy shield, Effortless Impulse, and Alloy of Flesh and Steel at 14th+ level.Fortify Shield is only once per day... and doesn't actually work with the free raise from Alloy Flesh and Steel.
Once per day is why I specified "decently." It's not a must have, but can be useful against a tough foe.
The free shield raise with Alloy of Flesh and Steel is optional ("You can Sustain the impulse up to 1 minute, and when you do, you can Raise a metal Shield if you're wielding one;" emphasis mine). This is why I specified Effortless Impulse (to sustain Alloy of Flesh and Steel as a free action), as well; you then use Fortify Shield to raise and reinforce the shield as one action when you want to benefit. This way, you are not having to spend two actions (one to sustain Alloy of Flesh and Steel, one for Fortify Shield) when you want to use Fortify Shield with Alloy of Flesh and Steel; the rest of the time, you still get to raise your shield as a free action while sustaining Alloy of Flesh and Steel. Even without Fortify Shield, Alloy of Flesh and Steel with a sturdy shield is better than average tanking.
Are gnomes really that bad?
I’m afraid so…Terrible, in fact.
Are gnomes really that bad?I’m afraid so…Terrible, in fact.
I wouldn't go.that far
They have their von BonusThey get a strength Malus but you can either Focus on ranged combat or ignore it
You get the possibility to Pick ups a cantrip or two to round out your skillset or have an easier time to go stealthy before your invisibility come online
I think Gnome is at worst neutral, the feats are often mit a big boost for your skillset, but not in the way or anything
Once per day is why I specified "decently." It's not a must have, but can be useful against a tough foe.
The free shield raise with Alloy of Flesh and Steel is optional ("You can Sustain the impulse up to 1 minute, and when you do, you can Raise a metal Shield if you're wielding one;" emphasis mine). This is why I specified Effortless Impulse (to sustain Alloy of Flesh and Steel as a free action), as well; you then use Fortify Shield to raise and reinforce the shield as one action when you want to benefit. This way, you are not having to spend two actions (one to sustain Alloy of Flesh and Steel, one for Fortify Shield) when you want to use Fortify Shield with Alloy of Flesh and Steel; the rest of the time, you still get to raise your shield as a free action while sustaining Alloy of Flesh and Steel. Even without Fortify Shield, Alloy of Flesh and Steel with a sturdy shield is better than average tanking.
My point is that Alloy of Flesh and Steel actually has an antisynergy with Fortify Shield, as it *would* give you a free shield raise, but you can't use Fortify Shield if you're taking advantage of it.
Oread has a somewhat marginal feat that's designed for people who use shields. That's true. Some kineticists use shields. Also true... but that's not enough to be a significant reason for a kineticist to play an Oread.
...and it *is* somewhat marginal. It's a 1/day that doesn't actually do anything unless an enemy attacks you and hits you that turn. If you've drawn the BBEG's attention in a big way, then it's reasonably close to being worth your level in hp... or in other words, for that fight, under those circumstances, it's approaching the value of Toughness. The only way to make it worth more than toughness is if you're running something like a Champion that can pull multiple shield blocks in a single round.
Oh, and you need to have the Shield Block feat, which kineticists do not naturally have.
Now, Oreads do get imprecise tremorsense (30) at 9, followed by burrow speed (15) at 13, and that is a potentially interesting combination for certain kinds of shenanigans, if you wanted to be able to do things like burrow while still having your aura stance available for other things. There are at least a few possibilities there. I'm not coming up with specifics on it right now, though, and I'd want to see at least a few workable strategies before deciding that it was actually interesting rather than just potentially.