In your opinion, what are some great combinations for Kineticist + Archetype or Class + Kineticist Multiclass Archetype, and why?
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Rogue archetype does a ton to shore up the Kineticist's lack of skills, and Mobility is a great grab for an Air Kineticist since it applies to the movement from the Impulse Junction.
Speaking of Rogue, picking up Winter Sleet (and probably Safe Elements) on a Rogue is an interesting way to auto-apply flat-footed to a lot of creatures. Deflecting Wave or Ocean's Balm are strong utility options for the L1/2 feat pickup needed to open up Advanced Elemental Control.
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I had an admittedly absurd idea of a Kobold Kineticist with the Dragon Disciple archetype. Mostly it was to get the Scales of the Dragon feat.
With the GM’s permission, it might be cool to reflect the character having two elements by having different dragon types as exemplars. For example, you could start as a red dragon dragon scaled kobold with the fire element, and then choose a blue dragon exemplar when you start the dedication, and choosing air as your second element. Mechanically, I don’t think there would be a way to have a third exemplar, but having a third element could be reflected in a subtle change in appearance, like some scales turning black when earth is chosen.
I like Alchemist a lot. You need 14 INT but that's not too cumbersome for a Kineticist.
You could make bombs to attack weaknesses you can't target with your impulses. But you can get a lot of mileage out of stuff like numbing tonic, serene mutagen (basically doesn't have any meaningful drawbacks for a Kin), double fury cocktail, bravo's brew, cheetah elixir, cat's eye elixir, chromatic jellyfish oil, mistform elixir, soothing tonic, etc.
And of course, you can dispense items to your team as well.
You could go Herbalist and key off WIS, which is an easier sell maybe, but you're far more limited in your valid options then.
Despite its pitfalls I still like Elemental Barbarian with Wood Kineticist dedication. Early game it gets a decent ranged attack based on your Con (which can scale if you invest in it) but the real pickups here are tree sentinel and ravel of thorns. Being able to use tree sentinel to shore up your own survivability and ravel of thorns in combination with attack of opportunity to make yourself a sticky target. Barbarian has such a decent damage chassis that adding in extra utility just feels good to me. Especially since unlike other strong archetypes like champion, you dont need to split your ability boosts between anything else but STR and CON.
Flames oracle would be an obvious one for the Fire Kineticist.
Lizardfolk have a feat that let them get off-guard against anyone on difficult terrain, which means that certain kinds of kineticist could make a ranged rogue very happy.
Admittedly, both of those wind up being better in the party optimization configuration where the kineticist and the rogue/oracle are different characters. There's actually a lot of that stuff. Kineticist really shines in party op, and I feel like most of the best archetype combos you could get from them would be thin shadows of the party op stuff.
I have a hard time with archetyping a kineticist in anything other than a FA game, though. I want *all* of those feats for the kineticist mojo.
If I've got a kineticist in a FA game, and it's not a fire kineticist, I'm probably looking to pick up reactions and/or useful focus powers. Going Psychic for amped guidance starts being very appealing. Similarly, going with Blessed One for the Lay on Hands, and so forth.
A number of kineticist builds wind up with a mostly free hand as well, which might lend itself to things like Medic? Rahadoum Kineticist FTW?
For general archetyping in... yeah, I'll agree that Ravel of Thorns and Winter Sleet are the easy wins, especially since both of them have useful non-attack level 1 impulses to spend Through the Gate on - protector tree on the wood side, or the heal power on either. You might be able to get something working with Thermal Nimbus, too, though it's not as exploitable for non-kineticists, and the level 1 impulses aren't as directly useful. Burning Jet, maybe? Who doesn't like to Jump Good?
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I had an admittedly absurd idea of a Kobold Kineticist with the Dragon Disciple archetype. Mostly it was to get the Scales of the Dragon feat.
With the GM’s permission, it might be cool to reflect the character having two elements by having different dragon types as exemplars. For example, you could start as a red dragon dragon scaled kobold with the fire element, and then choose a blue dragon exemplar when you start the dedication, and choosing air as your second element. Mechanically, I don’t think there would be a way to have a third exemplar, but having a third element could be reflected in a subtle change in appearance, like some scales turning black when earth is chosen.
Not a Kineticist, but you can be a Kobold (White dragon exemplar) Barbarian (Red dragon instinct) Dragon Disciple (Green dragon type).
Maybe a Kobold Kineticist MC Barbarian (Dragon) going into Dragon Disciple is somewhat feasible.
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I had an admittedly absurd idea of a Kobold Kineticist with the Dragon Disciple archetype. Mostly it was to get the Scales of the Dragon feat.
With the GM’s permission, it might be cool to reflect the character having two elements by having different dragon types as exemplars. For example, you could start as a red dragon dragon scaled kobold with the fire element, and then choose a blue dragon exemplar when you start the dedication, and choosing air as your second element. Mechanically, I don’t think there would be a way to have a third exemplar, but having a third element could be reflected in a subtle change in appearance, like some scales turning black when earth is chosen.
Not a Kineticist, but you can be a Kobold (White dragon exemplar) Barbarian (Red dragon instinct) Dragon Disciple (Green dragon type).
Maybe a Kobold Kineticist MC Barbarian (Dragon) going into Dragon Disciple is somewhat feasible.
Thanks a lot for the mental image of an italian kobold. Made my day.
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So a Kobold (White dragon exemplar) Barbarian (Red dragon instinct) Dragon Disciple (black dragon type) would be a Napolitan Kobold!? kkkk
Or a Kobold (Blue dragon exemplar) Barbarian (White dragon instinct) Dragon Disciple (Red dragon type) would be a French Kobold!? kkkk
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So a Kobold (White dragon exemplar) Barbarian (Red dragon instinct) Dragon Disciple (black dragon type) would be a Napolitan Kobold!? kkkk
Or a Kobold (Blue dragon exemplar) Barbarian (White dragon instinct) Dragon Disciple (Red dragon type) would be a French Kobold!? kkkk
Now I'm picturing a multicultured restaurant runned by multiple kobolds of different scale colorations. This writes itself, just got a place to start my next campaign.
Speaking of Kobolds, Snarecrafter works well w/ Kineticists.
They're good at moving enemies around or avoiding their own snares. They have a free hand, and operate well at range, drawing their opponents in. Plus they have the highest Class DC in the game and in late game can be immune to some trap effects.
And I'm seeing lots of ideas for MC Kineticist, not so much with offense (since blasts explicitly say Kineticist Class DC), but wow some of that at-will utility.
You could also archetype into Sorceror (draconic bloodline) in order to get a fourth... though you'd want to do that *after* dragon disciple, not before.