I'm looking at Kineticist and I'm thinking there's some fun things you could do if you know an enemy's weaknesses. And with generally being tactical (partly inspired by a party that isn't very, and wondering if I can do stuff that'll work within that).
Whilst, sure, it'd be better if that was on someone less focused on the careful use of all your action in a turn, it's probably viable with a bit of effort.
A chunk of this is inspried by Plate in Treasure - being able to make your attacks bypass reduction/trigger weakness and their hitting you potentially sicken is a good start. If your GM lets you get your hand on some uncommon/rare metals ('Alloysmith' background is a plan) then there's extra fun there - breaking through Hardness with Adamantine, or getting extra damage Initiative with Orichalcum, damage with Siccatite (massively GM dependent!)
Wnat other fun things could you do? As you can see, I'm leaning towards Metal, but not sure what other elemets fit the concept. In that element, Scrap Baricade lets you split apart enemies, Hell of 1,000,000 needles lets you immobilise and set up Hazardous Terrain.
What other impulses and elements fit? Obvioussly, wannting to do damagege, but be somewhat a tanky, and geneally mess with enemies - help us isolate and flank them, etc.
And what good ways to reduce the action-cost of the Recall Knowledge rolls? Automatic Knowledge is the obvious one and could work, but at a reduction in what you'll actually identify, and a feat per skill. Pathfinder Agent Archetype + Recognise Threat means you get to identify whenever you go into combat; it and the other Pathfinder agent feats good in a free archetype game.
As the game I'm currently in is quite high level I'm tempted to play a Shisk and take Fountain of Secrets - a free Recall Knowledge every turn. But it'd be good to know other options I might be missing for if I play this lower level (this is a backup concept at the mo).
And what other things would you add to it? As I'm going to have fairly good rating in the different knowledge skills, I'm going to take Trick Magic Items and some wands - the usual Longstrider, but also pocket library for more knowledge about the stuff we meet. And other useful things to buff or aid.
I've a general concept, probably enough to build on, but it's mostly "What cool tricks am I missing?"
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Well, another thing is to go beyond weird metals and also pick up some other elements. Quite a lot of creatures are weak to fire. Sometimes slashing or piercing is good and sometimes you need bludgeoning. With versatile elements and kinetic weapon you can have better damage type coverage than almost any other class.
It could also be fun to do a team-up with for example a thaumaturge, where the thaumaturge does the super recall that they do, and you use the information.
Well, another thing is to go beyond weird metals and also pick up some other elements. Quite a lot of creatures are weak to fire. Sometimes slashing or piercing is good and sometimes you need bludgeoning. With versatile elements and kinetic weapon you can have better damage type coverage than almost any other class.
It could also be fun to do a team-up with for example a thaumaturge, where the thaumaturge does the super recall that they do, and you use the information.
I'm not intending to go mono-metal. So yep, there'll be at least one other element in there. So the question is whether I need the extra versatility of Versatile Elements/Kinetic Weapon - or if that'll be throwing too much at that, at the cost of actually having an effect.
In terms of elements, I'm trying to think of what elements have particularly cool thematic stuff I could do with them, that would play well with this concept...
I'll keep the Thaumaturge thing in mind, but at the moment I'm focused on doing the information recall thing myself, as no-one else in the party is doing so.
Thus, wanting ideas that play with that, or otherwise take the tactics in interesting directions.
This feels like an uphill battle to me because kineticist isn't very good at Recall Knowledge.
You need to max con, which effects no skills. But then you probably want dexterity for AC and maybe strength for damage... You're left with little for knowledges, which are normally split across two ability scores.
You basically have to take something like Loremaster lore to consolidate your skills and attributes, but kineticist really doesn't want to lose class feats so it probably only works with free archetype. From there, you can snag lore master's etude which will at least let your fortune reroll make up for your crappy bonus a little. You can then take Orthographic Mastery at 4th too, which lets you escape the archetype quickly enough to get the Pathfinder stuff.
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I'd lean Dex more than Strength. Maybe grab a point of Strength here and there as a fourth attribute boost, but not focus on it. Strength overall adds just a small amount of extra damage to melee and Kinetic Weapon attacks. Nice, but something you can compromise on to make other parts of your build possible.
For knowledge, I'd go Wisdom focused: Nature is in-theme with kineticist, and Religion uses the same stat. Also, those two happen to cover a fair slice of the creatures that care about metal types (fey, fiends) and elemental damage types (elementals, flammable plants). And of course, Will saves aren't your forte to begin with so this helps a lot.
That means you don't get to do Int-based knowledges so much. I think that's okay - while you miss out on constructs and oozes, "you can't have everything" is just deeply baked into how the game is built. The game wants you to team up with people and split some responsibilities, including who knows about what.
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If I play this as the backup in my current game it's high level, so I'll have good Intelligence.
Playing from a lower level in another game, something like half-elf gets me both the elf Longevity feats and human extra skill feats. Potentially the Multitalented feat too, for Pathfinder Agent or similar. I might not cover all the skills well from the start - but I can work up to it.
do keep in mind that multitalented is for multiclass archetypes only. You can't pick Pathfinder Agent with it.If I play this as the backup in my current game it's high level, so I'll have good Intelligence.
Playing from a lower level in another game, something like half-elf gets me both the elf Longevity feats and human extra skill feats. Potentially the Multitalented feat too, for Pathfinder Agent or similar. I might not cover all the skills well from the start - but I can work up to it.
D'oh! Good point.
Had the feat in my brain as the "Helps with archetypes" feat - possibly from back when most of those were just multiclasses? But hadn't relooked at it carefully.